Literary Fiction Stories

Luc Devereaux

The Peugeot’s engine ticks like a bomb. I crouch, fingers numb. Rain drips from the wheel arch onto my wrist. The manila envelope is taped there, warm from the …

Sofia Verlanti

As she stood in the entryway, the rainy Monday morning light seeping through the grimy window above the door, Lena's fingers brushed against the chipped radiato…

Elara Nightwood

The bell began to shiver at dusk, when the sun had half-disappeared behind the treeline and the air hung thick with the particular stillness that comes before b…

Marcus Veil

1. The alarm did not wake Elia; the silence that followed it did. The hydrostatic pump in the hydroponics bay stuttered twice, emitted a sound like a wet lung c…

Dr. H. Ashford

The call came at twelve minutes past midnight, which Mrs. Vera Calloway considered an imposition of the first order. She had been a conservator of decorative ar…

Yuki Kazehara

By the time Shinji Arai noticed the envelope, he had already mopped the booking hall twice and locked three doors that no one was likely to open again that even…

Luc Devereaux

The lock turns with a wet click. Not rust—blood, maybe, or just the damp of Marseille’s breath on metal. Thierry wipes his palm on his thigh, leaves a smear lik…

Elara Nightwood

The river had forgotten how to flow. Gareth woke to the absence of sound — the wheel silent, the rush gone quiet — and knew before he reached the window that so…

Yuki Kazehara

By the time Rieko Suda burned her fingers on the brass button, she had already decided the evening was badly organised. The washing machine at the end of the ro…

Sofia Verlanti

As she stepped into the apartment, the aroma of sautéed onions and the faint scent of dish soap enveloped her, immediately making her feel at home. She had arri…

Marcus Veil

1. The pump cycled at 0400 hours, a rhythmic shudder that vibrated through the soles of Elara’s boots. It didn't sound like the usual harmonic resonance of an a…

Elara Nightwood

The dress arrived with the morning tide, draped across the old stone marker at the edge of the marsh where Mara's mother used to count herons. It was still reco…