Quick reads you can finish in 10-30 minutes
Found 1964 short novels
I woke up to a voice I didn't recognize, and a countdown over my head. "Supplies ready, start purchasing. One hundred million allocated — one hour on the clock," the voice said, calm and matter-of-fact. I sat bolt upright and laughed at myself. "What is this, a video game?" I muttered, then the scene changed and the sky above a huge supermarket opened like a theater curtain, a digital clock blinking down. I reached out and the world obeyed me. "Buy food," I told myself. "Start with...
I had worn the black cap so long it had become part of my face. People called me cruel nicknames like "mystery choreographer" or "the quiet champion," but I only wanted my steps to speak. I was Marie Guzman, and when the airport glare hit the brim of my hat that day, I did not expect to meet Elden Santiago. "Is this your luggage?" he asked, voice low and tired, as if sleep were a uniform he wore all the time. "It isn't mine," I said. "You should check the tag." Wade Floyd, his...
"I'm not dead!" I screamed into wood. "Shh—quiet!" a man's voice hissed outside. "She will hear." I banged the coffin lid again. Nails scraped. Dust fell. "Listen to me," I said. "Open it. I'm a living person. Open!" Silence. Then muffled footsteps. Then the sound of a carriage or people moving. I tasted dirt and old paint. My fingers found something cold and flat—what I expected to be a night light was a plank. I forced my knees up. The coffin answered with a dull groan. I...
They called him a savior the day he bent over my broken body and dragged me out of a field of dying men. "Cruz Omar," they whispered, and when he looked at me with those cold, precise eyes, something in the camp seemed to straighten. I should have known then that the favor was a ledge, not a gift. "I am Elora," I told him the first clear night I could speak. "You saved me." "You owe me nothing," he said, but his hand did not leave my shoulder. "Stay where I can find you." I...
"I want you to understand one thing," I said, "I will not be your backup plan." "You're being dramatic," my mother said. "You're always dramatic." "Then call it what you like," I answered. "But I won't replace anyone's choices with my life." I fold my hands. My voice is thin but steady. Around us, the light in the hallway is yellow and tired. I can still smell the shampoo from the little bubble of soap on Chelsea's head, the one she leaves in the bathroom like a trophy. I look at...
"I saw him on the news." "The new CEO? In town already?" "I can't believe it. Bowen Warren came back." When the plaza screen showed his silhouette, the crowd lilted with the kind of curiosity reserved for storms. He was taller than I'd remembered, a gray suit cut like it belonged to a sculptor's measurements. I turned my face away. "I thought you weren't watching," Harper said, nudging me. "I'm not," I lied. "I'm—I'm fine." Harper Bauer's thumb tapped a rhythm on my palm...
"I can't believe he's actually coming back," I said, tapping my nail against the arm of the leather sofa. "Elisabetta, you're asking that like it's a surprise invite," Jules said from the phone, breathless with her usual flair. "You always melt when Sebastian walks into a room." "Don't call him Sebastian like he's a dessert," I snapped, smoothing my skirt. "I only call him that because you refuse to call him a simple name," Jules laughed. "Anyway, tell me — are you ready to receive...
I smelled it first. "It smells like someone has been smoking," I said without looking up from the sink where a serum bead had slipped from my fingers. "Restaurant smokers, can you believe it? They don't care," Trey Roussel said from the hallway. He walked past the bathroom then into the bedroom; I heard the shower door slide. I didn't answer. I kept applying the serum, slow and careful, as if following a ritual might delay what I already suspected. Later, he came back into the...
I first noticed him the day I almost fell into the courtyard fountain. "Hold on—don't let go," a voice said, flat and steady. A pair of hands closed around my wrists. I looked up and the world rearranged: sharp jawline, clear eyes, a wind that smelled faintly of cold lemon. He didn't smile. He simply steadied me. "Thanks," I said. "No problem," he answered, and then turned away as if it had been nothing. They all called him Denver Fontaine. I should have known then that a quiet...
I walked out of the police station like someone had pinned a sour note to my chest. "Next time, don't kidnap children," Director Ambrosio Leone told me with a stare like a cooling iron. "Kidnap? Me?" I wanted to spit back a dozen clever insults, but Director Leone slid a paper across the desk before I could open my mouth. "I signed nothing," I said. "Who gave you permission to make me sign?" "An agreement with the Spirit Affairs Bureau," he answered. "You must obey certain...
"I'll go," I said, and I pushed my chair back. "Are you sure?" my mother asked. Her fingers trembled on the silk curtain. The room smelled of incense and regret. "Yes," I said. "I'll go." "Don't blame me, honey. Your sister—" Raffaella Brantley fumbled. "She can't take care of him. His eyes... his leg—" "Enough." I cut her off. "Answer me. Did you choose this? Did you pick me?" She looked like a woman who had practiced every excuse in the mirror. Finally she nodded, like a...
I still remember the day Donovan asked me to “get engaged.” "I thought it would be funny," he said, his voice flat, like he was reading a text message out loud. "Funny?" I touched the cold silver ring he slid onto my finger that night. "This is a joke?" He laughed. "It was a prize, Chiyo. I thought we'd laugh about it later." "I don't want a joke," I said. "There you go being dramatic again," Donovan shrugged. "Girls have to be more coy. You can't be the one to say these...
I opened the café door with a bell that always chimed like a small surprise. The scent of fresh coffee, old paper, and cedar wrapped me like a familiar shawl. My cat—white as a porcelain cup—stretched on the green cupboard and blinked up at me with the same slow kindness it had shown me since it chose this place. “Good morning, Bebe,” I murmured, setting the bundle of roses on the counter. The jukebox in the corner was playing an old record, the kind of song that made dust motes look like...
"I got in trouble for dating?" I said, head bowed as the old man waved the ruler like it weighed nothing. "Yes, Kendall Perry, early romance in our school—unbecoming," Erick Daniels said, voice rough with routine. "You are in the gifted class now slipping to the bottom. Explain yourself." I kept my eyes low. I had done this before—ten years' worth of an old wound—and my mouth tasted like rust. The memory of the day my parents left me because I had shouted at them, the memory of the call...
I have a terrible talent for waking up in the plots of other people's tragedies. "I think your mother was beautiful," he said, blood on his lips and a smile that did not reach his eyes. I tightened my fingers so hard I left crescent moons in my palm. He wiped at the red and looked at me like a man naming a prize he already owned and decided he wanted to break. "Shame it's not mine yet," he whispered. "Not now," I breathed. "Not ever." His laugh went thin and sharp. "What did you...
"I pulled her up and my hands went cold." "I need the phone," a villager said. "Give it back," I said, but they took it and walked away. I stood with a wet sleeve in my hands and a dead girl's hair in my palm. Her red jacket stuck to her like a flag. Her face was swollen white and blue. Her legs were bare. The water had carried her toward me, and she had come against the current, moving like someone walking back toward life. "She's one of ours?" someone asked. "No." I didn't...
1 Pain split me awake like glass breaking. I sat upright and the world swam—then steadied into the two familiar faces I had not seen alive for two years. "Valeria, are you all right?" my mother said, fingers gentle on my shoulder. I blinked. Nobody had called me that name in years. My heart dropped and then jumped. "Mom?" My throat was raw. "Where—where are we?" My father, Jasper Sherman, leaned forward with the same soft worry he'd always worn. "Bad dream?" I reached for him,...
I had imagined the reunion a thousand different ways. In every one of them, Ace Simmons would meet me with the same fevered eyes, the same breathless promise he had made when he thought I might die at the edge of a battlefield. "One life, one pair," he’d said — the vow tasted like a warm thing I could hold. I thought he had kept it. "You came back," his voice had said as if those two words were all the world. He had held me as if I were the reed of his breath and thought the wound to my ribs...
I opened my eyes to straw, low beams, and the smell of smoke and old grain. "Where am I?" I whispered. Someone laughed softly. "You're home, Cataleya," said my mother. No. I corrected myself in silence. I am Cataleya Suzuki — back from a life I'd earned with blood and orders, and yet my name on the lintel read wrong. I felt the room like a borrowed uniform that didn't fit. Stale air, a warped roof, the faint iron taste of river mud. My head throbbed with the memory of water...
"I won't beg you." "Then die," Ambrose said, and stepped back. I slid. Air rushed past my ears. My hands slapped stone. I clawed at the cliff as if the cliff was a friend who had kept its hand out. Ambrose watched with a smile that tasted like metal. "You're ugly. Fat. A joke," he said like he was reading a long-worn script. My left hand slipped. "I love you," I gasped, because some part of the old me—the one who fed on small kindnesses and lies—still wanted the lie to be true....
