Short stories by Isabel Yap

Isabel Yap is a writer and tech writer. A graduate from Santa Clara University and Harvard Business School, she is the author of the short story collection Never Have I Ever, and her writing has appeared in Tor.com, Strange Horizons, Lightspeed, and others.

Listing 1 story.

In a 21st-century all-girls school, a Filipina fifth-grader and her best friends are preparing for the school fair, where their classes are in charge of hosting the annual Haunted House. However, things haven't been the same for the group since one of the best friends claimed to have opened her Third Eye. Despite their classes' superstitions, the protagonist doesn't believe in ghosts and brushes off her best friend's claims. Her callousness challenges their friendship, and when the night of the Haunted House comes, she will realize just how dire the consequences of her disbelief are. In a 21st-century all-girls elementary school, violent lore about a long-dead student dominates hallway gossip. To a certain Filipina fifth-grader, however, the supernatural is all fun and games, so when her best friend claims to have opened her Third Eye, she brushes it off as a grab for attention. Her callousness challenges their relationship, and as her best friend recedes further inside herself, the fifth-grader realizes that her disbelief has consequences far direr than losing a friend.