First Person Past Tense Novels & Stories

"She was not a person who waited for someone else to handle things." Something moves in his voice on that sentence .... the smallest variation, the briefest departure from the even delivery, there and then controlled again. But I hear it. The specific frequency of love described in the past tense by someone who has had years to make peace with the past tense and has made something like peace with it but has not made the mistake of confusing peace with absence.

Between the icy wind and the relentless downpour, I soon lost all feeling in my limbs. Even so, I couldn't stop walking. If I stopped, I would become nothing more than a spectacle for the onlookers—a joke for them to laugh at. Not long after, my vision blurred. A memory suddenly surfaced of something that happened years ago during another heavy downpour. I hadn't brought an umbrella that day and arrived home drenched, burning with fever. Zeke had stayed by my side for an entire day and night. His face was swollen when I woke up. I later learned it was because he had punched himself out of guilt.

Harold fell silent for a long moment before replying in a hoarse voice, "Alright, I'll head back on my own. Is there anything you or Yvette want to eat? I'll cook something for you both when I get home." Just then, my assistant knocked gently on the door and whispered, "The client's here." I waved a hand to acknowledge her, then spoke into the phone indifferently. "Whatever. I'm busy. Gotta go." I didn't bother wondering what Harold was feeling. It was finally his turn to experience everything I'd once endured.

I noticed the tension in his jaw but remained silent, giving only a soft hum in acknowledgment. Still, that fleeting melody and his forced excuse were enough to erase whatever warmth was left in my heart, leaving it ice-cold.

he whispered in the empty building. He rolled his shoulders dropping the past for now, stepping forward. He absently noticed footsteps in the dust covered floor but didn’t pay much attention too it. Now purposefully he walked towards a very specific room in this rundown motel. Once he reached the door, he took a deep breath before inserting the key into the door. He slowly pushed it opened with a sudden sense of déjà vu stepping into his past, knowing his immediate present and very hopeful for the coming future. All was lost within the blinked of a thought when he saw the jumping figure, legs wrapping around his waist while nails were cutting into his skin.

I began, my voice raw, "right here… when my mom opened the door, and they hit her." I took a shaky breath, my hand trembling as I gestured to another spot. "And here… Dad was lying when I saw him for the last time." For a split second, the scene replayed vividly in front of me. I could see their bodies, unmoving, just as they had been that night. "Pick them up! Please, someone take them to the hospital!" I screamed, my voice echoing through the empty halls. Suddenly, it felt like I was no longer in the present. The air around me shifted. The living room dissolved into chaos as the past swallowed me whole. I was no longer standing there—I was reliving it.

While I walked away from them, I remember they were talking to each other, but at the distance which I had covered from them, it sounded even lower than whispers, Looking back, I wish I had heard what they were talking about, I wish I was a little bit closer to them. ********* Few minutes later, maybe close to 30 minutes…I think, I came out if the forest and now in my father's backyard. I was feeling cold, tired, weak and most of all,I felt a number of emotions scramble inside me, I recalled everything that happened in the forest and on the hill. Then a sweet high pitched voice called out my name from the mansion's back door "Alexis!

assistant"> Julia — First-Person POV The gunshot still echoed in my head. Not loud anymore. Just distant. Like my body refused to believe it had actually happened. Smoke curled through the apartment in thin gray ribbons. Broken glass glittered across the floor beneath the dim lights, sharp enough to cut through skin—and silence. My breathing turned uneven. Alan stood in front of me like a wall carved from fury and pain. One hand pressed against his side, the other gripping my wrist tightly enough to remind me he was still standing.

But I focused harder, willing my mind to go back to that moment. And slowly, the noise around me began to fade, and I felt myself leaving the present. I seemed to travel, and the closer I got, the tighter my chest became. A deep sense of unease settled in my stomach, but I pressed further. Remembering the past wasn't hard for me because it was part of my memory. But because I was trying to not just remember but to relive it—to enable me to remember even the small details I could have disregarded before. That was making my body struggle.

She soon begins to cry again as though I didn’t know this, where I once again had to nod my head with a sad smile, I couldn’t cry in front of her, she was only a child. “I know he didn’t, but wherever he’s ended up, I know he’s so proud of what he did.” I said forcing my voice not to crack as I spoke, speaking about him in the past tense is something I never wanted to do or imagined I’d have to, but it’s now become my reality and that was cutting me up.