The Omniscrolls

Life always seemed to show me two choices since I was a child, appearing before me as blue and red streaks of light that diverged from where I stood. They were nothing but a haze at first and only became clear when I became ten years old. I asked Mom what it meant, and she said it was a gift that was unique to our family—one that very few inherited. Mom herself did not possess the gift, but she said that Grandma did. If only she were still around… Grandma passed away when Mom was a teen. Making decisions was simple: stepping on the blue streak allowed me to see into the future and learn all the steps I needed to take to succeed in everything I do. I always went with blue as it seemed the safest choice. I dared not take the red path, but I always wondered whether it was truly the wrong path. Perhaps it was just a bolder choice? My curiosity lingered, and it grew as the years passed by. In time, I studied hard and aced all my exams. Soon, I was in one of the best universities in the coun...

I lost my mom in a car crash last year when I was just twelve, and I’ve been living with my grandma ever since. The last thing I remembered was laughing at one of Mom’s jokes before our car veered off the road; that was before I woke up at Grandma’s house a week later. She said I was briefly conscious before being discharged from the hospital, but I couldn’t remember anything in between. I wished I could’ve said Grandma’s house had seen better days, but even when I was six, I remember the place needing more care. She was in her late seventies and barely had the energy to move around, let alone clean. I never knew why Mom and I never lived with Grandma, given that we were all she had. It was a topic that was avoided a couple of times when I brought it up. I didn’t even feel a year pass after the accident. Grandma made sure I had everything I needed, and for some reason, I always felt like Mom was also with us, as if she never really left. Meanwhile, school was always tough. I found it d...

After years of saving up money, I finally managed to buy a house for myself. Fully furnished, and with cutting-edge AI, it was worth every penny. What rivalled the house’s ingenuity was its location: placed atop a hill overlooking a river, it was a magnificent sight to wake up to every day. I barely had to lift a finger from that day onward: the AI took care of all my chores and even offered to help me with my work. I allowed it to take full control of everything, and at the time, it felt like the best decision I could’ve ever made. All functions that I wanted to hold at my house were organised by the AI; it took care of everything, from food and drink preferences to available transport options for attendees. My peers were baffled by the accuracy and efficiency of the AI’s operations, and some even asked if I’d be willing to sell them the house. I couldn’t even dream of doing such a thing. In the year that followed, I left my job at the time and started a business with a group of frien...

I always believed that kindness and compassion were essential to helping one another grow. It was how I made friends so easily, no matter where I went; and it was how I made a lifelong friend in Stefania, a girl who joined our class in Sixth Grade. Many of our classmates, including a couple of my friends, picked on her because of the way she dressed, but I stood beside her and asked them to leave her be. Stefania’s backstory was a tragic one: her mother had passed away from cancer just a week before, and her father had abandoned them when she was just two. She had moved in with her grandparents, but being old, they had little energy to see to her needs. I invited her over to my place frequently since the first day we met and taught her everything my parents had taught me. All it took was a little push and Stefania made more friends in the months that followed. We soon became best friends, often hanging out after school at our favourite cafe to spend hours discussing our dreams and othe...

Mom told me that our family was cursed, and that I needed to find a way to break it if I wanted to be free. My grandfather had been an infamous swindler, and Mom and Dad had both been enablers of his notorious work before I was born. However, Grandpa had once attempted to con the wrong person, or at least whom he thought was a regular person. That individual turned out to be a trickster god in human disguise, and they cursed Grandpa and all his descendants to fail whatever venture they undertake until they learned how to break the curse. Misfortune soon befell out families, as my aunt fell back in her field as a doctor and my uncle lost his popularity as an artist. Mom and Dad, who had been reliant on Grandpa for part of their “income” at the time, struggled to make ends meet from that point forward. No one ever heard from the trickster god since that day, and there were no clues or knowledge anyone in the family could find that would help break the curse, no matter how hard they searc...

Growing up, there was a stark difference between my siblings and me, as they were always getting into trouble at both home and school while I was praised by almost everyone as an angel. This drew a rift between us as we grew older, and we never made up even after we graduated from school and entered university. As we grew older, our bonds never really recovered; and eventually, one by one, all of us passed away without having talked to one another. It was something I regretted after death, for once I rose to heaven, I was the only one from my family there. Not even my parents or grandparents were in heaven; I was surprised. According to heaven, they were all in hell… I asked them why everyone was down there, and they said that my parents and grandparents were no better than my siblings when they were young; they were troublemakers and never prayed, so they never belonged in heaven. I couldn’t believe how strict their policies were. I asked heaven if they could make an exception to at l...

Mom always used to tell me stories of how the sea between our homeland and our neighbouring invaders was haunted by vengeful souls that could not rest. No one ever dared to set sail at night, for that was the time everyone believed the souls would rise to sink ships and drag any living being to the unseen depths. Even our invaders believed it and only sent in their legions during the day. If the legends were true, like Mom and so many others believed, I wished there was a way to raise the spirits from the abyss and set them loose on our enemies, for this was not a war—it was a genocide. They sought to destroy us entirely, and we had not the numbers or resources to hold them off for long. It would only be a matter of time before the worst came to pass… No help came from many of our powerful neighbours; only those who faced similar situations like us backed us in our fight for survival. But even they were running low on resources and had their own battles to fight; it was a situation tha...

There was this strange clothes shop in our town that both manufactured and sold products within the town alone. What was strange about it was that no one who ever sought employment there ever resigned, no matter how many years passed. Young and old, it did not matter, for every employee seemed bound to the shop by an unseen force. The shop had a separate building for employees to stay, and they said that all their needs were met without any issues. The townspeople claimed that the shop owner was a witch, and that she was somehow enslaving those whom she saw fit to work for her. I myself felt a strange connection to the store, deep in my heart; it was something inexplicable. I just knew I needed to look into it, although I did not know why. My parents warned me against it, and when my brother once caught me trying to enter the premises at the age of sixteen, I was sent off to my grandparents’ house two towns away. There was something strange about the day they sent me away. A cryptic me...

I remember fondly how my parents used to tuck me into bed and tell me all their adventures in the deep seas. The rare creatures they’d find, the ancient ruins they’d stumble across—those were tales I treasured each day. I dreamt of setting sail across the oceans and delving into its mysterious depths, but those ambitions were crushed by the currents that crashed into my life when I was just eight years old. My parents were found washed ashore; they had lost their lives with no visible signs of a cause of death. Ten years have passed since that day, and I’ve taken up archaeology in hopes of investigating my parents’ deaths. After their passing, my grandparents took me in, and Grandma in particular had a tale of warning for me: she said she was once part of a team of mountain explorers who stumbled upon a mysterious metal jar. Words of an ancient language were engraved into the object, which seemed to be near impossible to destroy—something that would prove to be fatal to almost everyone...

For as long as we’ve lived here on top of this hill, only one other house stood nearby; and it stood still in time, abandoned and alone for the thirteen years I’ve been alive. Whenever I’d ask Mom and Dad about it, they would simply say it had been that way for as long as they could remember. Their responses were often rushed, and dismissive of further inquiry. My experience questioning neighbours about the strange house was similarly strange, although they seemed more afraid than reluctant. “Stay away from that place… Especially you. That house is bewitched.” That is the most I got from Anna, the oldest lady in our neighbourhood. Her statement made me wonder just what had happened there. “Why me especially?” I wished Mom and Dad would open up to me about it, but they dodged my questions each time. One night, I stared away into the distance, looking at that abandoned house for perhaps an hour, when, suddenly, I noticed a light illuminate a room on the upper floor. It wasn’t something I...

Collecting antiques was my passion. From a young age, I was enthralled by the furniture and trinkets my grandparents showed me. These priceless items were much older than them, passed down from their grandparents and so on. My grandparents were the ones who took care of me after my parents were murdered one night when I was six. The suspect was never found, but it was believed that they were witnesses to a murder that occurred that same night, not far from where they were found—which was later revealed to be the work of a serial killer who had claimed the lives of seven others in five months. That case ran cold, and none of the victims received the justice they deserved in death. And their families, we all suffered an emptiness that would never truly heal. An even deeper void lingered within me when the last two members of my family passed away within the same week, but I was at least glad to find out that I’d have their antiques with me to remember them by. A year later, I quit my job...

I had been babysitting my nieces and nephews since I was seven years old, and now, almost a decade later, it was a part-time job I enjoyed. My favourite kid to babysit was Misha, a six-year-old girl about two hours from our house. Misha was the sweetest and most well-behaved child I had ever looked after, and it was especially amusing to see her reassure me every night that all the monsters around us were being taken care of by her parents. “They’re getting rid of all the bad ones,” she said. “So, does that mean there are good monsters out there, too?” “Yes, Mommy and Daddy say there are some that are just mischievous,” Misha said. “Just, promise me you won’t go into the basement.” “The basement?” My brows furrowed. “Yes, that’s where they locked up one that they couldn’t take care of last week. She’s awful, they say—the kind that controls your mind.” Curiosity was gnawing away at the back of my mind. Misha always seemed to have a wild imagination, but these details were too specific. ...

Just three years ago, this place was my school, its halls stretching far and wide, and its six floors reaching up to the sky; but today, it lies here upon the ground, with only two cloven pillars standing beside one another—a reminder of what we can never have again. As I walk across craters that used to be paved roads, I see my own heart reflected by the scorch marks and fissures that run deep across my homeland. I cannot imagine what could bring someone to commit such acts of destruction. The devastation and hopelessness left in their wake latch on to you and take root, and you wonder if you will ever be free from it. Will I ever be free from it? Yet even amidst the shadow that has befallen us, there still remain glints in the eyes of my younger brothers and sisters in our neighbourhood. Perhaps seeing a few of them laugh and play with one another even amidst the dark rubble that surrounds us gives me some semblance of hope. Perhaps a future to look forward to, even though the horizo...