Short Story
Greybridge
My name is Alden Rook. I am 17 years old and I’ve lived in Greybridge for all my life. My mom raised me all by herself along with me and my 2 siblings, and somehow made this strange city home. I'm dating a lovely girl named Mara Ellison. We’ve been dating for about 3 years now and I love her and wanna spend all my days with her. This city though isn’t a normal city, there’s rules, rules that nobody can explain but you just know like its a law. Everyone learns these rules when they turn 18, like they’re embedded in your mind. Nobody questions it, it's just how life is in Greybridge. Nobody in my family has ever been outside of Greybridge, you get the food inside the city, you go to the doctor inside the city, never outside. I’ve always wondered about what it would be like to leave this city, for something new, stretch my arms out like a falcon and fly away. I try to brush all these thoughts out of my brain, as I bike my way to Mara’s house. I turn 18 tomorrow and we planned on going to the movies and maybe grabbing a bite after, so I was ready for a fun night. I arrive at her house, as she’s sitting on the front doorstep waiting for me with her special outfit on. It’s got a certain glow that reflects off of her making her seem like an angel from heaven. “You look beautiful tonight Mara”, I tell her as she jumps into my arms with a crushing hug. Her brown eyes stare at me back and she utters a calm thank you. She hops on the back of my bike as we ride to the theater hoping to catch that new movie, before all the tickets are sold. We arrive, get our tickets, the very last two left: Lucky us, and get a drink and popcorn to share. She’s going off about how excited she is about the movie and all I can do is sit and admire her. Her dark black hair like ink flowing in the hair matched with her brown eyes light as milk chocolate. Matched with a smile that lights up this city with the energy it needs, she's perfect. We take our seats down in the theater and enjoy the movie. She's dead silent and laser focused on every scene, every character and by the end she’s going off about how good it was and all her favorite parts. I do have to agree the movie was pretty good, and I had a really fun time with her in my arms while watching. We biked down to our favorite restaurant, a little small owned business, where our first date was. We sit side by side instead of across from each other, and order our food, she gets the burger with fries and I get a cheese steak sub, my favorite from here. As we eat and enjoy the food, she tilts her head on my shoulder, her black hair spilling everywhere, and I feel at home. I feel like I could sit here all night with her and never get tired of it. Though eventually the night ends, and we go our separate ways, I drop her off leaving her with a kiss on the lips and bike home. On the way home I hear a scream, not a scared scream, a scream that echoes like your life is in danger. I rush out looking for the source and realize I rushed too far, I’ve stepped outside of the border.
By Christian Sanchez8 months ago in Fiction
Its Been One Year
It's been one year since you left me for good, one year of heartbreak. I still live here in the house by the beach, the beach you always loved going to. I remember you used to grab my hand, while we ran along this beach as the world faded around us. You were a master with the waves making it seem you had them under your control. I haven't been back to your beach since the day you left me for good, though today I ponder going back. After some time of thinking I put on my black sandals, and put on your favorite shirt of mine, the one you said made me special. As I walk out the door onto the steps down to the beach, the memories come flooding in. Every day, every night, every special moment on this beach comes back to me. I slowly pick up the sand, twist it through my fingers as it falls back to the earth. It’s still as warm and soft as it was the first day we came here though it seems it lost its golden color the day you left me for good. I lie down making the earth my bed and sit there for what seems like hours not caring what happens next, just daydreaming you were back. That's when I saw a golden necklace in the distance, it wouldn't have been enough to get me up from my bed. But this necklace was shining a special kind of gold, I just had to see it. As I get up and dust sand off my shorts and T shirt, I realize what this necklace truly is. It's the one I gave you, the day before you left me for good. It's still got our photograph embedded inside the middle, our agreed favorite one, with the words I love you like you love the waves. I can’t believe I'm holding this in my hands, this feels like some unseen dream but this is real. It's here golden as ever just like the day I first got it for you. They said your stuff was lost, though maybe you left them to the sea, the same sea I once believed you could control.
By Christian Sanchez8 months ago in Fiction
You’re the best thing that ever happened to me
Jade was happy. In fact, she was a spoiled princess. Any material item she wanted, Ryan made it appear. She didn't have to work. She had been a housewife for four years. She would never dare to use the word trapped. Not out loud. Not even to herself. She preferred softer phrases. She was needed here. Ryan liked things a certain way, It was easier if she stayed home.
By Sara Wilson8 months ago in Fiction
The Sand Between Our Fingers
The first time Noura stepped onto the desert, the wind smelled like sand and the Nile River far in the distance, mixed with plants and salt. She was just ten, small enough to hide behind her father’s clothes, but big enough to feel the sand under her feet. Siwa woke slowly, its walls turning gold in the morning light. Women drew water, children chased goats, and Noura’s father, Amir, guided her toward palm trees that leaned over the dunes like old men.
By Mahmoud Ahmed 8 months ago in Fiction
Under the Date Palm Moon
The first time the Nile spoke to Salma, she was thirteen and hiding from the sun. She had slipped away from her grandmother’s house in the village of Al-Qasr, where the walls were the color of baked clay and the afternoons stretched like tired animals. The August heat pressed down on everything: the palm trees, the rooftops, and the unspoken expectations that followed her like shadows. Salma tucked herself beneath the oldest date palm near the riverbank. Its trunk was split and scarred from a hundred seasons, and its leaves whispered secrets older than memory.
By Mahmoud Ahmed 8 months ago in Fiction
A Night Painted with the Scars of Hate. Content Warning.
Steam clouds emanate from the sewer grates like puffs of smoke spilling from the listless mouths that pass on the street. His nose turns away at the slightest hint of smoke; the smell clings to his clothes like children grasping for toys in displays. Opening the door to a discreet shop along the burgeoning street, he files inside to a world utterly alien to him. His eyes darted around the interior store with its neon signs advertising paraphilia in bright, abnormal colors. The walls must have been wrapped in leather dyed by the night sky. Corvids decorated the walls as if they were suddenly going to attack the puppies on leashes, or those meant to resemble them.
By Thomas Bryant8 months ago in Fiction
