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Set your story during a drought.

Posted in Thriller and Suspense on Aug 19, 2022

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✍️ 72 stories

Calling the Rain

Submitted to Contest #160

The lack of rain this season has hit us all hard but the land most of all. Without any moisture the ground has began to crack open and pull away like fighting friends.I found a crevice yesterday morning large enough to fit three fingers within the crack sideways. Papa told me to keep my hands out of places they don’t belong. Mama says if rain does not grace us before long, I will be able to place my whole fist within the cracks of the earth. Worst case scenario, it goes on long enough for my entire feet to fall in. Calvin says I will never g...

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The Witch with the Water

Submitted to Contest #160

Extracts from the personal records of Roland de Claire, senior advisor to Lord Montgomery of Oxfordshire. 14th August 1198. Today was a most interesting day. This morning, His Lordship summoned me to attend him in his solar, so naturally, I hurried there with all due haste. However, upon arrival, I had a rather nasty surprise. Instead of His Lordship, I came face to face with Sir Brutus of Grimsby, a most unpleasant man. He greeted me with a nod. ‘De Claire.’ ‘Sir Brutus,’ I replied with the same. With the pleasantries out of the...

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Tahua

Submitted to Contest #160

Tahua brings rain.That's what my grandmother told me years ago, and it was always true. For as long as I could remember, every year Ajika and I used to go see the intricate lianas that grew around the demolished walls of the old temple, to see if there were tiny pink flower buds hiding among their hard, waxy leaves. We watched as the tiny balls swelled and grew thick, and when the flowers finally opened and the sweet scent of tahua saturated the air, then...Then came the rain.And so it was year after year, as far as my memory went. Grandma h...

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The Consequences of Being Endangered

Submitted to Contest #160

Not a whisper of a cloud could be seen in the big beautiful unforgiving blue of the towering and relentless clear open sky. The ground was so hard and dry, it felt like concrete underneath my feet. My attempts at scraping up some dust with the toe of my boot were unsuccessful and only managed to produce a few crumbs of dirt. My skin felt just as dry and taut under the heat of the sun as I stood in the once lush pasture of my land. My long sleeve shirt, jeans, and hat protected me from the intense burning of the sun while simultaneously remin...

16 likes 19 comments 19
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Death of a Planet

Submitted to Contest #160

(Sequel to Aftermath of the Water Wars) Waiting for water rations was always the start of my day. The machine dinged and filled the jug with noticeably less liquid than yesterday. I knew it wasn’t an oversight. The rations were slowly decreasing. Still, we were privileged to get what we did. We moved to the inner ring of the city when my mate was chosen as captain of the cross-galaxy ship, The Aquanox, to retrieve water from the distant water-rich planet called Salvation. It was the largest vessel ever constructed in the fleet. I was als...

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Benny Bitter and the Cree Three

Submitted to Contest #160

It had been four years since the last rains. A normally verdant and temperate valley had become yellowed with drought and death, everything from grass to bushes to trees withering to a pale and lifeless straw. The hills of dead grass and huddled bunches of bare trees looked down upon the dried-out river, now a rocky and carcass-filled road, an underworldly shadow of the existing road that had previously followed the river.  A heavily armored truck rumbled down the road, its cargo a huge water tank, led and followed by police cars. Two ...

15 likes 2 comments 2
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Drowning

Submitted to Contest #160

It wasn't really a pool. It was more of a huge wet sheet level with the matted grass, but it was so dark that you couldn't really tell the ground from the water. Then, I heard a scream in the distance, so I rushed to see who it was, and that's when I fell in. It felt like I had made a few steps on the glossy surface before I was noiselessly swallowed.I woke up drenched in sweat. My flimsy nightie was soaked, and the bedsheets were darkened with moisture. I struggled to find my arms and sat up, chest heaving and eyes bulging.The next morning,...

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The Rules

Submitted to Contest #160

THE RULES NOTE: This story contains content regarding violence, mental health, self-harm, and coarse language that some may find disturbing Imagine this. You’re trapped. It’s a room (not a prison, but it may as well be): hardwood floor, plastered ceiling, equally beige walls; you have a door and windows but you’re not allowed to use them. Well you can use them, it’s just against the rules. The rules. They’re the only reason you’re alive. That’s what you’ve convinced yourself of anyway. At the start, when you were still sane, you wr...

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Dust-An Audio Transcript

Submitted to Contest #160

This recording is a testament to what I saw here, the terrible deeds this town committed. So lost in despair, they turned their backs on everything- their religion, their way of life, even their humanity. They lost it all by waiting, waiting for the rain, for a savior, and for a miracle most of all. Driving into town, Greensville looked like a typical Midwestern suburb. Dead trees, rabid animals, houses buried under mounds of dust… Well, that’s at least what passes for typical these days. Somehow the town looked even worse than in the p...

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DUST

Submitted to Contest #160

It came up from the west—an angry, roiling black wall a thousand feet high and moving at sixty miles an hour. Clayton saw it coming and threw a tarp over the chicken coop. He put the mule and cow into the cowshed and tied grain sacks loosely over their heads. Olive stuffed damp tea cloths and sheets into the cracks around the doors and windows, though she knew nothing she did would be enough to stop the dust. As suffocating darkness swept over their little farmhouse, the husband and wife huddled together under blankets. Grit peppered the win...

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The Cost of Survival

Submitted to Contest #160

In the far south, water is considered to be a scarce and holy thing. With it, everything lives and grows to change. So when, in the town of Backwaters, wells run dry and a drought preoccupies its lands, water became a mere means of survival. Anyone with it controls the outcome of everyone else's existence. People are creatures of survival and will do whatever it takes to ensure they survive, whether that's done by underhanded tricks, or by them just simply looking out for themselves. A couple moving into a new town passed through Backwa...

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BeeBee's Secrets

Submitted to Contest #160

When I could put it off no more, I tiptoed into Great Aunt BeeBee’s room. The floor was cold and gritty, dust and crumbs and who knows what else stuck to my bare feet. I slowly twisted the freezing cold door knob and pushed the door open with a loud squeak. My only source of light came from a teeny tiny slit between the ugly and old saggy curtains at the window, the feeble brightness barely enough for me to make out anything. I crept closer, trying to not throw up on the spot as the strong smell of sweat and sickness flooded my nostrils. On ...

10 likes 1 comment 1
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Scatological Musings

Submitted to Contest #160

CW: Faeces I don’t want to come out. It’s warm and cosy in here. Being rudely ejected into a cold pool of water sounds horrific. Then to slide through the pipes to a facility where they repurpose you for drinking water? Thanks, but no thanks. The more open-minded stools among us say it’s a big adventure. They say it’s a kind of reincarnation—an alchemy of sorts. Yet, as a proud member of the Brown family, I would rather remain solid, with my dignity intact. Those open-minded stools are a bit on the runny side, full of contemptuous liquid...

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The Raven and The Girl

Submitted to Contest #160

(Story contains brief mentions of death and animal sacrifice) Amara grew up in the farming village of East Valley. The people of East Valley prided themselves on their ability to grow crops of all sorts, and through all seasons. No other place was so green, so luscious, so fertile as the region of the Twin Valleys.  East Valley had been in existence for hundreds of years since the first men had set foot on the continent. Amara’s family had been tied to the land for their entire cumulative history. She was as much a part of East Vall...

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Somewhere

Submitted to Contest #160

Campua watched the city of mud shacks before him then turned around, greeted by the beaming shimmer of the sea. Many, many kilometres away it merged into the horizon. He watched till the glimmer hurt his eyes. At least their was freedom in turning his gaze away, but the feeling of sea sickness was still there. And thirst. Despite his city existing on the sea, drinking water was rationed. Behind him towered the huge factory that filtered and distilled the sea water, but it was a lengthy process. He w...

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