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 Unraveling” by Arpita Roy

Submitted to Contest #289

The room is unfamiliar. I don’t know how I got here.The walls are bare except for a single painting—a blurred landscape, the kind that doesn’t make sense but still evokes something deep inside. The floor beneath me is cold, and the air smells faintly of dust and something else I can’t quite place. I take a step forward, and the echo of my footfalls seems too loud in the silence.I try to focus, but the pounding in my head refuses to subside. It's like someone has ripped out pieces of my memory, scattered them, and now, I can’t find the pieces...

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“Rooms” by Christine Wang

Submitted to Contest #289

The room is unfamiliar. I don’t know how I got here. A man comes in through the door. I hear the click of a lock behind him. He signals me to take a seat at a small wood table, so I sit down in a chair. The man makes a face of disgust and signals me to sit down on the stool opposite the chair. Confused, I move to the stool. The man takes out a huge binder and flips through the thick pages until he finds what he is looking for. He sits down in the chair. &...

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“The Bright Blue One” by Tara Domino

Submitted to Contest #289

The room was unfamiliar, I don’t know how I got here. I mean, I know how I got here, a standard mode of teleportation, in which my every molecule was compressed and pushed through space in quite a brash manner and thrown together at the other end. I hope it was my every molecule, anyway. I would hate to have left anything behind. No, I mean I don’t know how I got here. As in, how did a lowly conservationist and Earth enthusiast go from being in a very civilised conference aboard the Command Ship discussing the future of this ...

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“Away” by Ron Wilson

Submitted to Contest #289

“The room is unfamiliar. I don’t know how I got here.”“Let’s try again Ryan. Tell us where you are, and how you got there.”I take a deep breath, hold it for a beat, then let it out through my nose. The voice in my head is asking the impossible. “I’m in a room,” I tell the voice again. I think I would’ve lost count of how many times we’ve gone back and forth with this if numbers existed here, but I have this sick feeling in my gut that they don’t. I just know the voice keeps asking and I keep trying to answer. “It’s got walls…sort of, an...

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“Photographs” by Skylar Richards

Submitted to Contest #289

The room is unfamiliar. I don’t know how I got here. I feel…heavy. My limbs feel leaden, and my senses feel dull, sluggish. With bleary eyes, I scan the room for something, anything to identify where I am. It’s a bedroom, one I don’t recognize. It’s neatly organized, almost cozy. I look over at the mahogany dresser across from me and the assortment of items on top of it - brushes, toiletries, pictures, jewelry, all sitting neatly in their proper place, arranged carefully by their owner. The bed underneath me creaks and groans as I slo...

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“Dream Therapy” by Erin Senagbe

Submitted to Contest #289

TW: Mentions suicide and depression. The room is unfamiliar. I don’t know how I got here. Those were my thoughts as I noticed that I was no longer in the extra bedroom of my brother’s house. The last thing I remembered was lying awake with insomnia and contemplating suicide. But suddenly, the beige walls of my bedroom were replaced with bright, luminescent white walls. I was sitting in a transparent chair across from a man and woman also in transparent chairs. There was an empty chair to my right and a glass coffee table between me and the t...

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“The Wipes” by A Vittoria

Submitted to Contest #289

The room is unfamiliar. I don’t know how I got here. One minute I was in the sticky and dark bathroom having the best rendezvous with my fiancé, the next I am suddenly in a coffee shop, my head reeling.There is no one here, not even a barista.Only floor-to-ceiling books opposite the entrance, encased on mahogany bookshelves. Matching brown booths are erect on either side, with the barista’s station smack bang in the centre.‘Hello?’ I call.‘Ah, so happy you could meet with me, Beth,’ a voice pipes up in the far-right corner of the room.‘Who a...

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“Home James” by Kelly Neal Pittman

Submitted to Contest #289

JAMES:The room is unfamiliar. I don’t know how I got here. My vision is blurry and I am overwhelmed by the smell. I catch a faint aroma that reminds me of home. This is comforting and I almost doze back to sleep, but my reminiscing brings with it the truth that home no longer exists for me. I try to lift my head but it feels so heavy, so I just try to focus my eyes again and I wonder where I am.When my eyes finally focus, panic sets in. I am surrounded by metal bars and the reality of imprisonment frightens me as my instinct to escape takes ...

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“Live, Die, Repeat” by Daniel P. Douglas

Submitted to Contest #289

“The room is unfamiliar. I don't know how I got here.”The hospital room’s antiseptic scent masked deeper notes of mortality. Medicines, decay, and the essence of ambition's final hours lingered in the air. Through dissolving consciousness came mechanical sounds, oxygen hiss and morphine drips creating a requiem of medical machinery. No family waited at his bedside. No prayers accompanied his passing.“Where am I?”Somewhere distant, a nurse dropped a metal tray. The crash expanded outward, each wave carrying fragments of unraveling awareness. ...

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“Birth, and Other Celestial Matters” by McKenna Golden

Submitted to Contest #289

The room is unfamiliar. I don't know how I got here.It is bright, and weird shapes verve around what seems to be a thousand luminescent suns, a film strip of foggy memories both alien and familiar. I am cold and feel wet, like a dog has just lapped its slobbering tongue across my entire feeble, delicate body. Random sounds erupt in a symphony of clamor and exotic confusion. In and out of recognizing my surroundings, my eyes violently squint open and shut, fighting between the urge to uncover the blinding unknown or bask in the peaceful,...

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“A Wake” by Nolan Pierce

Submitted to Contest #289

The room is unfamiliar. I don’t know how I got here. The cement walls compliment the folding table and folding chairs. I am handcuffed to the table and I do not know why. There is a man sitting across the table from me. He is staring at me directly, as if he is waiting for me to answer a question I was never asked. How did I get here? My quick glances around the room make me dizzier and dizzier and the man must have noticed my progressively sickening spiral because he asserted: “Seriously, I think you should have some water.” I paused before...

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“Room” by William T.D Feeley

Submitted to Contest #289

The room is unfamiliar. I don’t know how I got here. The walls press in, sterile and colorless, their flat off-white surface smudged with faint, ghostly stains. A single chair hunches in the center of the room, metal legs splayed awkwardly on the scuffed floor. Overhead, a dim bulb flickers and hums, casting warped shadows that ripple like ink spilled on water. The air is thick with the scent of something stale—like a room left untouched for too long. My pulse kicks up. I don't remember coming here. I don’t remember anything. My breath quick...

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“Memory on Trial” by Caroline Taglioli

Submitted to Contest #289

The room is unfamiliar. I don’t know how I got here. Walls painfully white with cream carpeted floors; a lone seascape on the far wall is likely meant to be comforting, but to me evokes only the mystery, the great black unknown depths. And whatever monsters lurk there. The ocean. Have I seen the ocean? I can’t pinpoint a specific experience, but I know what the ocean is like. I know what it’s like to squish wet sand between your toes, surf encircling your ankles, while the sun does its best work creating new freckles on your already st...

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“Empathy” by Jeff Witorsch

Submitted to Contest #289

The world shook. Wrenched from sleep, my eyes snapped open and I looked around. The room was unfamiliar, and I didn’t know how I’d gotten there. There wasn’t a whole lot to it, frankly. All I saw were three walls, a ceiling and a floor, all bright white. It wasn’t clear where the light was coming from, but there was no lack of it. Then the world shook again, but this time I saw the one who was shaking it, or, more accurately, me. “I said, why won’t you talk to me?!” the young boy yelled, from just over my left shoulder....

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“The Gray Room” by Victor Amoroso

Submitted to Contest #289

The room is unfamiliar. I don’t know how I got here. There are no windows, the walls a light gray. Light comes from a source that I cannot see, and there are no shadows here. The ceiling has a rough texture to it, colored the same as the walls. I turn around and see no door to the room, as it is the same behind me as before me. The floor shakes a little, and I look down at myself. My feet are bare, and I wiggle my toes. I can see the hair of my legs, and my knobby knees. The floor is painted gray, and on it a spiral of lines that iris out to...

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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 Unraveling” by Arpita Roy

“Rooms” by Christine Wang

“The Bright Blue One” by Tara Domino

“Away” by Ron Wilson

“Photographs” by Skylar Richards

“Dream Therapy” by Erin Senagbe

“The Wipes” by A Vittoria

“Home James” by Kelly Neal Pittman

“Live, Die, Repeat” by Daniel P. Douglas

“Birth, and Other Celestial Matters” by McKenna Golden

“A Wake” by Nolan Pierce

“Room” by William T.D Feeley

“Memory on Trial” by Caroline Taglioli

“Empathy” by Jeff Witorsch

“The Gray Room” by Victor Amoroso

🌟 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 🏆

Explore more writing prompt ideas: