Psychological
Every Shadow Lies
The rain had a rhythm that night — a slow, steady tapping against the windows of the Blackmoor Institute. It was the kind of rain that made secrets feel heavier, as if the sky itself was trying to drown them. Inside, the corridors were dimly lit, the lights flickering like dying stars. Dr. Elara Voss walked quickly, her heels echoing against the linoleum floor, each step like a countdown to something she couldn’t yet name.
By Miss Maryamabout a year ago in Fiction
Her Hopes Up in Smoke. Runner-Up in Through the Keyhole Challenge.
We don’t have keyholes. We have warped sheets of plywood as doors. We’ve painted them to make them less utilitarian. A hook and eye fastens the door shut. But my parents’ door has suffered the loss of a few eyes over the years of slammed plywood on the heels of their fights.
By Leigh Victoria Phan, MS, MFAabout a year ago in Fiction
Caught. Content Warning.
Miss Hanna’s porch light came on at 9:48. The Ring camera blinked once before the feed steadied. I knew she’d already brushed her teeth, fed her cat, and took her book to her room. Late enough to be in bed but not yet asleep. She always checked the door herself. People lived all around on this quiet street, but she was diligent.
By Fatal Serendipityabout a year ago in Fiction
Halloween House Party (3). Content Warning.
Chapter 3: “Like Hell!” I scream through gritted teeth, my black nails clawing behind me, catching the skin on his cheek as he stumbles back, blood from my wounds spilling down the side of my neck. Putting pressure on the fang marks I spin to face my attacker grabbing one of the bottles off the counter with my nondominant hand, smacking him in the head as hard as I can manage. “Don’t you ever fucking touch me again! Don’t look at me” I hit him again, “don’t talk to me, don’t have anything to fucking do with me!” He slides back towards the sink, blood pooling from his head to match the sticky substance staining my skin and leotard.
By 𝓗. 𝓒. 𝓡𝓾𝓫𝔂about a year ago in Fiction
The Night I Realized Love Wasn’t Meant To Save Me
I used to believe love was supposed to be the thing that rescued us. The thing that filled every empty space inside a person. The thing that fixed the parts of life that felt broken. I believed that love was the answer to loneliness, to fear, to the type of quiet sadness that sits in your chest like permanent weight. She is the reason I believed all of that. And she is also the reason I stopped believing it. We met in the most ordinary way. Not cinematic. Not magical. Just a normal day, in a normal Starbucks, in a normal city. She laughed at something the barista said, and something about her laugh felt like a room I already lived in before. Familiar, safe, warm, already known. And the way she looked back at me when she noticed I smiled at her laugh… felt like a moment written for me before I ever existed. We spent the next few months building a world inside the smallest routines. Long drives for no reason. Grocery store aisles that turned into inside jokes. Late night sitting in the car talking about everything—fears, dreams, future plans that felt unrealistic but somehow possible because we were imagining them together. It felt like we made life bigger than life. She wanted simple things—sunset beaches, road trips, a small home, a kitchen with white cabinets, Sunday pancakes, a dog. I wanted everything she wanted. I wanted everything because she wanted it. Her dreams felt like the GPS to my own future. For the first time in my life… I wasn’t scared to love someone. And that was new for me. But slowly… the warmth started shifting. It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t toxic or violently ending. It was subtle. Small changes. Delays in texts. Less excitement in plans. Less eye contact. Less softness. Less effort. The energy between us became heavier than the feelings we used to float inside. I tried to fix everything. I tried harder. I tried to talk more, explain more, love more, do more. But the more I tried… the more it felt like she was already halfway gone. One night, she showed up at my place. Calm. Soft. Not angry. Not emotional. Just… resigned. She said she felt stuck in her own life. She said she was losing herself in us. She said she didn’t know who she was anymore. She said she wasn’t ready for the version of love I wanted. She said she still cared about me, but not in the way that love needs to survive long term. I begged without screaming. I begged with silence. I begged with the way my eyes tried so hard to tell her… choose me anyway. But she didn’t. She walked out with a slow final goodbye. And in one quiet moment… the future I built inside my mind collapsed like a building with no support beams left to hold it. That night was the first time I ever sat in the dark and felt like time stopped existing. My body felt like a house emptied overnight. My hands felt useless. My chest felt like someone pulled out the inside of my lungs and left nothing to breathe with. I thought that night would destroy me permanently. But it didn’t. It destroyed the version of me that thought love was supposed to be my rescue. It destroyed the version of me that believed another person was the medicine for every internal wound. It destroyed the version of me that thought I needed someone to choose me before I could choose myself. For months after, I slowly rebuilt my life piece by piece. I started lifting again. I started eating better. I started writing again. I focused on myself. I found new goals. I became more disciplined. I started building a future with my own story—not a story that depended on someone staying. And the strange thing is… she leaving didn’t ruin me. It freed me. I realized she wasn’t the lesson. The lesson was what happened to me after she left. Because that night I thought I lost everything… was actually the night I gained myself back. Healing didn’t show up with fireworks or some cinematic redemption arc. Healing arrived very quietly… like a whisper that slowly became a voice strong enough to stand on its own. Today… if someone asks me what love means to me now… I don’t say it’s the thing that saves you. Love isn’t meant to save you. Love is meant to grow with you. And the person who can’t grow with you… no matter how much you love them… is not the person who stays. Sometimes heartbreak isn’t a punishment. Sometimes heartbreak is the door to becoming the person you were supposed to become before you ever tried to be someone’s home. That night didn’t break me. It revealed me. And I finally learned— love is not supposed to be your rescue. You are supposed to rescue yourself first.
By Umar Farooqabout a year ago in Fiction
Patch Notes for a Life
It started with a glance through a keyhole that wasn’t a keyhole at all, just a smart panel mounted inside a maintenance closet no one was supposed to open. The door had been left a finger’s width ajar—a cracked mouth in a corridor of quiet—and I was on my night rounds, a janitor-security hybrid with a ring of keys heavy enough to anchor a small boat. The new building had new protocols; the new protocols had new passwords. But the oldest security is human laziness, and someone had propped the closet with a mop to “air it out” and then forgot the mop.
By The Kind Quillabout a year ago in Fiction
