thriller
The House With the Red Gate
It is a saying that an old woman lives in the house with the red gate on the edge of Buraq Street. No one remembers when she arrived, or if she ever did. The house smells of cinnamon and old pages, and the wind chimes only sound when no one’s looking.
By Muhammad Abdullahabout a year ago in Fiction
The Vanishing Bride: One Clue, One Truth, One Deadly Secret"
Part One: The Disappearance It was supposed to be the happiest day of her life. The air in the historic Redwood Chapel buzzed with excitement as guests filled the pews, their whispers echoing off the vaulted ceilings. Light filtered through stained glass windows, casting red and gold patterns across the polished marble floor. In the front row, the groom, Nathaniel Grayson, stood tall in his tailored suit, shifting his weight nervously from foot to foot. Outside, in the bridal suite, 26-year-old Evelyn Moore adjusted the lace sleeves of her ivory gown in front of a full-length mirror. Her long, dark hair was pinned in a soft chignon, a single diamond pin glittering in the curls. Her green eyes were unreadable, even to her closest friend and maid of honor, Cassie. "You okay?" Cassie asked, straightening the veil. Evelyn smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. “Yeah. Just nerves.” A knock on the door interrupted the moment. The wedding coordinator peeked in, grinning. “Showtime!” Cassie gave her a reassuring squeeze and stepped out to take her place. Evelyn was alone for only a minute. When the doors opened to announce the bride’s entrance, the music swelled, and every head turned to the back of the chapel. But Evelyn never appeared. --- Chapter 1: The Note in the Bouquet At first, guests assumed it was a delay. Maybe she needed a few minutes to compose herself. Maybe there was a wardrobe malfunction. But after ten minutes passed, the whispering grew louder. Cassie ran back to the bridal suite. Empty. No sign of Evelyn. The veil was still there. The gown’s train neatly arranged over the stool. Her bouquet was on the vanity, still dewy. And tucked beneath the ribbon binding the stems was a small, folded note. Cassie, hands trembling, opened it. One sentence. > “Forgive me. I had to find the truth before I said yes.” Cassie stumbled back, the paper fluttering from her hand. She called Nathaniel’s name down the hallway, her voice cracking with panic. By the time the police arrived, Evelyn had been missing for over an hour. There was no sign of struggle. No witnesses. No CCTV footage outside the suite. The only oddity—other than the note—was a faint trace of white chalk dust on the windowsill. But the window had been locked from the inside. --- Chapter 2: A Family That Keeps Secrets Detective Mason Rourke had seen his share of cold feet brides, but something about this felt different. Evelyn hadn’t just vanished—she had disappeared with intention. That note wasn’t a breakup. It was a breadcrumb. He questioned the groom first. Nathaniel, heir to the Grayson shipping empire, looked more stunned than heartbroken. “She didn’t seem nervous. She was quiet lately, but she’s... private.” He glanced down at the note. “I don’t know what ‘truth’ she was chasing.” “What was Evelyn like in the days before the wedding?” Rourke asked. “Distant,” Cassie chimed in. “She kept saying she had dreams—about someone calling her from the woods. Like... a child’s voice. She said it felt like a memory.” Rourke raised a brow. “Did she mention where she grew up?” “She never talked about her childhood,” Cassie said. “Said she was raised by her aunt after her parents died. But she never visited the graveyard, never showed photos. It was like she cut it all off.” --- Chapter 3: The Town That Forgot Her A week after Evelyn’s disappearance, a call came from a retired librarian in Westmere, a small town nearly 200 miles from the chapel. She’d seen the news. She recognized Evelyn. “She used to come here as a little girl,” the librarian said. “But her name wasn’t Evelyn. It was Elsie.” Detective Rourke drove down to Westmere. The town was quiet, foggy. He visited the local orphanage—long abandoned now—and found a crumbling ledger. There it was: Elsie Mae Whitlock, born in 1998. Parents: Unknown. Guardian: Margaret Whitlock. But Margaret had passed away ten years ago. Rourke visited the address listed. The old house stood silent, overgrown with ivy. The neighbors barely remembered the child. “She was a sweet girl,” one said. “But there was that... incident.” “What incident?” The neighbor hesitated. “Her friend. A boy named Tommy. Disappeared when they were playing in the woods. They never found him. After that, she stopped talking. Margaret moved her away soon after.” In the dusty attic of the house, Rourke found a faded photograph: two children in Halloween costumes. One girl, dressed as a bride. One boy, in a skeleton costume. Written in shaky pencil on the back: Tommy & Elsie – October 31, 2007 Below that, another line, half-erased: "Promise me you’ll come back if I disappear." --- Chapter 4: The Ghost in the Forest Back in the present, Cassie received an envelope with no return address. Inside was a photo—a new one. It showed Evelyn standing at the edge of a forest. Her gown was stained at the hem, and her eyes stared directly into the lens. Behind her, barely visible in the trees, was a figure. A child-sized shadow. On the back: “The truth lies where the forest forgets.” She gave the photo to Detective Rourke. He stared at it for a long time. Then he looked up. “She’s not running from a marriage,” he said. “She’s running toward a buried truth. Something she was told to forget.” --- Chapter 5: A Clue Beneath the Stones In the Redwood Chapel’s garden, there was a wishing fountain where Evelyn and Nathaniel had taken their engagement photos months earlier. Rourke had dismissed it before—but now something about it tugged at his memory. He returned there at dawn, scanning the stones around the base. One stone had a faint chalk mark on it, nearly faded by time and weather. He pushed it aside. Underneath was a small metal box, rusted shut. Inside? A child’s drawing—two stick figures under trees. One wore a veil. One was a skeleton. And scrawled in crayon: “I’m still here, Elsie. Come find me.”
By Hasbanullahabout a year ago in Fiction
We Are The Visitors
So we left Earth. Or maybe Earth left us. The timeline is fuzzy, like an old photograph smudged by too many fingers. There was water once, and grass. Birds, probably. A sky you could breathe. Then we made some really cool stuff like Netflix and nerve gas and a planet that smelled like melting plastic. So we said, “Hey, let’s go colonize something.”
By Paper Lanternabout a year ago in Fiction
The Whisper Beneath the Library
StThe Basement No One Talks About I. The Smell of Secrets Rain tapped the window like nervous fingers. Aayan adjusted his hoodie, hiding behind the same table he'd claimed every evening at the University of Murbridge library. He wasn't a top student, or even an average one — but he liked silence, and this place had plenty of it. The librarian, Ms. Fenley, glanced at him as she passed. Her eyes always lingered too long — not cruel, but curious, like she knew something he didn’t. Aayan had always been drawn to the library. Its scent — a mixture of parchment, ink, and old wood — comforted him more than his own dorm. Here, he was invisible, and he liked it that way. But lately, he’d started noticing patterns. The same clock that ticked too slowly at 3:17 every night. The temperature drop near aisle 42C. And the flicker of a light in a room that didn’t exist on the map. II. The Stairs That Shouldn’t Exist It was during a blackout one Thursday evening when he found it. The power blinked off. Students panicked upstairs. Phones lit the room like fireflies. Aayan remained seated. He felt... pulled. By instinct or madness, he wandered to the back of the third floor — where forgotten encyclopedias gathered dust. A wooden shelf rattled slightly, as if breathing. He reached behind it, fingers brushing cold air. Click. A panel opened. Dust swirled. A narrow stone staircase spiraled downward. No signs, no light, and definitely no reason for it to exist. III. Dust and Whispers He descended carefully. The air was thick, metallic, and old. With his phone flashlight, he saw walls carved with words — Latin, Greek, Arabic. He couldn’t read them, but they looked like warnings. The stairs ended at a rusty iron door. He hesitated. His heart pounded in his ears. Then he pushed it open. Inside: a room lined with books bound in black leather. No lights. No cobwebs. Just silence so dense it pressed on his skin. On a table in the center lay one book — open. His name was written across the page. "Aayan Malik: Born 2003. Reads this on the 7th of March, 2025. Leaves changed forever." He slammed the book shut and backed away. But the room remained still — as if waiting. IV. The Book That Read Him He ran. The next morning, the staircase was gone. The shelf? Solid. No panel. No wind. Ms. Fenley’s smile that day felt tighter. When he asked if any part of the library was under construction, she just said, “You shouldn’t read what you’re not ready to understand.” He dreamed of the book that night — saw pages flipping on their own, his memories spilling into ink. The next day, he tried again. Nothing. But on the third night — blackout again. And there it was. The panel. Waiting. He returned. The room hadn’t changed. Same books. Same smell. But the book on the table was no longer open. It was sealed with a red ribbon, and a note placed on top: "Welcome back, Reader." He opened it. V. The History That Shouldn’t Be This time, the book had changed. A new chapter: "The Librarian — once a gatekeeper, now a prisoner." He read it, heart racing. It told of Ms. Fenley — once a history professor, who found the same room in 1981. She made a deal: protect the room in exchange for eternal life. But time doesn’t forget, and secrets demand sacrifice. Each page revealed more. Names of students who had vanished. Headlines that had never been printed. A photograph — black and white — of the very table he stood beside. And him, in the frame. It described the library as a living thing, older than the university itself. A creature bound by knowledge, feeding on curiosity, rewarding those who serve and devouring those who betray. At the end of the chapter, a line: "Only one keeper at a time." He dropped the book. VI. Replaced The next morning, Ms. Fenley didn’t show up. The head librarian said she’d retired. "Suddenly." Her keys were passed to Aayan. "She said you'd be perfect," the woman smiled. He wanted to run — but couldn’t. Each night, the books whispered louder. Names appeared. Faces he knew. Futures. Tragedies. He started writing them down. He couldn’t help himself. It was like breathing now. People began avoiding him. They could feel the change. Professors stumbled while saying his name. Lights flickered when he walked by. He no longer slept. Not really. When he closed his eyes, the shelves rearranged themselves in his mind. And the whispers? They followed him everywhere. He once saw a girl — freshman, lost in the stacks. He warned her not to wander after midnight. She laughed. The next day, she was gone. Her dorm packed up. Her name erased from the system. VII. Nowhere to Hide Now, months later, Aayan sits behind the same desk — but different inside. The library is still quiet, but the silence obeys him now. He watches new students arrive. Some are curious. Some go too far. He waits. The room waits. The next keeper must be chosen, and the books… are always hungry. In his notebook, beside a list of names, one new name glows faintly under the lamplight: yours. And somewhere beneath the library, a new door clicks open.art writing...
By Abid Ali Khanabout a year ago in Fiction
