Fiction Prompt:
Genre: Quiet realism with a soft mystery
Tone: Warm, observant, lightly uncanny, human
You live somewhere ordinary — an apartment building, a townhouse row, a quiet block.
There’s a neighbor whose door you pass all the time.
You’ve never once seen them.
Not leaving.
Not entering.
Not grabbing packages.
Not talking to anyone.
But their presence is unmistakable:
- lights on at odd hours
- a pair of shoes outside the door that sometimes change
- a faint smell of cooking you can’t identify
- a plant that appears and disappears
- a subtle sound, like typing or humming
One day, something small happens — a detail that pulls you into noticing them more sharply than ever.
Describe:
- what you’ve always assumed about this unseen neighbor
- the moment that breaks the routine
- the small detail that intrigues you
- the story your mind begins to form about who they might be
- and the tiny decision you make:
do you knock?
do you keep the mystery intact?
do you leave a note?
do you simply walk away?
Keep it:
- grounded
- intimate
- curiosity-forward
- not dramatic, not spooky
- the kind of mystery people live with without solving
- just a human moment of almost-connection
Story:
I live in a tall apartment building in a college town in the South. This building attracts graduate students, teachers, and some locals who love to live near the bustling energy of the school.
It is common to run into your neighbors in the lobby while picking up mail, accepting food deliveries, or during walks in and out of the building. Lots of residents have dogs, so it is natural to run into them outdoors.
The apartments are set up in a way that there is a neighbor across the hall from you—the doors face each other. For a long time, I thought the apartment across from mine was unoccupied because I never saw anyone enter or exit the place and never heard any sounds.
That changed one night as I was coming home from class and noticed from the outside that their lights were on. Maybe someone had moved in without me noticing, I thought.
Another time, I thought I heard a low humming sound flowing out from their place, but I was unable to figure out if it was from a male or female voice.
Often I see a pair of well-worn blue slippers left outside their door—then many days without. There was no pattern. You either always leave your footwear outside or not—no in between.
Some early mornings, like around three or four am, the scent of cooking wafted into my apartment. On rare occasions, I could hear their shower running.
One afternoon, as I came home with a handful of groceries, I noticed a furry paw sticking out from under their front door—a curious cat reaching out to grasp anyone or anything walking by. The strange paw made me nearly drop my groceries out of shock. Later, I looked forward to seeing that furry paw again without much success.
My mind imagined all kinds of people who could have lived there, and not knowing kept the mystery alive. These are the small things in life that keep people like me fascinated.
Never meeting your neighbor isn’t as strange as it is uncommon in my area. In a way, I prefer the comfort of having a polite invisible neighbor who doesn’t cause a ruckus than a loud intrusive one.
Prompt: Lumora (AI)
Story: Deepak
MY DIGITAL HOME 