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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Start your story with the line, “By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire.” (Whether this is a literal fire is up to you.)

Posted in Teens on Oct 26, 2022

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✍️ 324 stories

“Perfect as it Gets” by Julia Boddie

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. I was too late.~~~~~~~~~~The day started when my alarm clock woke me up that morning. I got out of bed and went to go wake up my five-year-old daughter. I walked down the hallway and to the doorway of her room.“Good morning sleepyhead. It’s time to get up for school.”She sat up. Veronica stretched and yawned. I looked at her, looking at her light brown hair, which was a tangled mess. She started to get up and I went downstairs to make breakfast.A few minutes later, we were all sitting a...

53 comments 53
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“Rags to Riches” by ♡ ℂ𝕣𝕪𝕤𝕥𝕒𝕝 ♡

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. I heard screams, but the echo was swallowed by the crackling of fire and screams. Horrified screams, but the source was unknown.  Fire was pouring out of me, immersing my entire body in flames. It quickly seared my thin clothing, burning the fabric with ease.  But it didn’t burn me. I didn’t even feel the warmth of the flames whose mission was to devour everything in sight.  The bright death-sentence transferred to the walls of the castle, eating them away, scorching them...

351 comments 351
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“Leaves the Fire 🔥” by Vicky S

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire.The air was thick with smoke and clumps of ash seemed to be falling from the sky. Not that the sky could be seen. It looked like it was midnight. The sun had been blocked by the smoke, great swirls of grey and black and the eerie glow of red as the fire came closer.“Come on Abby, don’t just stand there!”, my dad cried as he ran past, the garden hose clutched in his hands.A trickle of water squirted out of the end as he aimed it at the leaves.The water supply was out.Swearing in frustrati...

55 comments 55
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“Among Us” by Akshat .

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I stepped outside of my house, the leaves were on fire. Literally. It was so, super hot. The whole reason I even had to step outside was to get a break from that stupid party of my sister’s.She got into Oxford. So what? It doesn’t mean that you should get a whole party! (Alright fine, maybe she does deserve it, but still!)Mark my words, I’m going to be even better than her. I’m going to be one of the first astronauts to get into The Skeld, the first spaceship to Mars. Humanity has been so careless of their surroundings. I remembe...

85 comments 85
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“Apart Together” by 𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝐿𝒶𝓂𝑒𝓃𝓉 𝑜𝒻 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒮𝓌𝒶𝓃

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I step outside, the leaves are on fire. Coming outside was a good and bad idea at the same time, but my house is gone, and I didn’t have a choice. I run and curse into the air, but my words are jumbled up sentences that mean nothing to the thing that is devouring the world. People are screaming, screeching, and crying as they try to avoid the fire, often without success, and hoping not to fall into the endless abyss that is the monster’s mouth. Also without much success. But I don’t care. I only care about running. Running for my...

27 comments 27
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“To Live for the Future” by Leo Greer 🦅 🕶

Submitted to Contest #63

To Live for the FutureBy Caden HillBy the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire.Inside my mind, a forest went up in flames….Have you ever wondered about your future?What it will be like?What does future you look like?How do you dress?Are you married? Engaged? To whom?Children? Two....three….four?Do you finally like that vegetable you never liked as a kid?Do you understand what you’ve lived for?You see, these question are precious, more precious and valuable than you can ever know.Questions like this are life itself. Because what is...

123 comments 123
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“Waiting For Twilight” by 🎀 Ɪᴍᴀᴀɴ ᴋʜᴀᴋɪ 🎀

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I step outside, the leaves are on fire. Well, they might as well be. The wind comes alive and sends swirls of crimsons, oranges, yellows and golds dancing through the air like flames. A fitting description—for me, the cool, crisp autumn days are nothing short of hell.Suddenly, a thick, cool grey mass obscures my vision. I glare in frustration, trying to break through its dense, watery coat with a beam of warmth, but to no avail. My rays become faint and diluted, powerless against the heavy clumps that have built a seemingly everl...

23 comments 23
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“Coming Home Again” by BeInspiredAbstracts/Etsy SarahGreenwood

Submitted to Contest #63

       By the time I stepped outside the leaves were on fire. It was a good time of year for a funeral. Dad had died Tuesday after a long battle with throat cancer, so I had flown in on the red-eye from California to Rhode Island.             I got to TF Green at seven a.m. and went straight to Dad’s house. I guess now it was Beth’s house now. Beth was my younger sister. She moved in a few months ago to help Dad when he got too sick to care fo...

40 comments 40
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“Burning Desire” by Charles Stucker

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. Life in Texas has changed me from the woman I once was. Clearing brush involves eliminating leaves, so Mike burns them late every spring, when seasonal rain means the fire won't spread. This year he's off chasing someone on ranger business, so our nine-years-old son, Cecil, must take the part of a man."You're doing wonderfully, Cece." He grins at the complement. With school out for the summer, we are both at loose ends, though I am still weeping for a daughter, little Gloria, who died i...

34 comments 34
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“The True Meaning of Autumn ” by ✯𝐋𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐚 𝐋𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫✯

Submitted to Contest #63

The True Meaning of Autumn  By: Haripriya   By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. I couldn’t believe the beauty of the golden shimmers, decorating the floor, with its bright, vivid colors. In multiple shades of yellow, orange, red, green, and dusk brown, there it was, making the ground more colorful. It really was that time of year, wasn’t it? The season had changed from summer, now to fall. The weather, and the climate had also changed. The chilly breeze, yet so pleasant. ...

5 comments 5
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“Memories” by Amiable Sorceress

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I was outside, the leaves were on fire. Usually, I’m not a stickler for rules, but standing there, watching the leaves; only the leaves light up in flames, it reminded me of you. I would’ve said the leaves shouldn’t have been alight like that; it was against the laws of science, but this isn’t my story, it’s yours.  If you were here you wouldn’t have bothered with the fire extinguisher, so I don’t either, only watching the leaves smolder in the fire, from a safe distance of course. You might’ve confronted the leaves themsel...

5 comments 5
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“Fall Began” by 𝔘𝔤𝔬𝔠𝔥𝔦 𝔑.

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were seemed to be on fire that day…my first day of high school. … “Cathy Jane??” said Ms. Vero that early cold morning. The first day of Fall had begun. “You can call me C.J.” I replied abruptly like I always do when someone calls me by my full name. “Okay, C.J.” Ms. Vero said then moving on to the next person on the list. Class seemed to go by in a flash, that day. The hallways filled with kids with sweatshirts and huge sweaters. Fall has begun. Students have already found their group of friends, ma...

47 comments 47
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“The Third Lotus Prince” by Yolanda Wu

Submitted to Contest #63

Trigger warning: Description of suicide, not super graphic, but just something to be warned about.By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. All around me, my temple had gone up in flames.However, we are not up to that part yet.Let us start, as all lives start – with my birth.My Mother, Lady Yin, was pregnant with me for three years and six months.The night before I was born, she had a dream. There was a Taoist, he placed something in her bosom and told her it was a child she should take.My Mother, probably half sick of this pre...

54 comments 54
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“Fireflies of Manhattan” by 𝗢wen 𝗦𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗲𝗳𝗲𝗿

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I’ve stepped outside, the leaves are on fire, and the autumn light is so clean it could cut you. All around, everything is just dying away in glory on another rainless upstate day. Behind me, the prison gate clangs shut, and the guy in the guard-house says I can catch a bus down the road. So, I search my pockets for money and find it: the fifty-two dollars I had when I went in. And I breathe. I just breathe the air. It’s clean, and I’m out, and I feel a bit of hope for the first time in almost a year. I think of Dr Paulson’s word...

22 comments 22
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“Demon in the Woods” by Leviathan Four

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. In the valley below our cabin, a grove of black walnut, sycamore, and cottonwood trees flickered and popped in the dawn. The stench of acrid smoke filled my lungs as I calculated how far the wildfire had spread overnight. How safe we felt before going to bed. Looking down at the tangle of mountain roads, I wondered fretfully which ones were still passable. We had arrived two days before, a veritable lifetime ago. I remember my contentment then, my determination to spend some focuse...

18 comments 18
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