The Omniscrolls

Since I was small, I had this lingering sense that something was missing, or rather, suppressed. I couldn’t understand what it was, or even why I felt that way, and whenever I brought it up with my parents, they were quick to talk about anything else. As the years passed, however, I began to notice things others didn’t: patterns that no one else but me could see. Whenever I was happy, I saw that everyone around me was peaceful and content, but whenever I was sad or angry, only misfortune seemed to encircle the people I cared about. My parents had fights, my siblings failed their classes, and even my grandfather fell ill. When I reached my teens, things became worse. My parents’ marriage was strained to the point where they were considering a divorce, and both my siblings were slowly isolating themselves and sinking deeper into depression. I asked my parents’ advice and saw a therapist, but even though I saw better progress over time, it seemed like my family’s mental health was yet to ...

My father was a heavy gambler, and he seemed to have luck on his side for the longest time before one day, he began to lose again and again. Mom pleaded with him to stop, but he ignored her and continued to spiral down that rabbit hole. Eventually, she filed for a divorce, and he was barred from seeing us. Dad once told me that his late mother was a witch, and that she had a grimoire that he would use from time to time. He said it granted him luck. I wondered if whatever spell he used had backfired at some point, or if it simply had run its course. As I grew older and reconnected with Dad, I learned that he had indeed stopped using the grimoire around the same time his winning streak ended. He said the spell he used consumed a portion of his soul at a time, shortening his lifespan. He didn’t want to continue that spell, but he couldn’t let go of gambling either. I pitied him. I asked Dad if I could borrow Grandma’s grimoire to boost my research. Dad agreed, but he warned me not to make...

For as long as I could remember, I had always been clumsy in the most dangerous of ways. I would often fall down stairs and run my bike into trees, but somehow, I would also walk away from such accidents with barely a scratch on me. My parents were both terrified and astonished; they said I had the wildest luck imaginable. I found ‘chaotic’ to be a more accurate description of it as I grew up. Even after I had moved out and started working, I would often run into accidents both indoors and on the road. I would often fall in the office or crash my car on the road. My accidents were so frequent that the insurance company knew me on a first-name basis and dreaded it whenever I called. My parents urged me to sell my car and use a taxi, or even public transport, but I did not feel it was necessary. I never got hurt, and I never hurt anyone else either. I found it strange, recognizing the pattern of not even causing any property damage in my accidents. However, given how many times I crashed...

I had a brown bear soft toy for as long as I could remember, and we were inseparable. Ms. Bear and I would often have long conversations, and I always loved listening to her wise words. However, she never spoke in front of my parents. The first time I attempted to speak to her in front of them, she stayed silent, making my parents laugh and brush it off as my imagination. I was disappointed and ignored her that evening until she told me that if she revealed her powers to anyone but me, she would cease to exist. Ms. Bear was my guardian angel; her presence was meant to be a secret. She made me promise never to reveal it to anyone. I agreed. As the years passed by, Ms. Bear saved my life several times, much to the confusion of my parents, who didn’t understand how I managed to get out of the pool when I couldn’t yet swim, or how I avoided injuries after falling from my bike. Ms. Bear even protected me from threatening strangers, driving them away with what she called her “foreboding aura...

I was just six years old when I learned that I could speak to animals. My parents said it was just my imagination, but even back then, I knew they were wrong. Every sound they made, I could clearly figure out what they wanted to say. Other children my age didn’t believe me, and some even avoided me after I revealed my secret. Mom urged me not to speak of it with anyone else; she said people would only ostracise me even more. I took her advice and kept things to myself. Towards the end of my schooling years, however, my abilities helped me excel at my job at an animal shelter. I was able to detect any animal that was in distress, and I always knew exactly what was worrying them. One of my colleagues said I should become a vet, which I had already considered but was hesitant to pursue. After a discussion with my parents, I was convinced that it was the job that suited me the most. A few years later, I had my own clinic, and it wasn’t long before many people from my hometown, and even its...

As a child, I would often see figures moving in the corners; silhouettes that stuck to the shadows and lingered in the distance. Whenever I brought the matter up to my parents, they dismissed it. They said it was just my imagination. However, it only got worse as I grew older, and I would often run to my parents’ room, fearing that monsters were out to get me. I was a stubborn child, often refusing to sleep in my room. One day, however, my mom was able to convince me that our cat, Jupiter, would take care of any monsters that would try to hurt us. Jupiter was my grandma’s cat; we adopted her right after Grandma passed away. From the day she joined our family, Jupiter always seemed to be inspecting the surroundings. She would never leave my side when I was alone, and even slept in my room. Whenever I heard or saw something, Jupiter would run in that direction even before I could react, and I would often hear her hissing and growling at the shadows until any presence I felt disappeared. ...

My parents prohibited me from taking photos of myself. They were so strict about this rule that even my friends were asked never to do it. I didn’t think about it when I was much younger, but once I reached middle school, I began to grow tired of their rules. They said taking photos only brought misfortune upon our family, and that both my grandmother and my aunt lost their lives because of it. They never really opened up about why they avoided taking photos until that day. Mom told me that some of her ancestors were witches, and that there was a curse on our family from over a century ago that siphoned a portion of our soul each time we took a photo of ourselves. It didn’t matter whether the family member was a witch or not, the curse would still flow through the bloodline. Mom also said that I was a witch, unlike her, so the curse would be even more potent for me. I was speechless and confused, since I had never been able to use magic, but Mom said there was magic emanating from me w...

I learned as a child that I could easily manipulate people and situations in my favour. When I told my mom what I could do, she asked me never to reveal my secret to anyone, and to use my powers only for good. Mom made me promise to use my powers sparingly to avoid unnecessary attention; I kept that promise as I grew up. I sometimes manipulated the rich into providing homeless people all the financial aid they needed to get back on their feet; other times, I’d alter people’s minds so that they could get through addiction and other self-destructive behaviour. In time, my hometown became well-known for its peaceful environment. Homelessness was obsolete, and even crime rates were near zero. I felt blessed that my gift had such an impact on those around me, and that I was able to help shape my hometown into what it was. I made it a point not to use my powers for personal gain in most situations, but every now and then, I would use it to tweak my scores for projects and exams whenever I wa...

As a child, I would often lose time thinking about death and what I wanted my last rites to be. I could never explain why my mind lingered on the topic, and whenever I brought the topic up with my parents, they would immediately ask me to stop. “You shouldn’t talk about such things,” they’d say; “We’ll be long gone before, and you have a long life ahead of you.” I replied with “You never know what’s in store for you,” and left the topic there. I understood where my parents were coming from, but it was just a topic my mind would often circle back to, though I didn’t know why. My two elder sisters were more open to hearing me out, but even they grew tired of the topic as my mind delved deeper into questions on death: what it would be like in those final moments, or just after? What lay in wait once our bodies were nothing but a memory? The young me had so many questions on her mind… When I was in middle school, one of my friends introduced me to a fantasy game that had me hooked from the...

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...

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,...

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...

As a child, I always had the feeling that someone was watching me. Whenever I was travelling, I could sense that someone or something was following me, even though I found nothing whenever I looked around. My parents didn’t think much of it at first, but seeing how scared I was, they made it a habit to never allow me out of their sight. These feelings lingered as I grew older, although they weren’t as strong as before. I would sometimes sense a presence around me whenever I did my homework—and I could have sworn I heard whispers echoing in the air sometimes in the dead silence of the school library. This weird experience led me to write short stories in my spare time, and I even got the idea to write a novel one day. Writing helped me pour out my experiences in a way that nothing else did, and I often found it soothing. Following my parents’ advice, I also saw a therapist as a teenager, but while the sessions helped me to some degree, the sense of brewing danger never truly faded. In t...

As a child, I was always fascinated by death, especially when exploring myths and legends that covered Death as an entity. This became an obsession as I reached my teenage years, and even led me to pursue subjects like mythology and theology in my higher studies. One night, I was driving home after work when my brakes stopped working, forcing me off the road and into a lamp post. When I woke up, or what I thought was waking up, I found myself in a hospital room, but my soul was floating next to my body. Mom and Dad were there, so were a few of my relatives. “Am I dead?” I asked myself. “No, you still have time, although how much may depend on you,” a voice rose from behind. I turned around to find a figure standing before me, dressed in dark attire and with an aura that was alluring for reasons I couldn’t comprehend. “Who… Who are you?” I asked. “I’m the one person you’ve been searching for information about all your life; the same person your mother asked you not to ask questions abou...

My father was a dealer at a casino, but it was not long before he himself became a gambler. It was just a hobby for him at first, but later, it spiralled into a full-blown addiction. He was on a winning streak for weeks, often bringing Mom and me lots of presents and treating us to many luxurious meals at places I had never even heard of before. However, those happy memories were short-lived once he started losing. This caused tension between Mom and Dad as Dad refused to fight off his addiction and seek professional help. Mom, exhausted by his stubbornness, divorced Dad just a year later, and I rarely got to see him afterwards. I was just ten at the time, so I didn’t understand much, but entering my teens, the reality of what happened weighed on me more and more as the years passed by. Remembering how I enjoyed Dad’s gambling stories, I feared going down a similar path. Ten years have passed since the divorce, and Dad and I meet once a month to catch up. He has relapsed a few times si...