Psychological

SEASON 8 - Whispers from the Lantern: The Keeper's Lament
Chapter 15 The silence was a palpable thing, a heavy blanket that settled over the entire coast. Aris and his team stood in the now-calm lantern room, a profound sense of exhaustion washing over them. The Keeper was gone. The drowned were gone. The mournful lament was gone.
By Tales That Breathe at Night12 months ago in Fiction
The Law of Inertia: A strange pull
He stared into the distance, drawing in each breath of oxygen with his chest. It felt as though there was not enough air — not only in his lungs, but in his life itself. For a long time now, he had been searching for the meaning of why he should continue working at the publishing house at all. Every day brought the same monotonous articles about fleeting celebrity scandals, containing nothing new except photographs of movie stars captured in ever more revealing angles of their moral downfall.
By Anhelina Vasylieva12 months ago in Fiction
Forgotten
I sit alone, as I always do. In a corner where everything is seen and I am seen by everything. Fear rushes through me as someone enters the room. I cannot see their face and I tremble at the thought of what they want. Words, sounds, speech, a question... a conversation. I thought I had forgotten how to have a conversation but it seems, as the draftiness in this room persists, so do old habits.
By Silver Holly Hope12 months ago in Fiction
Cleansed Now . Runner-Up in The Forgotten Room Challenge. Content Warning.
CONTENT WARNING: Some portions of this story may upset sensitive people or trigger bad memories. Liza occasionally took a glance out the window, giving her hands and eyes a quick rest from clothes ironing. Her hand ached from holding the heavy iron, and she wiped her brow with her apron. White round tufts on branches spread for acres, and she knew her children's hands would need loving care tonight from picking crops.
By Andrea Corwin 12 months ago in Fiction
In the room, in the room..
...In the room, in the room, Long-forgotten room Moss and mushrooms make the floor Daisies bloom... I raise a fittingly bitter wine to my lips toasting the past. The bag is waiting by the door and one glance at it makes my fingers tremble. A tiny drop of red wine bends the curve of the glass and forever imprints on my pristinely white shirt - I watch it happen over and over again.
By Salomé Saffiri12 months ago in Fiction
To Dust. Top Story - December 2025. Content Warning.
Cassus stood before the locked and barred tomb. Twenty years before, he laid its inhabitants to rest. It was as tombs made by families of modest wealth tended to be: four columns supporting an angled roof festooned with griffins, unicorns, and humble men seeking their eternal forgiveness from the Crescent Sun. The bards would pack the tavern with that irony. Cassus laughed to himself and the effort turned to a rasping cough that made his knees buckle. He knew he’d receive no such forgiveness when they laid him to rest.
By Matthew J. Fromm12 months ago in Fiction
A Mere Bagatelle
Damned arthritis. Thank God I put in the corkscrew staircase. You can't fall very far on that. The fellow who installed it demonstrated that vividly. He knocked me off balance. I fell two steps and stopped. Ingenious. Of course I could always fall upstairs, but, as my father explained, that's good luck. When I asked him what made it good luck he said, because you didn't fall downstairs of course.
By Paul A. Merkley12 months ago in Fiction
Dust and Static. Top Story - December 2025.
Just one more box. Frank thought to himself as he turned back into his childhood home. The loss of his parents was, on paper, a tragedy, a car crash that couldn't have been avoided, but in reality it was no real loss to him. It had been years since he'd spoken to them, and even longer since he'd seen them.
By Liam Storm12 months ago in Fiction
Some Notes for the Project
Memo to Self: The following notes were found at the building site after a search was conducted by the replacement crew. No sign of the original workers hired is available except for the notebook discovered and recorded here. We will keep searching to see if we can discover what happened. And the notes might provide some sort of clue as to what went down. The owner of the original site cannot be contacted and we still have work to complete.
By Kendall Defoe 12 months ago in Fiction
Safe is where you choose it to be.
The key is still in the lock. It seems I was in a hurry to get out. I grasp onto the handle, as I have done every time before. My knuckles white, I rub at the ornate filigree tip. Glancing down, I can glimpse my reflection in that sliver of brass. Polished to gleaming from my every attempt. I note the notches along the doorframe. Two, four, six and eight.
By Sarah O'Grady12 months ago in Fiction
THE END - part three. Content Warning.
I walked for a quite while. It was taking longer than I thought it would. The blister on my foot had popped, and was getting bigger with every step, when fifty feet in front of me, Barkley jumped out of a grove of aspen trees. He yapped at me and ran in a tight circle, like he was impatient and wanted me to hurry up. I picked up the pace of my hobbling, but before I got to him, he yapped one more time, and dashed back into the brush under the aspens. When I got to where he had disappeared, I saw neon lights sparkling through the tall, skinny trees, and I knew it was the convenience store. Relief. I was lost. Now I’m found.
By Bruce Kell12 months ago in Fiction
Chatroom 88AE
Mikhail unpackaged the dead server. It was supposed to be a fun salvage job. Just a weekend distraction to pass the time along. Productively. He had bought the dusty black drive from a University auction, the kind of forgotten tech no one bothered to catalogue. Half the lot was junk; cracked monitors, obsolete GPUs, cables that no modern port recognized. But this drive was different. Heavy. Warm. Even before he plugged it in. Like it had been thinking in its sleep.
By Kristen Keenon Fisher12 months ago in Fiction