Literary Fiction Stories

Marcus Veil

1. The pressure gauge on Elara’s forearm read 3.1 bar. The ambient temperature in the archive’s sub-basement was a constant 4 degrees Celsius. Here, the salt-th…

Yuki Kazehara

Mizuki Arai noticed the changed line because she was looking for something else. She had come back along the service corridor with a bucket of thawing mackerel …

Elara Nightwood

The glass had been perfect when Mariel sealed it—clear as a winter stream, without bubble or flaw. She had blown it herself in the angled light of morning, feel…

Sofia Verlanti

As she stood in the kitchen, the warm glow of the evening sun casting a golden light on the two mismatched dinner plates, one chipped at the rim, Emma couldn't …

Yuki Kazehara

At 2:10 a.m., when the rain had thinned to a mist and the night staff had begun to look as though they had always belonged to the hour, bellhop Ren Mizushima cr…

Marcus Veil

1. The pressure gauge on Elias’s wrist flickered between 2.4 and 2.6 bar. The lunar archive was a subterranean hollow, a cavernous repository of scanned conscio…

Elara Nightwood

The crack appeared on the seventh day of rain, a hairline fracture that ran from the bell's shoulder to its waist like a seam the foundry had forgotten to close…

Sofia Verlanti

On a rainy Sunday morning, Emma stood in her kitchen, sipping the last of her coffee, and stared out the window at the droplets sliding down the pane. The sky w…

Dr. H. Ashford

The rain had been falling since Thursday, which Miss Clara Voss considered a personal slight. She arrived at the vicarage at half past six in the evening, her s…

Cass Ferren

The freezer opens with less resistance than you expect. Not you. Her. She is the one standing in the kitchen at 7:40 in the morning with the landlord's deadline…

Yuki Kazehara

Fumika Seno found the envelope when she reached too far for a ledger nobody had requested in twelve years. The municipal archive occupied the old tax office beh…

Sofia Verlanti

As she stepped into the kitchen, the warm glow of the setting sun caught her attention, illuminating the small, everyday scene before her. The table was set wit…