Short Story
The Silent Pianist
Today is Wednesday. In the dark and dreary town of Beldurra, there is a constant, thick fog. The town does not look particularly rundown or abandoned but it would still seem eerie and off-putting to any outsiders. As such, very little ever happened. Except on Wednesdays.
By Mae Namwob5 years ago in Fiction
Blue Dreams
I’ve had blue dreams for thirty-five nights now. Each dream is the same. I run in a field of long grass left to grow, my bare feet pressing into the soft, brown soil beneath. I am five years old, and I run towards the figures of a child’s imagination – pirates and princesses and ponies that prance. Then, as the last bit of sun disappears behind the trees, my world turns blue. The skies drip with a darkened blue that bleeds into the grass, the dirt below my feet, and my mother’s garden in the distance. Blue shadows loom over my house, and my breathing quickens with fright as I look down at my small hands, finding my skin stained with shades of blue as well. Tears swell in my eyes, and I blink because I know this is just a dream, and blue is just a color. But when they open, every part of the world I was just standing in has turned blue, so that that the trees blend in with the sky and the grass and me. All I see is blue, all I think of is blue, and I can’t remember what it’s like to be human because all I am is blue.
By Hannah Klingberg5 years ago in Fiction
Beware the Clockwork Witch
I hold my sister’s heart in my hands. Each time it ticks, blood drips out of the scorched and twisted gears and the severed tubes that used to be her arteries. Her body is rigid, engulfed by the flames spewing from the long-barreled guns of the Watchers. As they open their silver cloaks, the spiders stream out, each one the size of my fist, sleek and steel. I will not be able to fix her this time. They will tear her apart, incinerate the pieces, and throw what they can’t burn into the Swamp. This can’t be happening. We kept her secret for years. And now the words I’ve come to despise are shouted in triumph by my sister’s murderers.
By Jacob Sargent5 years ago in Fiction
Hung up Love
So, here is the thing: I am an orphan in possession of a heart-shaped locket which will end up being the death of me. But I am getting ahead of myself. My name is Danyella Cogendure and I had survived a zombie apocalypse. Yes, I get it, zombies are overdone, but hear me out. This zombie apocalypse occurred once a majority of the world's population had obtained a Coronavirus vaccine a few years ago. It was sudden, and it was terrifying, even for a twenty-two-year-old who would rather spend her nights watching gruesome horror films than go outside. I only figured out what the problem was because I heard grunting in my house, only to discover my own parents feasting on my little brother's brain, and I just knew I was next. I ran back into my room, and shut the door, packed my duffel bags with whatever I could quickly get my hands on; clothes, the various weapons I kept in my room, and of course the heart-shaped locket I always wore that had the pictures of my family inside of it. After that, I grabbed my car keys and escaped from my window to get to my car, panting. I have been constantly fighting and hiding zombies ever since that day, and it has been a lonely existence. There are a few days when I want to just give in and allow them to get to me, but then my fight-or-flight instinct kicks in and I automatically want to fight for such a waste of life. I wanted to be a nurse, and was going to school for it, only for this to be my life. Killing zombies and saving myself. I suffered with my mental health even before everything crumbled around me, and I could not even get ahold of my boyfriend or best friend, and even swung by their places but they are just gone. I am entirely alone, with only the locket to remind me of some of the ones I loved.
By Angel Keller5 years ago in Fiction
When He Slips Back In
Every once in a while, she is wonderfully sure that a portal opens between the life she finds herself trapped in, and his, the next. She hears a song on the radio play more frequently than other days, and she smells his cologne in the strangest of places, at the oddest of times, surrounded by unfamiliar faces and unknown voices. She abruptly awakens in the middle of the night, sure that she felt his hand clutch hers, as he delicately whispers her name.
By Author Alice VL5 years ago in Fiction
Suburban Zombies
Seven years ago, which now seems like a lifetime, everything was different. The birds would sing their songs in the morning as I got around for school. I would go downstairs, kiss my mother on her cheek and grab some food for the bus. We would say goodbye for the day with a “See ya later alligator!” and “Not for a while Crocodile!” Our goofy exchange resulted in a giggle from both of us. My mom worked in a big science facility, what exactly she did was confidential. But, I knew it was important. She would leave shortly after I did in the mornings, but most nights she wouldn't be home until after my elder sister and I were in bed. Our Dad worked for the local police department on the night shift, so he would be leaving shortly after dinner and sleeping while we were at school. Everybody’s schedules were so scattered, but we still had the weekends for family time. Family time usually amounted to us helping mom in the garden, or learning “survival skills '' in the woods with dad. Amanda is two years older than me, so she was just about to graduate high school and she planned to move to California in a few months for college. She really made me want to go there too, but I think that was just so we wouldn't be so far away.
By Autumn Lawson5 years ago in Fiction
Sally
It was stuffy in his special place, the dusty wooden support beams constricting his movements. It didn’t used to be such a tight fit, but times had changed. He had gotten bigger, although he didn’t feel like he had. In his mind, he was still only ten, but he knew that wasn’t the case. His body showed the effects of age. His hair was longer, as were his fingernails, which tapped out a rhythmic pattern on the thin plaster in front of him.
By Jude Bolick5 years ago in Fiction
When the Sun don't shine
In a deceptively, devilish, distorted dystopian reality, little David had adapted quickly to this world of upside down truths. This was his reality, and navigating through it took skill and wits, not to mention luck of serious caliber to survive a days’ worth of adventure here.
By Jody Randall5 years ago in Fiction
The Broken Locket
53...54...55...56...57...58...59...60...61...Always exactly 61 steps to the top of the landing. Never more...never less. It makes it easy and seems to go so much quicker when I count each step. I also can’t make a mistake that way, and in this world making a mistake can be foolish and even dangerous. And so I count each step. And now I stand before my office door and turn the knob and open the door to my waiting room. I don’t need a key because the door is never locked. No doors are ever locked anymore. And why would they be. We all have everything we need to be happy and complete. At least that’s what they tell us on the Big Screen every morning. No need to steal someone else’s stuff. So no need for a key. No one is going to break in. And if someone broke the rules and were suddenly overcome with the need to break into my office uninvited and were discovered to have taken something, they would be deemed unnatural and unfit to live in our oh so perfect society and would quickly pay the ultimate price for their transgressions and be taken to the official Other World, the world referred to by them as simply the Darkness. And we live in the Light and should consider ourselves blessed to live in the Society of the Light. And so as I open the door to my office and walk in as I do everyday, I remind myself once again how important it is to live in the Light.
By Steve Mandell5 years ago in Fiction
Seen
“Understand this if you understand nothing: it is a powerful thing to be seen” ― Akwaeke Emezi, Freshwater In her mind she sat at the water's edge, her toes dug deep in the coarse moist sand, admiring a sun-pillar on the horizon - light stretching to the heavens like a beacon of hope. The view was reminiscent of the Star Wars poster her mother had hung in their home office that had previously been her sister's bedroom. She clung to the imagined rhythm of the lapping waves, seagulls cawing, taste of salt in her mouth, and children giggling somewhere in the distance, the breeze coming off the gulf coast carrying the scent only found close to the ocean - a sweet, pungent smell that she knew was caused by bacteria, but she chose not to focus on that detail and instead revel in the calm it’s imagining brought. With her eyes closed, she inhaled deeply and was accosted instead with the smells of those in, near, and around the small room she now occupied. She was disappointed not to experience the floaters one gets from accidentally looking at the sun when she opened her eyes and fixated on the woman sitting in front of her.
By Michell Witt5 years ago in Fiction
