Horror
A Night Painted with the Scars of Hate. Content Warning.
Steam clouds emanate from the sewer grates like puffs of smoke spilling from the listless mouths that pass on the street. His nose turns away at the slightest hint of smoke; the smell clings to his clothes like children grasping for toys in displays. Opening the door to a discreet shop along the burgeoning street, he files inside to a world utterly alien to him. His eyes darted around the interior store with its neon signs advertising paraphilia in bright, abnormal colors. The walls must have been wrapped in leather dyed by the night sky. Corvids decorated the walls as if they were suddenly going to attack the puppies on leashes, or those meant to resemble them.
By Thomas Bryant2 months ago in Fiction
The Sheriff
"Move aside. I say, move aside!" My deputy barks at the crowd. "It's the sheriff," people whisper. "Move, make way." I usually hate when people whisper like this - like I'm dangerous, like I'm going to harm anyone for standing in the wrong place at the wrong time.
By Noelle Spaulding 2 months ago in Fiction
Free Loveseat
Every other night, I notice the variation of kipple that loiters—the many monuments littering the city—of every single different kind of leather chair, plush recliner, and loveseat, and Art Deco sofa, many of which end up abandoned, deteriorating the crumbling, and most definitely paper-thin, sidewalks of the street. They rest discarded, like departed souls, or perhaps, the poor souls of Black folk, neglected by the bluest of eyes. Of all of the rubbish, chairs are my fancy. There’s a lot of character in the shape of a chair; the subtle curves especially remind me of the night women who stand on the curb.
By Thomas Bryant2 months ago in Fiction
The Room Holds
They always get one detail wrong. Sometimes it’s the color of your coat, sometimes the way you used to say my name, sometimes the order of events. I correct them gently, the way you would correct a child or a stranger, without urgency. It matters that I do it immediately. If I hesitate–if I allow the mistake to stand–something thins. The room, the air, you. I have learned not to wait.
By Rebecca A Hyde Gonzales2 months ago in Fiction
Corona Ruined My Life
Corona Ruined My Life. True Story I published this a while ago on here. This is my repost. I had never publicly written anything and submitted it. There it was, my thoughts and feelings on my iPad screen. I felt like a proper writer, yes, me.
By George’s Girl 2026 2 months ago in Fiction
The Corpse Found on Languid Lane
A jar of jam rested, the lid upturned; half of a loaf of sourdough flakes before the sunlight peered through the glass pane like a voyeur. The gelatinous glucose purée of wild strawberries clung to the glass but left behind a faint trail of rose, resembling the lens of a pair of lunettes. A spoon lay on the eggshell counter; blood pools in the concave shape. A saucer lay beside with the crust of freshly cut bread atop, hanging off the edge with a half-moon impression.
By Thomas Bryant2 months ago in Fiction
Why?
“Trina! Over here!” Trina turned her head, and her heart threatened to leap out of her chest when she saw Steven waving his arm in a big, exaggerated motion, with a giant smile on his face. Trina fell in love with her boyfriend all over again as she navigated past the clusters of tables towards him. It had only been a few months since they started dating, but Trina was still very much in the honeymoon phase of courtship. The phase where everything that Steven did for her made her feel like she could fly if she just jumped off a chair. The phase where everything Steven said with that bright smile of his made her feel like she was made out of rainbows and sugar.
By Rebecca Patton2 months ago in Fiction
What Remains . Runner-Up in Rituals of Affection Challenge.
“The marriage of reason and nightmare.” — J. G. Ballard The sun pierced through the gaps in the bamboo blinds across our bedroom window. Though I was already on the precipice between the waking and the sleeping world, I allowed myself the leisured pleasure of basking in the quiet contemplation that came only from lying alongside the slight but warm curves of my dear Marguerite.
By Paul Stewart2 months ago in Fiction
Ballet of the Butcher Star
The air backstage at the Grand Theatre was a palpable entity, thick with the ghosts of a thousand performances. It clung to Elara’s skin like the faint, sweet-sour scent of sweat and rosin, a perfume she wore more constantly than any designer fragrance. This was not merely her workplace; it was her sanctuary, her confessional, and increasingly, her cage. The polished oak floorboards, worn smooth by the endless procession of pointe shoes, reflected the dim, amber glow of the utilitarian work lights, transforming the labyrinthine corridors into a gilded, echoing maw. Velvet drapes, once a vibrant crimson, now sagged like weary eyelids, their nap worn thin by the caress of countless hands, each touch leaving an infinitesimal residue of longing, of aspiration, of despair.
By LaRae Pynas2 months ago in Fiction
