Soni's Spark Shack

“The Spark That Wasn’t”
A Twilight Zone–inspired short story, starring Soni

You are about to enter another dimension—not only of sight and sound but of spirit. A dimension as soft as candlelight and sharp as broken porcelain. Meet Soni: a writer, artist, mother, dreamer, and keeper of cats… and today, a traveler on an unexpected detour down a forgotten road. She believes she’s heading home. But in truth… she’s heading somewhere else entirely.

It was an ordinary Thursday. The kind Soni liked best—quiet, with just the right blend of coffee, cat purring, and the scratch of her pen across the page. Thunder was curled on the window sill, tail flicking at invisible ghosts.

Soni had been out running errands and took a different road home, one she didn’t remember seeing before. The sign was rusted, unreadable. Still, something pulled her down it. A shortcut, maybe.

The sky overhead began to shift. Not dark, not light. Somewhere between.

Twilight.

The trees leaned in closer, like they were listening. The air grew thick with a hush that didn’t feel quite natural. Her radio began to fizz with static. But not just any static—words began to bleed through.

“Soni…”

Her name. Said in her mother’s voice.

She hit the brakes. Hard.

Her hands were shaking.

She looked to the passenger seat—and saw her old notebook. The one she buried with her mom. The leather cover was cracked, pages half-fluttered open to a poem she hadn’t written yet:

“The truth lives in the mirror,
Not the one you clean—
The one that whispers.”

She blinked.

Her windshield had fogged over from the inside.

And then—her reflection appeared on the glass. But it wasn’t her. Not exactly. It was her if she had never gotten away. If she had stayed in the pain. Her hair was limp. Her eyes, lifeless. Her smile, gone.

“I remember you,” Soni whispered. “I almost became you.”

The reflection didn’t speak—but its hand pressed flat against the glass. Behind her, Thunder meowed loud and long, like a siren in the distance.

Then a second meow.

Then a third.

She turned.

In the backseat sat all of her cats. Even the ones who had passed. Finnegan. Missi. A lineup of soft ghosts. All watching her.

Protecting her.

Guiding her.

The fog began to lift. And just as suddenly as it started, the strange road ended—spilling her out onto her regular street, bathed in the honeyed light of dusk. Thunder blinked at her from the window, as if nothing had happened.

The notebook in the seat was gone.

But her hands still smelled faintly of lilac and old paper.

And in the mirror that evening, she swore she saw the reflection wave goodbye.

You’ve just met Soni—a woman who has lived through darkness and painted it with light. But even light casts a shadow. And sometimes, the roads we forget… remember us.

Welcome back from
The Twilight Zone.