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Write a story that ends with a character asking a question.

Posted in Narrative on Oct 26, 2022

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✍️ 259 stories

The Firebird's Answer

Winner of Contest #42 🏆

It’s a long way down. So long that looking down feels like falling, and looking out you can’t quite tell which way is up, and looking up you might as well be adrift in an ocean the size of the universe. My toes curl at the sight, a vain attempt to make the worn-out soles of my sneakers grip harder on the polished stone. “Do I really have to?” I say.  My guide chuckles. He’s a large, lumbering sort of man, broad-shouldered and deep-voiced, and the chuckle sounds like two boulders crashing together. He introduced himself to me as the spir...

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CHANGED

Submitted to Contest #42

As a growing child I never believed in love seeing the way my parents lived and treated each other, to me love was a fantasy. I had this crazy idea of never letting a guy close to my heart till I was sure he was the one and so I discarded close communication with guys. Any guy who told me he liked me I would shun. Yeah, it was that bad. Everything started to change when I entered college. I was this quite, mind my own business type of person. I had never really been exposed to the outside world that much as my parents never believed the worl...

63 likes 40 comments 40
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Pride in profession

Submitted to Contest #42

Being a nursing student in the Philippines is very hard. You have to deal with the thought that after graduation, you will be among thousands of others who will be competing for limited employment slots. Many nursing graduates end up un- or underemployed. Sadly, this has led to stigmatization. Every time people ask me what my course is and I answer Nursing, they would shake their heads. Many are already starting to poke fun at my profession. One time, I heard my friends joke around saying, "You train for 4 years and what? Wash bed pans after...

53 likes 13 comments 13
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Time Travelers

Submitted to Contest #42

The tension was like there were a million sharp knives in the air, and you had to dodge getting cut by each one. We had been here before. We swore that it would never happen again. We promised each other that we would never talk, let alone see, each other again.“Okay. One of us has to talk, and since I’ve always been the talkative one, it might as well be me. I thought that we weren’t going to see each other again.” I looked up from my hands and realized it was Chloe who was talking.“Yeah, well, that’s what I thought, too. But here we are!”L...

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Angel Of Hope

Submitted to Contest #42

I loved doing the dirty work. No, I didn’t mean typical dirt-under-your-fingernails type of gardening or scrubbing drains and toilets. It’s more like the filthy blood and sweat that goes into making an ugly, otherwise undone job successful. The satisfaction upon completion is blissfully thrilling— I would rather die than give up that feeling. Settling into the sofa, I took a deep breath. I had done a particularly good job today. The United States had far surpassed the million cases benchmark, thanks to my fabulous spree, recently. Spain...

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Fallen Petals

Submitted to Contest #42

I woke up in a large cellar. I was surrounded by darkness itself. We meet again, I murmured to the darkness. You will be okay Emily.I sat up slowly, wincing at the pain in my side. I looked around. I see hundreds of containers that held dry flower stems, without any petals, except for the flower to my right. A beautiful rose, with no missing petals. I smiled in this darkness. I looked around further. I stroked the rose, that was once enclosed in a glass case. What the heck is this? Beauty and the Beast??  Where ...

39 likes 28 comments 28
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Play Dead

Submitted to Contest #42

Play dead. No - not like that. What are you doing with your face? This shouldn’t be hard. Just lie there for fuck’s sake. I had a dog that used to “play dead.” I’d point my fingers at him like a gun, say “bang,” and he’d flop over and put his paws in the air - the universal sign. It took me weeks to train him. Every day after...

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The Moonlit Meadow

Submitted to Contest #42

Hibiki LeBlanc was a sweet boy, often found tending to the flowers near the river and communing with animals. In other words, the other boys would find him to be rather odd. Unlike a typical boy who adored sporting events and rough-housing, Hibiki would prefer to be left alone and wander his beloved garden near the river. Due to his sweet nature, he often attracted lost spirits, those whom he would demonstrate his hospitality and kindness to the fullest extent, and would often receive gifts from them. His parents, much like him, were kind an...

29 likes 3 comments 3
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An Unexpected Evening

Submitted to Contest #42

“Alright then, let’s get to work,” Mrs. Sharecourt announced first thing Monday morning. “I will give you today to continue working on your assignments. Find your partners please.” As everyone scrambled and chairs were being pulled from desks, Mark checked for Elisabeth, his partner. He spotted her making her way over to him, shoulder-length dark curls bouncing, notebook in hand and her bag secured over her shoulder.“Hey there!” she greeted in her usual cheerful tone, making herself comfortable in the seat beside him. “Hey,” Mark responded, ...

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Rambling with a Poet.

Submitted to Contest #42

I met this poet, see. She was chewing the end of a pencil and seemed absorbed in the process. Maybe modern-day poets of the computerized variety, still keep pencils for the purposes of chewing. Well, you couldn’t get the same sort of satisfaction from chewing on a tablet, or whatever. Anyway, back to the poet in question. She was absorbed, as I said, and even though I was in her direct line of vision, she showed not one trace of recognition of this fact. Now, if she had been of the ordinary sort of bird that I usually rub shoulders with, th...

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How Do We Feel?

Submitted to Contest #42

Today they’ll decide. Today they’ll ask us how we are. How we respond depends on who they ask. If they ask Mr Crowther, I’ll say I’m doing good. In fact I’m doing more than good, I’m doing great. I feel fantastic. Never better. I feel positive about the future. I have plans, ambitions. I want to work in I.T. It’s the sort of thing I’d be good at, not having to work with people, working with code so I don’t get upset. I could make a good fist of things if I did that.I know I’ve got to kee...

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Supernova

Submitted to Contest #42

“You want me to murder you.”He stood facing the wall, staring at a photograph of her in a sunflower field.“Appreciate it!” she joked. “It’s not every day I ditch my common sense and wear a fancy dress just so you can stage a few pictures to post on Instagram. I even smeared on lipstick, for God’s sake.” He turned her shoulders to face the camera. “I’m not sharing these to Instagram,” he replied. “They’re for me to hang up at home.” “That’s even worse, I’ll have to stare at my face every day.”But she wouldn’t, he thought frantically. She woul...

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Dear Philippe

Submitted to Contest #42

Dear Philippe, How long has it been since I last saw you? Oh… my dear friend. My love. Where have you gone? Do you sit in the clouds, spin a gust of wind around your finger as you watch us from above? Do you long for those sweet-smelling grass plains, for the places we used to sit, your arm around me? My heart aches when I think of your laugh, the sweetest melody, the way it rang like bells in the vast fields…  I remember you told me that when you first saw me, you knew you had to be with me. I never told you what had happened when I fi...

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Better Watch Out

Submitted to Contest #42

The gray mists swirl around the damp streets as a man anxiously checks his pocket watch.“Where is he?” He mutters, his foot tapping anxiously on the sidewalk. “He’s late.”“I’m right here,” a voice echoes from the shadows. He turns to see another figure leaning against the boarded up side of a shop, his dark suit sharply pressed and his broad-rimmed hat pulled low over his face. Gary frowns. He was almost certain that there hadn’t been anyone there a moment ago. “I’ve been waiting, Gary.”Gary can feel his face paling in the yellow lights from...

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The Return Journey

Submitted to Contest #42

Maz switched her soya espresso frappuccino to her left hand in order to feed her ticket through the turnstile with her right. She strode to the end of the platform to await the train that would take her to Steph’s house.“Stephanie,” she corrected herself, not caring that her lips moved to form the syllables. She had her headphones in, so anyone looking would presume she was mouthing lyrics or learning a language, rather than trying to nail her half-sister’s preferred name. She had been so accustomed to abbreviating it in all the Christmas an...

19 likes 8 comments 8
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