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Asfa Afzaal

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2023

Stories (10)

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10 Stories

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3:15 AM

Asfa Afzaal

Just a few more minutes to go.This time, I would catch the perpetrator.They had managed to escape me every night for the past week—always slipping away, even when I’d been inches from grabbing them.But not tonight. Tonight would be different.The clock on the microwave blinked 3:13 AM. The house was silent, save for the refrigerator’s low hum and the occasional creak of settling wood.I sat in the dark, hidden from the windows, barely breathing—though I wasn’t sure when I’d last needed to. My chest rose and fell, but the motion felt automatic,...

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The Blue Whisper

Asfa Afzaal

I. The Forbidden ShadeNo one in the village spoke of the color blue.It was not just forgotten—it was erased.The sky, a dull gray. The river, a lifeless black. Even the flowers in the fields bloomed in shades of yellow and red but never blue.Eiji had grown up with the same warnings as every child: "What is absent must remain unnamed." "When depths call with forgotten voices, seal your ears." "The circle of stones holds emptiness; let your gaze pass over it." And so, he never questioned it. Eiji was a dutiful son—the kind who helped his fathe...

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The Wake-Up Call

Asfa Afzaal

I. A Normal Day (Almost)James Whittaker woke up with a start, heart pounding. His room was too quiet. Not the peaceful kind of quiet—the empty kind. The silence felt thick, pressing against his eardrums, swallowing even the sound of his own breathing. No birds outside. No distant hum of cars. Just absence. Not wrong in a way he could explain—just misaligned, like reality had been nudged half an inch to the left while he slept.He shook it off and dressed for school.Outside, spring was in full bloom. The air smelled of damp earth, fresh grass,...

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The final Portrait

Asfa Afzaal

London’s fog curled like pale fingers against the windowpanes of Edmund Harcourt’s studio, muffling the restless city beyond. Inside, the air was thick with turpentine and candle smoke, the scent clinging to the heavy drapes and the half-finished canvases that leaned, forgotten, against the walls.Harcourt stood before his easel, brush in hand, studying the portrait with a growing sense of unease.The letter had arrived a fortnight prior, written in a sharp, almost surgical hand:Mr. Harcourt,Your skill is known to me. I require a portrait of L...

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Still Carrying Those?

Asfa Afzaal

Her hands were always cold, so he kept a pair of gloves in his pocket—just in case.It had started as a joke. One winter evening, she shivered beside him, hands tucked deep into her sleeves, and when he offered his own gloves, she refused with a laugh. “Then what about your hands?” she had said.He never answered. He simply kept them in his coat, fingers numb, while she blew warm breath into her own cupped palms.The next day, he bought an extra pair. Not for himself. Not because she asked. Just in case.The habit stayed. Through snowfall and co...

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It’s a song for the dead

Asfa Afzaal

The Last Song of the HollowI don't know how long I've been... like this. I don't know how long it’s been since the skies turned red and the wind stopped smelling like rain. Time feels thick, a syrup that sticks to my claws and gums and won't wash away. But I remember the music. My kind loved music. We used to fill the forests with howls and whispers, weaving songs into the branches, and into the air. We sang because we had to. Because without it, we would’ve disappeared a long time ago.Now I’m the only one singing.At least, I think I am.Dayl...

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something Immortal

Asfa Afzaal

Date unknown. I write not out of clarity, but necessity. A compulsion gnaws at me, one I cannot name, only obey. The sky today is bruised with storm clouds. The air carries the tang of ozone, yet no rain falls. It’s strange how I notice these details; they’re as familiar to me as the lines of my hands, yet they do not comfort me. I walk. Always walk. Endless cities, barren fields, mountains that scrape the belly of the heavens—all pass under my feet. Yet each place feels like a half-forgotten dream, vague and fleeting. I have no ...

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So that’s how I die

Asfa Afzaal

The fog felt like a curtain drawn over the world, thick and unyielding. It smothered the Whitechapel streets in ghostly shrouds, muting every sound except for the echo of my own hesitant steps. A dog barked somewhere—ragged and distant, swallowed by the mist. The scent of wet stone, pipe smoke, and stale beer clung to the air. As I walked, a shiver slid down my spine, though it had nothing to do with the cold. I should have turned back. But retreat was impossible. Not tonight. The memories pressed too hard, a suffocating weight I couldn’t be...

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Don't Tell Anyone

Asfa Afzaal

“Pst....pst....” I glanced over at the man sitting opposite me with a quizzical expression. The dim lighting and my choice of a secluded corner in the otherwise bustling pub only heightened the mystery surrounding this unknown figure, shrouded in a tattered robe, as he tried to capture my attention. ...

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The Odd Couple of Armageddon

Asfa Afzaal

They hated each other. Profoundly, irrevocably, and with a passion that would make a supernova jealous. Dr. Evelyn "Eve" Cartwright, a brilliant but utterly self-absorbed astrophysicist, and Colonel Rex "Rhino" Ramirez, a gruff, old-school military man, were the yin and yang of human incompatibility. Eve, with her penchant for obscure equations and disdain for anything remotely practical, saw Rhino as a Neanderthal with a uniform. Rhino, in turn, viewed Eve as a walking, talking, highly intelligent threat to the sanctity of common sens...

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