One moment your character is talking on the phone with a friend, and the next, the connection is lost. Write a story about what follows.

Posted in Thriller and Suspense on Oct 25, 2022

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✍️ 42 stories

“Broken” by Liam Murphy

Submitted to Contest #115

Broken At last, I had found it. My quest had been to find a working telephone, so I could call my best friend Tony and try to tell him about all of the strange shit that had been happening in the last few hours. My cell phone was fully charged, but I couldn't get a signal no matter what I tried. Now I had found a phone kiosk, and it was empty, so I dialed Tony's number and impatiently waited for him to pick it up. After what seemed like an age, he answered, and I heard his sweet tones over the whine of the long-distance call. We had been f...

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“The Connected Lost Connection ” by Laura Pitt

Submitted to Contest #115

*Ring Ring* went my phone as I walked around my studio apartment wrapped in a towel. “Who would be calling?” I asked myself as I went to answer it, my week away from work has barely begun, they better not be calling me. “0463 826 948, Hmm that’s weird, they normally call on a private number. Fuck it.” “Hello?” I spoke as I answered the unknown number. “Hey, your mum gave me your number and suggested this would be a good time to give you a ring” said the masculine voice on the other side of the phone. “Oh no, what did she say? I am not lookin...

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“Last Call” by Jim Painter

Submitted to Contest #115

Last Call JD Painter Civilization ended on a routine Tuesday evening. Around 9 o’clock, I was on the phone with my friends Bango and Zoey (they live in Oregon). After the COVID-19 pandemic started, we agreed to call every two weeks to assure each other we were still alive and healthy. While we talked, we used the internet to play racing video games against each other. We never started without a little pre-race trash talk. “Hey, you two Nimrods ready to have your butts kicked?” I challenged with counterfeit bravado. I’d lost 17 out of th...

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“Broken call” by Agris Engelis

Submitted to Contest #115

My name is Carol, and I’ve been friends with Britney ever since kindergarten. We didn’t really live too close to one another, but it never bothered us, since we just made our mothers take us to meet each other. We have been friends for almost 10 years today, she knew me better than anyone else, and I knew her. We spent every evening chatting either by messages or on a call. Because of the long hour talks we had, we’d always get in trouble with out parents, but since we both got internet, we started to chat or call online. Today was a day jus...

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“If you see Kiko” by David Carr

Submitted to Contest #115

“Si ti vu ma mere?”, she said in perfect French.“You know that one?”, I asked“Yes. I find on Youtube. I am playing so much. I love. It’s so beautiful”, she replied.“Do you know what it means? In English”, I asked.“Uhhh,,,” she pondered, “something about a mother?”“If you see my mother”, I translated for her.“Oh, that is nice. A song about mother”.“It’s one of my absolute favourites. Sidney Bechet”, I said.“I will learn to play it”.“When you learn it, will you play it for me?”, I asked her.“Yes. I play it for you”, she promised, with a beamin...

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“The Call” by J.C. Martin

Submitted to Contest #115

Sylvia starts talking immediately. “Hey Nathan, I’m just calling to say ‘hey’, I guess.” Nathan clears his throat, it feels unnaturally tight. He tries to dig a finger between his neck and the starched collar. “Hi, Sylvia.” She sighs on the other end, collecting her thoughts. It almost undoes him. The tinny tone of her voice is faint and he knows she is in the car, using Bluetooth. He can tell her windows are open, the wind competing with her words. She’s driving back to her campus after the fall break, after the mini-reunion with all of the...

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“Coffee Connections” by LinAris Aris

Submitted to Contest #115

"No, mum, there is one with a bird and one in a blue package, I don't see one with a cup on it," I say. I have been walking the aisle of the local supermarket for ten minutes now, trying and failing to find what my mother called 'the only decent espresso here'. I hear her sigh on the other side of the line. "No, no, it has to be there," she says in a dramatic voice, "show me the shelf." It's my turn to sigh. I switch to video call and my mother's impatient face pops up on the screen. She has the habit of holding her phone too close, ...

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“The Whispered Disconnection ” by Buckshot Mercury

Submitted to Contest #115

Before the panic attacks and the diagnosis of agoraphobia, Thursday’s always have been a special day for me because that was the day I usually spent with friends, but now as a shut-in, I don’t do that anymore. I did keep up with the tradition though, my fears didn’t stop me from using the phone or video chat programs, like Discord, so I spent time with my friends, just not like I used to. My friends have been very understanding of the side effects of the issues that I suffer from, one more than the others, Ryan, such a lovely girl named afte...

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“A Call Interrupted” by John Steckley

Submitted to Contest #115

Two people are talking to each other on their cell phones. They have been doing this for a while now, perhaps half an hour, which is unusually long for them on the phone. They are boyfriend and girlfriend, Jimmy and Sue. Jimmy has been telling Sue how depressed he has been since he went to his high school graduation reunion, the fifteenth such of his class. It was for some of the classic reasons that many people don’t go to such events that his depression had struck him as hard as it did. He had listened to classmate...

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“A Hero for the Night” by Audrey Mallin

Submitted to Contest #115

My heartbeat rang loud in my ears as silence filled the other end of the line. I pulled my phone back from my ear and saw that the connection had been lost due to a lack of service. Tears welled in my eyes as I started to panic. What was I going to do? I held my phone up to the sky in a desperate attempt to pick up a signal. I scoffed at myself. This is what all of the desolate characters abandoned in the middle of nowhere would do in the movies. I was better than this. I knew waving my phone in the air would only be in vain. Yet, I still fo...

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“Connection Lost” by Rob Ryter

Submitted to Contest #115

Connection LostFrances doesn’t answer her phone any more. It’ll just ring out. So I don’t call. Connection lost. She’s still in my contacts. I can’t bring myself to delete her. She’ll always be there in my memory. So she stays in my phone’s memory.Cancer took her. Aggressive, metastasised, spread everywhere. She was thirty-two. We used to talk while she was on chemo, then she graduated to radiotherapy and we there weren’t many of those precious calls left. They cut bits off her, trying to help. Her breasts, then her internal baby-making...

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“Rumbling of the Ruins” by Luke Schumacher

Submitted to Contest #115

CW: Bruises, dead bodies, blood “C’mon, man,” Jenna mocks, laughing over the phone. “It can’t go that bad.” “It will definitely be ‘that bad,’” I mumble, looking at the vivacious classroom ahead of me. You may be wondering why I’m using a phone in a classroom, let alone calling my girlfriend. To most people, that’s unheard of. That’s not like my school, though. In short, it’s more like a university. I thought getting sent to a private school would be a bad idea. At first, it definitely was. Leaving all my friends to go to some ra...

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One moment your character is talking on the phone with a friend, and the next, the connection is lost. Write a story about what follows.

Submissions are closed

✍️ 42 stories

“Broken” by Liam Murphy

“The Connected Lost Connection ” by Laura Pitt

“Last Call” by Jim Painter

“Broken call” by Agris Engelis

“If you see Kiko” by David Carr

“The Call” by J.C. Martin

“Coffee Connections” by LinAris Aris

“The Whispered Disconnection ” by Buckshot Mercury

“A Call Interrupted” by John Steckley

“A Hero for the Night” by Audrey Mallin

“Connection Lost” by Rob Ryter

“Rumbling of the Ruins” by Luke Schumacher

🌟 Similar prompts

Set your story in a town disconnected from the rest of the world.

Write about a character who feels like they're cut off from something.

Start or end your story with a character scrolling (or doomscrolling) through social media.

Write a story where a device goes haywire.

Contest #115

Enter our weekly contest!

$250

Prize money

175

Contest entries

118

Stories

Win $250 in our short story competition 🏆

Explore more writing prompt ideas: