PROMPT #429 | Reena’s Xploration Challenge

In response to: Reena’s Xploration Challenge: https://wp.me/p6HvcB-dxx

PROMPT #429
The genre chosen for this week is FANTASY.

Situation:

You are doom-scrolling late in the night, and you reach somewhere you’d never expected to be.

The Last Scroll

It was well past midnight when the algorithm began behaving strangely.

At first, I thought it was exhaustion.

Another video.

Another headline.

Another endless thumb-flick through the glowing dark.

The world spilled upward in fragments—wars, recipes, conspiracy theories, cat videos, grief, advertisements for things nobody truly needed.

I kept scrolling.

Then the screen flickered.

Not a glitch exactly. More like… recognition.

A symbol appeared briefly between posts—an unfamiliar sigil drawn in silver light.

I paused.

The next video did not load.

Instead, a doorway appeared on the screen.

Ancient. Carved from black stone.Half-covered in ivy that moved as if breathing.

No caption.

No username.

No comments.

Just a small line beneath it:

You have been searching longer than you realize.

My thumb hovered.

Every instinct whispered to close the app.

Instead, I tapped.

The phone grew warm in my hand.

The room around me dimmed, walls softening into shadow while candlelight flickered somewhere beyond the screen.

The doorway slowly opened.

On the other side stood a vast library beneath a sky full of unfamiliar constellations. Creatures moved silently between towering shelves. Some had wings. Others wore human faces stitched with gold thread across their eyes.

And waiting at the center of it allwas an old woman beside an enormous clock with no hands.

“You took your time,” she said.

I tried to speak, but my voice stayed behind in the room I came from.

The woman smiled gently.

“Most people scroll past the portal.”

Behind me, my phone screen went black.

Ahead of me, the library breathed.

And somewhere deep within it, something ancient had already begun turning the page.

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© Maggie – The Afterlove Voice ⚖️♾️🦉

With love
— Maggie
The Afterlove Voice 💫

If you want a reading, send me an email:

Afterlove-Voice@hotmail.com