fiction

Mystery, crime, murder, unsolved cases. Contribute your own tales of crime to Criminal.

Dead Man’s Silence
Fog drifted in low across the marshlands, curling around gnarled cypress roots like pale, skeletal fingers. The town of Eddings Hollow lay beyond the mire, tucked away like a secret too terrible to speak aloud. It was the kind of place that wasn’t on maps anymore—not because it had been forgotten, but because people wanted it that way.
By Said Hameedabout a year ago in Criminal
The Widow’s Ledger
Rain fell in icy sheets as Detective Mara Voss stepped onto the crumbling porch of the old Ashbury estate. The town of Greystone had nearly forgotten about Eleanor Hargrave — the reclusive widow of the late Charles Hargrave, a banker who’d drowned mysteriously in 1993. Nearly three decades later, Eleanor was found dead in her parlor, a glass of sherry in her hand and a dusty leather-bound ledger on her lap.
By Said Hameedabout a year ago in Criminal
The Shadows of Klamath Falls. AI-Generated.
For a town as quiet and tucked away as Klamath Falls, Oregon, crime wasn’t something people often talked about. Folks there still left their front doors unlocked, kids played outside until the streetlights flickered on, and strangers waved at each other out of habit. But sometimes, darkness doesn’t make a sound when it creeps in.
By Emmy Hahnabout a year ago in Criminal
A Killer’s Confession
The first snow of the season had just begun to fall when Detective Lila Grant stepped into the interrogation room. The harsh fluorescent light buzzed above, casting long shadows over the man seated across from her. He was calm—too calm for someone who had just turned himself in.
By Said Hameedabout a year ago in Criminal
Chasing the Cipher
It started with a whisper in the code. Amira had spent most of her twenties neck-deep in encrypted strings, building security systems for companies that barely knew what they were guarding. But this—this was different. A month ago, while running diagnostics on a compromised academic server, she'd found a pattern buried in the noise. Not malware, not a backdoor—something else.
By Said Hameedabout a year ago in Criminal
The Last Witness
The wind whispered through the broken windows of the courthouse, carrying with it the scent of decay and dust. Once a place of justice and law, the structure now stood hollow, like the bones of a forgotten giant. Outside, the city of Dorne lay in ruins, the skyline jagged with the skeletal remains of buildings and the scorched silhouettes of war.
By Said Hameedabout a year ago in Criminal
Secrets in the Smoke
The fire started with a whisper. It crept from the base of the hill like a sleeping beast stirred awake, fed by dry grass and the relentless summer wind. By the time Marla saw the first flicker of orange from her kitchen window, it had already painted half the sky with smoke.
By Said Hameedabout a year ago in Criminal
The Crimson Contract
The tavern’s door groaned open, dragging a cold wind behind it. All conversation stilled. A stranger entered, tall and cloaked in midnight blue, silver embroidery gleaming faintly like spider silk in moonlight. Beneath the hood, sharp gray eyes scanned the room with mechanical calm.
By Said Hameedabout a year ago in Criminal
Midnight Confessions
The confessional booth was quieter than usual. The thick wood absorbed most of the sounds, and the fading incense left only a ghost of sandalwood in the air. Father Adrian leaned back in his seat, eyes closed, feeling the weight of another long day. It was nearly midnight. He was about to rise when the curtain on the other side rustled.
By Said Hameedabout a year ago in Criminal
Bloood on the Tracks
The train screeched into the station at 12:47 a.m., half-empty, half-asleep. Rain tapped against the windows, rhythmic as a ticking clock. No one noticed the man in the black coat as he stepped onto the platform at Hawthorne Station, except the night porter—who would later swear the man didn’t blink once.
By Said Hameedabout a year ago in Criminal
Web of Lies
The rain tapped against Mira Dalton’s apartment window like impatient fingers, but inside, all was silent except for the hum of her laptop. It was 2:13 a.m. The screen glowed in the dark, casting her face in pale light as spreadsheet after spreadsheet flickered open. On the surface, everything looked pristine — rows of revenue, columns of quarterly growth, margins tighter than a banker’s smile. Too tight. Too clean.
By Said Hameedabout a year ago in Criminal
The Black Ledger
No one remembered when the Black Ledger was written, only that it was never meant to be found. Hidden for decades in the crumbling cellar of an abandoned estate in Bavaria, it was bound in blackened leather that felt strangely warm to the touch. The pages, thick and grainy, exhaled the scent of smoke and old blood. It was not a book of accounting, though it bore the name. It was something older, deeper—a catalog of choices made in shadow, histories unspoken, and pacts inked in silence.
By Said Hameedabout a year ago in Criminal