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A character finds out they have a special power or ability. What happens next?

Posted in Short Story on Jul 11, 2025

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✍️ 55 stories

The Tuesday Taste

Submitted to Contest #311

The day it began, Andrei woke to the sound of water on zinc. That soft, relentless drizzle that always came before a memory — or worse: a cataclysm.It was Tuesday. Cold lingered in the kitchen like a thought forgotten.He boiled water in the tin kettle that whistled too soon. Poured it into a flea market glass — thick, with blue flowers fading around the rim. He drank.And stopped.It tasted like bitter cherries in syrup. Not the sugar-slick kind, but the ones his bunica kept in reused compot bottles. Cherries picked in silence, hands stained r...

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At Least

Submitted to Contest #311

I don’t move from the door until my gut twists and I go throw up again. I’m surprised there’s still something left in my stomach. I’m surprised there’s still something left of me.Aiden, Crystal, and Rose stay behind the door for a long time, knocking and trying to check in often. Though I don’t open it again for them, after several times, I haven’t the heart to keep telling them to go — maybe literally: it was torn still beating out of my chest when I hurt Rose.The sun changes several times. I soon realize afterwards that I should change my ...

36 likes 17 comments 17
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The Day the Angels Quit

Submitted to Contest #311

The sky rained feathers the day the angels decided to quit.It wasn’t gradual, like a fading light or a whisper slipping into wind. It was sudden, vast, final. At 4:17 p.m. Zagreb time, the clouds opened — not with thunder, not with fire, but with a hush. A hush so deep it silenced traffic, halted footsteps, and left a little girl holding her mother’s hand at the tram station, blinking at the first white feather that drifted down onto her outstretched palm.Then another.And another.And then it was a blizzard of softness, a snowfall of resignat...

35 likes 13 comments 13
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Going Back Again

Submitted to Contest #311

"The past is never quite as finished with you as you think you are with it." - Anonymous My little sister was killed when I was just twelve years old, and she is the reason why I do the work that I do now. Stephanie exited the school bus at the corner just down the street from our house one Thursday afternoon, but she never made it home. The New York State Troopers found her body in the woods somewhere near Armonk about a week later. I was at basketball practice that day, otherwise I would have been there on the bus with her and maybe things...

31 likes 39 comments 39
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Death Cute

Submitted to Contest #311

A couple of months ago, I had precisely two talents: overwatering succulents and scaring people away just by being myself. Neither paid well. Now I have three. The third? A shiny new ability to sense where people are going to die. Not who, not how — just where. Turns out that talent pays the least. The first time I felt that bone-chilling rush crawl through my veins was at a bus stop. I decided to hang out and see if I could stop it from happening. Chosen one energy, right? Spoiler alert: not only could I not stop it, but I also missed an en...

26 likes 12 comments 12
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I’m the Cherry Pie

Submitted to Contest #311

It’s a 24/7 diner. It’s a fantasy. It’s a truck stop. I’m a customer. I'm a waitress. I’m the cherry pie. I’ve been writing at night, every night, at the Lonesome Diner for more years than I can remember. The line cooks know my name. My booth is the one in the far corner. Nobody ever sits there but me. I don't know how that happened exactly. There isn’t a plaque above the salt and pepper. But it’s my booth. Everyone knows that. On their breaks, or when the flow of the kitchen eases to a dribble, the waitresses sit across from me and tell me...

25 likes 12 comments 12
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Static

Submitted to Contest #311

1. The NoiseIt started with the hum.Not a real sound, exactly. Not something anyone else could hear. It lived just behind Sadie’s left ear—a low, restless buzzing, like a detuned radio buried under her skin. Sometimes it flared into voices. Snippets. Half-thoughts that didn’t belong to her.At first she blamed the city. The trains. The old wiring in their flat. She told herself it was just stress. Sleep-debt. The kind of thing that happens when your mum’s gone and your dad drinks from coffee mugs that don’t smell like coffee.But then it follo...

21 likes 4 comments 4
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Wicked Child

Submitted to Contest #311

That night, I dreamt I was walking barefoot down a dirt road. The sun was just starting to go down, and I thought it was odd that I couldn’t hear any birds or the usual noises one would hear at that time of day. I could only hear the sound of my feet on the cool damp earth. Suddenly, I found myself standing in the middle of a marsh. I don’t remember ever reaching the end of the trail. A gnat lands on my arm. I swat it away. Then another one appears, and another. Soon an army of gnats is swarming me. The buzzing fills my ears and grows increa...

21 likes 3 comments 3
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La Cadena

Submitted to Contest #311

La CadenaChapter 1 The people of the Eldrin tribe gathered in the center of their village. There was music, dancing, and lots of food. Tonight was the Eidolon Fest. Marietta, the village elder, would choose seven children to call into her hut, one at a time. Each child would be given their special power to mark their place within the village. Normally, Solana was the quiet, observant type. During the Eidolon Fest, she would step out of her shell and be right in the middle of all of the activities. She would laugh and d...

20 likes 4 comments 4
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The Big Bull and the Billion-Dollar Mirage

Submitted to Contest #311

In the bustling heart of Mumbai during the late 1980s, a man rose from modest beginnings to claim a throne on Dalal Street—the financial capital of India. Born in 1950s in a lower-middle-class Gujarati family, this person was no stranger to hardship. He took odd jobs before finding his calling in finance. He joined a local organization, but his target was something else. He loved the terms bullish & bearish, the Stock Market. Armed with ambition and a deep understanding of market behavior, he joined a brokerage firm. But Harshad was no o...

17 likes 10 comments 10
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This is Love

Submitted to Contest #311

This is Love I was only five when I wanted to watch my mother preparing chicken noodle soup. She let me stand on a kitchen stool about two feet away from the stove. When she stepped away to grab some chives from the fridge, I curiously stirred the pot of soup on the stove. It was not as easy as it looked and soon enough, before my mother realized, I spilled the hot soup on my chest down to my stomach. My scream of pain sent my mother to my rescue at lightning speed. “It’s okay baby, let me kiss you,” she hugged me tight as she kissed my ch...

16 likes 2 comments 2
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The Secretary

Submitted to Contest #311

I was dreaming about playing with an orange ball in a pool. I kept pushing it under to keep it from coming back up. Despite my efforts, it kept rising to the surface. At first I used my hands but my arms got tired. Then I tried sitting on it but it threw me off balance. No matter how hard I tried, that little orange ball always found a way to explode into the air.A raspy cry stirred me from my dream. I didn’t know whether it was real or a phantom cry. A side effect of life with a baby.I felt Hannah lift her head off the pillow. That’s when I...

16 likes 6 comments 6
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The boy who froze time

Submitted to Contest #311

Everyone thought Luca was just another quiet kid sitting near the chemistry class window, doodling strange symbols in his notebook. But the truth was far stranger—Luca could pause time.Not rewind. Not fast-forward. Just stop it cold.The moment it first happened, he was ten. A car skidded off the road toward his dog, and in a panic, Luca screamed "Chronostasis!" and everything froze. Leaves hung in the air. The car hovered above the ground mid-spin. And his dog just stood there, unaware, tail wagging, safe.He never told anyone. Luca did not k...

15 likes 2 comments 2
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Yes, It's Forever

Submitted to Contest #311

Yes, It’s Forever tattoos was holed up in a tiny rented den, in a narrow dead-end, in an ungentrified hollow of London. Its door was always closed. What’s more, it was obscured by a row of bins. It didn’t have a phone number, it barely had a website - and yet, if you wanted a spot with Aisling Stabs, you had to join the end of a year-long waiting list. For Petra Köhler, the other artist-in-residence, it was just six months. Aisling never emerged from behind its blinds, instead relying on Petra’s daily missions to the local Food and Wine corn...

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Somethin' Stupid

Submitted to Contest #311

I can make things levitate. Sure, you might be thinking, as you sit in the audience of one of my magic shows, coat strewn across your lap, crumbs of popcorn or whatever greasy overpriced food you’ve been persuaded into buying clinging to the corners of your mouth. Sure, you can. I can use thin string and background workers too. Not that impressive. But then how do I take your green-rimmed glasses right off your face, lift them into the air, then place them right back down on your head again? How do I peel the leaf off of you that’s been clin...

13 likes 2 comments 2
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