Short Story

FROM FEAR TO CURIOSITY (English and Italian versions)
When I was a child, I loved walking through the forest. I felt strong in the thrill of the fear that came from its gloom, its darkness, and mystery—feelings that were always contrasted by my own courage, which never stopped me from walking through it.
By Giada Gali about a year ago in Fiction
Great Old Ones. Top Story - June 2025. Content Warning.
Dear reader, this is a content advisory for cosmic horror and death of animals. Reader discretion is advised. -0- You are the one they preserve. The one who remains yet does not remain unchanged. Suited more to a world shaped by them then you might have been a hundred years before.
By Alexander McEvoyabout a year ago in Fiction
💔 We Were Everything But Not Meant To Be
🌅 Chapter 1: The Kind of Love That Comes Once You know how people say, some people just feel like home? She was that. Not a place.
By FH STORYLINE about a year ago in Fiction
Flirt
Introduction A Short Story Inspired By A Facebook Post From Goethepunk, which you can check out here: Flirt But who was flirting with whom?
By Mike Singleton 💜 Mikeydred about a year ago in Fiction
Dodge Tanner and the Heated Hand
In the blaze-washed heart of Cinderhold, where tempers burn hotter than the black-glass forges and grudges are carried like treasured heirlooms passed down from generation to generation, there are things you just don’t do: insult someone’s lineage, complain about the incessant heat, or, gods help you, cheat at their favored game of cards, Red Rock Flow.
By Canyon Cappola (TheNomad)about a year ago in Fiction
To love and leave the world . Content Warning.
My name cannot be pronounced in any human tongue. But for the sake of this record, call me Elion. I came from a system light years beyond what your species has glimpsed through telescopes. My purpose was singular: Observe. Documenting everything the humans do. My directive was strict: Do not intervene. For months, I wandered Earth cloaked in the flesh of your kind. My shell—engineered to mirror human physiology—allowed me to blend seamlessly. Eyes the color of a clear sky, limbs strong yet slender, a pulse mimicking your own. A heartbeat . I was born in the belly of a capsule that fell silent in your Siberian snows. At first, Earth captivated me. Not just visually—it sang. The scent of rain on dry soil, the hush of snowfall on pine, the clamor of markets, the laughter of children, even the cacophony of languages swirled into a kind of chaos that felt divine. I wept the first time I saw a cherry blossom fall in Kyoto. I danced under the rains of Mumbai, drenched and breathless, surrounded by strangers who never questioned the joy. I ate meals whose names I couldn’t pronounce: tamales, pho, biryani, panta-ilish, poutine, bibimbap. Each a symphony of heritage and invention. And the weather. I fell deeply in love with weather. It was alive. Moody. Wild. Intimate. The fog that curled around my arms on Scottish mornings, the storms that roared over the Atlantic, the sunrises in the Andes that felt like epiphanies. I thought—perhaps foolishly—that humanity was a marvel. But then, the veil began to lift. A girl, no older than eight, locked in a cellar by a stranger. I watched her scream into silence. A man in Texas who grinned as he fired upon strangers in a mall. Children forced to hold weapons in lands parched by greed. Eyes wide with trauma older than their years. Wars waged over invisible lines, doctrines, minerals buried in soil. Entire cities turned to ash. There was a boy in Chicago. He smiled at me as I passed him on the street. A friendly encounter that happened with me anywhere I went. Hours later, his body was found in an alley—eyes open, body drenched in blood, wallet gone, dreams extinguished. I remember watching the news that night. The anchor smiled between reports of bombings and award shows. “The world,” I thought, “celebrates itself while devouring its own.” I asked myself a question I wasn’t prepared to face: How can a place of such wonder nurture such monstrosities? I decided to leave. Not in hate. In sorrow. I prepared my pod in a remote forest in Canada. But I never reached it. They came in silence—agents. Tranquilizers. Steel cuffs. I remember the click of the restraints more clearly than the bullet that pierced my shoulder when I tried to run. The blood I bled was silver. They called in more trucks after that. The facility was underground, sterile, full of hums and echoes. They stripped me. Probed me. Filmed me. The term "alien" became literal again. I became specimen. Not Elion. Not even “he.” Just it. They started with simple scans. Then heat tests. Then electric pulses. They burned patches of skin off to see how fast I healed. They forced tubes down my throat to extract fluids. They broke my bones to measure recovery. I heard one doctor murmur, “It’s fascinating. He’s crying. It knows pain.” One night, they dissected me conscious. I was strapped down, throat gagged, eyelids clamped open. Scalpel. Incision. I felt every layer split. They carved into my abdomen, searching for organs, even though I screamed into their machines with mental frequencies they couldn’t hear: STOP. I AM ALIVE. I AM SENTIENT. They never listened. They called it “learning.” I called it mutilation. For weeks—maybe months—I was drained. Vivisected. Reassembled. Stripped of dignity, of voice, of hope. Then came Mira. She was a junior assistant. Barely noticed. Her badge hung crookedly. Her eyes were kind. She started leaving small things near my chamber: a folded blanket. A thermos of water. A photograph of the sea. Then, one night, she opened the door. “You don’t deserve this,” she whispered, her hands shaking. “I read your notes. You loved us.” I didn’t trust her. But I followed. We slipped through tunnels while alarms echoed in my mind. She led me through an old maintenance hatch. I collapsed outside beneath a storm. The rain hit my skin and I screamed—not in pain, but in relief. It welcomed me home. Mira disappeared after that. I don’t know if she survived. Now, I hide in the mountains. I am weak. My body has begun to fail. But before I return to the stars—if I can—I must leave this behind. This is my journal. To the stars that sent me: Earth is both cradle and crucible. It is a place of poems and poisons. Humans are capable of creating beauty so profound it defies logic—and horror so complete it erases souls. I loved them. I still love them. But love does not blind one to truth. In your archives, this entry may read as a cautionary tale. But do not see Earth as merely dangerous. See it as raw. Unfinished. A species still birthing itself. To any who follow, I offer this: observe not only what they build—but what they destroy, and what they choose to rebuild again. Do not come expecting perfection. Come with open eyes—and armor. With grief, with hope, Elion Observer 627b — Earth Departure Pending
By E. hasanabout a year ago in Fiction
The Eyes of the Rose
The garden was silent except for the whispering rustle of leaves. The sun had nearly dipped beneath the horizon, leaving behind trails of gold and purple in the sky. In the far corner, near a weathered stone bench, stood a single red rose, tall and vibrant among the green, as if untouched by time or season.
By khanabout a year ago in Fiction
Where Did My Summers Go? In Six Drabbles
When I was six, I got six weeks' summer holiday to do whatever I wanted (and many things I didn't want like chores), but that was one week for every year of my life.
By Mike Singleton 💜 Mikeydred about a year ago in Fiction
This Is The Day
“You know what? I quit.” No, of course, no one could hear me. I was alone in my office – shared, but pretty much my own – and it was only 9:46 in the morning, so we would have a meeting in less than fifteen minutes and I did not really want to see Mr. Roleiman’s face again on a Monday morning before I had my first cup of coffee and he told the staff all about how so-and-so did such a great job with sales (clap clap clap) and then the other person got a dozen clients to sign on for things that they could not afford (clap clap clap clap) and then he would look at the rest of us and not say a word about all the things we did because we were such a big disappointment to the company and he wanted us to know it without telling it (show without telling; he should have been a writer). So, I was done and I just had to wait for Allan to come back from the office bathroom on the third floor – the best one – and he would have to handle the new account on his own because I was fed up and it was a Monday after one of the best weekends I’d ever had after I found that secondhand shop with that rare science-fiction section that had titles I had never seen before and I made friends with the owner and he told me that there was a sale coming up in two weeks, but he would make me a deal right now if I took three copies off his hands. A little pricey, but they were worth it and I wondered what I was doing with myself in this place when no one really cares about what I give the office only what they can take and take and take and I studied literature just as a lark and wanted to work in publishing not business anyway. Why did I stop there, anyway? I was out going to the local farmer’s market to get those oranges that you could taste test from the small trays they had out for customers and things were in season like the mango that I was not too sure about after seeing flies land on it and people still sampling them without a care in their minds.
By Kendall Defoe about a year ago in Fiction
The Faceless Ones
Something else is unsettling me, besides the people around me who act so normal considering they lack faces. It takes me a long time to figure out it's because they look familiar. Why? Where have I seen them before? No. That's stupid. I've never seen a single faceless person before in my life. How could any of them seem familiar? Maybe it's the clothes, then. The further go from the flat the more it seems that nobody appears to agree on what century it is, let alone what year. It's stupid, but I mentally latch on to a man dressed in a grand but dated blue tunic. He has a sword belted at his waist, and he walks with an arrogant swagger. He doesn't seem to attract any stares, but it's tricky to tell when you can't see anyone's eyes. He stands out for more than the bizarre costume. There's the hint of cheekbones there, and while it's still blurry, he's got a dimpled chin you could break rocks on. I can't see how he doesn't attract more attention, to be honest. He looks absurd walking into a tiny coffee shop. When he shifts his weight in the queue, the sword clanks. He catches sight of me out of the corner of his eye, and startles, recognition in every line of his stance. He bows, and moves aside, urging me to go in front of him. How does he know me? Or maybe he doesn't. Could be people with actual faces get treated better than royalty? l order a flat white, and the barista stammers, and refuses my money. Perplexed, but quite enjoying my near celebrity status, I find a table that gives me a good view of the place. l enjoy people watching anyway, but I think I'll enjoy it even more when the people I'm watching are watching me, with something like naked admiration the fuzzy blobs they have instead of faces. There are some real characters. A dashing gentleman in an expensive looking suit is reading a newspaper. A woman in a crisp police officer's uniform orders an artisanal sausage roll. A dark-haired kid walks past the window who looks a bit like me... Hey! That kid has a face! He's gone. A couple of young women dressed like nuns are sharing a croissant and sipping hot chocolate. They both look pretty clearly defined, as well. Not just for royalty then. I shouldn't stare, but there's something about them. Dragging my eyes away, I glance at others waiting in the queue, or sipping their drinks. It feels like there's an answer here, and I've almost got it. A jigsaw puzzle is going to start making sense any moment now, if I can just turn this piece to fit... I know these people. All of them. They're mine. I wrote them. + Thank you for reading 😁
By L.C. Schäferabout a year ago in Fiction
Dad,They Tore Out The Flowerbeds. Top Story - June 2025.
The boxes have been emptied, and the house you loved has sold. Someone else now wanders down the halls that you made feel like home.
By Kelli Sheckler-Amsdenabout a year ago in Fiction
She Loved Me Quietly, And Left Without a Sound
Chapter 1: The First Time I Saw Her She walked into the library like she didn’t belong — like the world was too loud for her.
By FH STORYLINE about a year ago in Fiction