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Discover weekly, the best short stories

Looking for a steady supply of sad short stories? Every week thousands of writers submit stories to our writing contest.

11040+ Sad Short Stories to read

Submitted by writers on Reedsy Prompts to our weekly writing contest. Do you ever need to break your own heart? We see you. Grab a tub of ice cream or a box of tissues and settle down with some of the best, really sad short stories to make you cry.

Sad Short Stories – Page 2 of 736

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Submitted to Contest #298

“Hey.”The space heater buzzed in our room, the dim sound hanging in silence. I stared at the reflection of my face in the phone, warped by the screen protector. I heard the soft muffle of the bereaved outside. I should be there, but I couldn't bring myself to stand. I breathed in, and held it. Thoughts, places, things that I had tried to push down whirled around me. I breathed out, and felt the pressure release.“You must’ve just missed me. I’m probably doing something more worth my time than responding to you -” Someone coughed pointedly in ...

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The Long Road to Forgiveness

Submitted to Contest #298

For forty long years, I carried the burden of secrets and lies, hiding my gambling and drinking addiction from my beloved wife and two precious daughters. It was a heavy cloak that weighed down my soul, a constant reminder of my failures and deceit. Over time, the gap widened between the facade I presented and the reality of who I had become.The façade I maintained was intricate, a tapestry of lies woven to protect my family from the truth. I rationalised my actions, convincing myself that I was sparing them pain by shouldering the burden al...

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The regrets of a life lived in shadows

Submitted to Contest #298

Science confirms that life flashes before your eyes, as you open your mouth to take your final breath, a flash that lasts for mere seconds but has your heart heavy for what feels like hours, a flash that took me back to my high school cafeteria.In a bustling school cafeteria, full of teenagers seemingly belong there and among them there is a girl, sitting alone, hungry. Her lunch was untouched, because like her, a home-packed lunch of rice, infused with flavours and mother's love, did not belong to the world of lunch money and sandwiches.Tho...

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Muffin in the Mailbox

Submitted to Contest #298

A mailbox is no place for an unwrapped dessert, specifically those carelessly plopped on lined paper. But there it was—a muffin—top glistening in rusted darkness. Chocolate chunks stuck out—those tiny mysterious mounds. And after the events of late, they looked more like freshly heaped graves.I took the muffin, latched the mailbox, wincing as the hinges screeched like the strings of a first-time violinist: bewildered. The wind picked up then, having its way with my ponytail, and bending the flimsy note.I trudged up the driveway, tongue click...

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Dear Owen,

Submitted to Contest #298

Trigger Warning - Violence, Language, and Suicide Dear Owen As I stand here now, I wonder if this is the right thing to do. You see, I’ve tried everything. Nothing can help me with the pain that I have been suffering ever since last month. I've felt hopeless, like there is a big empty hole in me, that can never be filled. I’ve started sleeping more, eating less, worrying about everything at once but yet, nothing. I lost 20 pounds in 3 weeks, causing my body to give out at any random time. Damn, it’s cold here. I’m not used to the weather be...

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The Weight of Consent

Submitted to Contest #298

This story contains themes of incestuous sexual abuse, coercion, and disability being used to excuse nonconsensual acts. It also explores the victim’s inaccurate view of consent, fear of criminalization, passive suicidal ideation, and dissociation. Please take care while reading. "Hey, you alright?" Alana could see exhaustion in her friend's face, his tired eyes, tensed shoulders almost to his ears as he stared in wide-eyed embarrassment at being questioned about his emotional state."Yeah, just... no, I'm not alright. Do you ever feel like e...

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Sitting in the Dark

Submitted to Contest #298

The house behind Michael still had the porch swing hanging in the corner; it was a netted material that had always scratched his skin when they were on it. The blanket Tailor kept there for him when he inevitably complained; sometimes about the itch, more often about the cold, was nowhere to be found. Tailor had tried to suggest they pick a new swing. One that was softer, more sheltered from the weather, and he had always refused. He liked having an excuse to lean in closer, to feel as though the world beyond that porch, beyond that swing ev...

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Hannah's Birthday Cake

Submitted to Contest #298

Sensitive Content Warning: Contains descriptions of childhood sexual assault.It started with some leftover jalapenos. Hannah wasn’t much of a cook in her early twenties, and most of her dinners came from the middle eastern twenty-four-hour bodega on the ground floor of her building in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. One frosty day in January 2031, Hannah noticed that they were having a sale on jalapeno peppers and impulsively bought three pounds’ worth. They were relegated to the back of her refrigerator for a week or so. The morning after she quit her ...

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Where The Green Things Grow

Submitted to Contest #298

Sensitive Content Warning!! : Mental Health / Suicide or Self Harm Where the Green Things Grow The rot started in Eli’s fingertips. At first, he thought it was just dirt—black crescents tucked under his nails, stubborn smudges along his knuckles. It made sense. He hadn’t touched a garden in years, but muscle memory was powerful. Maybe something in him had gone back to digging, even in his sleep. He tried scrubbing it off with vinegar and steel wool, but it only got darker. Then it spread. His skin softened, paled, flaked. The scent—earthy...

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The Hour Before Midnight

Submitted to Contest #297

What can I share about the place where time stood still? What can I reveal about the boy who would vanish at the stroke of midnight, with brown eyes that glowed hazel in the moonlight? What can I do with this wound that yearns to return to those days frozen in time? What can I do but slice open my heart and pour out these memories—too painful to recall, yet too important to forget? My hometown of Ahrbol was just a few thousand people short of being called a city. It shared all the characteristics of one though, with high housing density, dec...

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Time Of Death: 12:03 AM

Submitted to Contest #297

If someone saw me now, they wouldn’t believe I was a bride.I was on a plane with my three brothers, all of them looking sharp in their best suits, while I was curled up in my seat in jeans and a crop top. My wedding dress had taken over my entire suitcase, leaving my personal belongings crammed into my purse. The only other thing I had brought was my book, but my brothers were making it hard for me to read in peace.The wedding was supposed to be in Greece, a far cry from the original plan to get married in Spain, where we live. But Niko, my ...

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Death Doesn't Wait

Submitted to Contest #297

Contains blood, death, war, guns, etc. I was unsure if this was considered sensitive content so I figured I would put the warning in here just to be safe. Atlas had been halfway to the aid of his general when he heard the scream of his best friend, Carson. His head whipped around to face the other man, the one he had come here with. Atlas had known Carson since both of them were little boys with neighboring houses, and so his immediate thought at the sight of his best friend screaming for help was to run back. Yet, when he heard his general ...

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Procession

Submitted to Contest #297

"Take the right exit in one hundred feet.""Fuck," Geraldine swerved right across three lanes of traffic in an instant."Fuck," she said again in a much shakier voice as she bumped along the highway grooves.The exit was backed up, bumper to bumper. A car in the lane to her left let out a long angry honk and it dodged her. Geraldine looked to her right to the driver not letting her in. The windows were tinted, she could barely make out the silhouette. She could tell the silhouette was looking in her direction. She sped up and wedged herself in ...

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11:33

Submitted to Contest #297

I have 24 hours, exactly 24 hours until she’s killed. The ransom note asking for $100,000 sits on my kitchen counter staring at me as a bead of sweat drips down my forehead. I reach for my phone and begin to dial 911 but before I hit call, I stop. The note said don’t call the police, whoever “J.R.” is, he’s listening, that’s what the note says. I turn my wrist towards me to look at my watch, 11:34, I have exactly 23 hours and 59 minutes left to save my sister.When I was only 10, my parents left the house and never returned. They left me with...

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1918

Submitted to Contest #297

TW: Contains death1918Bitter, blustery, brutal. The billowy snow never let up all of January and February. Drifts up to the eaves. Wiggly white tunnels burrowed to the outhouses, the hog pens, the chicken coups. Homemade snowshoes were woven to navigate to the neighbors milking barn once the mule couldn't pull the sled through the winter wonderland. The record setting cold cut through the sheepskin coats and crusted the breath on whiskers, eyebrows and hair. Toes tingled in spite of woolen stockings layered in leather boots. Fingers faltered...

25 likes 19 comments 19
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RBE | Illustrated Short Stories | 2024-06

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