Short Story
The Flower That Waited. AI-Generated.
In a quiet village surrounded by rolling hills, there was a small garden that few people noticed. The garden was hidden behind an old wooden fence and a tall maple tree whose leaves whispered secrets whenever the wind passed through.
By Waleed khan7 months ago in Fiction
Who's Gage
The cereal went soggy faster than I liked, but I still ate it that way. The house was quiet except for the hum of the refrigerator and the ticking clock in the hallway. Morning light stretched across the kitchen table and stopped just short of the bowl. I picked up the milk carton and poured a little more into the cereal. The milk rose slowly around the pieces until they began to float. I turned the carton in my hands, reading the side the way people do when they have nothing else to look at. That’s when I noticed the picture. It was one of those missing kid photos they sometimes print on cartons. The kind they rerun every few years when the case is still open. The boy in the picture couldn’t have been older than seven. Dark hair. Thin face. A crooked smile caught halfway through forming. He was wearing a dark green jacket. I stared a little longer. Something about the picture felt familiar. The kid looked younger than me. A lot younger. But the face looked like the ones in the few old pictures I’d seen of myself. The strange thing was, every picture of me in the house started around that age. Before that, there was nothing. No birthdays. No school pictures. No awkward smiles with missing teeth. Just a blank space where those years should have been. I used to think that was normal. Lots of people didn’t keep old photos. Phones got lost. Computers crashed. Things disappeared over time. Still, it was strange how clean the gap was. No pictures from before that age. No stories either. Whenever the subject came up, it was brushed aside with the same answer. “You were little. You probably just don’t remember.” Maybe that was true. But staring at the boy on the carton, I had the uneasy feeling that I should. Like something important had been misplaced inside my own head. I looked again at the date printed beneath the picture. Ten years. Ten years since the boy named Gage had disappeared. The carton felt heavier in my hands.
By Tifani Power 7 months ago in Fiction
The Clock That Stopped at Midnight. AI-Generated.
In the quiet town of Ravensbrook stood an old house that everyone avoided. It wasn’t broken or abandoned. In fact, the house looked perfectly normal—white walls, tall windows, and a small garden that somehow stayed alive even though no one ever cared for it.
By Waleed khan7 months ago in Fiction
Someone Keeps Swiping Right on My Dating Profile
I downloaded the dating app two weeks after Valentine’s Day. Not because I was ready to date again. Mostly because my friends wouldn’t stop telling me to “get back out there.” My last relationship ended badly, and February had been miserable enough already.
By V-Ink Stories7 months ago in Fiction
My Girlfriend Wants My Heart for Valentine’s Day
When my girlfriend first said she wanted my heart forever, I laughed. It was Valentine’s season, and she’d been in that overly romantic mood all week—pink candles, heart-shaped cookies, cheesy love songs playing in the apartment while she cooked dinner.
By V-Ink Stories7 months ago in Fiction
The Last Round Before Sunrise
The group had been bar-hopping since early evening. St. Patrick’s Day had turned the whole downtown area into a blur of green shirts, plastic shamrocks, and loud music pouring from every open doorway. By midnight, most of the popular bars were packed shoulder-to-shoulder.
By V-Ink Stories7 months ago in Fiction
The Myth: Work Hard, Play Hard.
"All work and no play makes Jake a dull boy." When they first met, Sara, had enchanted Jake with her philosophy of work hard and play hard. When they started dating, both were full into studying to gain rank in their undergraduate courses. Work hard, play hard seemed the perfect formula for having the best of a full life. They would spend evenings at the library carrels and then party hardy at least once or twice a week.
By Katherine D. Graham7 months ago in Fiction
L' Avis d'Gwendydd
Gwendydd walked among her orchard, a crown of apple blossoms in her hair. The trees stretched their branches to the spring sun and danced in the breeze. She breathed in their heady perfume as she wandered the dark, tilled earth. The promised harvest loomed pleasantly in her thoughts, and the cares of the world were far beyond her concern.
By M. A. Mehan 7 months ago in Fiction
