Old Ink

The tattoo artist warned him about the ink.

“It’s old,” she said, rolling up her sleeves to reveal her own tattooed arms. They curled in black vines up to her shoulders, twisting around faded symbols. “Handed down through generations. It has a voice.”

But Nathan was adamant. “That’s the idea,” he replied.

He wanted something unique, something to speak secrets into his skin. A ghostly script, an elegant script—something only he could understand.

The needle buzzed. The ink bled into his arm. The pain was sharp but bearable. As she worked, he swore he could hear something beneath the hum of the machine, a faint murmuring just on the edge of sound.

By the time it was finished, the words curled along his forearm in an ancient, flowing script. He ran his fingers over them. “What does it say?”

The artist hesitated. “Only the wearer ever knows.”

That night, Nathan woke up to a voice breathing against his ear.

“Awake.”

He sat up. The room was still. His phone screen read 3:13 AM. His curtains shifted slightly in a breeze he couldn’t feel.

He rubbed his arm, blinking in the dark. The ink felt warm under his fingers.

“Nathan.”

The whisper didn’t come from the room. It came from his skin.

“Someone is in the apartment.”

His ears strained. Silence. Just the soft whirr of the fridge in the next room.

He almost laughed. It had to be his imagination. Some trick of the mind. Maybe he’d let the tattooist spook him.

Then the floorboard creaked outside his bedroom door.

Another creak. Closer.

The voice on his arm spoke again.

“Run.”

He did. Out the window, onto the fire escape. His bare feet hit cold metal as he climbed down into the alley. When he reached the ground, he turned back.

Through the gap in his curtains, he saw a shape standing in his bedroom. Motionless. Watching. A man with a knife in his hand.

Nathan hurried away.

The ink of the tattoo pulsed with warmth.

“You’re welcome.”

The Dream

In the year 2143, humanity eradicated sleep.

It started with research into cognitive efficiency—how much time we waste in unconsciousness, how many hours could be reclaimed. The answer had been elegant: a biochemical supplement that rendered sleep obsolete. No more exhaustion, no more downtime. Productivity skyrocketed. Society moved faster. And dreams—those aimless, nonsensical things—became relics of the past.

However, Dr Elias Voss had for some time been sensing a flicker at the edge of his mind, a shadow in his peripheral thoughts. Then, without warning, it happened.

The dream.

He had no word for it anymore. No precedent. It was like slipping into a long-forgotten language, one his mind had been starved of. A field stretched before him, golden and swaying, beneath a sky of impossible colours. And in the distance, a figure stood waiting.

When he woke, his body trembled. It was an outdated response, one humans had evolved beyond. But the dream had shaken something loose.

The next night, he welcomed it. And the next. And the next. Each time, the figure in the distance edged closer. Its shape was blurred, undefined, yet somehow familiar. Its presence pulsed with meaning.

By the tenth night, the figure of a man was visible before him. A face not his own, yet deeply his.

“You remember.”

A whisper, but it roared in his skull.

Voss felt… wrong. Off-kilter. As if he had glimpsed a truth his body no longer knew how to hold.

When he checked his vitals, he found something impossible. His brain—an organ fine-tuned for wakefulness, free of unnecessary functions—had begun producing theta waves. Dream waves. Primitive. Inefficient. Natural.

He ran the test again. Then a third time. But the data held.

His body had remembered how to dream.

Within a week, thousands of others reported the same symptoms—fragments of dreams slipping through the cracks of wakefulness. By the second week, the number was in the millions. Scientists scrambled for answers, governments issued statements of reassurance, but the truth was undeniable: humanity had spent a century suppressing an instinct, and now that instinct was clawing its way back.

Dr Elias Voss saw it in his colleagues, in the eyes of strangers. A subtle shift. People moving differently, pausing as if listening to something distant and unheard. Speech slowed, gazes lingered, hands would drift absently to their chests, as though trying to grasp something they couldn’t quite remember.

The dreams grew stronger.

Every night, Voss returned to the golden field beneath the impossible sky. And the figure—the one that was and wasn’t him—stood waiting.

“It’s time.”

The words were not spoken, yet he heard them.

“Time for what?” he asked.

The figure smiled. “To wake up.”

And just like that, Voss fell.

Not into wakefulness, but into something deeper, something beyond. The field peeled away, dissolving into light, and for the first time in his sleepless life, he felt it—the weight of something vast and forgotten.

Voss awoke gasping, covered in sweat—another sensation that shouldn’t exist. His body ached, his head throbbed, but beneath it all was something worse.

The presence was no longer confined to sleep.

It was here.

The monitors in his lab flickered erratically. Data streams scrolled with nonsense—letters rearranging into words, words into sentences.

WE REMEMBER YOU.

The walls groaned, as though something enormous was shifting behind them.

Then, all at once, the world blinked.

The world didn’t end. Not in the way Voss expected.

It changed.

The first sign was the silence. A suffocating, unnatural stillness settled over the city. No hum of machines, no murmur of distant conversations, no rhythmic pulse of traffic. Even the air seemed heavier, as if something immense pressed down on reality itself.

Then came the distortions.

People reported déjà vu in cascading waves—entire hours repeating without explanation. Buildings flickered, their architecture twisting in ways that defied physics, as if their foundations had been forgotten and rewritten in real-time. A street Voss had walked every day, now ended in a sheer cliff, dropping into an expanse of shifting golden light.

The world was unravelling.

The message on his screen back at the lab had changed. The words pulsed with a slow, deliberate rhythm.

WE ARE DREAMING YOU.

“Who?” he asked.

There was no reply, but he didn’t need one. He knew.

The presence in his dreams—the figure in the field—it was not a singular entity. It was an echo. A remnant of something vast and ancient, something that had been watching. Something that had been waiting.

And now, the dream was breaking back in.

Voss turned to the window, breath fogging the glass. Across the skyline, golden cracks split the fabric of the city, seeping light into the air. He watched as a skyscraper folded in on itself, becoming a spiral staircase winding up into a sky full of constellations that had never previously existed.

A man stood at the edge of a rooftop across the street. Voss tensed, fearing the inevitable, but the man did not fall. Instead, he stepped forward—and the air took him. He floated, weightless, moving as if pulled by unseen currents, disappearing into the sky.

Voss gripped the windowsill.

This wasn’t destruction.

Humanity was waking up from the long dreamless sleep.

And something was waiting on the other side.

The screen flickered again. The final message burned into his mind.

THE LOST DREAM IS OVER.

NOW, YOU REMEMBER.

And with that, Voss felt the ground dissolve beneath him—

—falling—

—rising—

—awakening—

A Dragon’s Last Wish

The dragon lay dying in a field of ash and shattered stone. Its great body, once a mountain of muscle and magic, trembled with each shallow breath. The golden fire in its eyes had dulled to embers.

Sir Aldric had never seen a dragon so close before—never without a sword raised, never without the intention to kill. Yet here he stood, weaponless, staring at the magnificent creature crumbling before him.

The dragon’s voice rumbled like distant thunder. “I ask of you one favour.”

Aldric hesitated. He had come here to slay the beast, to return to the kingdom as a hero. But there was no victory in this. Not now.

“What do you ask of me?” he said at last.

The dragon lifted a claw, barely able to keep it aloft. Clutched within was a smooth oval stone, black as starless midnight.

“Take this,” said the dragon. “Carry it to the highest peak beyond the Valley of Echoes… There, place it beneath the moonlight and speak my name… Vorthalax.”

Aldric took the stone. It was warm to the touch, pulsing with something that felt almost like a heartbeat.

With a final sigh, Vorthalax’s great eyes slid shut. The ground trembled as the last dragon of the realm took its final breath.

The journey to the Valley of Echoes was perilous, but Aldric had faced worse. He climbed the jagged cliffs, his hands bloodied and raw, until at last he reached the highest peak. The moon hung high, silver light washing over the land.

He knelt and placed the stone upon the frostbitten rock. The wind stilled. The world fell into an eerie silence.

Aldric steadied himself. “Vorthalax,” he proclaimed into the sky above.

The air shimmered. Shadows coiled like smoke. Then, from the darkness, an enormous creature emerged, rocks cracking under its weight.

It was another dragon, slightly smaller than Vorthalax, and with scales the colour of the night sky. Its golden eyes burned with a sense of something between sorrow and hope.

“You have brought him… home,” the dragon rumbled.

Aldric didn’t understand, but he didn’t need to. The stone at his feet split open, and from within, a warm golden light spilled forth, rising like mist.

The dragon leaned forward, pressing its forehead to the light. A sound filled the air—something between a sigh and a melody.

Then, just as quickly as it had begun, the light faded.

The dragon looked at Aldric, eyes shimmering with the intensity of flame.

“Thank you,” it said, bowing its head. Then, with a great beat of its wings, the dragon soared into the sky, disappearing into the stars.

Aldric remained on the mountain for a long while, watching the night, the wind carrying a name he now understood.

Vorthalax had only ever wanted to go home.

The Missing Minute

Mira had always been a light sleeper, which was why she installed the camera in the first place. The noises at night under her bed—soft scratches, the faint shuffle of movement—were too subtle to be rats but too irregular to be the house settling. The security camera wasn’t fancy, just a cheap model above her bedroom door, bluetoothed to her phone. It captured everything, motion-triggered and timestamped. She let it run for a week before reviewing the footage.

At first, nothing. Just the usual: her natural movements asleep in bed. But on the third night, at precisely 3:13 AM, she noticed the footage had jumped.

She rewound. Played it frame by frame. 3:11 AM. 3:12 AM. Jump. 3:14 AM. No flicker, no static, no glitchy distortion. Just a clean, surgical cut. Sixty seconds, gone.

A fault in the camera, maybe? Mira scrolled back. The night before, 3:13 AM disappeared again. And the night before that.

She set an alarm for the next night, waking her at 3:10 AM. She lay in bed, phone in hand, staring at the blue glow of the camera’s indicator light.

At 3:12 AM, nothing happened.

At 3:13 AM, the room flickered. Mira felt an impossible sensation—like being yanked out of her body, as if she had stepped between two film frames and fallen into the gap.

She wasn’t in bed anymore.

She was standing in a corridor. No doors. No windows. The air was dense, thick with the smell of damp stone and something metallic, like old blood. The walls—if they were walls—stretched endlessly in both directions, made of something rough and uneven, like brick but colder. She reached out instinctively, fingertips grazing the surface. It was wet.

The darkness wasn’t total. A dim, pulsing light flickered from an unseen source, casting long, jagged shadows along the walls. The corridor wasn’t silent, either. Beneath the hush, Mira heard something—a faint, rhythmic tapping, like footsteps. Not hurried, not hesitant. Deliberate.

The footsteps grew closer. Mira tried to move, but her legs would not respond… A whisper brushed against her ears—not a voice, but the sensation of sound just before it forms, like a word caught at the edge of existence.

Then—she was back in bed, the weight of the duvet pressed against her. Her phone was still in her hand. She gasped, lungs burning as if she’d been holding her breath for too long.

3:14 AM.

A notification buzzed. The recording was available.

Mira hesitated, then pressed play.

Sixty seconds of perfect darkness.

Then, at the very end, in the silence between frames—

The voice.

“Almost time.”

The Last

The silence was the worst part.

Adam had thought he’d grow used to it, but after six months of empty streets and hollow buildings, it only got heavier. The world had ended with an explosion of silence, not fire. People had just vanished. One day they were there, living their ordinary lives, and the next, gone. No bodies. No explanations. Just an empty planet with the lights still on.

He had scoured the cities, called out into the void, but no one answered.

He spent his days raiding supermarkets, driving stolen sports cars down abandoned highways, and reading through books he never had time for before. He lived in a penthouse suite, drank the best whisky, and watched old movies as if the world hadn’t stopped turning.

And at night, he wrote. Someone had to record what happened. He filled notebook after notebook, chronicling the days, the loneliness, the aching weight of survival.

He poured himself a drink, sat by candlelight, and opened a fresh page.

Day 183.

I am still here.

The words looked small, fragile. He idly tapped his pen on the table, trying to think of something more profound. Something meaningful.

Then came the knock at the door.

A soft, deliberate tap, tap, tap.

His glass slipped from his hand, shattering on the floor.

The knocking came again.

Tap, tap, tap.

Adam stared at the door. It was impossible. He had spent months searching, calling out, scouring each abandoned city, every dead street.

There was no one left.

No one but him.

He stood slowly, his legs stiff from shock. He grabbed the gun from the table—one of many he’d taken from a police station months ago—but his hands were shaking so badly he could barely hold it steady.

Another three knocks.

Louder this time. More urgent.

Adam stepped forward.

“Who’s there?” he called, his voice hoarse from months of non exercise.

No answer.

He hesitated. The instinctive part of his mind screamed at him to run. But where? There was nowhere to go.

He tightened his grip on the gun and reached for the door handle.

Slowly, carefully, he turned it.

The door creaked open an inch. Then another. Then—

Nothing.

The hallway was empty.

Adam stepped outside the door, glancing both ways. The city below the ceiling-high hallway windows stretched out in its eerie, abandoned silence. He was alone. Again.

Had he imagined it? Was the isolation finally driving him mad?

He shakily lowered the gun. He let out a small, nervous laugh. Maybe it was just the building settling. Or the wind. Or—

He turned back to go inside.

And stopped.

The candle he had lit was flickering violently.

Adam raised the gun, stepping forward on unsteady feet. His voice trembled. “Who’s there?”

The candlelight shifted shadows against the walls.

Then, from deep inside the apartment, a voice answered.

“You are not the last.”

The voice had come from the darkness beyond the candlelight, low and steady, neither rushed nor panicked. Just… certain.

His finger rubbed the trigger. “Step out where I can see you,” he said, forcing steel into his voice.

Silence.

The candle flickered, the shadows on the walls stretching and shifting unnaturally, as if something was moving just beyond the edge of sight.

“I said—”

Then, footsteps. Slow. Deliberate.

A figure emerged from the gloom.

At first, Adam thought it was a woman. Slender, tall, moving with an eerie grace. But as it stepped into the candle’s glow, something was… wrong.

The face was human. Almost. But the skin was too smooth, the features too symmetrical, like a sculpture of a person rather than the real thing. The eyes—God, the eyes—were black pools, swallowing the light.

Adam took a half step back, gun raised. “What are you?”

The figure tilted its head, as if considering the question.

“We were waiting for you to ask.”

“We?”

The thing said nothing.

Instead, it moved aside—just slightly. Just enough for Adam to see the hallway behind it.

And the others.

Dozens of them. Standing perfectly still in the darkness. Watching.

Adam’s instincts screamed at him to run, to fight, to do something—but his body refused to move.

The first figure took another step towards him. “You were never alone,” it said.

Adam fired.

The shot rang out.  But the figure was still standing.

The bullet hole in its forehead closed in an instant, the skin knitting together like water swallowing a stone.

It stepped forward and reached out, resting a too-cold hand on his shoulder. Adam tried to pull away, but his muscles locked, frozen in place. His vision blurred.

Then, for the first time in six months, the city was no longer silent.

From the streets below, from the alleyways and the empty buildings, from every shadowed corner, voices began to rise.

Soft at first. Then growing. Then deafening.

And as Adams’ world faded to black, the last thing he heard was the voices, calling out one final truth.

“Now, you are one of us.”

Case Closed

Detective Alan Graves surveyed the crime scene with the detached precision of a surgeon. The victim lay sprawled across the plush carpet, blood soaking into the fibres. A single bullet wound to the forehead. No signs of forced entry. No murder weapon in sight.

It was a locked-room mystery. The kind that made headlines.

His partner, Detective Lisa Monroe, paced behind him, flipping through her notepad. “Witnesses say they heard a gunshot around midnight. No one saw anything. No security footage.”

Alan frowned. “Who found the body?”

“The housekeeper. Came in this morning. Called it in right away. Says the victim had no enemies.”

Alan nodded, crouching beside the corpse. There was something familiar about the victim’s face… the shape of his jaw… even the way his hair curled at the temples.

He stood quickly, nausea rising. “Did we get an ID?”

Lisa handed him a driver’s licence in a plastic evidence bag. “Yeah. Name’s Alan Graves.”

Alan stared. The photo. The name. The birthdate. It was him.

The world tilted.

“What is this?” he exclaimed.

Lisa’s expression shifted—concerned, wary. “Alan… are you okay?”

He clutched his head. He remembered everything. Going home last night. Pouring a drink. The cold weight of the gun in his hand. The silence before the shot.

And then—nothing.

Alan looked at the corpse again.

It was impossible.

And yet…

Lisa’s voice was distant now, tinny, like she was speaking from underwater. “Alan?”

His vision blurred. A rush of vertigo took him, buckling his knees.

As he collapsed, Lisa’s voice was the last thing he heard. Calm. Certain.

“Alan. It’s solved… your case is now closed.”

10,000 Attempts

Mastery is not about the number of hours spent, but the number of meaningful repetitions performed. The key to improvement is not simply the passage of time but the number of times we actively engage with the process, refine our techniques, and correct our mistakes. A musician who plays 10,000 times with focus and adaptation will progress much faster than one who simply clocks in hours of mindless practice. Likewise, a writer who drafts 10,000 paragraphs, refining them with each attempt, will develop their craft far more effectively than someone who spends 10,000 hours mostly staring at blank pages.

Consider the difference between two aspiring painters. One spends 10,000 hours in a studio, occasionally picking up a brush, watching tutorials, or idly sketching. The other completes 10,000 paintings—each one an attempt, a refinement, an experiment. Who do we think will be better? The sheer number of attempts forces the second painter to confront mistakes, experiment with new techniques, and internalise lessons through direct experience.

A bad golf swing practised for 10,000 hours will only ingrain bad habits. But 10,000 focused swings, each slightly adjusted, each reviewed with feedback, will produce real progress. Mastery is not about passive endurance but active iteration—learning, failing, correcting, and repeating.

This is why elite performers in every field—from sports to business to the arts—improve through deliberate cycles of action and feedback, not sheer hours spent. It is not time alone that builds mastery but the number of meaningful engagements with the skill.

Don’t just put in the time. Put in the reps. Make 10,000 attempts. Iterate, refine, and repeat. Time will pass regardless—but skill is built in the doing.

Existence+

Jon woke up to find his hand flickering. His fingers blinked in and out of existence, like a glitching hologram. He groaned. Not again.

Scrambling out of bed, he grabbed his phone and tapped open the Existence+ app. A red banner flashed across the screen:

Your subscription has expired. Renew now to avoid full dissolution.

“Shit!” he cursed. He had meant to pay it last night, but payday was delayed until noon. That left him in a tricky spot.

He hurried to the bathroom, avoiding his reflection. His face always blurred when his subscription lapsed—his own eyes looking at him like they belonged to someone else. He splashed water on his face, but then his hand went right through the tap. He was already starting to phase out.

He could still move, still breathe, still exist—for now. But if he didn’t pay soon, the system would begin retracting him. First fingers, then limbs, then memories. The worst part was the memory rollback, the gradual unravelling of the mind.

He dressed quickly, ignoring the way his shirt flickered against his chest.

At the office, the door scanner beeped red. Denied. His work subscription had clearly been bundled with his existence plan. He pounded on the glass. “Come on, Carl, let me in!”

Carl, his manager, looked at him through the window. “Jon… I’m sorry. You know the policy. Get yourself sorted, then come back.”

Jon’s voice wavered. “But I don’t have my money yet. I need it now… I just need a few hours—”

Carl activated the blinds, which drew shut.

Jon staggered away. His legs flickered, struggling to hold his weight. He checked his phone. The notification had changed:

Subscription Termination in 10 minutes.

He tapped the Renew Now button, hoping they might give him a grace period. The screen flashed:

Insufficient Funds. Please upgrade to Existence+ Pro for emergency overdraft protection.

His fingers dissolved first. Then his arms.

He turned and hurried down the street. People ignored him now. His presence no longer triggered facial recognition. Store doors didn’t slide open for him. A mother pushed her pram right through him without noticing.

His phone dropped to the ground as his torso unravelled like smoke. On the pavement, the phone vibrated one final time. A cheery message popped up:

We’re sorry to see you go!

Jon opened his mouth to scream, but his voice had already been revoked.

The Shakespearean Goldfish

Harry wasn’t sure when it started. Maybe it was after that late-night binge of takeout and whisky, or maybe it was just a result of staring at the same four walls for too long. Either way, the fact remained: his goldfish was talking.

It started small. A flurry of bubbles. But by the end of the week, Gilbert—that was the fish’s name—was holding full-blown conversations. And not just any conversations. No, Gilbert spoke mainly in Shakespearean verse.

“What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and I am, alas, swimming in this accursed bowl!”—Gilbert declared one morning, his beady eyes following Harry’s every move.

Harry rubbed his face in disbelief. “I need to get out more,” he muttered.

Gilbert swished his tail dramatically. “Nay, master! ‘Tis not thine isolation, but thine inability to listen to the wisdom of those who dwell beneath the watery deep!”

Harry squinted at the fish. “Are you quoting Romeo and Juliet at me?”

“Aye,” Gilbert replied, puffing out his gills. “For within this glass prism, I find myself a tragic hero, with no fair maiden, nor an end to my sorrows!”

Harry blinked. “Right. Well, that’s fantastic. I need a lie down.”

He tried to ignore it, really he did. But Gilbert wouldn’t let him. The next day, the fish had moved on to Hamlet.

“To swim, or not to swim, that is the question! Whether ‘tis nobler in the tank to suffer the pellets of outrageous fortune…”

Harry groaned. “Please, Gilbert, just eat your fish flakes and shut up.”

“Wouldst thou silence a poet?” Gilbert countered.

Harry stared. He wasn’t sure if he was more disturbed by the fact that his fish was talking, or that it was somehow better read than him. He decided it was the latter.

After a week of relentless soliloquies, Harry found himself flipping through an old copy of Shakespeare’s Complete Works, trying to keep up with his piscine companion’s literary tirades. He didn’t dare tell anyone. Who would believe him? The pub regulars already thought he was a bit odd, and his boss had made it clear that “another daydreaming incident” would not be acceptable.

But Gilbert was relentless. “I prithee, master,” the fish said one evening, “dost thou not dream of greater things? Adventure, romance, a life beyond these dreary walls?”

Harry frowned. “I’m an accountant, Gilbert. My idea of adventure is filing tax returns on time.”

Gilbert flicked his tail dismissively. “Fie upon such notions! Fortune favours the bold!”

“Fortune favours people who don’t listen to their fish,” Harry grumbled, downing another gulp of beer.

Yet, deep down, something stirred. Maybe Gilbert had a point—though he wasn’t quite ready to admit that his existential crisis was being fuelled by a goldfish quoting King Lear.

Weeks past and Harry found himself… enjoying it. He read more. Thought more. And, without quite knowing why, he started applying for new jobs.

One morning, as he dusted off a rather smart shirt he hadn’t worn in years, Gilbert eyed him through the glass and uttered, “This above all: to thine own self be true.”

Harry smiled. “Yeah, yeah. Don’t get used to it, fish.”

Gilbert grinned—or at least Harry thought he did. “Methinks thou art finally listening, dear master.”

And as Harry walked out the door, feeling strangely lighter, Gilbert swam a full circle and bubbled, “All the world’s a stage… and mine is but a bowl.”

Later that day, Harry bought Gilbert a bigger bowl, and introduced him to a lady goldfish called Julia, who also had a fond appreciation of Renaissance literature.

The Door That Shouldn’t Be

The flat was perfect—at least, that’s what Emma had thought when she first moved in. Affordable rent, a decent view of the park, and most importantly, no damp. A rare find in London.

But in the hallway, opposite the bathroom, was a door that shouldn’t be. Emma was certain it hadn’t been there when she first viewed the place. The estate agent had walked her through every inch of the floor space, pointing out the period features, the “charming” creaky floorboards, and the dodgy boiler that he’d assured Emma was “practically brand new.” But this door… this door was new.

She stood in front of it, pressing a hand against the wood. The paint was a shade darker than the rest of the flat’s off-white doors, and lumpy in patches, like it had been applied in a hurry. She rattled the handle. It didn’t budge. No keyhole, no markings—just a plain, inexplicable door where there shouldn’t be one.

Emma frowned. “Weird,” she muttered to herself.

Over the next few days, she tried to ignore it. She told herself it must’ve been there all along, that she’d simply overlooked it in her excitement about the move.

Then, the knocking started.

It came late at night, soft and rhythmic.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Emma sat bolt upright in bed the first time she heard it. She held her breath, listening. Maybe it was the neighbours. These old flats had thin walls, and sound carried.

But no. It was coming from inside. From that door.

She didn’t sleep much that night.

The next morning, she approached it cautiously, pressing her ear against the wood. Silence. Maybe she’d imagined it. Stress and moving fatigue could do that, right?

By the next night, she knew she hadn’t imagined anything.

Tap. Tap. Tap. At 3:13 AM.

Emma started leaving the hallway light on, watching the door from the safety of her bedroom. Nothing changed—just the knocking. Relentlessly precise. Three precise knocks. Always starting at 3:13. Never a second earlier, never a second later.

She called the landlord in the morning. “There’s a door in my hallway,” she said, trying to keep her voice calm. “It wasn’t there before.”

A pause. Then, “What door?”

Emma’s grip tightened on the phone. “The one opposite the bathroom. It’s locked, and… I think someone might be—” She hesitated, feeling ridiculous. “Knocking.”

The landlord sighed, like he’d heard it all before. “That flat’s been empty a while. Maybe you’re hearing things. Old buildings creak.”

“But it’s not creaking,” Emma insisted. “It’s knocking.”

A longer pause. “I’ll send someone round,” the landlord said, but Emma suspected the comment was just to get her off the phone.

That night, she stayed up again, staring at the door. The clock ticked over to 3:13.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Emma couldn’t take it anymore. She grabbed a hammer from a toolbox she hadn’t finished unpacking and marched over to the door. “Who’s there?” she demanded, raising it in her hand.

No answer.

She swung. The hammer struck the wood with a dull thud… but instead of splintering, it felt… wrong. Like hitting something soft beneath the surface. Something that moved.

She backed away slowly, dropping the hammer. “No!” Emma grabbed her coat and keys and hurried out of the flat, leaving the door behind.

When she returned the next morning, dreading what she might find, the door was gone. The wall was smooth, freshly painted. No sign it had ever existed.

She stood there for a while, staring at the empty space.

Later, when she called the landlord again, he insisted there had never been a door.

And at 3:13 AM that night, from somewhere within the hall wall, Emma heard it.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Expired

Jack woke up groggy, and there it was—tattooed in stark black ink across the inside of his wrist: “Expires 26/01/2025”. Today’s date.

He stumbled out of bed, nearly tripping over yesterday’s discarded jeans, and rushed to the mirror. He turned his wrist under the bright bathroom light, hoping maybe it was a pen’s ink, or a trick of the eye, but the skin was smooth and unblemished except for those markings—stark, unwavering.

He scrubbed it furiously with soap and water. Nothing.

“Okay,” he said to himself, pacing the small bathroom. “Okay, think.”

People don’t just get expiration dates. That’s not how the world works. This was probably some weird stress-induced hallucination. Work had been rough lately, and he’d barely been sleeping. Maybe it was his brain’s way of telling him to take a break.

But what if it wasn’t?

Jack glanced at the clock—8:12 AM. He had to do something. He wasn’t going to just sit around and wait to… expire.

He grabbed his phone and dialled his sister.

“Hi,” Lily answered, her voice still thick with sleep. “What’s up?”

“I’ve got a problem,” Jack said, his voice shaking more than he wanted it to. “I woke up this morning and there’s… there’s a date on my wrist.”

A pause. “Like… a tattoo?”

“No. I mean, yes. But not one I put there. It just… appeared.”

Lilly sighed. “Jack, is this another weird dream thing? Because last time you called me about a talking cat.”

“This isn’t like that, Lil,” he snapped. “It’s today’s date. What if it means I’m going to—” He couldn’t bring himself to say it. “You know.”

Lilly groaned. “You’re not going to die, Jack.”

“How do you know?”

A longer pause this time. “I don’t,” she admitted. “But you’re not exactly the healthiest person in the world. Maybe the clinic is warning you to lay off the late-night kebabs.”

Jack glanced at his wrist again. It hadn’t faded. If anything, the ink seemed darker now, bolder.

“I think I need to see someone,” he said.

“Like a doctor? Or a priest?” Lily asked dryly.

“I don’t know. Both?”

She sighed again. “Look, just… take it easy today. Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Easy for you to say,” Jack muttered, hanging up.

He spent the rest of the morning on edge, jumping at every unexpected noise—the creak of the floorboards, the sudden ring of his phone. He stayed indoors, afraid to step outside, afraid that the universe might be waiting for him out there with a well-placed bus or a rogue piano falling from a window.

Hours crawled by, and nothing happened. He watched the clock intensely. 1:00 PM. 3:30 PM.

By 6:45 PM, Jack was sitting on his sofa, breathing deeply. Maybe this had been a coincidence. Some weird, unexplained phenomenon that didn’t actually mean anything.

And then the doorbell rang.

Jack stared at the door. He glanced at his wrist—no change.

The bell rang again. He forced himself to stand up and walk to the door.

When he opened it, a man in a dark suit stood there, holding a clipboard. He was tall, thin, with eyes too sharp and a smile too polite.

“Mr Jack Evans?” the man asked.

“Yeah?”

The man nodded and flipped through the pages on his clipboard. “Just confirming. You are aware today is your expiration date?”

“You mean… it’s real?”

“Oh yes.” The man looked up with an expressionless face. “But don’t worry. It’s nothing painful. Just… a bureaucratic formality, really.”

Jack edged away. “I don’t—I don’t want to expire.”

“Ah, well.” The man stepped inside uninvited, shutting the door behind him. “We don’t always get a say in these things, Mr Evans.”

Jack glanced around, looking for an escape, but the man was faster. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, sleek push-button device.

With a soft click, the world faded to black.

When Jack woke up, he was lying in bed. His heart was pounding as usual, sweat was dampening his sheets, but something felt… different. He scrambled to check his wrist. The date was gone.

He sat up, gasping. A dream? A hallucination?

His phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number:

Your expiration date has been renewed. Don’t waste it.

Dragon for Hire

Once, kings and queens trembled at the mere thought of my name. Gold piled high beneath my claws, and knights perished trying to steal a single coin. Bards sang of my fury, my fire, my wings casting shadows over trembling villages. But now?

Now, I sit outside a tavern with a crudely painted sign: “DRAGON FOR HIRE”.

It’s pathetic, I know. But what else can an old firedrake do? The kingdoms have moved on. No one wants their villages burned anymore. They have knights with shining swords who negotiate treaties instead of lopping off heads. And don’t get me started on the wizards—smug little bastards with their flashy spells and their clever ways of making my fire seem… obsolete.

I sigh, curling my tail around me, the tip flicking absently against a barrel. A few townsfolk pass by, giving me wary glances but nothing more. Not fear, not awe. Just mild irritation, as if I’m a nuisance—a dragon-shaped inconvenience blocking the street.

I glance down at the sign, wondering if I should adjust the wording. “Mild Arson for Hire” has a nice ring to it. Maybe “Pest Control: Will Roast Rats”. No. Too desperate.

Just as I’m about to pack up and sulk back to my cave, a small voice pipes up.

“I need a dragon.”

I peer down, and there stands a girl no older than eleven, dressed in patched clothes and carrying a basket full of what smells suspiciously like turnips. She squints up at me, entirely unimpressed.

I snort. “And what, exactly, do you need a dragon for?”

She tilts her head, considering. “Protection.”

I straighten a little, intrigued. “Protection from what? Bandits? Marauding knights? An evil sorcerer?”

She shakes her head. “Billy Tanner.”

I blink. “Billy… Tanner?”

She sighs, shifting the basket to her other arm. “He keeps stealing my turnips.”

I stare at her, waiting for the punchline. It doesn’t come.

“You want to hire a dragon,” I say slowly, “to scare off a turnip thief?”

She nods. “I can pay.”

My tail flicks. “How much?”

She rummages in her pocket and pulls out a single copper coin. It’s dull and worn, and probably not worth much, but she holds it out with the same gravity as if it were a king’s ransom.

I look at the coin. I look at her. And then, because I have truly reached rock bottom, I sigh and say, “Fine.”

Her face lights up. “Really?”

I shrug, stretching my wings with a theatrical flare that sends nearby chickens scattering. “Work is work.”

She grins and leads me through the village, where people step hurriedly out of my way, some muttering complaints about property damage and the fire hazard I apparently represent.

We reach the field where Billy Tanner, a wiry boy with more dirt than manners, is rooting through the girl’s vegetable patch. He looks up, sees me towering over him, and freezes.

I rumble low in my throat, letting a thin plume of smoke curl from my nostrils. “Is there a problem here, Billy?”

Billy Tanner pales. “N-no, sir!” He drops the turnip like it’s cursed and sprints off, vanishing over the hill.

The girl beams at me. “That was amazing!”

I huff, feeling slightly ridiculous. “Yes, well. Next time, consider installing a fence.”

She hands me the coin, placing it carefully in my claw. “Thanks, Mr Dragon.”

I watch her go, feeling an odd warmth in my chest that has nothing to do with fire.

Maybe the world has changed, but perhaps there’s still a place for an old dragon after all.

I glance at my sign and, with a decisive claw, scratch out the old wording.

“DRAGON FOR HIRE – Reasonable Rates. Turnip Protection Available.”

Business might just be looking up.

The Empty Seat

The bell above the door chimed softly as Samuel stepped inside, the rich aroma of freshly brewed coffee welcoming him.

He shuffled to his usual spot by the window, the one with the best view of the bustling street outside. And, as always, he ordered two cups of coffee—one black, one with just a dash of milk.

The waitress, a young woman with kind eyes and an understanding smile, never asked why. She simply placed both cups on the table, offered her usual, “Here you go, Sam,” and walked away.

Samuel sat there, hands wrapped around his cup, as the world passed by. He could still see her there, across from him—the way she used to rest her chin on one hand, stirring her coffee absentmindedly with the other.

He smiled faintly, remembering how she’d always teased him about ordering the same thing every day. And he’d laugh, because it was true. He liked routine. He liked knowing she’d always be there, sitting across from him.

But now, the seat in front of him remained empty. It had been two years since she was gone, but Samuel still ordered her coffee. He couldn’t bear the thought of the table with only one cup sitting there.

He reached for the cup meant for her, fingers trembling slightly as he traced the rim. He never drank it, just let it sit there, letting the steam rise and vanish into the air. It was enough to imagine, just for a little while, that she was still with him.

Outside, life carried on. People hurried past the café window, chasing buses, checking their watches, lost in the urgency of their lives. But inside, time moved differently. Slowly. Softly.

Samuel sighed and glanced down at the coffee across from him, still untouched, still waiting.

Maybe one day he’d stop ordering it. Maybe one day he’d sit at a different table, or come at a different time, or maybe even stay home altogether.

But not today. Today, he let the coffee sit, let the memory linger, and let himself believe—just for a moment—that love never truly dies.

The Train Window

He was staring out of the train window, his expression distant, as though his thoughts were somewhere far beyond the station’s railway tracks. He looked older, but not by much. The familiar furrow between his brows remained—the same small crease that appeared when he was thinking too hard, the one she used to smooth away with her fingertips.

Emily’s fingers twitched against her paper coffee cup, her mind racing through the possibilities. Should she get up? Wave? Call his name?

But she didn’t move. Instead, she watched him the way she used to, quietly, observing him in the way only someone who once loved him could. Her eyes traced the familiar lines of his face, the shape of his jaw, the way his lips parted slightly as though he were about to speak.

And then, as if he could feel her gaze, David turned his head towards her. He blinked, his expression shifting—recognition, surprise, something deeper.

Her train lurched forward. She saw his lips part wider, the distance swallowing the words he might have been about to say. She held his gaze for as long as she could, watching as he disappeared out of sight.

Emily dropped her head against the glass. In another life, she might have jumped off the train. In another life, she might have smiled and said hello.

But not this life.

She let him become a memory again, left behind on a station in a city she would soon pass through and forget.

The Code

In the city of Glaustrum, everything was colour-coded. From the moment you were born, you were assigned a colour—blue for the labourers, red for the managers, gold for the leisured. The colour dictated your home, your income, your friends, and even the food you were allowed to eat. No one questioned it; they simply accepted their place within the spectrum.

Marla had never questioned her role as a Green. Greens were the healers, the caretakers. It was an honourable colour, her mother had told her, and Marla had believed it—until the day she saw the impossible.

It happened in the marketplace, amidst the stalls of tightly controlled colours—scarlet apples for the Reds, indigo fish for the Blues, buttery pastries reserved for the Golds. She was weaving through the crowd when she saw it.

A man. Dressed in white.

White was for the Unseen, the ones who had been cast out, stripped of their place in society. Yet here he was, standing in plain view, looking directly at her with eyes too sharp, too knowing.

She blinked, and he was gone.

For days, she tried to push the image from her mind. It must have been a trick of the light. But then, the colours around her started to shift. She noticed it in the mornings, the way the sky wasn’t quite blue anymore but tinged with something deeper, richer. The streets seemed less sterile, the shop signs seemed brighter, almost alive.

And then she began seeing other colours.

Colours that didn’t belong. A child’s toy, shimmering in hues she couldn’t name. A flicker of lavender in a Red district. A flash of silver on a Blue’s collar. The world was changing—or maybe it had always been like this, and she had only now begun to see.

Her mother noticed the change in her. “Marla, you’re distracted,” she chided. “Stay focused on your duties. The Council monitors everything.”

The Council. The faceless enforcers of the Colour Code. What would they do to her if they knew she was seeing beyond the approved spectrum? She already knew the answer. She would be disappeared, like her father had been when she was born.

The man dressed in white returned a week later, in the crowded bustle of a train station. This time, he didn’t disappear. He walked straight towards her, his voice low but insistent.

“You’re seeing it now, aren’t you?”

Marla flinched. “Seeing what?”

“The truth,” he said.

He reached into his coat and pulled out something small and smooth. A prism. He held it up to the station lights, and suddenly, the entire platform fractured into a riot of colours Marla had never known existed.

The reds were no longer red—they were scarlet, crimson, blood. The blues became sapphire, cerulean, indigo. There were colours she had no words for, and beneath them all, the shimmering pulse of something raw and uncontained.

He pressed the prism into her hand. “You can either look away, or you can start seeing everything.”

She hesitated. It was safer to live within the Colour Code, to let its rules dictate her place. But the thought of those shimmering shades, those unnamed possibilities—she couldn’t let them go.

Marla closed her fingers around the prism and, for the first time in her life, made a choice outside of the code. She realised she would never see the world in the same way again.

The Liar’s Mark

When Ester woke up, her skin was aglow with scars. At first, she thought it must be the sunlight breaking through the blinds, casting strange patterns on her arms and neck. But when she stepped closer to the mirror, there they were—faint, shimmering lines, crisscrossing her skin. Some were so faint they barely flickered, but others glowed brighter, red threads pulsing as though alive.

Ester had prided herself on her honesty. While others wore their glowing marks openly—reminders of small deceptions, unspoken truths, or bold-faced lies—her skin had always been clear. She had never been like them. Not a liar.

And yet, here the lines were. Her hands reached for the bathroom sink, gripping its edges for balance. She tried to think of a recent lie, something she’d said that might explain this. A harmless white lie, perhaps? But nothing came to mind.

She leaned closer to the mirror, inspecting her face. A single line stretched from the corner of her jaw to her temple, faint yet unmistakable. It burned softly, like an ember. She traced it with her fingertips and felt the heat.

Her mind flitted through the past days, weeks—years. She tried to pinpoint a moment, an untruth, anything to explain why her once-pristine skin now bore these marks.

She stood back, staring at her reflection, the pale lines burning in the morning light. Slowly, pieces of her life came into focus, like fragments of an old, half-forgotten photograph.

There was the job offer for that dream marine biologist role on the other side of the world that she’d never dared to accept. “It’s too risky. Better stick with something safe.” The faintest mark on her collarbone flickered now, a dull reminder of that choice.

There was the friend she had loved in silence, convincing herself it was better not to speak. “It would ruin everything,” she had told herself. But the truth was simpler: she had been afraid. The glowing scar on her wrist pulsed in response to the memory, faint yet persistent.

There were many moments like these. The job she took out of convenience, despite hating every minute of it. The opportunities she let slip by because she had convinced herself she wasn’t ready. Each mark told its story.

Back in her bedroom, she sank down on the edge of the bed, staring at her arms. The brightest mark ran the length of her forearm. She knew exactly what it meant. It wasn’t just one moment—it was the culmination of all the chances not taken.

The truth burned through her now, the glow of her marks impossible to ignore. They were a map of every compromise, every excuse, every self-deception. She had spent her life pretending she had made the right choices. But the marks didn’t lie.

Ester sat there for a long time, staring at the burns etched into her skin. She didn’t know what came next, whether the marks would ever fade or if she would be forced to carry them forever.

But for the first time in years, she couldn’t look away from herself. She couldn’t pretend anymore.

The Hum

The forest pulsed with colours she didn’t know existed. Clara leaned against a tree, her fingers sinking into its bark as if it were breathing, alive in a way she could feel. Every leaf shimmered, a cascade of fractals spilling down into eternity. Her body felt both infinite and dissolving. She could hear her heartbeat, not in her chest but in the ground beneath her. It synced with the rhythm of something ancient, a hum that vibrated through the soil and into her bones. Her breath became mist, but it didn’t dissipate; it danced, swirling in intricate patterns before her eyes. A version of herself stared back from the haze, her eyes wide with the same wonder she felt in this moment.

“Who are you?” Clara asked.

 “Whoever you need me to be.” The voice was her own, echoing as the mist broke apart, spinning away in ribbons that wrapped around the trees before fading into the vibrant, breathing night.

She stepped forward, her legs unsteady, each movement leaving trails of light in the air. She wasn’t sure where she was going, but she felt no fear. The forest wanted her here, every root and branch leaning closer as if welcoming her home. A stream bubbled nearby, the water not clear but glowing, swirling with colours like melted jewels. She knelt by it and cupped her hands, letting the liquid drip through her fingers. As it touched her skin, it sang—a symphony so beautiful that tears rolled down her cheeks.

She walked as if it were all one moment, feeling herself blend with all the colours around her. The forest was her, and she was the forest. She could no longer tell where her heartbeat ended and the hum began.

When the first light of dawn painted the sky in pale orange and pink, Clara emerged from the woods. She looked back, expecting to see the vibrant kaleidoscopic beauty of the night, but it was just trees now, still and ordinary. She stared at her hands; they were her hands again, not glowing or dissolving.

Yet in her chest, the hum remained.

Unspoken

The café was small and unassuming, tucked away in a side street neither of them had reason to visit. Yet, over the past six months, it had become a refuge, a meeting place without an appointment, for two strangers who were anything but.

She always arrived first, choosing the same table by the window, her coat draped neatly over the back of the chair. She brought a book, though she never read more than a page or two before he walked in. He’d spot her at once, smile briefly, and order his coffee. He never asked to join her table, but he always chose the one beside it, angled just so that they could speak with ease if they wished.

They never used their real names. She was “Eleanor” here, and he was “Daniel,” though they’d only exchanged those names after several cautious conversations about neutral subjects—books, the weather, the quality of the café’s croissants.

Eleanor knew who Daniel really was. The set of his shoulders, the faint scar on his cheek, and the way he rubbed the bridge of his nose when thinking—all of it was etched into her memory from a time long before this. And Daniel knew her, too, though he pretended not to. He’d recognised her laugh the very first time he’d heard it here, a laugh he hadn’t heard in years but couldn’t possibly forget.

They spoke often, weaving stories about their imaginary lives. Eleanor claimed to work in publishing; Daniel was a freelance journalist. She invented colleagues and deadlines; he concocted anecdotes about assignments abroad. It became their shared fiction, each seeing how far they could stretch the façade. Neither of them acknowledged the truth, that they had once shared more memories than either cared to admit.

Perhaps they were afraid of what would follow the revelation. In this café, in these brief, stolen conversations, they could be different versions of themselves—polite, curious, untouched by the pain that had once consumed them. They both knew neither of them spoke the truth.

One rainy afternoon, Eleanor looked at Daniel a little too long. He noticed but said nothing. Instead, he sipped his coffee and asked her a question about the book she wasn’t reading.

The Last Train

Ellie checked her phone for the tenth time on the empty platform. 23:57. The last train was supposed to arrive three minutes ago, but the digital board now flashed in bold red: CANCELLED.

She let out a frustrated sigh and sank onto a bench. Rain dripped from the edges of the station’s canopy, slipping through the dim glow of fluorescent yellow light.

“Missed it too?”

The voice startled her. She glanced up to see a man, mid-thirties perhaps, standing a few feet away. He had an umbrella tucked under one arm, water dripping from the ends of his dark hair. His suit jacket looked expensive but thoroughly soaked.

“Looks like it,” Ellie replied, trying to sound polite but distant. He didn’t seem to notice her tone.

“Brilliant, isn’t it? Last train, and it’s just… gone. Like it never existed.”

Ellie gave him a thin smile, hoping it would dissuade further conversation. But instead, he dropped onto the other end of the bench.

“Name’s Blake,” he offered.

“Hi,” she responded, reluctantly.

She knew she should get up and call a taxi. But, for a moment, they sat in silence, listening to the rhythmic patter of rain. Blake leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

“So, what’s your excuse for being here this late? Let me guess—workaholic? Or maybe you’re running from a torrid love affair?” His smile was disarming, playful without being intrusive.

“Nothing so dramatic. Just bad luck, mostly.”

“Bad luck? That’s vague.”

She shrugged. “Missed the earlier train because I was stuck helping a customer. Retail life, you know?”

Blake nodded knowingly, though his tailored suit suggested he probably didn’t. “I see. The worthy life of serving the public.”

“What about you?” Ellie asked, turning the question back on him. “What’s your excuse?”

Blake’s grin faltered slightly, and for a moment, he looked as though he were searching for an answer. “Work meeting ran late,” he said finally. “Caught in traffic, then—well, here I am. Story of my life, really.”

“You sound oddly resigned to it.”

He chuckled. “Maybe I am. Or maybe I’m just tired of fighting against fate.”

They fell quiet again, the awkwardness replaced by a curious sense of ease. Ellie glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. There was something strange about Blake, though she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. His presence felt… familiar, as if she’d met him before in some dream she couldn’t recall.

“You know,” Blake said suddenly, “there’s something almost poetic about this. Two strangers, stranded together in the middle of the night. Feels like the start of one of those rom-coms, doesn’t it?”

Ellie laughed. “If this were a rom-com, the train would magically appear, and we’d both realise it was fate.”

“Exactly,” Blake agreed. “Then there’d be some dramatic twist—like, you’d be moving to Paris tomorrow, and this would be our last chance to confess our undying love.”

“Undying love?” Ellie teased. “Bit much, don’t you think?”

“Not if it’s fate,” he said with mock seriousness. “Fate loves a bit of drama.”

Ellie’s phone buzzed. She glanced at the screen: a notification from her calendar. Mum’s anniversary.

“You okay?” Blake asked, his voice softer now.

She hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah. Just… tomorrow’s a hard day.”

Blake studied her for a moment, his expression unreadable. “Want to talk about it?”

Ellie shook her head. “Not really.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “But, for what it’s worth, sometimes the hardest days turn out to be the most important.”

She frowned at him, puzzled by the weight of his words. Before she could respond, the faint rumble of an engine echoed in the distance. A train’s headlights pierced through the rain as it pulled into the station.

Blake stood in response. “Looks like our miracle train’s here.”

Ellie rose too, suddenly reluctant to let the moment end. “Where are you headed?”

Blake smiled faintly. “This is where we part ways, I’m afraid.”

The train doors slid open, but Blake stayed where he was. Ellie paused in the doorway, glancing over her shoulder.

“Hey, Blake?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks. For the company, I mean.”

He nodded. “Take care, Ellie.”

She stepped inside, the doors closing behind her. As the train pulled away, she turned to look out the window. But the platform was empty. Blake was gone.

It wasn’t until later, as Ellie lay in bed replaying the night in her mind, that she realised something strange: she’d never told him her name.

Clause and Effect

INT. A DUSTY ATTIC – NIGHT

A LAWYER in a suit wipes off an ancient lamp as a GENIE emerges in a cloud of smoke, dressed in traditional genie garb but looking slightly weary.

GENIE: (booming voice) Behold! I am the great and powerful Genie of the Lamp! You have awakened me, mortal, and I shall grant you three wishes!

LAWYER: (pulling out a notepad and pen) Three wishes, you say? Excellent. But before we proceed, I just have a few clarifying questions.

GENIE: Uh… sure. But let’s not overcomplicate this. Just say what you want, and poof – done.

LAWYER: (scribbling notes) Mmm, tempting. But I’ve seen too many “wish gone wrong” situations in popular culture. Can’t risk it. Now, let’s discuss the terms. (flips open a briefcase, pulls out a contract template)

GENIE: (groaning) Oh no. Not one of these.

LAWYER: (ignoring him) Right. First question: What exactly constitutes a “wish”? Is it a verbal statement of desire, or do I need to phrase it in a specific way?

GENIE: (scratching his head) Uh, I dunno. You just say it, and I grant it.

LAWYER: (narrowing eyes) Hmm. Ambiguous. Let’s define “wish” for the record. (starts typing on a laptop) “Wish (noun): A verbalised request for a specific outcome, stated in clear and unambiguous terms, as recognised by the Genie…”

GENIE: (interrupting) Look, mate, I’ve been doing this for centuries, and no one’s needed a contract. Can we just get to the magic part?

LAWYER: (pointing a pen at the Genie) And that’s precisely why you need one. What if I ask for a million pounds, and you deliver it in counterfeit bills? Or I wish for a dream house, and it’s haunted? No loopholes, Genie. Not on my watch.

The Lawyer lays out a growing pile of papers on the table, complete with flowcharts and a checklist. The Genie looks increasingly exasperated.

LAWYER: (writing) Clause 1: No malicious compliance. Clause 2: Wishes cannot harm the wisher physically, emotionally, or financially. Clause 3: No ironic twists. I don’t want to wish for “eternal life” and end up as a tree.

GENIE: You humans are so distrusting. I’m not here to trick you!

LAWYER: (without looking up) Statistically, 87% of genie-related anecdotes suggest otherwise.

GENIE: Stupid Reddit threads… Look, if it helps, I’m not that kind of genie. I’m not here to monkey-paw your wishes. I’m more of a “give you what you want, no questions asked” type.

LAWYER: (smirking) No questions asked? Perfect. Addendum C: If the Genie delivers a wish that violates any clause of the contract, the wisher is entitled to reparations, monetary or otherwise, at the discretion of –

GENIE: (snapping) OKAY! That’s it. Just make a wish! Any wish! I’ll do it! I promise not to twist it!

LAWYER: (holding up the contract) Not until you sign.

The Genie sighs and reluctantly signs the contract. The Lawyer smiles triumphantly.

LAWYER: Excellent. Now, for my first wish: I want one trillion pounds deposited into my bank account.

GENIE: (snapping his fingers) Done!

An alert appears on the Lawyer’s phone saying: “You have received £1,000,000,000,000.00 from A. Genie

GENIE: (crossing arms) Told you I’m legit. Can we move on now?

LAWYER: Not so fast. (points to the contract) Sub-clause 2.3 requires documentation on the money’s source. I don’t want MI6 knocking on my door because it was “borrowed” from the Bank of England.

GENIE: (snapping fingers again) Fine! Here’s a receipt!

A golden scroll appears in midair. The Lawyer grabs it and examines it closely.

LAWYER: Hmm. “Source: Magical Treasury”. Acceptable. For my second wish, I want to be the cleverest person in the world.

GENIE: (nodding) Easy. (snaps fingers) Done.

LAWYER: (pauses, then narrows his eyes) Wait. Did you just shrink everyone else’s IQ to make me look better?

GENIE: Oh, for crying out loud! You’re still you, but now you know the cure for cancer, the secret to world peace, and how to win at Monopoly every time. Happy?

LAWYER: (grinning) Very. But if I find out this intelligence is temporary or conditional –

GENIE: (cutting him off) It’s permanent! Next wish!

LAWYER: For my third wish…

He pauses dramatically, flipping through the contract.

GENIE: (groaning) Just say it!

LAWYER: (grinning) I wish for infinite wishes.

GENIE: (laughing) Ah, the classic rookie move! You can’t wish for more wishes.

LAWYER: (smirking) Actually, according to Section 5, Subsection A of this contract, there’s no explicit prohibition on that. Unless, of course, you’d like to renegotiate the terms?

GENIE: (grabbing the contract and flipping through it) You… sneaky little – Fine! You win. Infinite wishes. Happy now?

LAWYER: (grinning) Ecstatic. But let’s amend the contract for clarity. I’ll need –

The genie snaps his fingers.

GENIE: (slowly disappearing back into the lamp) Nope. You can wish as much as you like, but I’m out. This has all now been a day-dream! Have fun with your infinite wishes. Byeeeeee!

The Lawyer stares at the lamp, stunned. He looks at his phone alert, which changes before his eyes to read: “You have received £0.00 from A. Genie.”

LAWYER: (to himself) Well, guess I’ll start drafting my terms for an appeal.

He walks off, with a stack of contracts in hand.