Short Story
Train Ride
I have an unexpected guest on my trip and it intrigued me most when she appeared in an instant out of thin air. I pick up nearly every soul that makes this journey and it is only the souls that have chosen their trip that appear as she has done. Clara, the name fits her bright aura. I can see her future, if she was not on the train, and it is like her, bright.
By Rae Brooks9 months ago in Fiction
Rituals and Rites
I turn, watching the sleek skirts swish smoothly about my legs. “It’s beautiful.” I whisper. “It suits you.” My soon-to-be mother-in-law says, coming up behind me with a flower wreath in her hands. She settles it into my hair, smoothing the streamers along my back. I fidget with my sleeves.
By Phoenixica249 months ago in Fiction
Another Night. Content Warning.
Another Night The American soldiers were on the radio when I left with the baby. The last thing Hashim said to me before he left was for me to take the baby and walk between the rivers as far as I could, hopefully to safety, when I heard the American soldiers on the radio. If we make it to Syria, we will officially be refugees. The American soldiers play a song on the radio that says that someone must have kicked me around, that I don’t have to live like a refugee. They are right, but they forgot to say that I don’t have to stay.
By Harper Lewis 9 months ago in Fiction
Bloodless Tomorrow
The world did not end when the virus turned humanity into vampires, it changed, adapted, hardened, the transformation happened slowly at first, a mutation triggered by synthetic blood substitutes created to end famine, the irony was cruel, the cure for hunger became the curse of immortality, millions transformed into nocturnal beings who no longer aged, no longer slept, and could no longer survive without blood, governments collapsed, cities were sealed, and science replaced religion as the last hope, and in the underground districts of what used to be Europe, a small group of vampires clung to a rumor whispered through encrypted networks and black-market data streams, a cure existed, not a myth, not faith, but a real scientific solution hidden beneath the ruins of an abandoned research complex, buried under kilometers of reinforced earth, accessible only through a single tunnel that no one who entered had ever returned from, and yet they decided to go, because immortality without choice was just another kind of death.
By Diab the story maker 9 months ago in Fiction
He Hurt Her. I Ended Him
She learned early how to hide bruises, how to smile with her eyes while her body ached, how to apologize for things she never did, her fiancé was admired in public, polite, charming, the kind of man mothers trusted and friends defended, but behind closed doors he turned love into control and silence into punishment, his hands never left marks where people could see at first, and when they did, he called them accidents, called her clumsy, called her dramatic, and she believed him longer than she should have because fear has a way of convincing you that survival is love, the night she finally left the apartment in a torn dress and shaking hands, she didn’t leave to escape him forever, she left to breathe for one evening, just one, she went to a classical concert downtown because it was dark and crowded and loud enough to drown her thoughts, she sat in the back row hoping no one would notice her, unaware that someone very powerful already had.
By Diab the story maker 9 months ago in Fiction
I helped him hide the body
The night it happened began quietly, too quietly for a city like ours, the rain falling in thin sharp lines that reflected the yellow streetlights and turned the asphalt into broken mirrors, I remember thinking how strange it felt to hear my own footsteps echo as I walked home, my phone dead, my jacket soaked, my head full of nothing but exhaustion and routine, until I noticed a man standing under the flickering light at the corner, not moving, not smoking, not looking at his phone, just standing there as if the world had paused around him, and when our eyes met I felt something shift inside my chest, not fear exactly, more like instinct screaming before the mind could understand why, I tried to look away and keep walking but the sound came then, a dull heavy thud followed by a wet dragging noise behind me, the kind of sound that doesn’t belong in normal life, and when I turned around against every warning in my body, I saw the man kneeling beside someone on the ground, his hands dark and shaking, the body twisted in an impossible angle, blood mixing with rain and running into the gutter like it had a destination of its own, and before I could step back or scream or run, the man looked at me again and said softly, almost politely, please don’t leave.
By Diab the story maker 9 months ago in Fiction
The Brown Meridian . Content Warning.
Cloy, listen to me. My throat feels parched from the history you and I shared. I can't call this our home anymore; you can’t either. But believe this: my departure was an act of abnegation; I didn’t abandon you. I have escaped, and now the burden of this entity falls on you.
By Caitlin Charlton9 months ago in Fiction
One Step Closer
One Step Back, Two Shadows Forward by Theodore Homuth I should say upfront that I’ve never been one to put stock in signs or omens or any of that ethereal nonsense. People who swear by them—they’re the type who scan the world like it’s a cryptic crossword puzzle, connecting dots that were never meant to be linked. A license plate number that matches your birthday. A single white feather drifting down onto a cracked sidewalk in the dead of winter. Dreams that linger like half-remembered conversations, whispering promises of destiny when they’re really just your brain recycling yesterday’s stress. I’ve always been wired differently, grounded in the tangible, the stuff that leaves marks you can’t ignore. Rent receipts crumpled in my pocket, stained with coffee rings from too many late nights. Calluses etched into my palms from gripping a mop handle too tightly. The dull, insistent ache in my lower back after pulling a double shift at some dead-end gig, the kind that makes you wonder if your spine is plotting a quiet rebellion.
By Theodore Homuth9 months ago in Fiction
Evergreen
The snow fell in soft, silent waves as the Cooper family’s SUV wound its way up the mountain road. The destination: a remote cabin surrounded by a pristine evergreen forest. Jeff Cooper had booked the cabin for his wife, Diane, and their two kids, Emily and Sam, hoping to rekindle the family’s bond after a difficult year.
By V-Ink Stories9 months ago in Fiction
Frostbite
The forecast had predicted light flurries, nothing unusual for the quiet mountain town where the Bell family lived. But by nightfall, the snowstorm had turned ferocious, battering the windows with icy gusts and blanketing the world outside in a suffocating white void.
By V-Ink Stories9 months ago in Fiction
