When Anita found him, her immediate reaction was to put him in the foyer next to the stairwell so he could be decorative. Not everyone would have one, and the way his arms stuck out just so would make him a suitable hat rack. She realized, almost too late, that […]
A Moment’s Clarity Read More »
“New York, September 30 CP FLASH “Ambassador Holliwell died here today. The end came suddenly as the ambassador was alone in his study….” There is something ungodly about these night wire jobs. You sit up here on the top floor of a skyscraper and listen in to the whispers of
The most amazing and the most horrible thing just happened to me. I’ve stumbled upon a discovery of a lifetime, but at the same time I wish I could undiscover it. I was actually just tampering around with some music programs creating ambience tracks. You see, ever since I was
Hello. I have spent the past months among humanity, and I am quite disappointed. After a great many queries and searching out suitable aspirants, it seems as though this age is rife with a population whom seem content to treat the unknown as naught but a petty diversion or a
You’re awoken from a dreamless sleep by a dull thud from the hallway. Your eyes snap open and fix instantly on the door. What made that noise? Breathing hard, fear beginning to twitch in your mind, you realise with a shiver that you’ve kicked your duvet off in your sleep.
Even as I come to the realization that nothing in this world can pierce the hopelessness that ruins every stimulus I can still come upon, I find a reliable sense of wonder when imagining how patient it has been. Its origins and its creation, its nature and its effects. This
The Memetic Symbol Read More »
A gentle breeze blew through the little valley, pushing the perfectly formed clouds leisurely across the sky. The tall, green grass echoed the movement in the sky above, swaying gently as the cool sunlight reached across to the distant horizon. Birds sang soothingly in a tree atop a slight hill,
I love my mice ever so much. You see, I own a little colony containing hundreds of mice, all finely bred and engineered in this very laboratory. But these are no ordinary lab mice, as they’ve advanced far past crawling through mazes for food. What began as a small nest
Istanbul, Turkey August 09:12:09 AM I am at a small outdoor cafe just a few hundred yards from the teeming throng of a morning market, just in sight of the Bosporus. I love this city, and all its thick and violent contradictions. The rising heat of the day is already
December 10th, 2003 My frozen hands tremble as I fumble to work my little butane lighter. The tips of my fingers are raw and bloodied already, and I wince in pain with every failed attempt to spark a flame. Finally, I achieve a jittery fire which impatiently dances atop the
A Camp Fire Story, of Sorts Read More »
I’m so cold. So very cold. There is no warmth left in this room. I suppose I should start at the beginning. It started about 2 weeks ago, back when I could still see the sun. I live alone, my parents kicked me out after I dropped out of high
It comes most often at night. That niggling memory, gnawing in some corner of your mind like a rodent chewing the corners of the drywall. The memory of some brightly lit cartoon funland, or a world of puppets. A memory of a tv show, you would watch, seated cross legged
I used to live in the Lower Queen Anne region of Seattle, just a few blocks from the Space Needle, which has a little park around it- lawns, a fountain, sculptures, a theater and museums- a little park which is remarkably safe after nightfall. There is also, in the same
Did you ever see one of those videos where you are asked to look for, or follow a specific thing through out the video? Then, at the end, they reveal that as were watching, something large and intrusive moved around in plain sight and you never even noticed it. Its
GET HELP. You start noticing those words when you’re going about your day-to-day business – just flipping through the classifieds, or posted on telephones near bridges. Normal places. Just words that seem to be catching your eye. Then they start appearing more randomly: the first seven tiles you pick in
I used to be fearless. Horror movies never really scared me. Scary books had no effect. Haunted houses are meaningless. I was never a child who slept with the covers over their face, or with a night light. As a little girl, I never felt the need to crawl into
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It’s dark. When you don’t know where you are or how you’ve come to be there, even the simplest things can be supremely frightening. So it was that when Walter awoke, his consciousness confused and hazy, the thing that he fixated on was the darkness. A darkness so thick and
It’s night time. You’re in bed, trying to get some sleep. The TV is on. You’ve got it on the lowest volume setting so as you don’t wake your parents, the flickering light emitting from it is rebounding around the room, changing the shape of the shadows all around you
The snow rests pale on the naked metal of the shacks around me. The pastel paint stripped away in ugly patches, the rusted iron underneath leers orangish-red at my intrusion – like a thousand fiery eyes set in the suffocating whiteness that is all around me. There is no one
Compared to most other towns, the one I live in is pretty high above sea level, and my house just happens to sit on the highest hill there. From my bedroom window I can look out and see the entire town, along with the surrounding mountains. It’s a lovely sight.
The worst thing I’ve ever done in my life happened about twelve years ago, when I was a sixteen year old kid living in Cleveland, Ohio. It was the early fall, when the leaves were just starting to turn orange and the temperatures were starting to fall, hinting at the
While brushing your teeth in the evening, you catch a glimpse of your wall mirror, covered in fingerprints. Annoyed, you grab a towel and rub at them. They remain. Upon closer inspection, you realize that they seem to be on the other side of the glass.
Another Mirror Story Read More »
If you are reading this, then I am dead, and you are standing aboard a derelict Cyclone class patrol ship, the USS Mistral, with her engines dead and her electrical systems nonfunctional. I am, was, the XO of this vessel, Lieutenant Commander Ryan Simmons. Please read this carefully. If you
Don’t dismiss this outright as the work of some raving lunatic. There’s some sense to this story, if you’ll just hear me out… Look, we all wonder if time travel is possible, right? Well, let me tell you something… it is. I’m from the future, actually. I know you probably
