On their deathbed, a relative/friend/partner admits to a horrible crime. Will the narrator reveal the secret or keep it hidden?

Posted in Dramatic on Nov 22, 2024

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✍️ 66 stories

“Santa, The Hitman?” by Mary Butler

🏆 Winner of Contest #278

Content Note:This story contains references to physical violence and implied gore. These elements are presented in a darkly comedic and absurd context, focusing on the moral and emotional implications rather than explicit descriptions. Reader discretion is advised.The hospice smells like antiseptic and failed dreams. A Christmas-themed air freshener dangles from the IV stand, swaying in time with my father’s mechanical wheezing. It smells like cinnamon. And regret. The fluorescent lights hum, drowning out the morphine’s slow drip.Hi, I’m the...

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“Losing My Religion” by Ghost Writer

Submitted to Contest #278

Evil comes in many forms. It’s clever, deceptive. It disguises itself. When I was a priest, every time I stood at the pulpit to deliver a message, I would look out at the congregation and wonder who the wolves in sheep’s clothing were. It could have been anyone. It could have been the little old lady with the passive-aggressive temperament, the rich man who believed he had been blessed more than the others, the young lady who had wrapped her social identity around her faith, or the poor man who needed financial help to support his family. No...

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“Unspoken” by Beth Jackson

Submitted to Contest #278

CW: Death of a loved one“I stole it,” Gran says, her voice pale and wafer-thin. “I stole the flamingo.”She twists her crooked fingers around the waffle weave blanket and strains to lift her head from the pillow. I lean forward, sure she’s going to say more.But she doesn’t.She just dies instead.#The undertaker collects Gran at five-thirty and we fill her absence with Chinese takeaways and gin.We eat slowly, scraping limp cauliflower through nondescript sauce, continuing through the motions. Our lives go on. Gran’s doesn’t.“You okay?” I ask.Gr...

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“The Last Breath of Silence” by Jim LaFleur

Submitted to Contest #278

The room was still, save for the quiet hum of the machines monitoring life’s fragile tether. The pale green walls of the hospice seemed to absorb sound, muffling the outside world into an eerie void. Clara sat by her mother’s bedside, her nurse’s uniform a second skin after years of long shifts. This, though, wasn’t a patient. This was her mother, Evelyn—a woman whose sharpness had withered under the weight of time and illness. “Clara,” Evelyn’s voice was a rasp, a fragile thread of sound. Her sunken eyes, still piercing, locked onto Clara’s...

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“LAUGH OUT LOUD: DEATHBED DIARIES” by Darvico Ulmeli

Submitted to Contest #278

Opening Scene:(The stage bathes in an ominous glow, pulsating with a kaleidoscope of neon lights. Tombstones scattered across the set flicker to life with words like "Secrets Never Rest" and “Confessions From Beyond." Thick fog rolls across the floor, curling around the glowing props like ghostly fingers, as an eerie, remixed version of Another One Bites the Dust pumps through the speakers, warped into a chilling tune. The atmosphere screams macabre spectacle. Suddenly, from the swirling mist, Morty Mirth appears — a skeleton host with razor...

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“The Bropeachment” by Scott Christenson

Submitted to Contest #278

“We need to arrange a family meeting,” Mom declared, her tone leaving no room for argument. She set about calling and texting our relatives, inviting them to come to our place. Blessed with a commanding presence, combined with the intellectual heft of a well-trained lawyer, people tended to do what she asked. I had to track down Jason, who had moved into the UW dorm last year, and talk him into attending.On Sunday, all my aunts and uncles sat around our living room, sipping their diet sodas and glasses of white wine, and trying to figure out...

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“Pap” by Oliver Gray

Submitted to Contest #278

Pap“Peter Gibbons?” the nurse asked. I nodded, started to reach for my wallet, that automatic gesture we all learn early on. The one that says ‘hey, I can prove it, here are my papers’. Only they’re not papers anymore. Plastic mostly. Two-inch by three-inch chunks of some sort of polymer with some ink arranged in just the right way. The nurse waived me off and pointed down the hall. “Room f...

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“183061” by Rebecca Hurst

Submitted to Contest #278

November 2008: Patti took a phone call from the care home at 11.42am on a windy day which blew the remaining leaves from their summer host. By the end of that day, Patti was at one with the leaves - because all she had ever known was blown away too. The manager collared her as she walked in, immediately irritated by the intense, stewing heat within the building. She could already feel beads of sweat on her upper lip. “I didn’t know your mother could speak German,” he said as an opener. “Nor did I,” she replied. She knew she sh...

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“My Fathers Secret” by Shanel Fortney

Submitted to Contest #278

My driver pulls us into the entrance of the long driveway of my childhood home. The driveway feels like a mile long. Pulling up slowly, the car comes to a stop. I step out of the back of the car and stare at the massive white two-story plantation-style home. I feel a pang of anxiety at the realization that nothing about this house has changed since I left. My mother divorced my father, left town, and never came back when I was 17. I graduated high school, joined the Marines, and shattered my dad's plans for a global takeover. The stone path ...

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“TT Never Learned” by Claudia Batiuk

Submitted to Contest #278

It was late in the evening on a Thursday, and I was still at work in the detox facility. I am the owner of the business. It is a detox treatment facility for females and their children who suffer from addiction. I was cleaning for the holiday season and in the middle of decluttering the donation closets at my work, my phone rang. Ithought to myself: “I hate cell phones where are the good old times?” The phonecall from Spence was anything but pleasant. Mt friend TT was laying on herdeath bed. This call came so unexpected that dropped the...

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“Her Declining Years” by Tamara Lieberman

Submitted to Contest #278

The bloodroot and butterfly weeds had grown thicker in Her declining years. The wildflower garden had always had one vine-like tree lounging on the great oak, which had overspread its canopy and had become a hiding place for observant owls and rust colored squirrels alike. How had I not noticed this uncultivated plot as the burial place for her secret? A secret that was mine as well despite my lack of awareness. But it was there entwined in the roots of the great oak nourishing it like a bastardized Tree of Knowledge...

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“Sarah and Saint Anthony” by Dave Bolin

Submitted to Contest #278

"Anthony! My favorite hospice chaplain! Come in." "Sarah, I'm your only hospice chaplain." "Nevertheless. Where have you been?" "I do have other patients." "But none you love more than me." "None that I love more than you." "Good boy. Sit down." "Yes, ma'am." "Anthony, hold my hand." "Okay." "How long have you been coming to see me?" "I think about six months now." "That's a long time." "It's really not, Sarah." "It is when the doctor says you only have six months to live." "Fair enough." "My six months are up." "It wasn't a hard deadline, I...

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“Cry of Iron ” by Makayla Bunchek

Submitted to Contest #278

CW: Body horror, gore, talks of self-hatred, work accident. It felt as if the cold sheets engulfed me, reminding me of the fate I was left in all because of a single mistake. A single one. The single thought of it made me just want to scream, to cry out–yet I couldn’t. Multiple chords deteriorated all because of the mistake I made. Months ago, I made the simplest mistake that left me unrecognizable. Simply I should have paid attention, kept my head up, and just listened to what Garrick told me. “Always listen for the moderator to see when th...

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“From Russia, with Love” by Kate Simkins

Submitted to Contest #278

“I… need to tell you something.”I leaned further forward in my chair and took Gramma’s hand. It was papery and thin, the veins standing out like mountain ranges against her pale skin. She hadn’t been outside in a while.“What is it?” I said, my voice gentle. She disliked loud noises.Gramma coughed and I instinctively reached for the pitcher, but she placed her hand on mine and patted it. “No, it’s fine. We don’t have much time, child. Please, come closer.”I shuffled my chair closer to the bed and leaned in again, the smell of lavender talcum ...

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“Echoes in the Silence” by Cody Cole

Submitted to Contest #278

The stale, undecorated room held the scent of antiseptic and the faint aroma of wilting roses. Ava sat in the corner, her fingers intertwined nervously on her lap. The rhythmic beeping of the monitor offered an unsettling cadence to her thoughts, and it drowned out the echoes of oblivion that surrounded her weary uncle, Oliver Reed. Once a vibrant man with laughter that filled every corner of the room, he now lay fragile, a mere shadow of his former self, swallowed by tubes and his unforgiving grasp of illness. As she watched the light ...

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Ended on 23:59 - Nov 29, 2024 EST

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Title: Santa, The Hitman?

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On their deathbed, a relative/friend/partner admits to a horrible crime. Will the narrator reveal the secret or keep it hidden?

Submissions are closed

✍️ 66 stories

“Santa, The Hitman?” by Mary Butler

“Losing My Religion” by Ghost Writer

“Unspoken” by Beth Jackson

“The Last Breath of Silence” by Jim LaFleur

“LAUGH OUT LOUD: DEATHBED DIARIES” by Darvico Ulmeli

“The Bropeachment” by Scott Christenson

“Pap” by Oliver Gray

“183061” by Rebecca Hurst

“My Fathers Secret” by Shanel Fortney

“TT Never Learned” by Claudia Batiuk

“Her Declining Years” by Tamara Lieberman

“Sarah and Saint Anthony” by Dave Bolin

“Cry of Iron ” by Makayla Bunchek

“From Russia, with Love” by Kate Simkins

“Echoes in the Silence” by Cody Cole

🌟 Similar prompts

A family argument gets out of hand. Neither side will budge, requiring a mediator with unusual methods.

A character gets caught red-handed breaking the rules, but they refuse to admit any wrongdoing. What happens next?

An apologetic letter or email from an old flame suddenly arrives — many years too late.

A court or disciplinary hearing is taking place — but the person accused does not know what they’re apologizing for.

Contest #278

Enter our weekly contest!

$250

Prize money

262

Contest entries

101

Stories

Win $250 in our short story competition 🏆

Explore more writing prompt ideas: