Today is Small Town Election Day – when small communities vote on what matters.

Small voices matter – when sounded together.

🌳

🌿Evergreen was a town at almost perpetual rest – one where activity crawled. Shops opened late; restaurants shut right after dinner.

And its people seemed to tread with the help of walking canes.

A dense forest fringed the edge of the town, its thick shrubbery rustling like gentle whispers. The weight of generations-old trees, leaves brown with age – pressed on one’s shoulders.

Its reputation? For taking what it shouldn’t have.

38-year-old Clara Moon, school teacher and avid history buff, wanted to give these tangled murmurs a more audible voice. She sensed the gravity of stories etched on every tree bark.

She was wilful about it. And notorious for that.

🌳

🌿It was time for Evergreen to make a decision; election fever hit. Townsfolk assembled in droves at the polling station, their voices tinged with raspy excitement. The station’s hall resounded with their whispers.

To preserve – or not.

Developers gathered at the gates, plans in hand. Then, quiet, materialistic murmurs about profit.

Clara’s eye fell on Little Elliot. The child had wandered into the forest, his teletubby legs wobbling after a rabbit. Before long, bramble bushes grasped his ankles.

A hush fell over Evergreen. The forest had opened its mouth for –

Its prey.

Clara bit her lip. This was more than a child losing himself in the forest-it was the forest’s refusal to release him.🌿

🌳🌳

🌿 Clara rushed into the forest, hoping to grab the child before the forest swallowed him completely.

She did discover – not a child, but a sapling grove no one thought existed.

Baby trees shaped like infant animals.

At the periphery of her vision – chainsaws and axes.

Developers and dismissive grimaces.

The trunks of the saplings twisted towards them, like sentinels marching to an errant beat.

Clara’s eyes darted from one sapling to another. They stared back at her, leaves parted, almost pleading.

She wanted to help them. But that meant exposing Evergreen to their truth –

One the backwater town was not ready for.🌿

🌳🌳🌳

🌿Clara was torn.

To preserve? To tell the truth?

Her solution – a new approach.

The savvy schoolteacher arranged tours for a few of the town’s more open-minded residents.

Some backed away when they saw the saplings, their mouths open.

Others reached out to the leaves – and fingered them gently.

Clara faced those who dared touch – and cajoled.

“Such green magic is rare – your children need it in their meals daily, to grow.”

She turned to the others, their mouths still agape.

“They frighten you. But they also protect you – your peace.”

A few days later, the vote passed. Thinner than a blade of grass.

Plight mattered more than a fight. 🌿

🌳🌳🌳🌳

🌿Clara showed the way with soft hands – and won the vote.

The forest had parted its leaves quietly, revealing a clear path.

Not just one leaf or tree – piles of them.

It wasn’t just one sapling that marched – they all did.

To a single beat that played in perfect rhythm -for the greater good. 🌿🌿

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Today marks the International Day of Disabilities – and by extension, the Celebration of Differences.

One sees the differences. And it’s all that matters.

🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿

Oppora was a city of contrasts -neighbourhoods of opportunity coexisted with those of strife.

Opporan society was —

Competitive.

To be extraordinary wasn’t an edge – it marked one as different.

Like seventeen-year-old Michael Long.

The pint-sized, scrawny teen often received discounts.

But these weren’t supermarket vouchers-

They were off-the-cuff remarks about height.

And they made him attuned to others who were discounted.

🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿

He saw the sidelines -and who sat painfully on them.

The smallest-sized child in class.

The transparent man who stuttered.

The restaurant that only let in patrons who fit its refined ‘establishment.”

Amusing – yet crushing.

Because the ones who should have noticed didn’t.

The boy’s sandwiches were snatched.

He shook his head.

He strode up to the cashier who had ignored the stuttering man.

“Is he invisible?”

The cashier attended to the next customer.

With a Rolex sitting proudly on his wrist.

🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿

It was a busy weekend at the town’s festival market- everything from wicker baskets to the glitziest wedding dress was on offer.

A well-dressed couple fingered the lilac linen.

With the salesperson chatting in exuberant tones.

Another pair clad in tee-shirts and jeans did the same- much to the salesgirl’s undisguised annoyance.

“Please look, don’t touch,” she directed, her voice two tones too sharp.

Michael let out a wry laugh – and shook his head.

He turned to approach – then hung back.

His father gripped his shoulder, nodding his head.

That tone would still sting the next jeans-clad couple.

🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿

Michael broke free of his father’s grip and strode up to the cashier.

Lipstick even.

Hair perfectly set.

“I think they’d like to try that. They can pay for it.”

The cashier gave him a swift nod- then turned to receive a cheque from the better-dressed pair.

The casually-dressed couple exchanged glances with the youth – and nodded.

Michael’s father beamed.

He couldn’t get the jeans-clad couple their dress.

But his trying got them notice.

🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿

Michael and his family continued their festival tour

The events played on – raucous, indifferent noise.

But he knew that someone had finally been seen – even if he was the only one who saw them.

🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿

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Please find a book of my horror microfiction, Echoes in the Dark, free for download here.

Long before rivers were charted and kingdoms recorded on maps, Sumatra’s waters carried more than trade — they carried whispers of ambition, power, and memory. In the mud and currents of a forgotten riverbank, history waits for those who dare to listen.

Some stones do more than survive centuries. Some remember.

History speaks. Listen well.

🪨

The river swelled, covering Aria’s knees. The avid scholar had risked life for art, braving the torrents of the Sumatran river in the midst of the July-August monsoon.

A relic of the Srivijayan empire — the first maritime kingdom of Sumatra — was the goal. With torch in hand, she ploughed through the mud, the river’s plaintive cries rising to a near crescendo.

🪨

Her hands mired in mud, Aria’s fingers felt their way along rocks and their crevices — until they touched a half-buried stone slab.

The Kedukan Bukit inscription covered its surface.

Then, strangeness.

A feeling of being surveilled washed over Aria — almost as if the Sumatran river itself was keeping close tabs on her.

Then —

“Aria. Seek no more.”

A lost voice.

Aria’s fingers wrapped tighter around the base of her torch.

🪨

Her foot hit the base of a sharp stone.

On it, an inscription —

In ancient Javanese.

She shone her torch on the faded outlines of the script, trying to wrestle with a language she only knew through sessions with the lecturers at her university.

But she knew enough to pause.

In shock.

The rock was transcribing on its own.

Scripting her mind.

Mapping her ambitions.

Echoing her doubts.

Mirroring her obsessions.

The rock seemed alive — and knew too well who sought it.

And then she knew — echoes of the past weren’t just echoes — they lived with those who sought them.

🪨

Aria slipped her torch into her knapsack and grabbed the stone.

It refused —

To —

Budge.

She tried again —

It refused —

To —

Budge.

She stepped back —

The stone was history, and it commanded.

Demanded humility.

Solace.

Not ownership.

She left the river, and the slab, standing.

Glancing at her — waiting.

🪨

A week later, Aria returned — no slab.

But a stone.

With a new carving.

Glowing —

Changing.

Speaking.

Her initials, etched faintly.

History still called — because she

respected.

Heard.

Was still hearing.

🪨

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.

What we find may cost much more than we know.

📦🕰️🖼️📖

It was another evening of no social calls or friends for Albert Monterio — the introverted historian genuinely preferred archiving subjects for historical research.

Everyone had gone home to their families for the evening — all but him.

The archives were empty — and profoundly silent.

Too silent.

He combed the stoically silent shelves.

In the strange quiet there was a stack of photographs from the 1946 bombardment of Haiphong.

One photograph stood out.

A photo that disobeyed its own era.

An anomaly hiding among sepia images.

And a strange rustling that he shouldn’t have felt.

---

🔍📷🕵️‍♂️

Albert grabbed a magnifying glass and focused on the odd,
out-of-place mark.

Everything was in ruins.

Pieces of zinc roofing were scattered on the pavements.

Smoke billowed from surrounding debris.

Two soldiers lifted a seriously wounded comrade who was attempting to walk.

Amid it all stood a child, grasping an object that was out of place for its time — a modern smartphone.

Albert shook his head.

Probably some debris the kid picked up, he thought.

But the anomaly only sharpened —
on Logic’s defying path.

---

🖼️⌛🖌️

A second envelope fell from the archive bookshelf.

A similar photograph.

With him, fully present, in the frame.

The child’s device showed a timestamp — the present day’s date.

The photo shimmered, and tiny sketches appeared at the corners.

A temple he was familiar with — bombed.

A street, newly built, shattering in pieces.

Smoke billowing from the debris.

The young boy showed disaster.

Showed change.

---

⏳💀📱

And true to that, the photograph —

Changed.

The child’s gaze had shifted —

Through the screen.

Ever so slightly, staring Albert in the face.

And then —

His outline materialising where it should not have been.

Standing, motionless, beside the child’s.

With tomorrow’s date flashing on the screen’s right.

Albert hadn’t been merely observing history — he had become it.

---

🕰️💔📖

The child’s device showed a timestamp — today’s date.

The time — a minute into the future.

Albert lying slumped in his chair in the archive.

A smile etched on his face.

He had found what he had to.

And become what he had found.

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.

Take time to remember the self.

🌑🕯️🪞🖤🏚️??️‍🗨️

Marina Chua was the classic wallflower—at 34, she was perpetually passed over, whether at work or at home.

Home was just as overlooked. After all, no one noticed abandoned terrace houses.

It had a memory like a sieve. One that sorted the maize from the chaff. The essential from the inconsequential.

Even the hallway seemed to erase her, as if the house chose who it wanted to retain–or dispose.

Everyone knew the drab, cookie-cutter house on the street—they didn’t bother with them.

But there was one room that no one remembered existed.

A room. Where shadows swallowed sound. It forgot people, including Marina—but never the walls.

🌑🕯️🪞🖤🏚️??️‍🗨️

It was just another weekend. One Marina spent, as usual, unnoticed- in life, or in love.

Blending in with the walls of the home – and the room.

Being the must-be-in-order administrative assistant that she was, she decided that it was time for a little decluttering.

She started with the room few remembered – that she seldom did herself.

As she started sorting items –

They shifted.

Appearing.

Disappearing.

The house seemed to be misplacing her – like an old receipt.

Her mobile began to forget her passwords and encrypted fingerprints.

The walls and floorboards whispered names that weren’t hers –

Her family members.

Her friends.

But never hers.

They stretched – and pulled back, as if needling her mind.

Testing her mettle.

Corridors rearranged themselves, bending with uncertainty.

Hers.

🌑🕯️🪞🖤🏚️??️‍🗨️

Wallflower though she was, she wasn’t defeated.

Marina decided to find out more about the property she had inherited from her father when he passed all those years ago.

On one of her forays into the home’s many back rooms, she discovered a small, nearly inconspicuous space.

The dust danced in the beam of her mobile.

A hidden alcove.

Lined with decades of family Polaroids, each of a person who had disappeared.

Then-

A blank Polaroid.

Labelled with her name.

An empty slot waiting for her face.

The room wasn’t teasing or frightening just because it could; it was a room waiting.

A predator, hungry for the forgotten.

A hunger she seemed to know.

Fear wrapped around her, a shroud creeping, waiting to strike.

🌑🕯️🪞🖤🏚️??️‍🗨️

She managed to shake the gripping fear off to make sense of the alcove.

And the blank Polaroid.

With her name.

She touched each of the Polaroids and the dusty shelves.

There had to be a way to lock them in place, to keep them from swallowing her.

Then she thought of the little, cherished memories.

Her dog. Her Mum’s signature fried noodles.

Her dad’s cologne, mixed with perspiration, when he returned from work.

Each memory made the room less hungry.

Weighed its menace down.

Finally, the corridors stopped bending. The stretching stopped.

🌑🕯️🪞🖤🏚️??️‍🗨️

As she recalled her dog Benj, her mother’s noodles, and her father carrying her in his arms when he returned from work, the room stilled.

Every recalled detail punched a hole in her darkness.

With each recollection, the walls settled into place.

The holes became larger.

She grasped the life buoys of her memories-her lifelines.

And she knew–the room victimised.

Not those who remembered themselves or their places in the world.

Rather, they wanted the souls who felt-

Invisible.

Forgotten.

But she had won the battle between her mind-

And the room’s predatory instincts.

The holes widened-

Then vanished.

🌑🕯️🪞🖤🏚️??️‍🗨️

Marina left the room, still weary.

Still on edge.

But she chose to report it to the Town Council for its-

For want of a better word-

Defects.

Several weeks passed. She chose to live fully, tapping into her passion-

Cooking.

Sharing meals with friends.

Discussing recipes.

Watching the Food Network Channel or teaching cooking classes.

Then a stall selling “Char Kway Teow” (flat noodles in soy and oyster sauce).

Receiving rave reviews in the Straits Times.

She chose to be seen again, leaving the house to wallow in its own hunger.

Insatiable need to swallow-

Those who felt forgotten.

Not Marina.

Her life was no longer dimmed at the edges.

She remembered it.

Herself.

🌑🕯️🪞🖤🏚️??️‍🗨️

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.

November 17. Bells tolled all over Hatfield, not in triumph, but in foreboding.

Shadows strayed where sunlight could not reach.

Elizabeth stood alone in a tight cloak, feeling the weight of the crown she held– and its power.

And the eyes that watched from everywhere–and saw it all.

🖤👑🕯️

Dawn broke with a November chill over Hatfield. The soft tolling of bells ascended with the morning sun — not in victory, but with an ominous note of caution.

Queen Elizabeth’s gaze fell over the castle ramparts. She wrapped herself tighter in her cloak, not from the chill, but from the eyes — of someone unseen.

The pants of an anxious messenger were only too audible as he ran into the room.

“Your Majesty… Queen Mary. She’s… dead.”

A heavy silence consumed Elizabeth’s room.

A raven — typically tied to a pole in a corner of the castle gardens — flew to her window and perched.

A death call to the House of Windsor.

In her chambers, Elizabeth slipped the crown off her head. She gazed at its perfectly set jewels —

Each gleamed.

With glittery foreboding.

And the whispers from the afternoon court —

“A lone queen will succumb.”

Later, in bed,

the voice of her mother haunted her ears — and mind.

“Power costs blood…”

She shot up in bed. Catherine’s voice was too loud for sleep.

She trailed through the corridors of Windsor’s halls. Each step she took was heavy with memory.

And weight.

Of her mother. Of England.

The tapestries darted from one wall to the other, as if touched by someone —

Not her.

Not a courtier.

Not there.

Windsor was testing her mettle.

She turned to face the shadows and spoke.

“If this —” she held the crown — “is mine, then I’m your master.”

The room stilled. The shadows lined up to face her.

The raven cawed once, in a sharp, approving screech.

The messenger burst into her chambers once more.

He ran before her and knelt.

“Your majesty, the council believed you would decline the throne. They’ve prepared another successor.”

A figure entered — in a dark cloak.

Her successor.

It lifted its cloak.

Elizabeth stared herself in the face.

A perfect double.

Herself to fight.

She stepped forward, unafraid.

Her double bowed — in complete homage.

It didn’t just accept her — it revered.

🖤👑🕯️

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.

She did it her way–snd we should too.

☕🍂

November rain knocked on the window and glass door of the Wits Cybercafe. The interior of the cafe combined with the month’s transitional energy; it smelled of cinnamon, damp clothes, and thick espresso.

Nancy noticed another scent—quiet competition.

The delicate pastries that Wits was known for were aligned in a complex jigsaw no one cared to fix.

Yes, the game was afoot.

Nancy wondered if anyone else had noticed the friendly rivalry in the air.

The cafe’s usual coffee-soaked clientele seemed to be part of an absurd contest—whether it was who could gulp their hot coffee the fastest or fold their napkin the quickest.

Every sip of coffee felt like an unspoken contest.

Nancy tested her theory, folding her napkin the wrong way on purpose.

Of course, her rivals applauded with extra zest.

A love song played as piped-in audio, defying the cafe’s competitive vibe.

A stranger’s eyes met hers.

Ready to incarcerate.

Put her on one of the cafe’s chopping boards.

A gaze that held both judgement and irresistible curiosity.

Had she broken an unwritten rule by mistake?

The games paused—a heartbeat suspended.

She sipped her coffee—

In triumphant gulps.

And finished the last with a satisfying burp.

Horrified gasps from her friendly rivals.

Grinning, Nancy swiped her lips with the back of her hand.

Horrified gasps.

But the same stranger gave her a nod of acknowledgement—she had won this round.

She left the cafe, victorious—but slightly confused.

The rain tapped on the windows, giving her a round of quiet applause.

Her triumph, though invisible—

Perfect.

Nancy-style.

🏆☕

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.