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Some maps don’t like being drawn–they prefer to hold the pen. 🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭 The arrow shifted forward, each time Elias blinked. Tracing a city path– Towards his home. A route he never walked–but led straight to him. Ink seeped through the parchment paper, scaling his desk-An uncharted, sentient being. The street lines converged above the roof of his home, in unsound alphabets– “Cartographer found.” The pictures on the map warp into a dark pool of ink– Hands. Tugging. A shadow stretches, this across the paper. A single pulse–the historical archives were no more. Elias found himself swimming in a vast sea–inside the map. Its waves crashing– A living being. A voice. Not written or spoken. “Every explorer leaves something behind. It’s your turn.” Back on Elias’ desk, the parchment lay still. Untouched by the wind. The arrow traces a signature– Elias Ma ps–Historian. Cartographer. 🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭 So what happens to our historian? Suggest in the comments!
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Some maps don’t like being drawn–they prefer to hold the pen.
🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭
Elias tried to get on his feet, but Historian’s curiosity got the better of the young man.
Something felt off. And it wasn’t just the map.
His eyes scanned the Archives. Familiar. Yet not.
They were no longer arranged according to Dewey Decimal System– but alphabetically, in sets spelling his name.
Street names were strangely misspelt. Buildings on the map seemed to have walked–
They had switched positions.
Panic rushed through his veins. He looked out the window.
Buildings hadn’t changed places on just the map– it had happened on the very Street he lived.
The world.
Possibly his life.
Rewritten.
🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭
If you like this story, do join me on Patreon! Buy this blog a coffee — it keeps the words flowing and the lights Your kind donation via Paypal would be greatly appreciated!
Please find a book of my horror microfiction, Echoes in the Dark, free for download here.
Some maps don’t like being drawn–they prefer to hold the pen.
🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭
The Head Historian had approached Elias Mapps that morning with a task that those in the archives shunned—to restore a fading map.
It simply took too much work.
But young Mapps had little to do that evening–no dates, nothing on HIS personal map.
He squinted at its intricate lines under the glow of a UV lamp.
Its lavender hues seemed to flicker with unanswered questions.
The Pacific, Atlantic…the 70% water that makes up the globe.
His meticulous pen traced the fine lines surrounding the continents.
The line glowed.
He leapt.
As though the springs in his seat had sent him to another realm.
He fell back against his swivel chair, head striking the headboard.
He swore–the continents had moved under his pen.
Columbus’ America had become–Asia.
And Africa had taken India’s place.
Places in his own city were–
New.
Unfamiliar.
Young Mapps blinked. It had been a long day–or he was growing old.
As he left the room, the continents shifted once more, and the glowing line made an ominous curve–
Into an arrow.
Pointing—to a historian it seemed to know.
🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭
Original story by Michelle Liew Tsui Lin. AI tags are coincidental
Part 2 continues tomorrow!
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Please find a book of my horror microfiction, Echoes in the Dark, free for download here.
If you like this story, do join me on Patreon! Buy this blog a coffee — it keeps the words flowing and the lights Your kind donation via Paypal would be greatly appreciated!
Please find a book of my horror microfiction, Echoes in the Dark, free for download here.
Young Singapore boasted 60 years in the making–the island nation’s 60th birthday dawned on August the 8th with customary flypasts, parades, military gun salutes, and heartland fanfare.
Year-long celebrations.
And stamps.
An exhibition was organized for October that year to commemorate the once-in-a-lifetime event.
The exhibition was aglow with stories imprinted on rare paper.
Leonard Chua huddled with a crowd of curious philatelists at the Singapore Philatelic Museum–in the hopes of witnessing–and owning– a rare one.
A $2 commemorative edition, postmarked October 15, 2025–just five days into the future.
The stamp’s backdrop?
The scene he was part of.
And his face, twice magnified under the glass.
The avid collector had seen it all–fakes, misprints–but his own reflection staring at him–
with foreboding–
gave him an unfamiliar, paralyzing chill.
📮📫✉️📩📪📬📭📯📮📫✉️📩📪📬📭📯📮📫✉️📩📪📬📭📯
Leonard tossed and turned in bed that night.The stamp and his reflection gnawed at his mind with unrelenting teeth.
He returned to the Philatelic Museum the next morning,
mentally wincing from its bite.
He needed to know–
How it knew.
The curator shook his head and offered a baffled smile.
“I don’t remember preparing such a stamp for exhibit. Are you sure it wasn’t some light trick?”
The kind-hearted lady was sheepish at not being of more help.
She pointed him to the security staff–and he went through the previous night’s footage.
A flicker.
Distortion–
Then static.
Where Leonard had once stood.
It was a childish prank– a hoax borne out of superstitious belief.
Until an envelope arrived in the mail.
With the same stamp peering from its corner–shimmering, then vanishing in a beat—
A wink.
As if it knew.
📮📫✉️📩📪📬📭📯📮📫✉️📩📪📬📭📯📮📫✉️
But Leonard Chua was too avid a philatelist–with spotting imposter stamps as part of his training.
In the presence of the museum’s curator, he scanned the mysterious stamp under the meticulous glow of UV rays.
Truth literally came to purple light.
A microscopic watermark.
Two carefully scripted initials–T.S.
Capitals that transformed idle curiosity into obsession.
But the hallways of the archives echoed that the stamp wasn’t supposed to exist.
📮📫✉️📩📪📬📭📯📮📫✉️📩📪📬📭📯📮📫✉️
October 15 dawned, but with an energy that stifled the happiest of souls.
Philatelic crowds gathered at the exhibition’s closing ceremony to bid the stamp–and its curious aura–a fitting goodbye.
At precisely 7:06 p.m.
— a blackout.
And an unnatural hush, consuming the room.
The postmark’s hour had arrived, giving flesh to an ominous prophecy.
The lights came to reluctant life–flickering and buzzing–a few minutes later.
Leonard scanned the room.
Light had returned–without the curator.
A new stamp had taken the place of Leonard’s gripping obsession.
This–postmarked October 20, 2025.
The backdrop?
Leonard.
Alone.
In an interrogation room.
History had made another print, with him as part of its cruel gallery.
📮📫✉️📩📪📬📭📯📮📫✉️📩📪📬📭📯📮📫✉️
An investigation promptly followed–one which Leonard, of course, was an unwilling part of.
But it revealed truths–dark and painful.
The missing curator had been crafting prophetic stamps–with archival ink that produced prophetic art.
The ink created before it happened.
Futures none desired.
Like all collectors, he wanted a piece of history–but not to be part of that piece.
He sealed the stamp in a cream envelope and addressed it–
To the archives.
A year ahead.
Knowing that history was shared, not owned.
📮📫✉️📩📪📬📭📯📮📫✉️📩📪📬📭📯📮📫✉️
Have you felt the urge to be a part of history? Do share in the comments.
If you like this story, do join me on Patreon! Buy this blog a coffee — it keeps the words flowing and the lights Your kind donation via Paypal would be greatly appreciated!
Please find a book of my horror microfiction, Echoes in the Dark, free for download here.
If you like this story, do join me on Patreon! Buy this blog a coffee — it keeps the words flowing and the lights Your kind donation via Paypal would be greatly appreciated!
Please find a book of my horror microfiction, Echoes in the Dark, free for download here.
The moon’s glow absorbed the night sky in the village of Lunardom.
A constant presence.
Lunardom couldn’t recall what kept it there.
What kept it strong.
The villagers revelled in its beauty, then—
The sky opened in eerie silence.
No moon.
Or rising tides, with the pulse of its gravity.
But everything felt—wrong.
The night forgot itself—
Becoming restless—and so did the rest of the sleeping world.
🌙⭐🌙⭐🌙⭐🌙⭐🌙🌙⭐🌙⭐🌙⭐🌙⭐🌙
The forest near Lyra teemed with wildlife—not wild in the way we knew.
Birds didn’t chirp—they whispered. Howls replaced the croak of frogs. Wolves sang—humanlike tones that crept up spines and froze them.
A silver glow teased the surfaces of mirrors and puddles—but it wasn’t the light of the moon.
But its mimic.
Lyra was out collecting firewood one afternoon when on her wrist—
A mark.
It moved.
Syncing with the rhythmic movements of something—
Unseen.
And so the path to the unknown opened—in ways that would unsettle and shape Lyra’s—and the forest’s core.
The shifting mark unnerved the typically stoic Lyra-
Who, ever the heroine, embarked on a quest to settle it.
Then, an old journal in the attic.
One with pages that told of—the Lunarkin.
Ancient guardians of the moon.
Her mind—and all she knew-unravelled like spools of tangled thread.
🌙⭐🌙⭐🌙⭐🌙⭐🌙🌙⭐🌙⭐🌙⭐🌙⭐🌙
Lyra followed the mark’s irresistible pull to the lake.
It too, behaved erratically, rippling upward to the surface instead of outward, defying and reconstructing gravity.
Then, she caught sight of herself.
Not her.
But a creature of light and bone
The guardian—or captor—of the Moon.
The being spoke, its voice thundering and gravelly.
“The Lunarkin have damaged the ancient tether beyond repair.” It intoned to the trembling girl.
“The void must have one descendant before it will be satisfied.”
The mark on Lyra’s arm spread—and pulled her.
Toward the water.
The void had made clear which descendant it wanted.
But the brave girl wasn’t about to let history repeat itself.
With a quick, practiced flick of her wrist, she sliced off her palm.
And offered it to the omnipresent, sentient being.
Then, a petrifying burst of silver.
Shards flew.
The surrounding light did an upward pirouette, and—a new moon pieced itself against the dark skyline.
Lyra’s reflection—gone.
🌙⭐🌙⭐🌙⭐🌙⭐🌙🌙⭐🌙⭐🌙⭐🌙⭐🌙
The moon steadied itself in the night sky, its light now pale and flickering.
As if recalling its shattering.
Tides surged once more. Birds called with resounding chirps. Wolves howled, hailing the moon’s presence.
But their rhythm broke through the forest in distended fragments.
Nature’s poor mimicry of normalcy.
Lyra’s reflection was no more. But ripples formed in puddles at the sound of her name.
The village cheered the moon’s return, welcoming it with feasts and dances—forgetting the girl who gave.
Beneath the surface of the lake, a gentle, silver shimmer, shaped in a palm.
Throbbing intently with the moon’s rise.
Paying what was due the Moon.
🌙⭐🌙⭐🌙⭐🌙⭐🌙🌙⭐🌙⭐🌙⭐🌙⭐🌙
The world continued, but lighter.
Lonelier.
The moon always graced Lunardom’s sky, but with a familiar face that took on its dim, sad glow.
Forgotten
🌙⭐🌙⭐🌙⭐🌙⭐🌙🌙⭐🌙⭐🌙⭐🌙⭐🌙
If you like this story, do join me on Patreon! Buy this blog a coffee — it keeps the words flowing and the lights Your kind donation via Paypal would be greatly appreciated!
Please find a book of my horror microfiction, Echoes in the Dark, free for download here.
If you like this story, do join me on Patreon! Buy this blog a coffee — it keeps the words flowing and the lights Your kind donation via Paypal would be greatly appreciated!
Please find a book of my horror microfiction, Echoes in the Dark, free for download here.
If you like this story, do join me on Patreon! Buy this blog a coffee — it keeps the words flowing and the lights Your kind donation via Paypal would be greatly appreciated!
Please find a book of my horror microfiction, Echoes in the Dark, free for download here.
The Getting Literal Writing Alcove 