26Shorts2026: prompt --- betrayal

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                  ⭕     26 Short Stories for 2026
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                  ⭕     BETRAYAL
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Discuss and share - topic: betrayal.

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  #26shorts2026

Completed prompt / 🎉
"betrayal" read December 25,2025

"Madame Rose Hanie" by Kahlil Gibran, 1908. 4 stars

I know I'm a bit of an earlybird but I've decided my 2026 reading year is Dec25 2025 - Dec24 2026 just because I couldn't wait any longer, ha. I selected this story for the "betrayal" prompt, but equally it could have fit the "love" prompt. In this story, both are themes.

Written in high poetic drama somewhat in keeping with older Middle Eastern traditions, this is Lebanese Gibran's story examining those old traditions as they would have stood at the time of its writing and for centuries before that. A 40 year old rich man falls in love with a beautiful, impoverished 18 year old woman and marries her. He showers her with every extravagance but after the glitz of being his pampered prized possession has worn off, she sees emptiness in her life and makes a change.

read online at shortstoryproject.com and is also the first story in Spirits Rebellious available on gutenberg.net.au.

Completed prompt.

Story I read today for "betrayal" was "Antarctica" by Claire Keegan

1/26

>3 PaulCranswick: Will you be reviewing it somewhere? I'd like to read your thoughts on it. I've only read her Small Things Like These and it was very powerful for me personally; my mother had a similar experience at The "Good Shepherds" orphanage in New Mexico. It's no joke to say that it was a seminal experience for her, and even for her children.

🎉 Michael's Room from Ford County by John Grisham
This is a gut-wrenching story about parents who trusted the justice system to help them get the care they needed for their severely handicapped son. The framework for the story is flimsy but the emotions are real: another tearjerker.

Completed prompt.

Krambambuli by Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach is the story of a hunting dog who betrays his master when he meets his first master again.

>6 MissWatson: It's hard for me to resist a dog story. Luckily I have a few prompts still remaining where I might add this. I've found an online copy at Archive.org here https://archive.org/details/germanclassicsof13franuoft/page/417/mode/1up

>7 DebiCates: It’s one of her most popular stories which has been filmed for TV a couple of times.

🎉 Betrayal:

"Bright and Morning Star" (1938) by Richard Wright

This story is about fear, mistrust and betrayal. A woman realizes her son has been betrayed by someone he chose to trust and now she needs to find a way to help undo the damage or at least protect him from the consequences.

Collection: Uncle Tom's Children
📘 February 12, 2026

Completed prompt

I read Bulemanns Haus, a literary fairy tale by Theodor Storm. In this tale, an evil pawnbroker's son sells all of the precious things poor people have pawned and hides the fact. This betrayal of their trust causes heartbreak and even death in the course of the story.

Completed prompt / 🎉

                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 3 stories from Stone Mattress by Margaret Atwood ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 3rd April 2026, 4* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
These three stories are interconnected but can also be read separately. The stories revolve around three women whose love for a man has a huge impact on their lives that they are blind to the betrayal, this unravels slowly with sharp wit and dry humour (that made these stories enjoyable reads), where I could not decide if the ending was a happy one or a tragic one.

My ShortRead log tracks my challenge and comments on how I found those reads. So far I've completed 9 prompts, I'm going for 32 and aiming to complete 3 prompts per month.

Here's a table with a breakdown of how I'm doing so far. The 'go to' takes you to the message that lists the stories / collections I've read and has a link to the message of my review.

 -- -- PROMPT GROUPINGS -- | - go to - | -no. of prompts- | -🎉prompt-| - TO DO -
 -- adventure to detective | message 4 | ------ 5 ------- | --- 02 ---| -- 3 -- 
friendship to freedom/hope | message 5 | ------ 7 ------- | --- 02 ---| -- 5 -- 
-- -- -- -- --- set in ... | message 6 | ------ 9 ------- | --- 04 ---| -- 5 -- 
-- title beginning with... | message 7 | ------ 5 ------- | --- 00 ---| -- 5 -- 
-- written before / between| message 8 | ------ 6 ------- | --- 01 ---| -- 5 -- 

My experience of reading short stories is in my journal, and random jots and quotes as I read short stories can be found in my short story workbook .

Completed Prompt
"A Model of the World" from Michael Chabon's A Model of the World and Other Stories.
The story is about dysfunctional academics and a grad student who decides to plagiarize his dissertation. I did not like it as much as some of the other stories in the collection.