Psychological

When Man’s Companion Becomes the Government’s Spy
They watch from rooftops, utility poles, and abandoned towers—silent, patient, and unblinking. Crows congregate in tight formations, shifting positions without ever breaking focus. One departs, another immediately takes its place. To the casual observer, they are merely birds—but for those who know, they are far more than that. They report. They observe. They are the World Collective’s unseen eyes.
By Atiqbuddyabout a year ago in Fiction
Tenant. Winner in A Knock at the Door Challenge.
Knock, knock. I came to. Unaware that I had even drifted off. Was that knock real or had I dreamed it? The rain played the evening’s soundtrack. Calm. The clock said twelve, but it always said that. It’d decided who it was.
By Kristen Keenon Fisherabout a year ago in Fiction
To Be or Not To Be
Sometimes, life places us at a crossroads. One path appears easy but hollow inside, while the other looks difficult yet hides a new horizon at the end. Ali found himself standing at such a point in his life. In his mind, one question echoed again and again: “To be or not to be?”
By Atiqbuddyabout a year ago in Fiction
Echoes of a Forgotten City
Echoes of a Forgotten City The city once glowed with culture, art, and the laughter of children. Its streets carried the footprints of generations, and its walls echoed with stories older than memory. But when the war came, the city that once sang was reduced to whispers of smoke and broken stone.
By Wings of Time about a year ago in Fiction
The Forest of the Forgotten
Ellie hadn't planned on saying goodbye to anyone. The plan had been simple: prepare the mirrors, wait for Amnity to finish with the Council, and slip quietly into another world in search of answers about a past she couldn't remember. Clean, efficient, uncomplicated by sentiment or second thoughts.
By Parsley Rose about a year ago in Fiction
The Apartment with the Violet Door
Mara lifted her head from the cracked spine of the novel and blinked at the violet door across the hallway. It hadn’t been violet when she moved in two weeks ago. It had been the color of chalky bone, peeling at the corners, like all the other doors in this aging apartment complex on the edge of downtown. Now it glowed with a muted, rich shade of purple, as if it had been painted in the night by hands too quiet to be heard.
By Alexander Mindabout a year ago in Fiction
Dust and Dreams
Zaryab had always felt a little different. Her mother used to say she was born with too much light in her eyes, as though her soul had stolen an extra spark from the stars before slipping into her body. At school, other children teased her for her strange habit of staring at the old tree outside their village—the great Dream Tree that bent its branches as if listening to the world. For generations, the villagers believed the Dream Tree held the weight of every person’s sleeping mind. Whenever someone died, a leaf curled in flame, turned to dust, and floated away on the wind.
By Shehzad Anjumabout a year ago in Fiction
Interchangeable. Top Story - October 2025.
Instead of her usual dry red, Lara paced back and forth with a glass of whiskey in hand, impatiently waiting for the answer. There was no turning back now. So, she concentrated all of her charm, which usually worked like magic on other people, to convince herself that she was not a bad person. She needed to. The evidence–pointing its big, fat finger at her in the form of a text thread–stared back from her phone, judging her, making that job harder than she wanted to.
By Cristal S.about a year ago in Fiction
You and that Rascally Rabbit. Runner-Up in The Forgotten Room Challenge.
You’re born in a rural hometown, in the backroom of a mom and pop hardware store because your mother’s water broke three weeks early while they were shopping for a new hammer because your dad needed, he just needed, that new hammer because he couldn’t get the baby room finished just right.
By Amos Gladeabout a year ago in Fiction
Door Slam
“Tap, tap, tap.” “And so gently she came rapping,” I muttered to myself. This was the third time this week and I sighed. It was Sunday so at least I was prepared with coffee and cookies in the oven. And by ‘prepared’ I meant only technically, mentally I could never be prepared for this shit. I had come to dread the sound of those taps on my door. My cozy little apartment, my place of solitude and peace, so suddenly turning to a prison of torment by just two feet shuffling their way across the threshold of my door. It wasn’t the big things, there weren’t big things she did that I could point to and say ‘this is why’. No it was more insidious than that, it was a bunch of little things piling up, death by a thousand cuts.
By Raine Fielderabout a year ago in Fiction
T-Force
THE KNOCK The first knock came at 3:33 a.m. I sat up in bed like a puppet jerked by invisible strings. The sound was soft but deliberate—three taps against the wood, like fingers that had memorized the shape of my front door.
By Tony Martelloabout a year ago in Fiction
The Quiet Things That Die. Content Warning.
Rick Mallory got the citation on a Thursday morning, just before the sun had finished rising. The mail carrier hadn’t bothered to knock. The envelope was crammed halfway into the box, plastic window already smudged with the dirty thumbprint of whoever had handled it last. Rick tugged it loose and carried it inside like it was a trap and he knew it. He stood at the sink and balanced the letter on his palm like a bad coin. The paper felt too thin. Government mail was always printed on paper that felt ashamed of itself.
By Fatal Serendipityabout a year ago in Fiction