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Write a story from the POV of someone (or something) living in a forest.

Posted in Short Story on Sep 12, 2025

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✍️ 62 stories

The Ballad of Janet, a retelling of the Ballad of Tam Lin

Submitted to Contest #320

(sensitive content warning: violence and sexual coercion) At least the trees had stopped gossiping about him. But the brooks were more than happy to take up the task. They cackled away, gushing over water-polished stones and whispering under fallen logs. Laughing at him. Mocking him.We know why you are here.Tam breathed out and leaned his head against the mossy boulder marking the edge of Carterhaugh Woods. Rosebushes surrounded it, the only things with any color as far as the eye could see. The only things that felt alive.Another lie, of...

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The Big Bad Wolf's Perspective

Submitted to Contest #320

The forest is the only home that I have ever known. I lived in it and do tend to it often. I truly have tried to keep it tidy and clean. Although admittedly I have had to deal with a lot of rubbish left by irresponsible and careless people, or even animals.On this bright and sunny day, I also had to deal with rubbish (as per my usual routine). One careless camper had left some, and I was forced to clean and tidy up after him. That is when I heard footsteps, gentle footsteps, coming. As an immediate jerk of a natural response, I quickly jumpe...

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Hollow Eyes

Submitted to Contest #320

Grandma always told me not to go past the blackberry thicket. “Don’t wander too deep”, she’d say, “the woods got eyes”. It sounded like something out of a bedtime story, and I never put much stock in it. I was fifteen the first time I saw it. I was the kind of girl who read ghost stories under my quilt with a flashlight and dared myself to walk the ridge path at dusk on my way home. Fear wasn’t something I ran from – I would poke it with a stick just to see if it would poke back. That night, when the sun bled orange over the smoky mountains ...

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Into the Woods

Submitted to Contest #320

Nocturna had been basking in solitude for five years, tending her garden and conversing with the birds and insects when she hears something crying. Occasionally, hikers or kids on a dare wandered into her part of the woods. But they couldn't see her cabin, and they couldn't get past her protection spells so Nocturna didn't worry. She tries to ignore the crying. Eventually it will stop. Or something in the forest will make it stop. It sounds like a child.After an hour or two the crying seems to be getting louder and closer. Nocturna decides t...

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The Meeting Day Parable

Submitted to Contest #320

The orange cat sat at the table on the animal side of the forest, far away from the human side. He was sipping tea. His fur was shiny and smooth from the bath he had given himself that morning. He decided against wearing his top hat; it was far too warm for that. So he was naked except for a wristwatch and a bow tie, its purple spots popping against his sleek, striped coat.Cat picked up a macaroon with his paw and admired the green glaze before popping it into his mouth. He purred with appreciation as the sugar hit his tongue. He ate three m...

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The Flexing of Predator Feet

Submitted to Contest #320

The Flexing of Predator Feet The merlin was an abrupt, low-slung presence beside her as it fell from the tree and belly-skimmed the sand before her. Wasn’t that just the way of murderous things, she thought, appearing fast and out of nowhere? She paused, sorry to have startled it, hoping that it hadn’t sat with too much tension before deciding flight was the safer thing. The coastal road curved just here, the tiny beach an abutment and her arrival, wrapped in a flapping blue blanket as she was, probably seemed monstrous. The bird had been ...

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Above the Spring Revelry

Submitted to Contest #320

The winter had been severe and had frozen the ground. A nomad cloud shook off its accumulated snow, and the land was cold, harsh, starving, as was every living thing on it. The cold bit to the bone, the frost burned the skin. The land was still... bones met skin once more, reunited in pain, in hunger. A starving dog limped across the frozen earth, desperate and tortured. There is a lull. A warmth again breathes hope onto the land and once more comfort and beauty are found and though the winter has been long and harsh, the spring has justifie...

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Under the Elytra

Submitted to Contest #320

World ended yesterday. Shudder passed through the soil, sinking into my own bones, and deep, guttural tremors shook the earth. The sky, a high, dappled ceiling of green and brown, vanished behind a descending shadow of impossible scale. Then came the pressure… force so absolute it did not just break our world, it unmade it. Trembling ceased. Shadow passed, leaving a great canyon in its wake, ravine carved through the heart of our territory. Only a deep, smooth-walled chasm remained where the Low-Branch settlement once thrived, only packed, b...

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The Woods are Calling

Submitted to Contest #320

THE WOODS ARE CALLINGSmell is the strongest of my senses, stronger even than sight. Usually, I smell a fire before I see any smoke. I cultivated that skill for my job in the towers, for it works well as an early-warning system. When my nose tingles, I snatch my binoculars to pinpoint the location. Fortunately, this summer, things had been undisturbed.I propped my feet up on the low table I’d strung together from the branches of a felled cedar and drew a deep breath of contentment. Today was an exceptional day. Smells were fresh and crisp, fu...

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Silvermoss

Submitted to Contest #320

“Mum, Mum, get up! It’s championsday,” the young mouse screeched,as she ruffledher mother’s tiny pillow, demandingher out of bed.“Morning then, Missy,” The greyer and much less bouncy mouse yawned as her duvet was pulledaway from her. “Look, Mum. It’s snowed!It’s snowed! It’s snowed!” Missy beamed, glaringout the tiny window, examiningthe newly paintedSilvermoss forest.Missy and her motherlived in a small woven hut, no bigger than a picnicbasket. However, it had more space...

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She Lives In The Trees

Submitted to Contest #320

She Lives In The Trees At first all kinds of men would pass by what they now refer to as the forbidden forest, from big to small to a size that would fit within my arms. I would watch them from the trees. I was afraid of the men, however the women and children never frightened me since I was once them. But that’s a story for another time. The children that would go by and laugh and play about a witch who lives in the forest, their mother’s joining in as if I do not exist, but the men, they were always weary. I enjoyed the presence of the wo...

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Through the Wildflowers

Submitted to Contest #320

The familiar orange, red, and yellow hues rain down upon the forest floor in swirls of vibrant color. I can feel the bite in the air. I am behind this season, my nest is nearly barren. My mother would say I have been wasting my days with horse play. As if she had ever seen a horse playing before. Perhaps she is right. I had been spending my summer days in the bushes that circle the lakes shore, Tunneling through them with excellent speed. When I wasn’t at the lake I was leaping through the canopy of the now vibrant colored trees. My legs spr...

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Predators

Submitted to Contest #320

[CONTENT WARNING: Harm to Animals] CLICK. I pull back the bolt, chambering a round. CLICK. My eyes focus on the huddle of dark figures between the trees: a small herd of pale-brown elk silhouetted against the snow and the grey horizon. Out of the corner of my eye, I see my dad put his hands to either side of his head, signalling me to go for one of the bulls.I take a breath. I hold it, and each passing second feels like an hour as I squeeze the trigger. … My family has lived in these woods for decades, and for most of that time, it’s just ...

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Forest of Virtue

Submitted to Contest #320

The morning calls of the birds awake me, the glimmer of sunlight through the window shrinking down on my face. It’s time to get up. Mother Nature has awoken me and says it’s time to start a new day. There is never a wasted day in the forest, always something to do or achieve. For me that goal is to work toward my career, to live a life of pureness and morality and to communicate the beauty of nature to the world. I draw for a living, I paint for living, I write for a living. I am the true definition of an artist, creating multiple works of h...

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Prayer of the Mantis

Submitted to Contest #320

Trigger Warning- Mild Sexual, Drug, and Mature Content lies ahead, and, oh yes! Nudity.Prayer of the MantisGenesis 2:8-9 KNJV-8The LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed.9And out of the ground the LORD God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.”And, man! The drugs provided were pretty damn good!Part One- He.Adam did not like being alone. It was tough. Eden was overgrown, and there was no help in sight. Overwhelmed, Adam named some of God’s creatures. He saw the t...

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