thriller

Reunion with the French Flower
The Case Minister was quite right: something had to be done about “the Paris situation” — a masterpiece of euphemistic language, Ellis thought. Speaking plainly, it would be more accurate to refer to the “imminent disaster in Paris”, but that wasn’t how the upper brass delineated their views. The Time Bureau did not promote alarmists to the upper brass, reasoning that if something had already happened, it could no longer constitute an imminent anything.
By Eric Wolf3 months ago in Fiction
Behind the Masquerade
Behind the Masquerade The ballroom glimmered like a dream dipped in gold. Dozens of masked faces floated beneath the chandeliers — laughing, drinking, whispering — each voice carefully measured, each movement rehearsed. It was called The Masquerade of Truth, though no one knew why.
By Straylight3 months ago in Fiction
The Sleep Killer: The Man Who Killed in His Sleep and Was Acquitted in Court
The incident that occurred on the night of May 24, 1987, in Hamilton, Canada, not only changed the realms of medical science but also altered legal history. Kenny Parks, a 23-year-old ordinary young man, whose life was forever transformed by that one night.
By Wellova 3 months ago in Fiction
The Forgotten Village
The road had been empty for hours. Daniel Gray adjusted the rearview mirror, staring at the endless ribbon of dirt stretching ahead. His GPS had stopped working twenty minutes ago, and now even the signal bar was gone.
By Ghanni malik3 months ago in Fiction
“The Lanterns Remember”
Chapter 1: The Ritual Lila Wren stood on the creaking porch of her family’s old farmhouse, the October air sharp with the scent of fallen leaves and woodsmoke. It was 2025, and the fields of Eldridge Hollow, Connecticut, stretched dark and endless beyond the glow of her lantern. Every night since her mother, Clara, died five years ago, Lila performed the ritual: lighting three lanterns, their amber light flickering like memories. Clara had done the same, a tradition passed down from her own mother, a quiet act of reverence for their land, their history, their secrets. Lila, now 17, clung to it like a lifeline.
By HearthMen3 months ago in Fiction
The 50th Star — A Grounded Superhero Concept
The 50th Star stands as a grounded superhero concept. It focuses on a story set in modern times. The idea centers around what would happen if Americas first superhero needed to protect his country from superhuman dangers.
By Astral Works3 months ago in Fiction
The Secret Hierarchy of Miser
The Awakening In the city of Ashwood, where the sun dipped into the horizon and painted the sky with hues of crimson and gold, there existed a mysterious organization known only as Miser. Few knew of its existence, and even fewer understood its true purpose. Miser was a secret hierarchy, a group of individuals bound together by a shared philosophy: to collect and hoard the world's most precious resources.
By hamad khan3 months ago in Fiction
Regrets?
My dearest love, I am writing to you knowing that you are unlikely to read this wherever you are in the afterlife, but you can't say I didn't try. I write for three reasons:
By Julie Lacksonen3 months ago in Fiction
The Brass Eye. Winner in Through the Keyhole Challenge.
I pull up in my wheelchair, hoping to see something—anything—through the keyhole in my flat door, sitting there waiting for something, anything to happen.
By Paul Stewart3 months ago in Fiction
"The Algorithm"
Chapter 1: The Birth of Insight In the dim glow of multiple monitors, Alex Rivera hunched over his keyboard, his fingers dancing like possessed spirits across the keys. It was 2025, and the world outside his cramped San Francisco apartment was a cacophony of self-driving cars and augmented reality billboards, but inside, it was a sanctuary of code. Alex was 32, a former Silicon Valley prodigy who'd burned out at a big tech firm after watching algorithms manipulate lives for profit. Now freelance, he chased something nobler: an AI that could predict crimes before they happened.
By HearthMen3 months ago in Fiction
"Cold Signal"
Chapter 1: The Call The phone rang at 2:13 a.m., a shrill intrusion slicing through the silence of Detective Nora Callahan’s Hartford apartment. She jolted awake, heart pounding, the remnants of a dream—twisted train tracks and a woman’s lifeless stare—fading fast. The caller ID glowed on her cracked iPhone screen: Evelyn Marsh. Nora froze. Evelyn had been her best friend, her college roommate, vanished without a trace in October 2015. Ten years ago. The case that drove Nora into detective work, the one she’d never solved.
By HearthMen3 months ago in Fiction
"The Last Passenger"
Chapter 1: The Wreck Detective Nora Callahan stood at the edge of the ravine, her breath fogging in the chilly October air of 2025. The twisted remains of the Northeast Regional train lay below, a mangled beast of steel and shattered glass, its cars strewn like a child’s discarded toys. It was 3:47 a.m., and the Connecticut wilderness was silent except for the distant wail of sirens and the crunch of gravel under her boots. The derailment had been catastrophic—seven cars off the tracks, twenty-two confirmed dead, dozens injured. Nora, a 15-year veteran of the Hartford PD, had seen her share of tragedies, but this one felt different. A nagging unease settled in her gut, like a splinter she couldn’t dig out.
By HearthMen3 months ago in Fiction