Start your story with the lines: “The room is unfamiliar. I don’t know how I got here.”

Posted in Short Story on Feb 7, 2025

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✍️ 109 stories

“The Room is Unfamiliar. I Don't Know How I Got Here.” by Susie Bennett

Submitted to Contest #289

The first thing that hits you is the disquieting silence. Not a comforting quietude, but a heavy, oppressive hush that seems to cling to the air, muffling all sound. Then, the light. It’s not harsh, but diffused and unsettling, emanating from an unseen source, casting long, ambiguous shadows that dance on the walls of the unfamiliar room. You are lying on a bed, the sheets strangely cool against your skin. And then, the thought, sharp and insistent, claws its way to the forefront of your mind: I don't know how I got here.Panic, cold and...

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“Awakening the Writer” by John Steckley

Submitted to Contest #289

The room is unfamiliar. I don’t know how I got here or why I came here. This isn’t a new experience for me, of course. It keeps on repeating whenever I have just finished writing a book. Once the book is completed, much of my awareness of the story disappears from my mind, like it was something in a dream. I wonder whether this happens to other authors. Perhaps that is why when you hear writers talking about their most recent book, they sometimes seem confused when they talk about the experience of writing of th...

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“Cuckoo” by Cameron Navarre

Submitted to Contest #289

How did I get &nbs...

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“Fog Horse” by S L

Submitted to Contest #289

“The room is unfamiliar. I don’t know how I got here.” I said groggily, looking up at the doctor who was staring back at me. “You don’t remember anything? How about the crash? Do you remember that?” He asked, trying to mask his concern. “Crash? What crash?” I panic, looking around I realize I am in a hospital room, my eyes sting from the surgical lights and I start to hyperventilate. Who were these people around me? Nurses? “Ma’am, everything is ok.” He said, sensing my panic, “You were in a traffic collision on the highway...

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“Reborn” by Jishnu Roy Choudhuri

Submitted to Contest #289

This room is unfamiliar, and I don’t know how I ended up here.I look around. No windows, anywhere.I turn around. One solitary, wooden door.And nothing else. Just a torn down wallpapers with a yellow, five petal flower print on a dirt-white background over and over and over again, repeating, surrounding me.The one bulb in the room is casting shadows larger than the wall behind me. The walls have multiple damp spots like inkblots on paper.Dust particles dance around me as I breathe.A musty stench fills the air, making it harder to justify stay...

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“Blindsided” by VJ Hamilton

Submitted to Contest #289

The room is unfamiliar, I don’t know how I got here. I am seated. I feel the chair against my butt. My back. I look at my feet. I lift one, then the other. They are inside big-toed, thick-soled black boots. When I lift one up, I see small puddles of dirty water under it. My hands lie on the table in front of me. The table is big enough for only one person: me. I can wiggle my fingers but it’s strange, my hands are inside puffy cloth bags. Like the puffy cloth thing I am wearing. “Settle down,” says a big man. He is about twi...

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“The Ouroboros Room” by Abby Donis

Submitted to Contest #289

The room is unfamiliar. I do not know how I got there. Each time the room appears, and each time I continue to exist within them. Every time, desperately wishing and hoping for the exit, the entrance, the door that never appears. The rooms are never the same; they shape and shift with each blink of the eye. They never hold anything I can keep and each is different from the last. I can no longer remember the ones that came before. I think I have been here forever, or maybe it has just been a few moments. I can never remember. The rooms ...

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“Popeye the Sailor’s Dog” by Tempest Phoenix Smith

Submitted to Contest #289

The room is unfamiliar. I don’t know how I got here.Chrissy repeated the words to herself, eyes closed, until a scene from her past finally surfaced like a negative developing under the red light of her best friend’s improvised darkroom. The cramped dark space had made her too claustrophobic to share that part of the hobby, but they often did photo shoots together.Eleven years old and two thousand miles from home, Chrissy sat cross-legged in aqua shorts, a horizontally striped red and white t-shirt, tennis shoes and pink socks on the pale gr...

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“Garcia” by Jim Robison

Submitted to Contest #289

Where is she? The room is unfamiliar. How did she get here? She is confused, has a headache, feels nauseas and dizzy. Her hands are tied to the arms of a metal chair. She is naked and metal alligator clips are biting into her nipples, her genitals, the little toe on each foot and the index finger on each hand. From each clip, a colored wire leads to a box sitting on a desk in front of her. A gun is also on the desk. Behind the desk, a large man, probably the boss, sits and glares at her. Two other men, one on either side of her, lean against...

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“As He Thinks In His Heart” by Keith Menendez

Submitted to Contest #289

Where am I?This is not my bed. This is not my home. I have arching windows on the second floor, not the first. It’s a wonderful view of water oak, pine, and birch trees covering the mountains. This is the Smoky Mountains in Virginia or North Carolina. How do I know that? How did I get into this unfamiliar room? Why do I have an IV? I spot two women whispering near the closed door. Maybe those two young ladies know what is going on. Wait, the dark-haired one is leaving. She smil...

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“Chains” by Vince Roman

Submitted to Contest #289

“The room is unfamiliar. I don’t know how I got here.” I'm telling you, one moment I'm tucked away in my sanctum of a bedroom, and the next? The stench hits me like a sucker punch - an unholy blend of decomposing cabbage and garlic, somehow laced with an almost saccharine sweetness. It's an olfactory assault unlike any other. Swallowing back bile, I try to make sense of this new reality. The room is a cavernous abyss; the only light comes from harsh fluorescents that paint everything in sickly green hues. An irregular drip-drip-drip ech...

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“the letter found” by Eddie McKenzie

Submitted to Contest #289

The room is unfamiliar. I don't know how I got here. I don't know how anything at all could find its way in here, it appears to have been quite thoroughly sealed up from all possible entrance points. There is nothing in this room, aside from myself and what few things I had stored away in my pockets - my notepad and pen, and a lighter that was infuriatingly without any fluid and so served little more than something I could feel the weight in my hand as a reminder there was something in the world still. The pale pink of the walls were not qui...

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“Abduction” by Taylor Jester

Submitted to Contest #289

Content warning: abduction, medical proceduresThe room is unfamiliar. I don't know how I got here. Around me are items I have only seen in Star Trek. Glowing lights, science equipment ranging from tools to graphs on the walls, jars full of liquid, and four large, cushioned chairs. Surely this is a dream...a bad dream. Like many of the dreams I have had before that feel so real, but I wake up safe in my bed gasping for air, pellets dripping down my forehead, and heart racing...but safe.Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!This time that did not work. I...

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“To Take Us Lands Away” by Sandra Moody

Submitted to Contest #289

The room is unfamiliar. I don’t know how I got here. Then I spot my friend, Dora. “Hey, Dora! What’s going on? Weren’t you just sitting by me in Ms. Linville’s geography class?”“Oh my gosh, I can’t believe this is true. I-I think we are really here!” “It’s like she said, if you really learn about stuff, it can be like you’re actually there!” Nine-o-five and the torrent poured through the door: the gangly, good, the garrulous, the stout, the strong, the shy, the overdressed and underdressed. Backpack bearers all, jostling, pushing, and prod...

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“Who is Mr. Beads?” by Tatyana Pohli

Submitted to Contest #289

“The room is unfamiliar. I don’t know how I got here.”An elegant female voice crackled on a phonograph. She immediately recognized it as her own voice. “And what stands out to you?” said a less appealing voice. Just the sound of it made her mind swim.“Absolutely nothing.”“Do you care how you got here?”“No.”“Do you care who I am?”“No.”“Do you have any questions?”“No, you are the only one with the questions.” The young woman crouched over the phonograph, her hands trembling. Only a few weeks ago an old cottage with ivy crawling up the sides an...

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Start your story with the lines: “The room is unfamiliar. I don’t know how I got here.”

Submissions are closed

✍️ 109 stories

“The Room is Unfamiliar. I Don't Know How I Got Here.” by Susie Bennett

“Awakening the Writer” by John Steckley

“Cuckoo” by Cameron Navarre

“Fog Horse” by S L

“Reborn” by Jishnu Roy Choudhuri

“Blindsided” by VJ Hamilton

“The Ouroboros Room” by Abby Donis

“Popeye the Sailor’s Dog” by Tempest Phoenix Smith

“Garcia” by Jim Robison

“As He Thinks In His Heart” by Keith Menendez

“Chains” by Vince Roman

“the letter found” by Eddie McKenzie

“Abduction” by Taylor Jester

“To Take Us Lands Away” by Sandra Moody

“Who is Mr. Beads?” by Tatyana Pohli

🌟 Similar prompts

Write your story as text messages or an online conversation between two characters — and at least one of them isn’t who they say they are.

Write an open-ended story in which your character’s fate is uncertain.

Write a story in which a character discovers that a truth they've believed their whole life is either false or not the whole story.

Your character is getting changed in the bathroom of a nightclub or restaurant, then emerges looking completely different. Why?

Contest #289

Enter our weekly contest!

$250

Prize money

364

Contest entries

155

Stories

Win $250 in our short story competition 🏆

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