Flash Stories

The Last Storm

hamed Jan. 14, 2025, 4:12 p.m.

The smell of damp wood hung in the air as Nia picked through the wreckage of their living room. The roof had collapsed during last night’s storm, and sunlight streamed through the jagged gaps, illuminating a house that no longer felt like home. Her husband, Mateo, sat on the edge of what used to be their sofa, cradling their daughter, Sofia, who was fast asleep despite the chaos.

“It’s getting worse,” Mateo said, his voice barely above a whisper.

Nia didn’t answer. She stood by the broken window, staring at the street outside. The asphalt was cracked, littered with debris. Their neighbors, faces weary and hollow, shuffled through the wreckage of their own lives. The storm had been the third this month. Floodwaters had come and gone, leaving behind the stench of decay and the gnawing realization that they were losing the fight against nature.

“We could …

The Silent Scream

hamed Jan. 10, 2025, 6:11 p.m.

It was another Tuesday morning, and Clara was already behind. Her laptop sat open on the kitchen counter, the blue glow of emails and spreadsheets casting a soft, cold light over the room. A faint hum from her coffee machine was the only sound, aside from the occasional shuffle of her daughter, Emma, moving around the house in preparation for school. Clara’s mind was already running through her to-do list—meetings, deadlines, client calls. She had learned to function in the silence of her own world, the one where work was her refuge, her purpose.

“Mom, don’t forget the parent-teacher meeting today,” Emma called out, her voice small but steady, as she pulled on her jacket.

Clara looked up for a moment, her eyes tired. “Of course, sweetie. I’ll be there.”

Emma smiled weakly, but Clara didn’t see it. She was already scrolling through her phone, multitasking, sending a quick message …

The Waiting Room

hamed Jan. 14, 2025, 4:35 p.m.

Javier’s phone buzzed again. Another rejection email. His thumb hovered over the screen, fingers aching from scrolling through countless job listings that led nowhere. The words “thank you for your application” had started to blur together. They all seemed to echo the same hollow message—*we regret to inform you*.

He stared out of the small apartment window, watching the city bustle below. The streets were crowded with people rushing to somewhere, to anything that promised a future. He should be out there, too. At twenty-three, he should have been just starting his career, climbing up that invisible ladder. But instead, he sat in front of his computer every day, applying to anything that didn’t require five years of experience, which, ironically, most jobs seemed to demand.

“Javi, you’ve been on that thing for hours. Get some rest,” his sister, Rosa, called from the kitchen.

He didn’t move. …

When the Last Pari Died

hamed Jan. 20, 2025, 6:46 p.m.

She had lived for a thousand years, dancing through Persian gardens and weaving moonlight into dreams. They called her Mahtab – the last of the pari, keeper of ancient magic, daughter of light and air. She had survived the fall of empires, the burning of libraries, the forgetting of old ways.
But she could not survive love.

Prince Darius found her by the palace fountains one dawn, her feet barely touching the water's surface, her hair a cascade of starlight. He spoke of poetry and promised her eternity, not knowing she had already lived several of his lifetimes.

"Tell me of forever," he would whisper in their secret meetings, and Mahtab would smile, for what did mortals know of forever?

She broke the most sacred law of the pari – she showed him her true form, wings of gossamer and eyes that held the wisdom of centuries. Instead of wonder, she …

The Corruption Algorithm

hamed Jan. 24, 2025, 10:27 a.m.

In the year 2205, humans had long since been freed from the grind of work. Robots did everything—farming, construction, medicine, even art. The world was peaceful, productive, and—perhaps most importantly—unburdened by the concept of work. The machines ran the factories, built the cities, and managed the infrastructure. Humans? They spent their days learning, playing, or simply relaxing. There was no need for jobs.

The only catch? All profits from the robot-driven labor went to the corporations that owned the machines. And by law, these corporations were mandated to share their profits with the nation, to ensure that every citizen received a basic income and a comfortable standard of living.

But like any system, even the most perfect ones have flaws. The profits were supposed to be shared equally, but somehow, every year, a little less found its way into the public coffers. The directors of the robot-run corporations were getting …

The Chain of Hands

hamed Jan. 12, 2025, 5:57 p.m.

The first knock came at dawn, loud and urgent.

Maria opened the door to find her neighbor, Sam, his face streaked with ash. “The fire’s jumped the canyon,” he said. “We need to get out—now.”

Maria’s heart sank as she glanced at the packed boxes still scattered around her living room. She’d been stalling, unsure what to take. Her husband was deployed overseas, and she felt paralyzed making these decisions alone.

“I’ll help you pack,” Sam said, already stepping inside.

Soon, more neighbors arrived. Rosa from two doors down brought extra boxes, while Ahmed from the corner house hauled Maria’s heavy photo albums to her car.

“The Thompsons!” Rosa exclaimed suddenly. “They’re elderly—they might need help!”

Without hesitation, the group split up. Sam and Ahmed ran toward the Thompsons’ house, their shadows flickering against the orange horizon. Rosa stayed behind to comfort Maria’s trembling hands as they loaded the last …

A Day in the Life

hamed Jan. 14, 2025, 5:18 p.m.

It used to be that Marta’s mornings began with the sound of the rooster crowing, just as the first light of dawn broke over the mountainside. She would rise from her small, modest home in the village, step outside to feel the coolness of the earth beneath her bare feet, and tend to her crops. The soil was her world, the fields her second home. There was rhythm to it, a simplicity in the steady march of seasons. She knew the land. It gave back what she put in. And the days were long, but not without purpose.

She remembers those days—before the land became more of a burden than a blessing.

Now, her alarm rings at 6:00 a.m. like it always has, but the sound is jarring in a way that the rooster never was. She’s no longer outside with the soil beneath her fingers; instead, she’s in a …

Invisible Walls

hamed Jan. 18, 2025, 6:17 p.m.

Zeke adjusted the AR goggles on his face, his fingers flying over the holographic interface as he programmed the final touches. The alley buzzed with activity, but no one noticed him standing there, seemingly tinkering with thin air. That was the beauty of his work—it only appeared to those he chose to see it.

Tonight’s piece was called Broken Chains, an enormous sculpture of glowing digital links shattering into fragments. It would hover at the city’s busiest intersection, visible only to immigrants and refugees who had registered their augmented reality IDs.

Zeke had become a legend in underground circles, known as the "Ghost Painter." His art wasn’t about gallery shows or corporate commissions. It was rebellion. His pieces were bold messages tailored to the overlooked: a blazing phoenix for underpaid teachers, a field of flowers that only children in foster care could see, and a black hole swallowing coins that …

A Rocket of Her Own

hamed Jan. 17, 2025, 2:12 p.m.

Tasha sat cross-legged on the cracked pavement, staring at the grainy image on her tablet. The launch replayed again and again—Dr. Jeanette Epps, face calm and resolute beneath her helmet, ascending into the heavens. The first Black woman to live and work aboard the International Space Station.

“Why do you keep watching that?” her brother teased, bouncing a basketball on the uneven ground.

Tasha didn’t answer. She couldn’t pull her eyes away from the rocket, the plume of fire and smoke, the boundless sky swallowing the craft whole.

At school, they laughed when she said she wanted to be an astronaut. "You? In space? Dream smaller," the boys had jeered. Even her teacher had hesitated, then offered a patronizing, "Well, that’s ambitious, Tasha."

But watching Dr. Epps, she saw something else—proof.

That night, she pulled out the notebook she hid under her mattress. Across its pages, she’d drawn rockets, spacesuits, …

The Whisper in the Ice

hamed Jan. 18, 2025, 6:03 p.m.

Dr. Elena Sokolov’s breath crystallized in the frigid air as she leaned over the ancient ice core in her Antarctic lab. The core had been drilled from depths untouched for millennia, its secrets hidden under the crushing weight of time. But now, in the sterile glow of LED lights, it spoke.

She adjusted her microscope and stared in disbelief at the anomalies in the ice layers—erratic chemical compositions, fragments of ancient microorganisms unlike anything cataloged before, and, most shocking of all, traces of isotopes that should not have existed in Earth's atmosphere 100,000 years ago.

The implications were staggering. These isotopes matched those generated by a nuclear reaction. But there was no nuclear technology back then. This could rewrite everything humanity knew about history—or expose a danger no one was ready to face.

Her satellite phone buzzed. It was Pavel, her husband, calling from Moscow. She ignored it.

Instead, she …