The cedar smoke from the campfire clutched at our lungs, a thick, gray shroud that seemed to isolate us from the rest of Camp Oakwood. I remember the heat on my face and the prickling chill on my spine. That was the night I met Adam. He was a pale […]
I’m pretty sure my guardian angel is using me. I don’t know how, or more importantly why, but every time they save my life, someone else gets hurt. Growing up, whenever I would ask my Nana what happened to my Mom, she would tell me about my guardian angel. My
I’m Terrifed of My Guardian Angel; He Won’t Let Me Die Read More »
The rain from the previous night had cleared up, leaving a damp, heavy silence over the suburbs. In a different house, miles away from the tragedy that had struck Elena’s friends, four new girls—Martha, Naomi, Karen, and Molly—were gathered in a sunroom-turned-den. The mood was already jittery. Naomi had been
The Pale Harlequin Read More »
Yuri Gagarin was the first man to enter space. You’d be hard-pressed to find someone ignorant of this fact. The knowledge of his feat seems almost universal, the Soviet cosmonaut’s name inseparable from history. Neil Armstrong was the first man to set foot on the Moon. Perhaps an even greater
Memories are fragile, but a photograph lasts forever. That’s why I never went anywhere without my DSLR. I needed to capture everything—the old hardwood floors of our house, the strange, keyhole-shaped pupils of our matching eyes, and the quiet, empty afternoons spent with my home-schooled younger sister Lucia. She was
A Perfect Exposure Read More »
FILE 2.8 [Ted Stokes] – The ‘TDC’ Experiment – 01/26/1992Note: The following text was found on a notepad in the now-destroyed ‘AFM’ base in central Idaho, and is presumed to have been written by Ted Stokes, a criminal and former inmate who was declared dead by natural causes in 1984.
FILE 2.8 [Ted Stokes] – The ‘TDC’ Experiment – 01/26/1992 Read More »
Brookings, Curry County, Oregon.December 2019. My colleague had been missing for a week. He’d been isolating himself for days, ignoring my calls, and even our inner circle of friends hadn’t heard a word from him. I was the first to genuinely worry. While I didn’t go to confront him directly,
The Beloved One: Smiling Corpse Read More »
The tornado wasn’t the first thing I noticed. It was the silence. Every morning, I drove the same stretch of freeway just after sunrise. The traffic was predictable. Brake lights. Coffee cups. Morning radio. Semi-trucks drifting between lanes. It was the kind of routine that makes you stop paying attention
Don’t Look Forward Read More »
The cold winter air whipped past the buildings as thousands of people trudged through the snow-covered streets. The tall buildings cast long, imposing shadows over the citizens as they went about their last day on Earth. Few wandered with purpose; most were lost in the thick haze of confusion that
Elsie stood on the front steps of the mall, her brunette hair waving in the wind as she gazed at the fading storm, the clouds illuminated by the sunset. The air still smelled of petrichor and wet concrete, a nostalgic, earthy scent that brought her back to the first time
The Mannequin Does Not Move Read More »
The roman forum was beautiful. The painted marble gleamed in the spring sun and there was a breeze fluttering through the trees. Great flowers climbed the concrete buildings and flowered with all the colours of the rainbow.Such a lovely day for such a melancholy event. A magpie sat on the
October 3rd The police are calling it a “behavioral crisis cluster,” because they don’t have a better word for a statistical impossibility.It landed on my desk at the Federal Center for Disease Control this morning. I’ve spent fifteen years as a senior epidemiologist dealing with outbreaks that make people bleed,
Where the World Gets Quiet Read More »
My thumb repeatedly pressed into the remote, changing the channels on the television. The motion was almost pointless as I unconsciously knew that I’d never land on a channel that could hold my attention. I had already seen all the movies I wanted to see and watched the same commercials
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I do not tell this story to people anymore because nobody believes the story about the fire lookout tower. Even the friends who were with me that night at the fire lookout tower refuse to talk about what happened at the fire lookout tower. It is one of those things
The Last Fire Watcher Read More »
The bulb hung from a wire that didn’t seem to lead anywhere. Above it, darkness. Below, a circle of yellow light, and inside it, a man on his knees, hands braced against the floor, his chest rising and falling as if he had been running his whole life. Maybe he
The campfire crackled, sending orange sparks up into the heavy canopy of pines. The night was thick and dark, smelling of pine needles, river mud, and burnt marshmallows. Five boys sat on rotting log benches, huddled close to the heat. They were deep in the woods at Camp Whispering Shadows—a
The Best Father’s Day Catch Read More »
There are very few opportunities to share an experience as absurd as mine. And who would believe it was not just another one of the fantasy stories I usually write? Not even psychologists are open-minded enough to listen to such an irrational confession. I hope that some of you, at
The sky had been normal again for a good amount of time, but Jacob still caught people looking up at it sometimes, just checking to make sure it hadn’t gone crimson again. He had watched the broadcast like everyone else. Sitting in his apartment in Chicago, he was eating reheated
A Prophet Of The Truth Read More »
Subject: Internal Memo, Project “LULLABY” (Classified Level 5)Source: Leaked from servers of Stellar Streaming, 3 hours before their global shutdown. TO: Content Acquisition & AI Ethics BoardFROM: Dr. Aris Thorne, Algorithmic PsychologyRE: The “Lullaby Loop” – Immediate Termination Required I am writing this against direct orders. In 48 hours, Stellar
The Final Optimization Read More »
The first tooth arrived in the heart of a pear. Years later, whenever Adeline tried to explain everything that had happened, she always found herself returning to that afternoon, though she knew the true beginning might have been much earlier. Perhaps it began in the graveyard behind her grandmother’s house,
The Girl Who Kept Finding Teeth Read More »
For around three years, I worked as a freelance school caretaker across the UK. Whenever a school was short-staffed or waiting to hire a permanent caretaker, I’d be sent in to cover the role. Some assignments lasted a few days. Others lasted several months. Once a permanent replacement was hired,
The one who writes back Read More »
I keep hearing them. The Whispers. The voices deep within people’s minds, speaking their true thoughts. I don’t really know when this started. I remember one day just waking up, and hearing the whispers.God he’s so annoying. Doesn’t he ever shut up?Why the hell doesn’t this kid speak? Is there
The leather chair in Dr. Mitchell’s office always squeaked when I shifted my weight. I stared at the geometric patterns on his rug, trying to find the words. “It’s the same dream, Dr. Mitchell.” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “Every single night. It always starts the same way.”
The Oakridge Field Trip Read More »
I work for the county sheriff’s office up in NorCal. I received a call in the predawn hours on May the 23rd, 2020 telling me to investigate the collapse of a residence on the street I grew up on. It was hardly surprising to see my friend’s house had gone
The Grimoire of Leonard Hopkins Read More »
