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Write about a character who must confess their true feelings by midnight, or risk losing it all.

Posted in Romance on Nov 11, 2022

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✍️ 35 stories

Midnight Train

Submitted to Contest #172

December 22nd I’m going to pass out. That’s what I’m thinking as I stand outside in the snow storm, watching the train pull out of the station - my dreams for the future on board. Head fuzzy with anxiety, I pull out my phone with a shaking hand to check the time - 12:01 a.m. Too late. Always too damn late.  I can’t help but notice the lack of missed call notifications over the photo I set as my wallpaper - the selfie he took of us after he finally gave up trying to teach me to ice skate. He’s got an arm wrapped around me, and I’m bund...

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Until Monday morning

Submitted to Contest #172

Until Monday morning By C. Pitt They took you away from me. Right there, at plain sight. They asked how I felt; Violated, vain, dazed, I let out.  I am laying on unfamiliar ground, my body floating in the furthest of spaces. My heart feels heavy, so I check if it is still beating. Positive. My mind feels betrayed, invaded by an inevitable wave of authority. I knew the rules all along; they were unchanged since I was a little girl. “Calculated actions lead to a happy life”, my grandma used to say. I calculated them all my life. However...

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Dear Diary: When The "Heart" Attacks

Submitted to Contest #172

Sensitive Subject: Cheating, Divorce, Near Death Friday, January 1st, 1982 Dear Diary, Happy New Year, Mrs. Chrissy Ramsey-Hopkins, newlywed (yay, eye roll), New Yorker (blah) and I’m still trying to get used to it all. Well, here I am a 30-year-old married woman sitting in the middle of the bed with her legs crossed, writing in her diary like a teenager, how pathetic.  It’s been nearly seven months since Robert and I said “I do” in Santorini, Greece. Robert and I met our senior year in college, and 6 years...

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Rule Broken

Submitted to Contest #172

Trigger Warning: Modest gore, a breakup, and loads of the (beautiful) human angst · · · · · Eleven forty-five P.M. 11:45pm. Quarter to midnight. That is the time now as I begin writing this. These are the last words you’ll ever hear from me, the last emotional outburst. Know that this was made with a heavy hand and heart, and signed at the bottom is my name, a name you once cherished and now will fade in your head, like yours would in mine, with the passage of time. So hey, Jane Dorothy. You know who it is, whether it’s from the gene...

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New Year's Eve

Submitted to Contest #172

“I have to get to the Center. Have to.” said Eileen “You and everyone else” “I told you not to take West 5th. Now look at the traffic jam.” said Eileen The taxi driver shrugged. “The traffic would have been bad whatever way we went. It’s New Year’s Eve, what did you expect?” The Nelson Center was still too far away for Eileen to walk. What if he came and left already, thinking she hadn’t come? How could she get there in time? There had to be a way. “What are you doing lady?” Tapping impatiently on his shoulder she said “Here is wha...

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Level of happiness

Submitted to Contest #172

“Decreased positive emotions level, please reconsider your activity!” I felt a small tingle in my left hand and a message scrolled across my wrist. Damn, I’ve already been in this “room of happiness” twice today. I got up from my workplace again and headed to a special room called a “happy box”. The indicator marked the emotion of irritation. It is not good that it will again be recorded into the logs of my emotions, and, as a result, into the reports to my manager. Again I have to explain that I adore my job, and nothing in it can annoy me,...

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Secrets Of The Mind In The Twenty Third Century

Submitted to Contest #172

It is perhaps the 23rd century I’m not really sure which century it is because these days, the time has no meaning. The world is changed from what it used to be and now the big brother, the top man, the boss has power over you. He wants that he should be able to read your mind and though he can read it himself with his various instruments he would like to hear the man first and express what is in his mind so that he can correlate it with his research. It was a sleek sophisticated machine that had developed the power of telepathy and thus cou...

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MIDNIGHT, I WILL TELL YOU I LOVE YOU

Submitted to Contest #172

Midnight, that is my deadline to tell my best friend I love her or else I will lose everything. I'm nervous, scared, my heart is racing, my legs are trembling, not because I'm leaving but for Zaniyah's reaction. Me and Zaniyah grew up in the same neighborhood, on the same block, next door to each other. Our birthdays are only two days apart. Zaniyah's birthday is first mine is two days later. Our parents are best friend. I always thought of Zaniyah as my sister. In elementary school we were members of the soccer and baseball teams. Zaniy...

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The Fountain

Submitted to Contest #172

Sitting in the cafe, sipping hot coffee, she absent-mindedly swung her feet, first quickly and then more slowly, whilst thinking. She had a deadline for a short story for a women’s magazine where she worked as one of their freelancers. She knew what she was supposed to write about but didn’t have a single original idea.  Across the road from the cafe was a park. It was a crisp late-November day awash with bright watery sunshine that often happens in the Autumn. She could see smiling mothers and children hanging aro...

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The Seer's Vision

Submitted to Contest #172

Gaila shivered as she materialized. The palace corridors were as cold and draughty as she remembered. Winter had well and truly come. The distant mountains were outlined in glistening white snow against the ink dark sky. Pulling her fur-lined cloak around her, Gaila glided forward silently, frowning as she noticed how quiet the hallways were. Usually there were servants bustling, self-important young men strutting, well-dressed ladies preening, and at night, couples taking advantage of the dark nooks and crannies to steal gropes and kisses. ...

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The Homestretch

Submitted to Contest #172

Her flight would leave at midnight. Maybe it could wait. No, she absolutely had to leave. She should've left a half hour ago, really. Not that either of them had ever done what they should've. To her left, the ear-destroying sound of early twenty-tens bubble pop music, playing back that playlist she'd made in junior high, from the speaker she'd bought with saved lunch money after weeks of hunger. In front of her, someone she never thought would make it out of high school, both hands clutching a yearbook, memory after memory, like ...

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Mid Night

Submitted to Contest #172

I am only thirty-five, but I have spent my entire life in service to the Amenophis III. My father was executed because Amenophis, the Pharaoh, wanted my father’s wife, my mother. Although my father’s father was named Yuya and was the Pharaoh’s top military commander, Amenophis killed my father to take my mother Tiy as his own. After my father’s death, mom went to serve in the harem of the sultan and I was brought up in court. She eventually became the “Great Royal Wife” in spite of the hundreds of women in the harem. My mother ruled alm...

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High in the Evening Sky

Submitted to Contest #172

High in the Evening Sky ‘It’s not often one sees a maiden drinking alone at a tavern. Do you mind if I join you?’. Tomlin grabbed a seat facing across from the attractive young woman staring into her mug of ale.  ‘Go away’ Sheena said. She never looked up as she took a drink.  ‘Sheena, let the poor man sit down and have a chat with you. Maybe it will make you feel better.’ Willa said. ‘Besides, he’s cute and maybe worth at least a glance.’ Sheena looked up. ‘You’re right, you are a touch handsome. You may sit. But try to ke...

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The Kitchen

Submitted to Contest #172

“God dammit ,James This is bullshit.” The tall older, once skinny man looked down to his protege, “I wouldn’t feed this to my dog.” The man said. He was wearing a tall, white hat and was looking down at the much shorter man, called James. The man in the hat then simply pushed the plate from the pass on to the floor. The plate crashed onto the tile floor breaking into several pieces.  “Porter!” James yelled at the top of his lungs before acknowledging his chef, which he instantly knew was a mistake and regretted it. He closed his eyes...

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Feeling Lucky

Submitted to Contest #172

My desk sat in the underworld. At least it felt that way. First, because my boss, Mr. Jerk, dumped extra assignments on it every day this week. Second, was because of the sweltering temperature from Julie’s heater, oscillating heat weaves through our shared cubicle wall.   I'm six two, tall enough to glare over the fabric divider while she sits in her orthopedic chair. I removed my wool overcoat in quick, precise movements.   "Something wrong Benny?" she asked and adjusted her glasses.  I jerked my head, and respo...

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