Short Story

Symbiotic: Chapter 53
Chapter 53 Sara returned to her residence, the warmth of the hearth chasing away the chill of the evening. Taking a quick shower and readying herself for bed, she checks in on the Status of her Valley, “Tas, show me the Haven Valley Prosperity Tracker. With the Volcano added, I want to see the numbers.”
By Canyon Cappola (TheNomad)10 months ago in Fiction
The Feminine Dress of the World”
Four friends gather for a night of wine and conversation, but a passing comment about the “world wearing a feminine dress” leads to a heated debate about freedom, equality, morality, and the changing face of society. Beneath the laughter, each of them faces their own unspoken questions.
By Ebrahim Parsa10 months ago in Fiction
Symbiotic: Chapter 52
Chapter 52 Sara trudged up the winding path to the mines, boots crunching against gravel and dust. The air grew cooler as she approached the cavern entrance, where the Dungeon Control Crystal pulsed faintly with its eerie light.
By Canyon Cappola (TheNomad)10 months ago in Fiction
Sky Magic
When the world was first born, every atom of every stone and tree crackled with magic — contained energy that could be accessed by anyone at any time. In fact, magic was so commonplace, no one thought anything of it when the seemingly impossible would occur. The earth was like a new battery, fully charged and capable of making just about anything happen. All it needed was a small push in the right direction.
By Shannon Hilson10 months ago in Fiction
The Lighthouse . Content Warning.
I inherited the lighthouse the day my father vanished. No note, no explanation—just an empty house perched on jagged cliffs where the sea screamed endlessly into the night. People in town said the place was cursed, said the last keeper went mad. I didn’t care. I wanted solitude, a place to escape the chaos of my life. I got more than I bargained for. The first night, the light turned on by itself. I hadn’t even climbed the stairs. Its beam swept over the waves, cutting through the fog with unnatural precision, as though it knew where to look. I told myself it was a trick of memory, exhaustion—but the smell followed: salt, yes, but metallic, like blood soaking into the wood. Then I began to see it. At first, just a flicker in the shadows of the cliffs, something crouched too tall, too thin, watching. It moved in the spaces my eyes shouldn’t reach. I would wake screaming, drenched in sweat, and yet somehow it felt familiar, as if it had always been there, waiting. Sleep became a stranger. I dreamt of the lighthouse’s spiral stairs stretching endlessly into the void, the walls melting into black water that whispered my name. My father’s voice came through the fog, soft and pleading. I would reach for him, only to fall into nothingness, the abyss opening its mouth wide enough to swallow the world. By the third week, I stopped seeing the shape only at night. I caught glimpses of it in mirrors, in the dark corners of the lighthouse, even in the glass of my coffee cup in the morning. It was always just at the edge of perception: tall, impossible, its form twisting, as though geometry itself feared it. One stormy night, the wind carrying the smell of rust and decay, I climbed the lighthouse. The light beam sliced through the fog, revealing the ocean below. But the sea was wrong. Darker than night, it churned like liquid shadow, moving in impossible angles. And rising from it was a city—not made of stone, not made of wood—but of shapes that made my skull ache just to see. Spires that bent sideways, buildings stacked like impossible puzzles, streets that looped into themselves. And atop it all, a figure: tall, thin, impossibly patient. Waiting. I understood then. It had always been here. Watching. Waiting. Every lighthouse, every beacon, every human soul—it had been waiting for me. For us. The floor of the lighthouse groaned. I looked down. The stairs behind me had vanished. There was no escape. The walls bent around me, swallowing the light. I felt my mind splintering, fracturing into shards that each screamed a different truth. And in the center of the storm, I understood the enormity of it: a consciousness older than the stars, patient enough to wait for all of humanity to notice it, yet indifferent to our screams. I screamed. I clawed at the walls. I tried to flee. But the lighthouse was no longer mine. It never had been. It was a vessel, a doorway, a mouth opening into something vast and eternal. The figure from the sea reached for me, its limbs bending impossibly, dissolving into fog and shadows. I woke on the cliffs at dawn. The lighthouse stood silent, its light extinguished. The town was quiet, oblivious. But I could feel it in the corners of my vision, in the air around me, in the beat of my heart: it was still waiting, patient, eternal. I had seen it, and it had seen me. And I knew, without question, that it would return. The wind carries whispers now, even in the calm. My father’s voice is gone. But another waits in its place. Patient. Unending. I cannot look at the sea without seeing the city beneath, and I cannot look at the lighthouse without seeing the figure on the cliffs, stretching, waiting, hungry for the next soul foolish enough to climb its stairs. I will not go back. Not tonight, not ever. But I know it is watching, and in some dark, infinite corner, it is laughing. Because it knows: I will never stop looking.
By E. hasan10 months ago in Fiction
DAUGHTER OF THE UNBROKEN THREAD
In every version of the old myths, the Fates are three: Clotho spins, Lachesis measures, and Atropos cuts. Three sisters weave the destiny of gods and mortals alike.
By Alisher Jumayev10 months ago in Fiction
THE IRON SILHOUETTE
The Eastbridge River had seen many things—mostly the wrong things—but nothing like the night Luca Varrano’s body floated to shore.
By Alisher Jumayev10 months ago in Fiction
Symbiotic: Chapter 51
Chapter 51 Sara’s Basic Alchemist Workshop was less a room and more an avalanche of controlled chaos. The walls were lined with shelves sagging under the weight of jars and vials. Herbs dried to brittle stalks, powders glittering faintly with mineral light, shards of Crystals of every hue and affinity glowing like captured stars. Each container bore a label, some neat System labels and others little more than a scribble that only she could decipher.
By Canyon Cappola (TheNomad)10 months ago in Fiction
THE LAST SANCTUARY OF NEON SKY
No one alive remembered the real color of the sky. Official history, as recorded by the Ministry of Perspective, stated that Earth’s atmosphere had always shimmered in neon hues—pulsing blues, electric greens, and streaks of violent pink that twisted like serpents across the heavens. Anyone who questioned it was, by definition, “Factually Distorted,” and removed for “Cognitive Rehabilitation.”
By Alisher Jumayev10 months ago in Fiction
THE LAST LIGHT IN WILLOW CREEK
When I returned to Willow Creek after twelve years away, the town looked almost exactly as I’d left it—small, neat, peaceful—like someone had pressed “pause” on time. The wooden houses stood in rows like storybook cottages, the old bakery still filled the street with the smell of cinnamon buns, and the creek ran lazily beside the main road, singing its familiar whispering song.
By Alisher Jumayev10 months ago in Fiction
THE QUIET WOMAN ACROSS THE HALL
I first noticed her on a wet Tuesday morning, the kind of morning when the city felt permanently exhausted. She stood in the narrow hallway of our apartment building, staring at the wall as if deciphering invisible handwriting. A pale woman, tall and thin, with dark circles under her eyes that suggested she hadn’t slept in days.
By Alisher Jumayev10 months ago in Fiction
Symbiotic: Chapter 50
Chapter 50 The climb out of the volcano was long and, before her System improved stats, would have been grueling. Sara’s boots scraped against jagged stone, her breath coming in steady rhythm as she ascended the winding tunnels. The heat pressed against her back like a living thing, the glow of magma fading as she rose higher toward the crater rim. Each step carried her farther from the pulsing heartbeat of the Volcano’s Control Crystal, and from Fluffy’s always full hearted laughter echoing faintly through the bond.
By Canyon Cappola (TheNomad)10 months ago in Fiction