Short Story
A Flight
"Do you like the female British voice or the male Aussie? I can click this button and change it." "It will confuse the passengers and make them anxious. Choose ONE and stick to it!" Marsha was co-piloting with Brad and tired of his antics. An error in scheduling had resulted in her being called up for the flight.
By Andrea Corwin 2 years ago in Fiction
I Accidentally Stole a Celebrity's Dog—And Ended Up on a Reality Show
You ever do something so ridiculous you wonder if the universe just handed you a script from a comedy film? It started on a warm Wednesday afternoon in Los Angeles, the kind of day when even your iced coffee seems to sweat. I’d just gotten fired (well, “let go” — corporate-speak for don’t come back), and I figured I deserved a walk through Runyon Canyon to clear my head. New city, fresh unemployment, and too much time to think.
By Jatin bikash Chakma2 years ago in Fiction
A world without a white face
Every time you make a choice it creates a different reality, another you. 100 miles out of Tennessee and 20 miles from a friendly face I have to think what would have happened if I shucked instead of jived. Every headlight that I saw I ducked down wondering if this was the one to lay me down. It wasn’t no time for black folk here and I asked myself if we ever would get our day.
By Muhammad Hameedul Haq2 years ago in Fiction
The Day Time Broke
It started at exactly 2:17 PM, on a normal Tuesday. Clocks stopped all around the globe. Digital clocks, analog clocks, atomic clocks—everything that told time stopped. Phones did not update. Watches stopped moving. Even the sun, inexplicably, appeared to stop, locked in the same spot in the sky like a photograph.
By Bari Mir Rahamatul2 years ago in Fiction
The Disappearances . Content Warning.
Rocky Peaks had never been the spot for tourist attraction. A small town nestled between towering mountains and weather of incessant rain, had surprisingly nothing to offer people who weren’t born there. My friends and I would make jokes about it. Laughing endlessly about this being the town not even a Netflix Documentary could be made in.
By Khedesia Knight 2 years ago in Fiction
The Day I Realized They Never Loved Me
I always thought heartbreak would come with screaming. Maybe slamming doors, ugly crying, a grand finale of a fight where we’d both say too much. I imagined betrayal would be loud—like in the movies, where someone yells “How could you?” and the other person walks out dramatically. But when it happened to me, there were no fireworks—just silence. And somehow, that was worse.
By Muhammad Zohaib Khan2 years ago in Fiction
The Day My Grandma Accidentally Became a TikTok Star (And Why She’s Better at It Than Me)
It all started on a Tuesday, when I made the grave mistake of trying to teach Grandma Mabel how to “Google the weather.” To be fair, she’d been pestering me for weeks. “Claire-Bear,” she’d say, waving her flip phone like a talisman, “this thing keeps calling me a snack. Is it broken?” (Turns out, her bingo club’s group chat had autocorrected “soup” to “sup, hot stuff” again.) But I never imagined that my half-hearted tutorial would lead to her accidentally uploading a TikTok video titled “Grandma’s Kitchen Tips???”—a 45-second masterpiece of chaos that would dethrone me as the family’s sole “digital native.”
By Ian Sankan2 years ago in Fiction
The Girl Who Vanished After Prom Night: Still No Clues, 10 Years Later
She walked into the woods in red—and never came back. --- The Last Dance She Never Made It To Lila Carter was the kind of girl everyone noticed but few truly knew. Class president, theater star, prom queen favorite—her name was etched into every hallway of Crescent Valley High. But on the night of May 14, 2015, Lila disappeared without a trace, vanishing into the thick Georgia night just hours after getting ready for what was supposed to be the best night of her life. Ten years later, her case remains one of the most haunting unsolved disappearances in the region, wrapped in mystery, rumors, and chilling dead ends. No body, no suspects, no answers. Just one red dress, a final cryptic text, and a mother who still leaves the porch light on. --- The Night She Was Supposed to Shine Lila’s senior year had been one long highlight reel. She had recently been accepted to NYU on a theater scholarship, had just broken up with her football-star boyfriend Jace Miller, and was glowing with the excitement of what was next. Her friends described her as “electric” in the days leading up to prom. On the night of the dance, she wore a fitted scarlet gown and silver heels, and posted a mirror selfie with the caption: “Let’s make this a night to remember.” At 6:23 PM, she left her house in her best friend Erica’s car. Multiple photos surfaced that night showing Lila smiling, dancing, even crowning the prom king. By all accounts, she was having a perfect evening. Until she wasn’t. --- The Vanishing Point At 11:09 PM, Lila stepped outside the venue alone. Surveillance footage shows her standing under a streetlamp, texting. A car—an older model black sedan—pulls up beside her. She approaches the vehicle. The camera angle doesn’t show her getting in—but that’s the last time anyone ever saw her. Her final text, sent to Erica at 11:11 PM, simply read: "Don't freak. I’ll explain later. Had to go." She never explained. --- What Followed Was a Storm By morning, the town was in chaos. Erica reported Lila missing when she didn’t answer any calls or return home. Her family assumed at first she’d gone to an afterparty, but when the sun came up and she wasn’t in her bed, panic set in. Police initially treated the case as a runaway—Lila was 18, and the text implied it was voluntary. But that theory crumbled quickly. She’d left behind her clutch, her cash, and a monogrammed bracelet she never took off. Her phone was either turned off or destroyed shortly after the last message. Search parties swept the woods and lake near the venue. Drones were used. Psychics were consulted. Nothing. No blood. No clothing scraps. No phone signal. No witnesses. She had vanished into thin air. --- Suspects, Theories, and Cold Trails Jace Miller, the ex-boyfriend, was questioned immediately. Rumors swirled that their breakup had been rocky. But he had an alibi—he was photographed at a bonfire party until well after 1 AM. No evidence ever linked him to the disappearance. Then there was Mr. Langley, the school’s drama teacher. A loner in his 40s with an unsettling obsession with Shakespearean tragedies. Students whispered about his favoritism toward Lila, but no formal complaints had ever been filed. Police cleared him after a search revealed nothing suspicious. Some townsfolk believe Lila was trafficked. Others are convinced she staged her own disappearance. A few think she was targeted by someone she didn’t even know. But most agree: someone out there knows what happened. --- The Red Dress Theory One of the most bizarre leads came two years after the disappearance, when a red dress—identical to Lila’s—was found in a thrift store in Alabama. The DNA test was inconclusive, but the stain on the hem? Blood. Type O-negative. Lila’s type. Police never identified how the dress got there, and the store owner claimed it came in a box of donations with no label. That lead, too, went cold. --- Still No Answers, Only Echoes In 2020, a podcast called “Vanished in Velvet” reignited interest in the case, but despite millions of streams, it uncovered no new evidence. Lila Carter would be 28 this year. Her bedroom remains untouched, a time capsule frozen in 2015. Her mother, Denise, keeps her phone plan active. “Just in case,” she says. Ten years later, Crescent Valley still wonders: Where did Lila go after the music stopped?
By Gift Abotsi 2 years ago in Fiction
"The Light Beneath the Surface"
For a long time, Mia moved through life like a ghost in her own home. Every morning, the alarm clock screamed at 6:00 a.m., and she would stare at the ceiling, wondering how much longer she could pretend. Pretend to care. Pretend to smile. Pretend to live. She had mastered the art of invisibility—perfect makeup, packed lunches for the kids, polite nods to neighbors—but behind her eyes, the world was grayscale.
By Julia Taylor2 years ago in Fiction
Short and Brutish
Baraka woke up early. He was very excited about the “job”. This would be his first job since graduating from high school two years earlier. He had given up on employment and had just been helping his sister cultivate the family's small holding farm.
By Wanjiru Ciira2 years ago in Fiction
