The procession meanders through the blind forest, sliding down the path paved by the moon's rays. The wide hoods move in the rhythm of the steps. Rows of Pilgrims of the Night gather, like springs returning to the queen, in Poiana Castelului. I still tremble, cursing my curiosity, but it's too late to run. I arrive and am caught between the bodies struggling and screaming invoking the Castle. Their hands intertwine around me and a pleasant numbness invades me. I become a living brick and I know: I am the Castle.
(Translated by Alma Teodora Miron / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year II / Corrected by Silvia Petrescu, coordinator of the translations)Real Fiction is a collective project started in 2013 by Florin Piersic Jr. The concept of Real Fiction continued to exist as a Facebook group, after a volume of stories was published at Humanitas Publishing House. (In October 2021, the group has 7.275 members.) The authors write ultra-short stories, with the texts limited to 500 characters (in Romanian, so the length of the English translation might be a little different) - a flash-fiction exercise on a topic that changes every few days. The group's coordinators are Florin Piersic Jr., Gabriel Molnar, Răzvan Penescu, and Luchian Abel. (Drawing by Adrian T. Roman)
Versiunea în română a acestui text se poate citi aici, în rubrica Ficțiuni Reale. 
