Literary Fiction Stories

Yuki Kazehara

Aya found the tank empty at 7:43 p.m., while still wearing one blue glove and holding the other in her teeth. She had been hurrying. The evening ray talk had ru…

Elara Nightwood

The river had been quiet for three generations, which was long enough that the village forgot rivers were not supposed to be quiet. Silas found the lantern at d…

Sofia Verlanti

As she stepped into the kitchen, the chill of the autumn air still clinging to her damp cuffs, she was met with a sight she had not anticipated. Standing barefo…

Yuki Kazehara

At two in the morning, Hirose Naoko stepped into the upstairs hall with a candle in one hand and saw that time had arranged itself badly. There were six clocks …

Dr. H. Ashford

The summons arrived at half past midnight, which Mr. Cornelius Fetch considered an entirely unreasonable hour for any errand of a clerical nature, and from Mrs.…

Elara Nightwood

The frost came down like a decision the world had already made, and Calla pulled her sleeveless coat tighter though it did nothing against the cold. She had bee…

Sofia Verlanti

As she poured the steaming water into the teapot, the first cold morning of the season seeped into her bones. The kitchen, once a warm and inviting space, now f…

Yuki Kazehara

You noticed the brass clock before you noticed the sea. That, later, seemed consistent with your life. The guesthouse stood on a low bluff above a pebbled cove,…

Cass Ferren

The radiator is off. She checked. The coat is warm anyway — draped across the iron ribs like someone just set it down, wool the color of mud after rain, two but…

Sofia Verlanti

On the first cold morning of October, Emma stood at her kitchen counter, sipping tea and staring at the calendar that hung from a nail on the wall. Her ex's nam…

Yuki Kazehara

By half past eleven the rain had found the skylight. It did not fall heavily. It tapped, paused, then tapped again with a patience that suggested it had all nig…

Dr. H. Ashford

The call came at twenty past midnight, which Dr. Edmund Prale considered an objectionable hour for any summons that was not, strictly speaking, a matter of imme…