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Start your story with someone stepping outside their comfort zone.

Posted in Middle School on Oct 25, 2022

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✍️ 59 stories

I'm Home

Submitted to Contest #135

No one ever tells you the beginning, the moment when time seems to stretch. I always found time to be such a malleable thing. Fragile, in its own right. Yet we handle it so carelessly, blissfully unbothered as traces of it slip through our fingers like so many immutable grains into a never-ending crescendo. And all we are left with, in the end, is this feeling of dread, our heart pumping, pumping, pumping. Beating with all its might to keep us here, now. To remind us firmly of the ground beneath our feet, the concrete sweating with the after...

26 likes 16 comments 16
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Don't Look Back

Submitted to Contest #135

Yanti was terrified. Her heart was beating so loudly in her chest that she could physically feel it. She could feel the panic of those around her. Her own panic escalated. She listened to the noise and turmoil around her. The waters were rising. Huge amounts of water came gushing down from the Gandhi Tal to the Mandakini river at about 8:30 PM the evening before, washing away everything in its path. The rains were unprecedented and unlike anything they had ever seen. People were afraid to leave at night, but a few did. Taking the only ponies...

25 likes 13 comments 13
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The Blind Date

Submitted to Contest #135

As soon as I enter the building, a voice in my head tells me that it's not too late, that I can turn around right now, scurry down the sidewalk, scalp my ticket to the first person I see, and save myself an hour or two of embarrassment. I know how these things end. But then the ticket taker holds out his hand, clammy in my own when we exchange the paper stub, and the art museum welcomes me back. Inside, the world is drenched in color. The walls are dyed a muted shade of blue, crammed with portraits and landscapes and tableaus, hues so rich...

23 likes 25 comments 25
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Even Me

Submitted to Contest #135

26/02/2022 I haven’t felt the cold liquid tickling my feet like this in a long time, it feels almost foreign- the saltwater, the darkening of sand when touched by the sea, almost exactly like the way it had left a dark void of nothingness in my life the last time I was here. I had never imagined being able to ever muster up enough courage to drag myself out here again, or out of my bedroom, for that matter- but that’s the one thing about life I loathe yet admire the most at the same time, the uncertainty.As I stand here amongst it all, attem...

23 likes 26 comments 26
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The Interloper

Submitted to Contest #135

She was finally alone. The kids were safely at school and her husband had left for work. The house was quiet, and she was able to acknowledge what she’d been contemplating for weeks. It was no longer a peripheral thought that passed through her as she picked up after kids, cleaned up dishes after meals, or folded the never-ending mountain of laundry she was always battling. The thoughts were so loud they were screaming at her. Just do it! Get it over with already! But could she? She stood in front of the bathroom sink and looked at herself i...

22 likes 21 comments 21
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Small Increments

Submitted to Contest #135

CW: Mental Health |I have been afflicted, for some time, sitting inside this room. The walls are both a punishment and a warm place where I find comfort. Years have passed, I never thought I would still be sitting in this same room. If my younger self could see me now, I wonder if they would be compassionate or furious with me?Whatever I might have felt, today that is all going to change. Today I plan to go outside. Not far, and just in small increments at a time. And for as long as I can bear until my chest caves in on itself, tearing throu...

21 likes 10 comments 10
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Jack Lives!

Submitted to Contest #135

Jack is on the outs with his family. The oldest of five he feels he was held up to unreasonable scrutiny. He has spent a few drunken evenings during high school resulting in nothing good. He wasn’t perfect but he did his schoolwork which graded him in the top fifteen percent, meaning little. His immediate family didn’t fare all that well, forever holding him up to his successful relatives. His grandfather, an affectionately distant supporter, landed a night job, in his youth, as a lone fuse checker for Ohio Edison. On the rare occasion that...

17 likes 9 comments 9
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Alexander and The Garden

Submitted to Contest #135

Alexander had always been a very cowardly boy. But now he stood over the deep dark cave below, thinking of all the times he wished he could be brave, and now he had been. But, before we get to that part of the story, let's start from the beginning. In a land where nothing ever seemed sad or droopy and the sun shined bright every day, there lived a young boy. This young boy was a prince, whose name was Alexander. Alexander loved to play in his castle gardens. Every day, he would wake up, eat breakfast, and go outside. But there was one corn...

17 likes 6 comments 6
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First Day at School

Submitted to Contest #135

First Day at School    I kept telling myself to be brave but it wasn’t working. In fact, I was shaking in my shoes as I watched the scruffy looking kid with dirty blonde hair and a snotty nose get ever closer. I’d been watching him for more than a minute, making his way along the queue of primary school students, many of them first-timers, like me. He looked mean and, by the way he shouted at the other kids and roughed up the smaller ones, I could tell he was a nasty piece of work. I was petrified. It was a quarter to n...

16 likes 12 comments 12
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TULSA POOL

Submitted to Contest #135

(This fiction story is about racism in history, and involves critical race theory which some audiences find offensive) Tulsa Pool by    Dominique Bretin On a hot, humid day in Tulsa, Avery, my friend, was asked to leave the pool. My mother had given my older brother, George, and me permission to take the bus downtown to visit the Tulsa public swimming pool. It was a quiet Sunday in mid-August, the temperature over ninety and the humidity just about the same. We were happy to have a chance to cool off.  It...

14 likes 4 comments 4
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COURAGE WHEN YOU NEED IT

Submitted to Contest #135

Chapter one " It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood," I sing as I go out to hang the clothes on the line, and it truly is a beautiful day. Sun is shining, flowers blooming, all the new ones I have planted have settled in and are growing, buds popping out, really a beautiful day. I feel the baby in my belly moving, and I stop a minute to put my hand where the little foot or hand has pushed. Too little to do much more than make a fluttering feeling, but this baby is letting me know she/he is in there. Clothes hung, I head back to the ho...

13 likes 1 comment 1
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The Experiment

Submitted to Contest #135

The Experiment 2,284 words “John steps out of his comfort zone” I don’t remember when it first hit me, or why (?). I’m no different than anyone in the lab, so I wonder if any of the others have given it much thought. We’ve worked on this project for three years, but we really don’t know each other, or maybe I should say, I don’t know any of the others, not even one.  Three years down and the days have flown by, but I wonder if we’re any closer to our goal than when we first started? But, how could we know? Do we each have a se...

12 likes 2 comments 2
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A Necessary End

Submitted to Contest #135

For the past ten days, James Peabody’s life consisted of nothing more than constantly burying his head in the sand… Bullets, mortars, and grenades whizzed and exploded all around his platoon of war weary soldiers, as they attempted a full-frontal assault of a nondescript hill resting on the South Pacific Island of Okinawa.The Japanese had prepared well for the beach landings, suckering the eager Americans into the heart of the island where they patiently lay in wait in their hidden bunkers and fortified positions. The unsuspecting 10th ...

12 likes 4 comments 4
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The Order of Light (Part 1)

Submitted to Contest #135

On the outskirts of Nottingham, England, there resides a very peculiar man of great ancestral wealth and prestige. Sir George William Oxley III, of the great Oxley Estate. The Oxley family has called that land home for 6 generations. Sir George’s wife, Elanor, beloved by many, passed away 15 years ago. She was the only one who would entertain Sir George’s stories of great mystery and folklore. Only his children, George II and Elizabeth are all who remain of his family. His children would rather not have to deal with their father and his infa...

11 likes 4 comments 4
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Southward to Fight

Submitted to Contest #135

It was midday and the blazing summer sun beat down on Luthar’s bare back as Leyton came for him again, wooden training sword swirling. His muscles screamed in defiance as he blocked blow after blow, each falling faster than the last. The clack clack clack of the wooden swords meeting beat Luthar’s ears as much as any of the strikes he faced. He missed a high block and Leyton’s sword came crashing down onto his shoulder, pain lanced down his arm and exploded in his hand. He dropped his sword into the dirt and Leyton kicked it away, out of rea...

11 likes 6 comments 6
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