Start or end your story with a breeze brushing against someone’s skin.

Posted in Short Story on Jan 31, 2025

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✍️ 70 stories

“Near Miss” by Tella Artlauf

Submitted to Contest #288

How many years had they known and loved each other? Close to thirty. They were kids then (well, mid-20s). Grown-ups now, whatever that means. They’d “dated” back then, off and on, but never exclusively, so had never broken up. No need to break up if you’re not together. They drifted in and out of each other’s lives in a good way. But the last decade had proven harder to keep in touch. They had met face-to-face just three times and chatted on the phone a few times more. On one particular call when he was literally on the other side of the wor...

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“My Name Is Kingsley ” by Elan Leem

Submitted to Contest #288

“Kingsley!” I turned around, shivering. A breeze brushed through me. Even though it was sunny San Diego, winter was cold this year. It was Saturday, February 1st, 2025. In Sweetland Trails, (my address was 9089,) everyone knew each other. Sweetland Trails was a part of our neighborhood, named Olving N., after the famous artistic director at the dance company, Utopia Dance. He lives in one of the biggest houses in Olving N. Neighborhood. I live in one of the smallest houses. We don’t have backyards. We have a small side yard. I was biking wit...

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“Spellbound” by Kathleen Majorsky

Submitted to Contest #288

The breeze slithered around Beau’s shoulder, down his arm, and around his waist chilling his body into frozen submission.This isn’t some innocent wind blowing over a body of water on a cool summer’s dusky night or a tickle of air that gently blows your hair dry after a day swimming in the ocean.No. It’s none of those things. It’s a snake wanting to choke Beau to an inch of his life.He’s felt it before. More so in the last three months than the previous three. The first three months after her death there was just silence. Deafening silence. T...

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“Mackerel Skies” by K. O.

Submitted to Contest #288

I like how the air breathes on my skin during my long walks. I once tried to explain it to Joan but she only crinkled her nose at me in that way that told me that I had just said something unusual. I myself found it unusual that I have no problem sharing my thoughts and feelings openly until someone else appears to receive them poorly. In most cases I don’t care, why should I? Once I share, the thoughts and feelings don’t belong to me, I’m not responsible for them. In the case of Joan, though, I feel that annoying itch of sadness behind my s...

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“A Steadying Wind” by Michelle Goering

Submitted to Contest #288

Claire stepped off the plane onto the jet bridge, and the Kansas wind swirled up through the gap against her cheek, startling and fresh. The weary crowd blindly swam toward baggage claim, jostling and pushing against each other like salmon returning home to spawn. Do any of us know what we’re doing here? Claire thought as she moved with them, sweating in her heavy coat. She looked ahead, holding her purse tight with one hand, dragging her bag with the other and trying to find a clear lane in the human froth. A large, loud man in a business s...

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“Where Pirates Came To Die ” by Lance Griffin

Submitted to Contest #288

A breath of wind slithered through the ruins and tumbled across his weathered face as he pressed the shard of limestone down the dry ashlar wall, leaving a new etched tally mark. It was a dimly lit chamber inside what was once the world's most notorious pirate prison. For him, it was a sanctuary, a place of refuge. Once the web developer for Shackelford Inc. in a city of skyscrapers, eclectic culture, and ultramodern technology, Tom Malone scanned his Neanderthal calendar. Two hundred forty tallies made up the wall; some were circled, ...

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“Stormtrapper” by Jacob Dendulk

Submitted to Contest #288

Stormtrapper By Jacob Dendulk A breeze gently tickled Stormtrapper’s face and anxiety churned within her. She could tell it was a good one. When you had caught as many storms as she had, one developed a sixth sense for that kind of thing. That slight change in wind direction. That subtle but sharp drop in temperature. Even the feel and smell of the air around her. Stormtrapper knew instinctively the tell tale signs of a perfect storm. She gazed seawards and, sure enough, black cumulus clouds formed over the horizon, as if an artist...

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“To Deny Happiness” by J Davido

Submitted to Contest #288

It was a completely still night, and I stood looking at the train tracks, regretting everything. The police had already scrubbed the area clean, but in the darkness I could imagine the ground under my feet still covered in blood; the blood of someone I once considered my closest friend. Her name was Alicia Grugle, but I always called her Ally. She was a beautiful person, not a blemish on her skin, with a personality to match. Her charms on her bracelet would clink together as she walked, matching her almost perpetual clear laugh. In a way ...

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“The Lost Melody – A Cruise Ship Tale ” by Ed Benjamin

Submitted to Contest #288

Small for his age, the ocean breeze loved to tousle Jack’s hair as he walked to the deck. He loved the way the wind felt, especially when he was exploring.The cruise ship, drifting through the Caribbean under a blanket of stars, hummed like a sleeping giant. Onboard, among the 5,000 passengers, adults laughed, danced, and sipped colorful drinks beneath golden chandeliers, their revelry echoing across the decks. The children also enjoyed all manner of water sports, arcade games, and other activities. Yet none of this spectacle held...

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“The Labor in Love” by Angie K Farella

Submitted to Contest #288

Many people come into the world with tears on their face. Most, wailing tears, thrust into a cold bright space for the first time. Uncomfortable and unable to do anything else to express it. Some are lucky enough to be met with another kind of tear. A joint wailing alongside their own, as arms extend to the person they see for the first time. They know without a shadow of a doubt that they will never love anything more for the rest of their life. Anna’s creation was quiet, tepid even. Alone under the bright light of creation, held by a...

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“A Season Passes” by E. Addison Hart

Submitted to Contest #288

As the old man sits on the porch, the rhythmic rocking of his chair produces a creaking noise that clashes with the harmonious notes coming from the cardinals in the trees. He’s unaware his movements make a disruptive noise that offsets the birds' animated warble. He is too preoccupied to take in the free avian recital.His thoughts have wandered back to how the days passed so quickly without notice or urgency. He remembers carefree summers of his youth running barefoot through the pine forest, the branches jutting out like arms trying to slo...

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“And One for the Little Boy Who Lives Down the Lane” by Alex Marmalade

Submitted to Contest #288

Silas rested his forehead against the cellar’s wooden beams, listening for the shuffle of boots overhead. Thunder rolled in the distance. An edge of lightning lit the cracks in the planks, and for an instant, the flicker revealed the tattered scrap of paper he kept tucked inside his shirt. That single page—taken from a nameless, coverless book found on a lynched runaway—showed a faint drawing of a shepherd leading sheep through a valley, and Silas’s fingers curled around it like a secret promise.He had never quite fit the flock. Born light-s...

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“The fiend” by Sasha -

Submitted to Contest #288

Descenting into an evening alike this one, you could not just saunter away, but in the delirium of that startling cold, past the twigs fashioned by the frozen breath of winter and the freezing heat which derived from each breath taken, could only put a halt to your trotting legs and give in to the fiery spectacle of that evening where light danced all across the air and the laughter never seem to want to put a stop the the demands of the heart. The human spirit, possessed by the gaiety and gladness of life had taken hold, bashing away the ma...

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“Phantasmal Forest” by Chay Renae

Submitted to Contest #288

The view from the ledge of the mossy plateau allowed Henna to observe the menacing canopy of the tri-colored trees that filled the gorge below her. Here, the air was pure and revitalizing. Her wind spirit companion twirled around her, playfully nudging her cheeks and momentarily distracting her from the spiraling worries plaguing her mind. “You’re feeling spry.” Henna noted. The sparrow-sized spirit nodded vigorously and summersaulted in loopty-loop fashion for adde...

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“A Kiss of Life” by Georgia Sprague

Submitted to Contest #288

The sand is scorching hot when Tanya places her bare feet atop it. She inhales sharply through her nose at the feeling, and exhales far more harshly, exasperated that she still isn’t used to the awful feeling against her skin, despite living in this area since she was a young child. Tanya believes that the sun wishes to whip and scorn her—and her entire town—on days like this. It’s brutality has only gotten worse as the years pass them all by. She believes, too, that their god has deserted them all. She believes that the sun, ever-present a...

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Start or end your story with a breeze brushing against someone’s skin.

Submissions are closed

✍️ 70 stories

“Near Miss” by Tella Artlauf

“My Name Is Kingsley ” by Elan Leem

“Spellbound” by Kathleen Majorsky

“Mackerel Skies” by K. O.

“A Steadying Wind” by Michelle Goering

“Where Pirates Came To Die ” by Lance Griffin

“Stormtrapper” by Jacob Dendulk

“To Deny Happiness” by J Davido

“The Lost Melody – A Cruise Ship Tale ” by Ed Benjamin

“The Labor in Love” by Angie K Farella

“A Season Passes” by E. Addison Hart

“And One for the Little Boy Who Lives Down the Lane” by Alex Marmalade

“The fiend” by Sasha -

“Phantasmal Forest” by Chay Renae

“A Kiss of Life” by Georgia Sprague

🌟 Similar prompts

Set your story during — or just before — a storm.

Write a story where the weather mirrors a character’s emotions.

Start or end your story with someone standing in the rain.

Set your story in a place where the weather never changes.

Contest #288

Enter our weekly contest!

$250

Prize money

416

Contest entries

164

Stories

Win $250 in our short story competition 🏆

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