Pandora's Ink Digital Magazine

Written by Yueyan Zhang from Iolani School, Hawaii, USA The smell of water spinach floats in the kitchen. Grandma squats by the concrete counter, picking vegetables, bits of her native dialect slipping softly from her lips. It is a language passed down for generations in the mountain valley, and few people beyond that patch of land understand it. I sit at the dining table scrolling through my phone, where the comment section boils with arguments. A public incident has split p

Written by Yao Wang from Union County Magnet High School, New Jersey, USA The Harlem Hellfighters, designated the 369th Infantry Regiment, were a unit composed entirely of Black troops that fought in World War I. After spending more days in combat than any other American regiment, they would return home to a segregated and hateful America, and it was only decades later (well after their deaths) that their heroism was finally recognized. The title of this story comes from the

Written by Yao Wang from Union County Magnet High School, New Jersey, USA “Everyone, log on to your-” A hollow thud echoed off the walls, followed by a muffled expression of pain heard before the voice machine’s announcement: “Life form detected. Door opening.” An adolescent boy stepped into the room, his shirt stained with sweat and shame. “Sorry about that. I forgot they installed the new doors. Old habits die hard, right?” He stared into his teacher's unamused face. “Cl

Written by Tony Yichen Li from Pomfret School, Connecticut, USA To put things into perspective, nearly two decades have passed since a human philosopher announced my death sentence. Humanity intrigues me, you know. In just a few hundred years, these egoistic beasts have created a world independent of its creator. They have forgotten me as a merchant forgets a treasure after draining it of profit. All that remains is a bitter hole filled with logical betrayal. Post ‘my awakeni

Written by Sara Feng from Bethpage High School, New York, USA Lina had always believed the sky was honest. Planes, clouds, sunlight – those were predictable things. Solid things. Things that stayed in their place. That was why, when the impossible appeared outside her airplane window, her reality didn’t just bend. It shattered. Lina’s forehead rested lightly against the window, the faint hum of the plane vibrating through her bones. The sky outside stretched wide and bright,

Written by Qianye (Jessimi) Lyu from Sage Hill School, California, USA With my chin nuzzled into my knitted cardigan, I stepped out of my apartment. I staggered into the city, shrouded in an impenetrable mist that blurred the horizon between day and night, light and darkness, ambiguity and objectivity. This morning, I had been jolted awake by a frantic knocking at the door, my mind still murky with a hangover-like haze. When I answered the door, the mailman pushed a stack of

Written by Miranda Le from Tarbut V'torah Community Day School, Vermont, USA She had always lived on a farm. At least, she knew she used to live on a farm. Things had been feeling rather strange lately; nothing was as she remembered. But then, she couldn’t trust her memory, either. Take the sparrows and the crows, for example. Always rasping, clawing, circling endlessly, those ghastly birds coughed up whitish lumps of half-liquefied grain—rancid, spongy offerings dropped at

Written by Liu Yiduo from Fengtan Middle School, Hangzhou, China The smoke of gunpowder has long dissolved into the mountain air, yet the wind that drifts across the ridge line still carries the cold, metallic tang of rust. The bodies of American soldiers lie strewn across the earth at every unnatural angle. Their fading moans weave through the gusts, rising and falling like the last withered leaves clinging to autumn branches—trembling, yet never quite falling to rest. On th

Written by Mia Huang from The Bishops School, La Jolla, California, USA When the pet adoption center suddenly arrived in the abandoned plaza that sat near your home, you thought with curiosity - how interesting! There hadn't been shops in this place EVER in your living memory. As a child, you had ridden your bike in the parking lot, doing doughnuts in the winter and picking daisies from the cracks in the asphalt in the summer. The whole place had been locked up and left behin

Written by Lauren Zheng from Guelph Collegiate Vocational Institute, Canada How pointless this lifespan exam is. They needn’t remind me how long I’ll live: Mother does that enough. Yours is a long road, Fiora, and my part of it is almost over. My only wish is to see you into a prestigious medical school. The waiting room chair creaks as I shift, its leather peeling onto my pristine pleated skirt. Focus, Fiora. I reglue my eyes to my textbook on molecular biology. A flash o

Written by Lauren Zheng from Guelph Collegiate Vocational Institute, Canada My greasy hands were rejecting Adele’s tissue box when the ground shifted. Chairs shook, chalk broke, and pencils clattered to the floor, as if we were in a bus that had jolted into movement. Through the grimy window, we watched our tier - our world - utterly change. The sky, once paper-white and creased like my teacher’s face, morphed into an ovular sea of light with distant shores of brown. An end

Written by Ivy Lu from Fairmont Preparatory Academy, California, USA OFFICIAL REPORT The Journal of Vera Hale Bridgekeeper, 1992–1995 Recovered October 2023, Marrowridge, AZ, under the floorboards of Old Post Route 7 Excerpt 1: Most people cross bridges to get somewhere. I cross mine to speak to the dead. The first time I walked it, I was seventeen. I remember how the mist hugged my ankles like a warning. Now, it barely touches me. It knows I belong. My name is Vera Hale.

Written by Chris Zang from Princeton Day School, New Jersey, USA Alora had always been a dreamer, but her dreams were often fragments and slivers, like shards of images scattered across her mind. Sometimes they were harmless and lighthearted. Other times they were unsettling and gave her chills: dark shadows, walls that breathed as they closed in tighter and tighter, voices whispering words in the background that she could never quite understand. But those dreams never embedd

Written by Adrian Li from Eaglebrook School, Massachusetts, USA Nexus Malfunction Report: -------------------------- MR Number: A-1 Time of Malfunction: Unknown Location: Left Sector 2, Time Processing Unit Self-Age: ~Error~ Model: C2-V3 Concerns: Stasis Malfunction, Suspected Cortex Erosion, Suspected Warning Faulty --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- During standard stasis, the time p

Written by Angela Zhou from Lakeview, Louisiana, USA The Aurora Conservatory of Art & Dance End-of-Year STUDENT REPORT CARD Academic Year: 1980 Student Name: Maria Bronte Year Level: 11 Student ID: ACD-24-7831 Core Dance Subjects Classical Ballet: High Achievement Contemporary Dance: High Achievement Jazz Technique: Outstanding Conditioning: Developing Performance & Production Attendance: Excellent Performance Quality: Strong Professional Development Work Ethic & D

Written by Christine Wang from California, USA “The day clothes should make you look like a family on vacation. A pack of waterproof overalls is to be worn under them. Keep your passport with you. Find the cab with the passenger side door’s window a quarter of the way rolled down, or look for the ashtray on the dashboard. Once someone finds the first car, the rest of you will pile in about fifteen minutes. Leave the hotel one by one once it’s dark. The cab drivers know where

Written by Albert Wang from Washington, USA The alarm rings again. Lights flicker on. The station comes to life. Another shining star in a sea of night. The man crawls out of the hard, circular cubicles they use for rest and gets to work. Hundreds of them, shoved in a station far from any natural soil, throw themselves out of the relative safety of the station and into the cold, unforgiving void of space. With saws and lasers and bolt cutters, the engineers toil away, cuttin

Written by Vanessa Cheung from Hong Kong, China 190 BCE Luyue, the Dew Month - Tenth Month of the Chinese Lunar Calendar “Have you heard about that poor, poor darling?” “Oh yes. Her father– that horribly zealous man, Chunyu Yi, the doctor who aspired all the way to devastation.” “His failure to save the life of a noblewoman led to his incarceration. What shall it be? Mutilation? Execution?” “I wouldn’t linger on that. His daughter, though, the darling– Tinying. She makes

Written by Dolores Di from Texas, USA A bright light illuminated the boy's face. “What is your name?” A soft female voice inquired. “My name is Phoenix.” “Is that your actual name?” “My actual name is Tom, but I prefer Phoenix.” In a poorly lit interrogation room, a young man, whose innocence had not yet faded away with the binding of his hands by handcuffs, calmly asked the police for a cigarette. He took the cigarette and lighter from the police and skilfully lit

Written by Alvin Su from Louisiana, USA The train rumbled under us, the clanking sounds of the wheels against the tracks making a steady cadence. I was sitting next to Dad, staring out the window at the blur of trees and fields. We were on our way to Grandma’s house—she’d been talking about baking me cookies and teaching me how to knit like she always had done when we visited. The thought of her soft hands and the smell of cinnamon rolls made me smile. But then my head starte