Short Story
“The Last Lantern of Dera”. AI-Generated.
In the dusty heart of Dera Ismail Khan, where the Indus River whispered ancient secrets to the date palms, lived a boy named Zain. He was twelve, thin as river reed, with eyes that carried the color of late monsoon skies. Every evening, as the call to prayer floated over the rooftops, Zain would climb the crumbling stairs of the old haveli and light his grandfather’s brass lantern.
By Waleed khan5 months ago in Fiction
War and Peas. Top Story - May 2026.
Jemma hops from one webbed foot to the other, her impatience beating a loud slapping rhythm on the kitchen flagstones. Mother was always so slow. All grown-ups are slow. They say boring things like, Soon, and I'll be there in a minute, and I'll just...
By L.C. Schäfer5 months ago in Fiction
The Decimal Plague. AI-Generated.
The Notation It starts with the inventory at Pharmacorp's distribution center in Newark. The warehouse manager, a woman named Elena whose competence has never been questioned across three decades of logistics, discovers a discrepancy. According to the system, there are 1,247 units of acetaminophen in storage. She counts them manually. There are 1,247 units. The number matches.
By Alpha Cortex5 months ago in Fiction
The Last Letter in the Wall. AI-Generated.
Emma had always believed old houses remembered things. That was why she bought the small brick cottage at the edge of the village. It leaned slightly to one side, the roof tiles were cracked, and ivy climbed its walls like green fingers. Everyone said it was too much work, too lonely, too strange. But Emma liked the silence. She liked the creaking floors and the smell of aged wood. Most of all, she liked the feeling that the house was waiting for someone.
By Waleed khan5 months ago in Fiction
A Quiet Kind of Ache
The dorm room feels hollow. The grey Boston University lamp on my wooden brown desk is the only source of light in the room, casting long and uneven shadows over the empty twin XL bed across from mine. My roommate left to head home for the weekend. Her absence shouldn’t bother me this much, but somehow, it does. The silence has its own presence in the room. The atmosphere feels heavy and dense without her occasional remarks, rustling, and tapping on the keyboard. The quietness is the unspoken proof that I’m completely alone.
By Yamuni Kaijumi5 months ago in Fiction
Nowhere
A dirty face, pale skin darkened by grime, the marks of dried tears decorating her cheeks as echoes of lost feelings. A shadow haunted her eyes, all light was gone from them, maybe hidden, maybe lost forever. A steady pace in rhythm but quivering under her own weight. Every step taking her closer to somewhere; that she hoped. Being somewhere is all you can do if you’re nowhere.
By Victor Chavarria5 months ago in Fiction
We Are Forgetting the Color Red. AI-Generated.
The Inventory of Loss The Chromatic Clinic occupies the seventeen floors that nobody can quite remember building. Dr. Yuki Tanaka has worked here for what she calculates as either three years or thirty—the building's elevator buttons don't correspond to actual floors, and the calendar on her desk cycles through months that may or may not have existed.
By Cordelia Vance5 months ago in Fiction
The Cartographer's Daughter. AI-Generated.
The House of Unfinished Borders The rain fell in sheets against the library windows, each droplet tracing invisible paths down the glass—paths Mira had spent her entire life learning to read. Her father's study smelled of leather bindings, metal compasses, and something else: the faint mustiness of paper aged beyond counting. Twenty-three years she had lived in this house, and only now, sorting through his effects after his death, did she understand that she had never truly left it.
By Cordelia Vance5 months ago in Fiction
