family

Love and Other Words
“What’s your favorite word today?” Maya froze, her fingers hovering over the worn spine of a secondhand novel in the old bookstore. She hadn’t heard that voice in almost a decade. Not since the summer they said goodbye.
By Saboor Brohi about a year ago in Fiction
Why “Romantasy” Is the Hottest Book Genre in the USA and UK Right Now
Discover why romance books have become the latest sensation on BookTok and beyond. Read what is making Romantasy such a hot trend across America and Europe, how fantasy romance novels are captivating readers, and why this genre has made headlines across BookTok and beyond.
By Robert Brownabout a year ago in Fiction
The Echo in the Attic
The Echo in the Attic No one had stepped into the attic for thirteen years. It wasn’t that it was locked. It wasn’t haunted either—at least not in the way ghosts wear bedsheets and slam doors. It was just forgotten. Left behind. Like an old photograph with no one left alive to name the faces.
By Saboor Brohi about a year ago in Fiction
Welcome Home, Forever
The key slid into the lock like it never left. Claire hesitated, fingers trembling against the cold brass. This was supposed to be a fresh start—a return, not a retreat. She exhaled and pushed the door open. The house greeted her with silence, absolute silence. Twelve years. Twelve years since she fled this place at seventeen, barefoot, blood-slicked, and screaming into the dark woods. The neighbors said it was a gas leak. The police said it was a suicide pact. Claire knew better. Her family didn’t die that night. They changed. And they’re still here. The air inside smelled like cedarwood and faint decay. The furniture was just as she remembered: mother’s red velvet chair by the fireplace, father’s dusty pipe on the mantel, the crack in the corner wall shaped like a screaming face. Untouched, like time had been stitched shut. She stepped in. The door clicked shut behind her. The inheritance lawyer called last week: “Your family’s estate has been transferred o you.” A technicality. No bodies, no wills. Just rumors. She told herself she needed closure. But Claire knew the truth. She had to face them. --- In the kitchen, the table was set. Four plates. Four crystal glasses filled with water. She hadn’t told anyone she was coming. She hadn’t touched the lights. Yet the chandelier flickered above her, humming softly like it was thinking. Claire’s fingers hovered above the back of her father’s chair. She remembered the last dinner clearly—the whispers, the wide-eyed silence, the taste of iron in the roast. Her brother’s grin, stretched too far. Her mother humming that horrible tune. That same tune drifted now from upstairs. She froze. "Claire..." A whisper. Behind her. She spun around. Nothing. Just the empty hallway. Just shadows that seemed a little too thick. She backed into the kitchen, breath catching on the sharp edge of memory. Her phone buzzed in her pocket. A text: WELCOME HOME. No number. No name. Just two words. And then: WE NEVER LEFT. --- She ran for the front door. Locked. She hadn’t locked it. Another buzz. A third message: DINNER IS GETTING COLD. A sudden clunk echoed from the dining room. She turned. The plates were full now. Roast lamb, green beans, mashed potatoes. Her family’s last meal. Claire’s knees buckled. Her hand gripped the edge of the table to steady herself. The food steaming and aromatic. She took a step back. Then she heard it. Footsteps on the stairs. Heavy. Synchronized. Four pairs. Claire fled down the hallway, past childhood portraits whose eyes seemed to follow her. She ducked into the basement and slammed the door. Dark. Musty. A single chain-pull light above. She yanked it. The bulb flared—and revealed the circle. Drawn in chalk on the floor. Symbols etched into the wood. A child's doll at its center, its head twisted backward. She remembered this. The night everything changed, her brother Tommy had brought a book home. "Found it in the woods," he said, eyes glittering. They played a game. Candles, chanting, giggling in the dark. Only Claire had run when the wind started whispering back. Now, twelve years later, the circle looked fresh. Wet. The chanting resumed above. Low. Unified. She grabbed the doll—its eyes fluttered open. “Welcome home.” She screamed and hurled it across the room. The chanting grew louder. The light snapped off. A cold wind wrapped around her legs like fingers. Claire bolted up the basement stairs. --- At the top, the door creaked open on its own. They were waiting in the foyer. Her family. Same clothes, same faces—preserved like porcelain. But wrong. Mother's eyes were too black. Father’s smile never moved. Tommy’s limbs bent the wrong way. And her little sister Emily, forever eight, hovered an inch off the floor. “We’ve missed you,” her mother said, voice like splinters in honey. “You left us,” Tommy hissed, tilting his head like a bird. “We forgave you,” Emily whispered, drifting closer. Claire stepped back. "You’re not them," she said. “You’re not real.” “We are now,” Father replied, lifting his pipe with a jerk, miming old habits. “You opened the door. You accepted the house. The pact is whole.” “I never made a pact!” she shouted. Tommy grinned. “You were part of the circle. Once marked, always marked.” “We waited,” Mother crooned. “We practiced being human again. For you.” They reached for her. She ran. --- Claire crashed into the fireplace, hands searching for the iron poker. She found it and swung wildly. Emily shrieked—a sound like breaking glass—and vanished in smoke. Father howled. Tommy lunged. She stabbed the poker into his side. No blood. Just shadows leaking out. The house shrieked. Ceiling cracked. Walls wept. The air turned heavy, like underwater. “You can’t fight home,” Mother whispered, floating above the floor now. Her skin was cracking like porcelain, light bleeding from within. “We just wanted dinner,” Father said. “And our family.” “You were chosen, Claire,” Emily said behind her. “You should never have left.” --- Claire stumbled back to the kitchen. The food was rotten now, crawling with worms. She saw the bottle. Still where she left it twelve years ago, hidden behind the spice rack: kerosene. Shaking, she poured it in a wide circle. Across the floor. Up the stairs. Down the hallway. The family shrieked. “NO,” Mother howled. “You can’t destroy us. We are you.” Claire lit a match. Paused. “I’m not.” She dropped it. The house shrieked again. --- Outside, under the crescent moon, Claire watched as her childhood home burned. Figures twisted in the flames—pleading, snarling, laughing. She didn’t cry. Not for the house. Not for them. Not anymore. --- Three days later, her phone buzzed again. No name. No number. YOU NEVER LEFT. THE END
By E. hasanabout a year ago in Fiction
The Light Beyond the Storm
Chapter One: The Storm Within Grey and ominous, the sky had grown darker than the color of weathered steel. Low clouds loomed heavy over the small sea town of Miravale, rain falling in uninterrupted blankets that soaked the earth and the very being of a young woman who stood at the edge of the lighthouse cliff.
By Niaz Khanabout a year ago in Fiction
Whispers of the Old Banyan
Whispers of the Old Banyan At the edge of our village, where the golden paddy fields melted into the shadows of a dense forest, stood an ancient banyan tree. Its gnarled roots sprawled like the arms of a wise old giant, and its canopy whispered secrets to anyone who dared to listen. Every full moon, my grandmother—whom we called Ma-Thakuma—would sit beneath it, her silver hair glowing under the lunar light, and weave stories that made the night come alive. I was Rimi, barely ten years old, with wide eyes and a heart hungry for wonder. Those nights were my sanctuary, where the world felt bigger, softer, and full of magic.
By Shohel Ranaabout a year ago in Fiction
The Weaver’s Secret
The Weaver’s Secret The air in our village always carried the faint hum of looms, a rhythm as steady as the river that curved through the valley. I was Anika, seventeen, with ink-stained fingers and a habit of daydreaming. My mother, Amma, was the village’s best weaver, her hands dancing over her loom like they were casting spells. Her tapestries hung in every home, their colors so vivid they seemed to breathe—scenes of festivals, forests, and skies that held stories no one could fully unravel.
By Shohel Ranaabout a year ago in Fiction
Where Are You?
The city lights blurred through the rain-streaked window as Mia sat curled up on the worn-out couch in her tiny apartment. Her phone lay silent beside her, the screen dark and empty. For the hundredth time that day, she glanced at it, hoping for a message, a call—anything that would tell her Lucas was still out there, somewhere. But there was nothing.
By Mian Nazir Shahabout a year ago in Fiction
Death or Love. Content Warning.
Under the burning twilight of a kingdom falling into chaos, a lone warrior named Ean strode through a scarred battlefield. His eyes, filled with fierce resolve, mirrored the raw intensity of his spirit—a spirit that had chosen the honorable death of fighting for a dream over the lingering pain of love.
By Edge Alexanderabout a year ago in Fiction
The Last Cup of Tea
The kettle whistled gently, its familiar song filling the tiny kitchen. It was 6:45 a.m., just as it had been every morning for the last thirty-two years. Samuel stood by the counter, waiting. He was no longer the boy who used to sit cross-legged at the kitchen table, legs too short to touch the floor, watching his mother move through her morning routine like a silent symphony. He was a man now—tall, broad-shouldered, with grey already whispering into his beard. But in this kitchen, in this moment, he felt like a boy again. His mother, Evelyn, sat at the table wrapped in her favorite cardigan, hands resting on the floral-printed tablecloth she’d sewn herself when Samuel was ten. Time had not been kind to her body, but her eyes—those deep hazel pools—still held the same warmth, the same unspoken strength. “Is it ready?” she asked, voice soft and brittle like dried leaves. Samuel nodded and poured two cups. The scent of chamomile filled the air, comforting and nostalgic. He placed one cup in front of her, and one in front of himself. They sat in silence, the kind that only years of shared life could build. “You remember when we used to drink tea and read poems on Sundays?” she asked, a wistful smile tugging at her lips. He nodded, throat tight. “You always chose the sad ones.” “Sad poems are the most honest,” she said. “They don’t try to pretend.” He watched her cradle the cup in both hands, as if it were something sacred. His chest ached. Not from sadness alone, but from the weight of what he hadn’t said yet. She knew, of course. Mothers always do. “You’re leaving tomorrow,” she said, not as a question. He nodded again. “The job in New York… it’s everything I worked for.” She looked at him with so much pride it nearly crushed him. “You deserve it, Sam. You’ve always deserved more than this little town could offer.” He reached for her hand. It was thinner now, skin paper-like, veins like blue rivers. But it was the same hand that had wiped his tears, held him through fevers, and taught him how to hold a pencil. “I just hate the thought of you being alone,” he whispered. “I’m not afraid of being alone,” she replied. “I’m afraid you’ll forget the sound of my voice.” “I never could.” She smiled again, though her eyes welled with tears. “Promise me something, Sam.” “Anything.” “No matter how busy life gets, no matter how far you go—make a cup of tea once in a while. Sit down. And remember me.” He swallowed hard, nodding. “I promise.” They sat there for a long time, sipping slowly, letting memory wrap itself around them like a warm blanket. Outside, the world stirred. But inside, time stood still. That evening, he packed the last of his boxes. She helped where she could, folding a sweater, labeling a book. They didn’t talk much. They didn’t need to. The next morning, he hugged her tighter than he ever had. Her small frame pressed into his chest, her breath warm against his neck. “I love you, Mom.” “I love you more, my boy.” He left, heart heavy but full. Years passed. New York was everything he’d hoped—and nothing like he’d imagined. Success came, accolades followed, and the pace of life drowned out the quiet rituals of the past. But every Sunday morning, without fail, he boiled water. He poured a single cup of chamomile tea. And he sat by the window, eyes closed, listening. For her voice in the quiet. For her love in the steam. And in those moments, she was never far.
By Dr Gabriel about a year ago in Fiction
Your mission if you choose to accept it.....
Your mission if you choose to accept it is to educate the masses the best way you know how. It depends on who you teach will it pay to teach the young ones, the middle ones or the higher-ups. You must decide the lessons that you want to teach and share. Your mission will entail working with others in a cooperative way even though it may seem impossible a lot of the time. You must succeed in this mission for the world will depend on it, and if you do not succeed there will be repercussions. Go your mission starts.
By Mark Grahamabout a year ago in Fiction
Beast Brother: The Fierce Protector and Unbreakable Bond of Brotherhood
They called him a beast. Not because he was cruel, or wild, or angry. But because of the way he protected me—like a lion guards its pride, like a warrior shields his comrade. My brother, Kian, was a force of nature—loud, strong, fearless. Where I was quiet and cautious, he charged through life like nothing could touch him. And somehow, when I was with him, nothing ever did.
By Rohullahabout a year ago in Fiction