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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Write about someone welcoming a stranger into their home.

Posted in Thriller and Suspense on Oct 26, 2022

Submissions are closed

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✍️ 161 stories

“Midnight Occurrences” by Valkyrie Bradford

Submitted to Contest #96

Left, right, tug from below. Right, left, tug from above. Left, right, knot-- Halcyon huffed out a breath as she yanked the pale thread back through the hole she’d been attempting to patch, muttering a string of harsh cuss words longer than any stretch of time she’d managed to work on this damned chiton. She wasn’t unpracticed—not in the slightest. She’d stitched and made such a number of clothes for her family, and this plain, annoying piece her darling fool of a brother Hesperos had torn running about with his friends. It was just diffic...

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“Strange Indeed!” by K .

Submitted to Contest #96

Mails from home, deep inside my heart, where only strangers ever came; Montessori, 2005.      (The one where it began.)There were major earthquakes from time to time in your heart this week. Most of them in the noon and some in the mornings. Since the first earthquake, a strange town came into being. Vaguely enough, the cranky, rosy-cheeked guy seems to be the reason every single time. There were earthquakes when he snatched the plow from your hand while playing in the garden, when he laughed his heart out on the swi...

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“Stranger with a Familiar Face” by Dean Atlas

Submitted to Contest #96

We cannot let our pasts define who we are. I know that you, as you are reading this are thinking of at least one mistake that you wish you could go back and change. The truth is you cannot. You cannot make up for it, you cannot make amends. All you can do is look to the future and be the person today that you want to be then. If we let the past haunt us, it will live with us and suffocate any possible future. Preston was guilty of this. If he would have let his demons lie in the past his future would have been promising. For him, it all bega...

8 comments 8
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“Inside” by Ari Masters

Submitted to Contest #96

I wouldn’t have done it if it weren’t for the kid.           “That thing’s gonna be totalled,” I said to Sharona. “Water’s already almost up past the tires.”           “Why don’t you invite them in, then?” she said, not looking up from her cookbook. Whatever she was making, it smelled bad.           I laughed. Wrong move. She wasn’t joking.“Invite them in our house?”“Our driveway...

1 comment 1
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“Bitter Dregs...” by Lisa Wentworth

Submitted to Contest #96

Write about someone welcoming a stranger into their home.  The hearth was polished and a warm, friendly glow came from the ambers below. The guest house, joined with the family dwellings at the farm, had been aired and scrubbed in anticipation of the new family moving in to help around the farm. The experienced farm hand was in his 50’s, and always wore a flat cap and characteristic tweeds, as were popular in the rural Yorkshire area, like right out of a movie.He was a stranger and only known by the CV he sent, so they knew nothing ...

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“The Manson Mansion” by Nella Walas

Submitted to Contest #96

Kenophobia. The irrational fear of large spaces. A classic fear my mother hollered before her psychotic breakdown which resulted in a heavy and desolating funeral. I never knew the fear would linger. Until I let her in. After my mother’s passing my dad took “took me for his own” to a whole new level and un enrolled me out of middle school. He sold our small city home and moved into an ancient looking mansion, built in the 1800s by some weird guy called Urleck Manson.Safe to say I never really saw anyone after we moved except my tutor and nan...

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“ A stranger becoming an angel” by Sam Okethwengu

Submitted to Contest #96

Women emancipation and girl-child education is one of the most ridiculous thing that people in the past regarded as "an abomination". This was because they termed women to be helper of men and so need not to acquire skills and knowledge. But in the society or community of Paroketo clan,one man rejected the perception that girls should not go to school. Mr. Vincent never had many children but had ony one daugther called Amony. This name is in alur language one of the tribes in my country Uganda. Majority of the elders did not educate their da...

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“Desperate ” by J Brown

Submitted to Contest #96

The door was yanked open, and a wealthy man stood in the doorway, anger in every line of his face and body.     “What is it?” He demanded.     “Please, sir. I need work. I’m willing to do anything. I could work in your stables or in your kitchen.”     “You’re a stranger. Why would I let you in my house?” He looked me over, frowning. “You look like a thief.”     “I promise I won’t take anything from you except what I’m owed.”     “What you're ...

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“How To Be Turned Into A Bowl Of Stew Or A Pepper” by Sophia Borer

Submitted to Contest #96

A long time ago, the stories of gods disguising as peasants asking for hospitality from a stranger was common. If they were rejected, the person rejecting the god would be punished. If they let the god in, they would be rewarded. This kept the greeks on their toes and always accepted a stranger in fear it was a god in disguise. After all, nobody wanted to be turned into an apricot for rejecting one. As time went on, though, some people forgot about those stories and firmly rejected strangers without a second thought. One of those people who ...

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“He showed up at the door on a rainy Saturday” by Navneeth N

Submitted to Contest #96

It’s a rainy Saturday: dark, gloomy, and miserable. The TV is on, and I’m watching a Charlie Chaplin episode. Its warm glow basks me in blue light, making me feel a bit less alone. The blanket snuggles me, and a bowl of chips compensates my stomach.  A knock at the door startles me. It echoes throughout the house, spreading its message. It’s rough-three hard knocks. I turn the TV off, and make my way to the front door. Who would be at the door in the wee hours of the night?  I creep to the door, my blanket clutched around my chest....

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“Covid 43” by KEMP CHASEY

Submitted to Contest #96

Jim opened the door and saw it was a stranger, the third one this week. He stood aside for the man to walk through the door into his cottage.The visitor had a permanent expression of surprise on his face and a knife sticking out of his side. He walked into the small wooden room and took the stool across from the dining table. The table had a candle set in the middle atop a brass candlestick, the light flickering off the wooden surface and walls."I am the groundskeeper here", Jim said, "welcome to my cottage. Coffee?"The visitor nodded m...

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“The Goat Thief” by Prince Akatika

Submitted to Contest #96

The sight of the old woman’s hanging breasts irritated Chijoke. Still, he continued to aim his bow at her, taunting her to move. She pointed at the black goat in front of the hut, which was attached by a rope to a short wooden post. There was a charm necklace around the animal’s neck.  “That is mine,” he said to the woman, averting his eyes from her chest. “Return it now!” A sharp wailing sound assaulted Chijoke’s ears once he said those words, and he sank to the floor, letting go of his weapon. The ancient one grinned at him. Chijoke o...

1 comment 1
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“Faceless” by Leah Li

Submitted to Contest #96

The visitors came in heats. In swarms of nameless faces. The herds blundered after one another, each seemingly more prolific than the last. They pressed into the room in shadowy thickets, compressing the place like a hot air balloon, the endless train of smiles and sympathies trundled on until, finally, under the night’s safe haven, it stopped. The visiting room gave a sigh of relief as the house settled into a deep, exhausted sleep. It was these long periods of silence that I enjoyed most, although by enjoy I mean… well… As much as i could ...

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“Fortune or Misfortune” by Theresa Bhowan

Submitted to Contest #96

The doorbell rings.Jane closes her eyes and takes in a deep breath.Now? Really? Who could it possibly be?Working as a journalist at the town’s weekly paper, Jane’s hardest day is a Friday. It is the day after the paper has been printed and distributed, and it is a day of endless complaints from mid-forty-year-old women who have nothing better to do than scour the paper and find some sort of error in the 50-page newspaper. It is also a day of endless meetings and insincere apologies, filled with empty promises on how the paper intends to be b...

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“Ogodazi's Head Will Touch The Earth” by Olisa Okoye

Submitted to Contest #96

Whenever it came time for war, Ogodazi’s heart knew no fear. Stories of his unmatched skill and brute force on the battlefield caused his name to resound throughout the village of Ndi Nri and beyond. One could feel the bristling of the hairs on their skin whenever his name was called. Even the little children were in awe of his great exploits. And quite soon, like his forefathers from long ages past, he became a living legend amongst men. Ogodazi The Great, they called him. He was a giant of a man- broad and sturdily built. In his youth...

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🌟 Similar prompts

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