The city that slept too long

 


Experimental Short Story Series #59
Title: The City That Slept Too Long
By Faraz Parvez (Pen name of Professor Dr. Arshad Afzal, Former Faculty, Umm Al Qura University, Makkah, KSA)
farazparvez1.blogspot.com

In the hush of a forgotten realm, veiled beyond maps and memory, there stood a city whose people slept not at night—but for a hundred years at a time.

They called it Somnara, the Slumbering Citadel. The law was ancient and clear: when the great bell tolled, every citizen—from infants in cradles to elders in rocking chairs—would drink from the Dream Chalice and surrender to sleep. Life paused. Clocks stopped. Seasons froze.

No one questioned why. No one remembered who made the rule.

But one girl forgot to sleep.

Her name was Elia, and she had hidden beneath the cathedral floorboards during the ritual. Not out of rebellion. Not out of fear. Simply because she’d fallen behind chasing a moth made of moonlight.

When she surfaced, the world was silent. Not a bird. Not a breath. Buildings gleamed untouched. Rivers ran without ripples. Statues wept dew. Time itself blinked and stood still.

At first, she danced. She read every forbidden book in the Council Library. She tried on royal robes. She painted skies. She sang lullabies into the echoing domes of the sleeping city.

But by the hundredth day, she stopped singing.

Because she realized someone—or something—was answering her songs.

A mirror cracked. A door she'd never seen before appeared on the palace walls. And there, in the heart of Somnara’s deepest vault, she found others like her. Not human. Not asleep.

Watchers.

Born from dreams too wild for slumber to hold. Tall, with stitched smiles and eyes made of twilight, they’d been waiting—for her.

“You’re the first spark,” said one, with a voice like unstruck flint. “The sleeper who woke before time. Now time must choose.”

And so it did.

The city began to stir. First a breath. Then a shiver. Then the murmur of bells that hadn’t rung in centuries. But the people who awoke were not the same. Elia watched her own mother blink open her eyes and speak a name that wasn’t hers.

Somnara had been dreaming for too long. And now, the dreams had remembered their way back.

Elia, the girl who stayed awake, wasn’t a girl anymore.

She was the guardian between what sleeps and what wakes.

And the city… was never quiet again.

Why We Tell These Stories
With this 59th tale, we draw closer to the monumental Experimental Short Story Series Collection, which will soon be published in both digital and limited-edition print.

Each story is more than ink and imagination. It is a portal, a pulse, a whisper between the worlds of reality and wonder.

If you’ve been traveling with us, thank you. If you’re just arriving—welcome. Behind every tale is a secret. And behind every secret is you.

Read, Reflect, Return.
Because #60 is coming. And it promises to change everything.

Blog: farazparvez1.blogspot.com


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