Start your story with a character finding a retro piece of tech they don’t recognize.

Posted in Mystery on Feb 2, 2024

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✍️ 33 stories

“Doomsday” by Lipika Agrawal

Submitted to Contest #236

Henry kicked the stone hard. Flying off its spot, it landed a couple of meters away. He was sitting on his skateboard all alone in his backyard. As he approached the stone to pick it up again, he absentmindedly stepped on it. And that's how he found the device. When the stone didn't go deep into the ground, he tried to dig a hole for it, only to find a weird device buried not too deep in the ground. Picking it up, he brushed the dirt off it. It was dark olive green in color and didn't have any visual display whatsoever. Fitting perfe...

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“Wisaka and Friends” by Robert Pyke

Submitted to Contest #236

August 1948: ROY So far this month, skinny Roy Parr, all 127 pounds of him, has unearthed three chunks of petrified wood—a bit crumbly, not the shiny spars in the Field Museum nearby in Chicago, but real enough, multicolored pink and brown and crystalline white—plus various hunks of charcoal and driftwood, some tan pebbles, and two Indian arrowheads. Today Roy is digging again. He knows he’s too old for this, but he burns with curiosity. An inch below where he was digging yesterday, he finds two objects almost touching. One...

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“Forgotten Tech” by Rob Ryter

Submitted to Contest #236

The Bains are a happy family of three. It’s a typical Saturday. Carl Bain and his twelve-year-old daughter Sylvia are having a day out at the local museum. Sylvia is intrigued by the cow cream jugs, moulded ceramic farm animals with a hole in their back for filling, and an open mouth for the spout. “Dad, it’s like the cows vomit the cream up,” Sylvia laughs. Carl smiles and gives his daughter’s shoulder a fatherly shove.In the next room, Carl stops. “Well, I’ll be…”Sylvia asks him what’s wrong.“Nothing,” he says. “It’s just the things in her...

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Start your story with a character finding a retro piece of tech they don’t recognize.

Submissions are closed

✍️ 33 stories

“Doomsday” by Lipika Agrawal

“Wisaka and Friends” by Robert Pyke

“Forgotten Tech” by Rob Ryter

🌟 Similar prompts

Write a story about someone finally gaining access into their family’s very old computer.

Write a time-travel story where a character from the present finds themselves in the 80s or 90s.

Write a story about a grown-up sharing their favorite childhood video game with their child.

Write about a character who isn’t nostalgic about their past at all, and show readers why.

Contest #236

Enter our weekly contest!

$250

Prize money

184

Contest entries

83

Stories

Win $250 in our short story competition 🏆

Explore more writing prompt ideas: