I am one of the biggest streamers on Twitch. I play games spanning all genres, and my streams consistently get over 20,000 viewers. I love what I do. It has taken me many years to get to where I am today, and not a day goes by that I […]
Our twelve-year-old daughter loved the new vintage-styled TV that my husband and I bought the other day at the local pawn shop in town. She would sit there and stare at the round, blank dusty screen with her hazel eyes fixated on the glass as if there was something playing
There’s an image that I keep pushed away in the back of my mind. Occasionally, it makes its way out and I can see that horrid face once more. My limbs go numb and I can feel my throat begin to tighten as every grotesque detail can be seen in
Everything that people think they know about the Mandela effect is incorrect. The phenomenon has been occurring for years, only most dismissed it as a fluke. In the most severe cases those experiencing the effect were diagnosed as having some sort of mental illness, and subsequently medicated, or committed. Then
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I hate the water. Always have, always will. Oh, sure, I’ve swum in pools and jumped off diving boards like any other person, but I have never once allowed my feet to leave the ground at a beach or lake. Something about not having solid ground to stand on freaks
When I got the first one, I was literally seconds away from stepping onto the plane when a call from “UNKNOWN” blared from my cell phone. It was a ringtone I hadn’t heard before, one I was pretty sure hadn’t come with the phone. Normally, I wouldn’t have stopped to
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“So why are you here?” she asked. Pretty standard opening for a psychologist sitting down with a patient for the first time. She was young, pretty and Shahrokh (an unnecessarily ethnic name) immediately felt comfortable in her presence. “Well, before I launch into what’s been happening recently I think I’d
As a kid sometimes your perception of reality and fantasy get all mixed up inside your head, one minute you’re playing with dolls then the next they’re taking you on some kind of mystical adventure through enchanted kingdoms and large castles. Lost in your own little world you don’t see
As Ms. Davis stepped into her new classroom, not a single student paid her any attention. She set her purse down on the desk in front and looked around. All the high school students were either on their cell phones or talking to one another. Not even one had so
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Mr. Hansen’s body was interred in a stately mausoleum of his own design years ago, and yet he still works for us. I’m forced to interview with the remains of the sad dotard almost daily. The world honors Hansen for his invention of countless beloved animated characters, and it’s that
Renaud Herbert Hansen Read More »
The following happened to me seven years ago while I was a sophomore in college, and it was my first experience with any drug other than weed (great choice, right?). There are many things in this report that are downright stupid and reckless, ranging from lack of research to reckless
It was beautiful, really. Pale yellow walls, bright orange shutters, and a big white door. I liked it. I called it the Creamsicle House. Even on those hot summer days, it never melted. It never dripped or drizzled, runny and sticky over your hand. It just sat there in the
I’ve got calluses on my hands from burying my brother. If we’re rescued today, I’ll have to explain that to someone. Some search-and-rescue trooper, some forest ranger, will hold my palm to the light of a chopper window and want to know how I managed to rub the heel of my hand raw. I practice, sometimes. I practice what I’ll say to people when we get back home. Dr. Harmon, the department head, will need to know how I got Geoff and Lillian killed doing what was supposed to be straightforward field research. They were both his students, hand-picked for great things, led astray by the man who wrote his dissertation on the Russian Yeti, who taught a cryptozoology class disguised as a folklore survey. I got bumped off the tenure track for that. Harmon talked over me in meetings. Like I wasn’t there.
The Whistlers: Bill’s Account Read More »
The man on the trail is dead and will need to be moved. It is a more difficult task than I would have guessed, and nearly impossible for a 5’ 4” woman with no help and no gurney. I tried to drag him toward camp right after I found him this morning, but only succeeded in pivoting him and twisting his legs around each other horribly. Bodies look so wrong once they stop feeling pain. I never thought I would have so much experience with death, but I haven’t cried over the loss of someone since the lighthouse. This man shit his pants before he died, and moving him made the smell worse. It will bring the animals in. Still no sign of Ira or Bill.
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I work in security at Disney World, the happiest place on Earth. Typically, I wouldn’t say where I work as obviously there are some pretty strict rules about things employees can put online, but I just don’t think I can tell this properly without that context. And, honestly, I think
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The west side bank has three exits, thirty windows and nineteen air vents. And when I arrived at the scene, there were thirteen people being held captive by a man with a vendetta. “How bad are things?” I asked the officer in charge. So far no one had been hurt.
Something Happened During a Hostage Negotiation I Can’t Explain Read More »
I can’t stand to be back here. This tiny, rural town I grew up in, it makes my skin crawl to see everything around me. I’m well into middle-age now, but it’s like this town has been frozen in time since I was a teenager. And the older I get,
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“Considering how much crap people give this movie, it honestly isn’t that bad,” Mark said while taking another sip of his beer. His wife, Claire, took another fistful of popcorn from her bowl. “Just you wait. This is one of my favorite parts coming up.” In the next scene, a
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A spectral woman stood in socks and sandals upon a stone overlooking a gentle brook, red dawn lips reflected in her silvery flute. I had lost something. Something crucial. Why was I here? Her melody, yes. Like warm honey to the ears. My legs ached and my head throbbed. Rest.
For those of you that don’t know me, my name is Sarah Barkley. I’m a cop in a small, rural, Pennsylvania town currently stuck working the night shift. I work with a lot of older guys, so they tend to treat me like a rookie even though I’ve been on for a couple of years now. I work your normal patrol shift, driving around pulling traffic, responding to your usual domestic disputes and whatever other wonderful calls Dispatch sends my way. There have been a lot of unexplainable calls that I’ve responded to in this town. There are certain things that they just can’t prepare you for in the police academy, and this was one of those situations.
I’m a Cop, and I Institutionalized Someone I Knew Wasn’t Crazy Read More »
Chapter One: The Dream I had a weird dream last night. It wasn’t like your normal everyday dream. It was very disturbing to me. I wouldn’t consider it a nightmare, but I know I will never forget it. It still brings a shiver just thinking about it. Before the dream,
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It used to be harmless. It really was. When Karen and I first started dating, she would bite my lip, or nibble at my ear, or pretend to be a vampire and put her teeth on my neck. We were silly. We acted like a lot of couples do, but
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The dog ran away today. It’s an easy lie, a simple one. Believable. No one questions it. Everyone knows how dogs are. There’s some work to follow through on it, of course. Walking around the neighborhood yelling, whistling. Putting up posters. Fielding calls from people who claim to have seen the dog. Which they haven’t, obviously, but I have to play along for the kids. It’s sad to watch the hope flare and fade in their faces, but what’s the alternative? The truth wouldn’t make them any happier.
These Are the Lies We Tell Read More »
I lived next to this one kid who always had bandages wrapped around their whole head, even covering their face. I remembered his name was Wilbur, a twelve-year-old boy who never left his house. He sometimes looked out of his bedroom window on the top floor, at all of the
