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Latest Stories

March 19, 2024
Fantasy Stories Wondering Monk

Just My Imagination

The alarm clock went off and started playing an awful tune. Tom opened his eyes and closed them back, squinting. He reopened one eye and stood up to stop the torture. The phone was on the desk, in the furthest spot from the bed. Although he changed his way of…
March 19, 2024
Science Fiction Stories Ocelotlzin

Earth Is Dead

Recording… It doesn't matter who I was; I probably lived a long time ago, and I am now just a voice someone added to the audio-visual records. What is essential is the recollection of events that lead to the current state. So, a little history needs to be…
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…

Torsten, the Viking, was a successful Viking in many respects. He had raided Ireland with Ragnar Forktooth and pillaged the land of the Rus with Olaf, the Bellicose. He lived in a lavish longhouse with his beautiful wife, Hjordis, their robust children, and numerous thralls. He should be happy by all accounts, but he was not. Because every night he was tormented by a horrible recurring nightmare.

Every night, he would dream that he woke up to an alarming beeping sound. But instead of waking up in his beloved longhouse next to his shield maiden Hjordis, he woke up in an unfamiliar nonsensical dwelling composed of tiny cubes. It was dark, every time he woke up in his dream, so he knew it was a very early hour of the morning. The morning always started hazily with him walking about the unfamiliar rooms performing bizarre, incomprehensible tasks. He would don soft, impractical clothes that offered no protection against the cold or enemy arrows. After performing a sequence of inane tasks, he would eventually step out of this house into a world jam-packed with incomprehensible and enormous edifices, apparently constructed by a multitude of mad gods who had gotten terminally drunk. The part that followed was particularly terrifying. A huge beast like a whale with corners approached, galloping frenetically, screeching and groaning. It would suddenly stop its legless trot and open a side of its belly. He found himself walking willingly into the belly of the beast! Not only him, but a multitude of other beings; Beings that looked very much like people except their faces were lifeless, and they avoided speaking or even looking at each other. They just crammed themselves together in the belly of the monster, standing idly or staring intently at outlandish rocks they held in their hands. It was as if life had ended and instead of Valhalla, he was transported down to Hel's realm.

Sometimes Torsten would wake up with a scream as he was being squeezed by these pointless beings. Other times the dream continued bringing him into darker circles of absurdity. For the beast did not consume its passengers but opened its belly again so that the throngs can pour out, in countless numbers, and march with abandon among the illogical, gigantic edifices. He would be marched along with them, enter through a narrow door into one of the million rectangular constructions, and go to a place of incomprehensible torture. His assigned spot in this Hell was something that looked like a very small table, except there was no food on it, and a funnily shaped chair. He would sit on this chair, facing the table alone. There were other people in the vast room, but instead of all joining at one table, each person sat on their own little table. Each table contained strange and unfamiliar apparatuses of no apparent use. Everyone condemned to this place had to spend the whole day sitting on the chair, lightly tapping the useless apparatuses and intensely staring at them. Torsten had seen scribes in the Irish monasteries, intently poring over their scrolls, and their toils somewhat reminded him of them. But unlike the monks, the people here produced no scrolls of beautiful calligraphy, nor sculptures or woodwork. Their pointless toil produced nothing at all and yet so it went on for hour after intolerable hour. Torsten would much rather be a slave working in the salt mines, but for some reason, he felt compelled to sit there, staring and tapping, as if his livelihood depended on it.

The exhaustion that he felt over these long hours was worse than the most intense battles he has fought, and the despair that he derived from this pointless toil was worse than the most humiliating defeats he had suffered. Many hours later, he would stumble out of the building into the darkness, completely drained. He would realize that he never saw the light of day – not even the pale limelight of the Scandinavian winter. He arrived in darkness and he left in darkness. He waited with resignation for the gigantic whale-like beast, who ran without legs, hoping that this time it would devour him for good and end the nightmare. The beast came but the belly opened again and spit him out again, depleted but alive.

For a moment he would taste a fleeting feeling of homecoming, as when he returns from a long expedition and is about to see his family again. In what was not a longhouse, but was probably his home, there would indeed be a family of sorts but there would not be a hero’s welcome. His wife was gloomy, his children indifferent. They would all prefer to stare into their polygonal apparatuses rather than talk to him. There was no smell of roasted meats or salted cod. There were little boxes containing unidentifiable substances that vaguely resembled meat and vegetables but tasted nothing like them. They ate the pathetic fare in stony silence, stonily watching an apparatus that reproduced the sounds and images of people who were not there.

At the conclusion of this debilitating day, Torsten would go to bed, hoping it was his grave, and limblessly collapse. At this point, he would wake up in cold sweat and find himself in the familiar longhouse with his wife Hjordis lying next to him. He would let out a long sigh of relief but the weariness of the dream would stay with him throughout the day.

One of those days, the Jarl of a neighboring town got bored and decided to invade their territory. It was time to march into battle again. The persistent recurring nightmares had enfeebled Torsten but he was still looking forward to a real fight. He sharpened his ax, mended his shield, donned his leather jerkin, had a great repast washed down with plenty of beer, and marched off to fight for his homeland. The meeting of spears was fearsome and much blood was spilled. Torsten was weakened by his nightmares but he fought fiercely and valiantly and received many wounds. Still, he pressed on, filled with battle rage until a spear traversed his torso. Torsten then knew his time had come, and raised his eyes to heaven. Finally, he would reach Valhalla and reap the rewards of a Viking’s life. Odin and the Valkyries were beckoning him! He fell to the earth knowing that the next time he opened his eyes he would behold the glorious Hall of the gods.

Torsten opened his eyes. He was not in Valhalla. He was in the same small room he always was at the beginning of his nightmares, listening to that same alarming beeping sound. He jumped out of bed, crazed with fear and despair. He longed for Valhalla, or at least for his Viking life, with the din of battle, the wailing of the slaves, the roasted meats, and the sweet mead, the unparalleled touch of Hjordis. There was none of that. Just the small dwelling, the indifferent, depressing family, the prospect of a day indistinguishable from all others, traveling in the belly of the crowded beast, sitting at the little table, toiling without any outcome, returning to the same spot in eternal darkness. An indescribable terror seized Torsten as he realized that he was not Torsten, that he was never Torsten, but Tom the accountant. Tom was Torsten in his dreams, but in reality, he was Tom and he would always be Tom until the inevitable hour where he would succumb to the boredom and fatigue and go to his grave without any hope of ever seeing Valhalla.

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