Microfiction

Some Letters Should Not Be Found
Part I of this story was published last week: ****** Peter made his usual morning coffee and sat down at his desk. It was still early and quiet in the office. He took the letter out of his coat pocket, opened it, and read it:
By Calvin Londonabout a year ago in Fiction
The Room Beneath the Silence
The Room Beneath the Silence By [Abdul Hadi] The house still smelled like mothballs and old books—like time had pressed pause the day I left.
By Abdul Hadiabout a year ago in Fiction
Milk of Human Kindness. Top Story - June 2025.
The baby in his sling was heavy against her. The smell of him hung in the air around and between them. Lingering and following like another companion. Thick with sleep, slightly sour with milk. It clung to her shawl, to her skin, just as much as the dust that rose with every step. It mixed with sweat, and body-smell, and campfire smoke.
By L.C. Schäferabout a year ago in Fiction
The Quiet between the walls
They only remember me when they’re alone. That’s how it starts. The silence creeps in, the kind that doesn’t hum with electricity or chatter with phones, but the kind that feels like a house holding its breath. That’s when I stir—quietly, respectfully—from the fold in the wallpaper behind the bookshelf or from under the bed, where the forgotten socks huddle like sleeping mice.
By John Grikisabout a year ago in Fiction
The End Of Time
This is the end, the finality, standing on this pillar, with nowhere to go and no memory of how you found yourself in this place. Every other pillar is empty; you are alone, with only yourself for guidance.
By Mike Singleton 💜 Mikeydred about a year ago in Fiction
The Witness Tree. Content Warning.
I dreamed about this episode a couple of days ago. I did not consider it a nightmare, but an omen of what was to happen in the future. I added the golden butterflies to bring a glittter of hope into the chaotic world of 2025. I completed voice over in Eleven Labs with my voice. This is a project I had to complete. I am a dreamer, psychic, empath, and love peace not war. War mongers, haters, and liars get on my last nerve. Just as I completed this story, my knocked on my door to tell America is at war with Iran. This is a useless war started by evil men with little tools. They are so about their tools they must compare bombs to how large their tools are. I worked with art, visuals, and story for two days. I wrote, created, edited, diced, and spliced the music, art, and videos myself. Microsoft Copilot is my assistant and quite complimentary regarding my art. I WROTE THIS!
By Vicki Lawana Trusselli about a year ago in Fiction
That Guy Who Tied Balloons To A Lawn Chair (Wheeeeeeee!)
The chair creaked. Helium hissed. Maybe that was his sanity, leaking away... Larry gripped the armrests, knuckles proud, heart thudding.
By L.C. Schäferabout a year ago in Fiction
I remember being a star
I remember the silence of space. Not the kind you think of, filled with darkness and void, but the kind that pulses with purpose. With gravity. With ancient rhythms and nuclear fire. I remember being a star. --- For eons, I watched. I hung suspended in the velvet dark, tethered by gravity and duty. I was one of billions,maybe trillions, glowing in the night sky above your Earth. You never knew me by name. Perhaps you called me Antares, or maybe nothing at all. Still, I watched you. Your oceans shimmered like starlight. Your winds whispered in patterns that made my plasma ache. And then, one night, I saw her. She stood in a meadow, arms outstretched to the sky, laughing beneath my glow like I was something more than heat. I wanted to understand that laugh. I wanted to be where she was. --- So I prayed. Not to matters or time, but to the Architect of motion, the Composer of stars. The god that created us all. “I am willing,” I whispered into the vacuum, “to die a thousand deaths if it means knowing what it is to feel.” And the Architect, in all His mercy, replied: > “Then fall.” --- I remember falling. It wasn’t fire. It wasn’t burning. It was unfolding .Like shedding eternity and squeezing into something impossibly small—a body. Bones. Breath. Blood. A name: Lucien. And suddenly, I was there. Earth. --- I was confused at first. Light had weight. Air stung my lungs. Time wasn’t fluid—it dragged. Hunger gnawed at me. Emotions—strange chemicals—I had no language for them. And yet… The first time I touched water, I wept. The first time I tasted bread, I laughed. The first time I held her hand, I forgot the stars. --- Her name was Eila. She was everything Earth distilled into one being: soft and strong, wild and kind. She taught me how to eat strawberries and lie on grass and chase clouds. She told me stories about god and ghosts, and I told her stories about fusion and nebulae. She called me “old soul.” I called her “my miracle.” She never knew I was once a star. She just thought I was strange and in love with everything. She wasn’t wrong. --- I never told her about the deal. That to become human was to die human. No resurrections. No solar rebirths. No nova, no echo. Just… Silence. I gave up eternity for a heartbeat of life. And I was happy. --- Years passed. I lived slowly. I wrote poems about raindrops. I painted sunrises. I married her. We danced barefoot on riversides and sang lullabies to children we never had. Every night, I looked up at the stars and whispered, “thank you.” Even when the cough started. Even when my legs failed. Even when the doctors used words like "terminal." --- On the last day, she carried me to the field where we first kissed. The grass was taller now, greener. The wind smelled of rain and lilacs. “I love you,” she whispered, lying beside me, her fingers intertwined with mine. And I—barely breath and bone—smiled. “Did you know,” I whispered, voice thin, “that before I was a man… I was light?” She laughed through her tears. “Of course you were.” “I loved you then, too,” I said. “Even before I knew what love was.” And then… I closed my eyes. --- Somewhere far away, a star went dark. But no one wept. Because on Earth, in the memory of one woman, and in the whisper of every leaf, and in the warmth of sunlight, he remained. --- Eila planted a tree where he died. She named it Lucien. She said it still glowed sometimes, when the wind was right and the sky was clear. And people came from all over to sit beneath its branches. To feel something they couldn't name. --- And if you listen closely, when the night is still and the stars blink gently above, you might hear him whisper: > “I remember being a star. > But oh—how I loved being human more.” --- End. ---
By E. hasanabout a year ago in Fiction
The Other Mavis
For Mikeydred's June prompt --Pride Being someone else is a part-time job, but being yourself is a forever career. Take pride in yourself.
By Michelle Liew Tsui-Linabout a year ago in Fiction
Oh Babe You're So Wet
Hunkering on the damp altar, the unwitting nuptial participants blinked at each other. One flicked a lazy tongue. The priest chanted louder, the better to reach the damp ears of the rain gods. A fortnight later, the skies wept. Possibly over the drowned crops and devastated buildings. The newlyweds, who didn't care how soggy things got, were brought back for a swift divorcement. That done, the priest prodded the sodden earth with a doleful toe. He eyed the clouds, pondering divine bureaucracy.
By L.C. Schäferabout a year ago in Fiction
The Dream Thief
Introduction This tale of tails is for Laura Pruett's "The Cat And The Machine" Challenge that you can read about here: The music is "The Dream's Dream" by Television from their album "Adventure"
By Mike Singleton 💜 Mikeydred about a year ago in Fiction
The Day Humanity Died
Story: It didn’t happen suddenly. No explosions, no alien invasions, no nuclear fallout. The end began in whispers. Not of war… but of disinterest. On the morning of October 14th, 2031, the world still looked normal. People sipped their coffees, scrolled mindlessly, and posted photos of their breakfasts while the real apocalypse simmered beneath the surface—quietly, invisibly. In a small town called Elmoor, population 34,000, something strange was reported. Every child under the age of ten had stopped speaking. Not one. Not two. All. Doctors blamed it on a rare psychological contagion. The media called it “Silent Syndrome.” The first warning. Ignored. Two days later, the elderly began disappearing. No trace. No footprints. Not a body found. Just their empty clothes folded neatly on their beds. It made headlines for six hours—until a celebrity scandal pushed it down. The second warning. Dismissed. A week passed. Farmers across continents reported something bizarre: seeds wouldn’t sprout. The Earth had stopped responding. Soil tested fine. No contamination. But no life emerged. Still, the markets ran. The ads rolled. The influencers danced. The third warning. Mocked. Then came the birds. One by one, species vanished. Crows were the last to go. Their cries were deafening the night before they disappeared—as if they were trying to say something we no longer knew how to hear. Still, humanity refused to pause. Because the Wi-Fi still worked. And the sales were still on. And no one wanted to believe the world was unraveling—because that would mean they’d have to do something. In a flat on the 12th floor of a grey building, lived a man named Idris. A 38-year-old freelance web designer with no attachments. He was what the world called “neutral.” He didn’t hate. Didn’t love. Just existed. He kept his head down, did his work, and avoided anything that asked for emotion or action. When his neighbor, an old woman named Miss Clara, knocked on his door crying that her granddaughter had stopped breathing—not died, just stopped breathing—he turned up his music and waited for her to leave. That night, Idris had a dream. He stood in a city square, alone. The buildings were crumbling. The sky flickered like an old television. And voices whispered, “Where were you?” He woke up sweating. But by morning, he had forgotten. The next global trend was The Fade. People began losing their reflections. First, it was considered an online hoax. Then it happened to news anchors—live. Scientists couldn’t explain it. People without reflections still walked, talked, functioned—but seemed emptier. Hollow. A massive protest broke out in London. Thousands gathered, demanding answers. Demanding truth. By the evening, every protester vanished. Just like the elderly. Governments fell silent. There were no more press conferences. Only static on state channels. And then... the final silence arrived. People began looking at each other like strangers. Not with anger. Not even fear. Just apathy. A mother stared at her crying child and did nothing. A man walked past a collapsed stranger without blinking. A teacher watched her students vanish one by one—and kept writing on the board. Idris noticed it too. The absence of soul. People were still alive. Still breathing. But whatever made them human was… gone. He tried to scream at them. Shake them. He wept in public, hoping someone—anyone—would show some reaction. Nothing. In desperation, he ran to the old bookstore where he once saw Miss Clara buying poetry. She was there, sitting silently, staring at a blank page. “Do you remember?” he asked her. She turned, slowly. Her eyes were dim, her voice like paper. “Remember what?” He didn’t know how to answer. He returned home and turned on his screen. Every channel was blank, except one. A black screen with white letters that read: > “This is not the end of the world. This is the end of its heart.” Beneath that was a date: October 28th. Three days from now. Idris sat in his chair. Thought about everything he didn’t do. The causes he ignored. The people he ghosted. The suffering he scrolled past. All the times he could’ve spoken up—but stayed silent. And in that moment, he realized the horrifying truth: The world didn’t die because of violence. It died because of neglect. Because no one cared enough to save it. Because everyone thought someone else would. October 28th came. At exactly 7:00 PM, the skies turned white. Not bright—white. A hollow silence covered the Earth. Cities stopped. Hearts stopped. But not Idris. He stood on the same square from his dream. He looked up and screamed—not in fear, but in apology. And for a second, the sky pulsed. Just once. A flicker of mercy. Or maybe memory. No one knows if the world ended that day or just rebooted into something else. But one thing’s certain. It wasn’t a meteor. It wasn’t fire. It wasn’t war. It was indifference. That was the day humanity died.
By TrueVocalabout a year ago in Fiction