I saw him on Wednesday.

Not in the lecture hall. Not in the controlled, tiered geometry of rows and seats where I had a designated square of space and a reason to look at the front of the room. This was the hallway outside the architecture building. The long, linoleum corridor with the trophy cases and the pinned-up student work and the particular echo that made every footstep sound like two.

I was coming from the print shop. I had my portfolio case under one arm and a tube of drawings under the other and my phone pressed between my ear and my shoulder because Cassie was talking to me about a party on Friday and I was saying mm-hmm at intervals while thinking about whether I had enough time to re-do the elevation sketch before Thursday's studio.

And then he walked out of Room 314.

His office. I knew it was his office because I'd stood outside it on Monday for four minutes before knocking, reading the nameplate — T. MARSH, TA, STRUCTURAL STUDIO — in small brass letters, and then I'd knocked, and he'd said come in , and I'd gone in, and he'd poured me coffee, and his fingers had touched the mug, and I'd walked home in the rain without an umbrella.

That was two days ago.

He walked out of Room 314 and turned left, heading toward the east stairwell, and he didn't see me. I was on the other side of the corridor, half-hidden behind a group of second-years arguing about a laser cutter booking, and my phone was still pressed to my ear, and Cassie was mid-sentence about someone named Derek and his "situational ethics," and I stopped walking.

I just stopped . In the middle of the hallway. Like my legs had received a different set of instructions than the rest of me.

He was carrying a stack of books. Not a lot. Four, maybe five, pressed against his chest with one arm. His other hand held his travel mug. He walked the way he did everything — unhurried, deliberate, each step placed like he was checking the ground for structural integrity before committing his weight. His jacket was different today. Dark green. Corduroy, maybe. Soft-looking. The sleeves were too long and covered his hands halfway, and he kept adjusting them, pulling them back to his wrists, and each time he did, I saw the watch. The scar. The long fingers.

Cassie was still talking. "—and then he said, 'Well, technically, it's not cheating if you redefine the parameters,' which is the most Derek thing—"

"Mm-hmm," I said.

I was not listening to Cassie.

I was watching Theo Marsh walk down a hallway.

He passed the trophy case. Passed the pinned-up drawings from the spring showcase. Passed the water fountain where someone had taped a handwritten sign that said PLEASE STOP PUTTING COFFEE IN THIS . He didn't look at any of it. His eyes were forward, slightly downcast, the way they are when you're thinking about something specific and the world around you has become scenery.

I counted his steps.

I don't know why. I don't know what part of my brain decided that this was a thing to do, a thing to track , the number of times his left shoe hit the linoleum between Room 314 and the east stairwell. But I did. I counted. One. Two. Three. Four. Each step even, measured, unhurried. His stride was longer than average. He didn't bounce. Didn't shuffle. His feet landed flat and rolled forward, and his shoulders stayed level, and the books stayed balanced against his chest, and the whole thing was so steady , so completely without wasted motion, that watching him walk felt like watching someone build something. Like every step was a beam being placed. A joint being set. A structure going up, one careful piece at a time.

Fourteen steps. Room 314 to the stairwell. Fourteen steps.

He reached the door. Pushed it open with his shoulder because his hands were full. Held it for a second — not for anyone behind him, just a reflex, a habit of holding doors, his body doing it before his brain registered whether someone was there. Then he went through. The door swung shut. The little rectangular window in it showed his shadow for half a second. Then nothing.

He was gone.

I stood in the hallway.

"Lena? Lena, are you—"

"What?" I said.

"You've been quiet for like forty seconds. I asked if you wanted me to pick you up at nine or ten."

"Ten," I said. I didn't know what I was agreeing to. I didn't care.

"Okay. Cool. Are you okay? You sound weird."

"I'm fine. I have to go. I have a sketch to redo."

"You said 'mm-hmm' four times and didn't hear a single thing I said."

"I heard everything. Derek. Situational ethics. Redefining parameters."

A pause. "You literally heard nothing."

"Bye, Cassie."

I hung up. Stood in the hallway. The corridor was emptying. The second-years had resolved their laser cutter dispute and dispersed. The echo faded. The fluorescent lights buzzed.

I looked at the east stairwell door. The door he'd gone through. The little rectangular window was empty now. Just glass. Just the grey stairwell beyond it.

Fourteen steps.

I hated myself a little. Not a lot. Not in a dramatic, what is wrong with me way. Just a small, quiet, rueful hatred. The kind you feel when you catch yourself doing something stupid and can't stop. Like picking at a scab. Like rereading a text you shouldn't have reread. Like standing in a hallway counting a stranger's footsteps and feeling your chest go warm when he held a door open for no one.

He's a TA , I thought. He's your TA. In three days you will sit in a studio and he will look at your cantilever model and say, "Your joint needs a secondary brace," and that will be the entirety of your relationship. You will not see him in hallways. You will not count his steps. You will not stand behind laser-cutter arguments and watch him walk away like he's the last person on earth and you've been given four seconds to memorize him.

You are twenty-one years old. You are an architecture major. You have a scholarship to maintain and a sister to send money to and a portfolio that needs fixing. You do not have time to stand in a hallway and feel your sternum go warm because a man in a green jacket adjusted his sleeves.

I walked to the print shop. Collected my prints. Walked to the studio. Set up my drafting board. Unrolled my elevation sketch. Picked up my pencil.

I drew for two hours.

And three times — three separate times, I counted these too, God help me — I looked up. Toward the corridor. Toward the east stairwell. Toward the door he'd gone through.

No one was there. Of course no one was there. He was in his office, or in another building, or in the faculty lounge, or anywhere in the world that was not this hallway, and I was sitting at a drafting table in a half-empty studio drawing a building elevation and glancing at a door like a teenager waiting for a text.

I put my pencil down. Pressed my palms flat against the drafting table. Felt the cool laminate under my skin.

Stop it , I told myself. Stop it right now.

I picked the pencil back up. Drew another hour.

---

That night, in my dorm room, Cassie was out at a study group that was definitely not a study group. The room was quiet. The radiator ticked. Rain tapped the window in small, irregular bursts, like someone testing whether they were welcome before fully arriving.

I sat on my bed with my notebook. The same one. The one with T. Marsh. Hands. Ink on the thumb. Scar on the knuckle. written on the first page.

I turned to the second page.

I wrote: Fourteen steps. Room 314 to the east stairwell. Green jacket. Corduroy. Sleeves too long. He adjusts them. Pulls them back. He holds the door for no one. He holds it anyway.

I stared at the words.

I underlined he holds it anyway .

Then, below that, smaller, almost embarrassed: I counted. I stood in the hallway and I counted his steps. Fourteen. I don't know why. I don't know what I was looking for. I don't know what I was hoping to see. He didn't see me. He didn't know I was there. I was behind the laser-cutter people. I was no one. I was seat 14. I was a grey sweater.

But I counted.

And my chest went warm.

And I hate that it went warm.

And I would do it again.

I closed the notebook. Set it on the nightstand. Turned off the lamp. Lay back. Stared at the ceiling. The rain picked up. The radiator ticked its slow, metallic tick.

Thursday was tomorrow.

I was going to sit in the studio. He was going to walk in. He was going to look at my cantilever model. He was going to say something about shear loads and lateral forces and the philosophy of weight. He was going to look at me, or not look at me, and either way I was going to feel it in my chest, and I was going to hate it, and I was going to sit in row eleven and let it happen.

I pulled the blanket up to my chin.

Fourteen steps.

I closed my eyes.

I counted them again.

.

Cheers!!

Hey there! I just posted my third article on Substack called "They are dead; they are gone. No one lasts forever." The Charli xcx song inspired this one (and hence the title), and it's about the idea of legacy and why legacy means nothing to the dead. Hope you guys enjoy and support my work!

https://niksarchives.substack.com/p/they-are-dead-they-are-gone-no-one?r=3x9hg7&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

Fluent English ✅️

Fluent arabic✅️

Fluent French✅️

Virtual assistant ✅️

Scenario & stories writer✅️

Arabic to English to French translator✅️

Gym coaching ✅️

Video quality checking✅️

Looking for a 5$ to 10$ remote work 30h a week

Hi all, just looking to put some of my recent work on the crucible. Advice on readability, dialogue, interiority and anything else going on in this would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

So I have 500 upvotes in under a month there and they banned me because of a quality post or grammar could have been, rooms instead of room’s but it doesn’t make sense.

Why would I get banned for that? if you’re curious what the story was it’s this. So some perspective would be good.

Maybe it’s not the greatest, but come on. I didn’t deserve that.

Reign Soleil

What I see—what is happening, is the strangest experience imaginable. Nothing appears real. Everything looks fake like my room’s wearing the face of a corpse. 

Even as I glance at the window, the sky seems slightly off, resembling a still frame cropped out of a painting. It matches the exact color of the pavement, as if it‘s in the wrong dimension. 

It begins in my room, by the doorway, I hear a growling sound and turn around and behind me is a shadow of a man with features similar to a human and in his hands are two leashes attached to two human-like dogs that are in front of him, sitting like hellhounds would, with facial features stretching out how a bear’s face is.

I can’t ignore them.

Their presence kills the power to the TV when I‘m watching, True Blood, right when I’m  at the scene where Sookie and Bill break up.

I keep trying to frantically hit the power button on the remote, but it doesn’t work. The screen’s black and reflecting my image.

Without thinking, I raise my arm and point the changer at the figure with the two human hounds, gasp and push the power button towards them and they blink and in a flash, vanish. 

But the TV still won’t turn on.

I sit up wondering if what just happened actually did happen, or if maybe I fell asleep for a brief second, but the television still isn’t working, so I couldn’t be imagining it.

That’s when I decide to give up on it and snatch a book off my dusty shelf and clear a path that leaves two dust walls on both sides of the space I pull the book from, filling the air in particles that make me sneeze.

While I’m reading, there’s an atmospheric shift, like the static from an oncoming storm, raising the hairs on my arms which makes me shiver as a tingle shoots down my spine. 

The room has a scent of frost that reminds me of menthol cigarettes every time I take a breath.

And as I’m dwelling on that thought, the lights go out.

Just as I get to chapter four of The Turn of the Screw, and starting to really get into it. 

I squeeze my hand into a fist, digging my nails into my palm, grunt and throw the book against the wall, jump up, stomp to the doorway, flick the light switch but they don’t turn on. 

I keep trying. The rapid clicking sounds like teeth chippin. I go as far as to check the bulb—twisting, untwisting—and nothing. I leave my room to retrieve a new one, the hallway’s as humid as the Amazon Rain Forest and has a heavy stench of decay and infected flesh radiating from under the floorboards, making me gag. I can‘t stop choking. 

While I’m staring at the floor, behind me the bathroom door slams shut. I jump because the sound startles me and when I look at the door, there’s a crack going down the middle of it. 

Which I’m going to have to pay to fix and probably have to rip the floor apart just to find whatever dead animal’s under there. 

I walk downstairs to see if I can find where the rancid smell is coming from, but each step I take further down leaves me with the impression of being in another world.

Everything looks the same but seems completely different. Especially at the bottom of the stairs, like my living room became a simulation. The paint on the wall is smooth and pixelated.

And then a whisper comes from behind my ear in a slow kind of distorting moan.

“Get Out!” The voice stretches out.

I turn around quick, wondering at the same time how my mom could sneak down the stairs behind me without me noticing, but when I turn, nobody’s there.

“Get Out!” Says the air, blowing its breath in my face with the scent of rotting flesh.

I can’t handle the smell.

So, I head to the front and sit outside on the porch and  as the screen door closes I hear the door behind it shut as well and the lock clasp.

I turn to look over my shoulder and staring through the glass window is an older me, smiling and waving.

I'm doing a short film where the main characters will be a real horse and a real dog. They will later be voiced over by my female and male friend. The horse is a female and the dog is a male. The problem is that i have no idea what the movie should be about. I know that I want the horse and dog to be on a date, I'm gonna set up a table with plates, candles, etc on a field. Is there any creative soul who might help me with an idea to this movie? I want it to be kinda abstract and the relationship between the horse and dog should be a methaphor for humans relationship. Thank you!

I recently wrote a piece about the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope and the mysteries it's designed to investigate.

I'm not an astrophysicist, so the challenge for me was less about showing how much I know and more about making ideas like dark matter, dark energy and gravitational microlensing interesting and understandable without drowning the reader in technical language.

I'd really appreciate some feedback from a writing perspective:

• Does the opening make you want to continue reading?

• Are there places where the explanation becomes too technical or slow?

• Does the conversational style work, or does it feel forced?

• Where would you have stopped reading?

Here's the piece:

https://medium.datadriveninvestor.com/the-telescope-that-may-find-what-the-universe-is-hiding-08e2f2236504

I'm especially interested in criticism rather than just a "nice article", I'm trying to get better at this kind of explanatory writing.

This one is a little strange to explain but I want to try.

I started a project in spring. Character I believed in, opening that felt right, general sense of where it was going. Wrote consistently for a few months. Somewhere in that period I also started a document for what I told myself was a different project, something smaller, something I was just sketching while the main project developed.

Six months in I had fifty thousand words across two documents and no clear sense of which one was the real project.

They had started as genuinely different things. Different characters, different settings, different tones. But reading back through both of them I found they were asking the same question from different angles. The same preoccupation dressed in different clothes. The same thing I apparently needed to write about badly enough that I had started writing it twice without realizing the repetition.

Tried to explain what I was working on to a friend over dinner and produced something incoherent that combined both projects without meaning to. She asked if I was writing one book or two. I said I was not entirely sure.

Spent the following month reading both documents carefully and trying to understand what they were each doing that the other was not. Eventually merged the best elements of both into something that could not have existed without the strange six month accident that produced them.

The book I am finishing now is better than either version would have been alone and I would not have written it if I had been disciplined enough to stay in one document.

Most writers does not write,

Because they think who read it,

But don’t think so much about it,

Just write and feel the magic with it.

Chapter 2 can be read here

Never lose your hope,

Always live with a smile,

Keep your life on track,

Without any drawback.

Sometimes, your thoughts,

Can be the words someone needs the most,

Sometimes, you never do

How much you are words,

Inspire, comfort, or change someone's day with positive hope.

[Start of Scene]

[ON THE STAIRS]

(Reset takes one slow step toward the stairs, then another. He quietly approaches the weeping little girl and sits down on the step right beside her, keeping a small distance.)

(Reset doesn't look directly at the child. Instead, he stares straight ahead, looking straight into the camera frame.)

Reset (speaking gently while looking straight ahead): "Hey little one... why are you crying so much? Did your mom hit you? Look, if you break the rules or act naughty, mothers are bound to scold and scold you. You shouldn't be naughty, right?"

(The little girl doesn't lift her head. Her crying slows down, but her face remains completely buried inside her knees.) Little Girl (voice muffled, trembling): "I... I wasn't being naughty, Uncle..."

(Camera zooms tightly on Reset's face. Hearing her words, his eyes widen in genuine shock. He still doesn't turn his head, but his calm expression shifts into curiosity as he keeps staring straight ahead.)

Reset (calmly): "Then... why did your mom hit you?"

(The camera pulls back slightly into a wide shot, showing both Reset and the little girl clearly in the same frame on the dimly lit staircase.)

Little Girl (in a low, sad voice): "Because... because I am small and I can't earn money. And today, I accidentally knocked over her white powder... I didn't mean to, but she hit me for it."

(Reset turns his head slowly, looking directly at the bruised, swollen cheek of the little girl for the first time. The realization hits him—there is something far darker happening inside that apartment.)

Reset (softly): "Ah... so that's what it is."

(Reset quietly reaches into his pants pocket. He pulls out his hand, opening his palm.)

Visual: (In his hand is a small stack of cash—several currency notes.)

(He extends his hand toward the child, holding the money out to her.)

Reset: "Here... take this money and give it to your mom. Tell her that the neighbor next door gave it to you because you helped him move his boxes today." (The little girl hesitates, looking at the cash with wide eyes.)

Reset (with a faint, protective tone): "I know you didn't actually help me, but just keep it and tell her that. That way... she won't have a reason to hit you again."

[Scene cuts to black]

Never be shy too,

Go out alone,

Place to visit,

And enjoy the journey,

Don't wait any one,

To come with you,

Feel free to live,

Less dependencies shown.

Quiet people talk most,

When they feel comfort,

When they found good for them,

When they like to share with someone,

When they are happy to talk to someone.

Friendship is something special,

Which connect people without any realtion,

It's a bond of pure creation,

Who connects each one with a passion.

First time ever writing like a full story, let me know if you find it cool!

Stable job,

Stable life,

All we need,

Its our choice,

Writing skill,

Can give you both,

Depends on you,

What you choose

The more you cry,

The more you learn.

The more you struggle,

The stronger you become.

Every hardship is an experience,

Every difficulty you face today,

Prepares you for a better tomorrow.

Yesterday is a lesson,

Today is a chance,

Tomorrow is a hope