Glance Lock Screen Stories Novels & Stories

**The Unfinished Story** The next morning, Claire awoke to the soft light of dawn filtering through the curtains, painting the room in hues of gold and pink. For a moment, she lay still, her thoughts a tangled web of past and present. The locket rested on the nightstand beside her, its weight a constant reminder of the words her grandmother had left behind—words that had stirred something deep within her. She reached for it now, running her thumb over the smooth surface, feeling the delicate engraving beneath her fingertips. *Live. Love. Forgive.* The words echoed in her mind, a mantra that felt both daunting and liberating.

Lily, seated cross-legged with the laptop perched in front of her, sighed. “We already tried ‘The Craft,’ ‘Veronica,’ and ‘Twilight.’ She was obsessed with all of them. It’s not that.” Maya huffed. “Then we’re back to square one.” “Well, technically, we’re at square three,” Lily muttered, motioning at the laptop screen. The small message blinking back at them was like a countdown to doomsday: “Three attempts remaining before permanent lockout.” They both stared at it in silence, the weight of what it meant pressing on their shoulders.

"Not when you're already falling for him, girl." I was taken aback, then quickly composed myself and glared at Louisa, reproachfully saying, "Stop talking nonsense. I'm not falling for him." "Fine!" Louisa raised her hand in surrender. Suddenly, my phone vibrated and Louisa grabbed it, gasping. It was too late for me to stop her. My phone had no lock screen, and the wallpaper on the homepage was a comic picture of a man and a woman gazing at each other with desire.

I find it in his jacket pocket. Hope in my throat, I lift it and click the button on the side that will alight the screen. Immediately, my hopes shrivel up and die right on the spot. The phone is locked. It’s not even asking for a number code that I could try frantically do guess. Instead it requires retinal recognition to unlock. I glance at Caleb. Surely if I try to pull back his eyelid that would be enough to wake him? Despair rises in the place that hope abandoned. This plan isn’t going to work. There’s nothing I can do.

Leo said, pointing to a circular desk in the center of the room. Hundreds of screens were flickering. They showed the "Collapse" Rowan was causing. Across the globe, the simulations were failing. People were waking up in their pods. The "Content" was being replaced by the Golden Ink. **[SYSTEM ALERT: UNAUTHORIZED NARRATIVE OVERRIDE]** **[SOURCE: THE UNDER-STORY]** **[STATUS: UNSTOPPABLE]** "He’s winning," I said, a tear of joy rolling down my cheek. "He’s breaking the machine."

These pictures we took were when we took swimming together. I pressed the three dots on my phone then click “Set as screen lock.” I smiled at myself and turned on and off my phone. When the screen lit up, his abs immediately appeared on me. I just convinced myself that it was his phone and he should be the wallpaper because I was embarrassed to think why I put him on my screen lock.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any way or by any means either electronic or mechanical without express permission from the author except for brief quotation in a book review. Any infragment of copyright will be punishable by law. At First Glance © 2021 by Nothando Dlamini Disclaimer This is a total work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to real life individuals, living or dead or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

Rook Theia said as she picked up the locket and held it in her hand. Gobi Zalika took the locket from her hand and looked at it carefully. She said it means someone has entered forcibly and this is a serious crime in Silver Lakes City. She looked into Rook Theia's eyes and smiled. Before they arrived, Gobi Zalika threw the locket away and hid with Rook Theia. They both hid behind some trees and watched as they approached. It was like watching a film reel, only without the sound of music, just the sounds of their footsteps against the dirt.

"The command line is unresponsive! The system is... it’s locking me out!" I shoved him aside and took the controls, my fingers slamming against the keys. Nothing. The screen began to glitch, lines of code fracturing into white noise. A window popped up in the center of the display—a window that hadn't been there before. It wasn't a system error. It was a greeting. A single line of text appeared, written in a cold, elegant font: “Greed is a fascinating thing, Julian. It makes even the most careful men forget to look at the bait.”

She doubts if it could help but she still tries her best to make it work. "I must escape.." Sweats were all over her forehead, it took almost 3 minutes before it was successfully unlocked. She heard a small click and hurriedly stepped down on the floor. She breathed a sigh of relief and was ready to stand up when she realized that there were small tubes attached to her, the young woman tried to snatch it off her coat and it turned out it just bleeds down. She sneakily strolls near the door and silently eavesdrops. Even though she felt the pain from the bleeding skin, she took it and quietly stepped forward. She heard a conversation between the two physiatrists, she couldn't hear them clearly