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Vera N

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2024

Stories (121)

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23 Followers

38 Following

121 Stories

498 karma pts

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Waiting For Five Minutes

Vera N

The world ended, for Clara, at 7:42 PM on a rainy Tuesday.The metal twisted. Glass shattered. Sirens wailed. And when the haze cleared, Eli was gone. One breath he was laughing in the passenger seat, humming off-key to an old Sam Cooke song, and the next—Silence. Stillness. A steering wheel crushed under her hands.Eli's last words: "You always miss the turn."She hadn't cried at the funeral. Everyone said she was in shock. But the tears never came later either. Just... silence. Months of it. Her grief was an empty warehouse. Echoes of what sh...

1 like

Warm Broth, Cold Secrets

Vera N

A single candle flickered in the dusk as Detective Marla Rios stepped onto the front porch of 218 Laurel Glen. The air was unnaturally still—too still. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked once, sharp and brief, then silence swallowed the sound whole. The mailbox bulged with flyers and unopened letters, a quiet testament to days, maybe weeks, of absence. The porch light above cast long, trembling shadows across the cracked welcome mat, its faint hum the only sound in the creeping dark.“No one’s seen them since Sunday,” Officer Keller said...

2 likes

Paper Signs And Quiet Things

Vera N

Theo’s apartment always smelled faintly of turpentine and instant coffee. It was a cramped top-floor unit in an aging brick building on the Eastside, where fire escapes curled like rusted vines and pigeon feathers drifted through the air like ash. Most days, the only sounds were the groan of the radiator, the soft scratch of pencil on paper, and the hum of traffic several floors below. He liked the quiet. It kept the world at a distance.But what truly anchored him each afternoon was the window. His window faced west, across a narrow alley to...

3 likes

Don't Finish the Map

Vera N

The raft thudded against the bank, scattering frogs and silence. Elena leapt off first, boots squelching into the muck. Silas followed, map rolled under his arm, eyes scanning the canopy like it whispered secrets only he could hear. “This is it,” he said, breathless. “Last mile.” “Sure,” Elena muttered, swatting a mosquito. “Just like the last five ‘last miles.’” He grinned—feral, boyish, irritating. “This one feels different.” Everything felt different. The air was heavier. The green, deeper. The silence… listening. They hacked through unde...

2 likes

The Mirror Hall Conspiracy

Vera N

Venice, 1787It was the kind of night that made secrets feel at home. Moonlight spilled across the Grand Canal, shimmering like spilled wine. Gondolas slipped like shadows between palazzos, and laughter—thin, masked, dangerous—echoed from behind shuttered balconies. The Carnival was in full flourish, and every mask concealed a wish, a lie, or something darker.Contessa Elena Morosini stepped from her gondola onto the steps of Palazzo Gravina. A crimson harlequin mask hugged her face, delicate as lace, hiding the calculation in her eyes. Beneat...

1 like

Ellie In The Echo

Vera N

When Jonah woke, the first thing he noticed was the light.Not the buzzing flicker of the bunker’s LEDs, forever dimmed by battery rot. Not the burnt-orange haze from the firestorms that curled above the wasteland like angry ghosts. This was different. Warmer. Gentler.Sunlight.Real, golden sunlight spilled through gauzy curtains, draped across the floor like silk. The air carried the scent of lilacs and maple syrup. He lay on a bed that felt far too soft, too warm, too clean for someone who’d spent the last three years sleeping on cold concre...

2 likes

The Linden Tree Path

Vera N

It’s strange, the way memory works. You can forget entire days from last week, yet remember a golden hour from years ago like it’s etched into your soul. It’s been seventeen—no, eighteen—summers since that time, and yet the scent of damp pine needles and lake water still floats into my mind when the season turns warm.I was only seven then, maybe just barely eight, but what a summer it was.It began in Luzern, nestled like a watercolor painting between the Alps and the glittering expanse of Lake Lucerne. The city was a dreamscape of steep cobb...

2 likes

Max Splat And The Snack Cart Coup

Vera N

In the sleepy town of Brookhaven, where hopscotch grids faded like summer dreams and juice boxes flowed like wine, there thrived a secret society of unparalleled cunning: toddlers. Most grown-ups figured kids under three were too busy chewing crayons and announcing potty victories to cause trouble. They were wrong. Behind the curtain of Little Sprouts Daycare, beneath a fortress of plush animals and half-deflated bouncy balls, a syndicate operated with the chaos of a raccoon rave and the strategy of a spy thriller. They called themselves The...

2 likes

Family Of One

Vera N

The forest opened its throat to swallow the road, and Claire drove straight into its waiting mouth. Pine and ash pressed in on either side, bending inward like they regretted letting her pass. She gripped the steering wheel harder with each mile, knuckles pale. The old house didn’t appear on the GPS, but she didn’t need directions. She remembered the turns. The weight of the air. The shape the trees made above the gravel. Lucy sat in the back, too quiet for a child. She hadn’t asked where they were going. Only once, as they passed the last r...

1 like

Whispers Of The Haunted Typewriter

Vera N

The Kárpáti DossierA recovered manuscript, author unknown. Dates uncertain.(Pages missing, some heavily redacted.) --- March 3, 1952 – Location: RedactedThey reassigned me. From a paper mill to a place called the Ministry of Unusual Affairs. The name alone sounds like a joke whispered in the halls of some secret asylum. No orientation, no briefing, just a desk in an office three floors beneath a bookshop called Lenin’s Ladders. The elevator doesn't have a button for the floor I arrived at. Someone else pressed it, or maybe it pressed itself....

5 likes

Where The Road Bends

Vera N

At the intersection, I could turn right and be home by nightfall — warm bed, unread emails, a life I’d stitched back together piece by piece.But turning left would take me somewhere I’d promised never to return.The blinker clicked like a metronome to my hesitation. A hawk coasted overhead, silhouetted against the burning sky. Cicadas screamed in the trees. The air smelled like dust and memory.It had been ten years since I last saw Elmridge. Ten years since I threw a duffel into the back seat and drove off without saying goodbye — not to Jona...

4 likes

Memory's Edge

Vera N

It wasn’t the silence that told me I was lost—it was how familiar everything felt when it absolutely shouldn’t have.I opened my eyes to a ceiling that looked like peeling skin, pale pink and warped with age. The light above me flickered—not a sharp flicker, but the tired twitch of a dying bulb. It buzzed like something whispering through grit, or maybe my nerves.I sat up slowly. My muscles ached in that strange way you feel after crying for hours, though I didn’t remember shedding a single tear. The bed creaked beneath me—flannel sheets, pur...

2 likes

Midnight's Unseen City

Vera N

Every night at 11:13 p.m., the light in Elias Vant’s attic blinked on—and the city held its breath. The glow was soft, amber, and steady. From the cracked sidewalk across the street, it looked like a beacon. To some, it was just a quirk of an old man with strange hours. To others, it was a signal—an open eye watching from above. No one had seen Elias in daylight for years. His groceries arrived at his door without interaction. Deliveries vanished from the stoop within minutes. Even the mail carrier walked faster past the house on Welby Stree...

1 like

The Silence Between Sentences

Vera N

Claire Jensen stared at the blinking cursor on her laptop screen like it was taunting her. The white page glared back, bright as judgment. Her fingers hovered above the keys, but the thoughts dissolved the second she tried to shape them into sentences. She sat hunched in the corner of the café, hoodie sleeves stretched over her hands, a lukewarm coffee dying beside her. She couldn’t afford another one. She probably shouldn’t have bought the first. She still had two freelance pieces due that would barely cover her half of rent, but this was h...

1 like

A Match In The Powder Room

Vera N

The red countdown hit 02:59:59 as Maya Carter burst into the war room, coat dripping with rain, pulse pounding like a war drum. A storm lit up the Geneva skyline behind her, flashes of lightning mirrored in the sheen of the polished steel walls.The encrypted message waited on her terminal.OPERATION: ASHFALL Status: GREEN Strike Time: 03:00 CEST Target Zone: Grid 14-B, Northern Line Objective: Tunnel Collapse, Covert Interdiction Collateral Acceptable: YESMaya’s eyes scanned the mission summary, bile rising in her throat.They’re going to coll...

1 like