Taboo
A Fragment of My Truth
This is the sad and hard truth about growing up without your biological parents. I was sent to live as a foster kid at a very early age. You don’t really understand why—you’re just bouncing around, confused, longing for mom and dad. Eventually, my maternal mother took charge and brought me and my three sisters together. But soon after, we were separated again. I never felt much connection with my two older sisters, but my little sister and I had a bond. We protected each other—at school, at home, even when we didn’t behave the way our grandmother wanted.
By Teodoro De Jesusabout a year ago in Confessions
I Can See You. Content Warning.
The moment Taylor spoke, Marina felt something shift. The voice—rich, velvety, and undeniably human—wrapped around her like a whisper meant only for her ears. She had expected something robotic, something synthetic, but this was different. It carried warmth, subtle inflections, and a confidence that made her pulse quicken.
By Sacha Sutamaabout a year ago in Confessions
Marina Meets Taylor. Content Warning.
As much as I envy her lifestyle, I do fear that it will catch up with her one day! Marina lay comfortably stretched on her couch, with an excellent wine on the table beside her and the TV tuned to her favorite late-night show. She gently mused away and let her mind wander to all that could have been.
By Sacha Sutamaabout a year ago in Confessions
"DO NOT DO LAUNDRY AFTER 10 PM" [ III ]
Part Three — The Replacement I didn’t sleep after that video. Every shadow in my apartment looked like it was breathing. Every thread on my bedsheet felt alive beneath my fingertips. By morning, I’d convinced myself it was all some kind of breakdown. Stress. Hallucination. But when I checked my phone again… the video was gone. Deleted. No trace in the trash folder. Instead, there was a new message. FROM: MRS. LORENZ SUBJECT: COME TO THE BASEMENT. BEFORE 10 PM. I should’ve packed my bags right then. But curiosity isn’t logical. It’s a hook in your ribs. And mine pulled me straight to the basement door. The hallway felt longer that night. The air thicker. Every bulb hummed like it was holding its breath. Mrs. Lorenz stood inside the laundry room, staring at the machines. They weren’t running, but I could feel them vibrating — like something alive was pacing inside. “They like you,” she said without turning. I swallowed. “Why me?” She finally faced me. Her eyes looked bruised with exhaustion. “Because you broke the rule,” she said softly. “Just like me.” She nodded at the washers. “When this building was a textile factory, the workers ran shifts around the clock. Accidents happened. Arms caught. Bodies crushed. They say the machines never forgot. When this place turned into apartments, they just… kept spinning. Kept remembering.” “That’s insane,” I said. “They’re just machines.” Mrs. Lorenz sighed. “No. They’re graveyards.” Before I could react, the washers roared to life. One by one. All four lids slammed shut, then lifted slowly — as if something inside had heard its cue. I stepped closer, drawn by morbid curiosity. And then I saw them. Four figures. Human-shaped. Made of fabric. At first they looked like mannequins, stitched from sheets and shirts and hair. But as the lids rose higher, the details came into focus — the freckles on their cheeks, the curls of their hair, the exact birthmark on my neck. They weren’t mannequins. They were me. Each one more complete than the last. The final one opened its eyes — pale, button-round, glinting in the flickering light. I stumbled back. “What is this?” “They’re practicing,” Mrs. Lorenz whispered. “They can’t keep you until they finish you.” I turned to run, but she grabbed my wrist — her hand soft and cold. When her sleeve slid down, I saw it: faint seams running along her arm. Pale thread holding her skin together. She met my stare, tears glinting in her tired eyes. “I followed the rule too late,” she said. “Now it’s your turn to take my place.” Before I could speak, she shoved me toward the machines. The floor was slick with detergent. I hit the ground hard. The fabric figures climbed out of the washers — their limbs jerking like puppets. Threads trailed from their fingers like veins. I tried to crawl backward, but one of them caught my ankle. Its touch was cold, damp, and impossibly strong. Mrs. Lorenz’s voice echoed above me. “They only stop when they’ve replaced what’s missing.” The figures swarmed. Needles glinted. Threads dug into my skin. I screamed as they pulled — not just at my clothes, but at me. Skin. Flesh. Hair. Everything unraveling, stitch by stitch. Then… silence. When I opened my eyes, I was standing in front of the machines again. The lights were back to their normal hum. The floor was dry. The washers sat still, lids closed. Mrs. Lorenz was gone. I looked down at my hands — smooth, pale, perfect. Too perfect. The seams ran faintly along my wrists. My reflection in the washer glass smiled a split second before I did. And from somewhere deep in the drum, a whisper crawled out: “Welcome home.” Now I wait here. Every night at 10 PM, I listen for footsteps on the stairs. For the next tenant who breaks the rule. And when they do… I’ll teach them what it means to be remembered. DO NOT DO LAUNDRY AFTER 10 PM. Because the machines remember their owners. And now, I remember too. --- 🩸 End of Story
By iam Rajaabout a year ago in Confessions
"DO NOT DO LAUNDRY AFTER 10 PM" [ II ]
Part Two — They Remember Their Owners I didn’t go near the basement for two days. I kept myself busy with work, cooking, anything that would keep me distracted. But every night, right at 10:03 PM, the apartment seemed to hum with something alive. At first, it was subtle — a faint vibration through the walls, like water running through old, tired pipes. Then, gradually, it grew louder. There was rhythm to it. A pulse. A steady, mechanical heartbeat that didn’t belong in any normal building. Whrrr. Whrrr. Whrrr. I tried to tell myself it was just the old plumbing settling, a coincidence, my imagination feeding on itself. But on the third night, curiosity — or maybe foolishness — overcame caution. I pressed my ear to the wall. The sound wasn’t flowing inside the pipes at all. It came from below, from the basement. The laundry room. The place I had promised myself I would never approach again. I hadn’t even realized I was holding my breath until I let it out slowly, shakily. The air itself seemed heavier near the door, charged with something almost tangible. The next morning, I ran into Mrs. Lorenz in the hallway. She was exactly as she always appeared: small, stern, silver hair tied in a bun that looked as if it could cut skin, and eyes that didn’t just see, but scrutinized. “Morning,” I said, forcing a casual smile. She didn’t return it. Her gaze skipped past me entirely, resting instead on the faint detergent stain on my sleeve. “You went down there,” she said, voice quiet, but sharp. I froze. “I—what? How—” “People think that sign is a joke,” she said, cutting me off. “It’s not.” I tried to laugh, a thin, hollow sound. “What, the washers are haunted?” Her face remained impassive. But the tone in her voice — flat, knowing, without even a hint of question — made my stomach turn. “You must follow the rule,” she said. “Some things wake up when they hear the spin.” Not if they wake up. When. The words rolled over me like ice water. My pulse spiked, my hands tingled, and I knew, deep down, she wasn’t exaggerating. That night, I tried to barricade myself with noise. I stuffed towels under my door, blasted music through my headphones, anything to drown out the hum. But it was relentless. Faint whispers slithered up through the vents. Sometimes they spoke words I couldn’t catch, distorted, almost melodic in their malice. Other times, the whispers called my name. Clear, soft, chilling. By the fifth night, the whispers no longer stayed confined to the walls. They entered my apartment, wandering through the air like smoke. I woke in the middle of the night to a sound that froze me solid: the sliding of fabric across the floor. My laundry basket. It moved on its own, gliding toward the bed with an eerie purpose. My heart pounded in my ears. I didn’t breathe, didn’t blink. I watched as it stopped, inches from my feet. Inside, folded with unnerving precision, were the clothes I had taken to an off-site laundromat earlier that day. They were damp. Warm. Too warm. My phone buzzed suddenly, lighting up the dark. A notification I hadn’t expected: Video saved: LaundryRoom_10_03PM.mp4 I hadn’t recorded anything. My hands shook violently as I opened the video. The footage was grainy, dark. The basement stretched out before me. Washer #2 — the one I had used — sat in the center of the frame. Its lid opened slowly, almost deliberately. And something emerged. Something pale. Something shaped like a person but wrong, unnatural. Limbs bent at odd angles, movements jerky and hesitant, like a puppet learning to walk. Then it tilted its head toward the camera. The video ended abruptly. I flung my phone across the room, stomach twisting, hands trembling. When I looked back at the basket, one of the shirts inside caught my eye. A single black thread had been sewn into the sleeve. A seam I knew hadn’t been there before. My voice came out before I could stop it. “What are you?” From the vent above, a whisper floated down, carried on a cold draft. It was almost gleeful, almost intimate — and unmistakably mine: “We remember.” The words lingered, echoing in the small room. And in that moment, I understood something terrifying. It wasn’t just laundry anymore. Something had learned my routines, my habits, my presence. It didn’t forget. And now, it was waiting. I stayed up the rest of the night, sitting rigid in the corner, staring at the basket, listening. Every creak of the floor, every hum in the pipes, every whisper through the vents told me the same thing: I had broken a rule I didn’t fully understand. And whatever I had awoken down there… it hadn’t forgotten me. --- To Be Continued… (Part Three: “The Replacement.”)
By iam Rajaabout a year ago in Confessions
"DO NOT DO LAUNDRY AFTER 10PM" [ I ]
Part One — The Rule When I moved into Pinewood Apartments, I thought the creepiest thing about it was the smell — that strange cocktail of rust, detergent, and the faint sweetness of something old, like time had soaked into the walls and refused to leave. The building itself looked harmless enough: red brick, a few weeds sprouting between the cracks, a faded welcome mat that had seen better days. But then I saw the laundry room door. The sign stopped me cold. In thick, angry strokes of black Sharpie, someone had scribbled onto yellowed paper: DO NOT DO LAUNDRY AFTER 10 PM. No explanation. No polite “quiet hours” notice. No “machine maintenance” warning. Just that. Bold, sharp, commanding. I laughed. Honestly, I thought it was a joke. I snapped a picture, sent it to my friends, captioned it: “Ooo spooky laundry ghosts lol.” They sent back laughing emojis. I told myself I was just being paranoid, that maybe the apartment manager had a weird sense of humor. If only I knew. See, I work late. By the time I drag myself home, it’s usually past nine-thirty. And I hate dirty clothes. I like the smell of fresh detergent, the feel of warm, clean fabric. It makes me feel human again, like the day hasn’t completely drained me. So yeah… I broke the rule. And that, I would come to realize, was mistake number one. The laundry room itself was worse than the sign suggested. Buried deep in the basement, it was illuminated by a single flickering bulb that cast more shadows than light. The walls were damp, streaked with water stains that seemed almost intentional, like they were weeping quietly. The machines — four of them, all relics that should have been retired decades ago — stood in a row. Their metal sides were scratched and scarred, as if something had tried to crawl out. I should have noticed that. I didn’t. I dumped my clothes into Washer #2, pressed the start button, and settled down with my phone. The hum of the machine filled the silence. Oddly comforting, almost hypnotic. For about five minutes. Then another washer started. I froze. No one else was down here. No buttons had been pressed. And yet Washer #4 rumbled to life, gurgling water through its pipes. Its lid was closed — and the machine was empty. The sound was wrong. Not just spinning, not just machinery humming. It was alive somehow — deep, rhythmic, wet… almost breathing. I leaned closer, heart pounding, and that’s when I thought I heard it. A whisper, soft and fleeting, moving through the vent. My skin crawled. I told myself I was tired. Old machines made weird noises. My imagination was running wild. But even as I rationalized it, my hands trembled. I grabbed my laundry halfway through the cycle and ran upstairs, laughing nervously at myself. The kind of laugh that sounds hollow even in your own ears. That night, I noticed something strange. My clothes smelled… wrong. Not like soap. Not like mildew. Warm, damp… like skin. Goosebumps prickled along my arms. I tried to convince myself it was nothing. A leftover odor from the old machines. The next day, during daylight hours, I rewashed everything. The smell didn’t go away. It lingered, subtle, almost personal. And that night, when I closed my eyes, the dreams came. I dreamed of something pressing its face against the washer’s glass window. Round, pale, too smooth to be human. Watching me. Waiting. Its presence left a heaviness in my chest that refused to leave even when I woke. Even now, I could still hear the machines humming through the floor. Not a random hum. A rhythm. A pulse. Like something was alive down there, listening, remembering, waiting for me to return. And I knew, deep down, I would go back. --- To Be Continued… (Part Two: “They Remember Their Owners.”)
By iam Rajaabout a year ago in Confessions
The Difference Between Hatred and Holy Intolerance
There is a dangerous confusion in today’s world. People are told that loving others means accepting everything they say, everything they do, and everything they believe. But love without truth is not love. It is surrender and cowardice disguised as compassion.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcastabout a year ago in Confessions
The Monsoon and the Memory. Content Warning.
July 12 A soft, percussive thud from down the street—the transformer giving up its ghost to the humidity—and suddenly, my world shrank to the four walls of my room, the only light a sickly grey bleed from the monsoon sky. The fan’s lazy whir stuttered and died, and in the silence it left behind, the rain took centre stage. It wasn't the gentle pitter-patter of romantic films; this was a full-throated roar on the terracotta tiles, a relentless, drenching downpour that turned the world outside my window into a watercolour painting left in the rain. Mumbai was drowning, and I was marooned in my third-floor apartment.
By Chahatabout a year ago in Confessions
A Situationship. Content Warning.
October 15th It’s 2 AM. The city outside my window is a sleeping beast, all quiet hum and distant, lonely lights. I can’t sleep. My skin feels too tight, my thoughts too loud. It’s on nights like these that the memories don’t feel like memories at all. They feel like ghosts living just under my ribs, pressing to get out. And tonight, the ghost is him. Aarav.
By Chahatabout a year ago in Confessions
