For a while, there was a vast nothingness. I had succumbed to the void and assimilated to it. There was no pain or joy. Only the slight general feeling of reprieve. It was only when the sound of a door unlocked, my heavy eyes fluttered open. “Victorine, my love, you have risen,” the tall shadow spoke softly. I lay upon a large feathered bed. Massive aubergine curtains hung closed from high-up curtain rods. Every piece in...

It was when the clock struck midnight that our eyes met across the golden ballroom. His darkened gaze sent an icy finger trailing down my spine. I watched as he weaved through women in extravagant gowns and men in polished suits. Effortlessly keeping his eyes fixated on me. Suddenly, someone stuck the gong. Sound waves vibrated throughout the room and my bones. I instinctively clutched a hand to my chest while searching f...

The boy was terrified, his eyes conveying fear like that he had never known. He was four years old and tied to a steel chair, a gag around his mouth, his tearful eyes staring at the man who stood by the doorway of the shed with a 7-inch wildcat Bowie knife, looking at the child with curiosity. He had killed before and knew he would this time. He preferred them as young as possible because they were more innocent, so a fou...

Miranda’s knees were locked and there was a slight tremble in her legs. Despite the cool weather, she felt sweat break out onto her back the moment they stepped into the clearing. The cold snap had settled in a few days ago. Fall was coming. This time of year seemed to ignite a sense of adventure in the kids in her neighborhood. Herself included. How else could she explain standing at the edge of Evergreen Woods, or as th...

The road disappeared behind me as I drove up the narrow, rugged gravel driveway to my family’s ancestral home. As I rounded a treacherous bend, the old house came into view. I was glad that I had thought to rent a 4x4 pickup for the trip. Years of abandonment and neglect had led to that bend being partially washed out. That washout was the first thing that I would have to fix if I decided to renovate and repair the old ho...

“Eddie’s dead,” said the female voice on the other end of the line. My caller did not identify herself, but I recognized Emma Lawrence’s voice. She was engaged to my old friend Eddie Blake. “What happened, Emma?” I asked, dreading the answer. “He went paddling on the lake, Alan,” she said quietly. That alone was enough to make my face turn pale, but I let Emma go on. “I told him not to. I refused to go myself. But he stil...

[Helsinki/FI-27.5.2050-Containment05] [Subject: 6648] The video feed clicked on, blurring, and then sharpening to perfect quality. It showed a single humanoid figure strapped down to a metal medical table that had been repositioned to sit nearly upright. The overhead PA screeched and then crackled to life. “Day three, interview two. Subject 6648.” The figure didn’t move. “Are you ready to cooperate?” Silence and an audibl...

“Reality is a cruel mistress and Fantasy is a kind one. The more I learn of myself the more fictional I feel. As if I am their love child, named Delusion, with an astral twin, named Dissociation. The Gemini of the Cosmic Zodiac, only one of us has the temper of a Taur... the other as aquatic as a Scorpion. Inhaling the vapors, Gemini caught a vision -- of the fall of Man. It began with a Fish. Got too lost playing with a...

Chapter 1 Once upon a time, in the small village of Chiseldon, Wiltshire, there was a strange occurrence happening. The sun was shining bright, and unicorns were seen galloping through the streets. At first, it seemed like a dream come true for the villagers, but as days went by, they realized that something was off. People began disappearing without a trace. Their loved ones searched high and low, but there was no sign o...

It was a quiet night in the village of Chiseldon, a small and unremarkable spot on the outskirts of Swindon. The clerk, Jack, was counting the cash register and getting ready to close the p shop. He looked forward to a peaceful evening, playing darts down the pub and maybe cracking open a beer. But little did he know that a dark horror was about to descend upon him and his humble village. As Jack was locking up the front...

The horse was in shock. It didn’t know what had happened to it as it could not comprehend just what was going on, and the farmer to whom it belonged, could only stare with a similar level of incomprehension. Standing at the gate, as ‘Bessie’ a retired Haflinger horse, lay on her side in watery mud in the corner of a field, her legs cycling slowly, head moving around, eyes blinking, her heart pumping its last as it lay som...

A thorn and wilted rose for The Apocalypse to linger and decay in the shadows of a herd biting off the throat with words inappropriate with the quill of a feather stuck in one's craw on empty pages hemorrhaging worms a bloodbath of Draconian shattered dreams of unconscionable lies swinging on the gallows with fragrant child of festering embryos to blossom in this desolate place in death's Masquerade so sweet my cadaverous...

Karl had been a concentration camp guard during the Second World War. He was known for his cruelty and brutality towards the prisoners, and he took pleasure in their suffering. But when the war ended and he was captured, his life took a strange and unexpected turn. The survivors of the concentration camp had decided that Karl deserved a punishment that was fitting for his crimes. They had hired a powerful witch to cast a...

Chapter One: Boris woke up one morning to find that his head had been replaced with a beehive. He couldn't believe his eyes as he tried to scream, but only a faint buzzing sound escaped his lips. Boris clawed at his face, trying to remove the hive, but the bees were too powerful, too alive. They swarmed around him, stinging him, and warning him to accept his fate. Boris had always known that something like this would happ...

...in death coming close, brushing the moon, my decaying corpse, to kissing my birth, laying down playing dead, with my fate touching my body, once the eyelids, in life wearing masks over my genitals, nothing to read, except for my obituary, dust drifting over my face, brushing the moon, translucent jellyfish