Fantasy
NEON BLOOD EMPIRE
The night the city tried to kill her the sky was burning red and the alarms never stopped screaming and Nyx Virel stood in the middle of Sector Nine with blood on her hands not all of it hers watching a skyscraper collapse like a dying giant behind her while drones hunted her name through the air the city of Axiom Prime was not supposed to look afraid it was built to dominate to control to erase weakness but tonight it was trembling because Nyx had stolen something that was never meant to be touched the Core Seed a living quantum intelligence buried under the city for two hundred years and every gang every syndicate every artificial god connected to the grid wanted her dead Nyx did not run because she was scared she ran because standing still meant extinction and as she jumped across broken rails and burning streets memories flashed of the moment she met Kael Draven the man who taught her how to survive how to shoot without hesitation how to love without fear and how to trust in a world that punished trust the moment she landed hard on the steel bridge her comm crackled with his voice calm sharp alive telling her he was coming that he would get her out like he always did but this time the city itself had turned into a weapon and the gangs were not just criminals anymore they were armies enhanced by illegal cybernetic rituals feeding on fear and data and Nyx knew this was no longer a job gone wrong this was war and she was at the center of it whether she wanted to be or not
By Diab the story maker 24 days ago in Fiction
The Keeper of the Longest Night
On the winter solstice of December 22, 2025—the longest night of the year—Elara stepped out of her isolated cabin into the biting cold of the northern woods. She had come here to escape the noise of the world: the endless notifications, the glowing screens, the artificial lights that drowned out the stars. For years, she had chased deadlines in a city that never slept, until one day she simply stopped. Now, in this remote corner of the forest, she tended a small garden in summer and read old books by firelight in winter. Solitude was her chosen companion.
By Jason “Jay” Benskin24 days ago in Fiction
The Distance Between Seasons. AI-Generated.
The first thing Sara noticed when she returned was how the air felt heavier. Not warmer or colder—just fuller, as if the town had been holding its breath while she was gone and hadn’t yet decided whether to release it.
By Mehwish Jabeen25 days ago in Fiction
Bloodless Tomorrow
The world did not end when the virus turned humanity into vampires, it changed, adapted, hardened, the transformation happened slowly at first, a mutation triggered by synthetic blood substitutes created to end famine, the irony was cruel, the cure for hunger became the curse of immortality, millions transformed into nocturnal beings who no longer aged, no longer slept, and could no longer survive without blood, governments collapsed, cities were sealed, and science replaced religion as the last hope, and in the underground districts of what used to be Europe, a small group of vampires clung to a rumor whispered through encrypted networks and black-market data streams, a cure existed, not a myth, not faith, but a real scientific solution hidden beneath the ruins of an abandoned research complex, buried under kilometers of reinforced earth, accessible only through a single tunnel that no one who entered had ever returned from, and yet they decided to go, because immortality without choice was just another kind of death.
By Diab the story maker 25 days ago in Fiction
I helped him hide the body
The night it happened began quietly, too quietly for a city like ours, the rain falling in thin sharp lines that reflected the yellow streetlights and turned the asphalt into broken mirrors, I remember thinking how strange it felt to hear my own footsteps echo as I walked home, my phone dead, my jacket soaked, my head full of nothing but exhaustion and routine, until I noticed a man standing under the flickering light at the corner, not moving, not smoking, not looking at his phone, just standing there as if the world had paused around him, and when our eyes met I felt something shift inside my chest, not fear exactly, more like instinct screaming before the mind could understand why, I tried to look away and keep walking but the sound came then, a dull heavy thud followed by a wet dragging noise behind me, the kind of sound that doesn’t belong in normal life, and when I turned around against every warning in my body, I saw the man kneeling beside someone on the ground, his hands dark and shaking, the body twisted in an impossible angle, blood mixing with rain and running into the gutter like it had a destination of its own, and before I could step back or scream or run, the man looked at me again and said softly, almost politely, please don’t leave.
By Diab the story maker 25 days ago in Fiction
One Step Closer
One Step Back, Two Shadows Forward by Theodore Homuth I should say upfront that I’ve never been one to put stock in signs or omens or any of that ethereal nonsense. People who swear by them—they’re the type who scan the world like it’s a cryptic crossword puzzle, connecting dots that were never meant to be linked. A license plate number that matches your birthday. A single white feather drifting down onto a cracked sidewalk in the dead of winter. Dreams that linger like half-remembered conversations, whispering promises of destiny when they’re really just your brain recycling yesterday’s stress. I’ve always been wired differently, grounded in the tangible, the stuff that leaves marks you can’t ignore. Rent receipts crumpled in my pocket, stained with coffee rings from too many late nights. Calluses etched into my palms from gripping a mop handle too tightly. The dull, insistent ache in my lower back after pulling a double shift at some dead-end gig, the kind that makes you wonder if your spine is plotting a quiet rebellion.
By Theodore Homuth26 days ago in Fiction
