Short Story
Faceless Night [Part 4-ending].. Content Warning.
*** (At three-thirty in the morning). The conversation between two bodies was still ongoing among their peacefully sleeping children. It was about longing, "all because of your spell, oh female fish, that the sea water doesn't taste salty!", "you stupid male cat, you might never realize it, if you keep curling up in the corner of the suffocating alleys of your hometown, if you never cross the blue ocean. That your pearl-like eyes hold the wonders of the sky during the full moon...(the man flinched as he touched his blind eyes)...Yes, because of your eyes reflecting the full moon, my underwater kingdom that night became strange, no longer salty, but like a swimming pool owned by city people. So, I emerged to the surface, searching for you, finding you stranded, hungry and thirsty. Until you fell in love with my half-human body and flesh...(the two naked bodies rubbed against each other more tightly)...Only then did I darken the full moon with my cloudy magic. Making it sink before its time. You roared to wake up your wild side wanting to pounce on me, but what could you do, you were just a stranded black cat and already blind. And I am the princess of the blue ocean, because the foams of the waves are my urine. Until you wait for the return of another full moon in hunger, loneliness, darkness... The sky remained true to its promise. The girl and Gilang were getting deeper into their sleep, sheltered by the light of the full moon hanging in a quarter of the sky in the east. Both were still lying on their wet t-shirts and pants...you were so loyal to wait until the full moon returns. But you never knew what you were actually waiting for and what was waiting for you. That night, the second full moon of our encounter, with all the blessings of my blue sea, I transformed into a virgin girl. For the first time, my lungs breathed the air just like you did, my feet stepped on the grains of sand just like you did. Thus, that night I received my curse. Then, you tore apart every curve of my body in the form of a black cat, just like you tore apart a flopping fresh fish on the beach. You licked every pore of my body that was no longer scaly. I allowed it for the sake of the sea that was no longer salty because of your eyes. Eyes that would soon be blind, blinded by the lust that claimed to be love. Until I truly began to love you that night. The love of a fish for a black cat. A love that was actually just an escape from my fear of the ocean water that you turned into freshwater... (At four o'clock in the morning) Gilang woke up after being bitten by a mosquito, only to be startled by two naked bodies piled up next to his younger sibling, his mother and a blind man he didn't know. Gilang closed his eyes again, pretending to still be asleep... Then you are cursed to be my husband's human... "Gilang (in his mind): Father...?" ...after I cursed myself first to become a woman... "Gilang (sobbing in his mind): They are demons, my sibling and I are demon offspring.!!!" The child was startled by the reality, crying and screaming when suddenly the world turned dark. But he didn't recognize his own screams
By Shafa Ichwanusabout a year ago in Fiction
More Flesh. More Bone.. Content Warning.
Bracing himself, and ignoring the insistent tapping outside, our writer friend pulls himself to the desk (again). Why do I do this? It's a fool's errand. Only a very stupid intelligent person would do this... The machine in front of him sits silent and empty. Still, a bulging sense of growling hunger emanated from it. It's smaller, now, than it was in years gone by. Soon, it would be pocket-size. Yet it was, if anything, even hungrier.
By L.C. Schäferabout a year ago in Fiction
The trial
The dwarf tied the hands of the human creature behind it, keeping hold of the end of the rope. They started to walk at a fast pace. Crossing the forest at night was not easy. The dwarf was carrying a small lamp. They had to reach the Witch’s castle before midnight. Then, the expected trial would begin.
By Susan Fourtané about a year ago in Fiction
The Locked Drawer of Emily Dickinson
For as long as I’ve been writing, Emily Dickinson has been a guiding star. Her clipped intensity, her fierce quiet, her way of saying what others circle around—I’ve spent years trying to write like that, trying to listen the way she must have listened. So, the story of how her poems nearly vanished before the world ever saw them has always struck me as not just literary history, but personal.
By Tim Carmichaelabout a year ago in Fiction
A Lantern in the Fog
Introduction: Love doesn’t always arrive with fanfare. Sometimes, it drifts in gently — like fog curling under doorways, or the hush of a song before the first note. In the coastal town of Windmere, where the sea hummed lullabies and time strolled instead of sprinted, two souls crossed paths not with sparks, but with a soft, glowing warmth. This is the story of Juniper and Eliot — two people who didn’t fall in love, but rather, grew into it like vines on an old stone wall.
By rokib ahmedabout a year ago in Fiction
The Unfinished Canvas
Fritz drew his first breath into a world already indifferent to his comfort. The air was cold, the light harsh. His first sensation was a cry, a raw protest against the sudden, sharp edges of existence. This, he would later understand, was the beginning of his suffering: a baseline hum of discomfort from which he would never quite escape.
By Lady Diamondabout a year ago in Fiction
