Short Story
Points in Our Lives. Content Warning.
It started again with a wedding. Not ours, god no— we were much too young, although we wished the best for our friend Cristie settling down at 24. No, we were both guests, sitting at different tables, the sounds of chatter and cheer drowning out any potential awkward silences.
By Reid Christmannabout a year ago in Fiction
The Desk Was Still There. Winner in The Second First Time Challenge.
She came back to the same desk, the same kids, the same songs and tiny shoes, except everything inside her had changed. No one knew she had been nine weeks pregnant. No one knew she had lost the baby. Returning to work wasn’t just returning to routine, it was returning to a world that had never known what she left behind.
By 𝓜𝓲𝓼𝓼. 𝓐𝓷𝓸𝓷𝔂𝓶𝓸𝓾𝓼🌻about a year ago in Fiction
Transdifferentiation. Honorable Mention in The Second First Time Challenge.
Everything I do has the tinge of the finite, of my own demise. At some point you either accept death, or you just keep pushing it back as you get older and older. I've accepted it. —Robert Smith
By Paul Stewartabout a year ago in Fiction
The Countdown
It was the first day of summer, no school for three whole months, and I was up and awake at 6:30am eating a giant bowl of Bosco Bonanza’s Frosted Gold Rush (covered in two extra scoops of sugar from my mom’s sugar bowl) and watching my favorite cartoon: Super Dog Saves the City.
By Amos Gladeabout a year ago in Fiction
I Married a Ghost. Last Night, He Served Me Divorce Papers. AI-Generated.
The divorce papers appeared at 3:07 AM. One moment: empty pillow. Next moment: parchment thick as graveyard soil, smelling of bergamot and decay. Ink the color of dried blood spelled out *Silas Alistair Thorne v. Elara June Finch*. A wax seal pulsed with cold blue light. I didn’t scream. After ten years married to a Victorian-era industrialist’s ghost, you learn panic is pointless. Especially when your undead husband’s idea of foreplay is reciting Edgar Allan Poe during your showers. *How Do You Meet a Ghost? Badly. It started with a Ouija board at a frat party—cliché, I know. We’d aimed for "spooky fun." We summoned Silas Thorne, dead since 1889 (typhoid fever, complicated by poor stock investments). He haunted my apartment for months: freezing my wine, rearranging my books into cryptic symbols, whispering investment tips that *actually* worked. He was charming. For a corpse. He’d materialize as a flicker of top-hatted shadow, quoting Keats while I burned toast. When my fiancé left me ("You’re emotionally cheating… *with a ghost?*"), Silas manifested fully for the first time—a translucent gentleman in waistcoat and cravat, offering a spectral handkerchief. "Modern men lack fortitude," he’d sniffed. "Shall I haunt his Tesla?" *The Chapel of Lingering Vows* We married at a paranormal chapel in New Orleans. Our vows: *"Beyond breath, beyond bone, ‘Til entropy claims the last stone."* Our prenup was… unusual: **§3.2* *Corporeal Spouse (Elara) retains all tangible assets (real estate, chocolate, living pets).* **§5.7: *Ectoplasmic Spouse (Silas) reserves right to manifest during showers/baths for "aural companionship."* **Addendum B:** *Infidelity defined as "consorting with rival spirits (e.g., Gertrude the flapper ghost, who sings show tunes off-key in the parlor on Wednesdays)."* *The Trouble with Immortal Husbands* Immortality makes ghosts *particular*. Silas despised: - Smartphones ("Soulless pocket-spies!") - Scented candles ("Cloying bourgeois propaganda!") - My historian boyfriend, Liam ("That beard has the audacity to touch my wife!") Liam tried. He left 1873 port wine by the fireplace. Read Dickens aloud. Silas retaliated by making Liam’s coffee taste like grave dirt. **The Last Straw: The Tesla Coil Incident** Liam installed an "ambiance enhancer" in the study—a singing Tesla coil. Silas saw it as an act of spectral war. For weeks, our brownstone became a paranormal battleground: - Lights flickering in Morse code insults (*"L-I-A-M I-S A P-E-A-S-A-N-T"*) - Antique portraits weeping black oil - My bathwater turning inexplicably… *chunky* When I unplugged the coil, Silas froze every bottle of Chardonnay in the house. "Prioritizing that *bearded transistor* over our matrimonial resonance?" His voice vibrated from the gramophone horn. "This union is a crypt, Elara." *The Phantom Plaintiff’s Grievances* His legal filing was absurd, even for the dead:
By Wondermindabout a year ago in Fiction
The Midnight Bargain: When My Brother's Voice Cracked a Decade of Silence. AI-Generated.
3:17 AM The phone’s vibration drilled into the silence like a bone saw. I fumbled blindly, squinting at the screen. The name flashing there—*Jake*—felt like a ghost punching me in the throat. Ten years. Three thousand six hundred fifty days of radio silence. And now this. 3 AM. The hour of emergencies and drunks. I almost silenced it. *Almost.* That old bitterness—thick as scar tissue—rose in my chest. The last time I’d heard his voice, he’d called me a "self-righteous parasite" before slamming the door so hard our dead mother’s photo rattled on the wall. Grief over her loss had twisted us into strangers, then enemies. We’d built walls with the bricks of her absence. But something in the *way* it rang… frantic. Relentless. A sound that bypassed my anger and hooked straight into my lizard brain. *Danger.* I swiped answer. Held my breath. *The Static and the Gasp* "E-Ellie?" His voice was shredded glass and static. Not drunk. *Terrified.* "Jake? What—" "They’re… inside the walls." A wet, ragged cough. "The bugs. Can you… *hear* them?" My blood froze. This wasn’t an apology. Wasn’t a reunion. This was a Code Red from a collapsing mind. The Unspoken War Our estrangement wasn’t simple. After Mom’s cancer won, Jake dove headfirst into conspiracy forums and cheap whiskey. I buried myself in spreadsheets and sterile relationships. We became caricatures: *The Crazy Brother. The Ice Sister.* The last fight was nuclear—him screaming about government trackers in his fillings, me hissing that he’d dishonored her memory. Truth? We were both drowning. Just in different oceans. Now, listening to him wheeze about "bioluminescent mites" chewing through his drywall, I faced the gut-punch truth: *He wasn’t calling for forgiveness.* **He was calling because I was still his emergency contact.** *Driving into the Storm* I broke every speed limit driving to his rust-belt apartment. Key still fit the lock (why did I keep it?). The smell hit first—sour milk, stale smoke, and something acrid. Ammonia? He was crouched behind a toppled bookshelf, face gaunt in the blue light of a dead laptop screen. A makeshift "weapon"—a fireplace poker wrapped in duct tape—clattered from his hand when he saw me. "Ellie?" He blinked, childlike. "The… the ventilation shafts. They’re laying eggs in—" "Shut up, Jake." My voice surprised me. Cold. Steady. *Nurse-mode activated.* "Where are your meds?" *The Diagnosis in the Debris* His lithium bottles were empty. Anti-psychotics, untouched since November. Piles of printed forum rants about "nano-parasites" covered the moldy carpet. This wasn’t just addiction. This was schizophrenia’s cruel masterpiece, painted over a decade of neglect. As I forced water into him, wiped grime from his forehead, the old rage flickered. *Why me? Why now?* Then I saw it. Taped to the fridge beneath a takeout menu: A faded Polaroid. Mom, laughing, arms around us at Coney Island. Age 12 and 14. Before the wars. *"My Keepers,"* she’d scribbled on the border. *The Bargain* Getting him committed wasn’t gentle. He fought, sobbing about "extraction teams." I signed papers with hands that didn’t feel like mine. In the sterile hospital hallway, a social worker asked, "Relationship to patient?" I opened my mouth. Closed it. The word *sister* felt foreign. Heavy. "Emergency contact," I finally said. *The Silence After the Storm
By Wondermindabout a year ago in Fiction
The Tea That Reminded Her. AI-Generated.
The street was quiet as the sun dipped behind the rooftops, casting a soft golden hue across the old neighborhood. It was the kind of evening that carried a strange stillness — like the world was pausing to breathe. Sana stood by the window of her modest apartment, watching as a faint trail of smoke curled from the neighboring rooftops. Somewhere nearby, the unmistakable scent of cardamom tea drifted through the air.
By Taimoor Khanabout a year ago in Fiction
Professional Fiction Writing Services: Your Story, Masterfully Told
Have you ever dreamed of holding a book with your name on the cover? A story that captivates readers, makes them laugh, cry, or stay up all night turning pages? But maybe you’ve hit a wall—writer’s block, time constraints, or just the daunting task of polishing a raw idea into a masterpiece.
By Hennry James about a year ago in Fiction
