By: Ashley Sawh The lighthouse at Mariner’s Point was never supposed to shine again. Its lantern had gone dark twenty years ago, after the last keeper retired and storms carved the cliff into something sharp and dangerous. Everyone in the village said it was better that way—safer, quieter, forgotten. But fourteen-year-old Lina disagreed. She visited the lighthouse every afternoon after school, climbing the winding, cracked steps with her backpack bouncing against her shoulder

By: Umar Chaudry Mira always took the 7:42 train—partly because it got her to school on time, and partly because she liked the predictable rhythm of it. Same platform, same faded yellow line, same conductor who tipped his hat even when the mornings were too cold to smile. But one Tuesday, the train did something it had never done before: it didn’t stop. Mira watched in confusion as the silver cars rushed past, windows glowing like streaks of light. The wind they created tugge

By: Nikhil Shah On the morning the clocks in Maple Ridge all stopped, nobody noticed for at least ten minutes. Mrs. Alvarez still shouted at her kids to get their shoes on. The school bus still sighed to the curb. The barista at the corner café still burned the first batch of muffins. Everyone’s routines were too loud for silence to mean anything yet. Liam noticed first, but only because he was already late. He burst out of his house with a piece of toast in his mouth, backpa

By: Kyle Song The ferry horn echoed across Elliott Bay as the sun dipped below the Seattle skyline, turning the water to molten gold. Nora leaned over the railing, watching the ripples stretch like molten threads, carrying reflections of the skyscrapers behind her. She took this ferry every evening after her shift at the little bookstore on Pike Street, but tonight felt different — heavier somehow, as if the city itself was holding its breath. The ferry captain, an old man na

A short story by Jules Laurent The first time I opened the cabinet, the light changed. It wasn’t dramatic at first—just a hush that moved across the library like a cat stepping onto a piano and deciding not to make a sound. Miss Petrescu, our librarian, calls it “the settling,” the way air makes room for things older than itself. The cabinet sits behind the reference desk, disguised as a double-doored thing for maps. But its label is written in a precise hand: Lost & Found of