Fantasy
The Spirit Box (7). Content Warning.
Chapter 7: Governors Wife I leaned back in my chair, sipping my coffee as I scanned the morning headlines on my phone. The phone on my desk rang, giving me a slight headache and mild ringing in my ear, and I picked it up.
By Alex H Mittelman 12 months ago in Fiction
The Tangerine Sprite and the Wander-Book
“Hurry! I wanna get to the fence today!” the older girl shouts, racing past the ripe blackberry bushes. Little animals peer through branches, hidden by hollows, stones, and roots, smiling at the children. A squirrel covered in plain sight, basking in the sun, watches the tumultuous joy.
By ShardsofOrbs 12 months ago in Fiction
The Day The Angels Quit
The sky rained feathers the day the angels decided to quit. It wasn’t gradual, like a fading light or a whisper slipping into wind. It was sudden, vast, final. At 4:17 p.m. Zagreb time, the clouds opened — not with thunder, not with fire, but with a hush. A hush so deep it silenced traffic, halted footsteps, and left a little girl holding her mother’s hand at the tram station, blinking at the first white feather that drifted down onto her outstretched palm.
By Anna Soldenhoff12 months ago in Fiction
Secret Haven
Secret Haven Written by Ann Garza Climbing the stairs to what will be my office/library/escape from reality room, I feel each step getting heavier. I was supposed to have help from my family and friends, but at the last minute, they all had “this came up last minute” things, or as I like to say, more important to them things. The house was still new to me, and I had promised not to work on any repairs in the room without at least one person with me as I tend to be accident prone. But, since they all bailed on me, I decided to go back on my word and head up to that room with a vacuum and cleaning supplies. Once I was certain I had everything needed to at least tidy the room up some, I sat on the floor in the middle of the room so I could decide on new paint colors and if I wanted to keep the laminate flooring or replace it with something else. Something more comfortable like thick, soft and plush carpet to the match the new wall colors. I had a few ideas in mind, but I knew I needed to clean the room and the 2 walk-in closets to get a better idea.
By "Ann Garza"12 months ago in Fiction
The Night I Realized Love Wasn’t Meant To Save Me
I used to believe love was supposed to be the thing that rescued us. The thing that filled every empty space inside a person. The thing that fixed the parts of life that felt broken. I believed that love was the answer to loneliness, to fear, to the type of quiet sadness that sits in your chest like permanent weight. She is the reason I believed all of that. And she is also the reason I stopped believing it. We met in the most ordinary way. Not cinematic. Not magical. Just a normal day, in a normal Starbucks, in a normal city. She laughed at something the barista said, and something about her laugh felt like a room I already lived in before. Familiar, safe, warm, already known. And the way she looked back at me when she noticed I smiled at her laugh… felt like a moment written for me before I ever existed. We spent the next few months building a world inside the smallest routines. Long drives for no reason. Grocery store aisles that turned into inside jokes. Late night sitting in the car talking about everything—fears, dreams, future plans that felt unrealistic but somehow possible because we were imagining them together. It felt like we made life bigger than life. She wanted simple things—sunset beaches, road trips, a small home, a kitchen with white cabinets, Sunday pancakes, a dog. I wanted everything she wanted. I wanted everything because she wanted it. Her dreams felt like the GPS to my own future. For the first time in my life… I wasn’t scared to love someone. And that was new for me. But slowly… the warmth started shifting. It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t toxic or violently ending. It was subtle. Small changes. Delays in texts. Less excitement in plans. Less eye contact. Less softness. Less effort. The energy between us became heavier than the feelings we used to float inside. I tried to fix everything. I tried harder. I tried to talk more, explain more, love more, do more. But the more I tried… the more it felt like she was already halfway gone. One night, she showed up at my place. Calm. Soft. Not angry. Not emotional. Just… resigned. She said she felt stuck in her own life. She said she was losing herself in us. She said she didn’t know who she was anymore. She said she wasn’t ready for the version of love I wanted. She said she still cared about me, but not in the way that love needs to survive long term. I begged without screaming. I begged with silence. I begged with the way my eyes tried so hard to tell her… choose me anyway. But she didn’t. She walked out with a slow final goodbye. And in one quiet moment… the future I built inside my mind collapsed like a building with no support beams left to hold it. That night was the first time I ever sat in the dark and felt like time stopped existing. My body felt like a house emptied overnight. My hands felt useless. My chest felt like someone pulled out the inside of my lungs and left nothing to breathe with. I thought that night would destroy me permanently. But it didn’t. It destroyed the version of me that thought love was supposed to be my rescue. It destroyed the version of me that believed another person was the medicine for every internal wound. It destroyed the version of me that thought I needed someone to choose me before I could choose myself. For months after, I slowly rebuilt my life piece by piece. I started lifting again. I started eating better. I started writing again. I focused on myself. I found new goals. I became more disciplined. I started building a future with my own story—not a story that depended on someone staying. And the strange thing is… she leaving didn’t ruin me. It freed me. I realized she wasn’t the lesson. The lesson was what happened to me after she left. Because that night I thought I lost everything… was actually the night I gained myself back. Healing didn’t show up with fireworks or some cinematic redemption arc. Healing arrived very quietly… like a whisper that slowly became a voice strong enough to stand on its own. Today… if someone asks me what love means to me now… I don’t say it’s the thing that saves you. Love isn’t meant to save you. Love is meant to grow with you. And the person who can’t grow with you… no matter how much you love them… is not the person who stays. Sometimes heartbreak isn’t a punishment. Sometimes heartbreak is the door to becoming the person you were supposed to become before you ever tried to be someone’s home. That night didn’t break me. It revealed me. And I finally learned— love is not supposed to be your rescue. You are supposed to rescue yourself first.
By Umar Farooq12 months ago in Fiction
The House Under The Stairs
Introduction This is a tale inspired by the dollshouse in our holiday apartment in Hebden Bridge. The music is "See Through Windows" by Family from "Music In A Doll's House", and there is a basic Instagram video that I took.
By Mike Singleton 💜 Mikeydred 12 months ago in Fiction
Patch Notes for a Life
It started with a glance through a keyhole that wasn’t a keyhole at all, just a smart panel mounted inside a maintenance closet no one was supposed to open. The door had been left a finger’s width ajar—a cracked mouth in a corridor of quiet—and I was on my night rounds, a janitor-security hybrid with a ring of keys heavy enough to anchor a small boat. The new building had new protocols; the new protocols had new passwords. But the oldest security is human laziness, and someone had propped the closet with a mop to “air it out” and then forgot the mop.
By The Kind Quill12 months ago in Fiction
