Short Story
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 about a month ago in Fiction
The Brown Meridian . Content Warning.
Cloy, listen to me. My throat feels parched from the history you and I shared. I can't call this our home anymore; you can’t either. But believe this: my departure was an act of abnegation; I didn’t abandon you. I have escaped, and now the burden of this entity falls on you.
By Caitlin Charltonabout a month 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 Homuthabout a month ago in Fiction
Evergreen
The snow fell in soft, silent waves as the Cooper family’s SUV wound its way up the mountain road. The destination: a remote cabin surrounded by a pristine evergreen forest. Jeff Cooper had booked the cabin for his wife, Diane, and their two kids, Emily and Sam, hoping to rekindle the family’s bond after a difficult year.
By V-Ink Storiesabout a month ago in Fiction
Frostbite
The forecast had predicted light flurries, nothing unusual for the quiet mountain town where the Bell family lived. But by nightfall, the snowstorm had turned ferocious, battering the windows with icy gusts and blanketing the world outside in a suffocating white void.
By V-Ink Storiesabout a month ago in Fiction
Home for the Holidys
Snow blanketed the winding road as Nora drove toward the old family estate, her hands tight on the wheel. She hadn’t been home in years, not since the screaming fights and slammed doors that marked her departure. But her mother’s voice on the phone—quivering, pleading—had cut through her resolve.
By V-Ink Storiesabout a month ago in Fiction
The Krampus Pact
Snow fell in soft, soundless flurries outside the Anderson family’s house, but inside, the air crackled with tension. Christmas Eve should have been joyous, but years of resentment had turned it into an annual battlefield. The family had gathered reluctantly—mother Janice, father Greg, their teenage daughter Holly, and her younger brother Max—but the holiday spirit was nowhere to be found.
By V-Ink Storiesabout a month ago in Fiction
The Boy Who Lost His Soul. Content Warning.
THE SEER’S RETRIEVAL: Archive 2025 "What follows is a work of Speculative Truth. Born from the analog grain of 1985 and developed in the high-definition suite of 2025, this story is a Sci-Fi frequency shift a narrative map of one mother’s journey to reclaim a lineage that the 'Hard Reality' tried to delete.
By Vicki Lawana Trusselli about a month ago in Fiction
