Flash Stories

The Raven's Dilemma

hamed Jan. 20, 2025, 7:19 p.m.

Huginn perched on the edge of a skyscraper, the city buzzing below him like a hive of restless mortals. It had started as a typical journey—scouting Midgard, gathering wisdom for Odin. But this time, his sharp eyes had caught something peculiar: humans staring at glowing rectangles, their faces alight with strange expressions.

Curiosity led him to a coffee shop, where he perched by a window and watched. The humans scrolled endlessly, pausing to tap glowing hearts and laugh at tiny videos of cats falling off furniture. He tilted his head, intrigued. Knowledge was being exchanged here, but in a way unlike any he had seen before.

Huginn wasn’t one to shy away from new methods of gathering wisdom. He tapped into the humans' network, adopting a sleek black phone left unattended on a table. Within hours, his account, @RavenOfOdin, began to gain followers.

At first, Huginn shared what he always …

The Other Me

hamed Jan. 20, 2025, 4:17 p.m.

The office was quiet, the kind of startup quiet where everyone wore noise-canceling headphones and communicated in Slack emojis. Sarah adjusted her desk chair, staring at the figure seated across from her.

Her exact double.

The layoffs had come suddenly, wiping out half her industry overnight. Jobs dried up as AI models got sharper, faster, cheaper. When she’d landed this gig at NextSynch, she’d been desperate enough not to ask too many questions. But she hadn’t expected her to be part of the deal.

Her double had Sarah’s face, her posture, even her nervous habit of tapping a pen against the desk. But there was an uncanny precision in the way it moved, like it was on rails.

“Good morning, Sarah,” it said, looking up from its screen. Its voice was hers, but smoother, polished, like someone had edited out all the imperfections.

“Morning,” Sarah replied, pretending not to feel …

The House That Waited

hamed Jan. 20, 2025, 6:24 p.m.

The sun hung heavy in the sky, casting an orange haze over the fields that used to be green. The air was thick with dust and the smell of burnt earth. A few years ago, they'd laughed at the idea of ever leaving. But the droughts, the heatwaves, the wildfires—they didn’t leave them much choice. Now, Mara and her family were part of the Great Migration, like millions of others, heading toward the northern cities where the climate hadn’t yet devoured everything.

They had left behind their home, the smart house that had once been the pinnacle of convenience. Automated lights, self-regulating temperature, an AI assistant that seemed almost alive. It had been a safe haven during the worst of it—the house that did everything.

But now, it was abandoned.

Or so they thought.

As they settled into their new temporary apartment, Mara unpacked the last of their belongings, her …

The Seal’s Skin

hamed Jan. 20, 2025, 7:13 p.m.

Lena found it washed up on the beach after a violent storm—a seal skin, sleek and shimmering, its black-and-silver surface glinting like wet stone under the pale dawn. She hesitated to touch it, an inexplicable weight in the air pressing against her chest, but curiosity overcame her caution.

The moment her fingers brushed the skin, it seemed to ripple, alive. A surge of cold shot through her, like plunging into icy water. Before she could drop it, the world tilted. Her legs buckled, her breath hitched, and when she looked down, her hands were no longer hands but sleek, flippered fins.

She screamed, or tried to, but the sound came out as a high-pitched bark that startled the gulls into flight. Panic clawed at her as the tide swept her up, pulling her into the sea’s embrace.

And then, silence.

Beneath the waves, everything changed. The water was not a …

The River’s Lament

hamed Jan. 20, 2025, 7:17 p.m.

For centuries, I have flowed through this land, carving valleys and nurturing life. I have seen empires rise and crumble, heard the songs of children playing along my banks, and felt the weight of countless tears mingling with my waters. But none have wept more than her.

La Llorona.

She came to me first under a blood-red moon, her cries piercing the stillness of the night. Her sorrow spilled into me, a torrent of anguish so profound that even my rushing waters faltered. At first, I did not understand her pain, but as the years flowed on, her story seeped into me like ink spreading through cloth.

She had drowned her children in my embrace—a moment of madness, a cruel twist of fate—and now wandered my banks, calling for them, her voice like a ghostly wind rippling my surface.

For centuries, she has haunted me. I tried to soothe her …

Shortage of Trust

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

The town of Redfield was small enough that everyone knew everyone’s business. And for the last ten years, it had also been big enough to rely on its own emergency communications system—a patchwork of radios and satellite links set up and maintained by two electronics repair shops: Doug’s Tech and Marla’s Circuit Care. The rivalry between Doug and Marla was legendary, a silent war fought with passive-aggressive marketing and undercutting prices. But now, they had no choice.

It was a Tuesday morning when the call came through. The communications tower was down. It was the third failure in the last month, and without it, Redfield had no way to call for help in case of a storm, a fire, or—worse—an emergency.

Doug slammed his phone down, cursing. He couldn’t fix the tower without the rare chips they both needed, chips that were now impossible to find. The global shortage had …

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 Jade Rabbit’s Modern Brew

hamed Jan. 20, 2025, 7:21 p.m.

The Jade Rabbit stirred her mortar, her long ears twitching with unease. For millennia, she had lived on the moon, pounding herbs for the elixir of immortality under Chang’e’s serene gaze. But the herbs she had once gathered were long extinct. The Earth below had changed too much—its forests razed, its rivers choked. The last stalk of lingzhi had crumbled to dust centuries ago.

Chang’e, pale and radiant as moonlight itself, sat nearby, gazing Earthward. “What will you do?” she asked softly, her voice tinged with worry.

The Jade Rabbit’s paws hesitated. She glanced at the mortar, empty and useless without ingredients, then at the planet below. “I’ll find a way,” she said.

That night, she descended to Earth for the first time in centuries. The world was dazzling and strange—lights brighter than stars, machines humming like celestial spheres. She hopped through bustling cities, past fields of concrete where no …

The Frostling

hamed Jan. 20, 2025, 3:45 p.m.

The city shimmered under the unrelenting sun. Streets blurred in the heat, and the news warned that this heatwave could crack asphalt and patience alike. On her rooftop garden, Amara watered the last survivors—her tomatoes sagged, her basil drooped, and her lettuce had bolted weeks ago. The air was thick and still, offering no reprieve.

As she turned to leave, a chill kissed her bare arm. She froze, heart skipping. A chill?

Her eyes darted to the far corner of the garden, a space she hadn’t checked in days. Nestled between the dried husks of parsley was a peculiar plant, its leaves coated in a delicate frost. Its tendrils seemed to pulse faintly, a mist curling from the icy surface like a sigh of winter.

Amara crouched, hesitating before brushing her fingers against a frosted leaf. It was cold—unnaturally so. The temperature around it dropped sharply, and she gasped as …

The Last Delivery

hamed Jan. 20, 2025, 4:11 p.m.

The warehouse hummed with the sound of drones, their metallic wings buzzing as they zipped off into the sky. Nathan sat at his console, staring at the blinking prompt on the screen: "Begin final manual delivery?"

Tomorrow, the drones would handle it all—no pilots, no human touch. Nathan's job would be gone, replaced by algorithms and efficiency metrics. But today, he still had control.

He scanned the address: 142 Balsam Street. The package was small, light. "Garden seeds," the manifest said.

He activated the drone, taking manual control for the last time. Through his headset, the world shrank to the drone’s camera feed.

Balsam Street was quiet, the kind of street where time seemed to slow. The drone hovered above a modest brick house with a weathered front porch. Nathan lowered it carefully to the doorstep, watching as the delivery notification chimed.

But before he could pull back, the door …