At age 10, I wasn’t quite as developed as a lot of people were when it came to their sense of fantasy vs reality. I was all about fantasy, and I didn’t care about anything else. Every day, I would play Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! on the playground with my closest friends while the other kids…
Alec sat in the cold blue glow of the steel chamber, monitors projecting their indecision between camera views outside the small compound. Each switch depicting the bright white of the lunar sands under floodlight, and the unrelenting black of the empty space above. Life in the small research station was similarly dark, oppressively quiet, with…
This is part five in the By the Fire’s Light series. Mira Grolinsky sat at her desk in the hotel room sorting through stacks of paper. A biographer by trade, she was used to gathering large amounts of information and then synthesizing it into one coherent package. What she was not used to was not…
Read part one here Read part two here Read part three here “We have to go, now!” Larry exclaims, clamping down on the knob and signaling for me to follow. I got up, grabbing the documentation book before he waved his hand backward toward the monitor as he pulled the barricaded door open. Once the…
May 27th, 2030. 10:30 Am-10:35 Am.The hum of the fluorescent lights, the smell of antiseptic, and the squeaking of chairs as men in white lab coats roll around the porcelain floors created an image in Abigail’s mind of sickness. This was not what she expected when she and her husband, Tom, came in for her…
Please consider reading Funland, by the same author, before proceeding with this story. Thank you! I live in a small town in Massachusetts where nothing big ever seems to happen. However, a few years ago, my older brother was in a pretty bad car accident that seemed to leave him more mentally damaged, as opposed…
Before you read or listen to this, make sure you are alone. If you are in a room, close the door. If you are by a window, look outside and make sure there is no one there. The only way others should know about this story is by reading it, or listening to it themselves….
There’s a trail that leads out of Leadville, Colorado, raised like a railroad on high banks. It leads to what remains of Oro City, a true 1860s-era ghost town from the gold rush days. The elevated nature of the trail allows visitors to look down on dilapidated cabins, storage buildings, stores and saloons, although, without…
Two weeks. That’s how long it took for my life to fall apart. Two weeks for everything I ever loved or cared about to be taken from me in the cruelest way imaginable. And it all started on that hateful plot of land that was supposed to be my family’s new home. We’d bought the…
The Shadow Theory By: Sean O’Morrison Session 1: A pale doctor walks into the interrogation room holding a medical file under his left arm, he is accompanied by a woman. Smiling at the patient, he begins his session by introducing himself, “Hello Mr. Strahan, I am doctor Weise.” He turns to look at the younger…
As I stood there in the hallway, halfway between the back door and the basement door, I began to realize how quiet it was. For a moment I thought I had heard something. Like feet shuffling. Or was it a scream? Suddenly a weird cold and itchy sensation came over my whole body. I blinked…
The Red Cross had been aggressive in the previous few weeks. It felt like every day I would get a phone call soliciting my donation. That was my punishment for surrendering my contact information at my job’s blood drive. Truth was, an hour off of work was far more alluring than the prospect of helping…
((Author Note: The following explanation of how to get to Brach’s is true; I’ve been that way. Go if you dare, but don’t enter. Seriously. If you would like to skip to the inside of the factory, simply search for *****)) The train sped down the elevated tracks. I saw the Brach’s Candy Factory from…
Greetings, reader. It’s a strange fact about the modern age, that in order for a thing’s existence to be confirmed, you cannot trust to your own five senses anymore. In order for reality to be ‘real’, it must be confirmed so by the greater populace. Television, and the internet, have changed our way of life…
If there was any doubt by the turn of the twenty-first century, by the dawn of the twenty-second, it was an unmistakable reality: technological civilization was unsustainable. In 2130, with the global population nearing eleven billion, Earth was Hell. We all but exhausted our reserves of conventional petroleum, and the limited coal deposits left were…
Driving home from a friends house, you sit at a red light when you hear a familiar tone from your phone, sitting in the passenger seat. A text message. Probably from your friend; you always leave things at their homes. Being a responsible driver, and the light still red, you open the message and wait…
Introduction In over ten years of continuous travel, I have encountered many peculiar and fascinating individuals. Usually the most interesting encounters are those with other travellers: men and women with no particular destination; or at least no destination they care to share. I like the idea that one can spend a fleeting evening with a…
You lay in your bed quietly. Your window is open, a light breeze flowing through. You stare up at the ceiling, watching time pass by. Why is it so hard to sleep? you silently wonder, tapping your heel impatiently, waiting for oblivion to overcome you. You haven’t been able to sleep for ages, and it’s…
Trick or treating was something I always loved as a kid. It’s something that I was too old for, being twenty-five is something that easily puts a damper on childish festivities, and being pregnant makes it even more difficult to join in on the fun. There aren’t many happy families that take kindly to an…
I’m a sleepwalker. I’ve woken up on the floor, in the hedges outside, and half-hanging out of the refrigerator with orange juice spilled down the front of my shirt – just to name a few. Most of the time it would end in uncontrollable laughter for my two roommates, and thankfully over time my embarrassment…
The following is a true story, including the account of, first, my friend we’ll refer to as Kaskie, and my own. We were in Basic Training for the Navy, nearing the end of our stay there and moving on to the fleet soon enough. As you can imagine, people get really close in Basic, so…
Dear Anonymous, I have received your answer and am glad you have shown interest. I know that the process seems daunting, but the opportunity that I have given to you is worth the risk. I have outlined the instructions below, as promised. Follow each step precisely, and the power you seek will be yours. But…
1. I’m looking at myself in the mirror, not really realizing how bad I look. My skin looks extremely pale and I got dark bags under my eyes. What on earth happened to me? I’ve been leaning forward, clenching my hands around the sink. I don’t really know how long I’ve been standing here. I…
Whenever Gideon said something like “This is going to be fucking awesome” the end result was, inevitably, disaster. But that was ok. Aidan loved disaster. So when Gideon showed up on that gleaming summer Thursday morning and asked if he wanted to do something, Aidan immediately said yes. The repetitive buzzing hum of the Arizona…