Young Adult

The Call of the Minaret
The early sun had just started to rise from behind the house tops of Medina when Bilal woke up. The air was still cool and heavy with the smell of sand and date palms. For a moment, he listened to the faint sounds of the city waking -- the distant bleating of goats, the clatter of water pots and the quiet hum of life returning after the silence of the night.
By Nusuki3 months ago in Fiction
The Light of the Desert
And the wind sang along the dunes, and Malik took a brush against his shabby cloak, and the desert sand was like tiny sparks on his face. This was hours of walking on part of him, in pursuit of the horizon that kept on pushing away. The sun was now setting, and coloured the sky with fire and gold.
By Nusuki3 months ago in Fiction
Through The Keyhole Blooms A Flower. Runner-Up in Through the Keyhole Challenge. Top Story - November 2025.
We didn't always look through a keyhole to case a house we wanted to rob. Sometimes we could look through windows, other times we were invited in after we cut a lawn for the owner.
By John R. Godwin3 months ago in Fiction
An Old Game
It was happening again. His father, all silent, was standing in the crack of the doorway, not moving a muscle. And he, sitting caught on the bed, did not know what to say.
By Kendall Defoe 3 months ago in Fiction
Through the cellar
Never before had he seen this door cracked open. Clark had always assumed the cracked rotting wooden door hiding in the back of the wine cellar led nowhere and was just there for decoration, it's what he had been told after all. When he'd first started just over a year back, he'd asked Jerry, his boss, about the oddly placed door and he'd said the whole time he'd been working here at The Hecate Inn it had been locked with no living memory of a key.
By Liam Storm3 months ago in Fiction
The Sand Clock That Stopped On Thursday. AI-Generated.
"First, let's agree on one rule: there is no time. What you are reading now might have happened yesterday, or will happen tomorrow, or perhaps it is happening the moment you close your eyes. The story does not follow a straight path; rather, it breathes and twists like blue smoke."
By elhacene benmami3 months ago in Fiction
The Light of the Desert: The Story of Bilal ibn Rabah (RA)
Heavy with the sun, with its rays scorching the desert into an oven of light and heat, the sun stood over Mecca. In a small corner near the Kaaba, a man was lying on the ground chained to the burning sand, his back raw from the whip, his lips dry and cracked. Each inhalation was punctuated by pain but from his shaking lips was uttered a word that would not die.
By Nusuki3 months ago in Fiction
The Recluse
I sit in the closet with the skeletons. It’s dark here. Grayscale. A single candle lights the room—a flame that I’ve been trying to snuff out for years, but it keeps coming back, like a trick candle on a birthday cake, its only purpose to remind me that I’ve spent another year smothering my dreams. Each time I blow it out, it takes longer and longer to return.
By Aura Starling3 months ago in Fiction
He Should Have Just Walked Away. Content Warning.
Mark could never forget what he had seen through the keyhole all those years ago. He guessed some things from his childhood that were just imprinted on his mind forever.
By Calvin London3 months ago in Fiction
Calamity at the Academy
I stuck my eye through the keyhole, hoping to get an extra edge on the next exam. When the image cleared into focus, my heart stopped and my hands numbed. Professor Guilus was attempting to resurrect a dead god. I was sure of it.
By Callum Summers3 months ago in Fiction
The Pale Blue Door
I walk past the pale blue door every single day. It is locked, I think, but I haven’t ever tried to open it. Somehow, I sense that I’m not meant to go in there. My Grandma won’t even look down the hall at it. It’s right by my room, and she never goes there either. I had to move in with her six months ago when I finally left my husband. Randy had hit me one last time and that was it. I decided I had to leave. I had to get out of there. I waited until he was on his business trip, packed everything and left. I had told him all my family was gone, because they were essentially. All except for my grandma, Sylvia. I hadn’t seen her since I was sixteen, at a funeral. My parents moved across the country and didn’t see their parents but a couple of times a year on holidays. Once I turned thirteen and could stay home with my older brother, I hadn’t gone back east to visit family at all. My other two grandparents died, my parents had no siblings. So, it was the four of us and Sylvia out here in West Virginia all alone in her little yellow cottage. Then when I was sixteen and hanging out with my boyfriend Randy at home, my parents and my brother went out to pick up pizza for all of us. They wrecked and all of them were killed. Randy was the only person in my life; he was a football player and a mechanic. His parents took me in and then we moved out and got married, his family was mine. And that was how he kept me trapped so easily.
By Raine Fielder3 months ago in Fiction
The Boy Who Sold His Dreams to Feed His Mother
At the edge of a small town, in a tiny, old house, lived a young boy named Ayaan and his kind mother, Mariam. Their house was very old and weak. The walls had big cracks, and the roof would leak whenever it rained. To anyone passing by, the house looked broken, but inside it was full of love and care. Even though they did not have much money and sometimes had little food, Ayaan always laughed happily. His cheerful voice could be heard in the streets, like a bright light in a gray world, bringing hope and happiness to everyone who heard it.
By Bilal khan 3 months ago in Fiction