Young Adult
The Bite Beneath the Oak. Runner-Up in Leave the Light On Challenge.
5:30pm In the stillness of Halloween night, the air crackled with beguiling sorcery, and she felt the weight of her father’s cruelty dissolving into the ether. Tonight was her night. No staggering boots scraping against the unfinished Pebble Tec floor. No remotes flying through television screens. No barbarous ramblings directed at her for hours. For once, the house seemed a place a tranquilly.
By M.R. Cameoabout a year ago in Fiction
The Day My Grandfather Stopped Time
I always thought my grandfather was just… ordinary. Old, quiet, and a little forgetful. But one rainy afternoon, he showed me something I’ll never forget. He took my hand and led me to the attic—a place I had never dared enter. Dust danced in the light as he opened a small, wooden box. Inside were dozens of old photographs, each labeled with a date. “This,” he said, “is how I stopped time.” I laughed. “Stopped time? Grandpa, you’re being dramatic.” He smiled but didn’t answer. Instead, he handed me a photo. It was me, sitting in the living room at age five, smiling at something I couldn’t see. “Look closer,” he said. And I did. Hidden in the background, almost invisible, was a tiny shadow… smiling at me. He explained that in every photo, there was a moment frozen that no one else could see—a second where happiness was so pure it could outlast the years. He had been capturing them all his life. That day, I understood: time doesn’t really stop. Memories do. And sometimes, the simplest moments are the ones worth holding forever. I left the attic with a strange sense of peace. Because even if the world moves on, the magic of ordinary life never disappears.
By Haileyesusabout a year ago in Fiction
Shadows on the Edge of Tomorrow
By Nadeem Shah The rain had a way of softening the city’s edges. Buildings that normally looked sharp and unforgiving now blurred into a watercolor of gray and silver. Streetlights bled into the puddles, their glow stretching out in ripples with every raindrop that fell.
By Nadeem Shah about a year ago in Fiction
Shadows on the Edge of Tomorrow
By Nadeem Shah The rain had a way of softening the city’s edges. Buildings that normally looked sharp and unforgiving now blurred into a watercolor of gray and silver. Streetlights bled into the puddles, their glow stretching out in ripples with every raindrop that fell.
By Nadeem Shah about a year ago in Fiction
The Last Letter She Never Sent
By Nadeem Shah The envelope had yellowed with time, the edges curling slightly as if it had been holding its breath for years. It sat at the bottom of the box, beneath a stack of old photographs and forgotten receipts, as though it had been waiting—patient, quiet—for someone to finally notice it.
By Nadeem Shah about a year ago in Fiction
The Mirror Hotel
The Mirror Hotel was born from Aurelian’s need—not desire. It waited like a predator for the moment he fractured, when something inside him shifted just enough to let light pierce the dark. It lived in the liminal spaces of his grief, where reality blurred with dream—a place both familiar and unsettling, shaped by the memories he couldn’t bear to hold.
By Neshzivne Dadirriabout a year ago in Fiction
