Short Story
Hosts and Ghosts
No peripheral vision. Ena could only see what lay directly beyond the keyhole. A diorama slice of the room beyond: the opposite wall, one quarter of the the fireplace, and the tall back of a leather upholstered chair angled away from her facing the fire. The rest of the room melded into dancing shadows.
By Tyler Clark11 months ago in Fiction
Hope is wherever you are
"Oh Harry, why won't you go out? There is a festival at Garden street. They're selling jewelry and beaded stuff. You can get that beaded alligator that you want. Come outside with me. It'd be fine!" "Sal, I can't. I have my inner world to tend to. It calls desperately for me to heal it. To be with it. To- to drown in it... I-I" he sighed, "You go. Have a great time. Go out without me, Sal. Go out." Sal was not her nickname. It was her name. Chest length hair, ember hued, slightly sheep curly (in such a good way! Not as an insult, the narrator clarifies), the girl was stunningly beautiful.
By Maya Or Tzur11 months ago in Fiction
Beneath The Floor
The ceiling above me shudders. Swollen with the heat of moving bodies, shadows flicker across the cracks in the old wood, restless in the candlelight. I hold my breath—laughter, thin and tired, drifts from between the floorboards. Off to my right, somebody drops a coin that clatters to the floor and rolls towards me. A shoe scrapes as somebody moves to retrieve it. The air smells of dust and perfume.
By Aaron Richmond11 months ago in Fiction
THE WORLD BEYOND
The hallway light was out. Again. Nora’s slippers made no sound as she padded down the narrow corridor toward the guest room, using her phone as a flashlight. The house was half asleep, breathing its old wood creaks and the faint hum of the refrigerator.
By Pamela Dirr11 months ago in Fiction
The Moon That Cried Silver Tears
The people of the world first noticed it during the great drought. The skies had been relentlessly clear for months, and the land was parched to dust. One night, a new star appeared, trailing a faint, silvery light. But it wasn't a star. It was a tear.
By Habibullah11 months ago in Fiction
The Veiled Dominion: Episode II. Content Warning.
The Circle of Thorns The air in the lower archives is thick. The lamps burn low. Solenne moves slowly through a chamber alive with static energy. The sound of a thousand glass tablets whispering back and forth saturates the air.
By Kristen Keenon Fisher11 months ago in Fiction
The Pale Blue Door
I walk past the pale blue door every single day. It is locked, I think, but I haven’t ever tried to open it. Somehow, I sense that I’m not meant to go in there. My Grandma won’t even look down the hall at it. It’s right by my room, and she never goes there either. I had to move in with her six months ago when I finally left my husband. Randy had hit me one last time and that was it. I decided I had to leave. I had to get out of there. I waited until he was on his business trip, packed everything and left. I had told him all my family was gone, because they were essentially. All except for my grandma, Sylvia. I hadn’t seen her since I was sixteen, at a funeral. My parents moved across the country and didn’t see their parents but a couple of times a year on holidays. Once I turned thirteen and could stay home with my older brother, I hadn’t gone back east to visit family at all. My other two grandparents died, my parents had no siblings. So, it was the four of us and Sylvia out here in West Virginia all alone in her little yellow cottage. Then when I was sixteen and hanging out with my boyfriend Randy at home, my parents and my brother went out to pick up pizza for all of us. They wrecked and all of them were killed. Randy was the only person in my life; he was a football player and a mechanic. His parents took me in and then we moved out and got married, his family was mine. And that was how he kept me trapped so easily.
By Raine Fielder11 months ago in Fiction
