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A photographer captures an image of something unexplainable. What happens next?

Posted in Mystery on Jul 5, 2024

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✍️ 74 stories

Day the World Changed

Submitted to Contest #258

Day the World ChangedKelly barely arrived at work when news started breaking of a terrible accident that involved an inferno in the crowded downtown. She instinctively grabbed her camera gear and headed out into the fray. Chaos reigned as some pedestrians and vehicle traffic ran toward the source to rubberneck what was happening while others ran the opposite direction in fear of what was happening. What was happening? Nobody seemed to know for sure beyond the bone-jarring crash they heard and acrid black smoke billowing upward.Being a profes...

40 likes 49 comments 49
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The Camera of Tomorrow

Shortlisted for Contest #258 ⭐️

Ryan Perkins is a gentle, quiet thirty year old office worker who enjoys collecting antiques. He resides in New York City and is well-known among the antique dealers. However, while walking to the convenience store this afternoon, something down an alley caught his eye. He notices three gold balls hanging over a door.  Knitting his eyebrows together, he adjusts his hornrimmed glass. “ A pawnshop?”   He tentatively enters the alley for a look, for he hasn’t seen that advertisement in years.   ...

30 likes 11 comments 11
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The Photograph

Submitted to Contest #258

TRIGGER WARNING: Mental Health Issues, Suicide or Self Harm.Finding happiness after tragedy is a challenge. Some have no issues, others struggle and it doesn't get easier. Jon Fredrickson lost his wife in a tragic car accident three years prior. Obviously tragic as he lost his wife, but tragic in the sense that she didn't do anything wrong. No one really did anything wrong. Perhaps it was due to the weather, an animal that ran out in front of her, or bad luck. It happens, there isn't anyone to blame. Shouldn't blame the dead, that's hardly f...

29 likes 6 comments 6
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Enigmatic Eyes

Submitted to Contest #258

It could have been worse, things could always be worse, but this was pretty bad. So terrible in fact, she recognized her fate at the early age of ten and accepted it as her normal. Life was just that way for some, certainly for her. She longed for a safe place, even for a short time, somewhere she could go and not fear the world around her. She dreamed of a bed of her own, warm blankets and pretty new clothes; a hairbrush, a toothbrush and maybe some ribbons and one of those fancy hand mirrors, like princesses have in books. She daydreamed o...

27 likes 21 comments 21
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I Do Not Believe in Ghosts, But???

Submitted to Contest #258

I was awfully busy at the office and had hoped to go in for a few hours on Saturday, but one of my brothers called and asked me to check on Mom. "Emma, I had a long talk with Mom today, and I really think something is wrong. Can you drop in on her and see if I'm right?" Oh God Jim, first, are you overreacting. You do you know. Second, I'm planning to get caught up on a few projects this weekend and it means going into the office. Third, taking car service from Manhattan to Staten Island and back is big bucks. Remember, I don't drive. And wit...

26 likes 18 comments 18
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The Spot

Submitted to Contest #258

No one blinked. As they gathered by the image processor, taking time to adjust all of their eye sockets and each dial and module on the machine, they simply stared and stared at what they were looking at. No one thought to make a mental note of this; no one thought that their psychic connection could handle this. But there it was and they had to process it.Wild synaptic cheers came through the neuron feed. There was a great deal of speculation as to what would come next now that they had made this great discovery. Would there be some sort of...

24 likes 11 comments 11
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The Creature in the Frame

Submitted to Contest #258

Under the blazing sun, the air shimmered with heat above the hood of her old Mustang. The desert stretched out in all directions, a vast and unforgiving expanse of sand, rock, and scrub brush. Mountains rose in the distance, their jagged peaks a stark contrast to the flatness below. To Lyla, a wildlife photographer who had spent years capturing the untamed beauty of the Southwest, this was her home. This untamed wilderness with its surprising gems, hidden oases and gorgeous mountains was where she often found solace, her camera a constant co...

23 likes 11 comments 11
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The Resolution

Submitted to Contest #258

Who killed Ronnie Fells?Melissa’s finger paused on the “Walk” button most of the University’s bovine herd ignored. Couple times a semester, some oblivious moron, some entitled pedestrian constitutionalist with an immortality complex or a misunderstanding of the superpowers conferred with a doctorate got dislocated or ruptured at this corner near the student union. They made the button extra big and enameled the huge raised arrow so even a medieval lit major could spot it, and still, the world sporadically lost another great MBA, hotel manage...

22 likes 14 comments 14
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Riches of the Past, Love Lost

Submitted to Contest #258

How could you? What compelled you to do such a thing?The Washington Gazette had us on the front page holding a time capsule. The photo captured us in our youthful prime, clutching what we believed to be a time capsule unearthed in a building my company was working on.Our hearts raced with excitement at the incredible discovery. The media coverage would undoubtedly attract new customers and boost my fledgling company. We couldn’t wait to uncover the secrets hidden within the canister, our curiosity growing with each passing moment. The mayor ...

19 likes 13 comments 13
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Twin Adventure: A Cherub, Rainbow and Giant

Submitted to Contest #258

Click! Click! “Sadie, come on.”  Click! “One more,” fourteen-year-old Sadie said. Click! Click!          Sean groaned. “That’s what you said half an hour ago.”  Sadie sighed and lowered the camera. “Fine. Let’s go.”  It was the summer holiday. Their parents, Mr. and Mrs. Henry, who were on a diplomatic tour in New York, had sent the twins to Jamaica to spend the holiday with their grandma, Keturah. Sadie had created a scene about the arrangement, so their father had b...

19 likes 14 comments 14
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The Mystery Girl

Submitted to Contest #258

Carol opened the shoebox of old photos, most of them black and white. She felt like she was taking a trip down memory lane, seeing the photos of her family over the years. Growing up in a family of nine children, there weren’t as many photos as one might think. Her parents were not sentimental people. Still, by virtue of having nine children and countless relatives, there were nonetheless a fair amount of pictures.The first picture she glanced at was a hallmark 1970s shot. Her second oldest brother, Bill, had long hair and tight athletic sho...

18 likes 9 comments 9
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Smiley Face

Submitted to Contest #258

“Change is sudden. Change erases what the mind thought it knew about the world and forces adaptation and survival. Out of change, is creation and innovation. In the year 2009, change became inevitable.” -Thomas Francis Director of Project A Earth was as it always had been. It rotated around the sun and turned to make day and night. It provided a thriving environment for those that inhabited it. It was a place millions of beings called home. Earth isn't what changed—the moon was.  The moon grew dark and unstable. It began to rock off it...

15 likes 6 comments 6
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Wandrin' Evil Spirit

Submitted to Contest #258

I don’t know how it came to be, so long ago when everything seemed possible.He was my inspiration. That and his photograph. Of what you ask?Oh, a demon! Uploaded it to YouTube, he did. So, a picture was formed in my mind from a video that shouldn’t exist. I can hardly get my mind around it. Its hard to even speak of it.But we all do what we must. And he certainly did what he wanted! Two children, one impossibly older, so ready to accept things…But we’ll have to start at the beginning. A hot summer’s day, so brutally hot. Hot enough to broil ...

15 likes 9 comments 9
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Smile For the Camera

Submitted to Contest #258

Shadow Specter whistles along to the sax solo in Junior Walker’s “What Does it Take?” as it plays in the background on the radio. His cheerful chirping abruptly stops when he develops the last four pictures he took at the annual Penn Yan Heritage Festival. Rushing to the telephone, he calls Mayor Ashford Simpson, telling him there’s something he has to see. Penn Yan’s cherubic Mayor greets Shadow with a hearty handshake and an open seat in front of his desk. He pats his toupee, which people in town call the “worst rug in the world.” “So, w...

15 likes 4 comments 4
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The False Star

Submitted to Contest #258

Captain Finnian, the famous intergalactic photographer, looked at the screen on the back of his camera and frowned. “That’s weird.” He muttered to himself. He held his camera up to the front window of his spaceship and snapped a few more pictures of the countless stars in front of him. Each time he took a picture he adjusted the camera settings before taking the next one. After several pictures he looked at the screen again, this time a look of confusion coming over his face. “Hey Quixly!” He called to his loyal co-captain, who also happened...

14 likes 14 comments 14
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