From the hill, I could see the temple being devoured by devilish flames, and I could hear the desperate cries of the nuns as they implored the Heavens to take care of them. The fire arrows continued to pierce the defenseless bodies. I clenched my talons beneath me and flew toward the disaster. The sky began to weep, hindering my flight. I landed beside her body, which was engulfed in smoke. She was already dead. I'm a griffin, licking my blood-stained wings, mourning my partner killed by the gold-hunters.
(Translated by Lucia-Alexandra Brînaru-Mitrofan / 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 June 2023, the group has 11,430 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, Luchian Abel, and Vlad Mușat. (Drawing by Adrian T. Roman)
Versiunea în română a acestui text se poate citi aici, în rubrica Ficțiuni Reale. 
