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Concrete Coffins

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Nobody expected to face a third world war, but the reckless decisions of a few led to the destruction of many. My parents and I were among the few who found ourselves in bunkers, hiding in fear as the shockwaves rippled the earth above us. We watched the news in horror as cities were reduced to ashes and civilisations were wiped out in mere seconds. I wondered how the world could go back to some form of normalcy years later. It seemed impossible. Even with others like us surviving in bunkers around the world, we all would most likely be confined to concrete coffins for the rest of our days… A decade passed before I could re-enter the outside world, or at least what was left of it. My parents, however, didn’t live to see that day arrive; they remained buried in that concrete coffin. I wondered just how many others like me watched their families fade in such quiet confines—how many were left alone in deafening silence, not knowing if they’d ever feel the warmth of the sun again. When I r...
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A Lost Past

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I struggled to maintain friendships as a child since we were constantly moving from city to city and town to town. Some years, it would be only a couple of times, but in others, it would be even four to five times. I was still in middle school when I started to suspect that something was wrong with my parents; I wondered if they were on the run from the law, and even asked them about it. Mom and Dad said they were shocked that I even suspected such a thing, but I could see in their faces that they were hiding something from me. As the years passed, I became numb to the routine, but once I met someone who became a close friend more than anyone else ever had, and I had to leave her behind as well, I decided it was time for me to investigate my parents. Whenever they were occupied, I went through their phones and laptops, but I found nothing outside work documents and other general topics. Neither of them had social media, and they had strict rules about my having social media as well. I ...
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Shadow Syphoning

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I struggled to open my eyes as my vision blurred with each blink. When the haze finally cleared, I found myself in a hospital room. I tried to sit up, but a sudden jolt of pain shot through my neck and head, forcing me to stay still. It was then that a doctor and a nurse walked into the room and examined me. It pushed through the pain to speak, asking them what had happened to me. The doctor said that I had been in a car crash the night before and was lucky to have survived with relatively minor injuries. I tried to remember the details, but all I saw was darkness; I tried to recall other details, but I was left with emptiness. I couldn’t remember a single detail about myself… The doctor said I was most likely suffering from amnesia. She said my parents were on their way to see me again, and that I should be fine to leave within a day or two. Half an hour passed before my mother and father arrived. They tried to help me remember my past, but nothing jogged my memory. Everything was bla...
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Bent Rules

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My father was a strange and secretive man who would disappear on us for days or weeks without a word and return as if nothing had happened. My younger brother, Alex, and I were still in primary school at the time; we never understood why he disappeared like that, and Mom wouldn’t give us a straight answer either. I don’t think even she knew all the details. As a few years passed, however, Dad’s disappearances became increasingly frequent, and he and Mom often argued when he was back. This led to our parents divorcing, and Mom getting full custody of us because Dad was never around. He was barely even present for his own divorce. After the divorce, we rarely heard from Dad. He would call us once in a few months, but it was always brief. After a few years, we stopped hearing from him altogether. We received no word about his whereabouts, and Mom was worried, but she never told us anything. She knew more than she told us; I was certain of that. When I was fifteen, we received a package th...
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Shadow Justice

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My life changed when I was just twelve years old. I was woken up in the middle of the night by my parents’ screams. The screaming prevailed only for a few seconds; I rushed out of my room to see how my parents were doing when I heard my twin baby brothers crying as well. Instead of checking on my parents, I went to my brothers’ cribs to console them, and while talking to them to get them to smile, a woman stepped into the room. She wore a hood, and had gloves on. I stood in front of my brothers, even though my entire body began to tremble. “I won’t let you hurt them,” I said. The woman sighed and gave a faint smile. “I’m no child-killer, unlike your parents. You’ve got heart, Lia. I hope you grow up to be a good citizen, not be part of a global organisation hell-bent on propagating terrorism and racial supremacy." The woman turned to leave, but paused to say one last thing before disappearing into the shadows. “I’m sorry about your parents, but I had no other choice. There are too...
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Reflections

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Having lost both my parents at an early age, my grandmother was my world growing up. She taught me so much about school and life, and always made sure that I had everything I needed. I was spoiled, even in my teens. I never moved out after finishing school, even though I got a scholarship to a university; I decided to stay with Grandma and work at a local shop. A few years passed, and Grandma began to say strange things, as if she knew she was going to pass on within a month. I paid little attention to those words because of her age, but I regretted not taking her seriously when one day, I woke up to find that she had passed in her sleep. I took two weeks off work to be alone after the funeral, and while going through old memories, I came across something I had forgotten about: it was a mirror that was a family heirloom. I remembered asking Grandma about it when I was around six; her answers were rather short and vague. I wiped the dust off the mirror and looked in, and to my surprise,...
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From Shadow

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Growing up, I could never shake the feeling that I was being followed. Almost everywhere I went, I felt like someone was watching me from a corner. I never caught anyone following me, but it kept me on edge all the time. When I opened up about the issue to my friends and family, my parents secretly assigned a private investigator to keep an eye on me. We had an argument about it, and they agreed to call the PI off. I tried not to allow myself to fixate on my fears of being stalked, and to some degree, it worked, as I started to spend more time with friends during the latter stage of my highschool years. However, those fears slowly crawled back into my mind once I moved from my hometown to work in the city; and in my small apartment, I began to sense a presence I had never even felt anywhere else. Or so I thought… Towards the end of the first week at my new apartment, I began to see the same recurring dream from my childhood that I had long forgotten. It was of a cloaked figure, enshrou...
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