Gelu went missing one long winter night. It had been snowing and she had told everyone that his footprints went all the way beyond the gate and got lost towards the forest. She too made her way towards the forest, but she did not find him. Ever since, every noise makes her see shadows on the walls and a terrible fear makes its way inside her soul. One time, when she dreamt of that fine shadow of his and woken up with a satisfied smile, she mustered the courage to go in the garage. In the freezer, 50 pieces of Gelu didn't even dare think of leaving a shadow.
(Translated by Marta Fulga / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year I / 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 May 2022, the group has 8,350 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. 
