Top Stories

New stories you’ll love, handpicked for you by our team and updated daily.

Looking For The Devil. Runner-Up in You Were Never Really Here Challenge.
Tom was woken by fire and brimstone spewing from behind yellowed teeth. He could taste his father’s spittle, watered-down Jim Beam. Still half asleep, ten-year-old Tom took off his shirt and got on his knees. Reasons fell out of the old man’s mouth like cracked marbles, but he was always more eloquent with his leather belt. Forgotten chores, an unfinished plate, imagined back talk. In between that made-up litany, one recurring refrain: you have the devil inside. Wincing at the belt’s biting commentary, Tom stroked his right arm, the one that felt the summer rains coming after the night he had finally talked back. The last time he talked back. The night he said his father had the devil in him, too.
By Sean A.7 months ago in Fiction
Mars Opposes Pluto in Cancer (2025). Runner-Up in I Didn’t Say That Out Loud Challenge.
I pour myself a shot of spiced Ukrainian vodka, ice clinks like the gears of centrifuges spinning deep below Natanz-- beneath the salt flats, under the world.
By ANTICHRIST SUPERSTAR7 months ago in Poets
TUS NUA - ch 5
TUS NUA – ch 5 New Beginnings – Mia and Midnight (*)(*)(*) The young women were enthralled with their little kittens but keen-eyed Annora, while still petting her kitten, broke the silence. “Mia, I think we’re all kind of getting used to seeing and hearing things we’ve never seen or heard before. But, let’s face it, I, like many if not all of us here grew up with all the fairy tales of witches being-bent-over, green-skinned, gray-haired hags with warts on their noses. So, seeing you and your family has totally bewildered us. While we’re taking all this in and trying to get used to it all, can you explain what happened to the Moretti family and how you can be so sure they’ll never look for us?”
By Margaret Brennan7 months ago in Fiction
A Change of Heart
The old man sat motionless behind the wheel. He was clenching it tight. The engine was running. Sweat began to bead on his forehead and a tear ran down his cheek.
By Scott A. Gese7 months ago in Fiction
Salt in the Wound
We don’t know what to do, so we write. That’s what we have to offer the world right now — our words, our stories, our art. And some days, it doesn’t feel like enough. Not when people are dying. Not when the news reads like a horror script on loop. But it does feel like something. A thread. A resistance. A way to stay human.
By River and Celia in Underland 8 months ago in Writers
on days like this i crawl back into my skin
in the midst of trying to make a living i forgot to do exactly that - living but the universe ordered a random day off and i woke withe the first rays of the sun
By Imola Tóth7 months ago in Poets
2025 . Honorable Mention in I Didn’t Say That Out Loud Challenge. Content Warning.
The year was 2025. Every day felt like waking up in a Dystopian novel someone was still editing for the plot. Ten dollars for eggs. Fifteen for a four-pack of probiotic soda– If you wanted to pretend you were luxurious, or fixing your gut Biome because, let’s be honest, We’re all just coping with cheese. Sue me.
By L.K. Rolan7 months ago in Poets
I Almost Killed C.R. Hughes
It finally happened. The absolute worst fear of an online writer hoping to create with a certain level of anonymity. Someone I know personally, found my writing online.
By C.R. Hughes7 months ago in Confessions
Four Bowls of Glory
As much as Nonna’s was a place for laughter, argument, and wine, it was also a gladiatorial arena. Where only the best could triumph.
By Paul Stewart7 months ago in Writers
The Voice on the Commute
Mable bit her lip as she looked at her car, the chill of the morning slithering past her clothes and sinking deep into her skin. She was on her way to work. In fact, Mable had to be there in about ten minutes. She had to leave now if she wanted to get there on time.
By Rebecca Patton7 months ago in Fiction
I'm fine.
*** Remember how I never said your tongue cut me like a sword? Instead I smiled and reassured you it’s alright I’m good
By Cristal S.7 months ago in Poets
Businesswoman Chapter 168
MasterMind Classes set a premium on their content. $600 a year got a prospective student the full ride to online education glory. The CEO, Sylvania Crowthers, had set the tempo. She snapped up photographers, chefs, tennis legends, filmmakers, painters, yogis, and even a funeral director. Her abilities to gather such talent remained in her senses. Excellence exuded out of all of these individuals. When she needed an entrepreneur to teach business, Loreen Breen had been her top pick. She sat in her office adorned with awards and trophies. Loreen accepted a cup of some of the finest coffee in the world.
By Skyler Saunders8 months ago in Chapters
Dimmed Sunlight
I keep her pictures in what Generation Alpha would see as a vintage box but I know it is from Old Navy; and holds that smells of old chapstick and age. Photos on all four sides of the box of memories on developed Polaroids slipped in. Lift the top and there she is, frozen at thirty-eight, laughing like a brass bell in a summer parade. In every shot her shoulders are square, spine fluid like a proud river, hands mid-air as though the punchline has just landed and she’s gifting the air back to the world. She looks at the camera the way sunflowers look at the sun with a guaranteed certainty that it will rise again.
By Cadma7 months ago in Chapters
The Plague
It wasn’t the soft betrayal of a trying afternoon that changed me, but the crawl. The slick, unholy hush of frogs in my thoughts.
By Natasha Collazo7 months ago in Poets
Sugar-Laced
They only know you as ice cream Cold, but not cruel Melting just enough to please ~~~~~ You morph into the flavours they crave:
By Dharrsheena Raja Segarran7 months ago in Poets
History Would’ve Burned This Page Challenge Winners
This challenge was about reclaiming the erased, the rewritten, and the overlooked. The winning stories dig deep into forgotten histories and bring them to light with urgency and care. From resistance fighters and buried languages to personal reckonings and systemic silence, these writers didn’t just revisit the past, they made it speak.
By Vocal Curation Team7 months ago in Resources
The Horror in the Reflection. Runner-Up in I Didn’t Say That Out Loud Challenge.
It isn’t me. It’s you. You, in the mirror—static, smug, unblinking. You, with your perfect composure while I twitch and scratch and bite my own tongue
By Iris Obscura8 months ago in Poets
Why Katniss Ends Up with Peeta
Recently, a surprising controversy emerged in the book community when bestselling author Ali Hazelwood made a lighthearted remark about The Hunger Games character Peeta Mellark during a panel discussion. The backlash escalated so aggressively that Hazelwood deactivated her Instagram account entirely. As a fellow writer and reader, I find this deeply disheartening.
By Ted Ryan7 months ago in Geeks
Revisiting Yuri!!! on Ice — 8 Years Later!
That’s right, people—Yuri!!! on Ice came out over 8 years ago. Feel old yet? Yuri!!! on Ice is a lovely little show. It’s a half-figure skating, half-romance anime about a 23-year-old Japanese ice skater named Katsuki Yuri, and he’s having a rough go of it. After binge-eating before a competition due to stress and the depression of losing his childhood dog, Yuri loses terribly at Nationals. He heads back home to Japan, fearing and dreading that his exuberant figure skating career may be coming to a sad and rather lackluster end.
By angela hepworth7 months ago in Pride
"Why are you dumbing yourself down?"
A conversation after I mistakenly let my guard down and said, "the wrong type of thing" - Instead of being harmlessly silly and full of puns.
By Ross E Fortune Lombardi7 months ago in Humans