Love

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 27 days ago in Fiction
That Arrived Too Late. AI-Generated.
The clock on the wall showed 2:17 a.m. The room was quiet, heavy with the kind of silence that keeps sleep away. Ayaan lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling, his thoughts racing without direction. Just as he turned to check the time again, his phone vibrated softly on the nightstand.
By shakir hamid27 days ago in Fiction
Winter Solstice
“I really wanna do that next year. Don’t you?" “Do what? I wasn’t watching.” “Oh, my god. Put the phone down and join us up here in the real world, will ya?!”
By Canute Limarider27 days ago in Fiction
Are They All Like That, Them Moon Girls?
Things were not alright between him and Suzy for a long time, but he negated it. He turned every negative thing taking place within the shaking boundaries of their home into a positive. He learned this behavior from his mother, who was a perfect example of a 1950s wife. She skillfully dismissed every argument or misunderstanding by changing the subject or forgetting it the next day. She believed it was the only way to avoid escalation and keep the marriage safe. Little did she know, the times change and people would look with a friendly eye at divorce to escape unhappy marriages and get their own lives on the right track.
By Moon Desert28 days ago in Fiction
Kiss me under the light of a thousand stars
“Kiss me under the light of a thousand stars.” Lina said it softly, as if the night itself might shatter if she spoke too loud. The desert stretched endlessly around them, quiet and open, the kind of silence that made every emotion feel louder. Far behind, the city lights dimmed into a distant glow, unable to compete with the sky above them—dark, infinite, and crowded with stars. Elias slowed his steps, then stopped completely. He turned toward her, his face half-lit by starlight, half-hidden in shadow. “You always choose moments that feel like they’re borrowed,” he said gently. Lina smiled. “Maybe because borrowed moments are the ones we remember.” The wind moved through her hair, cool and soft, carrying the faint scent of dust and night-blooming flowers. Above them, the stars burned patiently, as if they had been waiting for this exact moment. The Love That Learned to Wait They had met three years earlier by accident—or fate, depending on which of them you asked. A crowded café. One empty chair. A shared smile that lingered longer than it should have. Elias had been leaving then too. A brilliant astrophysicist chasing distant skies and unanswered questions. Lina had been staying—rooted in her city, her art, her people. They were never meant to align. Yet somehow, they did. Their love grew quietly, carefully, like something fragile and rare. They learned how to love in pauses and reunions, in airport terminals and midnight calls, in messages sent from different time zones. They became experts at almost. Almost staying. Almost leaving. Almost forever. The Weight of Tomorrow Tonight felt heavier than the others. Tomorrow wasn’t just another goodbye—it was the kind that didn’t come with a return date. The kind that rewrote everything. Lina tilted her head back, gazing upward. “Do you think the stars remember us?” she asked. “All the people who loved beneath them?” Elias followed her gaze. “If they do,” he said quietly, “then love must be their favorite story.” She looked at him then, really looked at him, memorizing the lines of his face like she might need them later. “I don’t want this night to hurt when I remember it,” Lina said. “I want it to feel… complete.” Elias stepped closer, close enough that their breaths tangled in the cool air. “Then let it be exactly what it is,” he whispered. A Kiss That Held the Universe She reached for his hand, fingers trembling slightly as they found his. “Kiss me,” Lina said. “Not the way people kiss when they’re afraid of losing each other.” Elias lifted his free hand to her cheek, his thumb brushing softly beneath her eye. “Kiss me under the light of a thousand stars.” The moment stretched—suspended, sacred. Then he kissed her. Slow. Unhurried. As if the universe had pressed pause just for them. It wasn’t desperation that filled the kiss—it was gratitude. For every moment they had stolen from time. For every conversation, every laugh, every silent understanding. The stars watched without blinking. In that kiss lived every unspoken promise and every future they wouldn’t dare name. It was the kind of kiss that didn’t ask for eternity—but honored the moment like it was enough. The Space Between Heartbeats They lay on the hood of the car afterward, fingers intertwined, bodies close but quiet. No need for words now. The sky slowly shifted, constellations drifting like memories. Lina closed her eyes. “Promise me something,” she said. “Anything.” “Wherever you are—whatever sky you’re under—remember this night.” Elias turned his head toward her. “I’ll remember it even when the stars fade,” he said. “Because you’ll still be there.” A tear slipped from the corner of her eye. She didn’t wipe it away. When the Stars Become Memory Years later, Elias would stand on foreign soil, staring up at unfamiliar constellations, feeling a strange ache he could never fully explain. And Lina, in her quiet studio, would pause while painting the night sky—her heart tightening for no clear reason. They would never know it, but they would be looking at the same stars. And somewhere between light-years and memory, the universe would remember them—two souls who loved without certainty, but without regret. Under the light of a thousand stars.
By Mustafa28 days ago in Fiction
The Day the Sky Spoke Back
The sky had never answered anyone before. Until that night. At exactly 2:17 a.m., every screen on Earth went black. Phones died mid-scroll. Traffic lights shut off in perfect unison. Pilots gripping their controls felt the sudden weight of silence as aircraft systems switched to manual mode. In hospitals, machines flatlined—not patients, but technology—before emergency generators roared to life seconds later. Then the screens came back. Every screen. Televisions, billboards, smartwatches, airport monitors, laptops in dark bedrooms across the globe—all displayed the same message in calm, glowing letters: WE HAVE BEEN LISTENING. Panic arrived instantly. Governments rushed to issue statements, calling it the largest cyberattack in human history. Tech giants denied responsibility. Hackers laughed nervously on hidden forums, insisting it wasn’t them. Religious leaders declared miracles. Others called it the beginning of the end. But the strangest part came next. People stepped outside. The clouds themselves were glowing—slowly rearranging, forming words across the sky like burning constellations stretching from horizon to horizon. THIS MESSAGE IS FOR EVERYONE. The Girl Who Heard It First Maya Rivera didn’t scream. She had been awake already, sitting on the floor of her bedroom in a small Arizona town, her back against the wall, knees pulled to her chest. Sleep hadn’t come easily since her mother died the year before. Nights were when grief was loudest. She was staring at the stars when she heard it. Not from her phone. Not from the air. Inside her mind. You are not alone. Maya gasped, her breath catching in her throat. Her heart pounded as she stood up slowly, as if sudden movement might break whatever this was. “Who… who are you?” she whispered. The voice answered without sound. We are the ones who watched you learn to speak to the stars before you learned to listen to each other. Tears filled her eyes—not from fear, but from something closer to recognition. “You’re real,” she said. Yes. And we are very late. A Truth Hidden in the Noise As the night stretched on, the message changed. News broadcasts froze mid-sentence as glowing text replaced their feeds: YOUR WARS ARE NOT YOUR GREATEST FAILURE. YOUR GREATEST FAILURE IS IGNORING THE QUIET WARNINGS. Across social media, arguments erupted. Some demanded proof. Some begged for salvation. Some prepared weapons. Maya sat on her bed, shaking as images flooded her mind—memories that weren’t hers. Oceans swallowing cities. Forests reduced to ash. Towers of glass rising and collapsing again and again. Civilizations far older than humanity, erased not by catastrophe, but by neglect. Most intelligent species do not destroy themselves loudly, the voice explained. They fade. They look away until there is nothing left to save. “Why us?” Maya asked. “Why now?” There was a pause. Long enough to feel heavy. Because you are nearing the quiet point. The moment when apathy becomes irreversible. The Broadcast At sunrise, a new livestream appeared across every platform. No logo. No origin. No explanation. Just Maya. She stood against a sky shimmering with light, though no one could explain where the camera was placed—or how it existed at all. “I don’t know why they chose me,” she said, her voice trembling but clear. “I’m not special. I’m just someone who still listens.” Behind her, clouds slowly formed symbols older than language. “They’re not here to conquer us,” Maya continued. “They’re not here to save us either.” Her eyes met the camera, and for a moment, it felt like she was looking directly at every viewer. “They want to know if we’re capable of saving ourselves.” The screen went white. One final message appeared. IF WE LEAVE YOU ALONE—WILL YOU CHANGE? There was no countdown. No threat. No promise. Then silence. After the Sky Went Quiet The clouds faded. Screens returned to normal. The world resumed its noise. But something had shifted. People called family members they hadn’t spoken to in years. Strangers helped strangers without recording it. Reports about climate collapse felt heavier—harder to scroll past. Excuses sounded thinner. Silence felt louder. Governments didn’t transform overnight. Neither did humanity. But the quiet point was delayed. That night, Maya sat by her window again, staring into the dark sky. “Did we answer correctly?” she whispered. No voice replied. But somewhere beyond the stars, something waited—listening, just a little longer.
By Mustafa28 days ago in Fiction
Revelation
I can’t remember a time when Maddie wasn’t in my life. We met as toddlers, our parents were next-door neighbors, and we spent almost every day playing together. Many children drift apart once they start school, but not Maddie and me. We attended the same grammar school, had the same teachers, and helped each other with homework. Inseparable, joined at the hip, two peas in a pod, and all those other tired clichés were used to describe us by the adults. That’s how it was right up to the day her father got promoted and the family moved to another state.
By Mark Gagnon28 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 28 days ago in Fiction
He Hurt Her. I Ended Him
She learned early how to hide bruises, how to smile with her eyes while her body ached, how to apologize for things she never did, her fiancé was admired in public, polite, charming, the kind of man mothers trusted and friends defended, but behind closed doors he turned love into control and silence into punishment, his hands never left marks where people could see at first, and when they did, he called them accidents, called her clumsy, called her dramatic, and she believed him longer than she should have because fear has a way of convincing you that survival is love, the night she finally left the apartment in a torn dress and shaking hands, she didn’t leave to escape him forever, she left to breathe for one evening, just one, she went to a classical concert downtown because it was dark and crowded and loud enough to drown her thoughts, she sat in the back row hoping no one would notice her, unaware that someone very powerful already had.
By Diab the story maker 28 days ago in Fiction
The Christmas Miracle of Maple Street 🎄
On Maple Street, Christmas did not arrive quietly. It arrived with a bang, a crash, and the unmistakable sound of Mr. Gerald Wickersham shouting,
By Zidane29 days ago in Fiction
I Read My Wife’s Last Text—Three Years After Her Death
In life, there are times that divide time into two distinct periods: before and after. It is a division that is not soft and subtle, or even softly insistent. It simply is. In my story, one such time occurred three years after my wife’s passing when, one quiet evening like so many others, almost nothing out of the ordinary seemed to be about to happen. There would be no compelling sky, and there would be no meaningful calendar notation marking this event as one of specific import. It would simply be me, and my couch, and my phone—a phone I could so easily not answer.
By iftikhar Ahmad29 days ago in Fiction
When You Have His World. Content Warning.
When you have his world, it will be dark in there for a moment, but clean it out with a Swiffer and some Febreeze. Make it smell clean. Commercially clean. Open the windows to air it all out. A pigeon might fly in, and for a moment you might be afraid it will shit on the carpet, but nothing bad will happen. Guide the pigeon to the window with a feather duster, and it'll fly away into the sky.
By Rita Chun30 days ago in Fiction