Microfiction
The Secrets My Mother Kept
The Morning Light August 19, 2005 The beach stretched endlessly in both directions, a ribbon of silver sand unmarked by footprints or debris. It was that liminal hour just before dawn when the world held its breath, suspended between night and day. The lighthouse at the far end of the bay had already stopped its rotation, leaving only the faintest echo of its beam painting ghosts across the water.
By Parsley Rose 5 months ago in Fiction
The Train That Never Stops
M Mehran Every night at exactly 2:13 a.m., Sam heard the train. It was impossible. The town’s railway station had been closed for nearly twenty years, the tracks long abandoned, weeds curling around the rusted rails. Yet, like clockwork, the whistle echoed through the valley, low and mournful, followed by the distant rattle of wheels.
By Muhammad Mehran5 months ago in Fiction
Something Doesn't Add Up
"I don't like it, Sarge. Look, she says he attacked her, but he was already here, at this station, asking for help. Then he went to the hotel. What, did he go home again and stick her in the eye, and then come back here? Or did she wait around for a day before she tootled off to the hospital? With trauma to her eye? She was worried she'd lose sight in it, she said so. She must have gone as soon as it happened..."
By L.C. Schäfer5 months ago in Fiction
A Dreamer's Journey
The neural crown fitted snugly around Pudding's head, its crystalline sensors pulsing with ethereal light as they delved deep into her unconscious mind. She had been asleep for nine months now, her frail body suspended in the gossamer threads of the Dream Weaver—a chair that seemed more grown than built, its organic curves shifting subtly with each of her breaths. Above her, translucent screens bloomed like jellyfish in the sterile air, displaying the vast archipelagos of her sleeping thoughts.
By Parsley Rose 5 months ago in Fiction
What Would Wonder Woman Do?
Lilly opens her bedroom door. Hallway light slants across the grey carpet, illuminating the corner of her Barbie blanket against the bedpost. Beside it is a narrow strip of darkness, where the monster has been watching for the past three nights. Waiting to feed.
By Kenny Penn5 months ago in Fiction
The Library of Forgotten Names
M Mehran It wasn’t on any map, nor marked by any sign. But if you ever lost something precious—so precious that the ache of it followed you like a shadow—you might find yourself wandering a narrow street one evening and stopping before a tall, ivy-covered building you had never noticed before.
By Muhammad Mehran5 months ago in Fiction
The Whooping Crane
Camille had grown up in the south, both feet sinking deep into the swamp’s soils, beneath curtains of cypress moss. Her dreams always felt sticky, as if the humidity could penetrate the veil of sleep, and she could never run far enough to escape the way her blood sang back to the cicadas in the summer.
By Aimee Van Arsdale5 months ago in Fiction
