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Write a story that spans exactly a year and takes place in a single room.

Posted in Winter on Oct 26, 2022

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✍️ 210 stories

My Father

Submitted to Contest #84

TW: parental abuse, self harm, suicidal ideation, murder   March 6, 2020   Today will be my first diary entry. But it certainly won’t be my last.   I hope that when I die, when all that’s left of me is a cold body, that you will find this book, and you won’t let the memory of me die.   If you decide to do that, rest assured that I will haunt your memory forever.   Yes, Father, I am talking to you. I am sure that a play of fates will ensure that you will be the one to find my body in the end. That is what you deserve,...

106 likes 125 comments 125
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The Executioner

. .

Submitted to Contest #84

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YP2AP0WvHkcJudas felt he knew everyone that came into the Mauve Room. He knew their sunken eyes, the desperate gazes as they searched in vain for a person to help them. He always found it ridiculous that they would look to an Executive for help, but they would still look at him, every time without fail. A deep red glowing band circled their necks, and he knew they had committed heinous crimes, but he couldn’t help feeling amused. They were like beggars, with all their money squandered, and he a nobleman. Even ...

75 likes 241 comments 241
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The Copper Rose

Submitted to Contest #84

*Nainika’s Note* An ode to the seasons, this one is. And in Yoda speak I will, until out of my brain, thoughts of the Mandalorian make their way. An autumn baby I am and exists, favoritism does. Jumbled, this story is, strange it is indeed, but enjoy, this story, enjoy. :) In the spring, the flowers push their way through the thawing soil, greeting the sun for the first time all winter. Springtime never waits for the perfect ice-free day yet pushes forth at the first chance for the warming light of day.  Here we are with the wildflowe...

71 likes 100 comments 100
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The Champions: backstories. (SIA)

Submitted to Contest #84

Day 1“Hi.”Sia’s eyes snapped open.She was sitting on the stone ground, legs akimbo. Her wrists stung painfully, like they’d been touched to embers. Her arms were tired, sore, and her body was covered in little pains. Sia tried to move her arms, but couldn’t. Some kind of hot shackles were clamped around her wrists, raising her arms above her(aching)head.“Who...are you?” she asked the blurry figure in front of her.“Oh, yeah. Me. Consider me the only one who cares.”The blurry figure became a short, skinny blond girl with hair in a ponytail. Sh...

63 likes 171 comments 171
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our house

Submitted to Contest #84

Most stories are about people. They’re by people, for people, from the perspective of people.This story is different.This is a story about a place.A place whose walls have heard secrets that still go untold. Whose floors have creaked time after time, whose ceilings have blocked out rain and snow and sleet, whose doors have been closed and slammed and left open at times, a place that’s housed family after family after family. It’s watched people fall in love, young people. The same people cry and fight and leave. And all to have ano...

51 likes 36 comments 36
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Butterflies

Submitted to Contest #84

My dining room table bears the scars of our pandemic year. There are the blond chips in its espresso finish, piebald streaks in the grain like gray hairs creeping into a middle-aged head. The surface is mottled with sparkly violet nail polish, flecks of green tempera paint that would probably wash off with that good scrubbing I never find time to give it, an ever-present smattering of glitter, and cloudy cataracts of heat stains from coffee cups that betrayed me. My dining room table has experienced more love this year, and more abuse—s...

46 likes 31 comments 31
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Hero

Submitted to Contest #84

Click goes the door and I immediately clench my shaky fists. I hold my breath as the door opens and I see her face. My caretaker, I guess, she brings me groceries and anything else I might need. “Morning Mr. P! Happy New year! 2021 is gonna be great I just know it!” she says as she drops my groceries on the table. “Ah…Happy New year.” its a new year already? “I got what you asked for! This should last the whole month. AND, I got you ya favorite ice cream since it is a new year.” “Thanks Lil, you really didn’t have too” “No problemmm, I wante...

44 likes 63 comments 63
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Betty's Window

Submitted to Contest #84

Betty turned 95 yesterday.She gazes out at the grey March morning and tries not to think about how old that sounds.She tries not to hope for 96.Her window on the third floor of the Glenview Manor overlooks a barren snow-strewn field, lined by tired fence posts and spotted with scrubby shrubs.It’s not an exciting view, but it’s a view, and she’s grateful for it—there are many residents across the country that aren’t as fortunate.A few weeks after moving in, she asked Ameena, one of her favorite nurses, to move her chair to the window. She sit...

43 likes 14 comments 14
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Gallery 117

Submitted to Contest #84

I don't remember being created, but I know who created me. I don't know how long I've been aware, but I know when I started. I have no finite sense of myself, but I know what I'm made of.This knowledge comes from a small card that hangs somewhere below me. I have heard the card read aloud enough times that I have memorized its inscription.Johnathan Durhem, American, born 1838; The Fountain, 1860; oil on canvas; 35 x 48 inches; Bequest of William M. Durhem.I have never seen myself, but I know what I look like. Docents, guides, and v...

43 likes 29 comments 29
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A Motherly Cure

Submitted to Contest #84

It’s always dark and quiet where I live. I get plenty of food, but sometimes not enough sleep. At night, I can hear them trying to break down the door. My mom does her best to fight them off. It’s dark and we can’t see each other, but I can hear her soothing voice. Her voice is like a waterfall. She’s always comforting me.She tells me stories about how the pandemic began. A virus escaped from a top-secret military laboratory in Russia, but my mom told me it wasn’t the virus that affected half of the population, turning them into monsters. It...

40 likes 19 comments 19
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Written in Stardust

Submitted to Contest #84

I am supposed to write about this year. Supposedly, putting things into words will help my mind wrap around them better. I cannot bring myself to do it, not yet. The words will not come.Right now, the room is dark and demands a reckoning of all it has seen. Weeks of productivity, months of creative distractions, a year of trying to reconcile what I knew with what I have learned.I know I should write about the year. Put it into words—blood and ink and truth on the page—and hope the process heals me.Instead, I’ll write a story.🌙There once was ...

38 likes 33 comments 33
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Bracelets

Submitted to Contest #84

September 28th, 2015 I slumped against my chair, wearily rubbing my fingers. My desk was covered in bracelets, grouped together or strewn randomly across the light brown exterior. Not that you could see much of the surface since I had been up all night, stringing strands together, twisting the strings until I thought my fingers would bleed. As the night had progressed, it was less about making the colors look good together and more about having something to do with my hands, with my mind. A ring sat buried under a large pile of cut string...

35 likes 27 comments 27
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Not-So-Silent

Submitted to Contest #84

Becka did not want Hayden to hear her.She balanced on her tiptoes atop a wobbly old stool, stretching as high as her arms would reach. Her slender frame had a height to match, but she tried desperately to use every inch in an attempt to mark the wall in front of her. The fireplace was 58 inches wide, so she measured 29 inches from the left side over. She closed one eye, unconsciously biting her tongue between her front teeth as she raised her right hand, grasping the worn out nub of a pencil. She estimated what would be directly above the mi...

35 likes 8 comments 8
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A Trio Under Lockdown.

Submitted to Contest #84

A Trio Under Lockdown.The Jones County Jail delivered a new set of convicts from various psychiatric institutions and prisons. Overcrowding in those locations resulted in many who should have remained where they were coming to the prison. The quiet that came from the County Jail prisoners was partially due to the short sentences. Hope that life could return to normal combined with the knowledge that being disobedient could extend sentences made all the difference. Bringing people from other places who have been convicted for life sentences, ...

32 likes 4 comments 4
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The Walking Plague

Submitted to Contest #84

A deadly virus known as Neuro-001 has claimed the lives of millions of people across the world. It came like an ocean of darkness flooding our very souls. The virus works by fooling our immune systems into thinking our healthy cells and tissues are foreign objects that must be eliminated. The brain becomes inflamed which causes impaired functioning and severe psychological and neurological symptoms. Neuro-001 quickly transmitted from person to person and the catastrophic results of having this virus was death.   We became our ...

32 likes 21 comments 21
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