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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Write a story about someone who's haunted by their past.

Posted in Narrative on Oct 28, 2022

Submissions are closed

Sorry, we are not accepting submissions for this prompt as it is not part of an active contest. Make sure you don't miss our next contest by creating your free Reedsy Prompts account.

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✍️ 69 stories

“Please don't leave them alone.” by Praneetha Gutta

Submitted to Contest #2

"Mom, please leave me alone", shouted Ananya closing her bedroom door behind, leaving her mother worried as this has been a routine since few weeks. Ananya's parents tried a lot to speak with her but she never gave them a chance or explanation for her weird behavior."Shekar, I feel something is bothering Ananya. Do you think it would be better if we speak with her friends?", suggested Ananya's mother but was not appreciated by her father."Maybe she is too much stressed out with her academics. It is her final year and a crucial one too. Moreo...

9 comments 9
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“Ghosts of Dust” by Konstantina Cheiladaki

Submitted to Contest #2

It was a sunny morning for Peter. And it stayed that way for him, even though the sky was covered with debris falling slowly on the ground, like the most peculiar snow, along with papers drifting through the air like weightless birds. And it was so; for Peter was lying motionless on the floor of his office, blood covering his forehead, as the floor was falling, and falling, to crash to the floor below, setting it on fire. And the date was September 11, 2001.            This is the story ...

5 comments 5
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“Sonny's Story” by Brennan McPherson

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #2

The man’s home was altogether bland and uninteresting, filled with knick-knacks and worthless paintings from his younger years as an aspiring artist. The paint-job a peeling off-white darkened by cigarette smoke. “Strange,” his neighbor had said, “that a painter would hang paintings over a peeling paintjob.” “Maybe,” he said, “but is a gardener with a lawn of dandelions in a position to talk?” “Probably not.” He liked his neighbor. But he tended to like most everything, and keep the things others considered trash long after he lost use...

2 comments 2
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“Young Mother” by Amna Ahmad

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #2

Dear Mama, I was fifteen when it happened. Life felt like a blank canvas back then. That year my canvas was painted with a crisp, blue summer. The heat wore on that year, and the guava trees never came into bloom. The air was full of dandelions whisked away by the wind. They floated wistfully in the air, longing to fall back down to their original resting position. I am at a cemetery now. The air is still as bright. The guava trees are dead now. The dandelions have been lost to the changing weather conditions. My canvas has overflown with pa...

2 comments 2
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“Shattered Glass” by Margo Harris

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #2

She walked the Earth doing her best to avoid the broken glass beneath every footstep she took. The ghosts that followed her were inescapable. There were things that she could not begin to make up for in her life and the ghosts knew that. There was a man, a wonderful man who meant everything to her, but sometimes he just made her so crazy. She would do things she never thought she could, and she wouldn’t even remember them once they were done. She would hear stories of actions she had taken and could not believe they were true. The bruises ...

0 comments 0
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“The One Who Read My Story” by Matthew Ward

Submitted to Contest #2

First, Vicar, let me take you to the flower bed because, when I first saw her, she was sitting in the garden out the back of a café, and she had a daisy in her hair—a daisy just like the ones in this flower bed. I had ordered a cup of camomile tea and a piece of carrot cake, and I was planning to work on my novel. I’d already been at it for two years, and now I had my eighth draft and my red pen ready to pick away at it some more. At around page ten, I placed the salt and pepper on top of my pile of pages, and I went to use the washroom. Whe...

1 comment 1
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“A Haunting View” by M.D. Smith

Submitted to Contest #2

Such a pleasant afternoon in late September, Henry thought, as he sat high upon a boulder on the edge of the cliff. It overlooked Willow Falls in the distance nestled in the rising walls of the Alabama mountain park which towered above the canyon river directly below. It’s so peaceful, he thought, I wonder if I could find peace here at this particular spot. And on this boulder. Now pushing 40, Henry’s life had not turned out the way he had expected during his senior year in high school. That was a wonderful time. His girl Emily was a cheerl...

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“Broken Mirrors, Blood Rain and Bad Deaths” by Audrey Obuobisa-Darko

Submitted to Contest #2

The water trickles down my neck slowly, warm and silent. The heat in the shower does a poor job melting away the ice in my toes; it was chilly last night. I have been standing here for three thousand seconds, this bathroom. I know this, because I’ve been counting. Thinking. I’m too afraid to move. Too afraid to feel. I’m too afraid to look anywhere. Especially in that mirror by the door. Above that sink that’s now full of shards, and water, and my blood. I saw her last night. “Habibi, are you still in there?” I ca...

2 comments 2
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“Pendulum Heart” by Charles Bowman

Submitted to Contest #2

Tick, tock. Tick, tock.The sounds of a clock had echoed in Marcus’s head for the last week. At first he thought it to be the clock on his wall, but even after removing the batteries the ticking continued. It was slowly starting to affect his day-to-day life. He grew more and more panicked. This morning he threw his expensive wristwatch into the nearby river. Nothing seemed to be able to stop the ticking.A sudden realization came over Marcus. He decided this weekend he would escape to his family home out in the country. Where he could get awa...

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“Traveler, tired and weary” by Brandi Kochan

Submitted to Contest #2

The diner shines like a beacon, dressed up in neon, and grease smudged windows, and it calls to Ruth like a siren. I have coffee, it sings, and polyester seats for your weary ass to rest upon. And like a fool, Ruth answers.She leans against the door until it gives with a chime, and somewhere in the depths of the kitchen, someone calls, ‘Hey, there.’ unenthusiastically. Ruth notes the ‘Seat yourself’ sign standing by the door, leaves a trail on the checkered black and white floors as she walks to the corner booth, and slides inside. The ...

0 comments 0
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“Come And Find Me” by Ridiculous Roze

Submitted to Contest #2

Hunter's eyes flew open and scanned the dark room. She could hear her heartbeat knocking on her chest, asking her if she was okay. She wasn't. She was scared, angry, and in shock.Her mind began to unwilling travel back to those days. The days when she was used as an experiment. Something they would throw away if anything went wrong. She wanted to scream, cry, beat the walls, and run away. She knew she couldn't run away from what was in her head. It was impossible. The memories were stuck with her as if they were best friends."Hunter," she wh...

0 comments 0
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“We Both Needed Saving” by Iona Cottle

Submitted to Contest #2

“I’m sorry for your loss.”The words ring out around the graveyard, yet Lizzy can’t bring herself to say them. She knew she should. She should be sorry. But of all the myriad emotions that she had been feeling over the last two weeks, sorry had rarely been one of them. Guilt, now guilt she’d had in abundance. That had been the central theme of her last break down, when she had collapsed in tears in the local supermarket, all because she’d caught sight of the flavoured milks. Embarrassment had followed when she got home, but there on the floor...

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“It's Not Easy To Cheat in Real Life ” by Inci Alemdaroglu

Submitted to Contest #2

I was mad. I was drunk. I didn’t know what I was doing. I did it out of anger. I didn’t mean it. Blame my head, and not my heart. That’s what everyone says, isn’t it? They always try to defend themselves. I’m not going to do that, though. I take full responsibility for what happened, no matter how much it hurts.  Thirty years ago a beautiful girl baby was born to two loving parents. She was named Hope after her brave grandmother who had sacrificed her life giving birth to Hope’s mother. Hope grew up in a wonderful, happy family and beca...

2 comments 2
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“Death Drives a Lincoln” by Elizabeth Burnett

Submitted to Contest #2

She came for me at the end of that summer. By then the air had a cautious nip to it, leaves rattled their last breath on the trees, and the streets were finally emptied of summer’s revelries.I had decided it was safe to sit out on my porch and read the daily paper while I smoked my favorite cognac barrel-aged cigar. A slick low-ball of whiskey sat on the table beside me, half of its quietude already moving in my veins, warm and slow and comforting in the chill air.The noise of rubber wheels on sidewalk brought me out of the article I was rea...

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“Walking In Shadows” by Micaela Beck

Submitted to Contest #2

He used to wonder how he ended up this way. He used to question the fading sensations and what they meant. He used to gaze around at the world around him, trying to understand the shades of light that signified life. But no more. Now there is only silence even as the world spins on, the numbness of his body no longer creating distraction to his tired mind, the once vibrant colors muted and dull. He walks the gas-lit streets as though a ghost, touching but not feeling, causing ripples that quickly fade from existence as he turns the corner an...

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