Fantasy

Fiction in the Sky
A superhero flew across the sky in the distance. It was a streak of color against the grey haze of Kuala Lumpur, a blur of red and blue that defied gravity, defied logic, defied the heavy, humid weight of the earth below. People on the street stopped to look up. Children pointed, their faces alight with a wonder that seemed impossible in a city so worn down by heat and hustle. For a brief, suspended moment, the fear of the Black Dragons, the tension of my father’s grip on the steering wheel, the bruised body of Besi Mari against the wall, all of it vanished. Replaced by awe.
By Mark Lim about a month ago in Fiction
The Stillness in the Storm
Then there was Frost Ratu. If Blaze was the fire that drew every eye, she was the stillness that held it all together. Where he blazed, she steadied. Where he spoke, she listened and then agreed. She was the calm at the centre of every storm, the one who never seemed to break, never seemed to waver, never seemed to doubt.
By Mark Lim about a month ago in Fiction
Shattering of the Idol
My father grabbed the man and threw him against the wall with a strength no ordinary person could have. It happened in a blur of motion that my seven-year-old brain struggled to process. One second, the man was standing across the street, nervous and small. Next, my father was out of the car, crossing the pavement with a terrifying speed, his hand closing around the man’s collar like a vice. There was no warning. No shout. No negotiation. Just the sudden, violent transfer of power.
By Mark Lim about a month ago in Fiction
Weight of the Word
Enforcer. The word hung in the humid air long after my father had driven away, heavier than the thud of Besi Mari’s body against the brick. It wasn’t just a job description. It was an identity. A role carved into bone and blood, passed down through whispers and warnings in the back alleys of Kuala Lumpur. An enforcer doesn’t negotiate. An enforcer doesn’t explain. An enforcer acts . And in acting, he becomes less than human, a tool, a mechanism, a blunt instrument of someone else’s will.
By Mark Lim about a month ago in Fiction
Name on the Wall
"That's Besi Mari," he said quietly to another spectator. "An enforcer for the Black Dragons." The words were soft, almost casual, spoken with the same tone one might use to identify a brand of coffee or a model of car. But they landed in the humid air like stones dropped into a still pond, rippling out with a weight that far exceeded their volume. Besi Mari. Iron Steel. A name that sounded like a weapon itself.
By Mark Lim about a month ago in Fiction
Ripple in the Water
Across the street, a man stood outside a small shop. He looked nervous the moment he saw my father approaching. It wasn’t a subtle shift. It was immediate, visceral, and undeniable. The man had been leaning casually against the doorframe, perhaps waiting for a friend or just enjoying the humid afternoon air. But as soon as my father’s shadow fell across the pavement, the man straightened. His shoulders tensed. His eyes darted away, then back, then away again. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, a restless, jittery motion that betrayed a sudden spike in adrenaline. He didn’t run. He didn’t hide. He just… froze. Like a deer catching the scent of a predator it couldn’t see but could certainly feel.
By Mark Lim about a month ago in Fiction
Muffled Scream
The sound reached me even through the closed car windows. It wasn’t a word. It wasn’t a sentence. It was a tone a sharp, jagged frequency of distress that cut through the hum of the air conditioning and the low rumble of the engine. It came from the man across the street, the one who had frozen when my father approached. Perhaps he dropped something. Perhaps he was arguing with someone inside the shop. Or perhaps it was just a sigh of relief so heavy it sounded like pain.
By Mark Lim about a month ago in Fiction
Static in the Air
Everyone knew my father was different. It wasn’t something he said. It wasn’t something he wore. It was a frequency he emitted, a low-level hum of intensity that made the air around him feel heavier, charged, like the moments before a thunderstorm breaks. People didn’t just see him; they felt him. And because they couldn’t categorize him—because he didn’t fit into the neat boxes of "friendly neighbor," "approachable boss," or "warm father"—they labeled him "different." And in the lexicon of ordinary people, "different" is often just a polite synonym for "dangerous."
By Mark Lim about a month ago in Fiction
King of Nothing
To me, he looked like a king. He sat in the driver’s seat not as a man commuting to work, but as a monarch surveying his domain. The leather steering wheel was his scepter; the tinted windows, his castle walls. He didn’t just drive through Kuala Lumpur; he presided over it. The chaos of the city, the honking motorcycles, the jaywalking pedestrians, the humid haze parted before him, or so it seemed. He moved with a deliberate, unhurried grace that suggested the world bent to his will, rather than him navigating its currents.
By Mark Lim about a month ago in Fiction
Architecture of Stone
The strongest man I knew. It wasn’t a physical strength, though he had that too. It was a structural integrity that seemed impervious to the weight of the world. He didn’t bend. He didn’t break. He didn’t crack under pressure; he simply absorbed it, turning stress into silence, pain into posture. To a child who felt like she was made of glass, fragile, transparent, easily shattered, he looked like he was carved from granite. Unmovable. Eternal.
By Mark Lim about a month ago in Fiction
Myth of the Superhuman
Back then, superhumans had existed for decades. The world had known about them since the Second World War. They were soldiers, celebrities, criminals, and legends. Some protected people. Others used their gifts to take whatever they wanted.
By Mark Lim about a month ago in Fiction
Passenger in the Glass Box
My father drove through the streets of KL with one hand on the steering wheel and the other resting near the window. The city outside was alive with noise, the sound of engines, conversations, vendors calling out, and people rushing through their ordinary lives. But inside the car, the air was still. Sterile. Pressurized. It was a vacuum sealed by leather seats and tinted glass, a moving bubble of silence that separated us from the chaos we were passing through.
By Mark Lim about a month ago in Fiction