Menu
Prompts
Contests
Stories
Blog

Menu

✕
CONNECT
Editing Design Marketing Publicity Ghostwriting Websites
BLOG
Success Stories
APPS
TOOLS
Book Promotion Sites Book Review Blogs Booktube Channel Guide Book Title Generator Character Name Generator Independent Publishers Literary Agents Literary Magazines Pen Name Generator Plot Generator Publishers Directory Short Story Ideas Writing Contests Writing Exercises Writing Scholarships
ABOUT
About Reedsy Terms Privacy

CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

You’re walking down the street, when you spot a familiar figure. It’s another you. And they’ve come from an alternate reality to warn you about something.

Posted in Thriller and Suspense on Apr 28, 2023

Submissions are closed

Sorry, we are not accepting submissions for this prompt as it is not part of an active contest. Make sure you don't miss our next contest by creating your free Reedsy Prompts account.

Sign in with Google
Sign in with Facebook

Or create a new Reedsy account:

Why not check out our active contest?

✍️ 32 stories

“Please, Little Girl, Don't!” by Shana Fox

Submitted to Contest #196

“Please, little girl, don’t!” rose a low gravelly voice from behind a woman who was restlessly digging through children’s dresses.The mother’s long slender fingers wrapped around Harper’s arm. Fierce disapproval washed over her face and her teeth were gritted together having heard the fellow shopper warning them about her naughty behavior. With a cautious but firm grip, she tore her daughter free of the circular clothing rack and began her lecture.“Harper, you’re almost ten. Your birthday is in two days. Act like it, please. You know better ...

16 comments 16
Read story

“Touched by Majesty” by Rebecca Miles

Submitted to Contest #196

Earth has not anything to show more fair:Dull would he be of soul who could pass byA sight so touching in its majesty(Composed upon Westminster Bridge by William Wordsworth)Outside the carriage window, crowds as deep as seas wave flags. Children are hoisted onto shoulders to catch a glimpse of the historic moment; countless phones like periscopes, angled in the hope of capturing the newly crowned monarch. He has waited so very long for this moment; now it has come to pass, the noise of his subjects crashes on his ears like surf pounds the sh...

37 comments 37
Read story

“Speaking of Me” by David B Fraser

Submitted to Contest #196

  I awoke another day in the Mens’ Shelter. They had moved all the lockers to the middle of the room and I hated that. It was so much easier to steal when they had had them against the walls between the beds.   I forced my self to the communal toilets. I showered and found some fresh donated clothing to change into on the shelves. I discarded my old clothing into a donation box where they would get washed and to start a new life on someone else’s sorry arse. I forwent shaving as the long haired, long bearded, scruffy...

2 comments 2
Read story

“Tap Tap Tap” by Douglas W. Carr

Submitted to Contest #196

My brother and I were hanging out at our favorite bar on Wednesday like we’d done for years. We loved sports and Wednesdays were our days to watch all sports being broadcast. My days of betting were long behind me, but I enjoyed following my brother’s bets and sharing in his success. We always sat at the bar so we could view the four screens behind and above the bar. I was drinking a top shelf bourbon with a beer and my brother was drinking a tequila like we always did, when he stood and shouted, “I won! Holy shit, I won!” “What? What did ...

4 comments 4
Read story

“Listen to Me” by Myranda Marie

Submitted to Contest #196

“Damn it! “Myranda felt the all too familiar rocking and thumping from the front passenger's side of her twenty-year-old mucus green Ford Maverick. This was the third time she had blown a tire in the past six months. “What the hell was with this car?” she thought as she grabbed her keys and handbag, secured the car and began to walk across the bank parking lot in search of a phone. She was glad to have been able to maneuver the car from the highway off ramp into the lot safely but regretted wearing heels to work as she made her way from the ...

0 comments 0
Read story

“An Unknown Barricade” by Ernie-Rose Wayer

Submitted to Contest #196

My alleyway is empty tonight.Yes, I know. Mom practically pulled my ears out my head last night, warning me not to take this path back home, but Huntley and I both know she couldn't care less.Right. Huntley.She hasn't been home for a week now, and Mom has started to visibly quake with worry. I called her a couple times, and was utterly unsurprised she didn't pick. I always wonder why she has a phone if she's never going to ever answer it.My feet crunch as I step gingerly onto overflowing trash from abandoned bins. A half eaten sandwich in a ...

5 comments 5
Read story

“Walk on by” by David Drake

Submitted to Contest #196

“Hey ace. We need to talk. Now.” Walking toward me at a brisk pace, I grabbed my arm and pulled me along into the sidewalk crowd that cared nothing that I was literally talking to myself. “Do you still have those….coffee shops? The ones that sell an easy drink to make at a ridiculous price and pretend it’s something that matters to everyone else?” I grunted, surprised at the force that I had at this old age. “Uh, yeah. Who are you?! What are you doing?!” I said to myself, staggering at being pulled by my own hand, even decades older. “Wher...

3 comments 3
Read story

“My Alternate Self and His Advice” by John Steckley

Submitted to Contest #196

My Alternate Self and His Advice            This is the third time now that I have seen this fellow. He looks a lot like me, and he smiles at me when I look at him. I didn’t have the nerve to go up to talk to him before, but this time I feel that I must. I simply have to do it.            When I walk up to him, he says to me, “Say, you are certainly a handsome fellow.” My obvious reply is: “yourself as well.”  &...

2 comments 2
Read story

“Schrödinger's Man In the Box.” by Emanuel Diaz

Submitted to Contest #196

Layne Starr was a brilliant scientist who had always been fascinated with the mysteries of the universe. He had dedicated his entire life to understanding the fundamental nature of matter and energy, and he had made many breakthroughs in his field. Currently, he was working on a groundbreaking experiment involving Schrodinger's cat, which would test the limits of superposition in physics. One day, as he was walking down the street lost in thought, he suddenly saw a familiar figure standing a few meters away from him. It was another version...

6 comments 6
Read story

“The Four Noble Truths” by Eilon Solan

Submitted to Contest #196

“Today we discussed this painting by Toulouse-Lautrec, called Two Women Waltzing,” Janet said and showed me the painting on her cellular. The cold sun of March was shining over the balcony of the restaurant on the 49th floor of the Stick, and it was difficult to make up the details of the painting. “These people are his acquaintances,” she continued. “This dancer in the front, her name is Cha-U-Kao. She openly declared being a lesbian, and she has a male occupation – a clown. Think of it, that was 130 years ago, and today …” One of the thi...

1 comment 1
Read story

“Deja Vu Decision Time” by Derek Hastings

Submitted to Contest #196

Deja-Vu Decision Time By Derek Hastings The first time I experienced the Deja Vu interruption I spent much of my day feeling a particularly persistent restlessness. The kind of restlessness that comes with a profound invasive sense of boredom. Something I have begun to call; the Same-Old, Same-Old disease. I had spent my day like every day before it over the previous same-old, same-old year; wake up, eat, work, eat, sleep, repeat… That day — it was a late summer evening — taking the garbage cans to the street, I saw myself trundling the ...

1 comment 1
Read story

“Seeing You” by Shana Bazi

Submitted to Contest #196

You can feel it in yourself when something begins to change. Whether it’s growth, or change, or new emotions. Often the cause is love. The desire to understand someone else and be understood by someone else. The desire to be seen and accepted wholly. Love, desire, awakens something in us that we often are unaware even exists. Unaware it exists, and unaware that it changes us. Slowly and unconsciously affecting our behaviors. Making us conscious of small little details otherwise insignificant. Making us conscious of our loneliness and desire ...

0 comments 0
Read story

“I Reckon a Circus Caught Fire” by Kira Carver

Submitted to Contest #196

Some people are lucky or willful enough to love where they live. They're either blind to flaws or there are none to find.How do you fit into that?Garbage, as far as the eye can see. As far as you're concerned. Muck and mire.But you pass by people, as well, and they go with clear eyes. They hold tiny hands and answer inane questions with a grin. They march with purpose, bags clutched to chests, briefcases fixed in white-knuckled grips. It seems like they all have DESTINATION printed on their foreheads.Your hands are small. You have a bag, tho...

5 comments 5
Read story

“You but from an Alternate Reality” by Elizabeth Clark

Submitted to Contest #196

Autumn sings along in her head to the music playing in her earphones. Her feet are moving automatically to the pizza shop down the street. She keeps her steps slow, drawing out her brief break for lunch. She stops at a crosswalk, massaging her neck, twisting it from side to side, sore from bending over her textbooks for hours. Just one last test, Autumn reminds herself.  The walk sign lights up, along with a beeping sound. Autumn strolls behind a group of women her age, talking and laughing loudly. They turn right; the noise disappear...

2 comments 2
Read story

“His need for discovery” by Arter Grim

Submitted to Contest #196

For as long as I have known myself, I have always tried to be a man of reason. It is as such that I have grown to scoff at any superstitious notion placed in front of me. I always found it laughable how it was necessary for one to depend on an all-powerful figure just so they could flourish and remain a good person. The thing I found to be even more ludicrous was the idea of a grand plan. It was simply preposterous to consider it. Especially when one of the main principles God preached was that of free will. The existence of a predestined l...

2 comments 2
Read story

🌟 Similar prompts

Write about a character unknowingly experiencing a “sliding doors” moment. Write your story in two halves; what could have been, and what actually happened.

Dramatic – 62 stories

Write a story that includes the phrase “Maybe in another life.”

Dialogue – 74 stories

Write a story involving a portal into a parallel universe.

Science Fiction – 61 stories

Set your story in a world where time travel has been perfected, and people can use it to hop between alternate timelines — but at a cost.

Dystopian – 50 stories

Contest #196

Enter our weekly contest!

This week's theme: In Another Life

$250

Prize money

279

Contest entries

149

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - May 05, 2023 EST

Won by Delbert Griffith 🏆

Title: The Bullet that Esther Stopped

View details

Win $250 in our short story competition 🏆

We'll send you 5 prompts each week. Respond with your short story and you could win $250!

NEW VIDEO COURSE 🎉

How to Write a Novel

Join Tom Bromley for a writing master class and finish your first draft in 3 months. Learn more →

Explore more writing prompt ideas:

Adults Writing Prompts ⭢

Adventure Writing Prompts ⭢

Angst Writing Prompts ⭢

Character Writing Prompts ⭢

Christmas Writing Prompts ⭢

Dark Writing Prompts ⭢

Dialogue Writing Prompts ⭢

Dramatic Writing Prompts ⭢

Dystopian Writing Prompts ⭢

Fall Writing Prompts ⭢

Fantasy Writing Prompts ⭢

Fiction Writing Prompts ⭢

Fluff Writing Prompts ⭢

Funny Writing Prompts ⭢

Halloween Writing Prompts ⭢

High School Writing Prompts ⭢

Historical Fiction Writing Prompts ⭢

Holiday Writing Prompts ⭢

Horror Writing Prompts ⭢

Kids Writing Prompts ⭢

Middle School Writing Prompts ⭢

Mystery Writing Prompts ⭢

Narrative Writing Prompts ⭢

Nonfiction Writing Prompts ⭢

Novel Writing Prompts ⭢

Poetry Writing Prompts ⭢

Romance Writing Prompts ⭢

Sad Writing Prompts ⭢

Science Fiction Writing Prompts ⭢

Short Story Writing Prompts ⭢

Spring Writing Prompts ⭢

Summer Writing Prompts ⭢

Teens Writing Prompts ⭢

Thanksgiving Writing Prompts ⭢

Thriller and Suspense Writing Prompts ⭢

Valentine's Day Writing Prompts ⭢

Vampire Writing Prompts ⭢

Winter Writing Prompts ⭢