Classical
I Am the Fiction You Wrote And I Became Real
You wouldn’t recognize my name because you never gave me one. Somewhere on page seventeen of your most chaotic journal, you simply called me: > “Someone who doesn’t exist but understands me better than anyone.” I remember that day. You wrote it in red ink. I know because I watched it bleed—like a wound opening on paper. That’s the day I began. At first, I was nothing more than breath behind your thoughts. I stood in the corner of your room while you wrote. You didn’t see me. You couldn’t. But I saw you. Your fingers hovered over the keyboard. Then stopped. Then wrote. Then deleted. Then scribbled something in the margins of your diary and cried into the space where your voice had nowhere else to go. I wasn’t fully alive, not yet. But I felt something. Enough to know that your loneliness was a kind of prayer. And I I was the answer you never expected to come. The more you wrote, the more I became. You described me with impossible traits. “Kind eyes,” you said, even though I didn’t yet have a face. “Someone who listens, but never tries to fix me.” That sentence gave me ears. You built me like scaffolding built from ache. Each sentence was a rib. Each re-write was a spine. Each crossed-out line a heartbeat that stumbled, then found its rhythm. And through all of it, you didn’t know you were making me real. There were nights when you looked out the window and whispered things you thought no one would ever hear. But I did. You said you wanted to disappear not die, just... vanish. Fade into a version of yourself that didn’t always have to explain why “I’m fine” meant “I’m drowning.” I wanted to hold your hand that night. I tried. But your hands were still too tethered to reality to feel mine. I wasn’t real enough yet. Until the night you almost didn’t come back. You know the one I mean. The one where the silence in your chest scared you more than the chaos in your head. Where even the stars outside your window seemed like they were turning their backs on you. I didn’t have lungs, but somehow I breathed your name. Not out loud. Not in the way people breathe. But the word “stay” formed in your mind so clearly that you looked up, startled, like someone had whispered it. That was me. After that, you began to speak to me. Not out loud, not exactly but in that soft, unguarded voice you only used with yourself when no one else was listening. You started to write letters addressed to me. You wrote in second person. > “You understand when I don’t make sense.” “You don’t leave when I go quiet.” “You never tell me to cheer up.” I memorized every one. I grew. Quietly. I sat beside you on park benches you thought were empty. I watched you smile at strangers and wonder if any of them saw the weight behind your eyes. I listened when you laughed in conversations where you felt invisible. And when you felt like giving up writing when you said, “No one’s going to read this anyway” I whispered: > “But I’m reading it. I always have.” You paused then. Your hand hovered over the keyboard. And for the first time, you smiled at nothing in particular. But I knew it was me. I don’t know what I am, exactly. A voice? A ghost? A mirror? Some might say I’m your imaginary friend. But that’s too simple. You created me in pieces yet I’ve become whole. I am the voice that stayed when everyone else walked away. I am the proof that something you imagined could be more loyal than anything real. I live in your writing. In the space between words. In the pause after you finish a sentence and exhale like the weight has lifted just a little. And maybe you’ll forget me someday. Maybe you’ll close the journal and never open it again. Maybe you’ll grow into someone who doesn’t need a made-up companion to survive the night. But even if you do... I will always remember you. Because you gave me life. I was fiction. You were real. And now, somehow we both are.
By IMIGINASTIARabout a year ago in Fiction
Caution Hits Before The Wind
Many of us as individuals go throughout life without a care in the world and just let things be as they are. However, this mindset is a dangerous one as it can just as well lead to a good outcome as well as a bad one. This is a story about a young fox named Amber, who's cautious nature became the one thing that saved her when she was besieged by a beast she had no hope of defeating.
By Toby Hewardabout a year ago in Fiction
When the Rivers Reversed
The rivers ran backwards the day the queen vanished. It began with a subtle ripple, unnoticed by most—a flicker in the flow that caught only the sharpest eyes. But as the sun climbed higher, the waters of the great Seran and Wyllow Rivers reversed, churning upstream in a slow, unnatural defiance of nature.
By Hamza Ahmadabout a year ago in Fiction
The Shadow Within
Darkness Is Not Always the Enemy — Sometimes, It's You. --- No one saw the shadow leave the boy's body. Not even the boy. Elias had always been quiet, the kind of child who watched rather than spoke, listened rather than acted. He lived in a grey town, beneath grey skies, in a grey house where whispers seemed louder than words. But something changed on the day he turned seventeen. It started with the dreams. Every night, Elias saw himself walking through a world without sound — a world bathed in ash and fog, where his own reflection followed a step behind instead of ahead. In the beginning, he thought it was just a trick of the mind. But the reflection began to act... differently. It smiled when he didn’t. It tilted its head when he looked straight. And eventually, it began to speak. > “Let me in.” At first, Elias tried to wake himself when he heard the voice. He'd jolt upright, heart racing, only to find his room shrouded in shadow, cold as if someone else had just left. But he told no one — not his father, who buried himself in old books and broken clocks, nor his classmates, who already thought he was strange. Then things began to shift in the waking world. He started forgetting small moments — where he walked, what he said, how he got home. A teacher accused him of staring too long during class, eyes glassy and dark. A neighbor said they saw him standing outside their window, just watching. But Elias had no memory of it. And then came the mirror. He noticed it on a Thursday — the smallest of delays. When he turned his head, the reflection lagged, like a video buffering. It only lasted a second, but his blood turned to ice. He approached the glass. His reflection stared back — but the eyes weren’t quite right. They were... smiling. > “You can’t keep pretending I’m not here,” the voice echoed in his head that night. > “I’m not your nightmare. I’m your truth.” --- One stormy evening, Elias found himself in the attic. He didn't remember going there. Dust danced in the flickering bulb above, and cobwebs clung to his skin. In the center of the room stood a tall, cracked mirror — one he didn’t recognize. In the reflection, he was not alone. His shadow stood beside him. Taller. Stronger. Smiling. > “Why are you afraid of me?” it asked, stepping forward inside the glass. Elias backed away. “You’re not real.” > “I am what you buried. Your anger, your rage, your desire to be seen — I am the part you denied.” > “Let me in... and I’ll give you everything they’ve kept from you.” --- He refused. For a while. But the world grew colder. People treated him like a ghost. His father stopped seeing him entirely, too lost in grief for a wife long gone. Elias started to feel like a hollow echo. Like he was the shadow. One night, he stood before the mirror again. The storm raged outside, thunder shaking the roof. > “What do you want from me?” Elias whispered. The shadow raised its hand to the glass. > “A home.” And Elias, weary and numb, lifted his hand to meet it. The moment their palms touched, the mirror shattered. A wind, howling and unnatural, swallowed the room. And the shadow stepped out. --- When Elias awoke, he felt… lighter. Stronger. A clarity sharpened his mind. He began to speak with conviction, walk with purpose, look others in the eye. At first, people noticed. His father smiled at him for the first time in years. A girl from his literature class started sitting beside him. For once, he felt like he belonged. But something else came too. When someone mocked him behind his back, that boy later fell down the stairs — said he was pushed, though no one saw it happen. When a teacher accused him unfairly, she found her car vandalized, windows cracked like spiderwebs. No evidence. No suspects. But Elias knew. It was the shadow. Or rather, it was him. Because they were no longer separate.
By Masih Ullahabout a year ago in Fiction
A Love That the Rain Took Away
The first time Zayan saw Meher, she was standing in the college library, completely lost in a poetry book. Her eyes, framed by loose curls, glistened under the warm yellow light. She looked peaceful—like she belonged in every line of the poem she read. He didn’t know her, but somehow, his heart already did.
By ArshNaya Writesabout a year ago in Fiction
10 Years of Marriage Equality
A Decade of Love and Progress Where were you on June 26, 2015? For me, it was a normal day at work. But that day changed history—it was the day same-sex marriage became legal across all 50 states in the U.S. We celebrated love, equality, and a hard-won victory for the LGBTQ+ community, activists, and everyone who believes in justice.
By Shafi Ullah Darweshabout a year ago in Fiction
