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Latest Stories

March 08, 2024
Flash Fiction Benoit

Some Enchanted Evening

It was a rugby tackle with tears: Chrissy burst in, sobbing and babbling, hugging James. Her face was all wet, eyes wild. What…? My parents split up, Dad has moved in with his boyfriend and I cannot join them. I am shut out. I have lost my dad. Torrent of…
March 08, 2024
Horror Stories Marvel Chukwudi Pephel

In The Hands Of My Legs

The car pulled up in front of the large salon. The neon sign, that sexy broad thing, on the salon'sroof read "Mr. Gil's All-night Salon". The exhaust pipe of the car was pumping solid smoke, theswirls moving from the car and towards the salon.…
March 07, 2024
Mystery Stories Vanessa Leigh Giles

Casualty of Love in the Time of Coronavirus

Chapter 1 Until Death do us Part ‘Ring, ring!’. I answered the telephone and asked, “Hello, good evening. Who’s this? “Hello.” This is Dr. Smith from Red Cross hospital. “Is this Mr. Locke, John?”, he asked, hesitantly scratching his bald head. “Yes, doctor.…
March 07, 2024
Crime Stories Robert Pook

Bar Room Trigger

Another return journey on footpaths so familiar. He strides across each crack in each paving stone. Regular loose drain covers sidestepped. Mapping long ago mapped in Richard’s desolate mind. His pace hastened by the sight of the oncoming storm. Quickening…
March 04, 2024
Horror Stories Ano Chinemerem

Sanctity

Where should I begin? I could begin by telling you about this comely boy, whom every notable person around the streets agrees his smile could charm the bills off one. Between one smile, there was his goodness, his dreams and humanity—a little far ahead?— but…
March 04, 2024
Flash Fiction Emanuel Diaz

Et Mortui Partium

As Rafael stepped out into the rain, it wasn't the ordinary drops that fell from the sky. Instead, it was a storm of souls, each one taking the form of shimmering jewelry as it cascaded toward the ground. Rubies, diamonds, and sapphires twinkled amidst the…
February 29, 2024
Poetry Jing Li Ava

London

‘Am I in London?’ "I am." Where is Elizabeth? Happy living story All of your chapter Bounlance joy Please my heart Power hand Wise mind Our baby Vow vow Love all love Miss I miss Endless wonder Bring us together Love all love Miss I miss For everything My…
February 29, 2024
Flash Fiction Rob Pook

Life Sentence of The Smith

Born nine months after his country won the World Cup.A child prodigy.Cast off at age twenty-four.Husband, father, emigree, away on the other side of the world.The blue-collar life.The dreams of success.The search for fulfillment.The long years of empty…
February 29, 2024
Mystery Stories Joshua Lowther

The Operator

Jason looked over to his right, his eyes barely able to focus themselves on the subject of his attention. His neck ached terribly from the strenuous movement. He was tired. The captain’s gaze came to rest on the rookie sonar operator sitting tense at his…
February 29, 2024
Flash Fiction Salvatore Difalco

The Chute

At dusk, we left our unit with a soft pink bundle. I carried it through the wet streets and into the black woods. I said I’d take it all the way, the bundle, but that we had to drop it in together. My wife’s green eyes flashed. “Don’t make me do that.” I…
February 29, 2024
Fantasy Stories Marvel Chukwudi Pephel

Tragopolis

In the heart of a vast and mysterious forest lay a city like no other – Tragopolis. It was a fablesque city hidden from the prying eyes of the outside world. It was a place where secrets bloomed as bountifully as the surrounding flora. It was a city where…
February 15, 2024
Science Fiction Stories Jasnoor

Ethan Sheldon's Death

<< Ethan Sheldon’s [Deceased] Brain Autopsy >> Damn, this one's going to be a long one—an all-nighter mopping the floors in this creepy ass place. There is no music or sound except the splashing noise of cleaning fluid. I'm in a hallway; there's nothing to…

O Brien...

That name I had always kept hearing in my dreams in childhood... A name that would soon mean nothing. For in the dreams I never remembered anything else... besides that name.

...O Brien.

 

~x~

I had been at work when I had seen this woman. The moment I met her and saw her clear blue eyes... I had a vision.

A real vision.

I saw our life together, our first kiss, me holding her hand. Our first fight, moving in together. The first time we made love. The day she was mine forever as we said our wedding vows. The hundredth kiss... the children. Two sons and a girl.

Their names, Toby, Ryan and Eliza.

Her holding my hand as we aged. Her holding my hand in that second when I saw her.

She was finding it hard to breathe and I was frozen in the vision as I looked into her teary eyes.

She had been struck by a car, and I was the paramedic.

We helped her into the ambulance, but I never let go of her hand, and our eyes never parted from each other.

I saw it all.

Our old age, our grandchildren... the day when she kissed me on the forehead as I drifted off to my eternal sleep. I saw her finally close her eyes in the present second, dying as the other paramedic called out.

“CLEAR!”

And used the defibrillator on her chest.

The ambulance was still moving and I noticed to the side of her, a man that was not meant to be there. My co-worker continued giving the electric shocks but the man had ashy smoke coming off him and scaly wings.

He looked at me, grinning darkly and as a ball of light came out of her opened mouth, her very cries being held in them, he grabbed it in his ashy scaly hand. Whispering to me, my eyes agape with tears in them.

“I’ll take that...”

I watched as he began to fade away, but the very words he said before he was gone for good were.

“You should’ve gone on that date they arranged.”

“GIVE HER BACK!” I yelled and he only ‘tut tut’, grinning as he spoke.

“Give what back..? For it was only an alternation to a time that had never happened.”

He smiled at me and blew away in the air as the ambulance arrived at the hospital and I followed them with the trolley as they brought her into surgery.

“Name of patient?”

“Kaley O Brien.”

My co-worker said this to the surgeon who passed it on to the doctors and they got to work to bring back the dead. But as I looked at her lifeless body... I knew it was too late.

“O Brien...” I said slowly to myself... suddenly realizing something.

The d-dreams...

And I saw it... the dreams I had forgotten in my youth, yet the name, the thing always remembered. Dreams of total destruction... of the world coming to an end. And of her... sitting on a throne of bones.

“Kaley O Brien...”

I couldn’t catch my breath, for in that vision I had seen my life with this woman... her kindness. But in her death... I had remembered what I had been blinded to in the black of the night.

For a vision is different to a dream... and sometimes the two can be swapped.

And sometimes... the two can be changed.

 

End

Short Bio: Aishling Wray is an artist and writer from Ireland. She began writing at age 11 and has published a few e books, but in recent years has been focusing on flash fiction.

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