Fan Fiction
The Mirror Only I Could See
I discovered the mirror when I was eleven. It wasn’t hidden behind a curtain or buried beneath the floorboards. It hung plainly in the hallway between my room and the laundry closet, a place so ordinary that no one paid attention to it — except me.
By Mian Nazir Shahabout a year ago in Fiction
The Diary That Knew My Future. AI-Generated.
I found the diary in the attic on a rainy Monday morning. I wasn’t supposed to be there. I was looking for my old winter boots when a cardboard box fell from the dusty shelf. Papers, broken photo frames, and a leather-bound notebook scattered across the wooden floor. At first glance, it looked like any abandoned diary with its cracked brown cover and frayed edges. But when I picked it up, I felt a shiver run down my spine, as if the air around it had turned colder.
By IFZAL AMINabout a year ago in Fiction
I tried living like a book character for 7 days
It all started with a late-night scroll through TikTok and a video captioned: "Live like your favorite book character for a week. I dare you." I laughed, scrolled past, then scrolled back. The idea clung to me like a plot twist I didn’t see coming. I grabbed a notebook, flipped through my bookshelf, and whispered to myself, “Why not?” Books have always been my escape. But I wanted to see what would happen if I didn’t just read the escape—I lived it. Day 1: Elizabeth Bennet (Pride and Prejudice) I started with Lizzy, Jane Austen’s sharp-witted heroine. I put on my most classic dress, took a long morning walk, and avoided all forms of technology. No phone. No Spotify. No TV. Instead, I read poetry under a tree and sipped tea while journaling my thoughts like letters to an imaginary Mr. Darcy. The world moved slower, and I noticed things I never usually see—the shape of clouds, the rhythm of birdsong, the curious looks from strangers who saw me in a full-length dress in the park. I didn’t care. I felt graceful, grounded, and more articulate than ever. Day 2: Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games) This day was rough. I dressed in black, tied my hair in a braid, and trained like I was about to enter the arena. I went to an archery range for the first time in my life and actually hit the target. Once. I ate only what Katniss might have: berries, nuts, stale bread. No sugar, no comfort food. I even practiced being silent for long stretches, observing everything. It made me realize how much we talk just to fill silence—and how empowering it is to sit in it instead. Day 3: Jay Gatsby (The Great Gatsby) I dressed in vintage glam and hosted a solo cocktail night with jazz music echoing through my apartment. I imagined I was throwing a party for someone who might never show up. It sounds sad, but it wasn’t. It was romantic in a tragic kind of way. I wrote letters I never intended to send, expressing feelings I hadn’t dared say out loud. That night, I understood Gatsby more than ever: the longing, the loneliness, and the illusion that one more perfect moment could fix everything. Day 4: Matilda Wormwood (Matilda) This was a day of pure joy. I visited the local library, sat cross-legged on the floor, and devoured children’s books I hadn’t read in decades. I asked the librarian for her favorites and listened like I was five again. At home, I spent hours learning random facts, solving puzzles, and trying to move objects with my mind (I got a pencil to roll off the table, but it might’ve been the wind). Still, I felt magic—because learning is a kind of magic. Day 5: Sherlock Holmes (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes) I people-watched like it was my full-time job. At a coffee shop, I guessed strangers’ jobs based on their shoes and posture. I eavesdropped (with dignity), made mental notes, and even solved the mystery of the missing office keys in my building (they were in the janitor’s closet). I felt smart, precise, and incredibly observant. But I also felt lonely. Sherlock was brilliant, but often misunderstood—and I finally saw why. Day 6: Luna Lovegood (Harry Potter series) This was my favorite day. I wore mismatched clothes, painted stars on my shoes, and talked to animals like they could talk back. I visited a botanical garden and named every plant something silly like "Glimmer Fern" or "Wobblyroot." I let go of logic and let wonder take over. People looked at me weirdly—but Luna would’ve smiled through it. And so did I. Day 7: Jo March (Little Women) On the final day, I stayed in. I wrote. I poured out everything I’d experienced into a notebook. Jo March taught me that writing isn’t just storytelling—it’s soul-saving. I lit candles, listened to instrumental music, and allowed myself to dream like Jo dreamed—big, bold, and boundless. --- What I Learned from Living Fiction Living like a book character didn’t just entertain me. It transformed me. I walked more slowly. I listened more closely. I treated everyday life as if it were a story worth telling—and you know what? It was. Fiction lets us borrow bravery, wisdom, and wildness. But sometimes, we forget that we can actually apply it. You don’t need a magic wand or a dragon or a tragic backstory to be interesting. You just need intention. So, next time you finish a book and wish you could jump inside it—maybe you can. Maybe, for a day or a week, you can live like the person who inspired you. Not to escape your life, but to enhance it. And maybe, just maybe, you'll come out of it a little more you than before.
By Jane Smith about a year ago in Fiction
You up there!
Let’s not deluge ourselves with further queries Yes, we were not really there! Lurking nowhere—yet all about, you were “good godly,” everywhere…O Gawd! And I, for one, at every moment, a blundering dunce, appearing frolicsome, and as though, yearning processions and like a motley fool, hogging airs! Towards that —wherever, whenever —somewhere out there, we were all there…And look! That in the distance .. is that a wreck ?! O with that haughty breadth, (not breathe 🧘♀️ ) coming off as dilly-dallying there ! Lo! Behold! Much before any secret silence loathes up in a wordless despair…As I see it …Yes, yes we dared ! But…No better nor worse, our destinies scarcely knew which way to turn…but we simply dared, as though —self deployed —like daredevils, ascending steps, fully prepared! Therein “GOM”became the familiar “NOM” ; a stillness, quite assuredly, registering senses and as an end in itself, we were fully compared …But, from where it c’d be viewed as —heartily there —we re-examined and tallied realizations —full on —as if, with our car 🚘 on rapid gears..Through and through , as another self , and also as a duplicate of every one out there —from this home to that house , in the bedroom, at the table and almost 😅 like hell under bones 🦴 we were there, and as though, the shadowed spirit of that heavenly trinity watched us as we truly shared … And to that, which seems endless, we now owe ourselves —that— free flowing wisdom which comes by as chaste, and passes us as well married in full flare ! Then again , of course, with the popular odium —coming face to face, until the fawn faced , materialistic priest calls it as —all good , fully repaired… We shall be here, there, everywhere ! Who can say we aren’t really there …And look 👀 Where is I so vacant, when me for you and you for me —pass—to be loved in this radiantly brilliant OPEN air….Evermore so, again —look! In our quest for that higher union we have always prayed 🙏 like all those desert 🏜️ 🌵 fathers who were hauntingly placed everywhere Yes , for better or worse …For all I know now, and forever I shall thusly declare—you and I are truly rare, beyond compare! Dear Reader, That ☝️ was a unconventional rhetoric as I thought out a versification on the topic : You were not really there . Okay ?! And now… here’s a narrative keeping in mind the same topic : Are we there yet?! >>>Mind it:The following is a dream sequence . A concoction of mind. Some may find it mind boggling ! Beware! It all happened in a dream! From that moment I knew I was to never look back. A lonely course, I was aware. As an inkling sown, I knew it was a given. Could it be a semblance of a nightmare, looming over ordinary grounds of that “dreamy,” despair?! Honestly, I knew not —coz I wasn’t totally there! With that said, here’s an analogy to consider subliminally which my conscious mind held a while, considering the hidden meaning in which the subject of my presence c’d be treated with varied degrees of both presence and absence in that dream . After all, who am I ….as I tread this philosophical juggle of life. Partying with prejudice I can’t call myself an enigma or … when “air” is best suited to the provincial flare of giving meaning to self via the lens of higher self : a spirit …is it?! But, who am I to bear this or that ?! While all that ☝️— those thoughts marinated through the fabric of my subliminal thoughts 💭 Something echoed back in a dream : therein lay an understanding to honor those outcomes to which we justify means and thereby associate with as in real, real meaning. That kind of heartlessness would never suit any other worldly affair. Perhaps that dream didn’t know about any reverse gear.In its most evocative —it was replete with repetitive patterns like pulling out, dipping in , with left and right turns ( stunts,) to rummage over diligent thoughts to get nowhere. From the opening, during which, he rose dreamily from nowhere , and yet it all felt like a no man’s land. He was much like a night watchman, all of a sudden, appearing at my front porch.He had little to do except for shooting imaginary arrows in the dark. Against that backdrop, I seemed to be lurking amidst the dungeon walls of a dilapidated church trying to escape somewhere. ( Freud , hold your reigns! You may be wrong with interpretations.) Next thing , I notice: The sudden rattling of the earth underneath and somebody simply walking up and pulling me out of the rubble. “There y’are, “ he said victoriously. “I knew you were in there somewhere.”Quite right, very well thank you for saving me, I said firmly, un repaired nor paired The whole spectacle was beyond the 7th dimensional plane and it had little to do with the real world happenings of this earthly existence. I was reciting the inventions of my own mind through that sleazy plot. It was a sort of a dreary dream. But with thoughts slung not particularly as nonsense, next moment— I found myself seated in a taxi cab, promising to take me away from that catastrophic sight. “Well we can get away fast now,” the cab driver said. “Yes, don’t hold up anymore. There’s no reason to delay anymore as the ground underneath is cracking. Hurry, please“ I said. “Sure, you won’t regret,” he said. As far as I could see, there was no reason why we wouldn’t set off.The cab 🚕 driver must have held the same thoughts. I thought to myself. After all, reflecting such feels , I was expecting him to be as frantic as me in his approach. But he waited there to witness the events unfolding without fleeing the situation. Instead, I found him lighting a cigarette and coolly enquiring —“where is the match? I seem to left it in the porch somewhere. “ “O ,c’mon, hurry, hurry . Is this the time to light up a cigarette,”I complained gravely. “I am no good without smokes,” the driver hailed. “We could get away now if you think we should but looks like I have to anyways get out again,” the cabby blurted in anguish. I heard the roar of the Armageddon. Within earshot, on hand to see was a crippled horse 🐴 and an axe flying towards me. I suppose the environs in the dreamscape were looming towards the end of times and here I was seated beside the cab driver who was delaying our exit from such a horrific scene.And then, guised as some irresistible combination of a haywire and hauntingly silly moment, the cab driver blankly gazed and resignedly said: “ Looks like I have forgotten the car keys. I have to get out again.”“You don’t seem to be doing anything other than getting in and out of this car, time and again. “ I blurted uneasily.Understandingly the cab driver rushed out and within moments appeared back in the front seat. This time in all thoughtfulness he had brought the keys almost out of thin air. He pushed the keys into the ignition switch and pressed the accelerator. The car wobbled and took to the road with a series of starts and stops. Then all of a sudden , like a jet engine propelled, yet moving nowhere, we moved in a zig-zag pattern with the speedometer indicating .05 miles per hour speed. Then again, a series of jerks added to that absurd mess. A snail 🐌 appeared out of nowhere as a no distance speed-mate. He flung a look at me and ran away at nautical pace. And then, in an —even more ridiculous moment, we moved off along unknown paths in the reverse gear. Just out that way, we had paced out one yard. “Do you think you are learning to drive the car for the first time,” I queried harshly.To that , the cabby replied with a harsh voice: “ I thought you don’t like to move fast. So I decided to take it easy.Have faith. You shall arrive soon.”he said “So you are saying there’s nothing wrong with your driving , “ I retorted back at him in a haste. “Well , you’ll be there soon. Look, there’s your house 🏡, behind that tree , “ said the taxi driver. “ Perfectly logical for someone to hire a taxi for a journey—“he further declared And in an odd overturn of events, the fumbling cabby dropped me at the front door of a home and passed away out of sight. We had already been through so much together. “Do I owe you anything,” I asked him generously “O! I was just returning a big favor—I owe you big time,” said the cab driver. What appeared as a play of form was actually happening as an act in a dream, and I realized, I was actually awakened by it in its fullest grace. A deeper impulse of soul has searched for truths and it was all over taking me out there —somewhere —in my thoughts and dreams, beyond compare. But , it seemed , I had finally arrived! The End ! © ✍️ Madhu Goteti, July 6th, 2025
By Madhu Goteti about a year ago in Fiction
The Mirror of Last Breaths
Part 2 of the "Cursed Antiques" Series By Dawood Khan The mirror arrived on a Tuesday, wrapped in black velvet and smelling of funeral lilies. Lila Carter hadn't ordered it. She knew better. After the pocket watch incident—after Harlan Shaw's ghost, after the thirteenth hour, after the way her left pinky finger had turned permanently brass—she'd sworn off strange antiques. But the delivery slip bore her name in ink that glistened like fresh blood, and when she peeled back the fabric, the mirror's frame bit her. Not a metaphor. The silver filigree *sank teeth* into her thumb. The wound didn't bleed. Instead, it oozed a sluggish mercury that pooled in her palm before slithering up her wrist like a living tattoo. The mirror's surface rippled. Lila saw herself. Not as she was—rumpled sweater, knife in hand—but *drowned*. Black silk wrapped her throat like a noose. Her mouth opened in a silent scream, bubbles rising through dark water. Behind her, a shadow pressed close, whispering a name: *"Eleanor."* She wrenched away. The mercury scars on her arm pulsed. --- **Chapter 1: The Auction House Ledger** The mirror's provenance listed seven owners, each entry more ominous than the last: 1. **Violet Duchamp (1889)** - Drowned in her bathtub, the water black with ink. 2. **Dr. Elias Finch (1923)** - Jumped from his office window, screaming about "the woman in the glass." 3. **Marguerite Shaw (1951)** - Harlan's daughter. Cause of death: *"Undetermined."* The final entry was a frantic scrawl: *"It's not showing the future—it's showing choices. Burn it."* Lila's fingers trembled as the mirror's glass clouded, swirling with storm-gray tendrils that formed a face—*her* face, aged decades in an instant, mouthing words she couldn't hear. --- **Chapter 2: Harlan's Confession** He appeared at 3:33 AM, stepping through the mirror like a man wading through smoke. More machine than ghost now, his left eye was a cracked watch face, his fingers brass talons. *"You shouldn't have kept the watch,"* he rasped, his voice the sound of gears grinding. *"Now the others will come for you."* *"Others?"* Lila pressed her mercury-scarred hand to the glass. The reflection shifted, revealing seven objects: 1. The pocket watch (⚙️ *Time*) 2. The mirror (👁️ *Choice*) 3. A music box (🎶 *Memory*) 4-7. [Blurred shapes—a doll, a locket, a pen, a key] *"I built them to save Marguerite,"* Harlan whispered. *"To rewind time, to undo her death. But the artifacts... they twist. The mirror doesn't show your fate—it shows every path you* could *take."* A crack split the glass. Lila's reflection shattered into a dozen versions of herself: - One strangled with silk. - One holding a gun. - One with hollow eyes, whispering: *"You let her out."* --- **Chapter 3: The Shattering** The mirror screamed as it exploded. Not a metaphor—the glass *shrieked*, high and human, as fractures spiderwebbed across its surface. Mercury-blood oozed from the cracks, forming words on the floor: *"CHOOSE."* Lila swung the fireplace poker. The shards didn't scatter. They *melted*, reforming into smaller mirrors—each showing a different horror: - A woman clawing at her own eyes. - A child's hands sewing a doll's mouth shut with hair. - And in the largest shard... Lila at seventy, her brass-stained hand clutching a silver key. *"Too late,"* the old Lila mouthed. *"She's already here."* --- **Epilogue: The Collector** Morning light revealed the mirror whole again on Lila's dresser. No cracks. No blood. But the reflection wasn't hers. A woman in a 1920s flapper dress pressed her palm to the glass, her smile sharp as a razor. The mercury scars on Lila's arm burned in recognition. *"Adelaide,"* she breathed. On the floor, the auction ledger flipped to a new page. Fresh ink bloomed: *"Lila Carter, 2023. Cause of death: Pending."* ---
By Dawood Khanabout a year ago in Fiction
The Clockmaker’s Secret
In a sleepy town nestled between the crooked hills of Gallowmere stood a tiny clock shop, Elliott’s Timepieces. The shop hadn’t changed since 1891. The faded green paint peeled like sunburned skin, and the shop windows, stained from time and smoke, revealed rows upon rows of clocks, none ever in sync. Nobody ever saw the owner. Clocks were fixed overnight, mysteriously. Locals called it “The Shop That Sleeps By Day.” Teenagers dared each other to knock on its door at midnight. Most didn’t. Those who did, never admitted what they heard on the other side. That is, until Nora came. Nora Vale, a curious 26-year-old with a patchy past and a new journalism degree, arrived in Gallowmere chasing ghosts—or rather, ghost stories. Her late grandfather once told her, in a whisky-slurred whisper, that some clocks don’t tell time… they trap it. He pointed to a yellowed photograph of Elliott’s shop in an old newspaper, circled in red ink. “I’m going to crack it,” Nora promised her editor. “This story could launch my career.” Her first visit was underwhelming. The shop was closed. A brass sign read: > We repair what time forgets. Please leave your broken moments by the door. That night, she left her broken wristwatch on the doorstep with a note: Can you fix time? The next morning, it was back—ticking perfectly. But something was off. The second hand ran backwards. Intrigued, she returned at dusk, hoping to catch the mysterious owner. As the last sunbeam kissed the street, the door creaked open. It wasn’t locked. Nora stepped inside. Chimes greeted her like whispers. Dozens of clocks ticked in every direction—sideways, in bursts, or not at all. She swore one was breathing. “Hello?” she called. Her voice dissolved into ticking silence. Then came the voice: “You left a broken moment.” She spun. An old man stood behind the counter, in a black waistcoat and silver-rimmed glasses. His eyes were the color of old clock dials—pale and unreadable. “Mr. Elliott?” she asked. He smiled. “Elliott was my father. I just keep the clocks.” “What is this place?” He motioned toward a grandfather clock taller than her, its hands spinning like a storm. “Not all clocks measure time. Some measure regret. Others, memories. One or two, choices never made.” She blinked. “Is that metaphor, or—” He shook his head. She swallowed. “I want to write about this place.” “Then understand it.” He pointed to a dusty mantle clock. “Touch it.” Nora hesitated. Then placed her hand on the clock. And fell. Not in body—but in time. She was ten again, standing in her old backyard, watching her parents argue in the kitchen. Her father slammed the door. Her mother wept. Nora screamed—but no sound came. She turned to the old man, now beside her in the memory. “You said this measured regret,” she whispered. “No,” he replied gently. “This is your broken moment.” Tears filled her eyes. “Can I fix it?” He didn’t answer. The world twisted, and she was back in the shop, heart racing. The clock stopped ticking. She stared at the old man. “What are you?” “I’m the custodian,” he said. “I do not change time. I only… hold it.” “Can anyone fix it?” He studied her. “Some things are meant to break, Nora. Some must remain frozen—so others may move forward.” That night, Nora didn’t sleep. The next morning, she returned. The shop was gone. Only a charred foundation remained, and a single soot-covered clock. Her repaired wristwatch—still ticking backwards—lay untouched in the ashes. A note beneath it read: You asked if I could fix time. But time was never the problem. Nora never published the article. Instead, she opened a small clock shop on the edge of town. She called it Moments in Time. It didn’t fix clocks. It healed them.
By Kausar Hayat about a year ago in Fiction
