STACH Short Story Contest #19: 199 words, 5 winners, 15SBD prize pool!
Hello Everyone, @kingst here with the announcement for the STACH Short Story Contest #19.
What is a Short Story.
A short story is a story with a fully developed theme but significantly shorter and less elaborate than a novel. It makes use of plot, resonance, and other dynamic components to a far greater degree than is typical of an anecdote. You can read it in less than 90 seconds.
Contest Rules:
•Write a Short Story based on the topic that will be given every week.
•Write an Original Short Story (Plagiarism will be flagged and reported).
•The Story must contain no more than 199 words.
•One entry per user.
•Story should be pasted in the comment section below, no links.
•Contestants are permitted to post their stories in an article on their blog, so they also get upvotes from the @stach trail.
Winners Selection.
Winners will be selected based on the topic, story plot, number of words and delivery as determined by the selected Judge. One word above 199, disqualifies the entry.
Contest Topic.
Write a 199 words story based on THE HAUNTED TRAIL.
PRIZE.
FIVE winners will be selected for a share of the 15SBD. The story with the most interaction gets a 1SBD prize from @ejemai.
First Prize: ----------------------4SBD
Second Prize: ------------------3.5SBD
Third Prize: ---------------------3SBD
Fourth Prize: -------------------2.5SBD
Fifth Prize: ----------------------2SBD
Good luck guys!
Sharpen your writing skills and throw in some inspiring short stories. XO!
STACH is a physical Accelerator Hub dedicated to decentralizing the offline by breaking the barriers to accessing the internet like light, internet and conducive working space.
STACH is supported by @Sndbox as a Sndcastle project.
Joyce was a good friend of mine who opened a new grocery store by the corner of the town. Overtime this store became very popular and attracted the attention of a lot of customers. Soon bizarre things started happening.
I was a live witness to a few of these events on my second visit to her in Cape Town, South Africa. This kept me curious.
Every morning as she unlocked the shop, the first thing she does is to pick up the fruits and vegetables which have been scattered all over the floor. The oddest thing is that the fruits or vegetables are never bruised or damaged in anyway. If they were, she would never put them back. I personally observed there were no marks on them.
I was fed up with the suspense and thus voiced out my curiosity. Joyce explained that this has been happening for the past six years. She reported a black shadowy shape that hovered inside the shop and usually disappeared at human presence which people observed from the glass windows of the shop during the early hours of the night.
That really got me terrified. "Could that be a ghost trial?" I wondered.
Nice one girl. Are you from South Africa?
Thanks dear. I am not really from South Africa but i visit there from time to time. Why do you ask?
I have intentions of visiting SA soon.
I thought i was the only person who has seen ghosts...lol
hahahaha. actually i didnt see the ghosts myself, but i saw the bizarre works of the ghost(s).
Have you eaten from your friend's store before? How did you feel about the food now that you know the vegetables used in cooking were ghost infested?
You know that feeling where you want to kill yourself but you just cant...lolz. That was what it felt like actually. I felt like vomiting all i have eaten from her shop....but you know nah; it isn't possible.
lol. I know that feeling.
Nice one gurl. I stayed in Cape Town for a couple of years too, though didnt have any ghostly encounters there...lol.
Are you in SA at the moment? Thinking of a solid steemit outreach there in affiliation with @stach.
I am not at the moment. But i wouldn't mind taking a trip for such a great proposal you have there... Lets chat privately on discord for further updates.
Have my few cents @missglory. I wish to be a part of your steemit outreach with @prettyrose. You people should carry me along.
Buch of thanks @mrfelix for your few cents. About the meetup proposition from @prettyrose, we are yet to talk, but if it is going to happen, you shall be carried along. Lets steemit!
The University's hospital
When I was studying engineering, my boyfriend and I stayed late at the faculty because we were presenting the final exams. We had to walk to the bus stop, but to get there we had to pass in front of the morgue of the University's Hospital, we walked talking about the exam when we saw far away that an elderly man dressed in a white coat approached to us, his coat was stained with blood. As he approached, he disappeared. My skin bristled and we were very scared so we decided to run to a place where there was more lighting.
It is said that this road in front of the morgue is haunted and in the night you can see ghostly presences that would scare even the bravest ones. Since then, we never again studied until such late hours at night.
Tom woke up animated, had rented an isolated cabin in the mountains, 3 hours from the nearest town.
When Tom came to town to stock up on food and water, the store manager looked at him strangely, when he told him he would stay at the “Bears” cabin. It had been about 5 years since anyone had rented it, since they had found skinned a couple who had rented it.
Tom listened to the tales of the people, but he paid no attention to him, it was only witches' stories, to scare the children and keep the adults away. Tom was having a great time since he came to the cabin until ...
Tom woke up scared by screams heartbreaking pain, when getting out of bed and open the door he found a trail of blood on the floor, which was heading to the kitchen, Tom followed him and what he saw helo blood a woman skinned, with wide eyes that looked at him imploring the kill.
Tom ran away leaving everything behind him, but the ghost of the woman follows the trail of Tom tormenting him every day ....
An old man wearing a long nightshirt would always appear to a little Ryde girl when her family was living in an old small house in Royce Road, once occupied by workers at a nearby hotel.
Tina, now grown up, recalls, "It happened when I was about six or seven. As I was lying in bed, an old man would appear near my wardrobe. It was a child's wardrobe and was probably about four feet in height. The old man, who was misty white colour, appeared to be counting money or dealing cards. The old man never spoke. He didn't seem aware of me at all and I never really saw his face, but I could sense he was friendly and meant no harm."
Elsewhere within same vicinity, Mnady and his wife knew nothing of their daughter's elderly visitor. They did however notice other manifestation which took the form of smells wafting through one particular room.
"We used to get a very sweet smell, like jasmine, which would fill the lounge. It never happened anywhere else and we were at a loss to account for it. It never stopped." "This must definitely be a friendly ghost trail," Mnady concluded.
199 Words
Can deathbed still harbour the spirit of its last occupant? When Dan and Janny brought a bed, in which a relative had died, to their home, it filled the room with what they described as "the smell of death".
Dan, a retired senior technical monitor described the experience as beyond rational explanation. The bed had been lent to Dan's wife, so that her father could be nursed downstairs. Shortly after he died on the bed, they took it back in.
"From then that room smelt of death," Dan said. "Whatever we did, we could not get rid of it. The smell became too bad that my wife, Janny, could not go into the room. We even resorted to taking the bed to another house entirely, but the trail continued"
"I knew it was my dad and would not hurt me, but the smell was oppressive that I even was afraid to stay alone in the house, " Janny confessed.
Janny was fed up! One night she walked upstairs and spoke into the air, "Listen Dad, you are dead, go and rest, we love you and will meet you again. Goodnight Dad, now leave us." That alone saved the situation.
I love your work too. Upvoted! I had a similar experience with my grand father's burial place. Actually he was buried beneath a living room. You can literarily smell death in that room.
Odeyemi continued his journey in search for his love, this time threading softer, unsure of what's next. The night's weather wasn't helpful either. The Fog grew thicker with cold, the bizarre birds' attack left his clothes shredded. His torch fast quenching.
Somewhere from the right, wails rented the air. Odeyemi almost jumped out of his skin. He sneaked to the direction. There he found a man almost his age crouched, crying over a body completely ripped from the torso.
Gruesome! Odeyemi pulled the man away, but as he began to empathize, he suddenly noticed the man had huge fangs. He was the beast!
Odeyemi ran until he got to a path forked. He looked back and found he was no longer chased. On the far left path, an irresistible damsel appeared. Her features volumptous! She beckoned on him. Lust engulfed him. They got to her shed,repugnant, bloody. Unbothered, he undressed hastily. They were both naked, she was on him. He suddenly felt a sharp pain. He looked down and then he saw, she was the beast. In his hot blood, he'd realised, he'd ventured into the hauted trail!
All the best dearie.
Thanks @eunireal1
I like your story...
The path of shadows
I had never taken this narrow road before, flanked by a thick mountain trying to invade its space, but the constant steps of people do not allow the grass to grow. It’s a long trail of yellow earth, I want to get to the other side, a strange sensation invades my body, I feel as if someone is following me. I turn around to see behind me and I do not see anyone, I accelerate the pace. There is total silence, there’s only the sound that occurs in the ears when nothing causes it outside, white noise. Not even the wind appears in this space that makes it feels more and more unreal.
I hurriedly follow the path, only me and my shadow that I see projected onto the flattened earth, until I suddenly stop at what I’m seeing, another shadow accompanies mine, I look desperate to all sides and I do not see anyone. Horrified, I start to run, I see that the spectrum chases me, I stumble and fall to the ground, I have reached the end of the road.
Heart bite
She walked every day on that catwalk covered with stones. Her steps sounded melancholy and I followed her, without knowing it, as if my life depended on it.
It was a simple coincidence.
Ignoring the loneliness of that passage of the square, I walked aimlessly, listening to a voice that did not know where it came from.
At each step, the path was shadowed by the long, loaded branches of the trees. Silence invaded every corner and besides my footsteps on the granite, there was not a single noise.
When I had already traveled a long way, a strange sensation invaded me. A soft song attracted me and I discovered a woman sitting at the foot of a tree. She was a strange woman, almost transparent and when her eyes fell on me I felt that they were squeezing my heart. A very deep pain invaded me and I almost lost my breath. With all the strength I got I looked away and all the pain left me. I ran to the Plaza without looking back.
When I asked what was happening there they answered me: boy, that trail is haunted.
The owl
When I was a little girl we lived in a small village surrounded by forests. It was midnight, I was walking back home with my mother from my aunt Mirian's house, on a path through the forest. Then, an owl hovered over us, squawking loudly. My mother quickened her pace, she held my hand tightly, and looked down.
− It's just an animal - I said skeptically.
− Don’t look at her! - she answered without raising her head - She is in that tree.
Without paying attention to what my mother said, I looked up and saw her. The woman was dressed in black robes; she was hidden among the treetops. She had her hair so long and black that she was swinging at the mercy of the wind. She had big eyes and a deep look that almost paralyzed me. The woman began to squawk again, it was like a scream that invoked the evils of the night and then, she went flying.
− Lower your head! - ordered my mother− She is hungry.