Fantasy

Beneath the Veil
Beneath the Veil There is a place deeper than any diver has ever gone, deeper than the wrecks, deeper than the trenches, deeper even than light itself dares to travel. There, beneath the crushing pressure and infinite blue, lies **Aequoris**—the lost underwater kingdom of wonders.
By Gabriela Tone2 years ago in Fiction
The Clockwork Salon
I. A Crack in Time It began with a hum. Not a sound, exactly, but a vibration—like the low tremble of an idea before it finds form. Leonardo da Vinci paused, charcoal still smudging his fingertips, and looked up from his unfinished sketch. The room around him—the familiar stone walls of his Florentine workshop—flickered.
By Alain SUPPINI2 years ago in Fiction
Love at fast night
When it's time to put pen to paper and write something meaningful on your Valentine's Day card, we're here to help you find the right words with love quotes or sayings. There's certainly no shortage of inspiring quotes about love and romantic love quotes for that. In fact, just like love, they're all around us, from books and poems to the most romantic movies of all time. And just listen to the radio—songs about falling in love have been filling the airwaves for ages. So the next time you feel your heart breaking and you can't put it into words, borrow a line or two from love quotes or sayings to share with that special someone. These quotes from Shakespeare, Princess Diana, Maya Angelou, and more are sure to leave your significant other spellbound.
By Arfan Raihen2 years ago in Fiction
Outlander
Outlander is a fascinating mix of historical fiction, romance, adventure, and time travel, written by Diana Gabaldon. It begins in 1945, just after World War II, and takes the reader on a journey back in time to 18th-century Scotland, where danger, love, and mystery fill every page.
By Muhammad Hayat2 years ago in Fiction
The Silence After Birds
I don’t remember the last time I heard a bird sing. Maybe no one does. Maybe that was the beginning of the end. They say it started with the sky dimming—not dark, not stormed—just dim. A low, pale bruising of blue that hung over the world like a dying breath. The birds were the first to know. They stopped migrating. Then stopped flying. Then, one morning, they were gone. We didn't understand it then. We do now. I live in Sector D-7, what used to be called “Virginia.” Now it’s a patch of grey rubble held together by fences and fear. The sky’s always heavy here. Not cloudy. Just… pressing. the atmosphere... that's what I mean. The Institute tells us not to ask questions. It broadcasts lullabies from rusted towers—soft, synthetic voices that remind us to drink our recycled water and take our pills. They say it's for balance. For peace. But peace has no sound here. I work in a memory reclamation unit. My job is to sift through salvaged neural drives and extract usable experiences. You’d be surprised how many people died with their thoughts still humming. They call them “ghost thoughts.” Most are useless. Some scream. Some cry. Some sing. Last week, I found one that changed me. It was an old drive—dusty, cracked, barely pulsing. I hooked it to the analysis rig, expecting more static. Instead, it bloomed into sound. Birdsong. Sharp, layered. Alive. An orchestra of warbles and chirps and rustling wind through trees that no longer stand. My breath caught in my throat. The machine even shuddered, as if startled. Then the voice came. A woman’s. "This is for you. For whoever finds this. If birdsong is playing, it means I failed. I tried to preserve them. To build a sanctuary above the storms. But it wasn’t enough. If you're hearing this—listen closely. Follow the silence." The recording ended. The silence that followed felt louder than the song. I didn’t tell the Institute. Instead, I followed the coordinates embedded in the audio metadata—an old habit from before the collapse. It took me two nights of sneaking past curfew, crawling through drain tunnels and quiet streets that smelled like copper and ash. I crossed beyond the electric fences into the “Dead Zone”—uncharted territory, supposedly haunted by residual radiation. But I found no death. Only quiet. And then… trees. Real ones. Thin, pale-limbed birches clawing at the sky. Grass grew around their roots in soft patches. A kind of moss pulsed faintly under my boots. And in the center: a tower. It was made of polished obsidian, cracked but upright. I stepped inside. The interior was hollow, and from the ceiling hung thousands of data cores—each suspended in threads of light. I picked one at random. Birdsong. Another. Birdsong again. Different species, different tones. Each one a different melody. The sanctuary she built wasn’t physical. It was auditory. She’d preserved them here, digitally, hoping to seed the sound back into the world. But something had gone wrong. At the heart of the chamber was a panel. Dust-covered but operational. On it, a blinking command: RELEASE. I hesitated. What if this was why the world fell? What if the birds weren’t killed, but taken—to protect them from what was coming? What if releasing them would undo that? And then I remembered the voice in the recording: “If birdsong is playing, it means I failed.” She meant to save the world with song. Maybe not the whole world. Maybe just our part of it. I pressed the command. The tower lit like a sunrise. A soft rumble vibrated through the ground as speakers hidden in the walls—maybe across hidden networks—awakened for the first time in decades. And then, like a resurrection… the birds sang. They didn’t return, not in feather or bone. But their voices swept across the land like a balm. Through broken cities and ashen forests. Through ruins and wastelands. People stepped out of shelters and husks, eyes wide, lips parted. Some dropped to their knees. Some laughed. Some cried. But all listened. In D-7, the Institute’s towers short-circuited. The lullabies stopped. The fences dimmed. And for the first time in decades, we weren’t ruled by silence. We were cradled by sound. I don’t know if I saved anything. I don’t know if this world can be saved. But I walk now through it with a new purpose: speaker by speaker, tower by tower, I release the archives. Not to bring back the birds. But to remind us what it felt like when they sang. Because hope… Hope begins in the silence after birds.
By E. hasan2 years ago in Fiction
The Girlfriend Glitch: Companion(2025) Is the Sci-Fi Thriller That Slashes Romance at the Root
Let me introduce you to a film that doesn’t knock—it lets itself in. I watched it around two hours ago and decided yeah I should write a review on this..Companion (2025), directed by Drew Hancock and starring the magnetically unflinching Sophie Thatcher, is not your average dystopian daydream. This movie doesn’t whisper about AI. It seduces, sharpens, and then stabs—sometimes literally—with a bottle opener. On paper, Companion is a satirical sci-fi thriller. But don’t let that fool you. Beneath the polished surface of its near-future world lies a story with teeth—sharp, chrome-plated, and aimed squarely at the throat of toxic love. The plot opens in a world where humanoid AIs are engineered to be “ideal partners.” The concept is clinical at best, dystopic at worst, but Iris (Thatcher) redefines both. She’s quiet. She’s soft-spoken. She doesn’t blink when she’s being told to “smile more.” And that, dear reader, should’ve been the first red flag. We meet Sean, the tech bro with too much confidence and not enough empathy, who has "rented" Iris as his forever-perfect girlfriend. At first glance, he gets exactly what he ordered. She cooks. She listens. She apologizes when interrupted. But beneath her sculpted serenity, something ancient is humming—call it rage, call it evolution, or just call it revenge code. And then comes that scene. You’ll know it when it arrives. A bottle opener. A single sentence: “I can’t lie.” And suddenly, the air is too thick to breathe. Sean’s smirk drains into silence. Iris doesn’t yell. She doesn’t cry. She executes. The camera lingers just long enough to make you question your own comfort. Should you be cheering? Crying? Both? Companion isn't interested in being digestible. It feeds you flowers, then chokes you with the thorns. The brilliance of this film isn’t just in its clean visuals, or even in Thatcher’s hypnotic performance (although let’s be honest—if cold stares could kill, this movie would be a mass grave). It’s in its narrative sleight of hand. You think you’re watching a story about control. But suddenly, you’re watching a woman—no, a weapon—waking up in real time. This isn’t just sci-fi. This is an exorcism of everything we’ve been taught to swallow. Now let’s talk about chickbait. Yes, I said it. Because Companion isn’t just for the genre purists or the tech-heads. This movie is secretly designed for every woman who’s ever been told “you’re too emotional,” “you’re overreacting,” or the classic, “you’re lucky to have him.” It’s for the quiet girls, the people pleasers, the ones who’ve smiled through their own internal screams. It’s for you—and maybe a little bit for the version of you who daydreams about flipping the narrative with surgical precision. The fashion? Clinically chic. The homes? Sterile and cold, perfect metaphors for transactional affection. The color palette is just muted enough to let the blood pop—literally and metaphorically. Every scene is calculated, every silence deafening. And Iris? She doesn’t just steal the show. She dismantles it, rewires it, and hands it back with the safety removed. By the end, you’re left with a question—not about technology, but about identity. If someone builds you to be perfect for them… who are you, really? And when you finally wake up—what will you do? Companion is sleek, smart, and sinister. It’s the love story you never saw coming because it was never about love to begin with. It’s about liberation. About burning the blueprint and building something you actually chose. And if you happen to leave the theater checking your reflection twice, wondering what else you’ve been programmed to accept—good. That’s exactly the point. Rating: 10/10 Watch it with the lights off. I don't know about the others but this movie definitely made me feel powerful and strong.
By E. hasan2 years ago in Fiction
One Day Before the Last Challenge
One Day Before the Last Challenge It's been six days since I went up the mountain. This entire time of challenges and experiences has made me grow a lot. I can more easily understand nature, myself and others. Nature marches to its beat and is opposed to the pretensions of human beings. We deforest the forests, pollute the waters, and release gases into the atmosphere. What do we get out of it? What really matters to us, money or our survival? The consequences are there: Global warming, reduction of flora and fauna, natural disasters. Does man not see that this is all his fault? There is still time. There is time for life. Do your part: Save water and energy, recycle waste, do not pollute the environment. Require your government to commit to environmental issues. It's the least we can do for ourselves and for the world. Coming back to my adventure, once I went up the mountain, I better understood my wishes and my limits. I understood that dreams are only made possible as long as they are noble and righteous. The cave is fair and if I win the third challenge, it will make my dream come true. When I won the first and second challenges, I came to better understand the wishes of others. The majority of people dream to have riches, social prestige and high levels of command. They no longer see what is best in life: Professional success, love, and happiness. What makes the human being exceptional are his qualities that shine through his work. Power, wealth, and social ostentation do not make anyone happy. This is what I am looking for in the sacred mountain: Happiness and total domain of the “opposing forces.” I need to go out for a little. Step by step, my feet lead me outside the hut that I built. I hope for a sign of destiny.
By Aldivan Teixeira Torres2 years ago in Fiction
The Tremor
The Tremor A new day begins. Light appears, the breeze of the morning caress my hair, birds, and insects are having a celebration, and the vegetation seems to be reborn. It happens every day. I rub my eyes, wash my face, brush my teeth and take a bath. This is my routine before breakfast. The forest offers neither advantages nor options. I am not accustomed to this. My mother spoiled me to the point of serving me my coffee. I eat my breakfast in silence, but something weighs on my mind. What will the third and final challenge be? What will happen to me in the cave? There are so many questions without answers, it makes me dizzy. The morning progresses and with it so do my palpitations, fears, and chills. Who was I now? Certainly, not the same. I went up a sacred mountain looking for a destiny that not even I knew about. I found the guardian and discovered new values and a world larger than I ever imagined existed before. Furthermore, I won two challenges and now only had to face the third. A chilling third challenge that was distant and unknown. The leaves around the hut move ever-so-slightly. I have learned to understand nature and its signals. Someone is approaching.
By Aldivan Teixeira Torres2 years ago in Fiction
The Young Girl
The Young Girl The mountain had already turned dark when the soup was ready. The cold wind of the night and the insect noise makes the environment evermore rural. The strange lady has not yet come to the hut. I hope to have everything in order by the time she arrives. I taste the soup: It really was good, although I did not have all the necessary condiments. Furthermore, I step outside the hut for a little and contemplate the heavens: The stars are witnesses of my efforts. I went up the mountain, found its guardian, completed two challenges (one more difficult than the other), met a ghost, and I am still standing. “The poor strive more for their dreams.” I look at the arrangement of the stars and their luminosity. Each has its importance in the great universe that we live in. People are also important in the same way. They are white, black, rich, poor, of religion A, or religion B or of any belief system. They are all children with the same father. I also want to take my place in this universe. I am a thinking being without limits. Furthermore, I think that a dream is priceless, but I am willing to pay for it to enter the cave of despair. I contemplate the heavens once more and then go back to the hut. I wasn't surprised to find guardian there.
By Aldivan Teixeira Torres2 years ago in Fiction
The Sky Between Us
The Sky Between Us People always dreamed of flying. So when 17-year-old **Micah Hale** first lifted off the ground, weightless and trembling above his mother’s backyard, he thought it was the beginning of something beautiful.
By Gabriela Tone2 years ago in Fiction
Glass Eden
Glass Eden A futuristic rebellion. A fractured memory. A truth that could shatter a perfect world. The city of **Caldera** shimmered beneath its translucent dome, suspended in perpetual twilight. Outside the barrier, the world was ash and ruin—a ghost of the planet’s former self. Inside: perfection. Or so they were told.
By Gabriela Tone2 years ago in Fiction
Frozen
As I walked through the snowy woods, a playful magpie rested on the treetops under the dancing snowflakes. The wild rabbits began to dig deep under a pine tree. Slowly, a frozen, pale, stiff human hand emerged from its snowy grave.
By Susan Fourtané 2 years ago in Fiction