The Widowmaker

Every window wanted a better view. Something else was watching back.

***

The windows could have received the Venue of The Year award that night. 

They had become go-to places for curious teens who wanted, at the very least, a fleeting glimpse of the Widowmaker, a meteor with dubious promises. 

Brothers and sisters jostled each other. A once-in-a-lifetime chance to see a meteor hit. 

They did not care what they needed to do for a space.

They manipulated. They schemed. 

Then ---

BOOM.

Voices carried from balcony to balcony. The teens pointed upward to an ominously empty sky. 

Then, a balcony lit up. Another. Then, another. 

One after another. Then, across opposite blocks. 

The lights had formed a letter. 

R.

***

Then, another letter.  One balcony after another. 

Then, across the blocks.

U. 

The neigjbors' voices stopped.

Camcorders recorded footage with earthquake quivers.

Then, a neighbour from Block 26 shouted. 

"It's a prank!" 

The excitement curdled like a pudding gone bad. 

But they didn't know the neighbors in every unit. 

Not the older members of the community who had passed long ago. 

Another had been completely razed in a house fire.  

The calls softened to mere whispers. 

The lights dimmed. Apartment after apartment. 

The mood of each apartment dimmed with their lights. 

And the lit balconies stared outward, waiting. 

***

Then, the final letter. 

N. 

RUN. 

Nervous laughter broke out across the units. And resolute tapping of keypads could be heard across corridors - the clicks loud, anxious.

Then-

Darkness. That arrived too quickly. 

Black flooded the balconies. 

Silhouettes moved across rooms. They shifted quickly, but something about their movement was-

Off. 

The remaining balconies. All lit. Each containing someone.

The lights combined in sickening synchrony--

A single watching face. 

***

Residents who tapped their phones anxiously in the hope of contacting their loved ones--or any one--found futility. 

Their phones had no signal. 

The estate looked-

Fuller. Satisfied. 

More empty apartments. And more lit balconies.

With windows that seemed --

Occupied. 

With odd movements behind the curtains. 

Neighbors withdrew behind curtains. 

And the face loomed. 

Larger. 

***

Original Micro fiction by Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin to celebrate the Eta Aquariids Meteor Shower occurring around May 6th or 7th. 

Mirrors of the Mind is a collection of psychological and supernatural short stories that explore the quiet unease beneath ordinary moments. These are not tales of spectacle, but of subtle fracture — where memory distorts, silence speaks, and the self is not always singular. In these stories, what is unseen often carries the greatest weight, and what lingers is not what is shown, but what is felt.