Stories - Long Story Short Award - 2026 - page 1 - all works

Short Fiction

5 min

Sparkles

The brochure sat on my desk for three weeks before I opened it. I found it wedged between flyers for tutoring services and student apartment advertisements, its gold lettering catching the light every ... [+]

Short Fiction

5 min

Reunited by Time, Somehow

Connor F

This didn't look like the small yard by his apartment. As he sat up in wind blown grass, he realized this wasn't anywhere near home at all. This looked like an outpost, somewhere in the outskirts ... [+]

Short Fiction

5 min

Until I became you

Josephine Oduraa Attafuah

Maa Afia dropped her bags on the thick woolen carpet in the room that was supposed to be her new home in the coming years and sighed. The 16-hour journey across the Atlantic had finally come to an ... [+]

Short Fiction

4 min

Ghost

Nic Buccilli

Waking up in Seattle an hour ago felt like being home after drifting soullessly through the Midwest, a return to the clarity I had felt living here three summers ago. Except, one thing was unclea ... [+]

Short Fiction

5 min

Trench

Lauren Davis

He couldn't think. Not one speck of an unpanicked thought managed to sneak into Levi's mind as he sat on the damp, dreary earth. The walls of the sunken trench around him seemed to close ... [+]

Short Fiction

4 min

Warplanes Overhead

Nanak Gaban

"Salag!"
People crowded the door and windows so densely, they blocked out the light. Shouts and screams flooded from the streets. My head pulsed against the din, still disoriented afte ... [+]

Short Fiction

4 min

Twenty-Five Litres

Chidalu Nnorukah

I had just come back from school when Mummy sent me to fetch water from the next town. I grabbed the empty 25-litre keg and jogged all the way, happy to be out of the house.
At the tank, a long ... [+]

Short Fiction

5 min

The Life on the other side

esther izangu

The first thing I noticed was that somebody had stolen my hands.
The hands on the bedsheet were pale, with a faint scar across the right thumb. Mine were brown, with a tiny crescent scar near the ... [+]