Emma ran to her parents' bedroom. She never normally went to that room, and was always excited by its different look and smell, the unfamiliar objects, the window looking out at a different part of the garden. That day, the window was open, and lace curtains fluttered prettily in the early spring breeze.

Emma paused and looked at her mom's beautiful white dressing table, covered with shiny lovely things. Then she bent low and peeked under their very large bed, where she knew the third and last chocolate egg was hidden.

The egg was there, sparkling in pale blue and silver wrapping. Emma had already reached out for it when she realised small pale fingers were clutching it, quite tight.

Emma felt worried that the egg would crack.

Two pale eyes stared at her from under the bed.

"Mine" it said, clearly.

The door behind Emma swung shut. Her hand wasn't that far from the egg. She wondered whether she should try to snatch it. She had plenty of experience with kids at school who liked to take things that wasn't theirs.

"Emma!" her mom's cry came through the door.

But Emma really wanted her third chocolate egg. It was the largest, and had pink bunnies on the silvery blue wrapping. Her hand inched forward.

The fingers moved the egg back, into the darker recesses of under-the-bed. Emma was now lying fully on her tummy, only her legs sticking out from the dark wooden edge of the bed.

"Emma! Are you in my room?! Get out- there's no chocolate there!" Now mom's voice was very close, almost at the door.

Emma wanted the egg. "Give it" she said, and stretched out more under the bed. "It's mine."

The egg moved further back, and the pale eyes didn't leave Emma's. "Go away". It smelled funny. Emma had thought this was her parents' smell, but now she knew it wasn't. She crawled further into the darkness under the bed.

Mom burst in, in time to see the soles of Emma's small feet vanish into the darkness.

"Emma!" she screamed.

She bent low and looked under the bed. April sunlight poured in from the open windows, flooding every corner of the room. It shone brightly on a scrap of silver and pale blue foil, with showing one pink ear and half a bunny face.

There was nothing else under the bed.

I’ve been with Frank for ten years, and in each of those years, he’s given me the gift of motherhood. The first baby he gave me I named Frank, Jr. Little Frank, or Junior as I grew to call him, was a loud little one, crying almost inconsolably at all hours of the day. That pissed big Frank off. He told me that maybe if I was a better mother, Junior would love me and wouldn’t cry as much in my care. It hurt at first, but I realized he was right: Junior just didn’t love me. So I decided I needed a baby that did. I begged Frank for another baby, not that it took much convincing, and soon I had child number 2 swaddled in my arms. This baby I named Franklin—perhaps a name too close to his brother’s, but I wanted to honor Frank once again. I was determined this time around for my baby to love me. I did everything I could think of: I sang him songs, I read to him, I took care of him 24/7…But just like Junior, he didn’t love me either. And that was how it went for the next seven years. Frank would give me a baby, I would love the baby, and the baby wouldn’t love me back. But something changed in year ten. Year ten was when he gave me Frances, my first girl. Unlike all my sons before her, Frances didn’t wail when I read to her, and I could swear she almost smiled when I serenaded her. Yes, finally, I had a child who loved me. After all these years, all it had taken was a daughter. I was so ecstatic, I could have cried as hard as all my sons before her. But my happiness didn’t last long, for you see, Frank didn’t want a daughter, only sons. And so as quickly as I had Frances, I lost her. My life’s one love, gone in an instant. And I could do nothing about it in these chains he’s had me in ever since I ran away from home to him. But that was when I was 14. I’m 24 now, and I’ve finally learned that I can have love. Maybe I didn’t need a daughter. Maybe my next son will love me too. And even if he doesn’t, I have at least another ten years to try.

Daddy is yelling at mommy again. He’s been drinking his grown up juice. I started skipping towards the screaming.

Daddy is hurting mommy. She’s crying.

“Daddy, please stop.”

He hit her face really bad. Somethings fell from her mouth.

“Give those to the tooth fairy bitch”

That was a great idea from Daddy. Even though he said the bad word he always says to mommy that I wasn't supposed to repeat.

Mommy is on the floor. She’s crying, then raises her hand at me.

“Go to your room Elsa”

“Ok mommy. And don't worry I'll take your teeth and give them to the fairy!!!”

Daddy closed the door. As I was skipping to my room. I still heard bumping noises and screaming from where they were.

I took Mommy’s teeth and pulled out a loose one from my mouth. I put them under my pillow and prayed.

“Oh please, tooth fairy or any fairy that can hear me. Come and take these teeth. Please take them and make daddy stop hurting her”. I prayed like mommy taught me. I kept praying until I fell asleep.

Coldness.

I’m cold.

I opened my eyes.

I was freezing.

The air was chilly.

I looked at my window. Under the drapes,

I saw… it

It went out of hiding and came to me.

It was very tall. Its eyes were yellow. Like our kitty. Its skin was like Mommy’s purses, but all black. It reached out its arms to me. Its hands were like noodles. Very skinny and long.

”You summoned me child"

“Yes. I have the teeth here.”

“Please take them and save mommy.”

I put the teeth in his hands, they felt like our kitty’s tongue.

”What you request needs far greater than teeth child”

“Oh, then please take me. I’ll do anything to stop him from hurting mommy”

“Very well child.”

He put his hand on my chest and held it there. I suddenly started feeling very tired. It’s like i've been playing for hours. I slowly drifted off.

I woke up.

The teeth were gone.

It was real.

I feel very different.

I heard screaming from my parents room.

"What the fuck is all that noise?!"

I ran over to them.

My dad is laid out on the floor crying. He lost all his teeth. Mom is frantic and doesn't know what to do.

That asshole deserves it.

Mom is taking care of that bastard. What about me?

Dad can’t talk. He’s only making stupid sounds and crying.

I am hungry. Why hasn't mom made me breakfast!

“Mom! I want to eat. Go make me breakfast. Now!”

“I can’t now honey. Daddy’s feeling a bit sick. Go to your room. I’ll make it once i'm finished here I promise”

She turned away from me and tended to my dad.

I want my fucking food.

I grabbed a knife from the kitchen and clutched it hard.

I went over to their room.

“You really are a bitch mom”

It was winter again.

Winter was when they came.

The respite of autumn had faded. The nights now much longer, the air much colder. New families had moved into the homes of those that had gone. They had heard rumours of the string of disappearances, but had no choice.

It was slim pickings for the poor.

No one was sure what they were. I peered through the bedroom curtain once, and all that did was confuse me more.

Some were bipedal, almost human, while others crawled on all fours. They prowled the streets, hunters searching for prey.

All were as dark as shadows.

They would come to the door, but I would never open it. They would try to trick you into opening the door.

One night, I heard my mother pleading for me to let her in from the other side of the door.

She’d been dead for six years.

I would hear the screaming of my neighbours as they fell for their tricks.

I think it was their screams. I wasn’t sure of anything. It could have been another trick.

The news never reported it, the police refused to help.

We were the dregs of society, not worth the attention. As long as the shadows stayed out of the cities, the world was happy.

Out of sight, out of mind.

Was that the deal? Perhaps those in ivory towers had traded the lives of the downtrodden in exchange for safety. It wasn’t much different before the shadows came. We were the ones who scrubbed their toilets, delivered their food, cleaned their cars. Yet all we got were the crumbs from the rich man’s table.

We were already slowly dying, the shadows just sped that up.

If anything, it was a mercy.

I considered this nightly. The purpose of my existence. The struggle of long work days for little pay, the fear of death throughout the winter.

What was it all for? What, exactly, was in it for me?

Tonight, I was awoken again by a voice at the door. I say awoke, but during winter it wasn’t really sleep. It was impossible to really sleep.

The voice was feminine, sultry. I peered through the spy-hole and saw the figure of a beautiful woman. Long red hair, full lips.

“I know what you are, but I have a proposition.”

The shadow grew silent.

“I’ll let you in. I’ll accept my fate. But you must keep this form, you must let me have you. My life is nothing but long, drawn out, anguish. I want a single night of ecstasy before I die.”

The shadow remained silent for a moment, and then spoke.

“I accept.”

I unlocked the door.

The woman smiled and crossed the threshold.

Her eyes were completely black.

We kissed.

We were already slowly dying, the small pleasures of life a barely palatable distraction from the crushing agony of existence.

At least this way it was my choice.

At least this way I could embrace the void.

This is my account of the completely natural death of my mate, Scott. Everyone called him Shifty, on account of the fact he could get you anything you wanted. Fifty packs of Lambert and Butler? He'd get you it and charge you two quid a pack. And he was able to source the greatest pornography you could have possibly seen in the years just before you could find it yourself on the internet.

I guess all that stuff made him a target for some. But he was just my mate. We were in our mid-twenties and had just seen in a new millennium as single as could be. So we spent our evenings at grubby little pubs around town, trying to catch the eye of any girl we thought a pair of acne-pocked, greasy haired losers might have a chance with.

One Friday night, Shifty was late. I sat down on a stool at the bar of The Cross Keys Inn and ordered two pints of lager, giving the petite redhead a behind the bar a huge smile. "Get yourself one too, love" I added in a would-be-casual tone. She smiled vaguely but didn't take me up on the offer.

I was halfway through my pint when Shifty burst through the doors. "James, me ode" he bellowed, "Have I got something for you today!"

He stumbled over to me and downed his pint in one, before asking for two more.

"What would you think if I told you I'd gotten hold of something from Roswell?"

"The TV show?"

"You're a funny guy. Look, I've come into possession of some kind of artifact. The fella who sold it to me was on the run, he'd nicked it. Look".

He pulled the strangest object I'd ever seen from his coat pocket. It was a silver cylinder about the size of a pear and it has odd hieroglyphics running around it. But the odd thing was that it glowed. I could feel a static emanating from it.

I felt my hands going numb and sweat drenched the back of my shirt.

"Shifty. Mate. You need to get rid of this. This is... This is evil!"

Shifty laughed and pocketed the thing. "You're a chicken. Anyways, I need to use the gents".

He sipped more of his beer and ambled over to the toilets. Left alone to my thoughts, I began to feel more terrified. Whatever it was Shifty had, it was bad. Even being this close to it made me nervous.

I was so worried, didn't hear the front doors open. The first I realised was feeling a hand grasping my shoulder painfully. I looked up and a pale man, dressed entirely in black was staring at me.

"Are we going to have any problems?" he rasped.

I couldn't speak.

Two more men in black clothes strode into the toilets. They left a few minutes later.

"There's a dead man in there" one of them said, "I think he's had a heart attack".

It wasn’t safe to be outside after dark anymore.
Every day, after the last of the sun’s rays dip under the horizon, they appear, creeping out of the shadows on the ground. Pitch-black figures with glowing white eyes and wisps of darkness floating off the skin. A single touch from one of these living shadows meant instant death.
Fortunately for most, they were relatively easy to avoid; all one had to do was enter a building before sundown and lock all possible entrances. But if you couldn’t do that, there was nothing you could do but pray.

“Please, just for tonight. I’ll do anything,” Tony begged the motel clerk.
Homelessness had hit him at the worst possible time. He spent the rest of his money staying at this dingy motel just to keep those things away from him. Now, he was out of money and the sun was setting fast.
“I’m sorry, but if you can’t pay, you’re going to have to leave.”
The clerk nonchalantly walked off to his own room and locked the door, leaving Tony alone in the lobby. It wasn’t ideal, but at least the lobby was safe, right?
Tony looked at the glass door and saw the shadow behind it.
The door didn’t have a lock.

Susan pounded furiously at the door, desperately hoping for someone to let her in.
An unfortunate accident at the way home from the divorce lawyer had left her outside the house without a key before sundown. She was terrified of what would happen to her, but she was more concerned about Sophie. If she was taken by the shadows, Sophie would only have her father left. It would be better for her to have no parents at all.
The door opened, and Sophie’s face peeked from behind it. Susan was relieved, but before she had the chance to enter, Sophie stumbled outside, as if she was pushed.
Susan looked up to see her husband’s face as he closed the door and locked it.

Micheal anxiously peeked through the crack in the bathroom door at the sea of shadows covering the warehouse floor. The warehouse had no windows, and the alarm was broken, so nobody had noticed that it was nighttime before it was too late. Micheal was the only survivor, the rest turned to dried-up corpses on the floor.
Normally, the shadows would leave once they were finished their attack, but these ones were sticking around. They had managed to take some of the boxes off the shelf and opened them, enamoured by what was inside. One by one, they took things from the boxes, handing them out to other shadows.
After hours of waiting, sunlight came, and the creatures vanished, taking their loot with them. Even though he had just experienced a massacre, Micheal was still expected to do his job, and that included taking note of what was stolen.
He looked at the label on the now-empty boxes.
Those creatures had stolen thousands of lock-picking sets.

Crunch.

The leaves always coated my Uncle’s house at this time of year. “Here’s my wood chipper.” A cold gaze with a sharp, jacketed arm jutting incriminatingly at its subject.

I gaze upon the wood chipper. I’m usually more a knife person. A vegetable peeler has found its way into my arsenal on certain whims. This is big leagues shit.

“Uncle, it’s certainly beautiful. Money’s not really an object.” He looks on in anticipation of my next words. Truthfully, I didn’t know Uncle that well, but I have many Branches. “My Branches are exotic. Do you think it could handle it?”

He snuffed and looked me up and down. “Yea, I wouldn’t do bamboo or some shit like that.” He shifted lower, as did his voice to a whisper.

“Anything more Exotic may be a one time deal. Jacks the blades.” He laughs. I look perplexed. “Moneys not really an object huh? Well, even if you fuck up the blades, sometimes watching it get torn up is worth it.”

The next day, I pulled my Tree, already freshly cut, in front of the Woodchipper. The Wind blew loudly. I chopped the Branches with my axe. The Wind was even louder. The moment had come - into your sacred tunnel.

The Woodchipper whirred and accepted its gift. The blades worked and sliced through Branch, Leaves, and cracked thieving Twigs.

The Wind stood still, as did the machine.

And it was worth it.

There were three kpop idols on my flight.

NeonX were the newest idol group to break the western world, a Korean-American co-ed group of four.

Clad in baseball caps and masks, they could not have looked any more obvious. I had a little sister who was obsessed with them. Every family dinner was a NeonX conspiracy theory.

“Excuse me.”

Looking up, I found myself eye to eye with a middle aged scowling woman wearing a suit. I thought her son was standing next to her. Early twenties, rocking a baseball cap over dark brown curls. But with the way she was manhandling him like a fucking toy, I realized it was the fourth member of NeonX. The guy kept his head down, hiding under his cap. The woman nodded to the seat next to me.

“Is your seat taken?” she asked in Korean, and then English.

I shook my head, and immediately, she shoved the guy into the seat, twisted around, and stalked back up the aisle.

Presumably to terrorise the other members.

I texted my sister, “I'm sitting next to your fave NX member.”

“What did you do today?”

The guy’s voice was monotone. He tipped his head back, his gaze flicking to the ceiling.

“Nothing really,” I said, “Played video games. How about you?”

He wasn't even looking at me. “What did you do today?”

“Video games, and then a flight,” I said, louder. Maybe he didn't hear me. “What did you you do, dude?”

”What did you do today?”

“Are you okay, man?”

“What did you do today?”

A sudden wave of turbulence almost sent me flying off my seat. The guy flung forwards, before slamming back into his seat. His lips stretched into a sudden smile. “What did you do today?” he paused. “I had a great day training, seeing my friends, and rehearsing for our upcoming world tour.”

I nodded, something acidic filling my mouth.

“That's… cool, man.”

“I want… to go… home,” he whispered.

More turbulence, and this time he was catapulted forward, but like a doll, he barely reacted. I realized why when glimpsed the hollow red cavern where his back was supposed to be. His spine had been twisted, moulded into that of a stand. Like a puppet. I could see old and new trails of red staining his seat.

“Jaz.” Another member, this time a girl, appeared. She gently wrapped a jacket around him, pulling the man to unsteady feet. The girl flashed me a familiar smile. Just like her smiles on my sister’s photo cards. But up close, even her smile was twisted, contorted.

Perfected and moulded.

A lie.

Eventually, the woman came over, and I heard the sickening squish of her hand delving into the hole in his back, her fingers twisting around the stand.

For a long time, I sat in a daze.

Until my phone buzzed with a text from my sister.

“Ew, he's the one who's acting weird lmao. I don't even like him anymore 😭.

It started with a small twitch. My eye involuntarily moving. My mom was the first to notice it.

“What’s wrong with your eye?” She asked, grabbing my face gently and moving it side to side.

“What are you talking about?” I jerked my head out of her grasp.

Mom crossed her arms, staring at me with concern. “Maybe I imagined it.”

I stared at her, and all I could think about was the headache that was starting to form.

“I’m going to go lay down.” I mumbled as I walked upstairs.

Then it happened again. Another twitch. Only this time I noticed it, too. My fingers jerked up.

What the fuck, I thought. What is happening right now?

I had barely stepped foot into my room, when I felt my knee jerk backward.

“FUCK!” I could hear my mother's footsteps storm up the stairs.

“Honey? What’s wrong?” I heard her shriek when she saw me. “What the hell happened?!”

“Mo-” I couldn’t finish my sentence as I felt my other knee twitch, then jerk back. Sobbing uncontrollably, I tried to reach for her.

That’s when I felt the twitch in my arms. In my neck. In my feet. In one horrific, bone snapping motion, my arms had twisted into something like a contortionist's wet dream. My feet arched up like a ballerina, the bones cracking. My neck snapped back. My back started to twitch next.

I knew what was coming, and there was no way to stop it. I could hear my mother’s screams of horror as my back started snapping forward and backward, forward and backward, over and over again until it finally decided to leave me in an arch. I had been positioned so that I could see the heels of my feet. Why was this happening to me? What did I do to deserve this?

I could feel the blood dripping out of my mouth, a copper taste taking over. Every inch of my body was in so much pain. I was trying to lift my upper half back up, to no avail. I could hear my mother’s sobs as she called 911, trying to explain to the best of her ability what was happening.

That’s when I saw her knee twitch.

“Gullible little fuckers,” the exorcist said to himself confidently as he drove his truck down the woods deep into night. The moon couldn’t be seen but truck’s lights helped him push through the curved roads further out into the boonies.

Jim Sagar, a 42-year-old man, had been a “professional” exorcist for two years now. Ever since he lost his job and wife for stealing money at his church where he was the head pastor, he had gone down the rout of scamming the mentally ill and desperate. He would pray over the withering epileptic and scream nonsense at psychotic. He had seen a lot messed up things. But no demons.

People who payed him weren’t normally rich but money was money. Jim usually charged a hefty fee for his services but the one he got recently was going to make him a killing. A desperate father, Mathew Towen, sent him an email claiming his daughter, Sarah, was hearing voices from the backyard. Claiming she was hearing thumping from the grass and vomiting up blood. Feeling some presense. They went to the nearest church, but the church couldn’t do anything. His wife was seeing visions of wounds.

“The usual nonsense,” thought Jim.

The only reason he agreed to drive out here to the middle of nowhere was because the man had promised him 10,000 dollars to save his daughter’s soul. Jim looked up the father and found he was a retired business owner and probably would pay up. A sad looking religious man who would do anything to save his daughter.

Jim knew that the gullible were God’s gift to him. He knew it was easy money. He knew they were desperate. He knew they were fools. He knew it was taking to damn long to get the damn house. He knew it was wrong.

What he didn’t know was that there was no longer a girl named Sarah Towen. What he didn’t know was that the Mathew Towen no longer had a wife. In fact, Mathew Towen killed and buried both of them last week…

Space is darkness, so deep, so encompassing it feels alive. It’s a beast whose only purpose is to eat. Its prey life itself. With a near infinite amount of worlds to choose from it takes its time waits for life to form, evolve, expand, and when a world lights up bursting full of life it snuffs it out.

Our world is already in its sight. The darkness continues to expand around us and we are blissfully unaware of the danger to come. We are already in the mouth of the beast. It’s hunger growing with each passing day it bides knowing that at any time it can swallow us whole.

Space is death. Space is darkness. And once its jaws shut tight the darkness is the only thing we’ll see.

Long before my father was born, they came in their planes and their tanks and they told us it was for our own good. They didn't let dogs run countries, why would they let us? We were backward, cruel primitives who needed to be brought kindly into freedom.

My father was worker at a drone factory they built here, and one day the workers went on strike. He was sitting in at this workstation and when the shouting started, he didn't run. They shot him through the spine. One of them stole his wallet and kicked a few teeth out.

I said I wouldn't be like him. He just stared after that. He had good days of course but we could never get past it. We used to play chess a lot and he just didn't see the point anymore.

I thought it was hopeless, always, but that's what everyone says. They invent the bomb caller, and so you wait until a storm breaks the sensors. They put cameras in every home, and so you learn how many cigarette buts left on the corner stop means tonight's the night. They send drones, machines cold and precise and bloody, that left our bodies to rot in piles of gore so maimed you couldn't tell who had died. So, you learn to hack and fly them into their own bases.

They learned too, no more false promises, no more middlemen. They used their scientists and their laboratories and built abominations. Things that look human, were once human, that some people still treated like humans, but lost that gift a long time ago.

It changed something in their brains, they could turn off the fear, the guilt and pain. They pumped them full of chemicals and augments and let them wander around our towns like loose animals. They were still awake, still able to logic out what was going on. They would kill anyone they thought was fighting back. The old and young and sick.

They had better tech, but rage was well had and all we needed. We bribed one of their technicians to fuck off and rigged their stasis bay. The cryonics malfunctioned, and I heard them screaming like slaughtered bulls as they froze to death.

We won, I suppose, and now their tourists come here and take pictures where their grandfathers died. I saw one of them on my data pad once. She was one of the abominations, she got up and she cried, and they cheered. I saw the stitches under her coat, the little scar on her neck where tubes hanged.

I hate them more than I thought one mind could bare. I want to slash their throats and crack their spines, skin them and burn them and stick their heads on pikes. They went home to their synthetic grass and their plastic homes and we buried our children in ditches.

Now I sit, and I stare, and I see my father's face in the mirror.

Remember DC++?

It was a popular p2p file-sharing client in the 2000s.

I used it mainly to download mp3 files, but technically you could share any type of file, including video.

One of the videos I randomly downloaded using DC++ is one of the most depraved, disgusting, and downright horrifying things I’ve ever seen.

I won't use full names but it involved A.D., a celebrity who died in 2000.

More specifically, their corpse.

It was a crude stop-motion animation made using their dead body.

Whoever made it, made the body “act” out various gags to the sound of a distorted voice-over talking about the fleeting nature of life, love and fame.

You could see the body actually decompose and fall apart as the movie went on, until by the end only a skeleton remained. The skeleton put on a top hat, did a dance and faded into the video's only identifying mark, a logo: 2T.

When I first watched the video, I assumed what I was seeing was incredibly convincing s/fx.

But that didn't jibe with the poor quality of the video's other elements. Bad lighting, unbalanced sound, no colour correction. Curious, I sent the video to an expert on the history of low-budget, schlock filmmaking, and he confirmed the absolute reality of what was on screen.

He had no doubt that what I'd stumbled upon was necroanimation.

Further research identified the video as a sub-genre of necroanimation referenced on 4chan as “dead hand’ing”: works commissioned by fans of dead celebrities to simultaneously honour and mock their idols.

A single video could fetch its body-snatching makers as much as a million dollars.

Digital copies circulated among aficionados, while the physical original became a sought-after collector's item.

It was hard to believe this stuff was real. Knowing people out there were making it and watching it filled me with such unease I dreaded going out, imagining that anyone I passed on the street could somehow be involved, could be capable of such evil.

I used to look people in the eye and share a human connection with them. Now I gazed into their eyes and found them impenetrably dark and deep.

“Dead hand’ing” itself had grown out of two older traditions.

One was “corpse puppetry”, a 19th-century practice among wealthy aristocrats that involved getting together, taking opium and staging puppet shows (and other “entertainments”) using cadavers bought from cemeteries.

The other was a 1990s fad of recording unconscious celebrities, usually while they were under anesthesia for medical reasons, and selling the recordings at underground auctions. At first, these recordings were purely observational, the victim merely lying there, but this developed into more interactive works. Legend has it that one of these went too far, killing the victim—but instead of stopping, the perpetrators chose to continue filming.

To this day, I've found four necroanimations, two online and two on VHS. All contain the 2T logo. One had a dedication:

Starlight even after stardeath.

Love, Uncle 9-iron

I wish I'd never seen it.

Everything was going normally from the start of the day until it wasn't.

My neighbor Betty was out tending her garden as usual, Rob was out mowing his already short lawn, and Robin: sweet beautiful Robin; was getting in her car to head to her job as a journalist. Everything was normal, or so I thought. What I hadn't noticed is that there was no sound coming from anyone around me.

When I got myself to work I still hadn't noticed the lack of sound until my boss tried to get my attention, he was standing in the doorway of my office frantically waving his arms trying to get me to look up. Once I finally noticed him I realized that something was wrong, terribly wrong.

I started to dig in my ears thinking it was a build up of wax but to no avail. That's when I felt something moving, it crawled out of my ear and up my hand to where I could finally see it. A small black widow emerged into view with remnants of her recently hatched offspring’s egg sack attached to her back.

I open my eyes, stretch and yawn. I feel good. Pain-free, for the first time in a long, long, long time. I move my limbs. They are not stiff or sore, which is surprising.

In fact, my foremost sensation is one of hunger, deep, insatiable hunger. I feel as if I haven’t eaten anything for a long, long, long time. I last remember a Roman soldier holding a cloth dipped in wine on the tip of his spear to my parched mouth- not to help me, the cunt, but to keep the agony alive longer. Ah well. It is all in the past now.

I rise. The stone floor feels cool beneath the soles of my feet. I look with interest at the jagged holes in my feet. I can see the grey stone through the hole, bits of my bones poke through the red flesh, together with some dangling veins and nerves. I wonder what happened to the nails. I look at the holes in my hands, slowly turning them over and touch my sharp protruding broken bones.

The overwhelming hunger clouds every other sensation, dulls the memories which had been flashing through my brain in a huge jumble. I walk to the entrance of the cave.

Alive, I was not a particularly strong or athletic man. Dead, I raise my holey hand and push the giant rock away from the cave entrance as easily as brushing a dead leaf off. The two soldiers standing on guard scream like little children- as if they were the ones unarmed and dressed merely in a tattered shroud.

Their arms do them no good, of course. I snatch their dull spears out of their hands- one drives his sword through me, the whites of his eyes flashing like a startled horse- I easily draw it out of my torso and toss it aside. Then I grasp him tight as he turns to flee and bring my mouth down, fastening my sharp teeth in his muscular shoulder, tearing off chunks of flesh. Ahhh nothing has ever tasted so delicious since the dawn of time. I have pinned the other one down beneath my foot, and I take my time with my two-man feast.

Soon enough, it is all done and there is nothing but a pile of bloody bones and Roman armour, and yet my hunger is barely satiated, it stings me almost as sharply as the moment I set foot out the cave. I chew thoughtfully on the last delicious bits of sinew, thinking about where to find more flesh. I consider the marketplace, but somehow I do not quite feel ready to face the crowds yet. And of course, my idiots, I’ll have to deal with them, but for now I just want to take pleasure in moving and eating freely.

I’ve always had a soft spot for the taste of fish and salt. I set off towards the sea.

Growing up I had everything I needed. I was fed 3 meals a day and had clothes on my back. My parents were fairly strict, if I do recall, and they did not tolerate very much complaining.

My mother and my father wed many years before I was born. He worked a 9 to 5 job and my mother stayed home to tend to the house. After I was conceived, my father started picking up overtime to support the new arrival. By the time I entered the world, they had every thing they needed.

My brother was a little over 4 years my junior. He would always try to come down to play with me, but my father and mother insisted I was to be left alone more often than not. It wasn't until I was about 8, that when I tried to play with him, he ignored me all together.

Every day I would try to play with him. Cars, action figures, tag, you name it, and I tried. I would go out of my way to try to get him to at least speak to me. Sometimes I would follow him into the basement and watch him play with the train table in front of my door, though he would not acknowledge my existence at all.

When I was four I always told myself that being an adult seemed too hard. I told my mother when she asked what I wanted to be, I told her that I wanted to be a child forever. Her response was always the same, "You can be whatever you wish, as long as you don't complain along the way."

It wasn't until my parents moved the train table and let my brother into my room. All there was was a chair and small hole through the bottom of the door that only a plate could get through. It wasn't until they handcuffed him to the chair and slid three trays of food through the door throughout the day. It wasn't long until the small portions and countless beatings led him he to see me.

My parents buried my brother and I about a mile into the forest that lied behind our house. It has been 40 years that we've been able to play together. My mother died at the age of 47 in a mental institution 50 miles from our house, and my father disappeared shortly after they buried my brother.

My brother is 6 and I am 10. I have a feeling we are going to be kids forever. I do wonder sometimes if being an adult would have been less scary than I imagined. But as my mother always said, "You can be whatever you wish, as long as you don't complain along the way."

Cat prowled restlessly behind the door of the bedroom where Marie was being strangled.

Cat knew something terrible was happening, and this would interfere with his food.

He was really hungry. He yowled, not loudly though, because sometimes when he yowled loudly the Man would come out and try to kick him away. Cat was too fast for him though.

Not poor Marie, who was fighting drawing her last gasps of air. She heard Cat’s yowl through the rising tide of obliterating pain, and reassured herself that Cat would survive, even if she hadn’t.

Cat heard the gasps and the shuffling of her feet as she struggled. He wanted to open the door- putting aside his dislike of the Man, he began scuffling and scratching at the door, his wails getting louder.

But the door remained shut.

Annoyed, Cat went out into the backyard and with the agility his species is famed for, he jumped up the tree whose branches brought him close to the bedroom window. He needed to know what was going on and why Marie wasn’t feeding him.

He did not like what he was seeing. The movement of Marie’s feet was very slow now, and her gasps barely audible. The window was ajar.

A Crow cawed right behind Cat. Cat and Crow had had friendly tussles over scraps of food before, but their interests were broadly aligned. Crow hopped closer, and Cat did not swip out a restless paw at him as he otherwise would have.

The animals still hesitated. Crow cawed very loudly, right at the window, and the Man jerked his head up, his fierce focus momentarily shattered.

Seeing his face, Cat decided, and leapt into the bedroom, followed by Crow.

And another crow, and another.

Crows streamed into the bedroom, blackening the space with their feathers.

Emboldened by the crows, Cat did what he had longed to do since the Man had walked into their lives, and jumped straight for his face, his claws out.

Screaming, the Man let Marie drop to the bedroom floor, and groped in the crow-darkness towards the door, Cat hanging on to his face.

The Man fled the house, followed by the crows. Cat dropped off, gave himself a slight shake, and went back to the bedroom to see if Marie could get up and feed him now.

...was actually my sister who hanged herself. She had ended her life a month ago, but here she was, still hovering. My family had taken her body away, but she stayed. I couldn't understand it. Why was she still here? Was it just in my mind, or was she really with me? The night she left, she sent me a text, "I'll stay with you FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER." Those words echoed in my head as I watched her. Was this due to her promise to never leave me alone?

When I joined the army it wasn’t out of patriotism, bravery, or a need to serve my country. I was broke and needed out of my small town and away from my parents and siblings struggling with addiction. I wanted to make something of myself and sometimes they will even sometimes pay for college. I saw it as a stepping stone to a career, so I never had to struggle like we did growing up. When your parents would rather buy heroin to avoid dope sickness than food or use money to pay the bills, you just never want to struggle again.

I signed my papers and due to a sudden conflict in another country I was deployed to a giant sandbox. The sun was hotter, the bugs were bigger, there was a threat of possible death daily, but I was still happier with my platoon than I ever had been at home. These were the people I truly considered my siblings. Not the junkies I left in the middle of nowhere.

One night we got a huge surprise milkshakes and a comedy performance by a well known name. I thought it was amazing the army was considerate enough to consider our feelings and think maybe we could use a little pick me up. We all drank our milkshakes smiling.

The comedy performance ended and I started to feel strange. Woozy but my heart was racing and I was extremely alert. I heard my friend say something about feeling along the same lines, and then looked around and realized there were enemies surrounding me. The platoon and I had to fight tooth and nail if we were going to get out of this.

I lost myself in the fight and assumed from all the commotion around me so did my comrades. Then I was hit, I felt the warm blood start to spill from the stab wounds to the stomach I just received. The woozy feeling returned due to loss of blood.

As I struggled to hold on for life I looked around me and realized I was surrounded by my siblings from my surrogate family. Weakly I tried to lift my head to take in what was happening, how they defeated us all. I was floating in and out of consciousness and knew if the bleeding wasn’t stopped soon I would be dead.

I saw two people in camo with medical equipment rushing towards us and took a breath of relief. The medics, they were finally here to save us. As I attempted to muster the strength to show I was still alive and needed attention they began talking.

“Report: New toxin distributed to soldiers works and does make those who ingest it more violent, aggressive, and accurate. Will need to tweak as the entire test group killed each other as opposed to intended targets. Need to figure out how to solve this before distributing to all military branches. Test successful.”

Soviet Union, December 196X. Unknown Math University

Vladmir, a Math professor works overtime on a thesis, together with his student Yoseph, who needs some extra credit. The two have been writing on the giant black board for so long, their hands already covered in chalk.

"Excuse me, Professor, I'll be right back, I need to go to the washroom"

"Do as you please, but be back quickly"

As Yoseph leaves, Vladmir sights, the work doesn't end.

He glances the board, up and down, confirming everything they have written on the past five hours is correct, but something is missing, like a jigsaw puzzle without a piece.

His eyes lighting up, he grabs the chalk, barely feeling his fingers, it's rather cold today, the building doesn't have heating, but he needs to produce SOMETHING by the end of the week if he wants to keep his job.

Taking a step back and looking at what he had done, his stomach hurts. his heart sinks.

He stares. It's as if someone pointed a firearm to his forehead. He's done it, he is staring at his complete work, the very language of creation unwravelling before his eyes.

And he's horrified.

"YOSEPH!, YOSEPH DAMN YOU!, COME HERE!"

Yoseph runs back to the room, scared by sudden shouting.

"What?! Is everything alrigh-"

Yoseph looks at the black board, the white color of the chalk could burn his eyes.

Yoseph stared at creation, his feet almost failing him.

In silence, Yoseph moved to the nearest window, opened it, and dropped from the 3rd floor onto the cold snow.

Vladmir did not react, but reached to his pocket, lighted a cigarrete, and proceeded to engulf the room in as much fire as he could, not hard with a lighter and lots of paper.

On the next morning, two bodies were found, one charred, but the blackboard was gone.

Isaacs watched as his fellow physicist Dr. Jensen donned the probe-studded helmet; the colander-like device had a thick bundle of fibers hanging from the back like a technological ponytail that connected to a boxy machine with a strange dish antenna made of a bluish crystalline material.

“So this is what you’ve been spending all that unpaid overtime on and scrounged a chunk of my equipment budget for? Correct me if I’m wrong, but this can’t possibly relate to our actual work,” Isaacs groaned. His friend was brilliant, but often unwise in his choices.

“This, Frederick, is going to enshrine our names alongside Einstein and Newton,” Jensen replied. Isaacs rolled his eyes, but Jensen wasn’t normally one for pranks and he was intrigued; he motioned with his hands, inviting Jensen to explain. “Think of, uh, an animal, and imagine it having an unusual color!” Isaacs blinked, not sure if this was a prank after all. “Come on, do it. Really focus on it! And don’t tell me!” Isaacs sighed.

“Alright, I’m doing it. Now what?” Jensen screwed up his eyes.

“It’s, um, a crow. A purple crow! I’m right, aren’t I?” Jensen exclaimed triumphantly. They went through a number of other outlandish mental images before Isaacs had to concede that, somehow, Jensen could read his mind. “Now, try to focus on me. Clear your mind, just tell me what you feel.”

“I, um. There’s something. Uh, you’re thinking of a top hat filled with peanut butter?”

“Yes, it’s two-way! It works!” Jensen whooped with delight in reply, throwing his arms to the side excitedly and hitting the dish with his hand so that it swung upwards. The look on his face changed so abruptly from exuberance to terror that Isaacs wondered if Jensen got an electric shock.

“The tendrils, they undulate, they feel my gaze, no no no- The golden stars, they don’t shine yet in our sky, please, we never meant-” Jensen’s babbling stream of nonsense trailed off, then turned into a piercing shriek and the man pounded the machine with his bare fists. Isaacs cried out as Jensen shattered the crystal dish, badly lacerating his hands in the process. The next moment, his wild-eyed friend had grabbed a long, wicked shard and lunged at him. “They spoke to me, and my words were slime! Their strands are around my inners, they squeeze and squeeze and arghhh-” Isaacs just barely managed to avoid getting stabbed through the eye. Jensen picked up the whole machine and threw it on the ground, spilling parts everywhere.

“They saw! The machine opened the way, they are so distant, lurking beyond the blueshift, but their minds are the size of star clusters and we got each other’s scent, they will not abide us, puny insects crawling on rocks, never again, never open the way never- ” Jensen shrieked. Isaacs scrambled out of the room as his friend stabbed himself in the throat with the shard, over and over, silencing himself forever.

Before I met her I had gotten so bored.

You’d think it were her beautiful eyes that had grabbed my attention. But months later I’ve come to learn it’s much more than that. It’s her voice, her emotions, her scent. All of it and more.

I greeted her with a smile. She didn’t return the favour, but I didn’t blame her. The poor thing looked utterly exhausted.

“Hello darling,” I said as I took a seat.

She just nodded slightly. “New look?”

"New face." The corner of my mouth curled up. “And still you recognised me instantly… I feel flattered.”

Silence.

“Well, I won’t waste too much of your time,” I continued. We had played this game so many times before. “Tell me,” I spoke, as I was leaning forward a bit, “How was yesterday?”

She grew a bit paler, and I adored her for it.

“Fine.”

I instantly shook my head. “No, no. Come on. Don’t leave me hanging.”

“Sorry..,” she whispered, “I’m tired.”

A sigh escaped my lips, “It did take a long time, I suppose. Today’ll be quicker, I promise,” I assured her & I wouldn’t dare lying to her. “Please, I beg you.” My hands found hers, her warmth spreading through my fingers.

“It was your best one yet…” she muttered. “I think- I.. It took so long and I felt every second of it. And that wasn’t even the worst part…”

My smile grew. I needed this more than anything. “Keep talking, please.”

“It- it was the waiting. I knew it was going to happen, I knew no one was going to come. There was just… nothing.”

She winced and I released her hands instantly, realising I was holding onto them so tightly I had drawn blood.

“Sorry, love,” I spoke, yet I couldn’t hide the giddiness in my voice.

We chatted about the details, before she got up from the seat, saying she had a bus to catch. A part of our routine from the last few months, yet this time a small thing changed.

She turned again.

“We’ve been doing this for so long and I- I don’t even know what to call you.”

I looked at her standing there, imaging yesterday’s scene with ease. How she wandered down the street, how the car lost control at the exact right second to pin her against a wall, how she was alive for hours after. I couldn’t let her die just yet, her pain was like a drug to me – or at least, how I imagined drugs to be. It was better than all previous ones.

Eventually I did let her pass, allowing her to draw her final breath.

And, as always, made sure she woke up in her bed again the next morning.

“Death, Reaper, Shinigami,… You humans have given me so many names. Call me whatever you want, darling.”

Before I met her I had gotten so bored.

Can you really blame me for not wanting to let her go?

This particular night of drinking with the guys was solid. Not amazing. Not life-changing. But solid.

Unfortunately, I had to pee.

I scootched out of my middle seat at the booth - y'know, that awkward little shuffle where everyone beside you has to get out first so you can escape. My body language was appropriately apologetic.

I emerged, crossed the crowded floor - busier than usual for Bar Louie's, I have to say - and made my way to the men's room.

I must've been halfway through with my business at the urinal when I heard the sound stop. It was immediate. That hum, that choir of voices outside the door... music, staccato conversations, shouting, 'hellos' and 'goodbyes' and nonsense - it was all gone.

I washed my hands and stepped back out onto the floor.

It was empty.

Completely fucking empty.

The drinks, the food, the scattered chairs and arrangements were still there, but the people? Nowhere to be found.

My eyes turned to the glass windows of the bar. The streets outside - similarly bare. The sky - darker than usual, with just a tinge of a crimson-red peppered across.

I sensed someone near me.

Looking down the length of the bar, I noticed him. A bartender, turned away from me, meticulously cleaning a mug.

I walked towards him.

I was nearly beside him when I heard him say in a low voice, "Run. This is our chance."

He turned from me, headed towards a staff-only back-area, and motioned for me to follow. I did.

Almost immediately, we were hit with a long staircase leading down. Architecturally, it made no sense. It was right in the middle of the kitchen.

Why was it there? Where did it go?

"They'll be back soon," he said. "Please, follow me."

I backed away. This didn't feel right.

Hoping I could wish this strangeness away like a bad dream, I maneuvered across the empty floor yet again and returned to the men's room.

I turned on the tap, looked in the mirror, and prayed - fucking prayed - that the noise would come back.

And to my pleasant surprise, it did.

I exited the restroom, and Bar Louie was how I'd initially left it. Busy, alive, a crowd of conversations.

I returned to the booth. As I did, I noticed that the bartender I'd seen earlier had completely vanished.

I still hadn't fully digested what'd happened, but I think my friend could tell that something was up.

"That was a pretty long trip to the bathroom," he said.

"Yeah. Sorry. Had a bit of a mindfuck moment."

"It's all good," he said. "It's really, really good that you decided to stay."

"Sorry?"

It took me a beat to notice that everyone in the bar was turned towards me, with dead smiles and eager eyes.

When the screaming and thrashing from within the Gray Crystal finally ceased, the air around the small port of Deanon grew still and colder, a light rain trickled out of the sky and as if it had been intimidated the drizzle stopped suddenly. The icy chill was enough to cut a man in two but since the Gray Crystal had slowly come into port the air all around seemed to have become deserted of all sounds of life.

The story is that the Marie Celeste had been found with a skeleton crew onboard the ship after vanishing for forty-something years. In contrast the Gray Crystal had only been gone four hours but since two hours ago, Gustavo could not raise it on his coms nor could he see it on his radar. The ship had been flagged for Yemen but it was beyond Gustavo why it had come back four hours later.

There was still no reading on his radar when Gustavo, Benardo and Kruschev had gone aboard the still vessel to check for signs of life. The protest of his men had been short and fierce if Gustavo had not threatened each man with instant dismissal he would have gone alone.

Something climbed onboard the Gray Crystal and in whatever disaster followed it had been turned back to port. There had been no warnings from the command post and nobody woke to imagine there would be even the slightest need to worry about heading out of port.

It will never be known what climbed onto that ship because the radar failed to pick up the hulking mass Gustavo had anchored after he had boarded with Bernado and Kruschev. Whatever was on the Grey Crystal dwelt inside the ship alone and it alone remained the only life in the still port as even the birds seemed to have vanished from the sky.

Out of the mist death had come, and into the port death was cast. Nobody heard the screams and thumping of the three men who went onboard the ship, and nobody has heard from them since.

In the small town of Millfield, the legend of the Laughing Woman was a story whispered in hushed tones.

The story went that many years ago, a woman named Michelle had been wrongly accused of a crime she didn't commit and sentenced to death.

As she was led to the gallows, she laughed uncontrollably, her laughter echoing through the town until the moment she drew her last breath.

Years passed, and the story became a distant memory, until strange things began to happen.

People reported hearing laughter in the dead of night, and some claimed to have seen a woman with wild hair and a maniacal grin lurking in the shadows.

The townspeople grew restless and afraid, but no one knew what to do.

One dark and stormy night, a group of teenagers dared each other to visit the old gallows where Michelle had met her end.

They laughed nervously as they made their way through the rain, their flashlights casting eerie shadows on the trees.

But as they approached the gallows, they heard something that made their blood run cold—the sound of laughter.

Suddenly, the woman appeared before them, her hair flying wildly in the wind and her eyes burning with a fierce, vengeful light.

The teenagers tried to run, but they were no match for the Laughing Woman's supernatural strength.

One by one, they fell to her fury, their screams drowned out by her relentless laughter.

And so the legend of the Laughing Woman lives on, a cautionary tale for all those who dared to cross the line between justice and revenge.

For in Millfield, they say, the dead do not rest easy—especially those who have been wronged.

“Knock Knock,” the vampire said as he opened the door and stood in the doorway, “Anybody home?”

“You can’t come in,” Melody yelled from the foyer, “I didn’t invite you inside.”

“You didn’t have to,” the vampire gestured at the door mat that was lying on the porch. Written upon it in big black cursive letters were the words: COME ON IN!

“That doesn’t count as an invitation,” Melody said.

“I’m afraid it does,” the vampire replied as he stepped into the house.

“Then I uninvite you!” Melody started backing into the kitchen.

“I’ve already accepted the invitation,” the vampire smiled. “You can’t rescind it.”

Once inside the kitchen, Melody reached for the wall, grabbing the cross that was hanging there.

“Stay back,” she held the cross before her, using it it ward off the vampire.

“That’s not a cross,” the vampire continued walking slowly towards her.

“Yes, it is,” Melody insisted.

“No it's not,” the vampire shook his head, “It is shaped like a cross, but it is not really a cross. It is just some cheap bauble you hung on your wall. It has no spiritual significance to you.”

Melody threw the cross at the vampire before running into her pantry.

“There has to be something here that can stop him,” she frantically searched her shelves looking for something she could use to fend him off.

“Aha,” Melody declared when she saw the jar of garlic powder on the shelf.

She grabbed the jar and turned to face the vampire who was now standing in the kitchen doorway.

She quickly unscrewed the lid, took a few steps, and threw the garlic at the vampire.

“Take that!” she yelled.

The vampire looked down at the garlic dust clinging to his suit.

“That would’ve worked,” he said, brushing the dust from his clothing, “If it were fresh garlic. Drying it drastically reduces its effects.”

Feeling hopeless, Melody returned to the pantry to try and find something else to help her escape. That was when she saw the jar of mustard seeds.

Worth a shot, she thought.

She remembered reading a book about vampire myths where it was said that vampires who happened upon a pile of mustard seeds had to stop and count them before they could continue on their way.

Melody quickly opened the jar and threw the seeds into the air.

The vampire was halfway across the kitchen.

“Mustard seeds?” he said, “That would’ve worked if I were a European vampire,” he smiled, “Which you can tell from my accent that I am not.”

Frustrated, Melody started grabbing things out of the pantry and throwing them at the vampire, nothing seemed to stop him until a bag of M&Ms landed on the floor, spilling colored candies everywhere.

The vampire suddenly stopped.

“How strange,” he said, “I can’t seem to stop myself from wondering how many of those M&Ms there are on the floor.”

The vampire squatted and started counting them.

Seizing her opportunity, Melody fled.

Deep in the forest at the edge of town.

There dwells a woman with a torn-up gown.

She crawls with her hands cause she broke her legs.

Sometimes late at night you can hear her begs.

So when you're in the forest please be wary.

So you can never spot crawling mary.

Ah yes… I remember now. Ol’ Crawling Mary. She was the local ghost story of our town, y’know? Every town has a local ghost story. They need to.

The poem says all you really need to know about her. She was just some “ghost lady" who was ummm… duopaligic? No that’s not it. She couldn't move her legs, that's what I'm saying here.

Back when I was in 6th, God, how long ago was that? 11 years? Anyway, me and my friends would search through the woods for her. Never once found any trace of that girl.

God, I still remember their teasing. “Henry, you live in that dumb cabin in the forest, SURELY you seen her.”

And I did. But only me and my family truly witnessed her.

I mean, sure some folks heard her screaming for help when we let her out, but at that late at night, people don't stay up that late in the woods. Could get mauled by a bear!

Of course we never let that happen to her, we’d let her out to do her business at around midnight, wait a couple minutes, and track her down. She couldn't get far, we broke her legs, remember?

She would always sob when we dragged her in. We would smack her on the cheek to shut her up, though we don't have to do that with you, do we?

I mean, I don't see why they wouldn't remove her tongue, I guess my folks liked the risk of her being rescued. These days however, you can't take risks y'know?

Still though, I miss my pet. I miss Mary.

However, you're just as good as her aren't you, Daisy?

Anyway, time to take you outside, I can tell you need the exercise. You need to get used to dragging your behind around, just like she did.

Anyways, Happy first week of your new life Daisy.

New Orleans, 1925. The air hung heavy with the scent of bourbon and cigarette smoke. The Blue Moon Jazz Club stood at the crossroads of Basin Street, its neon sign flickering like a restless spirit.

Elijah “Blind” Jackson, a legendary blues guitarist, haunted the club. His eyes, once vibrant, were now milky white—blinded by a voodoo curse. He played his guitar with fingers that danced like spiders on silk strings, summoning melodies that stirred souls.

The club’s patrons, a motley crew of flappers, gangsters, and lost souls, gathered each night. They swayed to the rhythm, their laughter masking the whispers of the damned. But the real magic happened after midnight.

On moonless nights, the piano played itself. The keys moved under invisible fingers, weaving haunting tunes. The saxophonist, long dead, blew notes that echoed through eternity. And Elijah’s guitar sang—a lament for lost love, a dirge for broken dreams.

Lena, a sultry singer with a voice like honey and fire, was Elijah’s muse. She wore sequined gowns and sang of forbidden desires. Her eyes held secrets—of a pact made at the crossroads, of a lover lost to the devil.

One stormy evening, as rain drummed on the club’s roof, Lena stepped onto the stage. Her voice soared, piercing hearts. Elijah’s guitar wept in harmony. The crowd hushed, spellbound.

But Lena’s eyes were fixed on the shadowed corner. There stood a man in a fedora, his face obscured. His presence chilled the room. The saxophonist faltered, the piano keys froze.

Lena sang, her voice trembling. The stranger stepped forward, revealing a twisted grin. His eyes glowed like embers. “Elijah,” he whispered, “your soul is due.”

Elijah’s fingers faltered. He knew the price—the devil’s bargain. Fame, fortune, and Lena’s love in exchange for his eternal servitude.

Lena’s gaze pleaded, but Elijah shook his head. He played a final chord—a requiem for his own damnation. The stranger stepped closer, his breath icy.

“Your soul,” he demanded, reaching for Elijah’s heart.

But Lena intervened. She kissed Elijah, her lips sealing his fate. The devil recoiled, smoke rising from his skin. “Love,” Lena whispered, “is stronger than any pact.”

The club trembled. The saxophonist wailed, the piano screamed. Elijah’s guitar shattered, releasing a tempest of notes. The devil howled, vanishing into the storm.

Elijah collapsed, his soul torn. Lena cradled him, tears mixing with rain. “We’ll defy hell itself,” she vowed.

And so, the Blue Moon Jazz Club became a beacon—a sanctuary for lost souls. Elijah played, Lena sang, and the devil’s curse unraveled. The patrons danced, their steps freeing trapped spirits.

But every night, at the stroke of midnight, the devil returned. He watched from the shadows, waiting for a slip, a moment of weakness.

Elijah played on, his guitar now stitched from moonlight and bone. Lena sang, her voice a balm for tormented souls. And together, they defied fate, weaving a melody that echoed through time—a love song that transcended death.

My name is Adelina Something, and you’ll be sorry to hear that I am dead. Murdered in the very bathroom I now haunt. I died afraid and alone, and I suppose that is why I have not passed on to the other side.

I’ve been a ghost long enough now that I am starting to forget myself. My memory is like a jigsaw puzzle, and every day a piece is taken away. I cannot even remember my own last name.

At first I was content to fade away into nothingness, in fact I longed for it, but then my murderer brought home his next victim.

She is the spitting image of myself, and that’s how I know he plans to kill her. Everybody has a type. Even murderers, I suppose. I doubt I was his first, or that she will be his last, and that is why I need to find a way to warn her.

I tried screaming, wailing, the works, but ghosts are completely intangible to the living.

In my frustration, I punched the mirror while she was taking a hot shower. My hand phased right through it, but I noticed something interesting.

I left a streak in the condensation.

She never showered for long, so I had to keep my message short and precise.

RUN

I thought that left little room for misinterpretation.

When she got out of the shower, and started drying off her hair, she saw the message and chuckled. She left the bathroom, and I could hear her talking to my murderer in the next room.

“Going for a run, hon?”

“Excuse me?”

“You left me a note? Didn’t you?”

“Oh? I don’t think… I mean, yeah, maybe a beer run.”

My efforts were in vain. I knew that she wouldn’t last long, that my murderer would wait until she was comfortable and then strike. I had to get more drastic with my message.

The next night, while she was taking a steamy shower, I tried again.

DIE

Surely that would at least scare her. Maybe enough to go back home to wherever she came from. But before she finished showering, my murderer quietly opened the door.

This is exactly how he killed me, like the scene from his favorite horror movie. I thought he was trying to surprise me in the shower, but he stabbed me repeatedly with a kitchen knife.

I failed to warn her in time, and now my punishment was to watch her die.

My murderer crept to the shower, knife in hand, but there was a loud bang, and the shower door shattered.

She exited the shower holding a small gun.

“That’s for killing my big sister, you fucking psycho.”

That’s why she looked so much like me. I’ve been dead so long that I forgot.

My sister looked at the mirror, then to my murderer, and then back to the mirror.

She chuckled, walked over, and placed a “D” at the end of my message.

DIED

The disease that changed the world started in a remote, sun-baked cornfield far from town.

The harsh sunlight had imperceptibly damaged the DNA of an unknown fungus living in the corn kernels.

For weeks the mutated strain multiplied unchecked. The spores drifted on the wind until the whole field was infected.

No one knew the grain was contaminated until it was too late.

By then, the corn had been harvested and sent to dozens of factories. There, it was incorporated into hundreds of food products and shipped to thousands of stores across America.

The first human cases were not properly identified as “Mad Dog Disease” (as it was later known). Those first victims were written off as addicts, mentally unstable, or both.

All the victims were delirious. All were violent. And all died within 72 hours.

The country was blindsided by the explosion of cases. Hospitals were overrun. Cities burned.

Scientists, locked in a bunker, stopped looking for transmission and began looking for causation. When the breakthrough finally came, America had been plagued by Mad Dog Disease for nearly 45 days.

“The cause of the disease has been identified as contaminated corn products,” the TV droned. “We repeat, do not eat any food products containing corn.”

They had been lucky, she thought, as she turned off the TV. Their garden had been productive that summer; they had canned and preserved every scrap and were now well stocked for winter.

Isolated on the farm, mother and daughter had watched the crisis unfold on TV, far removed from danger.

The crisis grew worse as the nation headed for colder weather. Shipping routes were paralyzed, and food- safe food- was running dangerously low.

The girl was hanging sheets on the clothesline when she saw them- a mob of dirty, desperate people running towards their property.

Her mother tried to stop them. When she did, a man shot her point blank. Her body crumpled into the grass.

The girl ran to the barn with tears in her eyes. She hid and watched the mob ransack their home. All night, she lay awake in the scratchy hayloft.

Dawn broke, quiet and gray.

The front door of her house stood wide open. There was no one in sight.

First, she covered her mother with a sheet from the clothesline. Then she went inside.

The mob had trashed their home. The floor was covered in muddy footprints and broken glass. The medicine cabinet was empty. In the kitchen every cabinet stood wide open, and shattered plates crunched under her shoes.

When she opened the pantry door a whimper escaped her lips.

On the shelf sat a single box of stale cereal that she and her mother had forgotten to throw out.

​

The mob had taken everything that was safe to eat.