Excerpt
Stitch: The Scent of Rain
You smell jasmine first. Not the soft, powdery kind that blows through open lace curtains in the spring. This jasmine is sharp, almost bitter, tangled with the thick, oily perfume of crushed neroli and the heavy, metallic scent of rain. It is the exact sensory loop that has haunted your sleep since childhood, a phantom aroma that always wakes you up with your pulse hammering against your throat. It is the only warning you get before you step into the clearing.
By Syl De'Vil24 days ago in Fiction
Stitch: The Wire Song.. Content Warning.
The winter hunger isn't a rumble in your belly; it is a hollow, driving madness that consumes your entire mind. For six grueling months, you haven't been a girl named Sara. You haven't worn your heavy hiking boots or thought about a home back in Maine. Something deep and unexplainable broke inside your psyche under the weight of everything that you carry, and you fled, trapped entirely inside the thick, striking coat of a fox.
By Syl De'Vil24 days ago in Fiction
Stitch:The Alpine Crimson
The biting, sub‑zero wind howling across the Swiss Alps didn’t just freeze the skin; it carved straight into the bone. For miles in every direction, the landscape was a blinding, desolate canvas of white and jagged grey peak. The winter air was so thin it felt like breathing shattered glass, carrying nothing but the lonely roar of the wind and the constant threat of an avalanche.
By Syl De'Vil24 days ago in Fiction
Stitch: Winter Freeze of '96
The regional BMX track outside of Orlando was a chaotic, dust-choked ring of adrenaline and family friction in late October of 1996. The heat was sitting at a sweltering ninety-two degrees, the thick Florida air smelling heavily of fried concessions, melting tire rubber, and copper-rich dirt. Ted sat on a folding lawn chair near the starting gate, a pair of dark aviators hiding his critical gaze as he watched the brackets warm up. Next to him, Lisa was meticulously organizing the cooler, ensuring the sports drinks were perfectly packed in ice.
By Syl De'Vil24 days ago in Fiction
Stitch. Out of Season
After four weeks of trying to stitch herself back into a life she barely remembered, Sara Foxgrave starts to realize that whatever followed her home isn’t done with her. Maine is supposed to be safe. Normal. Predictable. But when a summer flower blooms in the dead of October, Sara learns that reality has no intention of staying in its lane.
By Syl De'Vil25 days ago in Fiction
Football Friday Night. Top Story - September 2026. Content Warning.
It was one of those magical southern nights in October, and all of the teenagers in town were drunk on autumn and youth. There would be a party after the football game, and youthful concupiscence would be satisfied before the moon set in the morning sky. In anticipation of this, the boys were dousing themselves in Polo and Drakkar Noir while the girls teased their bangs into ski slopes and lacquered them above their heavily mascaraed eyes lined with kohl and painted hot pink stripes on their cheekbones. Def Leppard and Whitesnake blasted from boomboxes perched on dressers and lingerie chests. Pliers were used to zip jeans, and Marlboro Lights were smuggled out of sock drawers and into handbags while condoms pressed their circular imprint into dollar bills in wallets in back pockets.
By Harper Lewis 27 days ago in Fiction
Season of the Out. Content Warning.
Priscilla always thought adulthood would eventually calm down. Maybe not peaceful, but at least predictable. Instead, her life had turned into a year‑round carnival run by raccoons, children, and whatever cosmic intern was in charge of her fate.
By Syl De'Vil29 days ago in Fiction
Storage Shed
You go to the shed for a table leaf. That’s it. That’s the entire mission. A simple retrieval operation. A three‑minute task. Something so basic it doesn’t even qualify as a chore. You’ve survived gate guard at 0300, CQ shifts that felt like psychological warfare, and the kind of family chaos that should earn hazard pay. A shed should not be a threat.
By Syl De'Vil29 days ago in Fiction
Greetings at Midnight
I said prayers at dinner, still firmly believing that if I didn’t, my food might poison me or God would hate me. I sit on my bed now and pray with my sister. I stare at her marine aura swirling with whiffs of iris. She is speaking the words out loud while I repeatedly ask God, in my head, to take away the visions of ghosts and monsters. He never answers me, though.
By Leah Suzanne Deweyabout a month ago in Fiction
Stitch: The October Vortex. Content Warning.
Dreams are doorways, and tonight one opens in the middle of Beaver Pond. October shouldn’t have sounded like this. Beaver Pond buzzed with cicadas — that thick, electric hum that only happened on the hottest days of summer. Crickets layered beneath them, frantic and constant, like the forest was vibrating. The air hung heavy, wet, pressing against Sara’s skin like a fever.
By Syl De'Vilabout a month ago in Fiction
