Mystery

Waiting. Runner-Up in Something Is Beginning, I Think Challenge. Top Story - March 2026.
It could have been the perfect summer day. The hot July sun warmed the water in the backyard pool just enough to be comfortable and refreshing. The laughter of the five little girls echoed against the splashing water as they chased each other in a classic game of Marco Polo. The game distracted them enough that they failed to notice the dipping sun nearing the horizon. Their fingers and toes had long ago turned wrinkly like raisins, but none wondered why they had been left to play so long today.
By A. J. Schoenfeld15 days ago in Fiction
Above From Below: Part 2
Above From Below: Part 1 Part 2 From the window of his dark, barely powered, second-floor office, Rick Steele stared into the even more dismal outdoors, a cigarette hanging from beneath his unshaven lip. The humidity in the air was thick, and Rick felt beads of sweat running down from his temples. His shirt was shadowed by sweat, even in the dimly lit office space. As he blew the smoke out of the open window, watching the drops bounce off the several inches of flood waters covering the street below, the buzzing alarm from his phone told him it was time to leave.
By Jason Morton15 days ago in Fiction
Confessions
A man begins therapy, trying to make sense of a growing unease he cannot name. But as his words unfold, it becomes clear that what he is “remembering” may not belong to the past...
By Lori A. A.15 days ago in Fiction
THE CHANGE
The first thing that changed was so small it almost seemed like a mistake. Erica noticed it while rinsing a glass, the water running louder than it should have, or maybe thinner, as if it had somewhere else to be. She turned the faucet off and on again, testing it, but the sound didn’t return to what she thought it had been. It stayed slightly off, like a word pronounced almost correctly.
By Pamela Dirr15 days ago in Fiction
Painful Lucid Dream?
Something is beginning, I think. Is it a song breaking out from my lungs? A scream? A chest pain busting my ribs? Or nothing, really? Oh no, it is something. It makes me ache. But what is it?
By Lana V Lynx15 days ago in Fiction
Before It Settles
It started before I noticed it. That’s the part I keep returning to—not the moment itself, but the idea that there must have been one, somewhere behind me, already passed. A shift too small to name at the time. A sentence half-spoken. A decision not fully made.
By Melissa 15 days ago in Fiction
A Grave Concern
It was a Tuesday afternoon. The clock on the microwave read twelve o’clock. Outside, the clouds were darker than usual, and while there was no scorching sun that day, nor had the precipitation yet begun, there was still enough humidity to leave any person that wandered outside drenched in sweat.
By Jebus! 16 days ago in Fiction
The Sound of a Door That Never Opens
It begins with a sound no one else hears - the careful turning of a door handle in an empty hallway. What follows is not fear, but the quiet sense that something is waiting to begin.
By Lori A. A.16 days ago in Fiction
A Knock At The Door
What do you do when there’s a knock at the door? Normally you will go and answer it, see who it is , invite them in or send them on their way. That’s what any normal person in a normal situation would do.
By Mike Singleton 💜 Mikeydred 16 days ago in Fiction
The House With One Lamp On
A literary fiction short story about estrangement, memory, and returning to the edge of a beginning without resolution. By the time Mara turned onto Bishop Road, the rain had thinned to a silver mist, the kind that did not so much fall as hover, as though the sky had forgotten whether it meant to finish what it started.
By Flower InBloom16 days ago in Fiction
The perfect night
Giorgia didn’t really believe in first dates anymore. After so many disappointments, she had almost stopped using dating apps. But that night she made an exception.
By Gihan Mansory16 days ago in Fiction
Hue and The Discovery of Manipo (Chapter 1). AI-Generated.
Being able to manipulate time — and slip into nearly any moment in history — comes with advantages so vast they’re almost impossible to rank. But two always rise to the top.
By Lorenzo Bland16 days ago in Fiction