Short Story
The Keyhole of Room 666
The Keyhole of Room 666 The hotel waited in the dark like it had been holding its breath for years. The corridors smelled of dust and old wood, and the boards groaned under each step Harris took. He had worked the night shift long enough to know which doors to ignore, which ones to pass quickly. Room 666 was one of them. Everyone whispered about it, even the cleaning staff. No one stayed there, no one went near it after the sun went down. Harris had never believed it, until tonight.
By ♿ V+ Marie381Uk 11 months ago in Fiction
Restart
My heart clenches, then drops to my knees as the view before me confirms the source of the noises I could hear from the time I entered the house. My husband, in our bed, with not one, but two other women. Never mind everything I’d sacrificed, all my dreams, my career, my family…to stay here with him because his family was here, though, and he couldn’t bear to be anywhere else without them.
By Phoenixica2411 months ago in Fiction
It All Started Over a Cup of Tea. Top Story - November 2025.
“That’s not how you do it.” Selina snatched the sugar bowl away from her sister, spilling a handful of lumpy granules across the pristine counter. “God, now look at what you’ve done.” She swept her long blonde locks away from her face, and glared down at Ruby, still holding the tiny teaspoon in her tiny hand. Empty mugs sat untouched beside a jar of jam tarts, waiting to be filled and taken upstairs as a sweet treat for their party. The kettle started whistling across the room, taking Selina’s attention.
By Maddy Haywood11 months ago in Fiction
The Boy Who Chased Light
I had forgotten what sunlight felt like—until the diary reminded me that hope never truly dies. --- I fell to the streets of my broken city, the buildings around me hunched like tired giants. Silence had claimed every alley, every corner. I walked with my hands in my pockets, pretending that the darkness outside didn’t match the one inside my chest. Each step echoed on the cracked pavement, a reminder that the world had moved on while I remained frozen in shadows. Then I found it—a small, leather-bound diary tucked between the rubble of a burnt bookstore. Its pages smelled of rain and forgotten dreams. On the first page, in neat handwriting: “Find the light, even if the world forgets how to shine.” I laughed bitterly. The world had forgotten. I had forgotten. And yet, somehow, these words pierced through the weight in my lungs, awakening something I thought I had lost forever. My fingers traced the edges of the diary as if it were fragile glass, and maybe it was—fragile, but full of possibility. Every day after that, I returned to the diary. It spoke of sunsets that never ended, of stars that whispered secrets to anyone who would listen. Each page was a step out of darkness, a push toward something I had thought impossible: hope. The words described moments I had felt in passing but never fully remembered—the warmth of morning sunlight on my face, the quiet laughter shared with strangers in a park, the feeling of wind brushing against my hair like it was trying to tell me something. I began noticing small things. A flower stubbornly growing through cracked pavement. A bird daring to sing from a broken branch. Even my own reflection seemed a little less tired. I paused to watch the sky, noting how the clouds shifted and bled into pink and gold as if the world were painting just for me. The city didn’t feel entirely dead anymore; it felt like it was waiting, like it had been holding its breath, waiting for me to notice. But the diary wasn’t just poetry—it was a map. A map of memories I didn’t know I had lost. Pictures of streets I once ran through as a child, laughter echoing in places long forgotten. And at the end, a photograph slipped between the pages: a girl smiling, her eyes like sunlight breaking through clouds. I froze. I knew her. I didn’t, yet I did. And then it hit me—the diary was mine. I had written it when I was younger, before life taught me how to fold up my heart and hide it under the weight of the world. The realization brought tears to my eyes, and I held the diary close, feeling the weight of every forgotten day and every unspoken dream I had ever carried. Tears blurred my vision as I realized something powerful: the light I had been chasing was never outside me. It had been inside all along. The diary had reminded me who I was, who I could still be. The city didn’t change overnight. The streets were still broken, the silence still heavy. But I walked differently now. My steps had rhythm, my eyes held fire. I was not running from darkness—I was carrying my own flame. I began speaking to people I passed in the streets, sharing small smiles, small gestures. The city responded. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, life returned to the alleys, the parks, the abandoned corners. I began writing again, in the same diary. Words spilled like rivers I had dammed for years. And for the first time, I didn’t write for anyone else. I wrote to myself, for myself, and somehow, that was enough. I wrote about the morning sun, about strangers who smiled back, about the music in the rain, about the way the world could hurt and heal you at the same time. By the time people noticed me again, I was no longer the boy who fell into shadows. I was the boy who chased light, who carried it in his chest, who knew that even in the quietest, loneliest places, hope could still speak. And maybe, just maybe, someone else would find the diary one day—and remember that they too could find their own light.
By Shahab Khan11 months ago in Fiction
The Town That Forgot How to Dream. AI-Generated.
By Muhammad Kashif No one in the town of Darswell dreamed anymore. Not of oceans or skies or the faces of lost lovers. Not even of ordinary things like running late for work or losing teeth. The people simply slept — dark, empty, dreamless nights — and woke up with the same tired eyes.
By Muhammad Kashif 11 months ago in Fiction
The Princess's Sleeves
The end of summer always meant two things to Tamar: the season to pick pomegranates was being left behind and the week of celebrating her birthday was near. She'd requested yards of silk and linen for gifts this year, in hopes to make garments for the other women in the palace, yet she couldn't stop thinking of the "surprise" her father had promised. Today, she was determined to find where he'd hidden it, or at least get a hint.
By Jessica Flayser11 months ago in Fiction
The Sun in Her Palm
Isabelle inserted the flash drive labeled “NEVER” into the computer and, after a moment’s hesitation, pressed Enter. The image broke through the hiss and blur — a street-cam feed, unstable but real. From the very first seconds of the video, Bella realized she had always been looking the wrong way. She had built her life around tomorrow — blind to what lingered behind, never daring to uncover the buried pieces of her past.
By Erian Lin Grant11 months ago in Fiction
Moonlight for the Homeless
The city was a machine of forgetting. It forgot the names of the people who slept in its doorways, it forgot the faces huddled under its bridges. Kael was one of the forgotten. His world was a tapestry of cold concrete, harsh lights, and the averted gazes of a thousand strangers.
By Habibullah11 months ago in Fiction
Peep . Honorable Mention in Through the Keyhole Challenge.
The problem with integrated, online security systems these days, Ava thought, was the fact that they weren't very secure... not if you had any real technological skills or knowledge. With so many cracks, crevices, and peep holes to exploit, it was no wonder that peoples homes were less safe than they had ever been... Of course, it was a blessing for her; being paid to shore up faulty defence systems paid well. More importantly, it scratched that itch she could never tell anyone about; she always left a little peep hole of sorts in her solutions. A space she could slide into to watch her previous clients as they went about their daily lives.
By S. A. Crawford11 months ago in Fiction
Laid To Rest. Runner-Up in Through the Keyhole Challenge. Top Story - November 2025.
His blood pulsed in his ears. The treasure of a lifetime might have been right before him, right beyond this final barrier. In a vain attempt to steady his sweaty, shaking palms, he wiped them against his field khakis before making the tiniest of incisions in the door’s upper-left-hand corner with his small hand-drill. It was warm, so very warm, and things were so very delicate, more than he ever imagined possible. With a small match, he tested the incision for noxious gases before peering through the peephole.
By Matthew J. Fromm11 months ago in Fiction
