Storyfeather

While authorities search for a tiger that escaped from the local zoo, a group of people take shelter in a diner, not really worried about their safety, until a stranger appears who seems to have been attacked. Genre: Fable   Excerpt : Sally got on the phone, and I could tell she was calling her neighbor to ask if they would look out for Frankenstein (their calico cat). He was an outdoor cat and yo...

Ah, the curious ways in which the wonders of our childhood manifest when we are older. Genre: Fantasy   Excerpt : I woke up to watch it walking into my room through the open door. I didn't remember closing the door. But I always closed the door, so it should have been closed. Part of its tail trailed off beyond the open door that I don't remember leaving open. It just sat there, or stood there, an...

A man keeps waking up in a sweat, breathless, and on the verge of tears, but he can't remember his dreams. Then one day, he wakes to find something disturbing on his hands. Genre: Mystery   Excerpt : And then he woke up. He huffed out a breath and gasped. He was covered in sweat, even though the room was cool. His eyes were still shut, but he felt the wetness gathered at the rims of his eyelids. H...

When one flower asks for every passing creature to help her attain the gift of motion, she finds no luck, until she meets a cat named Serendipity. Genre: Fairy Tale   Excerpt : Once upon a time, flowers lived long lives. They are now known to be fleeting, for the most part. They bud. They bloom. They grace the world with their beauty. And then they die. But it was not always so. They lived long li...

After the laughing Sun learns a terrible lesson about the power of her radiance, she flees the sky, and her sister, Moon, ventures into the cosmos to find her. Genre: Mythology   Excerpt : Mischievous, capricious, boisterous Sun never took her cosmic duty seriously in her younger days. Many cast light upon the mortal world, but only one, only Sun cast warmth upon the mortal world. For Sun was alwa...

Two friends notice a mysterious new patron at their famed local laundromat, who always uses the same machine to wash the same few clothes the same way every time. Genre: Fantastic Mystery   Excerpt : Yolie and Luxe were "laundromat" friends, who had become actual friends over the course of the past year. And Burgundy was the most intriguing patron to appear in Mervin's Laundromat since the day the...

When her auntie died, Subira inherited three things from her: a blessing, a curse, and a quest. Genre: Fairy Tale   Excerpt : When her auntie died, far sooner than she should have, Subira inherited three things from her. One was a blessing. One was a curse. The third was a quest. The curse is what killed her aunt. And the curse would kill Subira too unless she completed the quest before the number...

An expert in the field of neurological mapping is the only person qualified to enter an experimental simulation and rescue her greatest rival. Genre: Science Fiction   Excerpt : "It could be psychological. Maybe his subconscious put something in there, or built a section of the maze on its own, and he's having a tough time getting out." "And what else?" The tech frowned at me as if I already had t...

An inventor aiming to revolutionize cosmetics with her intelligent nanoparticle mechanisms, revises and refines her invention to serve a greater purpose. Genre: Science Fiction   Excerpt : Kaira explained how it worked. Her nanoparticles were simple mechanisms that responded to commands transmitted from a voice-activated processing patch attached to her skin, just below her throat. She called them...

A mouse narrowly escapes a cat, and is later haunted by the ghost of the cat, who believes the mouse plays a part in the "unfinished business" of the cat's life. Genre: Fable   Excerpt : Two eyes, yellow with a green glow, hovered in the darkness. A shaft of soft light from a crack in the wall fell between Rini and those eyes, those eyes that loomed. Those eyes that floated closer. A smiling snout...

A girl accidentally passes before a warlock who is laying a curse on someone, and wakes the next morning to find that the curse has fallen upon her instead. Genre: Fairy Tale  Excerpt : I didn't earn what happened to me. The curse that fell on me was meant for another. That's what happens when petty warlocks are reckless with their magic.   What's the Writing Prompt that inspired the story? You wa...

A desperate people once made a monstrous bargain with a demon, and monsters they became. Genre: Fairy Tale Alert : This episode contains mention of harm to human babies, comparable to what can be found in classic fairy tales such as "Hansel and Gretel."   Excerpt : Legend says that the draugamunninn were once human. They were a practical but severe people who after suffering one terrible winter to...

A restless fairy creates a restless trinket with the power to grant its bearer three wishes, but as each wish is grant, the last wish fades away. Genre: Fairy Tale   Excerpt : A restless fairy grew bored one day and created a restless trinket, imbuing it with all of the fairy's magic. The magic was all bent toward one purpose, to grant the bearer of the trinket three wishes. The form the trinket f...

The youngest of three siblings makes a wish at a mall fountain, where unseen fish supposedly live, helping people's wishes come true. Genre: Fairy Tale   Excerpt : I twisted my mouth to one side, and stared at the coin that I held in the middle of my palm. "There's a scientific explanation for it," my sister said.  "For what?" I said, glancing up at the fountain. We were standing three feet away f...

Alert : This episode contains heartbeat sound effects. Long ago, the human heart experienced an extraordinary change, all because one god wanted to find a quiet place to sleep. Genre: Mythology   Excerpt : A tale was once told among the ancestors of the people who live at the base of the great mountain to the north, from which a waterfall plummets into a river that winds across the land. The peopl...

A moth dreams of visiting the Moon, but is too small to fly all the way. Genre: Mythology   Excerpt : When first the moths alighted in the world below, the land of earth, they did so out of curiosity. And they did so because they were sent forth from their home by their creator. Their home and their creator were one and same, and she bore the name Moon. And she  was the moon.   What's the Writing...

A prideful swallow is cursed and changed into the form that she finds most abhorrent, a tree. Genre: Fable   Excerpt : The swallow was a happy bird, but also somewhat superior. Nothing brought her joy the way flying did. Slicing through the clouds and flicking the air with the perfect points of her tail. She believed that birds were the supreme creatures of the world. Because they could fly. Some...

After a man stuck in the middle seat of a long flight wishes he had more room in his row, his wish comes true: his seatmates start vanishing. Genre: Mystery   Excerpt : But saying it out loud, he sounded a little foolish to himself, so he laughed and waved a hand. "I'm probably just being a worrywart for nothing. But I figure better safe than sorry." The flight attendants agreed. And they said the...

Two passengers find themselves alone just after takeoff, on a plane that seems to be floating in some substance that the passengers can only define as being green and gold. Genre: Science Mystery   Excerpt : If we were asleep, and the plane crashed into an ocean with green-and-gold water, and we're now sinking, and the rest of the passengers managed to get out, then how did they all get a chance t...

Do the voices coming from the food in my fridge and pantry want to harm me, help me, or just…be?   Genre: Science Fiction   Excerpt : "Tell me I'm sane," I said. There was a pause on the other end. And then he finally spoke.  "I refuse."  I sighed. "Freddy, come on." "Give me some context, then."   What's the Writing Prompt that inspired the story? Describe each day of the week as food. Source: 50...

During his first week working at a unique pizzeria, Ronnie encounters some uncanny late-night customers, who place an order for the rarest pizza on the menu. Genre: Fantasy   Excerpt: "What…what will this one do?" Ronnie asked as he folded fresh rosemary leaves and parmesan flakes into the dough. "It'll make the customer swoon with pleasure upon first bite is what it will do." Madeleine Miriam coc...

Three friends decide to do their science project on a forgotten novelty invention, a self-peeling banana. Genre: Science Fiction   Excerpt : "What about dinosaurs?" I said after a few minutes. "We could do our project on how and why they went extinct. That's exciting." K.D. shook her head. "It might seem too basic. Like something we would have done in the fifth grade." She loved dinosaurs. She pro...

A young journalist follows her latest lead into a quirky fast food place located in her dreams.   Genre: Mysterious Fantasy   Excerpt: "Welcome to Thoughtsburger, would you like to try our new Weltschmerz platter with a side of Bitterness and Longing?" Ria stared at the person who had just addressed her. "Uh, no, thank you."   What's the Writing Prompt that inspired the story? Write a menu for a f...

To help a young man seek his fortune and his purpose upon leaving home, his parents endow him with a parting gift, a basket of lemons. Genre: Fairy Tale   Excerpt : The couple had thirteen children by the time they were finished siring. One by one, as each child came of age, they were sent out into the world to seek their fortunes and their purposes for themselves. To each child their parents gave...

To save her friends and herself from being eaten, a ghost crab enters a juggling contest with a devious and possibly unbeatable opponent. Genre: Fable Excerpt : Four unlikely friends were frolicking in the ocean one day. They were the Ghost Crab, the Blue Marlin, the Jellyfish, and the Nautilus. The crab and the marlin splashed about on the surface, and dove back down, while the jelly and the moll...