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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

“Hexed” by Kara O

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. From the upstairs loft, the tendrils of smoke had looked like a mirage, a trick of the mind. But standing on the porch with the heat blazing and the leaves cracking, it couldn’t be denied. The spell had worked. And my heart bubbled with joy. And I did a little jig. Now I knew hexing my neighbors would work. Not that the spell not working would have stopped me, but now I knew it was going to work. Hosing the pile of leaves I’d raked till they were a hiss...

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“Avenir” by Tiana Gabel

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I step outside, the leaves are on fire. I curse under my breath, before rushing down the stairs to my left. Plan B is still free of burning. I stamp out a maple leaf in my way and bound on the balls of my feet through the blaze. After seven hops, I pause, breathless, where a shipment truck tore up grass and left muddy puddles in its wake. The area is entirely free of burning. I lose my footing on slick grass and curse my fortune again. So much for acting like a tourist. Mud Covered in such an elaborate costume, is asking for...

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“An Unsuitable Season ” by Lily Lucero

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. The bright leaves of ember which fluttered and scattered the sidewalks did not suit Mom being gone. Her death had come a season too early. It should have been winter, when the trees were barren and desolate of life; when everything once vibrant was drained of all substance.       “You need a jacket?” My little brother Garrett raised an eyebrow. He was always trying to take care of me; it made me feel like an insufficient elder.     &nbsp...

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“Hell to Play” by Tucson Richelson

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. The warm sun sagged in the sky. The big blue above me bore down and invited me to keep walking forward, but it was so hard. I couldn’t help but stop and look at things. I felt reborn the way someone who has a near death experience feels alive for the first time.  The all new game from Facebook, cutely called, “Faceplace” was not anymore a game than Facebook was a game. It was a simulation, a very, very real simulation, filled with other real people.  It’s not really my cup...

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“About Halfway” by Judy Buechner

Submitted to Contest #63

About halfway By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire.  Or at least that is how it felt when I, the youngest (and the only) of 7 children, was let go from a position for the 2nd time in my life.  As I am pretty sure that none of them have ever been let go… from anything.  Hey just another great experience to chalk up to my 45th year on this planet, marking about the halfway point here on Earth. It started about 7 weeks earlier when one of the other Account Managers had agreed to let me shadow him for a day.&...

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“Faluvial and Barculaine” by T. S. Burkhardh

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. I’d been cooped up inside all weekend working on homework. Now, as I walked to school with Ana, I realized that Autumn had arrived. I should have realized it days ago when Daggerbeak, my pet cockatiel, kept staring alertly at the window. She must have been seeing the first of the leaves coming down.  The thermometer had swung way upwards today, but it would probably be the last warm spell of the year. Anna skipped along, her outrageous silky pig tails swishing about on either sid...

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“Aphid” by Matthew Eubanks

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. Reds and golds everywhere. The most beautiful fall I had ever seen. It had been a week since I had been outdoors.Everything started with the algae on the roads. Do you remember that? Big clumps of that filmy moss everywhere. It shut down traffic. Nobody could explain what was causing it or where it came from. It would tear up your tires. They said it was safe but I always coughed around it. The President came on and said, we'll spray for it, we'll take care of it, and they came around w...

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“Fires” by Korin Enochs

Submitted to Contest #63

"By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire." I began, my eyes trained on the floor. I sat in a dimly lit therapy room, the colors resembling the warm feel of the autumn season. It had taken me six months to tell the woman sitting before me what I was forced into therapy for in the first place. Now that I had spit out the first sentence, a wave of existential dread flowed over me. What the Hell was I even doing here? I strongly believe therapy is overrated, but then again, when you aren't paying for it, you don't have much of a s...

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“Grocery Shopping” by Gurupavan Sudhakar

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. Trees had shades of orange, yellow and red. Only a few infrequent trees were still somewhat green. The sky was a bright blue dotted with clouds. Pigeons flew in cohesive groups around buildings. As I walked past the door, a cold breeze smacked my face. The weather was deceptively cold for the bright sun. I pulled the metallic zipper of my gray hoodie in order to try to negate the effects of the cold weather. I had not been outside the house in a long time due to the pandemic. But I stil...

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“A Life Fulfilled” by Roxanna C Revell

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. Some of them were, anyway, because others had already turned brown, fallen to the floor and been crushed into the mud. They'd gone through their life cycle; growing and changing with the seasons, until their purpose was fulfilled. Whatever that purpose was. Was it to look pretty, to shelter birds or was it deeper than that? It was more than that. After all, trees inhale the bad air and breathe out the precious oxygen that we need to survive. Trees are life. Those leaves were trodde...

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“Setting Fire to History” by Islewriter E

Submitted to Contest #63

“By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were already on fire. I ran as fast as I could from the flaming manor, pulling my shirt over my mouth and nose, in order to keep from inhaling the fumes. I ran deep into the tall, lush forest that surrounded the large mansion that was now burning to cinders.  I sat down, leaning against a tree to try and catch my breath. Thankfully, it was beginning to rain, and therefore, covering up my tracks. With the threat of being caught less urgent, I was able to get my mind all in one place. I, Erris...

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“Kerosene One” by Annika Dauer

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I step outside into the night, the leaves were on fire. The warm wind picks them up and swirled them in a hurricane of yellows, reds, and oranges of all shades. I smile softly and slide into the back of the waiting carriage My Lady kindly sent for me, turning my back to the scene, as beautiful as it was. I have work to do.Earlier... The ballroom rivaled a marketplace in noise and chaos. Women in fancy dresses twirled and waltzed with men in sharp frocks. Walking to the refreshments table was a nightmare, yet somehow I managed i...

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“The Element ” by Jennie Mead

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were already on fire. Since the turn of the season they had been a vibrant display of reds and yellows, but as soon as the flame settled down upon them they erupted into a breathtaking picture of amber and gold. Breathtaking, not because of the beauty of the colours, nor because of the awesome speed at which the small flame spread. But breathtaking fear.  It could have been me.  It should have been me.  If I’d been a good person, if I’d have told the truth, I’d have saved her. Bu...

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“FIRE DANCE” by Dolapo Omoleme

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. I’d gotten too close to her too soon, and I’d noticed the books before I could control it. Mrs. Simpson discarded the burning books as quickly as she could and jumped a few steps back to put as much distance as possible between her and the flames. She hissed, and then scoffed, and then contented herself with a scowl. That wasn’t the first run-in I’d had with Mrs. Simpson. We’d had many run-ins in the past, some as early as a few days before the encounter on the front porch that morning....

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“Scar Tissue” by Diona Reeves

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. Not actually on fire, of course. I hadn’t been close to a real fire since my early twenties, when the world last seemed exciting and not in the least bit scary. This kind of fire was the orange, red and gold of late fall, yet I had been too shut up in my own house to notice the colors creeping into the trees. Like the dying leaves, my own life was slipping away, and it had been for years. My dog finished her business, and I let her wander a bit as I picked up the leaves cascading ...

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