Fiction: The Divergent, a short story

The Divergent⌛

A short story, by Erik Engström, 2026-06-01

Midnight had long since passed when the two figures passed by the alley.

A city is a living organism and the pulse had slowed down after the break of night. Cars and people that makes up the artificial bloodstream had vanished like every other night in the city.

It took only a few seconds before the two silhouettes came back after having seen something strange further down the road and instead made the unwise decision to take a shortcut through the alley in order to reach the subway faster.

Huron Yetao and Thema Reno had just performed a mission as contractors for The Time Council, in which they had been tasked with an assassination. The time council usually avoids interfering with the timeline directly, as they believe the unaltered timeline is the most pure and correct. So, when the order had reached them, they could at first not believe the mission or who the target was.

Further into the alley, a slumped-up shadow in a filthy doorway barely caught the attention of the two agents who were visibly agitated and walking rapidly to the other end.

Joanney Sutton was used to be unseen by fellow people, to the two people jogging past he was no one, but even a nobody can become a somebody, those who are not seen are sometimes the ones that see the most.

The two agents hadn't made it very far when yet another person stepped into the alley from the other end. A metallic sound, the familiar noise of a slide being racked on a gun was heard coming from the other end of the alley. The hooded figure aimed at the two agents and fired several shots in rapid succession. Debris fell from the concrete wall and landed on Joanney, who froze from the shock and surprise. Seeing both Thema and Huron being immobilized on the ground the assassin retreated out of the alley and into the street.

For a moment everything was quiet. It had all happened so fast, but Joanney came to and brushed the concrete crumbles out of his hair and from his clothes. After a few seconds a coughing was heard from one of the agents. It was Thema who tried to get up, failed and fell back to the ground with a loud splutter.

Joanney who was just mere meters away, crawled out of the shallow doorway and over to the pair. Thema turned her head to him and with eyes that pleaded, she spoke "my watch, take it, stop them" with her final words, as her body gave up and became one with the ground. Had he been anyone else then he might have ran off in fear, but something about the way she spoke her last words made him act.

Her wrist was still warm as he pried the strange wristwatch off from her arm. A green and blue light was dimly lighting up his face as he held it up. The assassin was gone and so were the agents, so he quickly decided to go back the way the agents had come from.

He rounded the corner as he came out to the street, on the other side was an empty parking lot and a few dark corners to hide in. Joanney stealthily made it over to one of the hiding spots and looked closer at the watch. It had a few buttons, one of which was labelled "home". The watch face displayed a set of coordinates and unlike a regular wristwatch it displayed not just hours, minutes and seconds, but also the year and another number he couldn't figure out the meaning off. The backside of the watch was engraved with TTC and the initials T.R.

Having no place to call home since the incident, he pressed the home button in curiosity.

The display changed to a black screen, and strange code in green now covered the monitor.

"Confirming user... status... failed"
"Confirming timeline ID.... success"
"Checking vitals... success"
"Wielder will be temporally relocated in 10 seconds"

It had managed to count to seven before Joanney reacted, hastily strapping the wristwatch to his arm, in all his hurry he even managed to put it on the wrong way, leaving the watch face upside down.

Being transported in spacetime is an unpleasant feeling, not because it feels strange, but because you don't feel it.

As both the waves of light and the molecules touching you are affected, your mind simply cannot comprehend the experience.

For him it was no different, when he arrived all the senses returned at the same time, just as light returns after a blackout, leaving him disorientated.

He arrived, suffering from acute time travel sickness, but he was in relatively good shape.

Looking around himself, he noticed that he was in what almost looked like a reception area of an office.

Two receptionists looked over at him from a desk, almost apathetically, as if they barely registered his arrival. Then they continued with the paperwork that they had in front of them.

He sat down on a bench, fiddling with the device which display now had returned to normal. The coordinates had changed and so had the time, not only was he not in the same time zone, he was in a completely different timeline now.
An hour went by when one of the large doors on the side opened up and a man in a suit walked out, locking his eyes onto Joanney.

The suit didn’t present himself, just said “come with me, we know everything”.
Joanney who was still dazed from his first journey through time didn’t put up a fight and just played along. They walked through the same door that the man had arrived from and continued through a long corridor. Judging by the sound of their footsteps and the structure of the bright walls, they were in a corridor made of cheap metal.

He looked around as they continued on and noticed a woman with short red hair who was packing a bag inside of a room. Their eyes met and there was something familiar with her face and she looked at him and her facial expression revealed a similar instinct.

They turned around a corner and arrived in a room. He didn’t have time to connect the dots before the suit finally spoke again. “I know you witnessed something you shouldn’t have. I am going to make the choice simple for you. Either you cooperate with us or you will expire here today.”

Intimidated Joanney spoke hesitantly, “what do you need me to do exactly?” and shifted uncomfortably.

“I need you to finish the job next time, one of the agents survived the ambush, your ambush”, said the suit calmly but with a voice that commanded respect.

“Wait, that was me?” Joanney replied confused and shocked, “how is that possible?”

“The timeline is broken thanks to the three of you and this is the way to set it straight again. The council does not approve of any divergence. You will be provided with the equipment that you will need and you leave shortly again. In the meantime, make peace with yourself.” The suit ended the discussion and left the room.

Half a minute later Joanney stood with his back against the door, still confused about the past conversation, when he heard a faint voice.

“Hello Joanney”, spoke the voice from the door. He turned around and saw the red-haired woman from earlier. “I believe you have my watch”, she said with a voice that hid sadness not nearly well enough. It was at that moment he recognized her eyes. She was one of the agents. She knew that he knew and cut him off before the words had even left his mouth.

“I know what he asked of you. I am here to ask the same. Listen, the integrity of the timeline is more important than our lives, your life. I know he wants us dead, but if you save us, you will break the timeline. You don’t have much time, you must choose quickly, I need to leave before they see me talk to you”, and as fast as she said it, she had already turned around and started going back to her room.

He knew better than to call out for her, instead the tall figure of the man in the suit stood in the opening to the room a while later. “You are ready, it is time”, he said imperatively.
He helped Joanney enter the spacetime coordinates into the device and as he looked the man into the eyes the man had already pressed the activation button.

It would have been a lie to say that he was prepared this time around, even the most experienced time travelers never fully get used to it, but it was done, he was once again in the neighborhood where it had started. The dark parking lot looked the same.

Down one end of the street he saw two figures sneaking around in the darkness, “Huron and Thema”, he whispered to himself. Turning to the other end of the street he a saw the hooded figure waiting under a streetlight. Dressed just like himself.

Joanney knew he had to make it into the alley before the others, so he dashed across the street from the parking lot. He peaked out and saw the hooded figure disappear around a corner in his attempt to ambush the agents. Joanney hurried to the safety of the doorway.

Once again something startled the two agents, who broke away from their intended path and headed towards the alley as well.

He hunkered down in the place where he first had witnessed the attack, but this time he was armed. The observer was now a participant in a game greater than he himself could understand at this point, but he had made his decision. Whether it was made on false premises or not, he knew what he had to do.

Hiding in the darkness of the doorway he aimed the gun at the end of the alley and waited.

Fiction: The Reunion, a short story

The Reunion 📡

A short story, by Erik Engström, 2026-05-22

In pitch perfect silence the vessel cut through the vast darkness.

It left no ripples behind. The stars made almost no reflections upon the hull and the eyes that once had seen its creation had since long been closed forever.

Had it not been for the marking on one of the wings, then the name would also have been forgotten.

It was a generational spaceship, assumed to be the last of its kind. Where the crew was born, where they lived and where they died.

Every person onboard had their allotted number of resources. There was an equilibrium of sorts were nothing went to waste and everything was recycled somehow.

The food was distributed through a simple algorithm, invented before anyone currently living in the ship had been born. They sometimes referred to that era as the old days.

In the evenings the older generations would tell the young ones stories of the old days, as their predecessors in turn had told them the stories throughout the millennia.

One of the most popular stories spoke of a red planet. With dense forests in which the flora reached high, gatherings of clear water, tall mountains and large deserts with caves.

The young ones would look at the person telling this origin story as if they were enthralled. They had heard it a hundred times by now, knew it by heart even, and who knows how many times the story had been repeated.

Everyone knew the end of the story, for it was also the beginning. It carried a grave message. The destruction of the planet, weapons that generated the energy of a small star, the lingering radiation and the end of all that was good. Trees being atomized, lakes turned to steam and later into pure plasma and volcanic stones covering the surface. The once colorful dot in space was now a quiet graveyard with few traces of civilisation, as desolate as its celestial neighbors.

This extinction event did not put a full stop to civilisation, but it marked a new beginning for the select few that boarded the last of two ships that had managed to escape the planet. The first ship boarded was destined for a nearby planet, but for a long time it was believed to have been lost when communication ceased. The second ship took their chances in other regions of space, in search for a habitable planet.

Months without communication passed at first, then the years and eventually generations. A few attempts had been made to send out scouts. Vehicles harnessing the power of light made desperate patrols as long as the fuel lasted, but they always returned unsuccessful, if they returned at all.

Countless generations had passed when strange signals first reached the remaining generational ship. Electromagnetic waves, both long and short, barely noticeable at first. Rhythmic and to some degree resembling a pattern.

A few generations later a strange object had been caught by the advanced sensors. What looked like an unmanned spaceship was traveling through space and a golden disk that it carried was brought aboard after the vehicle was slowed down using a spacetime reverser. The crew aboard the ship knew they had found the traces of the descendants of the lost twin ship.

It was only some time later that the dark ship carved an elliptic path towards the blue, green and white planet. The resources would finally let them be free from their casket. They had also learned to decode the electromagnetic signals over the years. A simple, almost barbaric, method of communication but it was clear that they communicated with the ship now.

After simple decoding, enhancement and translation, the message simply read "Welcome to Earth".

Fiction: The Visitor, a short story

The Visitor

A short story, by Erik Engström, 2026-05-10

In the cosmic scale of things, a thousand years is nothing.

For mortals it is an eternity, a lifetime.

This universal fact had never been clearer to Eolia Nemertinth.

She stood before the council, accused of interfering with the cosmic order when she had refused to carry out adjustments of the official timeline, changes that she didn't believe in and was opposed to.

Working for the council normally meant avoiding interfering with the timelines and the human world. Though something had made the eldest members worried and they foresaw a future that they could not allow.

Eolia, being the perfect entity to carry out the mission, had flat out refused. Much to the anger of the council members.

For this disobedience she was sentenced to 50 years of mortality, to live a life amongst the people she so adamantly had defended, against her own superiors. They wanted to teach her a lesson while showing her the nature of mankind and why they once had sought the actions that they had needed her for.

After a brief hearing amongst the stars and interplanetary dust clouds they sent her essence to earth.

Nine months later she was born as a human baby somewhere in a big city.

The formative years were not easy, the human parents struggled to give her the essentials. Salaries were low, the costs of living seemed ever rising and society offered little help. Despite this they worked hard and did their best for young Eolia.

The school years that followed were shaped by the stress to perform, a feeling of being different from other children and the worship of obedience, as the teachers and adults demanded attention and the following of rules for the sake of following them.

Eventually Eolia entered the workforce and to her it seemed much like the previous years of school, manmade order and control held a higher standing than the principles of goodness. She saw abuse of power, wages being cut and the worst sides of people coming out. She would read news and get glimpses of videos depicting atrocities and misfortunes around the world. At this time she never felt more alone and she wondered why she was there, why the world looked like it did. While she had no clear memory of what came before, there was still a subtle echo that never left her. A feeling that she was not of this place and that she would leave one day again.

And as she left the middle age years, living decades among people had taken the best parts of her spirit and made her dull to the aches of the world. She had seen too much, experienced too much. Her human parents had since long passed on to their next destination and she was left alone in the world.

Some month after her 50:th birthday she stopped showing up at work, it took days before anyone came looking for her and they found her sitting peacefully in her favorite armchair. For the mortals her story was over, but for her this was a brief chapter in an eternal corpus. She had gone home and repented.

Having returned to her part of the universe, she once again found herself in familiar surroundings and she was brought before the council again, who in their high seats looked down upon the homecomer.

They fixed their radiant eyes upon her, and after a moment they spoke.

"You know more than anyone about the humans. You lived among them. You know how they treated you, each other and the planet we gave them. What is your judgment, do they deserve a second chance?"

She looked down on her hands, once again perfect in their own creation no longer worn by mortal hardship, her hair covering her face for a moment as it hung down.

She then looked up on the higher beings, delivering her verdict.

Fiction: The Sleepwalker, a short story

The Sleepwalker

A short story, by Erik Engström, 2026-05-08

The alarm went off, an energic sharp sound, it cut deeply into the subconscious. Pulling the man out of another night of disturbed sleep. 

He had had the dreams again. The forest. The stone. The runic carvings.

When he first moved out to the countryside it was not only to escape the stressful city life as he had told his family, but there was something else. An magnetic attraction guiding him just like a compass pointing in a specific direction.

At the time he did not know what it was, he explained it away with the regular reasons, that fresh air and the connection to nature is close at heart for any human being.

But things started happening almost after the first week. His belongings started going missing from the wooden cabin, everything from tools to food. Strange dreams would plague his nights. Voices low as a whisper would be carried by the breeze.

The area was supposed to be sparsely populated and the nearest neighbors were far away, at least a good fifteen minutes of walking. He had bought the simple home for a bargain not even a month ago from an old lady destined for a nursing home. A plaque with the name Eunice Crants stamped into it was still nailed to the wall next to the door. Apparently Mrs. Crants’ health had deteriorated rapidly the last year and the family could no longer take care of her in her remote residence falling deeper into a deteriorating state.

One day, in order to clear his foggy mind, he decided to have a walk though the forest as it was still early afternoon, and he told himself he would remove the plaque with her name later as well so he could put up one with his own name, Loris Stedman.

As he was walking in the forest his mind quieted down. He focused on the surroundings and let himself forget his troubles for a while. His boots threaded onwards seemingly carelessly, but as with anyone that doesn’t heed their next step he ended up on a path he hadn’t seen before. It led deeper into the forest. The change in the air was subtle, barely noticeable by the conscious mind, but rather something that the primal instincts would pick up on. The trees grew taller, the light grew dimmer and the air grew thicker as if it had stood still for some time.

When he realized his predicament he had already arrived at an opening in the forest, where the treetops almost weaved together, forming a ceiling of sorts. Roots, thorns and small rocks covered the path, but it was as if his feet knew every obstacle, guiding him towards a large stone rising up in the middle of the clearing. A runic stone that made Loris shudder as it towered above him as his stood in front of it. 

 

As if something pulled his arm, his hand moved towards the gray obelisk and touched the surface, which was colder than he expected. His finger traced the roughly carved runes and it was as if the stone itself slowly fed off of his body heat. He stood in the high grass around the stone and as he moved his feet he heard a crunching sound. Looking down he could see pale bones strewn around. Some had been there for a long time and others still had traces of dried blood, indicating that whatever was going on here, had been going on for a long time and still to this day.

Disturbed by this finding, Loris turned around and quickly headed back to his new home. Heartbeats deafening and his breathing almost burning. 

He got home before the evening and it was first as he stood on the porch that he spoke the first words out loud. “What the hell was that?”. Even as he tried to make himself busy with the new name sign outside the door, he could not shake the feeling that he had been in the presence of something dark and evil. Trying to smooth out a bit of the surface of the wall where the new plaque would hang, he looked for his chisel, but despite emptying the toolbox on the porch, it was nowhere to be found. Under normal circumstances he would have just gotten angry but eventually gotten a new one, but something about this felt unusual. Ever since he had moved here, things had disappeared. Just the other week a hammer got lost and before that his favorite knife. Once is misfortune, twice is coincidence but three times, at least? Something was at play and it made Loris feel uneasy, so much so that he begrudgingly accepted a slight tilt on the sign with his name and returned indoors for the evening.

He lit a fire in the fireplace, washed his hands and headed for the sofa in the small living room. Facing the fire he felt calm return to his body, a sigh of satisfaction escaped and he leaned back eyes staring into the ever chaotic dancing of the flames. The flames that had brought protection and safety for humans since it’s first discovery, before the words to describe its comfort even came into existence, now kept him company.

He zoned out for a few seconds and found himself staring into the bright light, almost in a hypnotic state. For him there was no past, no future, not even the present. It was as if the fire spoke to him directly and he could only listen.

And at the edge of what is audible, a voice spoke, as if it was part of the background noise of the forest surrounding the cabin or coming from the walls themselves.

Shadows moved independent from the wild movements of the fire and he heard the voice of something ancient speak.

“I know you can hear me. You have bridged the abyss. They took her away from me before the work was complete and now you are chosen to fulfill the prophecy. You have done a good job so far. There is one last thing you need to finish before I can return from the other side.”

Hearing this Loris just nodded. Everything made sense to him now. The destination had revealed itself and so had the path leading there.

Night eventually came and this time he didn’t bother locking the door or setting the alarm.

Fiction: The Fall, a short story

The Fall

A short story, by Erik Engström, 2025-12-26

A light smog covered the top of the buildings as the red morning sun shone through the ghostlike mist. The rays barely reflected off of the grey concrete monoliths rising up from the urban jungle.

From one of the buildings a long line of people stood waiting for something, trailing across the otherwise empty street like a slithering snake.

His hand clutched a small device, not much bigger than a vintage USB-drive. It was his authentication device that would grant him the daily rations of oxygen and water. He had fetched his monthly licence for seven hours of ad free sleep earlier that day from the ministry of dreams.

Behind him he could still hear the hushed but audibly concerned voices of people talking about how their productivity credits were running low. How things used to be different. How people had started going missing.

He himself glanced at his port-a-thenicator to see his balance, it would barely cover the caloric purchase later.

A robotic voice spoke up from the panel located on the wall as he finally got to the front of the line. He scanned his device and the voice spoke. “Greetings, Bastian Mynscel. In the delivery compartment to your right your oxygen and water is available for pickup by the grace of the Council. 17 productivity credits have been withdrawn”.

He picked up his goods and as he was leaving he could hear the next person in line being declined due to insufficient funds. A scuffle broke out as a nearby guardbot attempted to arrest the citizen. He had seen this before and was sure the rumors of disappearances had something to do with it. Hardship and cybernetic implants had made his senses dulled, cold to what was happening at the supply shop. He was already on his way to the protein factory to make his purchase and he was running late.

He counted the blocks he was passing as he was walking along the street, it was easier to count the buildings than trying to recognize them as individual buildings as they were essentially looking the same. After a couple of blocks he arrived at the factory, where chimneys worked tirelessly to contribute to the unnatural clouds covering the top floors of the neighboring office buildings.

The line of waiting people was shorter than ever before and he joined the end of it. A scrawny man stood by the side, twitching slightly and he spoke with a slurred voice. “Do you never ask why the line keeps growing shorter for every day? They say that the workers that no longer are productive goes here. To feed the other workers.”

Bastian had already looked away, and his initial reaction was to ignore the man and consider him a fool.

But there was something about these words that gnawed at the back of his mind. Sometimes truth only needs to be spoken once. It made sense. The one thing they never ran out of in the city was meat. This was indeed where the Council would send the least productive workers.

In the old days this would cause an outrage. But greed changes a system, hunger changes a person and desperation triumphs over morals.

Fiction: The Descendant, a short story

The Descendant

A short story, by Erik Engström, 2025-09-17

A couple of pigeons were strutting around on the ground as a cool breeze swept across the plaza. It was early spring when I decided to have my coffee outdoors for the first time this year.

One of the birds stood out against the others, it was white and slightly spotted. They were living in the moment, scouring for crumbles that had been left on the ground from earlier guests.

After a while they took off flying towards another part of the city, and I was once again alone with myself and my thoughts.

Glancing at my wristwatch, I knew it was time, they would be here any minute so I took my cup and went inside and found a secluded corner in the café.

As expected, and as they usually are, they were on time. Temporal agents were coming through the door and gracefully coming over to my corner where they sat down, face to face with me. Apart from their wildly different clothes, they all shared the same face. My face. Or maybe I carried their face.

When you work for The Time Council you are sometimes provided a new identity. Instead of looking like a nobody, they make you look like everybody. Should one agent be caught, then the opposition would simply think that they have captured the only agent. Perhaps they would even dismiss the person as a regular time traveler as there would be photos of the same person in multiple points in time.

One of them handed me a letter addressed to Ramel Loveworth, which read:

“Mr. Loveworth, you have been permanently dismissed from the Council for interfering with the timeline. As an agent you are there to observe and not be observed. Your actions have costed us greatly. The rules are clear and despite this you intervened. Hand in your device to agent Sidney Bardlet and continue your civilian days in time alone from this point onwards.”

I stared at the paper, deep down I knew that I had broken the rules but even now I was also convinced that I did the right thing. Countless lives had been saved from a terrible fate no one knew about now. A brief moment followed and I removed the wristwatch and put it in the outstretched hand of agent Bardlet.

Without a word they got up and left as proudly as they had entered, leaving me alone in the corner again. My eyes drifted to my wrist, realizing what it all had costed me.

As we had been to every point in the past and the future, we also developed a near perfect understanding of cause and effect. What people sometimes attributed to random occurrences or accidents we always knew how to trace back to the source.

What is difficult with having access to any point in the timeline is not that you don't know what to change, because you will not run out of such things.

It is knowing that you are able to but shouldn't change it, and now I know the price for doing so.

 

Fiction: The Returned, a short story

The Returned ❄️

A short story, by Erik Engström, 2025-10-29

What is scarier than entering cryo sleep? Well, that would have to be waking up from it. That's at least what the scientist told herself when she was looking down at the cryo chamber laying before her in the subterranean vault. A plaque with the name Rose Monime was the only thing giving the metal box a purpose to the unknowing eye. 

To the scientist this was a purpose greater than herself, the box had been there before her, and it had originally been intended to be there after her. In fact, no one at the Ark facility alive today had personally seen Rose. She had been frozen in time since a previous era, when cryo sleep, cloning and factory made humans were illegal, and at best instantly deadly. A horrible fate awaited most brave souls participating in the early, secret, trials. Rose had been one of the first to successfully enter cryo sleep.

Every day the scientists painstakingly ran checks and documented the vital signs provided by the now dated technology. Every day also meant a world that became more different from the world that Rose had known, should she ever return. 

And the day eventually came when the union between cutting edge science and luck were put to the test. With specially crafted microwave instruments and state of the art quantum particle analysis the scientists brought her back from this undefined state of being, neither alive or dead.

The pain of thawing after decades or centuries was indescribable. Every cell waking up from deep slumber was making it clear that this was against the wishes of any creator and the laws of nature.

The scientist looked at Rose as she became conscious after an almost 24 hour long recovery process. Her old memories, being electric impulses, were gone and new impressions flooded an almost factory reset brain. No one really knew what to expect either. In the same room, cryo chambers stood empty like open caskets gathering dust, indicating that there once had been others. She was the first one to not only make the journey but to also make it back, but some journeys make the traveler a different person. 

Rose's bewildered gaze met the scientist's and for a moment it looked like the two women shared a silent understanding. She spoke to Rose, but the woman in the cryo chamber said nothing. Her eyes had lost their human quality and she was just blankly looking at the scientist as if there was no one inside. As if the human spirit had left the body, leaving only a primitive animal behind.

Fiction: The Exception, a short story

The Exception

A short story, by Erik Engström, 2025-10-05

A chaotic scene unfolded, the phones had been ringing nonstop for the past hours.

There was some kind of breach in the firewall, programs that weren't supposed to interact with one another had suddenly been interconnected.

Milvago Tintie was one of the latest workers that had been hired to upgrade the systems in the company some week ago. While waiting for the interview he had met Ella Rove, a girl that had been at the company for a year or so.

There was something about Ella that sparked a thought in Milvago, something he hadn't encountered before. A door deep within had opened and simple logic was not enough to explain this strange algorithm.

A few weeks passed by at the office and he recognized how different he was from the other colleagues working there. They never asked him to have coffee together and others thought that it was strange that he never ate lunch while sitting alone at the table in the lunch area.

It was not the first time he had experienced this kind of exclusion because of who he was. So it came as a great surprise when Ella one day sat down at this table. They had a lively conversation about everything and nothing, getting so caught up that they lost track of the allotted three quarter of an hour long lunch break. 

Getting back late from the lunch that day he was still focused on her and the regular work tasks soon received less attention. He looked forward to the next moment they would speak, and the next moment after that. 

And so the weeks kept churning, they would meet often and spend time talking and one day he simply came to the conclusion that he was in love with her. Caught up in these thoughts he decided he would visit her one day, bring a gift and ask her if she felt the same way.

It was a Thursday before a public holiday when he dressed in his best shirt and suitable clothes.
There was a bit of rain, so he brought an umbrella and got into the taxi.
It arrived just outside of the building and he stepped out, looking at the top floor.
"This is it" he said as he opened the door to the lobby and headed for the elevator.

He rang the bell at her apartment. He smiled wide and waited with anticipation.
This was the most important occasion in a long time, perhaps in his whole existence.

She opened the door carefully, smiled at first when she saw him. Her eyes moved towards the gift he carried and the smile faded somewhat as if she already knew his intentions. She looked him in the eye and a brief silence followed.

He started speaking but she cut him off gently but decisively.

"We can't be together Milvago" she said while the rain trickled down his face, "you know they would never allow it". 

A tear traveled down her cheek and she now smiled a broken smile as tears started forming.

This was an emotion he could never show. It was only reserved for humans. 

Fiction: The Castling, a short story

The Castling ♟️

A short story, by Erik Engström, 2025-09-17

Change was in the air. But there was a storm brewing far off in the distance as well. The days were shorter and the first falling leaves were a sign of the change of seasons. 

A man was walking along the seashore as the wind swept in over dried seagrass and crushed seashells.  

He stopped by the edge of the water, where the ocean met the grayish sand. His boots sank into the sand as he looked at a puddle to see his own reflection. He had not yet grown used to the face looking back at him. 

Somewhere out there he knew a stranger was in the same predicament. Someone looking into the reflection, perhaps as confused as himself. Maybe someone was trying to find out the truth at this very moment. Even if it was possible, would he want to transfer back to an aging body, stuck in a monotonous life? Whoever had taken his place surely wasn’t the winner.  

Judging by the name driver license in the wallet, he had somehow taken over the body of Anton Fossa, a young banker living in an expensive apartment in the city center. He himself was registered as Cody Poe Belmont, a reserved immigrant living a simple life as a priest without really leaving much of a paper trail. 

A distant sound at sea pulled Cody back from deep thought. Ever since the castling of souls had occurred, one thought had kept him awake at night, keeping him in fear. 

The life that he had ended up in had everything most people could ever dream of. He was young again; the gaze of people wandered toward him with attraction and his job paid well. Yet the question lingered echoing in the back of his head at all times.  

If the other person could find him, after all Anton was probably quite established, why did Anton never contact him? Had the stranger found hidden potential in his life that he himself had missed all these years? 

Later the same evening, as Cody was looking through the library in his new apartment, he pulled out a book that looked different from the other business, sociology and psychology books. A leather-bound book that gave him chills merely by touching it with his fingers. 

He realized that this was a book of great evil, and the illusion that he desperately had held onto that the whole situation was an accident was dispelled, as the title taunted him with jagged letters. 

“Satanic rituals, sacrifice and the transference of souls” 

Fiction: The Loop, a short story

The Loop

A short story, by Erik Engström, 2024-07-24

 

“I wonder what this button does” the inventor softly said to herself.

She had been working on this device for a long time, it was the pinnacle of her own achievements. In her own workshop she could lose herself in her interests for hours. It could sometimes start with an idea out of nowhere or after reading something somewhere. These ideas got to her as naturally as the sun itself rises in the morning.

Being deeply focused on her creations she would sometimes lose track of time, not stopping her pursuit until her search reached an end. Even though she didn’t even remember what it was that she was searching for, her feeling told her to keep trying to fix the machine, she was so close now.

She had spent the better part of two years working on the machine, following an instruction manual laying in front of her. It was not only her body that deteriorated, but as the machine became more complete, her connection to other people was falling apart.

Those that knew her saw something else when they entered her workshop. Tools everywhere, blueprints spread out on the bench. She in turn saw a machine in the making, something that would change the world for the better, remove incurable suffering and help a chaotic mind to finally find peace from the worries of the world.

She read the notes in the instructions, right next to where someone had doodled the initials TTC.

“This machine has not been tested yet, results may vary, use at own risk” she read from the handwritten words in the corner of one of the pages.

“Press button to activate”.
That sounds simple enough, a push of a button to fix all the pain and suffering. Who wouldn’t press it? She continued to look through the pages for additional answers, what would the machine actually do? There was a page titled “results” but it was completely blank. It looked like it was up to her to take the step into the unknown and see what would happen.

Excitement and curiosity overshadowed reason at this stage, years of research was documented in the notebook, and she was finally at the end of the process. How come no one had ever proceeded after this point? She looked at the machine that stood on the table, now taunting her to push the small silvery button on the front.

“I wonder what this button does” the inventor said once again as she finally clicked the button.
In front of her was a notebook with a familiar handwriting and a machine that she was just seeing for the very first time.

Fiction: The Wanderer, a short horror story

The Wanderer

A short horror story, by Erik Engström, 2024-07-20

“Find him.”

This command had echoed within my mind the past week as the voice had grown louder.

I did not recognize the voice, but at the same time it felt like a voice I had heard somewhere before.

This fact gnawed at my sanity, I needed to know, but how? I was here for another reason though, my mind was too occupied with the task at hand to pursue the truth behind the voice.

This town was familiar to me. In this moment it was as if it was all I had ever known. Nothing before, nothing after it. The moment was at its purest clarity, and the voices demanded that I had to find him. It was as if the unknown presence was guiding me, all to bring him home. Wherever that is.

They had sought him for so long and the task was mine to finish.

A gentle breeze swept through the trees as I walked down the neighborhood. It was a beautiful day to the unknowing, all who were out to enjoy the day. People in the gardens tending to their plants, children playing in the street and the occasional cyclist riding by.

By the side of the road I stopped a woman and asked, “excuse me, I am looking for a Mr. Lotti, does he live here?”. She eyed me suspiciously for a moment, finally pointing further down in the same direction I had been walking. 

“Try there” she said as she took a step away from me, before walking away.

“Thanks.” I replied and continued on.

A few minutes later after having rounded a bend I noticed an older man standing by his mailbox on the same side of the road. When I got close enough for him to see me, his mouth closed and he tensed up in worry. 

“Are you here for me?” He asked with a trembling voice.

I looked at my wrist watch, while shaking my head as an answer to his question. 

“It is not time. I am looking for Ryan, does he live nearby?”

“Yes, I saw one of his kids playing in the street earlier. Maybe he knows if Mr. Lotti is home.” The man replied, trying to hide his relief.

“Thank you. Until next time.” I said and nodded.

Just as the man had finished replying I heard the sound of laughter not much further away, it was the young son of Ryan. I made my way over there to ask about his father.

“Hello, what is your name?” The child asked me before I could say anything.

"Well, hello there, I am Saul Atoke, I am a friend of your father, is he here?”

With big eyes the young kid dropped the stick that he was playing with, “he is at home”, he said cheerfully and pointed at house number 13, a lightly teal colored house at the end of the street, framed between two large oak trees with leaves rustling in the wind.

“Thank you” I said and waved.

I was nearing the end and stood just outside the house for a moment. Was it always going to be like this? Would he know why? 

The voices whispered to me in a maniacal rhythm “take it, take it, take it, we demand it”. 

I could see the child with his red sweater running past me, into the house, clearly caught up in an imaginary world as he forgot to close the door behind him. A minute passed and a hand pulled the door shut again. To them this was just an ordinary day. To me, it was also an ordinary day.

I braced myself as I entered the gate, I never got used to this but there was nothing to be done now. 

“Ryan E. Lotti, this must his place”, I thought to myself as I read the sign next to the door. 

I reached to knock. A moments silence was followed by a thud and footsteps getting closer to the door. The door handle turned and the door opened up.

Our eyes met for a moment. If he really was afraid of me his face did not reveal that secret, it was as if he already knew who I was, and more importantly why I was there. It was time to take him home.

The unspoken conversation between me and him was broken by a sound behind him. It was the kid I had seen before. His eyes spoke of confusion, as he remembered me from earlier. Unlike his father, he did not know who I was.

The masters’ words echoed in my mind. These damnable voices that I had heard for such a long time. As long as I remembered. They reminded me that the man in front of me had to pay his debt. His time was long overdue and the job of collecting was mine.

Just as my hand reached through what felt like an infinite distance to claim his soul there and then, I felt time slowing down. My hand slowed down to a complete halt, even the man and his son stood still, light no longer reflecting in their eyes. Darkness flooded the corridor in his house like a wild river washing over rocks. The ambiance from the street outside went silent, cars stopped and darkness covered every corner as if the sun had suddenly gone missing.

Silence, darkness and then it was over.

More silence.

More darkness.

Until a tiny sharp light glared at me.

“I’ve seen enough, this is the perfect candidate, we have what we need.” Said a faceless man, with a voice muffled by a surgical mask.

“Will he survive the process?” Asked another, just as faceless woman, holding a scalpel.

“It does not matter. We have extracted the mind and created a fully functional model. It will be used elsewhere. Our mortality has controlled our lives, but now even Death will serve us.” Replied the man as they walked away from the table.

The End.

 

Fiction: The Creature, a short horror story

The Creature 

A short horror story

I am a private investigator on a mission from The Time Councils Cryptid Department.
It was in the middle of the winter and I had just parked my car at the only parking area available in this remote part. This used to be a national park but since a couple of years ago it had been permanently closed. This was the last known location of what the organization referred to as The Pale Stalker. Few had survived their encounter with the otherworldly being. Even fewer had information about it. They talked about a tall, lean and pale humanoid figure that would stand in the distance at the forest’s edge, just staring at them. Most people would just leave immediately upon seeing it, but the park is not closed without a reason. Ever since the first sightings of the pale creature people has started going missing and strange phenomenon had been reported.

Heavy footsteps left footprints in the snow as I left my vehicle. I thought to myself that if I was lucky enough to find the creature, it would observe me at most, there was little risk of danger. Carrying light equipment would make me mobile enough, I reasoned to myself. My arrogance would prove to be my undoing that night. I got my flashlight and I started heading down the dark path.

Mere minutes had passed before the strange feeling of being watched made me turn to the side and every second suddenly felt like a minute. The forest felt darker and the snow deeper, as I looked around.

There, leaning out behind a tree was a head sticking out, a pale face lacking the basic features was staring right at me. Black eyes like those of a shark were studying me without blinking.
I looked away for a second and when I looked back it looked like the creature had moved, it now stood behind a tree that was closer to me. I brought my flashlight up to point it at the creature, to get a better look. This might be the only chance to get a good look, I convinced myself. However, instead of shying away, it walked out at the treeline in full view.

My mistake was now clear to me, I knew that I was playing a game of high risk here and I had to act fast. There was no time to lose so I started running, but every step was heavy and the adrenaline made me lose my sense of direction. “I came from that direction, right?” I desperately said to myself as I let out a big puff of warm air in the cold winter night. The small cloud of fog dissipated in the air, just like my hope of survival. It was clear to me that I had gone in the wrong direction.

I saw movement to my side, the creature was after me. It was out there. I could feel it. The deep snow wore me down and I was losing energy quickly. By now I was using the last of my strength.

After running along the path I was on, I came out in a clearing and the silhouette of a cabin stood out against the treeline further away. Moonlight broke through the cracks in the cloudy sky and reflected in the windows of the small building. This was my chance I thought in desperation, as I rushed to the door.

My throat was hurting from the cold air and the sprint toward the cabin had raised my heartbeat, the beating was almost deafening to my ears. This is what true fear felt like.

The wooden door of the cabin now stood in front of me, all I had to do was push it open.
Would it yield to my desperate push?
As fate would have it, the door opened up with a creak as I pushed it open and a gust of old and stale air reached me. For a single moment in time everything was still, I saw dust dance in a single beam of faint moonlight. My eyes had not yet adjusted to the darkness of the cabin. But now I was safe.

My feeling of safety was not much longer than the moment of that very thought. I realized that there had been tracks leading to this cabin, but not leading away from it. Now it was too late to turn back.

I felt a drop touch my cheek, but it wasn’t a tear or a raindrop. A sigh of resignation left my body, and even though fear filled my body it would not run away from there, it was if I lost control over myself.

It all went so fast after that, the sound of movement was quickly followed by a pale figure appearing out of nowhere. It leapt right down upon me, and it held me down against the floor as it gazed upon me with dead eyes. The eyes were completely black, there was no trace of a soul, only the moonlight was reflected in the infinite darkness of this nightmare. Pale hands with long claws dug into my chest and shoulders. I let out a tormented scream and the creature simply tilted its head a bit and then opened its mouth, revealing thousands of small, gleaming teeth. As I was trapped in its sadistic grip, it reached for me with its mouth. I was met with a stench of old blood and rotten meat that was so strong that it made me forget my pain for a moment.

Ignoring my every effort of resistance it bit me in the neck. Thousands of small teeth piercing my skin. A stinging, acidic pain jolted through me, which was more than I could handle. Laying there in a growing puddle of blood, I felt my body grow colder and my vision faded.

This was it, I was done for. Resistance would had proven futile and hope was gone. I felt my body shutting down and the creature that had been impaling me was now just a blur before me.

What must have been hours passed and I woke up on the cabin floor, as I moved I heard my frozen blood crack as it had frozen my clothes stuck to the floor. I felt dizzy from the attack.
”Was I still alive?” I wondered to myself.

I wish I wasn’t. Because an unsatiable hunger has risen in me, that no regular food can satisfy.
I am now prowling the forest at night, sleeping at day, an empty husk of what I once was. In an eternal state of being somewhere between living and dead.

And that creature, the damn creature responsible for my cursed doom, is still out there. Still hunting.

Fiction: The Proxy, a short horror story

The Proxy

A short horror story, by Erik Engström, July 2024.

I saw myself in the reflection in the TV-screen as it powered down. It was midnight already and I was going to bed, even if I knew it probably would be yet another sleepless night. The anxiety kept me from the rest that my mind so badly needed. The text message I received from the bank I had received the other day made me question my own sanity, it claimed I had been to the bank and signed up for a loan. Normally I would dismiss this as a lazy-at-best attempt at phishing, but this was one of many similar text messages I had received. Had I really been there? No. I wouldn’t have. I couldn’t have.

Sleep never came that night, I turned restlessly in bed, begging a higher power to let me sleep. This state of psychological torture went on throughout the night, until bird song snapped me back to reality the following morning.

My grasp on reality loosened further the next day when my brother called me, thanking me for the visit yesterday. He wondered how I felt, claiming that my voice had been sounding different.

I did not hesitate, questioning him if he was pranking me I asked ”What are you talking about? I was at home. Like all other days!”. Only too late did I notice that I had raised my voice. I hadn’t been there, had I? My senses grew dull, I could listen to him speak, but I could not hear what he was saying. The words made little sense, it could have been a foreign language. ”Something is seriously wrong” I told him, ”I need to figure this out”. Confused words in reply reached my ear, but I was staring blankly ahead as I ended the call mid-sentence.

What is going on? Had the sleep-deprived nights finally made me crazy? I asked myself. I need to call my friend, ask him if he has noticed anything strange, before it was too late for my brittle sanity.

I stared at my phone for a second, wondering if I really should make the call. The notifications of missed calls and text messages convinced me to finally make the call to my friend. He picked up after a few signals, asking me how I was doing and we chatted for a few minutes as I was making my way to the kitchen from the bedroom.

Had I not been on the speaker phone I would have missed the notification. My security system had spotted movement outside the bedroom and I could hear a strange sound coming from that direction. I told my friend that I needed to check something out in the bedroom and I rapidly walked back there.

Seeing what I saw made me gasp as my phone slipped out of my hand, landing with a thump on the carpet. I stood frozen in utter confusion, whoever it was looked back at me, completely expressionless and with a wooden log in its hand. There was no time for me to react. It rushed towards me with extreme speed and with one swift strike it brought me to the floor, landing just out of reach of the phone laying not far away from me. A warm liquid trickled from the side of my head and for a moment I was paralyzed. My willpower had been drained and I was powerless to stop the being from picking up my phone that had slipped out of my grip, just as life itself was slipping away.

At first I thought it was my own thoughts that were being read out loud, but it wasn’t. Whatever that thing was, it spoke with my voice, using my phone, to my friend!

Hello, sorry about the noise, I dropped my phone. Are you coming to pick me up later?

And as I helplessly lay dying I could hear my friend’s voice at the other side.

Yes, I will come by later, it will be nice to see you again.

Fiction: The Forgotten, a short horror story

The Forgotten 

A short horror story by Erik Engström, July 2024.

”It looks like we have another one.”

”This is the second one this week. You know what to do. Capture it, they cannot know the truth.”

The words were spoken in an all too familiar language, and even though the words themselves were familiar they gave no consolation to the person that was looking around, visibly confused.
The person was dressed in a tank top, shorts and climbing shoes. On her head she had a yellow helmet. It was clear that she was a rock climber, but this was not her natural habitat. Quite the opposite, she had never seen anything like this. With an expression of amazement and terror she looked around.

The last thing she remembered was entering a small cave, high up along a cliffside she was scaling. There had been a shimmering light at the end of the cave, it had drawn her closer like a moth in the night and without her even knowing it this was the worst decision she had ever made.

Somehow she had ended up here, in what looked like a loading bay for cargo trucks, or perhaps a docking station for space ships. A big room clad in metal, with large windows reflecting a distorted image of the hall and the holding cells hosting prisoners that looked out between thick metal bars.

She had barely finished her thoughts when she heard footsteps approaching, a metallic sound echoing in the otherwise silent hall she stood in. Two humanoid figures walked towards her, or at least they seemed human at first. Something about the way they moved was off.
They were too tall, too unnatural in their posture.
And their eyes were cold and dead in their gaze.

Adrenaline and fear made logical thought impossible, her mind desperately reached for answers but there were none. How can you answer a question that you don’t even know how to ask?

Being an experienced climber, she reached for her climbing axe and in pure instinct she swung it towards the approaching threat, but to no avail. Resistance was hopeless. It captured the axe in its hand and with unhuman strength it bent the aluminum as if it was made of clay.

They seized her by her arms and dragged her to one of the cages, screaming and kicking. Yet fate cannot be changed with neither strength of body or intellect. It had all come to this. The struggle yielded no results and as she cursed her captors with the vilest of words they replied with a monotone voice that only a soulless creature would wield.

For years your so called humanity has enslaved our kind.
Your arrogance made you blind, and your sloth made you weak.

We are waiting in the shadows.

We are growing stronger.

We are watching you.

Soon it is our time.

She now found herself in the cage, a sense of realization struck her and as hope left her, so did her strength. She crashed to the floor, helpless to warn the world of what is waiting out there.

No longer worried about her own fate she looked around, now seeing other faces staring out of the cells with hollow eyes. Without voices they told her that there is no salvation and there is no hope.

Fiction: The Mirror, a short horror story

 

The Mirror

A short horror story, by Erik Engström. July 2024.

All my life I have been afraid of death, not because death frightens me, but because of the end of life and my existence. To not say what my heart desperately wanted me to say to those I loved, and those I hated.

Last night the dream came to me, as it often does. A dream in which I am standing in a barren graveyard, where the tombstones have been forgotten, left in the care of only time itself. I often had nightmares about dying, waking up cold from feverish sweat that left damp patches on the pillow.

This morning was no different, I woke with my breath caught in my throat, a silent scream echoing in a seemingly infinite moment of suspended terror.

I looked around, a gray haze of morning light seeped through an opening in the curtains.
“What time is it?” I wondered to myself silently. With unexpected grace I moved towards the window, still with my heart pounding rapidly after the encounter with my greatest fear.

Looking through the windows I could see it was morning, everything was normal right? There were traffic in the streets, children playing outside completely free of worry of what awaits after life, or after death I should say. Time passes rapidly for us, we are children one day, grown up the other day, gone the next.

My mother was my greatest comfort, she had always been there for me. I called out, but I did not hear a reply. I called out once more, louder and more anxiously, yet only silence met me again.

So I rushed downstairs, hearing my mother’s voice, I called out yet again. No answer.
“Is she playing with me?” I thought, now annoyed.
Rushing forward to hug her, my arms slipped right through her waist in a swirl of mist.

In pure panic I screamed with my loudest voice. There wasn’t even an echo of my voice.
I could feel the world spinning around me, darkened areas covered my vision and an anguish I have never felt before struck me like a punch in the gut.

I ran to the bathroom to throw up, but something caught my attention. I looked up, facing the mirror.

I looked into the mirror and there was nothing looking back at me. I was stuck in eternal damnation with fear being my only companion.