#Welcome to the Micro Monday Challenge! Hello writers! Welcome to Micro Monday! I am excited to present you all with a chance to sharpen those micro-fic skills. What is micro-fic? I’m glad you asked! Micro-fiction is generally defined as a complete story (hook, plot, conflict, and some type of resolution) written in 300 words or less. For this exercise, it needs to be at least 100 words (no poetry). However, less words doesn’t mean less of a story. The key to micro-fic is to make careful word and phrase choices so that you can paint a vivid picture for your reader. Less words means each word does more! Each week, I’ll give you a single constraint or jumping-off point to get your minds working. It might be an image, a theme word, a sentence, or a simple writing prompt. You’re free to interpret the prompt how you like as long as you follow the post and subreddit rules. **Please read the entire post before submitting.** Remember, feedback matters! And don’t forget to upvote your favorites and nominate them via message here on reddit or a DM on discord!   *** #This week’s challenge: **** This is the beginning of our ***Five Weeks of Spooky for Spooktober*** challenge. Each week will involve a horror or Halloween themed prompt. Keep in mind you are not bound to write horror. If the prompts inspire you to write something different, go for it! But for those who live and breathe horror, or want to give it a shot, this is your chance! This week’s challenge is to use the above image as *inspiration* for your story. You may interpret the image any way you like, as long as the **connection is clear** and you follow all sub and post rules. You do not have to use the entire image. You can use any part you like (i.e. the colors, the subject, the setting, etc.).   *** #How It Works: - **Submit one story between 100-300 words** in the comments below, by the following Sunday at midnight, EST. No poetry. One story per author. - **Use to check your word count.** The title is not counted in your final word count. Stories under 100 words or over 300 will be disqualified from campfire readings and rankings. - **No pre-written content allowed.** Submitted stories should be written for this post exclusively. - **Come back throughout the week, upvote your favorites and leave them a comment with some actionable feedback.** Do not downvote other stories on the thread. Vote manipulation is against Reddit rules and you will be reported. See the ranking scale below for a breakdown on points. - **Please be respectful and civil in all feedback and discussion.** We welcome writers of all skill levels and experience here, as we’re all here to improve and sharpen our skills. - **Send your nominations for favorites each week to me, via DM, on Reddit or Discord by Monday at 2pm EST. - If you have any questions, feel free to ask them on the *stickied comment* on this thread or through modmail. *Top-level comments are reserved for story submissions.* - And most of all, be creative and have fun!   *** #Campfire and Nominations - On Mondays at 12pm EST, I hold a Campfire on the discord server. We read all the stories from that week’s thread and provide verbal feedback for those authors that are present. Come join us to read your own story and listen to the others! You can come to just listen, if that’s more your speed. You don’t even have to write to join in. Don’t worry about being late, just join! Everyone is welcome. - You can nominate your favorite stories each week, by sending me a message on reddit or discord. You have until 2pm EST on Monday (or about an hour after Campfire is over). You do *not* have to write or attend Campfire to submit nominations!   *** #How Rankings are Tallied I have made some significant changes in the ranking system. We’ll see how this works over the next few weeks and make adjustments where necessary. Here is a current breakdown: - **Use of Constraint:** 10 points - **Upvotes:** 5 points each - ***Actionable* Feedback** 5 points each (up to 25 pts.) - **User nominations:** 10 points each (no cap) - **Bay’s nomination:** 40 pts for first, 30 pts for second, and 20 pts for third (plus regular nominations) - **Bonus:** Up to 10 pts. (This applies to things like bonus constraints and making user nominations)   *** #Rankings: This Past Week - - Submitted by u/katpoker666   - - Submitted by u/katherine_c   - - Submitted by u/GammaGames   - - Submitted by u/rainbow--penguin   *** ###Subreddit News - Try your hand at serial writing with - Have you ever wanted to write a story with another writer? Check out our brand new weekly feature on r/WritingPrompts - You can now post serials to r/Shortstories, outside of Serial Sunday.


I was looking at this sub's stats trying to get an idea of what does and doesn't do well here (each community is different) and chuckled when I saw the "Top Keywords" which are qualified as "The keywords that are most often used on this subreddit in particular, **relative to the global frequency of that keyword**." 1. gestured (898.8) 2. barked (652.1) 3. dimly (652.1) 4. chimed (480.7) 5. creaking (476.6) 6. beamed (476.6) 7. gleaming (459.8) 8. hurried (459.8) 9. groaned (426.4) 10. lunged (412.1) 11. fluttering (401.3) 12. blurted (376.2) 13. leaped (376.2) 14. ached (358.3) 15. sprinted (340.4) 16. lingered (329.2) 17. strewn (322.5) 18. sobbed (313.5) 19. shriek (304.6) 20. blankly (301) In a recent rereading of one of my novellas, I noticed I'd used "gesture" (or "gestured") 3 times. The uses aren't near each other so I think I only noticed it because I read the whole thing very quickly due to nearly no pauses to make notes or edits. r/shortstory's "Top Keywords" isn't all that similar to this sub's. "Gestured" is #2 there right behind "patted" which didn't make the list at all on r/shortstories. I'm not saying these words are bad to use or anything like that. But this metric drew my attention to the fact these words appear more frequently in short stories than they do in the rest of Reddit.


~750 words “I keep telling you people no and you keep coming around anyways,” Joracks said to two men in black. “For every time you say no, thousands of innocent people die,” agent Williams said. “Last week we briefed you about World Thief. You said no and we lost tens of thousands of lives before our team stopped him. We lost 29 of our people.” Joracks looked up from his loaded fries. “Is that the day you brought soup and sandwiches from Panera?” “You know? fuck you,” agent Jordan said and flipped Joracks off. “Hey! Hey. I told you guys that I’ll never change my mind. But if you want to keep bringing me food, I’ll keep consulting or whatever you want to call it.” Williams shook his head. “This job is beneath you. The Bronze Son could be back saving the world and instead, he’s here lifting steel beams for a couple of bucks.” “It’s an honest job,” Joracks said with his mouth half-full. He swallowed. “We almost done here?” “It’s laughable that The Bronze Son has a lunch break.” “Yeah? You know what’s laughable is that before this, I never got a break. Always someone to save, some super-villain threatening world domination needing to be stopped, or–” he paused, “or another funeral to speak at.” Agent Jordan slammed his fist onto the folding table. “You taking a break from being a hero has gotten over a million people killed in the past three months.” “Yeah? Fuck you too, agent. I didn’t stop being a ‘hero’. It’s not a job, asshole. I’ve saved the whole planet several times over. I *am* a damn hero. I’m just done being the one you lean on for everything.” “I’ll be in the car,” agent Jordan said and walked out slamming the trailer’s door behind him. “I’ve got two minutes left on my break, Agent Williams. Do you want to ask me any questions?” The agent sat down across from Joracks and glanced inside his notebook. “H.Q. wants to know if any of your prior ‘nemeses’ are redeemable or could otherwise be convinced to join the team.” “Oh, god. Really?” “They’re desperate. We’ve lost a lot of good people.” “So you’ll settle for bad?” Agent Williams set down the notebook and took off his sunglasses. “It wouldn’t be the first time.” “Oh. Sorry, was that supposed to be some big reveal? I’ve known who you were since, what? Three or four years ago when you came on board?” “I figured.” “You weren’t a nemesis. ‘The Card Carrier’? You were a criminal at worst. Criminals have simple motivations, simple enough to reform.” “The team classified me as a ‘supervillain’. I’ve seen the dossier.” Joracks grinned. “The only way to get government funding and support was to work toward whatever initiative they gave us. Crime was up back then and the president wanted us to join their ‘War Against Super Crime’. Because of the previous accords, the only way the team could interfere was if the criminal was a supervillain.” “So you didn’t think I was a villain?” “No. Certainly not. If I had, you’d have been a smear on the pavement. You know my stance.” “You weren’t the one that brought me in, so I figured that’s why I was still alive.” “I was briefed on your powers and your record. I handed it to C team. If I recall correctly, they apprehended you without any casualties?” “I surrendered.” “And that’s why we put you on the reform track instead of–you know.” Agent Williams looked at the clock. “Your break is over.” “You’re right, thanks.” “One more question? A personal one.” “If you’ll get me sojok from that place in downtown for lunch tomorrow.” “That place from the other week?” “Yeah.” “It got destroyed.” “Fine, sojok from anywhere.” “Sure.” Joracks tossed the remaining fries into the trash next to the door. “What’s your question?” “If Patrice was still alive, would you be a hero again?” Joracks clenched his jaw. “Would you save the world again?” “Do you know what I was doing when she died?” “Stopping a class seven threat.” “I couldn’t save the woman that meant everything to me from a fucking bee sting.” Joracks turned the door handle with deliberate gentleness. “I’m done being the hero everyone expects me to be.” “Joracks, if they could bring Patrice back?” He swung the door open. “I have a team that expects me to clock back in and then, at the end of the day, clock out. I’ll be here tomorrow, agent.


I hadn’t been home for a couple years now. Moving to Seattle had made me hesitant to return. I had mixed memories of this town from when I was still in high school, biking on the waterfront trail with friends, sometimes alone or up the road at the seedy diner smashed between two dive bars. It was different now. I noticed more people wandering the streets. A man was yelling to no one as he ambled down the road, almost getting hit by oncoming traffic. I turned away, took the french press between us and poured some more coffee into my nearly full mug and refilled hers. The mugs were made locally. The glaze was uneven, but rather than detracting from the style, it made it a bit endearing. My mom looked exactly as I remembered, but I supposed she always would. I saw her in my mind and in my heart, before I saw her with my eyes. I wondered if it was the same for her. She had her eyes closed, sipping at the steaming cup. I heard this place was closing sooner. I couldn’t imagine running a massage business and a cafe in the same building. I debated ordering a grilled cheese with raspberry jam as my mom set her cup back onto the table. I was about to ask her if she was hungry, when she casually asked, “Did I ever tell you about the time I accidentally worked for The Mob?” “No?” She wasn’t one to make up stories, being very much a realist. It started to drizzle outside and steam began to intrude on the windows looking over the bay. Mom smiled nostalgically for a brief moment, before diving with complete abandon. It wasn’t long after moving to the east coast that she found herself searching for a new job. The money she’d saved went quickly, living so close to New York City. As the weeks went by, her pickiness dropped. She’d prefer a bookkeeping job for a somewhat decently sized firm. A bookkeeping job for an individual. Okay, something more like a secretary position at a print shop or marketing department. Well, maybe just any secretary position somewhere she’ll get a regular paycheck? So, it was with these low expectations that she came across a wanted ad for a secretary position at a contracting firm. Some cursory research made her feel a bit more at ease. They were already established-- not a start up. It seemed like they mostly contracted to construction and various warehouses, which was pretty standard for the industrial area where the office was located. She smiled coyly at the ad. She was young, fit, and figured herself pretty sharp. She would bet that whoever ran the operation was an old man, looking for a pretty face to take calls. Easy money. It was New York. It was the 70’s. The man was in his mid-fifties, somewhat large, but not rotund. He had lingering eyes, countered by his tendency to speak in a clipped manner. The office decor was surprisingly tasteful. My mom was blessed with a fabulous eye for good alcohol, clothing, and all manner of decor. Although, her bank account strained to accommodate this blessing. She wondered for a moment at the waiting room, with its plush seating, meticulously tended potted plants and their china vases. They must have some fairly wealthy clients. Her new employer, Giovanni, outlined her duties quickly. She didn’t have many responsibilities: answer the phone, greet clients, schedule appointments, etc. He was specific about having coffee ready in the morning, but otherwise this was what her sister would call a “Moe job”. Named after the owner of the least frequented motel, it was a job where you could get the things more important than your job done-- things like finding a better job. She got along fine at the office and found herself not hating the work. Giovanni was relatively relaxed when nothing big was happening, the workers were well-mannered and fun to talk with, and she got an hour long paid lunch. Sometimes she would have to take the lunch at odd hours, when certain clients showed up. Giovanni would always lend her his Cadillac, a handful of money, and tell her to take her time coming back. Maybe it was a little odd, but getting handed fifty or so for lunch and the keys to his car wasn’t a bad deal. It was one of the days they were expecting such a client. There was a new diner a few blocks down from her regular place. She was stuck between trying someplace new… or the incredible pie she usually had with some coffee. She was a sucker for pie. A polite knock tapped on the office door. The clients they were expecting usually let themselves in. She slowly opened the doors, looking over the young guys standing outside. One of them was wringing his shirt. She let them in and told them to have a seat, but they walked right past her, into Giovanni’s office. He looked up with a frown, but that quickly turned into gritted teeth. “Mr. Russo, cousin Vinny… he uh… he stole Grandad’s jewels!” The young man blurted out, ringing his untucked button-down shirt. Giovanni hurled the keys to his Cadillac at her. “Lunch break!” She left the office without a look back, driving a bit quicker than normal to her favorite little diner. Eggs. Coffee. A sympathising look from Becky, the waitress. Pie. More coffee. It hit her: the odd meetings, the fact that he hired someone so young (and naive), the exceedingly expensive office space, the Cadillac. She breathed in horror. “Oh my god, I’m working for The Mob.” I found myself laughing at her delayed realization. Of course, during the telling, everything was pretty obvious. My Mom was laughing as well, coffee forgotten in her hand, mine forgotten as well. “Did they ever find Vinny?” “Oh yeah! They found him. He wasn’t very smart. I overheard later that he was going to sell off the jewels to buy some drugs, but he ‘hid’ all of them under his mattress, like an eight-year-old with a dirty magazine.” We both laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation, but I found myself thinking about the company I had just joined, an Indian-owned contracting firm that hired out to tech companies. It wasn’t too different really, and I was beginning to realize that I might have to keep my eye out for warning signs. “Speaking of not very smart, the firm I’m contracted out from just payed a bunch of people for overtime they hadn’t received.” Mom frowned at the coffee, now an unpleasant room temperature. “Why didn’t they get paid before?” “Well, people had been complaining, but the office didn’t think overtime was real. Apparently, this has been going on for a few months.” Mom waved over to the girl behind the counter, wordlessly motioning at the press for a new one. It looked like she understood. Turning back to me, Mom asked, “What made it real?” I shrugged. “Two of the employees showed up with a lawyer.” I flipped over the tiny, sand hourglass as the waitress put the new press on our table. I would have to work up the courage to finish off enough cold coffee to make my cup hot again. Mom raised an eyebrow at me. “Well, that sounds a little shady.” Edit: A very good point about cars.


After helping to clear the mine had physically exhausted me and discovering the true nature of the test had left me mentally spent, I fell asleep by the fire. The night air was chilly, but the warmth from the flames, my own body heat, and the sheer exhaustion meant I slept quite comfortably through till morning in the open air. I didn’t wake till the sun had risen, and I was brought around by a gentle kick to my thigh. “Wake up, sleepyhead,” came an aggressively chirpy voice. I opened my eyes to Alessia standing next to me, smirking. A loud yawn contorted my face, as the sun’s rays pierced my cracking eyelids. “What’s the plan?” I said, lifting myself off my back. “Well, unlike you, I’ve been up for a few hours already. I spoke to a few guys, spent a bit of our money, and got us some ropes, mining explosives, and lanterns.” She paused. I could see her watching my face, waiting for my tired eyes to process what she said. “You ever been abseiling?” “What?” “Abseiling? You know. Like climbing, but… downwards?” “You pretty much know my life story at this point,” I said, blinking myself to consciousness. “What part of that do you think involved abseiling?” “Yeah. I thought that’d be the case. New experience for us both.” She reached out a hand, I took it and she pulled me to a standing position. “So we’re going down into the caves then?” I said, as Alessia began leading me through the town. “Seems a bit coincidental there was a random explosion where Sannaz was just before he left.” “True.” “Seems more likely he saw something and didn’t want anyone else finding it, so he covers his tracks.” “And you think there’s something down there?” “I wanna see what he saw. Yeah.” Alessia said, turning to me. “Sound like a plan?” “Sounds good,” I said nodding. Suddenly, an old part of the conversation caught up with me. I stopped. “Wait, did you say we’re taking mining explosives?” “They said part of the caves collapsed after the explosion. Might be a few blockages down there. Gotta clear them somehow.” Alessia shrugged her shoulders. “You want to get past rubble… caused by an explosion… by using an explosion?” I spoke slowly, hoping the idiocy of the plan would come through. “Look. I’m not gonna use it unless we have to, okay? You bury the charges in the rocks and it clears a path through without disturbing the rest.” “That work?” “That’s what they recommended to me anyway. It’s what they’re doing at the mine entrance now that there’s no more people trapped in the rubble.” I sighed. “We use it as a last resort, okay?” “Agreed.” We walked through and out the other side of the town. Quickly the ground turned from grey dust to healthland. Spindly wild grass broke through the compact earth as rubbery shrubs did their best to get high enough to steal the sunlight. We walked straight across the uneven, but hard ground, as a stiff breeze blew. In the distance, I could make out a man and a woman standing in the middle of the open land, various ropes and other gear strapped to them. Next to them was Cameron. As we approached, Cameron called out. “The ground’s solid here, and there are some good rocks for anchor points. But they don’t wanna risk going any further out.” “How far is the sinkhole?” Alessia asked as we arrived. “About thirty metres that way,” Cameron said, pointing behind him. Over his shoulder I could see the ground begin to descend. Thick cracks appeared in the earth, growing wider as the surface sloped down, until I could see the great void in the earth. “Is that ground going to hold us?” I asked, my eyes glued to the black drop. “Almost certainly not,” Alessia replied with a disconcerting grin. I turned to face her as she shoved a small belt into my hands. “That’s why we have these.” I watched as Alessia began tying the harness around herself, looping one knot at the side, and another by her front as a portion of the rope went through her legs. I was slowly piecing together the structure as she finished and looked over to me. “How long have you been on my boat now? How can you still not tie a good knot?” She walked over and undid my own attempts and started rewrapping the belt around me, looping it between my thighs, before tying it in a secure knot by my left hip. “You need something that’s going to hold you in place, firmly.” She gave one last fierce pull on the fabric and the belt tightened around me, clasping against my abdomen. “How’s that? Too tight?” “A little actually,” I wheezed. “Good. Tight enough then.” She walked over and picked up the end of a long piece of rope and handed it to me. I followed the long coil with my eyes. It wound round in a circle on the floor before trailing off to a large rock, a good metre high, where the man and woman were anchoring it in place. With the rope secure around the rock, the woman walked over to me and started pulling the rope through the belt. “You ever done this before?” she asked. “No…” “Okay. Well. It’ll feel weird. But hold on, keep a good grip, you’ll be fine.” She continued relaying specifics to me as the long coil slowly snaked through me. With almost all the rope now on the other side of the harness, she bent down and picked up a small stone, looping the very end of the line around it. She took several delicate paces out towards the drop, watching the ground beneath her for any sign of danger. Then, convinced she was close enough, she hurled the rock through the air. It bounced a few times, before it reached the edge, and plunged into the earth below. The rope shot down with it, the great snaked path unravelling as it fell to the bottom of the chasm. Eventually the line ran out of slack, and it pulled taut against my belt. I watched as the man threw the rock with Alessia’s line down in a repeat. Alessia turned to me. “You ready?” “Ready as I’ll ever be.” She walked over and picked up a satchel from the ground and passed it to me, before she picked up a heavy backpack for herself. Cameron stepped forward. “Hey, that’s mine.” “Rucksack is easier to carry down there.” “What about my book?” Cameron protested, his arms stretched to the side. “You’ll get it back as soon we’re done. I promise,” Alessia paused, watching Cameron’s face remain unmoved. “I want to make sure you’re still here when we return.” Cameron huffed. “If you lose that book down there-” “Not gonna happen,” Alessia grinned. She looked down at her line, holding it one hand as she leaned back, feeling it hold her weight. “We’ll tug on the rope when we need lifting back up. By the end of the day.” Cameron pouted. “Fine. No book, and you can stay down there though.” Alessia and I turned and slowly started heading towards the sinkhole. It wasn’t long before I could feel the ground begin to slide downwards as cracks began to appear in the ground. I watched as thin hairlines grew into centimeter wide black streaks, grass roots poking out the sides. A few paces more, and my body began to instinctually slow down as the ground became spongy beneath my footsteps. I looked over to Alessia. She was tentatively placing one foot in front of the other, taking a small age to transfer her weight across. “It’ll be easier on all fours,” I said. “Spread the weight.” Alessia nodded, and we both sunk to our knees, stretching out our bodies in front of us and crawling along with as many points of contact to the ground as possible. The grass was springy to the touch, the weeds gripping around my fingers with each crawl forward. I stopped as the whole ground shifted, lurching forward. I could feel my body rotate a few degrees, the angle down to the chasm in front now steeper. I took one more creep forward and I heard the inevitable rolling of dirt. “Hold on!” I called out. The ground beneath us gave way. A large chunk of earth a good few metres across snapped beneath me. I watched as it accelerated away, turning as it fell into the darkness below. The rope snared against the more solid ground, and I swung back. I held on tight to the cable by my stomach, as the belt wrapped around my constricted abdomen, yanking me back towards the wall. I stretched out my feet as they landed and my body bounced against the soft clay side of the cave. “You all right?” I called out. A light flickered on, as a lantern and Alessia’s face came into view. “I’m good. Bit bruised, but good.” “What now?” I asked. “Keep heading down. I’ll try and stay level with you so you can see the light.” I nodded as I began slowly loosening my grip on the rope, allowing it to pass through the belt as we descended deeper into the hole. Above me, the small sliver of light was beginning to fade, the circular halo shrinking with each passing metre. As I looked down, the light of the lantern began to reach the bottom of the sinkhole. Piles of soil and debris covered the stone ground. There was a noise too, one almost silenced by the creaking of the rope as it passed through the belt, but it was there. A trickle, the noise of water. I looked over, and saw a small stream running along the bottom of the cave. My feet touched the ground and I took a deep breath - part relief, and part the relaxation of the belt no longer gripping so tightly around my stomach. Untying the harness I inspected our surroundings. It was a wide section of cave that thinned out in either direction, following the stream. “We sure this guy was ever even here? Could just be a random bit of cave?” I asked. “True,” Alessia said with a hum. She took a few steps, treading over the stream. “Best bet we’ve got though.” “So which way do you want to head?” I said, feeling my own voice echo back against me. “Downstream,” Alessia nodded. “Upstream takes us back towards where the mines are, makes sense he would’ve come from that way. And then headed *that* way,” she said, pointing towards the thinning passageway to my left. I followed her lead as we left the thin ring of natural daylight behind and plunged fully underground. Memories of Ringatoy Shires came back to me. I had spent over a week without daylight underground with Kit. Even though the conditions were very different - the rubble of the library replaced with natural underground mazes - that sensation of the Earth surrounding you, pressing in on you from all sides, remained. I wondered for a moment if Kit had ever returned down to the library, or if she had stayed above ground, spinning clients into credits down at the market. I hoped she was doing okay. Then I remembered Kit falling. The brief moment when I thought she had died, holding her still body, already in place in a cavernous tomb. I had nearly lost a treasured companion that day. I looked at Alessia trudging her way in front of me. I would not let that happen again. I struck a couple of paces to get closer to Alessia, my feet slipping slightly against the moist rock. “You okay there?” Alessia chuckled, turning her head slightly. “Yeah. Not used to clambering through caves, I guess.” I looked at Alessia’s slow, but assured footing as she hopped between bits of flatter stone. “You seem… fine down here?” “I wouldn’t say fine,” Alessia said, a hint of hesitancy to her voice. “But I’ve been in enough caves to not be worried, if that makes sense.” “Why have you been in so many caves?” I asked, trying to concentrate on where my feet were. Alessia laughed. “Strange upbringing I guess.” My mouth opened to respond. But I decided to leave prying any further for another day. As we went deeper, the air became stiffer, as though it was stuck to the walls of the cave. However, it remained cool, the water bringing with it an icy touch from wherever its source may be, and so each step became a frosty lick of stagnant air, each inhalation feeling frigid and damp. We’d been walking for the better part of an hour, the cave weaving side to side as it cut the path of least resistance through the soft rock. However, the path looked like it was thinning out, and I became all too aware of memories from the library, of passing through gaps no wider than my shoulders dreading the idea of having to turn back. “How much further you want to continue?” I asked. “Figure we may as well keep going further yet. Still think this is our best hope. There’s a water in the rucksack if your thirsty,” she said, pointing to her own back. “I’m fine. Just trying to make sure we don’t get trapped down here,” I said, trying to force a laugh. “You ever going to give that bag back to Cameron?” “Yeah. Gotta stay true to my word right? Besides, seems like sharing that book around may help a bit?” “Might give the kids of Section F a better chance of passing it.” “Until they change the test again, yeah.” Alessia said, failing to reciprocate my jovial tone. “What do you mean?” “The test is about ranking right? Too many people get that book, too many people do well on the test, then it becomes meaningless. Test’s only useful as long as people fail it.” “I guess,” I replied, turning my attention to the ceiling that was now encroaching beneath head height. I crouched slightly as we snuck along the tunnel in single file. “I’m not sure how much further we can keep heading along like this. Getting a bit narrow.” “Bit further,” Alessia said, pushing round a sharp bend to the right. “Follow it to the end.” I followed apprehensively as the walls began to brush against me, the odd jagged side of cave butting against me like an errand elbow in a crowd. With each step the rivulet kept digging deeper and deeper into the hillside, forcing its way through increasingly solid rock. Soon the cave was not much wider than the water itself, and every other foot was directly into the puddle, the small splash so loud in the dank depths of the mountain that it threatened to deafen us. As we descended, the path became more violent, turning as soon as it found a rock too tough to be moved. We turned another sharp bend to the right, then another to the left. The ceiling was now low enough that Alessia was ducking too, crouching as she pinched through the cavern, her hand held out to the wall for balance against the uneven ground. One more twist to the right, and I breathed a sigh of relief as the route widened out. Quickly it disappeared from our heads and arms, and within just a few metres it ballooned out into a wide open space. I took a couple of paces away from the stream and noticed that the ground beneath me wasn’t clay or rock. It was concrete. Something man-made. I tapped it with my shoe, feeling the familiar sensation of that thud-like noise. Some five metres away a great crack ran across the ground, the floor the other side pushed up and buckled toward the ceiling, torn apart by some great force. In the distance, I could see a column, great steel beams bent and snapped apart like a twig. Then, looking further back still, rotated slightly, maybe some five degrees off-balance, I could see a large metal door. A thick bar ran across its centre, waiting to be pushed. I instinctively walked towards it. \ Next chapter published 7th October.


If they knew what I was. If they knew what I was and could understand it, then maybe that was something that I could do to help me. There was something in the air on the night of Christmas Eve. There were trees that littered the streets. I was struggling. My body was going against me, it was eating me alive. I didn't know what to do. One second I was standing up, the second second I was eating a person. The third second I was awake and alive, filled with adrenaline. Blood was pouring all over me. I didn't know what to do- because I didn't existed. There was nobody else on the streets that was with me that passed through the alleyway when I transformed. There was not a soul that heard me either, or if they did, they were deafened. There was nobody else that helped me, and if they did, they'd probably be dead as well. I. Am. A. Werewolf. My story is not a fantastic romance. I am not Jacob Black from twilight. I am a werewolf cursed, born, and made. A werewolf from conception and a werewolf from the second conception. When I struck my hand against tendons. The blood littered the street. They called it a murder. Every night on Christmas Eve I was made to transform. Every night on Christmas Eve I lose a day of my life to kill people. One life for three or four or five. I wasn't made to bargain. They did. There was nobody else with me when I transformed. I was always alone. Until I met a girl. My nose was transformed into a snout. Halfway through my transformation I inched towards her. Cravings was already taking me over. I knew nothing of what to do to help save the girl. I barely thought as well. I only knew that if I never ate I'd never be satisfied. I'm not poor. The streets didn't *allow* people to be poor. They allowed only people to be rich and healthy. There was nothing to do about that. And no one wanted to do anything about it either. Life here was perfect-ly and perfectly made for everyone. The girl stands there and I'm shocked. She has not moved an inch. This is a primal rage which is stunned and frightened. I'm perhaps even frightened at what I'm about to do. Maybe this girl will die tonight and that will be the end of it. Of my hunger. Chad knows what he is doing. He comes around and picks up the girl. I am barely transformed as they leave. I sigh on the cursed pavements. A bit of my mind comes back to me. *What?* That is all I can say. The streets pick up and vibrant colors fill through the pavement. Loud sounds rock my ears and I am left to coil over. I am so sensitive to it. Then the sound ends and I can finally fulfill my transformation. Tonight on Christmas Eve, I will kill again. There will be no soul that can stop me without a gun, and if they did, where would they shoot? On the head? I would be too quick and I'd eat them up alive. I feel threatened. A police officer comes into view and he says, "Stop." I turn around and kill him as well.


Who killed my mother? She lays a few steps behind us, her body wet and cold like a fish, bobbing slightly in the underground creek. Her hair floats around her like a mass of black seaweed. I don’t know, I say. The others look at me when the camera feed shows that none of them did it, and I’m the only one who isn’t wearing my camera/flashlight in the excavation cave site. I forgot to take it with me, I stammer in broken Vietnamese, crying. They turn to each other, whispering. My uncle nods, and my cousin holds back to help me up some uneven rocks as we make our way back out of the caves. I stumble and grab onto his hand for support. “You look easy to *bat nat*, easy to take advantage of,” my friend’s friend said when we went around last year in clubs in Pho Tay in Sai Gon where all the foreigners go. He checked out black guys while I nodded along to the booming EDM music, drunk on half a mug of beer. We climb into the black van, and I look out the window as they drive away. I can’t believe I forgot it, I say, crying. I say the word for “dropping” the camera, but get the vowel and tone wrong, instead saying the word that means “messed up”. They correct my tone to the correct Vietnamese word, sympathetically. I’m the naive one, the *Viet Kieu* who can’t quite get her tones right. The one who was born in America. She must have done it herself, they whispered. She was depressed after all. Yes. She was always depressed, and she always blamed me. I let a few more tears fall. Be strong, my aunt says. Don’t be sad like your mother. God loves you. She says it slowly, so I understand. I nod, my head still turned towards the window. I think of a time in 4th grade, when I was at my desk. The Chinese guy I joked around with called me stupid, so I hit him with my notebook. “She hit me!” he yelled. “Claire wouldn’t do that,” Ms. Walker says, “Did you, Claire?” No, I murmur, my eyes lowered. I am the shy one, the Asian kid who’s Chinese? Korean? Japanese? No. Then what are you? Vietnamese, I say. Never heard of it, the kid says, wrinkling his freckled nose. No one hearing is good. No one hears that I understand everything they’re saying. In English, when they giggled that I eat something for lunch that smells like rotting fish. Or right now, in Vietnamese, when they say I’m *ngay tho*. Naive, my aunt says to my uncle, how will she survive? No one here heard that I got straight A’s in Vietnamese school in that foreign land, 7 years in a row, and can read and write all six tones with a 99% accuracy rate, although my accent is real. No one heard me kill my mother. I smile.


Times passed. He still looks very much the same. You look at your wrinkled hands, and sigh down. The breath leaves you in an instant and you feel like you are going to choke. Because it's too much. You've grown old. He hasn't. And then. You know this because the boy you see out the window that comes everyday is still bringing flowers, and he hasn't shrunk in stature at all. His spine hasn't curved, he hasn't bent over, he's bending over bringing the flowers, *though*. And you know your heart beats everytimes he does. You know you still love him. You know you still care. *You*. *You*. *You*. But times changed. You know you're not that girl anymore. Wicked old thing, life itself had granted your mortality and not the boy. You would have grown old together, and you still wonder- what is he, an *immortal*? The boy doesn't tell you in your imagination, nor even if you ask. Then you think, what can I do for the boy? I've grown old and he'll lose one *more* friend in the world. And you know this, because *you've* seen it all. Growing up, except time is on a loop and you know you're going to lose everything you've just gained because you aren't growing old at all. May death do us apart, death keep us together. Far apart, but still close together. Then you look away from the frame and gasp at the flowers on the tabletop. You've *forgotten* all about it. This was the recently placed one. You always left them alone, but this was the one that got *through*. You've been diagnosed with repeated amnesia, you'll forget everything in a while. But not your job. It was a raining day when you first met him. The rain was pouring down *hard* and you couldn't bear with the trickles that went down your spine so you looked around for a jacket to be lent to you. You were an *arrogant* woman back then. A fool- a psychologist. A boy took it up himself and places his jacket on you and you said thanks, bade the boy farewell, and kept on walking. You'll *never* forget his face, because he lives right next to you somewhere over the earth. Then the world suddenly takes a beat. Like a heavy drape that closets over you in a mere second. "*Ugh.*" Your heart begins to stop. The straight-forward world suddenly seems like amnesia an amnesia in torment phase and you slowly forget what's happening. The world around you doesn't appear to change in logic, but you seem to be the one that's changing. You clutch to something that you can hold on, but you clutch on to thin air. The boy appears next to you. He is smiling down at you. You only repeat it with a grin. And then you pass away. Then you remember how much you love him a lot and that he'll go be far away. Ever again, in heart.


(Doing a little challenge to get ready for Nanowrimo, one short story every day for October, here's my first intended to write a horror story, but I'm not sure this counts, kind of turned into something else) My name is Amelia Kemper, and after an unfortunate legal incident, I have found myself having to repay a debt to society by way of a sentence of 24 hours of community service. My sentence is to work six four-hour shifts at a local nursing home. The work is easy. They said I would mostly be in the kitchen preparing food, which didn't sound so bad as I do like to cook. This wasn't exactly cooking so much as heating ready-made trays of TV Dinner-like meals that would be delivered by rolling carts to the various Shady Pines nursing home residents. On my first day, I met my supervisor Anita. She's a five-foot Jamaican woman who came to this country legally, worked hard, and obeyed rules to get where she was. Chief wellness coordinator for Shady Pines. Her accent is thick, and her tone doesn't take any guff. I also met Mr. Montechello. Mr. Montechello wasn't an employee of the nursing home but rather a volunteer resident. He had been a chef in his life before these walls and found some waning success in the eighties publishing his own cookbook. *Gourmet simp'le.* He was actually one of the first gourmet chefs to cash in on the early eighties who cashed in on the then in vogue health craze of the low-fat diet before all the diet scientists who whoever it is that's in charge of telling us what's good to eat figured out that it was those delicious carbs, who made up a good third of next decades food pyramid said was so important to the diet of a healthy and happy worker. While the heated TV Dinners were a far call from the gourmet cuisine he used to prepare, his mind was starting to go a bit earlier than most people, and his money had dried up once the second printing of his book failed to achieve any kind of repeat success in the ever-changing world of fad dieting. Like many patients with his particular mental condition in the home, he had his good days and bad days. On his bad days, he would relax in front of the television, get his daily dose of Judge Judy, and, if he was still awake by two o'clock, he would watch General Hospital with those cute and spry seventy-something-year-old back in the game bachelorettes. But, on his good days, he liked to work with his hands, be productive. He loved getting back in the kitchen as simple as work in this kitchen was. He would stack meals and watch times. He couldn't be trusted to set them, but he would watch them and alert the people in charge of the day's meals just before the timers went off. "Now remember, the instructions say you have to heat it at 250 for twenty minutes," he said, giving me the tour under the watchful eye of Amelia. "I have found, you get a more even cook putting it in for five minutes at 200, and then finish off with thirteen minutes at 275," he said. His voice was raspy and old, the kind of old that could be thought full of wisdom, but also spackled and duct-taped together by a slowly unraveling psyche that the last couple of years were not kind to. "We cook the food for what the box says to cook the food for," Amelia said, "Don't listen to him child, you follow directions," she said. I did, followed directions, was just here to do what I was told to do. Finish my time, and get back to my rather uneventful life as a College drop-out with a part-time job bookkeeping for a company that runs management for home owner's associations. That first day I did what I was told. When the first batch came out of the oven, the one to be delivered to the third and top floor of the senior living community, Mr. Monticello took a small gold spoon, a keepsake from his wealthier days. He took a taste of the mashed potatoes when Amelia wasn't looking. "Came out good, heated evenly, good texture, good flavor," he smiled. He held his spoon up to me, "You know why anyone would have a gold spoon?" he asked. "No, I can't say I would know why anyone would have a gold spoon," I said. "See, this is what professional tasters use. Steel has its own flavor. When your tasting, you need a gold spoon, has a neutral flavor, doesn't confuse your tongue. How's it feel knowing everything you've tasted you've tasted wrong?" he asked, laughing a bit. "I'm not sure," I said as he quickly hid his instrument and worked to get the warm trays on the cart for me to deliver. I made my way up to the third floor as Amelia got the meals for the second floor ready. I met all sorts of people, people with stories, people with worries, and people slowly falling into senility. I got to the last room on this run, room 322, and was greeted by a friendly and weak voice, "Are you here to read to me?" an old, overweight lady with a curled bunch of thinning hair on her head asked through a mouth missing more than less of her teeth. I had learned later her name was Mrs. LeBlanc, and that she was the oldest residence in the care of Shady Pines. "No, not the reader. She should be in later," I said, "it's dinner time," I brought the food to her as she sat up in a bed she probably hadn't left for at least a few months. "Could you read to me? They send a girl like you to read to us," she asked me. "I don't know. I have to get back downstairs to get the rest of the dinner," I said. "Gatsby, I love the Great Gatsby," she said, pointing to the book on her nightstand. "Would you believe I've read that book over a hundred times, but my eyes, they're so old now, I can't read anymore, Gatsby always made me comfortable, you know my husband was in the war too, he came back, and he won me," she said. Her voice was so horse and raspy, raspy like all the old people here. "Just read to me, the last girl didn't read to me, I thought when we had a new girl maybe she would, oh, I would love to just hear the first chapter," she said. I looked at my watch. The next meal wouldn't be ready to be taken up to the second floor for at least another ten minutes, "Okay, I guess I could, just the first chapter?" I asked as I took the book and pulled a small chair up to the bed. I began to read as she ate her re-heated dinner. As I neared the end of the first chapter, she dropped her fork and fell back on her three-layer bunch of pillows and drifted off into sleep, and it appeared to be a very deep sleep. She was out. I shrugged, got my cart, and wheeled it back to the service elevator to get back to the first floor and back to the kitchen for my next set of deliveries. On my way back to the kitchen, I passed one of the rooms, room 106, and an angry, old greybeard with a bald head lashed out at me, "It’s supper time, where’s my damn food,” he said. “It’s coming,” I said, jumping back a bit. He had nasty yellow teeth, most of them missing. Liver spots stuck out all over his skull and his beard was patchy in places, looking as if it had no care or concern for itself. He balanced himself on a cane with a silver wolf’s head on the handle of it. I would later come to learn that this was Mr. Abernathy, the resident grump of Shady Pines. The word I heard from the other residents was that he would just trudge around the common room the few times he wasn’t sequestering himself in his own room. He said he was just waiting to die. His kids were dead, his daughter was killed in a drunk driving accident, she was the drunk, and his son died of an OD after getting his first big acting job as a side character in some science fiction straight to DVD movie. I went back to the kitchen and got the next collection of trays. I delivered them to the second floor. Got my share of kind hellos from the little old ladies and got more than a few lecherous looks from some of the younger seventy-something men who fancied themselves on the market now that their wives were dead and the house sold to afford a nice nest egg for their comfy retirement and enough to leave a bit to their sometimes thankful children. Thankfully, I finished my run on the second floor without another request to read or provide some other such service. And I came back to Ms. Amelia and Mr. Monticello as they were cleaning. Well, really, Amelia was doing all the cleaning, being that it was later in the day, Mr. Monticello was basically taking a wet rag and wiping down the same spot he had been wiping for the last hour of my shift. With my four hours for the day done, I gave my apron to Ms. Amelia and clocked out for the day. When I pulled my civic into the parking lot of Shady Pines, I saw a big black van at the side of the building is loaded with a gurney and a black bag atop it that could be nothing else but a body. When I went inside to clock in with Amelia, I asked about the truck, and she told me that “Mrs. LeBlanc died last night,” she said, “Get used to it. How long you here? Six shifts, you most likely going to see at least three while you’re here, ” she said. Mrs. LeBlanc, that lady to who just yesterday I read the first chapter of the Great Gatsby. “Wait, I just talked to her,” I said, “I mean, I talked to her yesterday,” I said, “Was she really that bad? She looked healthy, I mean, at least I think she was healthy,” “People go when they go, no one controls it,” Amelia said. I shook off the haunting thought of maybe being the last person someone had talked to before they died and focused on my work. I just wanted to finish my shifts and get out of here. Said shifts were pretty simple, sometimes I would work the kitchen, and sometimes when I worked the kitchen, Mr. Monticello would try to tell me how fat is the number one killer in the middle of one of his foggier periods of men younger than he was. How it clogs one’s arteries and leads to heart attacks. He even told me that a heart attack is what put his younger brother in the grave at the tender age of sixty-nine. “You know you’re a nice girl. If my grandson wasn’t married, I would have liked to introduce you,” Mr. Monticello said. “Oh, that’s really nice,” I smiled and laughed nervously. Once again, after we heated the meals to Mr. Monticello’s instructions as Ms. Amelia was busy tending to a disruption caused by Mr. Abernathy, I had one of those bad days that Ms. Amelia warned me that tenants could have here at Shady Pines. I had finished my last delivery of the day, room 122. The door had a well out of date easter decoration, most likely from the tenant’s grandchild, that said the man in this room was a Mr. Schedony, “Is that you Karen?” he asked. I had learned later he was blind, like, blind-blind. “I can’t see, Karen, lovely Karen, just tell me you’re here,” he said. I learned later he was talking about his daughter, who hadn’t visited him in going on six years now. He was put in Shady Pines seven years ago. “I’m sorry, I’m not Karen,” I said, creeping into the room. “Oh you, you talked to Elizabeth,” he smiled, “Oh, I know you, I heard about you,” he said. Elizabeth, Mrs. LeBlanc as I knew her. “You like to read to us,” he sat up in his bed, his head looking around “The nurse brought me this book I had loaned Elizabeth, Great Gatsby, I loaned it to her what, two, three years ago, since my eyes went and I couldn’t read it myself, why don’t you read it to me?” he asked. “Umm, I kind of have to get back to work,” I said. That was a bit of a lie. He was my last delivery of the day. I would just have to wipe down some surfaces and set the oven to cleaning mode before my shift was done, and I could head out for the day. “Oh please, please read to me,” he took a deep breath. It sounded like it was hard for him to take a breath that deep as he fell back against his pillows. “Okay, I can read for you,” I said. I felt bad, this poor blind old man. He just wanted someone to read to him. I would discover soon that all any of these poor tenants wanted was just for someone to read to them. I went to the chair by his bed and took the book that was sitting on the nightstand. “Okay,” I shrugged and opened the book, and began to read the words. “Oh, thank you, such a nice story,” he smiled. I was halfway through the fourth page before he was passed out and snoring. The next day I arrived at Shady Pines, ready to bang out another shift and secretly hoping that I wouldn’t have another awkward encounter with a senior citizen who wanted me to read to them. I read The Great Gatsby in high school, and that one time was more than enough for me. Reading to these octogenarians, I found they passed out just before I finished the first chapter. As I parked my car, I saw the ambulance loading another black-bagged body into its carriage. I clocked in with Ms. Amelia, and sure enough, she told me that Mr. Shedony had passed last night, maybe earlier, the morning check-in at his room found him dead. The proper authorities were called to dispose of another dead resident of Shady Pines. “I got to tend to clean out the rooms of our recent vacancies. I’m gonna trust you with preparing the food. I can count on you, right?” Amelia asked. Mr. Monticello and I were in the kitchen being addressed by her, but I could tell she was only talking to me. It was a simple job, and after three days, I figured out how things needed to be done, and Mr. Monticello told me how things could be done better. I cooked the meals and delivered them as Mr. Monticello prepared the next round for the next floor. On this trip, I wasn’t badgered to read for someone. In fact, the tenants were a bit reserved to accept food from me. The ones happy to be in Shady Pines were at least. When I got to Mr. Abernathy’s room, he scowled and scolded me, “Where were you? Why don’t you do what you’re supposed to do?” he asked, angry and curmudgeonly. “Umm, I am. Here’s your dinner,” I said, handing him his heated tray. “Just bringing me food, can’t even do what you’re good at,” he said. I shook off his scolding and made my way back to the kitchen. Ms. Amelia was still busy dealing with cleaning out Mrs. LeBlac and Mr. Shedony’s rooms. Mr. Monticello came to me after we, I, was done wiping down the kitchen and getting it ready for another day of heating ready to eat meals. “I heard you’re leaving us soon,” he said, smiling. He was always so nice when he was functioning. When the demon of old age wasn’t putting him through the wringer, he really was a nice man. “Yeah, I’ll be here one more day, but yeah, I’m leaving,” I smiled. “I want to give you something,” he said. “No, you don’t have to do that. I’m just working here. There’s no reason for you to give me anything,” I said. “No, no, my grandchildren don’t visit me, my children don’t even visit me, I’m not just going to leave this for them to pan through and fight each other for once I’m gone, and I hope to be gone soon,” he said. “Hey, don’t talk like that. You’re not going to be gone for a while, what are you? Seventy-eight, seventy-nine, if you can crack seventy, that’s a good sign, and you were a health food chef,” I said, “If anyone here can crack ninety, it’s going to be you,” I said. “Oh, I’ve no intention of cracking ninety, come with me,” he said, leaving the kitchen as I followed him back to his room. Room 124, a room I skipped while he was busy in the kitchen. Ms. Amelia would bring him his meal after our work was done, give him some time to rest after a job well done. Once I followed him into his room, he went to his dresser and dug through his socks and underwear to find a trinket, a small pocket watch, gold shell, gold just like his tasting spoon. “This is the only thing I bought with the one big score of money I made. I put the rest in the nest egg that allowed me to retire in all the luxury you’ve seen that I live in,” he smiled and approached me, dangling the watch in his hands. I looked around, a modest, single bedroom. Small, cozy as someone trying to sell a person on living here would say. Spackled wallpaper with a flower pattern and a small bathroom with a walk-in bath lacking a rim that could cause the senior clientele of this building to trip and die before, or maybe after, their time. This room looked exactly like every other room I had seen while delivering food to the elderly resediments of Shady Pines. I reached my hand out. My only thought was to not look rude, not disappointed this poor, nice, old man who wanted nothing more but to give me a gift. He dropped the watch in my hand, and its chain fell into my palm, “I don’t need to know the time anymore. There’s no need for time, not here,” he smiled. “For this gift, I just have a favor,” he said as he took a seat on his bed, kicked off his shoes, and laid back, resting his head on a stack of two pillows. “What’s that?” I asked. Mr. Monticello pointed to his nightstand, “I got a gift from a dear friend, who himself got it from a dear friend, open the nightstand,” he said. I did, and inside the drawer was the well-worn copy of The Great Gatsby. The same copy I read to Mrs. Leblanc, the same copy I read to Mr. Shedony. “I’ve heard you like to read to us, please, would you read to me?” he asked. My eyes were wide as I saw that damn book, as I thought of the fate that the last two people I read this book to was, “I…I don’t know if I should,” I said. “Please, just read to me,” he said, getting comfortable in his bed, making sure he was well supported, in a position with little neck or back pain. “I’d really like to be read too,” he said. I gulped, my heart beating, it was just a coincidence I said to myself, “Okay, Mr. Monticello, I’ll read to you,” I took the book, I looked at the pocket watch he gave me, my four-hour shift was just now over, my last shift as just now over. Right now, I was just a volunteer helping out. I took a seat by the bed as Mr. Monticello folded his hands over his chest and found the sweet spot lying in his bed. I opened the book and took a deep breath, “In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. Whenever you feel like criticizing any one, he told me, just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.” I read to Mr. Monticello, and just before I finished the first chapter, he was passed out in a peaceful sleep. He looked so peaceful. I got up and found a spare tear running down my cheek. I wiped it away and left back to the kitchen to check out with Ms. Amelia. This was the last day of my service to Shady Pines. I had no reason to ever come back here. I came back the next day. I made sure to get there at seven o’clock when the residents awoke the seniors. Sure enough, there was an ambulance there, loading in a body wrapped in a black bag. I rushed inside through the front door. When I was an employee here, I was told to use the side door, but I was no longer an employee here, so I came in through the front. I made my way to the back room where the kitchen was, my eyes looking around, desperate to find Mr. Monticello. “Oh, you want to volunteer now?” Ms. Amelia asked, “You volunteer?” she asked again. “No, I don’t want to volunteer,” I said. The last thing I wanted to do was force myself to carry more of those horrible meals to these old people who wanted me to read to them, “I just wanted to visit. Where is Mr. Monticello?” I asked, “Is he in the kitchen?” I asked. “Oh, sweety, Mr. Monticello is not with us anymore,” she said. I had to collect myself for a moment. I looked down, blamed myself, “He was smiling when he died, child. He was happy,” she said. “Can I go to his room?” I asked. “Child, we ain’t done cleaning it,” she said, “You don’t want to go to dead man’s room. What do you need there?” “There is something there, something that,” I shook my head, I had read the first chapter of that stupid book to three different people, and they had all died after I finished reading to them. That book was killing people. I had to get it out of here. “Can’t let you go into his room, that’s for his family to do, and after his family, we send people in to clean it, he died there, his son in here earlier, asking about some watch,” she said, “You see some watch he had, I have never seen him with some watch,” she said as she went back to her work, setting the oven to 250. I held my tongue, “No, I don’t know about any watch, how did…How did Mr. Monticello die?” I asked. “When someone that age dies, you don’t be asking questions. People that old just die said he went in his sleep the ambulance did, just a death, natural,” she said. “Natural death,” I nodded, taking another deep breath. “Where’s his funeral? Is he even having one?” I asked. Mr. Monticello was so nice, and he was nice to me. He told me that his kids didn’t give a damn about him. I gave a damn about him. He gave me his watch. I was maybe the last voice he heard before he passed. I wanted to go. “His family cremating him, no ceremony, I’m sorry, dear,” Ms. Amelia put her hand on my shoulder. “I just-” I was cut off by the sound of a gunshot ringing through Shady Pines. Ms. Amelia shrieked, “Oh God! oh god!” she cried out as we ran to the common room. Most of the tenants of Shady Pines were in shock, and for a good reason. Mr. Abernathy’s body was lying in the middle of the room, on the ground, a luger held loosely in his hand and a hole in the back of his head as he laid collapsed in the middle of the room. “What happened?” I asked. “I don’t know, I don’t know,” one of the younger ladies said, she was in her late sixties and new to Shady Pines, “He just came in and asked where the girl who reads was,” she said, she was crying, her wrinkly skin contorting as she tried to wipe her tears away. “What girl who reads?” I asked. “The girl who reads, he said, asked where’s that damn girl who reads, he said he just wanted to die,” she said.


Kate woke up on a bed that was not her own. Her soft bed was gone, replaced by a hard slab of fabric, sitting gently on a sturdy metal frame. She swiftly opened her eyes and was quickie sitting up. As if on queue with her awakening, bright lights shot on, bathing the room is clean white light. Once her eyes adjusted, Kate looked around and was able to get a better understanding of the room she found herself in. The room was small, the walls and floors were made of solid panels, each seemed to be the exact same size and shape, all but one was a stark white. Across the room from the bed was a single black panel at the center of the wall. Kate’s eyes were still adjusting to the light as she stood herself up from the bed. She looked down and noticed her normal clothes were gone, replaced with a simple gray jumpsuit. “Hello?!” She shouted, her brain was running on overdrive trying to figure out where she was and how she got here. A monotone robotic male voice echoed across the room. “Subject is awake. Please confirm.” The voice seemed to be without a source, as if there were a thousand invisible speakers all echoing in perfect unison. Kate looked around, the adrenaline from being woken up was quickly fading as the fear of what was going on began to take hold. “Wha.. What is going on? Who are you? Where am I?” She stuttered through her words, unsure which question she really wanted answered, worried the answer might be alot worse than whatever her mind might think of. The voice returned. “Confirmation accepted.” The voice paused. An eternity of silence passed in a heartbeat. “Make progress, or termination will be permanent.” Kate yelled out, “What does that mean?” The voice was annoyingly silent, that seemed to be all the answers she was going to get. Kate looked around, and noticed the black panel had changed. At the top, a timer had appeared and was counting down. 3 minutes were left. Underneath, there was a message; ***What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs at night?*** Kate stared at the board confused as to why she was being asked a simple brain teaser. She thanked herself that she knew the answer, and unable to think of another way to answer, Kate spoke out the solution to the riddle. “The answer is man.” The timer stopped, and the message disappeared. A moment later, the loud voice returned. “Progress has been made.” Kate was unsure of what exactly *progress* meant, but making it seemed like a good thing, as the timer began to tick upwards until it hit 13 minutes, before it began to count down again. Then, another message appeared. ***LOCATE WHERE THE PATTERN REPEATS*** Kate looked at the message, then around the room for any sort of pattern she could find. The walls and ceiling remained unchanged, however when she looked down she noticed the floor had changed. It was no longer the same solid white, now a variety of black shapes scattered across the floor. She scanned the room, but couldn’t find any sight of a pattern. She spoke to herself “Okay, ‘Locate where the pattern repeats.’ Just gotta find it.’ How hard could it be?” Kate wasn’t sure if it was the nerves or the riddle, but she was just thankful that she had something else to focus her mind on. She quickly began to scan the ground, looking for any sign of a pattern, and where it might repeat. The clock had ticked down to 2 minutes, and Kate was still scanning the floor, but she couldn't find any sign of a pattern. Her mind was racing, and she began to panic. “There is no pattern! This doesn't make sense!” She yelled out, a small part of her brain was desperately hoping that maybe she had found the answer, but the voice was silent. Kate stared at the message, and suddenly she noticed something odd about the letters. She ran over, but before she could analyze them, she remembered the clock, and realized it had 5 seconds left. Kate froze, she tried to look at the letters but the pressure of the timer was too much, she couldn’t focus enough to find a pattern. The final seconds ticked away. The clock hit zero and the message disappeared. The ominous voice returned. “Time has expired, commencing termination.” The hard white light of the room was quickly replaced with a dim red. Smoke began to seep out from the floor. The room was quickly flooded with toxic gas. Kate tried to hold her breath, but eventually her body betrayed her, she took a deep breath in, she felt her body quickly begin to fail, until she completely collapsed. There was a flash of white, then suddenly Kate was once again standing in the center of the room. She took a deep breath, confused as to what just happened to her. “Make progress, or termination will be permanent.” Kate quickly realized she was somehow right back where she started. She looked at the clock, and saw it begin to count down from 5 minutes, with the same message as before. ***What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs at night?*** “Okay, so as long as I make progress, I somehow end up back where I started.” Kate said to herself. She didn’t understand the how or the why, but at least there were rules she could follow. “The answer is man” This time the voice did not return, the message simply disappeared, and the clock began to tick upwards. This time settling at 14 minutes. “And it would seem that time gets added every time I solve a puzzle. Got it.” Kate was beginning to feel slightly more confident, as the next riddle appeared. ***LOCATE WHERE THE PATTERN REPEATS*** This time Kate ignored the shapes on the ground, and went right to the letters. At the bottom of each of the letters, there were small shapes. Under the L was a square, the O had a circle, the C had a triangle. Square, circle, triangle. This pattern repeated under each letter across the whole riddle. She made a point to note every spot where the pattern repeated itself, and nervously spoke out her answer. “The pattern repeats every 3 letters.” The message vanished, the clock stopped, then the voice returned. “Progress has been made.” 10 minutes were added to the clock. This was how it continued, puzzles and riddles continued, sometimes entire rooms would open up, but each one had the same black panel, with a clock and riddle. If Kate could solve the puzzle, she could move on, and every time she solved a new one, the robotic voice indicated progress had been made. The once ominous voice began to take on a more calming presence to Kate, as each time it echoed, she knew she was now safe to fail a puzzle. Each failure led to a death of some type, but each time Kate woke up back at the start.


#Welcome to Serial Sunday! To those brand new to the feature and those returning from last week, welcome! Do you have a self-established universe you’ve been writing or planning to write in? Do you have an idea for a world that’s been itching to get out? This is the perfect place to explore that. Each week, I will post a single theme to inspire you. You have 850 words to tell the story. Feel free to jump in at any time if you feel inspired. Writing for previous weeks’ themes is not necessary in order to join.   *** #This week's theme is Vice! This week we’ll explore the theme of ‘vice’. Vice is all about immoral wicked behavior. Some things that come to mind when we think of vices are addictions and bad habits. But this isn’t limited to just those things, it can extend to any bad behavior. As we enter October, this seemed like an appropriate time to explore this in your stories. People are not good all the time, neither are their thoughts. What kind of wickedness is afoot in your world? What kind of trouble will your characters get into? Are the other characters aware of the goings on or are they oblivious...until that one domino falls? Maybe this is the moment that the Big Bad enters the picture and turns the world upside down. I can’t wait to see where you take this. These are just a few things to get you started. Remember, the theme should be present within the story in some way, but its interpretation is completely up to you. |   *** #Theme Schedule: I recognize that writing a serial can take a bit of planning. Each week, I release the following 2 weeks’ themes here in the Schedule section of the post. * October 3 - Vice (this week) * October 10 - Insidious * October 17 - Storm   *** **Previous Themes:** | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | *** #How It Works: In the comments below, submit a story that is between 500 - 850 words in your own original universe, inspired by this week’s theme. This can be the beginning of a brand new serial or an installment in your in-progress serial. You have until 6pm EST the following Saturday to submit your story. Please make sure to read *all* of the rules before posting!   *** #The Rules: * **All top-level comments must be a story inspired by the theme (not using the theme is a disqualifier).** Use the stickied comment for off-topic discussion and questions you may have. * **Do not pre-write your serial.** You may do outlining and planning ahead of time, but you need to wait until the post is released to begin writing for the current week. Pre-written content or content written for another prompt/post is not allowed. * **Stories must be 500-850 words.** Use to check your word count. **You may include a *brief* recap at the top of your post each week if you like, and it will not count against the wordcount.** * **Stories must be posted by Saturday 6pm EST.** That is one hour before the beginning of Campfire. Stories submitted after the deadline will not be eligible for rankings and will not be read during campfire. * **Only one serial per author at a time.** This does not include serials written outside of Serial Sunday. * **Authors must leave at least 2 feedback comments on the thread (on two different stories, not two on one) to qualify for rankings every week.** The feedback should be actionable and **must** include at least one detail about what the author has done well. Failing to meet the 2 comment requirement will disqualify you from weekly rankings. (Verbal feedback does not count towards this requirement.) **Missing your feedback two consecutive weeks will exclude you from campfire readings and rankings the following week.** You have until the following Sunday at 12pm EST to fulfill your feedback requirements each week. * **Keep the content “vaguely family friendly”.** While content rules are more relaxed here at r/ShortStories, we’re going to roll with the loose guidelines of family friendly for now. If you’re ever unsure if your story would cross the line, please modmail and ask! * **Begin your post with the name of your serial between triangle brackets** (e.g. <My Awesome Serial>). This will allow our serial bot to track your parts and add your serial to the full catalogue. Please note: You **must** use the exact same name each week. This includes commas and apostrophes. If not, the bot won’t recognize your serial installments.   *** #Reminders: * **If you are continuing an in-progress serial, please include links to the prior installments on reddit.** * **Saturdays I host a Serial Campfire on the discord main voice lounge**. Join us to read your story aloud, hear other stories, and share your own thoughts on serial writing! We start at 7pm EST. You can even come to just listen, if that’s more your speed. Don’t worry about being late, just join! * **You can nominate your favorite stories each week**. Send me a message on discord or reddit and let me know by 12pm EST the following Sunday. You do not have to attend the campfire, or have read all of the stories, to make nominations. Making nominations awards both parties points (see point breakdown). * Authors who successfully finish a serial with at least 8 installments will be featured with a modpost recognizing their completion and a flair banner on the subreddit. Authors are eligible for this highlight post only if they have followed the 2 feedback comments per thread rule (and all other post rules). * There’s a Serial Sunday role on the Discord server, so make sure you grab that so you’re notified of all Serial Sunday related news!   *** #Last Week’s Rankings - - u/Zetakh   - - u/GammaGames   - - u/rainbow--penguin   - - u/Sonic_Guy97   - - u/ReverendWrites   - - u/Bavarianlageryeast   - - u/chunksisthedog   *** #Ranking System There is a new point system! Note that you must use the theme each week to qualify for points! Here is the current breakdown: **Nominations (votes sent in by users):** - First place - 60 points - Second place - 50 points - Third place - 40 points - Fourth place - 30 points - Fifth place - 20 points - Sixth place - 10 points **Feedback:** - Written feedback (on the thread) - 5 points each (25 pt. cap) - Verbal feedback (during Campfire) - 5 points each (15 pt. cap) *Note: In order to be eligible for feedback points, you must complete your 2 required feedback comments. These are included in the max point value above.Your feedback must be **actionable**, listing at least one thing the author did well, to receive points. (“I liked it, great chapter” comments will not earn you points or credit.)* **Nominating Other Stories:** - Sending nominations for your favorite stories - 5 points (total)   *** ###Subreddit News - You can now post serials to r/Shortstories, outside of Serial Sunday. Check out to learn more! - Sharpen your micro-fic skills by participating in our brand new feature, - Have you ever wanted to write a story with another writer? Check out our brand new weekly feature on r/WritingPrompts.


"I know it sounds stupid," The man said. The bar wasn't busy, but he still had to raise his voice a little to compete with the clamor of small talk, 90's alternative, and Monday night football that filled the place. He took a shot of something clear and winced, then wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his crisp, blue linen shirt. "But I just don't feel the spark anymore." "The spark? Bullshit dude, life's not the fuckin' Notebook. How long you guys been together?" The bartender asked. "Ten years." She clicked her blood-red ballpoint a few times before sticking it in her shirt pocket, right below a nametag that read “Rebecca”, then grabbed an expensive-looking bottle of vodka from the shelf. She gestured toward it with her free hand. The man nodded his head in affirmation. “Ten years? Dude what do you think, it’s gonna be honeymoon shit forever? Do you love her?” "Yeah I love her, of course I love her. It's just that things aren't the same now, you know? We don't even talk anymore. At least when we used to argue, I felt something." He tapped on the rim of his beer glass anxiously while she poured him another shot. "I'm sorry, I know you're in here all the time. What was your name again?" "Tim." "Tim," She said teasingly, "Are you telling me you wish you and your girlfriend argued more?" "No, of course I don't want to argue more, but she gives me nothing. We never do anything. It's a hassle just getting her out of bed these days." Cheers erupted from the corner of the dim room, a small group of college students celebrating a touchdown. One of them stumbled to the bar and set his empty glass on the counter. He waved his hand to signal that he was ready for another. “One sec, hon.” Rebecca went to serve another cheap, watery pour from the complicated looking ten-tap beer tower at the other end of the bar. It’s getting late, Tim thought, looking at his watch. He wondered if his wife would be waiting for him to get home. She probably hasn’t noticed I’m not. "Maybe she's depressed. When I get depressed I don't feel like doing shit." Becky's voice cut into his thoughts as she reappeared in front of him. "I'm sure you shower, at least," Tim said, sardonically, "She doesn't even take care of herself anymore." "Did something happen? Someone die or something? Like, you said things used to be good, right?" "I wouldn't know if something did happen. She doesn't tell me anything anymore. But yeah, they were great. Really great. I’d do anything to get that version of her back, you know?" Becky’s gentle, rosy face took on an expression of grave seriousness. “Then what are you waiting for, man? Go get her.” Her expression broke and she launched into hysterics. “I’m sorry, dude, you set yourself up for it. I always wanted to say some dramatic shit like that," She said, dabbing away the tears that had been formed by her laughter and making an effort to gather her composure. “Seriously though man, you want my advice? Just talk to her. If things aren’t gonna work out then they’re not gonna work out, but you say you want it back, so just try,” This time, the look of seriousness was more genuine. “You say you work a lot, right? Maybe what you need to do is take a little time off and just be with her. Spend some time together." Tim looked at his drinks contemplatively. "See if you can find that ‘spark’.” Becky added, mockingly. "You're right, honestly. I haven't been the greatest partner either." "Not trying to bust your balls or anything, but think about it. You are literally sitting in a dive bar complaining that your marriage isn't fun anymore while your wife is at home by herself. Go fix it, dude." "Yeah when you put it like that, I do kinda sound like an asshole, huh?" He chased the vodka with the rest of his Pabst Blue Ribbon. "How much do I owe you?" He asked, putting on his black jacket. "Just gimme ten." He laid a twenty on the bar. "Thanks for being real with me." "Anytime bud. Good luck." Tim crossed his fingers in the air behind him as he pushed open the frosted glass door and walked out into the orange-pink glow of the setting sun. The soles of his oxfords clicked against the cracked sidewalk on his way to the old grey Buick, where he fumbled with the keys for a moment. He drove carefully and methodically, sober enough to know that he'd had too much to be behind the wheel of anything. The lights were off when he opened the door to the townhouse that he shared with his wife. He flipped the switch, bathing the room in bright white, and called out. "Honey?" There was no response. He took off his shoes and left them by the door, and hung up his coat. Flies whizzed past him as he made his way down the hall, loosening his tie. He swatted at one unfortunate insect who made the mistake of landing on him, splattering it's tiny body against his shoulder. Inside the bedroom, his wife lay facing away from the door, her stringy, matted hair beginning to fall out. "Hey sweetheart. Sorry I'm late," He said, gently. He unbuttoned his shirt and tossed it in the clothes basket. She didn't move as he crawled into bed next to her. Her blue, grey, and yellow skin was falling off in places, and maggots wriggled in the open wounds. "I've been thinking," Tim whispered into her decaying ear, "I love you, and I know things haven't been so great lately, but maybe that's my fault. How about I take next week off and we can spend some time together?" "I'd like that." He whispered back.


Jack was a man of no particular talents. His appearance was inconspicuous. At second glance, some women said that he had a handsome face but they mostly did not notice him at first glance. He was of average height, slim, not athletic. Brown hair, a muddy color. His teeth were neat, like an orderly front yard because he took brushing and flossing very seriously. In winter, his hands became dry and inflamed and he never used lotion so they always hurt. He had a simple head but the wisdom to know that. He had made up his mind about the world in relatively shallow but sufficient fashion. His position was clear to him and, should not occur some drastic change, would be so for the rest of his days. He had missed the few big chances he had had but was just fine with it. He worked in an office in a minor administrative position and brought home a salary that was right in line with any statistic about the lower middle class. He enjoyed watching TV. He knew that it wasn’t an enriching activity but what, he asked himself, did he need to be enriched for when work was done? He knew that he would not contribute anything particular, anything striking to the world and had stopped deceiving himself about that truth long ago. He was born to be a gearwheel, and so he would not hurt anybody, would not disrupt anything, do his job and remain quiet. One day he would find a woman that was as attractive as him, probably occupying a minor administrative position and he would marry her and have some children, and all, if nothing out of the ordinary happened, would be born to be gearwheels, neat and nondescript, turning until the day they stopped. The world would be spinning the same with the genepool of Jack Edgar roaming its surface, or not. All of these things would sound terribly depressing to the dreamer out there, might his dreams be an end in themselves, who knows, because the world would have you believe that being a dreamer is essential. Jack increasingly settled, increasingly became comfortable, more and more liked what he saw in the mirror. He got up and smiled in the morning. Why shouldn’t he consider himself handsome? There was the broad forehead and the prominent cheekbones. There was the stubby little nose and the thin lips but the shadow of a thick beard could conceal these pretty well. He thought back and recalled quite a number of compliments he had gotten throughout life. He decided to make it a ritual to recall them every morning to feel better. Why shouldn’t he be fine with his job? Most of his colleagues were nice and with some of them, upon meeting them in the office, he enjoyed a pleasant little chat. And as time went on, he himself, and other people, discovered the humorous side of him and the ability to make those around him laugh in some of the right moments. When he came home, he usually switched on the TV and let anything that it showed pour out of it, while leisurely letting his attention wander through the talk shows and movies and sitcoms. Then, one night, he never knew what had driven him to do it, he opened an old box with belongings of his late grandfather and examined the contents. Next to a bunch of photos, the pipe, the old man’s favorite hat, there were some dusty books. He investigated them, not in the least eager, but remembered some of the names from school and then found out that they all were established classics in english literature. Half ironic, he took one of them ‘The picture of Dorian Grey’, opened it and in homage to Frank Edgar, took the pipe between his teeth and half died of a coughing fit, for he had inhaled some particle of old tobacco. Recovered, he began to read and fought, like every person unaccustomed with reading, through the first strong onset of boredom but on page twenty was gripped by zeal. He finished the book in three days, picked up the next, finished that and became somewhat of an avid reader and discovered the meaning and the value of an enriching activity, which he had, so long, dismissed. He never touched the pipe again. He eventually even joined a book club, where some locals got together and read and discussed what they had read and Jack made friends there. Fine people, philanthropists, working in soup kitchens and buying christmas gifts for the poor children. There was a world beyond, Jack realized. Your own personal horizon, he understood, wasn’t the end, and for the first time he grasped what it meant to broaden it. He lay wondering oftentimes now, when in bed at night, about that future wife and the kids that would somewhere down the line, enrich his life like books had done and the people in the book club. And maybe, he liked to think, one of them would do something special. He would teach them reading right away, so much was certain.


Sipping their cup of tea, they looked up as they heard a loud rumble outside. It sounded... different than the thunder. It sounded deeper, more like it came from the earth itself. They slowly stood up, carefully placing their cup next to them, feeling confusion and curiosity rising from within them. Forgetting to put anything able to withstand the rain on, they walked outside into the streaming rain, barefoot, their long garments dancing behind them, carried upwards by the winds. Without looking behind them, they slowly walked into the woods, ignoring the rain trying its best to warn them. They kept on walking, slowly, gracefully, nearly looking like someone of royalty. They felt how their hair swooshed around them, in all directions, but they paid no mind to it. They kept walking, elegantly stepping over fallen branches, and entire logs. Deeper inside the woods, the rain lessened, but the wind continued to push around them. They were able to concentrate on the sounds. The leaves being blown around, and raindrops still falling towards the ground, being slowed by the plants and moss covering every free surface. They inhaled deeply, smelling the crisp air that always hangs in the air during rainfall. They smelt the greenery, but there was an underlying scent. It smelt... ancient. There was no other word to describe it. It smelt like deep caverns, like plants, slowly decaying. It smelt kind of sweet, but at the same time very clean. Their curiosity now piqued, they walked further, paying no attention to the path they were taking becoming wilder and wilder, filled with more plants with every step they took. They didn’t stumble, how, was beyond them. The light kept fading more the deeper they walked into the woods. But suddenly, the light became brighter again. When they looked as to why, they saw it. Thousands of mushrooms, glowing a soft yellow light. When they looked further along the trail, the glow became more intense. They suddenly heard the low rumble again, but this time it was so loud, it became too much for them. They covered their ears quickly, squeezing their eyes nearly shut. When the rumbling stopped, they started walking again, picking up their pace. They hurried along the trail, their heart thundering in their chest. Then, they came to a sudden halt. They saw a giant beast, illuminated by the soft glow of the mushrooms. It looked like it had the colour of moss, ranging from a deep green to a muddy brown. They took a step back in amazement, when the giant creature slowly looked their way. Big yellow eyes slowly slid over them, taking up every inch. They couldn’t see any pupils, sending a shiver up their spine. Slowly, the creature spread its wings, making it seem even taller. By doing so, it revealed that it had all sorts of plants and mushrooms growing over its body, making it seem like it had been in a slumber for thousands of years.


#Welcome to the Spooky Micro Monday Challenge! Hello writers! Welcome to Micro Monday! I am excited to present you all with a chance to sharpen those micro-fic skills. What is micro-fic? I’m glad you asked! Micro-fiction is generally defined as a complete story (hook, plot, conflict, and some type of resolution) written in 300 words or less. For this exercise, it needs to be at least 100 words (no poetry). However, less words doesn’t mean less of a story. The key to micro-fic is to make careful word and phrase choices so that you can paint a vivid picture for your reader. Less words means each word does more! Each week, I’ll give you a single constraint or jumping-off point to get your minds working. It might be an image, song, theme word, sentence, or a simple writing prompt. You’re free to interpret the prompt how you like as long as you follow the post and subreddit rules. **Please read the entire post before submitting.** Remember, feedback matters! And don’t forget to upvote your favorites and nominate them via message here on reddit or a DM on discord!   *** #This week’s challenge: **** *Bonus Constraint (worth extra points): The word “ravenous” is used.* This is the second week of our ***Five Weeks of Spooky for Spooktober*** challenge. Each week will involve a horror or Halloween themed prompt/constraint. Keep in mind you are not bound to write horror. If the prompts inspire you to write something different, go for it! But for those who live and breathe horror, or want to give it a shot, this is your chance! This week’s challenge is to use the theme of ‘phobia’ in your story. It (or the idea) should appear in some way within the story. I have provided an image as additional inspiration. You may include the theme word if you wish, but it is not necessary. Use of the image and bonus constraint are not required. You may interpret the theme any way you like, as long as the connection is clear and you follow all sub and post rules.   *** #How It Works: - **Submit one story between 100-300 words** in the comments below, by the following Sunday at midnight, EST. No poetry. One story per author. - **Use to check your word count.** The title is not counted in your final word count. Stories under 100 words or over 300 will be disqualified from campfire readings and rankings. - **No pre-written content allowed.** Submitted stories should be written for this post exclusively. - **Come back throughout the week, upvote your favorites and leave them a comment with some actionable feedback.** Do not downvote other stories on the thread. Vote manipulation is against Reddit rules and you will be reported. See the ranking scale below for a breakdown on points. - **Please be respectful and civil in all feedback and discussion.** We welcome writers of all skill levels and experience here, as we’re all here to improve and sharpen our skills. - **Send your nominations for favorites each week to me, via DM, on Reddit or Discord by Monday at 2pm EST.** - If you have any questions, feel free to ask them on the *stickied comment* on this thread or through modmail. *Top-level comments are reserved for story submissions.* - And most of all, be creative and have fun!   *** #Campfire and Nominations - On Mondays at 12pm EST, I hold a Campfire on the discord server. We read all the stories from that week’s thread and provide verbal feedback for those authors that are present. Come join us to read your own story and listen to the others! You can come to just listen, if that’s more your speed. You don’t even have to write to join in. Don’t worry about being late, just join! Everyone is welcome. - You can nominate your favorite stories each week, by sending me a message on reddit or discord. You have until 2pm EST on Monday (or about an hour after Campfire is over). You do *not* have to write or attend Campfire to submit nominations!   *** #How Rankings are Tallied I have made some significant changes in the ranking system. We’ll see how this works over the next few weeks and make adjustments where necessary. Here is a current breakdown: - **Use of Constraint:** 10 points - **Upvotes:** 5 points each - ***Actionable* Feedback** 5 points each (up to 25 pts.) - **User nominations:** 10 points each (no cap) - **Bay’s nomination:** 40 pts for first, 30 pts for second, and 20 pts for third (plus regular nominations) - **Bonus:** Up to 10 pts. (This applies to things like bonus constraints and making user nominations)   *** #Rankings: This Past Week - - Submitted by u/rainbow--penguin   - - Submitted by u/katherine_c   - - Submitted by u/nobodysgeese   - - Submitted by u/Say_Im_Ugly   - - Submitted by u/katpoker666   - - Submitted by u/Nakuzin   - - Submitted by u/rolfkto   *** ###Subreddit News - Try your hand at serial writing with - Have you ever wanted to write a story with another writer? Check out our brand new weekly feature on r/WritingPrompts - You can now post serials to r/Shortstories, outside of Serial Sunday.