Fan Fiction
WHEN THE TIDES LEARNED OUR NAMES
By the time the ocean reached the fifth step of the old courthouse, no one bothered arguing whether the flooding was temporary anymore. Harborreach had become a city that survived not through denial, but through adaptation so gradual it felt like habit. Streets were re-mapped according to tidal charts. Homes wore stilts like sensible shoes. Boats replaced buses, and children learned to swim before they learned to read. The water didn’t arrive violently—it came patiently, season by season, salt creeping into foundations and memories alike. People still argued about the weather out of reflex, but they planned their lives around it now, checking sea forecasts the way their grandparents once checked calendars.
By Alisher Jumayev11 months ago in Fiction
THE TEAPOT THAT KNEW MY NAME
Willowfen was the kind of village that forgot the meaning of hurry long before I was born. It sat between a river that sang softly to itself and a meadow that smelled of honey even in winter, stitched together by cobblestone lanes worn smooth by centuries of unimportant footsteps. Nothing legendary had ever happened there—no dragons, no chosen heroes, no prophecies scribbled in fading ink. Instead, Willowfen specialized in the ordinary miracles: bread that rose perfectly every morning, lamplight that glowed a little warmer when someone walked home alone, and gossip that traveled faster than the wind but never meant any harm. It was the sort of place where people waved even if they didn’t know your name, and somehow, by the end of the week, they did.
By Alisher Jumayev11 months ago in Fiction
THE SILENCE BETWEEN LATIN VERSES
Blackthorn University did not rise from the earth so much as loom over it. Its spires pierced the fog like accusations, its stone corridors soaked in centuries of whispered ambition. Founded in 1649, Blackthorn prided itself on tradition, rigor, and an unspoken belief that mediocrity was a moral failure. The walls were lined with oil portraits of scholars whose eyes followed you as you passed, their painted gazes heavy with judgment. Students learned quickly that this was not a place to find yourself—it was a place to be reshaped. Knowledge here was not neutral; it was sharp, elitist, and alive. And like anything alive, it demanded something in return.
By Alisher Jumayev11 months ago in Fiction
THE CLOCK THAT REMEMBERED ME
The clock began as an apology. Dr. Mara Ellison built it in the basement of her childhood home, beneath the creaking floorboards that still remembered her mother’s footsteps. The house sat abandoned on the edge of Greyhaven, a town that had learned to live around grief instead of through it. The neighbors said the place was cursed. Mara called it unfinished business.
By Alisher Jumayev11 months ago in Fiction
The Rooms Between
She enters the room. The door has always been there — unpainted wooden panels, a brass knob, no keyhole — standing between her bedroom and the bathroom every morning and every evening, and yet she cannot remember if she has ever stepped inside. A groan escapes from the hinges, smooth beneath her fingertips. The air shifts: cold and damp brushing her face, warmth pressing at her back. She wonders what she had hoped to find — a linen closet, a hidden nook for forgotten things? But this is a whole room, impossible between the bedroom and the bathroom, and yet it exists. A turret-like circle painted in desert pink, stars fading gold across the ceiling, sagging where dark mould spreads tendrils down to meet thick velvet curtains and the spindle-legged table at its center. She breathes cautiously, the scent dank and forbidding, her primal instincts warning her not to go further, not to inhale too deeply. Fear whispers that stepping fully inside may close the door behind her, trapping her within the creeping decay. Yet curiosity draws her, a fingertip tracing the edge of the door as she moves forward. On the table sits a small stack of clean white paper and a pen with an arrowhead nib — hers, always hers. She steps fully into the room. The door falls back against its frame, but it does not close. She imagines a window, though there is none, stretching out over hills and valleys, towns sleeping beneath the night. She sits, lifts the pen, and finding it empty, pierces her wrist to fill the reservoir with her own blood. Then she begins to write. When she sleeps, she dreams she is a rabbit and a fox, leaving trails of blood across the grass. Pain, hunger, fear, and hope course through her as snow falls in the darkness, covering her in white. Shivering, she wakes, unclenching her teeth, rising from her bed, moving toward the bathroom — but pauses at another door. The door has always been there — white panels, silver handle, no keyhole — impossible, yet impossible is the rule in these spaces. She hesitates, senses the cold air press against her face, the warm hall at her back. She wonders if it will be a boiler, a hidden passage, something mundane. But instead, it is a slender rectangle, painted in summer yellow with faded crimson flowers, the ceiling sagging where mould spreads, tendrils reaching down around velvet curtains and across the floor to an old oak desk. Primal fear warns her to turn back, but the paper and pen call her. She moves forward. She sits, filling the pen with her own fluid, piercing the eye this time, and begins to write again. Dreams follow: a lamb and a vulture, half dead, half still breathing, terror and patience, despair and hope, until the sun blazes overhead and bleaches the world clean. She wakes, sweat-damp, knees unlocked, steps forward, yet pauses at yet another door. Thick hardwood planks, iron ring, no keyhole. The impossible persists. Stone walls painted with animals in faded ochre, ceilings jagged, sagging where mould spreads over an animal pelt. Cold air on her face, warmth at her back, fear tightening her chest, yet she moves forward. She sits on the stone floor, filling the pen with the juices from her own gut, and writes. Dreams carry her into the sea: she is a seal and an orca, spilling entrails into foaming waters, horror and delight mingling as the surf breaks over her. She wakes, startled by the morning light, the dog nudging her hand. Another door, painted to match the wall, broken handle, empty keyhole, yet still present. She has tried to brick it up, smash it down, decorate it with balloons, but it persists. Inside: a cell of flesh, pulsating and alive, mould creeping across blood and muscle. Fear warns, yet the paper and pen call. She steps in, fills the pen with saliva this time, and writes. In sleep, she is grass, rooted and small, witnessing a monster she cannot escape, feeding on the stories she has written. Strength fills her as the dream fades. She awakens, stretches, and for the first time, walks from her bedroom to the bathroom without hesitation, carrying the weight of her stories with her. The doors remain, impossible yet insistent, but she is no longer afraid. Every door, every room, is a threshold. Every act of writing is an act of courage. Every dream, a testament to survival and creativity, shaping the woman she is, and the writer she continues to become.
By LUNA EDITH11 months ago in Fiction
THE LAST SANCTUARY OF NEON SKY
No one alive remembered the real color of the sky. Official history, as recorded by the Ministry of Perspective, stated that Earth’s atmosphere had always shimmered in neon hues—pulsing blues, electric greens, and streaks of violent pink that twisted like serpents across the heavens. Anyone who questioned it was, by definition, “Factually Distorted,” and removed for “Cognitive Rehabilitation.”
By Alisher Jumayev11 months ago in Fiction
THE QUIET WOMAN ACROSS THE HALL
I first noticed her on a wet Tuesday morning, the kind of morning when the city felt permanently exhausted. She stood in the narrow hallway of our apartment building, staring at the wall as if deciphering invisible handwriting. A pale woman, tall and thin, with dark circles under her eyes that suggested she hadn’t slept in days.
By Alisher Jumayev11 months ago in Fiction
