Shafi ulhaq

Joined June 2025

18 stories

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Stories (18)

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The Silence Between Songs
The apartment was quiet. Not the kind of quiet you notice immediately — not an absence, but a stillness. The kind that lingers in doorways and clings to the corners of ceilings. I hadn’t played music in two days. Not even a podcast. Not even the soft hum of a lo-fi playlist on repeat.
By Shafi ulhaq7 months ago in Fiction
Rooms We Leave Behind
I found the note the day I moved out. It was folded tight and yellowed at the edges, wedged behind the radiator in the bedroom closet—like it had been waiting for me all along. I pulled it free, thinking it was trash, until I saw the handwriting.
By Shafi ulhaq7 months ago in Fiction
The Night the Moon Spoke
The night my father died, the moon hung too heavy in the sky. It was one of those strange, luminescent full moons that made everything look washed in silver. Too bright for midnight, too quiet for peace. The world outside was still, except for the wind brushing the leaves like someone rustling through memories.
By Shafi ulhaq7 months ago in Fiction
The Last Dance of the Social Butterfly
I used to call her my Social Butterfly. She never liked the nickname. “Butterflies are fragile,” she’d say, laughing. “I’m tougher than I look.”
By Shafi ulhaq7 months ago in Fiction
Milk, Smoke, and Dust
The baby in her sling was warm and heavy, his small body pressed tight against her chest as if trying to return to the womb. His head nestled just under her chin, the rhythm of his tiny breath barely audible above the wind.
By Shafi ulhaq7 months ago in Fiction
The Sister Who Never Knocked
They always told me I was an only child. The photos on the wall said the same—just me. Birthday cakes with my name. Solo portraits in the hallway. The silence of a house that echoed only one set of footsteps. I never thought to question it—not until the dreams began.
By Shafi ulhaq7 months ago in Fiction
The Girl from the Lake
By Shafi ulhaq Our family cabin sits on the edge of Blackwater Lake, a place as still and secretive as a kept promise. Locals call it cursed. Outsiders think that’s just folklore. But my family knows better.
By Shafi ulhaq7 months ago in Fiction
Ashes in the Wind
By Shafi ulhaq They said it was faulty wiring. That’s what the fire report concluded. An accidental blaze. The neighbors echoed the same thing. “A tragedy,” they called it. “A shame,” “a loss.”
By Shafi ulhaq7 months ago in Fiction
The Mirror in Apartment 3B
BY SHAFI ULHAQ When I moved into Apartment 3B, the mirror above the fireplace was already there. Heavy and old, with vines etched into the bronze frame, it didn’t match anything else in the unit. I tried to take it down once, but it wouldn’t budge. Not with a screwdriver, not with a crowbar. The thing might as well have been soldered to the wall.
By Shafi ulhaq7 months ago in Fiction
The Last Song
BY SHAFI UL HAQ The last song we listened to together was a Fleetwood Mac track. "Landslide." We sang along—off-key, loud, laughing. The road home was quiet and nearly empty, the kind of night where the world feels like it’s only yours.
By Shafi ulhaq7 months ago in Confessions
Whispers from Below
By Shafi Ulhaq They always dared each other to go near the well. It was a collapsed relic from the town’s mining days, tucked deep inside Black Hollow Woods. Covered by a rusted iron grate and surrounded by a collapsing stone rim, it stood like a warning — not a monument.
By Shafi ulhaq7 months ago in Fiction
The Stranger Who Changed My Life Forever. Content Warning.
An Unexpected Encounter That Altered My Path I’ve always believed life moved in straight lines. You study, work, build a future, maybe stumble a little—but always in a forward direction. There was comfort in that structure, a belief that if I just followed the path, things would make sense. I never imagined that a complete stranger, someone I met on an ordinary Tuesday, would become the invisible turning point of my life.
By Shafi ulhaq7 months ago in Confessions