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Center your story around someone who cannot separate their dreams from reality.

Posted in Short Story on Mar 21, 2025

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✍️ 86 stories

Before the Bell Rings

Submitted to Contest #295

Ethan woke up with a start.For a moment, a wave of dizziness crashed over him. His pulse pounded in his ears. The room spun. His vision swimming before finally clearing. It took a moment to register that he wasn’t in his bed, nor in his room.He was sitting at a desk in a classroom. His fingers were curled around a pencil, hovered over an open notebook scribbled with words in his own handwriting that he didn’t remember writing.He didn’t remember how he got there.The fluorescent lights flickered overhead, humming faintly. All around him, the s...

54 likes 16 comments 16
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Ghosts of War

Submitted to Contest #295

Trigger Warning: PTSD, hallucinations Leningrad, 1946 He woke up in the darkness.The room breathed with heaviness, the scent of old wood and smoldering candles. Somewhere in the corner, on an oak table, a kerosene lamp crackled, casting long, eerie shadows on the wall. The worn-out furniture—a heavy buffet with carved legs, a peeling dresser, a sofa upholstered in dark green fabric—stood motionless, like silent witnesses to his endless nightmares.He stirred, and the sheet rustled, whispering something ominous. It felt as if the room was wait...

27 likes 2 comments 2
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Lost Dreams

Submitted to Contest #295

“You stole them you little whore.” Marge sat in her yellow tweed rocking chair stroking the doll that sat in her lap. Her wrinkled hands were gentle, a stark contrast to the scowl she gave to the woman before her. “What are you accusing me of now mom?” Christine sighed as she leaned her body against the door to close it. She struggled to keep her balance while hugging a bag of groceries. She was flush and out of breath from the summer heat. Sweat had begun to bead near the grey roots of her metallic red hair. “Do you ever just say it straigh...

23 likes 12 comments 12
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Last Night I Dreamed About Oprah...Again!

Submitted to Contest #295

Please don't judge me immediately or assume I had some kind of obsession—I didn't. I was and still am a reasonably sane person with an unusually ordinary life. But these dreams had been coming pretty often with alarming regularity. We seemed to have some sort of cosmic connection—that is, Oprah and me. It might be plausible if you think about the advancement of quantum physics. Who knows what they've discovered with those accelerating detectors searching through elusive black holes . . . maybe holograms of twin selves evolving into—okay, I d...

23 likes 6 comments 6
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Only Child

Submitted to Contest #295

I have three siblings, but I am an only child. People are always surprised to hear about them, the three curious souls who grew up alongside me and are now nowhere to be seen. Perhaps, people are more surprised to hear I’m the youngest of the four, and the first to have a child of my own. If my older brother and his wife had been more careful, I may have been the only one brave enough to pursue parenthood; though, that’s not to say we’re not grateful. I do love my nephew, from a distance.Distance, that’s the word. That’s what stands between ...

21 likes 5 comments 5
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Writing on Reedsy

Submitted to Contest #295

I have written a fair number of short stories. I went to the trouble of self-publishing some of them, which I shamefully admit was very expensive. I even paid for a marketing campaign, which did next to nothing. It really hit home to me how useless self-publishing was, when I showed up at a bookstore with a bunch of copies of my book, and they told me they don’t sell self-published books. After this I realized all that money had been effectively wasted.So, the next stage in my plan is to win a writing competition. If I can do that, maybe I c...

21 likes 32 comments 32
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Less Than Lovers, More Than Friends

Submitted to Contest #295

They always told me the Ocean was filled with salt. That must have been some other ocean though. Probably a blue one. Because my ocean was black. And it didn’t taste salty.  The blackened water, with the entire colour spectrum floating on top of it like a greasy film of algae, tasted both bitter and sweet. Like a smoky marshmallow plucked out from the fire. After a few gulps, I was already feeling sleepy.  A sugar crash no doubt. And when I closed my eyes, I could feel myself fall into that same inky blackness.  With something...

20 likes 5 comments 5
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The Place Where the Sky Wasn’t Blue

Submitted to Contest #295

I was thirteen the last time I saw my sister’s face, but I still wake up to it most nights. Sometimes she’s smiling. Sometimes she’s crying. Most nights, she’s quiet. Just staring. Like she’s trying to remember me. When I wake, I have to remind myself I’m not in that house anymore. Not in that city. Not thirteen. The bed beneath me is soft. The ceiling above is clean and uncracked. There’s a hum of distant traffic, not drones. A neighbor’s dog barking, not sirens. Still, the first thing I do every morning is check the window—just to make sur...

19 likes 5 comments 5
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SYSTEM ERROR

Submitted to Contest #295

The first crack appeared on a Tuesday, precisely at 3:47 PM, when the city's Perceptual Dampening Grid stuttered for exactly seven seconds.Most people didn't notice. They never do. In a world of constant digital notifications and endless distractions, who would recognize the moment when reality itself trembled? But I saw it—a hairline fracture in the air above Astor Plaza, shimmering like heat rising from summer pavement, except it was autumn and the day was cool.My name is Ember Nightwind, and I maintain the veil between worlds.The Nightwin...

18 likes 10 comments 10
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Inception Syndrome

Submitted to Contest #295

I open my eyes to the blank screen of my computer. Shit! Did I doze off? My small apartment is filled with the golden, reassuring light of my bedside lamp, which I never turn off. The microwave's display tells me it's three in the morning, but it always lies. My alarm clock agrees, but it also lies. My small loft has two entry points: on my right, the entrance door, locked, chained up, obstructed by a chest. On my left, the window, covered with thick, black curtains that even the midday sun cannot penetrate. Who knows what I would see if I p...

17 likes 4 comments 4
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The Dream Thief of Cusco

Submitted to Contest #295

“Dreams are dangerous things to steal,” my grandmother cautioned, smelling of roasted corn and burning copal in her shop on the The Plaza de Armas. “The ancients knew dreams needed to arrive willingly, like a warm caress in the night when you’re sleeping comfortably. When you force them…” She trailed off, her eyes distant.“Not so dangerous we couldn’t steal more, and keep the best for ourselves,” I said, thinking my grandmother could do better.She grabbed my wrist, her weathered hands surprisingly strong. “Don’t be an idiot, Morfeo. Is your ...

17 likes 14 comments 14
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No Problem

Submitted to Contest #295

While bringing in the groceries, I locked the apartment door each time I went to the car. Then, when I came panting up the steps, burdened with two heavy bags, I would unlock it again. It’s a routine you hardly think about. But one day, my apartment locked me out. That night, when I couldn’t sleep, I heard her voice. ‘It’s what you wanted!’ she saidWhich is cool. I think it’s a meme, so I make posts, and others say, lol, when they don’t mean it. That apartment, she’s more than just a place to live; she’s my best friend, my confidante. I call...

15 likes 6 comments 6
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The Man In My Dreams

Submitted to Contest #295

My sleep was not a peaceful one. Images of vicious sights danced through my mind, walking up and down my memories and revisiting them with a cruel imagination. Youthful birthday parties became blood-soaked massacres. Graduations became graveyards. Moving out became running away. Through it all, was that man – that thing. Standing, far back: in the treeline of my childhood house, in a faraway window of my college campus, across the street from my parents home as I waved goodbye. Shadowy, distorted, inconsistent, but always there, like a...

14 likes 2 comments 2
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False Awake

Submitted to Contest #295

I first dreamed of the burning forest when I was eight.The trees were tall and gnarled, their branches like clawed fingers tearing at the night sky. Fire danced along their bark, but they didn’t burn—they screamed. Faces twisted in the knots and rings; mouths open in agony. The air was heavy with ash that fell like snow, clinging to my skin and hair. I remember standing in the middle of it all, barefoot and unafraid, as the ground cracked open at my feet.A voice rose from the flames and whispered my name:“Lena.”I woke up gasping. My sheets w...

14 likes 2 comments 2
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Fantastic, I Tell Them

Submitted to Contest #295

They’re coming in and out now. They stay for a while, then they leave. I’m stuck in this chair, too tired to move or talk or eat, only the energy to sleep and dream. Although, dream isn’t the right word, is it? No, it’s more like I’m going back, going away for a while, like my kids in between visits. They come and sit with me or help their mother get my pills together, but then they go. That’s what I do when I sleep. I don’t dream, I go. My son is here now. His wife is with mine, talking in the kitchen, and we're here watching the TV, watchi...

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