Mystery
The charmed life of Starr 🌠. Honorable Mention in The Second First Time Challenge.
Leila, the mother of the child...swears on an unbroken circle of salt, with sugarplums and purified water for sustenance within the circle, that when Starr was born, all the heavenly bodies aligned to become one great big star...pointing the way to her celestial name.
By Novel Allenabout a year ago in Fiction
The Woman on the Train Who Wasn’t There
I saw her every day on the 7:06 to Greystone. Same seat. Second row from the back. Window side. Always reading a book — not a Kindle, mind you, but a real one. Hardcover. Worn edges. She turned each page like it meant something.
By Abuzar khanabout a year ago in Fiction
The Moonflower’s Secret. Content Warning.
They say the moonflower only blooms at night. A rare blossom, soft as a whisper and shy to the sun, it opens only when the world sleeps, and secrets feel safe to surface. So was she. Her name was Leya. The kind of girl who walked like a forgotten song. She had that silence—heavy, meaningful. You wouldn’t notice her in a room, but you’d find echoes of her in your dreams. She lived alone in Room 3B of the Ashwood Apartments, where the walls cracked like tired voices and the elevator groaned like regret. People barely noticed her. She barely spoke. But something about her presence made you feel like you’d missed something beautiful just by arriving too late. Then one night, I saw her on the rooftop—alone, under the velvet hush of midnight. Her arms reached toward the sky as if she were holding an invisible conversation. I hid behind the old water tank, unsure why I stayed. She didn’t sing. She didn’t pray. She spoke—as if the moon were listening. > “Why was I born with wings,” she whispered, “but nowhere to fly?” And then she cried. Quietly. Not the kind of crying that asks for help. The kind that simply… spills. The next morning, I passed her in the stairwell. She didn’t look up. But that night, I wrote a poem on torn notebook paper and slipped it under her door. It said: > “Some flowers bloom unseen. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t beautiful.” The following day, she looked at me—really looked. And smiled, just slightly. After that, the exchange began. I left poems. She left drawings. One of a girl with wings and tangled roots. One of a moon with a face that looked vaguely familiar. Then one night, she invited me to the rooftop. We sat in silence for a while. She finally said: > “People think silence is empty. But mine is full. Of memories. Of ghosts. Of things I didn’t get to say.” She told me about her mother, who disappeared when she was ten. About a father who spoke in thunder and never softness. About her dream of becoming a poet—but being told, “That won’t pay the rent.” > “Some people dream loud,” she said. “I dream in whispers.” She showed me a small notebook she called her "Book of Impossible Things." Inside were dreams like: “Learn to dance in the rain.” “Read a poem to strangers.” “Be remembered for something gentle.” “Don’t vanish.” She handed me the pen. “Write something.” So I wrote: > “Find someone who sees through silence.” --- But then one morning, she was gone. No goodbye. No forwarding address. No bags seen leaving. Just... emptiness. The landlord shrugged. “Paid through the month. Seemed like she had a plan.” For a while, I checked the rooftop every night. Hoping. Listening. Then, a week later, I found a white envelope under my door. Inside: her notebook. The first page said: > “If you’re reading this, I didn’t disappear. I bloomed.” The rest was filled with our poems. Her sketches. A pressed moonflower between two pages. And on the final sheet: > “Some dreams aren’t impossible. They’re just waiting for someone brave enough to believe in them.” > “P.S. Keep writing. One of us has to remember.” --- I still go to the rooftop sometimes. I whisper to the moon. And when the wind is soft and the city sleeps, I feel like she’s there—somewhere between the stars and the silence. I open her notebook and write. Because some stories don’t end. Some stories bloom again… every time someone dares to read them.
By Tariq Shahabout a year ago in Fiction
The Last Survivors' Return. AI-Generated.
When the Earth was declared unsalvageable in the year 2144, the Exodus Project began. Only 1,000 individuals were selected to leave the planet aboard the Orion Ark, bound for Kepler-62f—a habitable exoplanet 1,200 light-years away.
By Qasim Fazalabout a year ago in Fiction
The House That Remembers Me
this story is create by khalid khan I was only supposed to stay for six months. The house sat on the edge of town, crooked and quiet, like it had been waiting too long for someone to remember it. The landlord barely said a word—just handed me the keys with a muttered, “You’ll do fine here. The house likes to be lived in.”
By khalid khanabout a year ago in Fiction
The girl behind the green window
There’s a room across from mine. Second floor. Green window. A girl stands there every night. Same time. Same place. Still as a statue. But here's the problem. That house has been abandoned for 27 years. first noticed her on a Thursday. I had just moved into the small, rust-colored building across from what the locals called the haunted house. It wasn’t actually haunted—they said. Just forgotten. The house was large, Victorian-style, with vines crawling up the walls like green veins. Its windows were always shut. Except for one—the green one on the second floor. That night, at exactly 2:13 a.m., I looked out of my bedroom window and froze. There she was. A girl, maybe in her early 20s, standing behind the green glass, staring directly at me. Her hair was long and dark. Her dress looked old, like something from the 1940s. She didn’t move. I thought it was a trick of the moonlight. Or maybe someone messing around. But the next night—same time, same place—she was there again. No blinking. No shifting. Just staring. By the fifth night, I had stopped sleeping. I asked the landlord. "That house?" he scoffed. "Been empty since the Malik family vanished. Around 1998, I think. Cops searched it. Found nothing. People said it was cursed. Superstition, really." “But I see someone,” I told him. “A girl. Every night.” He looked at me long and hard. “You're seeing shadows, friend. That house is dead.” I took photos. Nothing appeared. I tried recording videos. Static. I even asked a delivery guy to come in and see. He saw nothing. But I kept seeing her. Always at 2:13 a.m. On the 12th night, I couldn’t take it anymore. I crossed the street. Climbed the broken iron gate. Walked through weeds taller than my knees. My flashlight flickered as I pushed the front door open. Inside, everything smelled of rot and memory. The air was thick with silence. I followed the stairs to the second floor. There it was—the green window. And beside it, the girl. She was even more beautiful up close. Pale. Still. And not quite real. "Who are you?" I whispered. She turned to me, slowly. "I'm waiting," she said softly. "He promised he'd come back." "Who?" She looked at the moonlight and smiled. "I’ve been waiting since the war ended." That’s when I saw the blood on her hands. And the newspaper on the floor. Dated August 15, 1947. I blinked. She vanished. I ran. Out of the room. Out of the house. Into the street. I don’t remember sleeping that night. Next morning, I went to the old archives at the city library. It took four hours to find it. “Mystery Disappearance: Bride Vanishes on Wedding Night” Zeenat Malik, 23. Last seen by her fiancé, Major Rehan Qureshi, an army officer returning from the India-Pakistan border. She was standing near the green window, waiting. He was late. She was never seen again. Witnesses claimed they saw her in the window every night that month. After that, the sightings stopped. Until now. That night, I waited by my window. She appeared again. Only this time, she wasn’t staring at me. She was smiling. Behind her, in the green glow, stood a man in uniform. And then they both faded… like smoke in moonlight. The next night? No one appeared. And never again. 🕰️ Moral of the Story Some spirits don’t haunt to scare. They haunt to wait. And sometimes… the one they wait for finally comes home. 📝 Author’s Note This story was inspired by a real house I once saw during a summer trip to Rawalpindi. The green window was real. The feeling of someone watching? Also real. Whether you believe in ghosts or not, there are places in this world where time gets stuck. Where stories whisper through walls, and memories refuse to fade. Maybe that’s all ghosts are—unfinished stories looking for someone to listen. If you ever walk past an old house and feel a chill for no reason, don’t be scared. Just... wave at the window. Maybe someone’s been waiting .
By Muhammad Abbas about a year ago in Fiction
Lights Over London
“Madam, you should come below.” Dickie stood in the doorway, his voice gentle, but firm. Outside, the sky flashed with bursts of light. But this was no celebration—it was war. Bombs were falling across London, and everyone was supposed to be in the safety of the shelters.
By ibrahim khanabout a year ago in Fiction
Blood Drop Sun
Atop the Ebright Azimuth, the highest point in Delaware, the same place where the lightning bugs hung in the air, Crane Curren and his girlfriend Melanie Biscoff sat with certainty. He wore a Kente cloth t-shirt, black jeans and sneakers. Melanie donned an orange summer dress that looked like marmalade and blue flats. As the sun set, they just knew that something felt unsettling in their bones. They could look down the road and see what it was.
By Skyler Saundersabout a year ago in Fiction
