Psychological

You Will Die At Daylight.
You Will Die At Daylight. The message was clear. Did I believe it? Not really. The promise of a sweet $1m was all the incentive I needed to prove the urban legend wrong and get my inheritance.
By Paul Stewartabout a year ago in Fiction
The Light at Miller's Dock
The trail down to Miller’s Dock had narrowed over the years, overtaken in places by roots and brush. What once was a foot-worn path now felt more like a memory than a route. Calvin moved carefully, stepping over slick stones and ducking under branches. The lake wind stirred the treetops, but everything below held its breath, as if waiting.
By Rick Allenabout a year ago in Fiction
The Secrets my Mother Kept
Alexander fell into an uneasy sleep, Mr. Stuffings still clutched tightly to his chest. The dream came quickly, different from the ones that had led him to the attic.
By Parsley Rose about a year ago in Fiction
In the Light of Sky
The first light came quietly — not as a shout, but as a whisper on the horizon. Elian had been walking all night, tracing the ragged line where the earth’s bones met the sky. He wasn’t sure if he was chasing something or fleeing it. The air was cold, sharp, as though the world had not yet decided to be kind.
By Nomiabout a year ago in Fiction
Doppelgänger
Bryan is bulleting down the road in the pitch dark when the man steps out in front of his car. Only one of his headlights is working, and by the time the figure, crossing from the opposite side, is lit up in its dull beam it is far too late. One moment he registers a face- wide eyes, gaping mouth, hair plastered to a sweat-slick forehead- and then there is the sickening, meaty thud as his mother's '99 Corolla slams directly into the body attached to that face and, still moving, rolls over something- an arm, a leg, Bryan isn't exactly sure- before it finally grinds to a stop under the insistent pressure of his foot on the brake. He shuts the car off, and all the light leaves the world around him. He hears nothing on the deserted, rural road, nothing but the slow ticking of the engine powering down.
By Raistlin Allenabout a year ago in Fiction
Train to Redemption
The man in the black uniform spied them the moment they boarded his train. The way the smaller one clung to the larger made it clear they were more than friends. What he had in mind was harder with two, but once he spotted the tattoo on the big kids hands, Baylor knew he was the one.
By JBazabout a year ago in Fiction
Her Voice on the Wind
The wind was already rising when Eloise turned the key in the door for the first time in years. It stuck halfway, swollen from salt and neglect, but with a hard twist she forced it open. The house gave a small groan as if surprised by her return. Inside, the air smelled of lavender, old cedar, and something sharper—salt maybe, or time. She stepped over the threshold, her boots echoing on bare wood, and paused in the entry. Nothing had moved. And yet, everything had changed.
By Rick Allenabout a year ago in Fiction
Man in Charge
Daniel was a man of few words. Even at age fifty-five, his body remained chiseled and in top shape. Years of military training and special operations service to his country had formed him into a disciplined, loyal, and forthright man and husband, sound in body and mind.
By Shirley Belkabout a year ago in Fiction
These Things Happen
“Don’t wait up for me.” She discovers the note pinned to the corkboard next to the door in the kitchen. “What? How did this get here?” she wonders. Who got into her apartment to leave this note? She unpins the piece of torn notebook paper and puts it on the table. She takes off her coat and scarf to hang them on the hook on the wall. She sets her backpack on one of the two chairs and rubs her hands together to warm them up. The stormy wind whistles through the cracked open windows here in the kitchen and the one in her bedroom. She gets claustrophobic if these two windows are not cracked open, no matter how cold it is.
By Patricia Magdalena Redlinabout a year ago in Fiction
Postcards from the End of the World
The news had been counting down for weeks. Forty-two days until the asteroid made landfall, the scientists said, give or take a few hours. People coped in their own ways—some fled inland, some held rooftop parties, some barricaded themselves in basements stocked with years of canned beans. I chose to do what I’d always done when life made no sense: pour myself a coffee, sit by the window, and watch the mailman shuffle down the street. It was on one of those mornings, with thirty-nine days left, that the first postcard arrived. The handwriting was hers.
By Musawir Shahabout a year ago in Fiction
Waiting. Runner-Up in Leave the Light On Challenge. Content Warning.
6 pm Smoke swirls around my face, I inhale another nicotine-saturated breath. Dogs bark in the distance. Samara howls, as if re-calling her long-lost wolf heritage. Button joins in, higher pitched, the soprano to Sammy’s tenor. The shriek of a redtail quiets them. I picture them, noses in the air, searching olfactory clues, on the hunt. Sometimes they’ll bring me their spoils, a mangled rat or stunned bullfrog, carefully dropped. Other times they return victims: muzzles bloodied, oozing the sick-sweet stench of death.
By Cathy Schieffelinabout a year ago in Fiction
The Echo of the Lost Art
1. The Studio of Screams The key to Grandfather Arlo’s studio hadn’t been turned in 40 years. When I stepped inside, dust danced in shafts of dirty light, revealing horrors:
By Habibullahabout a year ago in Fiction