Fiction

By Sujatha Radhakrishnan Chapter 1 “Mom… I’ll call you later. I’m getting late, I need to catch the metro.”“That’s why I tell you to sleep early. You never listen to me.”“Okay… okay, bye!”“SAMYUKTA!” screamed Samyukta’s mom. Ahh… I want to throw this phone. “What is it, Mom?”“It’s your dad’s third death anniversary. Are you going to keep avoiding it?”“I said I’m getting late. Bye.” This is not how I used to be—hanging up on my mom like that. But some things just can’t be disc

By V Manjunadh Chintapenta In the vast expanse of the universe, searching for a final hope, two scientists—Clara and Erin—  journeyed aboard a silent, gleaming spacecraft.   Inside the cockpit, Clara’s trembling hands moved across glowing panels, her eyes glistening with  unshed tears as she adjusted the ship’s navigation systems. In the corridor behind her, Erin  carried the lifeless body of a fallen crewmate toward the cremation chamber.   He placed the body gently inside,

By Jivika Vikamshi On some nights Mira wondered if the particles were watching her too. It sounded absurd but so did everything else that had lately started to feel true. It was past midnight on a Wednesday, though days had stopped meaning anything to her. The physics lab was officially closed for maintenance, but maintenance never applied to someone like Mira, the one with a late-stage grant and no life left to lose. A lone fluorescent tube above the kitchenette flickered- a

By Jivika Vikamshi The world had never been louder. Words flowed faster than rivers- tweets, transcripts, auto-generated headlines- each one shouting to be heard above the next. Amid that ocean of noise, one woman still searched for the quiet place where meaning began. Every word Gia wrote returned to her, rewritten by the machine. At midnight in a Mumbai lab, Gia Suryanarayanan watched lines of text bloom and collapse on her screen as VākNet- her advanced AI tried to perfect

By Asmi Mukhopadhyay The Arrival The night sky over Gujarat split with a thunderous roar as a blazing meteorite streaked earthward. Villagers watched in awe as it crashed into a barren field, sending tremors miles around. By morning, a haphazard cordon had formed around the smoking crater, and word spread quickly—scientists were coming. The Team Dr. Ananya Mitra, a fiercely driven Indian astrobiologist, arrived first, flanked by junior researcher Ashok and visiting Russian ge

By Fatima Hussein I am rich . Really rich , got ten mansions , each filled with cars chocolates flowers . I am literally omniscient . Do not be scared , I am not that shallow , well , maybe a little . I have my beautiful wife to testify against that , would not you?  I pulled her closer , she knew she belonged to me , she loved me , she would never fall for anyone else , she would not dare , would you darling ?  She is a dancer , a high - end one , that is how she started , I

By Fatima Hussein I am in the air - conditioned seat Freezing  But I am warm . Still .  But I am warm . Still .  Dust smells like memory  I feel nauseous  I was never good at handling the heat Still remembering  The songs I heard when I loved you  One was How to Teleport  So appropriate  So cold  Like you  Gold  Gold was the color  Of your compliments Orange were my cheeks  I could not cover them  You saw right through me Snow  Snow was the texture of my seat  Had to touch it

By Laura Marie Wingate  I waited until midnight, dad still hadn't put the traps in.  He probably never will.  I got the ladder and climbed up to the man hole.  I was so curious to see what was up there.   Even though Dad said it was mice, I'd been listening to it all day, and I was convinced it wasn't.  So now I attempted to lift the man hole off, but it didn't budge.  It didn't take me long to realize it was stuck with layers of paint.   Nevertheless, my determination drove

By Laura Marie Wingate Once upon a time there was a little girl named Rebecca. She was a lonely little ten-year-old who lived in an orphanage. Every day she was allowed to go for a walk in the park near the orphanage. One day she saw a doll lying on the grass near a tree. She picked it up and put it on the seat. Before she had time to sit down the doll moved.  Rebecca was very surprised, how could the doll have moved, she was only a doll. "How did you do that?" Rebecca said t

By Aneri Nanavaty I was running. I didn’t know how I’d gotten here. In a cold, moonless, faceless night that stretched out to infinity, I was running. I could hear nothing but the haphazard drum of my heartbeat pulsating through my ears. The only accompaniment was my raspy breath rising from my lungs. Twigs and branches, with their stray leaves whipped my face as I kept running, trying to keep a relentless pace. My feet were screaming at every step, cut up by stray rocks unde

By Jessica Jacob The Light That Forgot to Die It began with a silence that swallowed the stars. Astronomers first noticed it—a region of space where light vanished, not by distance or shadow, but by memory . Telescopes showed galaxies that had existed one night, and simply…didn’t the next. As if the universe was erasing parts of itself, pixel by pixel. Dr. Lyra Calen, a quantum astrophysicist known for solving the impossible, called it The Eclipsera Anomaly. But when data rev

By Foo Yee Ching (Althea Reese) Chapter 1 Foretelling the Demise of a Loved One Singapore, December 1987 A loud shrill of an ambulance wailed, piercing through the quiet night. My body felt icy, and a shiver coursed through my spine. I felt a tight grip on my chest, though I could hardly comprehend why.   Glancing at the clock hung on the wall opposite our beds, it was 3 am-the witching hour. I was lying in bed with my younger sister, Fang Shi Ting, aged four, three years you

By Animisha Saxena 16 th  October 2005, Walking down the street today, I found a dime; luminous, prominent, brand new, I honed it as mine. Grasped a very slight blood rush for this dwindle of a crime. I bid that’s how the start of love is supposed to feel like; like you’re snatching something you felt like you didn’t deserve all this while. Like a dooming bet with the universe you won, a charm of a look, dazzling and you're pouring all your wishes into a boundless, deep-seate

By Tejas Gupta I keep my hand over the fire until it steadies, then I pick it up — not the lantern, but the flame itself. It does not burn me. It never does. Instead, it curls gently into my palm, contorting and shifting, soft and insistent. It isn’t hot like the fire that burns and chars, like the bombs and shells; it is gentle, steady, and intimate — the kind of warmth you remember from a mother’s hands, a dying hearth long abandoned. I close my fingers around it, feeling i

By Madelynn Ramm In the light stands a man, and in his shadow cowers a woman. When he shines, she experiences his warmth but when the light dims… a chill skitters down her skin.  A good-natured man with a brilliant mind for business. Highly regarded as a talented sir with a most pious wife. Painted as the perfect couple: a successful husband and his feminine wife.  But the truth is hidden behind lies, smiles and social practices. A wife should not talk, and a wife should not

By Sasha Maria Popham I don’t remember how I came to be.  Before, I was nothing. No consciousness, nothing in my head, I had no name, no memories, no existence.  But then I heard her. She called my name. It sounded so genuine, filled with such determination that I was sure it was meant for me. I believed it was for me. She looked right at me when she said it. She didn’t smile, heavens no,  I knew deep down wherever, I was terrifying for a young girl like her. More so than the

By Vagdha S I. Crimson-turned Kameez Gunshots. Blood. Corpses. The firing was loud enough to make people deaf. But nobody really cared. Some even cried louder than gunshots. People had their best clothes on, now soaked with blood, either theirs or someone else’s. Anyone who tried to escape the garden was pushed down by bullets. It was hard to count how many died or lived. It was even harder to distinguish them.  “Somebody help him!” A woman screamed as if her lungs would burs

By Ankita P. R. The leaves of spring blossoms withered, while hazy clouds wept as though they had never known the regiment of pain. The mighty fire grew to flames, trembling at the beauty life dared to hold. Water, ever traumatized by the sun, traced deep, shallow paths, never to be seen again. The motherland, which carried all of life, was broken and dying, longing for the part of existence where hurtful truths and sweet lies might coexist, where the cruel epitome of life’s

By Zoe Parra El dolor me está comiendo viva, y la verdad es que no me da miedo llegar a la muerte. La verdad es que dejar este mundo es mejor que vivir en él como yo lo hago. Mi vida es hermosa—es tan hermosa que alguien como yo no tiene derecho a vivirla. Eran ya pasadas las doce de la madrugada y yo no podía respirar. Aquella angustia que llega con la caída del sol se asomaba con el brillo de la luna por una ventana. Una ventana que exponía todo de mí. Mis temores, mis llan

By Rebekah Booth Master’s command settles fast into my bones and my heart sings. The fur on my belly scrapes the mossy ground as I shoot through the undergrowth like a rocket. I can smell blood in the air, a trail I will follow to the inch. Autumn has settled into the woods, and Master has found game .  I lose sight of my Master quickly, swallowed by the dense trees. The stink of wet earth and rot fight to overpower the tang of iron. I skid to a stop and raise my proud nose t