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Write a story from the POV/perspective of a non-human character.

Posted in Short Story on Sep 5, 2025

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✍️ 83 stories

When the River Fell Silent

Submitted to Contest #319

The first thing I remember is the taste of limestone. Not a taste on a tongue, for I have never had such a thing, but a taste in my essence. It was the incredible, clean, mineral shock of water forcing its way through ancient stone, finding a fissure, a weakness, a new path. I was that path. I was that pressure. I was the sigh of the rock and the chuckle of the stream that was born from it, high in the snaggle-toothed teeth of the Sniježnica mountain.They call me a vila. A nymph. A spirit of the water. I am the consciousness of the aquifer t...

24 likes 13 comments 13
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The Shield and the Sword

Submitted to Contest #319

My bones are granite and my blood is the slow, cool magic of the earth. I have never taken a breath, but I have felt the wind of a thousand winters wear at my skin. My heart has never beaten, but it has pulsed with the deep, resonant toll of the Great Bell in the tower above. For seven hundred years, I have been the silent guardian of the Cathedral of Whispering Stone, perched high on its rain-lashed buttress, a grotesque carved into a prayer. The humans who scurry below, like ants in their brief, frantic lives, call me a gargoyle. I do not ...

18 likes 21 comments 21
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I, Object

Submitted to Contest #319

They laugh. I want them to take me seriously. But they always laugh. To them, I’m a wise-cracking dummy. They don’t know me. Not the real me. I’m merely a funny name, Uncle Knucklehead.I’m helpless. And there’s nothing I can do about it. Having no power, I’m nothing but a tool in the hands of a manipulative, controlling maniac, Kurt Felix. He calls himself a ‘ventriloquist.’ How elevated. How sophisticated. How bombastic. How Kurt.Does he act out of envy? Who puts words in his mouth? Am I his dog to kick? Whose stick does he fetch?Regardless...

18 likes 13 comments 13
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The Thing in the Dark

Submitted to Contest #319

I like the outdoors, but I’m beginning to miss our warm house. It was Kelly’s idea to come all the way out here. She said that she just wants to get away from it all. I never understood that feeling; everything I’ve ever wanted was always here, in the house. But as long as she was with me, I will always be happy. My life was a very lonely one before I met Kelly. I’m pretty sure I was loved once, but I was so little then that I could barely remember. While I was on my own, I was never really happy. Food was scarce for me so I did not eat that...

17 likes 5 comments 5
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A Composium on Humans

Submitted to Contest #319

“The human race is the most illogical, contradictory, out-of-control, aimless, self-destructive, childish, and stubborn species in all the realms!” Letharin nearly spat as he strode into his private study. His apprentice Inwe looked up with raised eyebrows at the uncharacteristic breach of professionalism, her quill hovering the half-finished sentence on the parchment before her. The lingering point caused a small splotch of ink to fall, splattering against the white surface. Letharin frowned down at the young elf as her eyes widened in horr...

16 likes 7 comments 7
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The Last Letter of Victor Frankenstein

Submitted to Contest #319

His voice is gone, but the ink still burns. I found the satchel wedged between two boulders in the cave where I had dragged myself to die. Three days without food. Four without sleep. The villagers' torches had swept the mountainside twice, their hounds baying like judgment itself, but they had not found this crack in the stone where I pressed my bulk against cold granite and waited for my heart to stop. The leather bag was rotted through at the seams. Water had gotten into everything. Victor's surgical instruments lay scattered in the muck,...

16 likes 7 comments 7
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If Only I Could Speak

Submitted to Contest #319

Deep in the indigenous mountains of Mexico, the small town of Izamal gets ready for the fast-approaching Christmas Day. Despite the cold season manifesting as bare trees, dry grass, snowfall, and chilly winds in some parts of the world, it was always summer in Izamal, Mexico. The Yellow City. In the outskirts of town, a small shop is opening its doors for a special holiday sale. Everything is half off! In minutes, the shop is flooded with eager and desperate customers as well as the occasional tourist. Among the chaos, you’ll find me, lyin...

16 likes 3 comments 3
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Sister, Staircase

Submitted to Contest #319

If I had a sister, I think she’d be a chimney. I don’t believe that a staircase’s sister should be another staircase. Why should that be the… Well, the case? Pardon me, I deplore repetition. My steps may look identical, but they’re each unique. I have names for all of them, but I change the names everyday just to keep things interesting. Houses can sit empty for years at a time. It’s vital to keep things interesting. One year I got so desperate I almost named the windows. Luckily, someone moved in the next week. That wasn’t the sisters. That...

13 likes 8 comments 8
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The Reappearance of the Bell Witch

Submitted to Contest #319

Hello, my name is Kate Batts and I’m quite famous in these parts. I am known in the west end of Robertson County, Tennessee in this house. It became famous when I made my first appearance back in 1817 when John Bell and his family moved in to farm this acreage. According to local legend, I was the cause of his death. I find that humorous. My name has been associated with witchcraft and a deep sense of evil. Tell me truthfully, do I look evil to you? There are folks from Clarksville who would claim that I am the embodiment of evil around her...

13 likes 7 comments 7
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The Mouse

Submitted to Contest #319

“Mittens. 3 months. 50%... Hmm… I wonder what that means. I’ve never noticed that before, written on the side of this… well. What is this? Where am I? Oh, this is overwhelming.” Mittens scrambled around the room for a moment in terror. Eventually, he came to a stop and slumped onto his sawdust bed. “Let’s take a moment to think. I remember waking up here, in this room... but nothing before that. What else can I be sure of? I have hands, I can see those. I’ve got fingers, toes, a nose, and if I can see all of those then I must have eyes too. ...

13 likes 0 comments 0
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Strange Behavior

Submitted to Contest #319

Most days are the same for me. I wake up, find Allison, wake her up, and wait for my breakfast.Allison gets it for me every morning. It's not that I can't get my own food. I could if I really wanted to, but Allison likes doing it! She always gets excited when I come and ask her to prepare it. I know because she always purrs when I rub against her.Her purrs sound a little different from mine, but I think that must be normal since she's so much bigger than me. She also rolls around in her blankets and tries to play hide and seek with me. It's ...

13 likes 6 comments 6
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Arrow of Time

Submitted to Contest #319

I used to think of time as something we traveled through like a river, with a steady current that carried us forward. My life was stable, I had a strong marriage, a good job managing a toxicology research lab, and a passion for stamp collecting. I didn’t know that the river itself could change course—that its banks could be remade, its waters altered—until the day a man from the future appeared and told us he was going to fix what he believed was the deepest mistake in history. The Man Who Broke the WorldHe arrived in a machine that didn’t ...

12 likes 1 comment 1
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They Knew Me from the Bridge

Submitted to Contest #319

These sentient creatures are a curious bunch. They gather together and yet feel alone. They develop technology yet still walk with sticks. They move upon vehicles than no longer require horses, yet they still walk. They could record with these things called "cameras", but they report more with their testimonies. I was one of those testimonies. I made my home in this nation that was building over the scars of a recent world war with great buildings that towered over streets and bridges that spanned the width of even the largest rivers. Within...

12 likes 9 comments 9
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The Myth of the Moon

Submitted to Contest #319

The evening sun lit the path up ahead as Mittens tightened her paws’ grip around her bicycle’s handlebars. She had ridden the path through the park several times and loved the wind whipping through her fur as she raced past the trees and bushes.She turned the corner and saw, just ahead, a Mother Duck crossing the path. Slamming on the brakes, Mittens stopped – but stopped too close to the family.“Watch it!” Mother Duck quacked loudly at Mittens, who hung her head and slumped her shoulders.“Sorry,” Mittens whispered. She lightly patted at the...

11 likes 4 comments 4
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Apopemtic

Submitted to Contest #319

The line stretches out across a bleak breaking dawn. It should embody beginnings and life, but instead, to me, it has become a herald of preternatural death. When I lived, I imagined death to ride in on a dark horse or a black storm cloud. Yet, lavender and golden light signals a march to the shade beneath my canopy. The line on the horizon begins to form into distinct shapes of maybe 10 individuals. Their clothes and breath both hung raggedly from their bodies. Over the years I had seen almost all types of person...

11 likes 6 comments 6
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