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Write a story that includes the line “Fate is resourceful.”

Posted in Short Story on Oct 25, 2024

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✍️ 76 stories

The silent symphony

Submitted to Contest #274

The old woman sat by the window; her gaze fixed on the rain-streaked glass. Outside, the world was a muted canvas, the colours dulled by the persistent drizzle. Her name was Elara, and she was a keeper of stories, a weaver of tales. But today, her mind was blank, her heart heavy. "Fate is resourceful," she murmured, a phrase her grandmother used to say, a comforting mantra in times of despair.She thought of her youth, a time of vibrant colours and youthful dreams. She had been a talented writer, her words flowing like a river, her stories ca...

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Should Have Known Better

Submitted to Contest #274

The pipeline was slippery. I was crawling across it trying to get to the middle so I could leap into the canal. They grease it with tar to prevent us from days like this. The boats were  ignoring the no wake signs, speeding without regard for the manatees. It made things  more exciting when I stood up and Conon-balled  into the water, my feet landing safely on the bottom missing any broken glass or sharp rocks usually trapped there. I  pushed upward swimming against the strong current; splashing through the surface, I was...

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Twin-Pearl Ring

Submitted to Contest #274

Melinda rearranged the silk scarf with blue colourways and gave her reflection a critical stare. People, well, mostly the housekeepers had always said she was pretty, but all she saw was that the blues of the scarf made her stormy blue eyes more noticeable.She liked the eighteenth birthday gift from the Portuguese housekeeper but refused to believe it would bring her the promised good luck. Stroking the blue scarf, she tried to pick up some nuance of the woman’s personality, but felt nothing. The guardian had probably cleansed the gift of an...

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Fate's Binding

Submitted to Contest #274

Every witch has her secrets, but few hold them as closely as Brooke. A terrible night was when fate found her.At the edge of the village, where cobbled roads faded into the embrace of an untamed forest, there stood an old shop, held together by warped wood and overgrown ivy. Brooke Ashwood, a kind-hearted witch known in the village for her gentle spirit, had always steered clear of gossip, yet tales of the Trinket Talisman had reached her ears. Some say the shop calls those seeking its treasures. As Brooke approached, the flickering sign abo...

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A walk through the mist

Submitted to Contest #274

“Are you lost, traveler?” A voice reached out to me, cutting through the darkness.  “I am just looking for a place of retreat for the night,” I replied. “You won’t find much here at such a late hour,” the feminine voice reached back. A figure approached me, holding a freshly lit lantern. Despite the burning flame, I couldn’t glance at their features as their faces remained hidden behind the fog that enveloped this town. This was the first person I had encountered since I stepped into ‘Kasumi’.  Completely hidden among the forest an...

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A friend's advice

Submitted to Contest #274

He lived at home with his parents, though he did all he could to get away. He had dreams of being a writer. He would write a novel. Not a simple, pithy thing; written for old women and beach holidays. He would write like a Russian. A great Russian. His words would touch the very core of human nature and society. Universities would analyse his work and study his poetry and prose to try and understand how deeply his understanding of human psychology went. He had a sneaking suspicion that it was Fate who had put this idea in his head. It was Fa...

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The Goddess of Hell #ReedsyOctober

Submitted to Contest #274

The Goddess of Hellby Tucker Bradley SloanTrigger warning: Some Strong Language, Sexual Content, and Hellish Themes. Now, are you ready for a bedtime story?———As Persephone gathered souls in the underworld for her husband, Hades, I summoned angels. There was to be a spiritual battle at midnight, and I would win. Nothing was going to stop me. Not even the gout in my feet.The soul in question, a young, innocent named Angel. Her mother, Stephanie, loved that name. Stephanie prayed every day for Angel as she saw Angel slipping further into the d...

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Shames Revenge

Submitted to Contest #274

He had never been afraid of the dark until the night it whispered his name. He had never suffered from insomnia either, but the sun was setting on his third day without a wink. How could this be? After 30 years? He paced from the table to the bottom of the stairs and back again. Aside from beef jerky, some cheese and crackers, and endlessly brewing pots of coffee, he had barely eaten or drank anything. When he raised an arm to lean on the kitchen entryway, he caught scent of himself and flinched. You stink. You need to wash. You need to get...

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Always Together

Submitted to Contest #274

He’s looking this way again. I purposely, resolutely, ignore him as always, well since the first time that is. Try and ignore him I mean, as he creeps me out, and he is always in the corner of my eye. He declared that first time, his undying love for me, in glorious poetic prose, loudly and astride a chair in the school canteen. He called it ‘Catriona my reason for Living’. I can only imagine the colour I must have become. I’m sure I could have lit up the whole school. My friends doubled up and I could get no sense or help from them. I or my...

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Story of a Dead Girl

Submitted to Contest #274

I’ve been following him. I know, I know. I’m aware of how that sounds. It’s funny how one thing can feel like the only thing you want in the world, and once you have it, your mind moves on to something else. The grass is always greener and all that, I suppose. I didn’t know being dead would be so lonely. I felt like I was beat around by everyone I ever met my whole life. Except for Maddy, but then she was gone, too, and that’s when my heart cracked open. My one friend, gone because of some pill popping drunk that couldn’t own up to her mista...

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The Time Traveler’s Gift

Submitted to Contest #274

“The Time Traveler’s Gift” By Edward J. McCoul Dr. Ethan Carter was a scientist by day, a dreamer by night. Under fluorescent lab lights, surrounded by beakers and blueprints, he designed devices most would call impossible. He worked for a secret government agency, funded to uncover, harness, and, occasionally, hide what the world wasn’t ready to see. But his latest invention was not for the agency, nor for the world. It was, secretly, for himself. Ethan had built a time machine. It wasn’t some cobbled-together contraption with flashing ligh...

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Nine Fates

Submitted to Contest #274

Nine Fates  They say a cat has nine lives and they have eight near misses before they actually die. The question is does nine lives mean this, or does it mean nine lifetimes? Does it matter which it means? Maybe not! But let’s go with the story of a cat who who’s owner believes she actually died eight times already, in eight different ways, over eight different lifetimes, this particular cat is on their ninth life as we speak. She is called Ivory, is pure white albino Persian with beautiful blue eyes, aged 23 years old and is curre...

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Wavering Ghul

Submitted to Contest #274

When I was visually a sixty-three year old man in a black dress shirt opened at the collar, with faded ebony khakis that ended at my scuffed camel brown shoes, capped at the cranium with a weather beaten umber stetson and pointedly steadied with an old wooden cane, others eyed me with disdain or pity for my vagrancy.  If I sprawled on the damp grass like an animate mannequin after a storm, I was looked down upon like a soaked mutt and thrown moldy leftovers of charity. If I discarded my clothing for wudu from the rainwate...

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Rotten

Submitted to Contest #274

The storm, if that is what it was, had howled and crashed for at least three days, maybe more. He’d lost track of time as he’d cowered in his voluminous wine cellar waiting for the screams and sounds of destruction to end. His ruined house is one of an elite five that comprises his neighborhood that stands disdainfully overlooking the village below. Not many could afford the luxury of living cliff-top, much less the expense of the in-depth Geo-tech surveys and drilling that enabled building here. Not that Braeden ever thinks about such thing...

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The End of the World

Submitted to Contest #274

Alright. I’m going insane. Now I’m really going insane. Earlier this morning, I’ve had doubts whether the neighbor’s house was yellow or blue yesterday, but now I know better. Right before my eyes… damn it – right before my damn own eyes, the color is changing! Just like that. Not because the sun is shining or a shadow is falling. No. Simply from one moment to the next. Bam. Now it’s green. I’m going insane.It’s been like this for days. In the morning, I look in the mirror, and if I’m lucky, my reflection hasn’t changed. Sometimes I wak...

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