Psychological

Paingod
After I had my staging surgery for my suspected lymphoma, in the recovery area I asked the anesthetist about how my depth of anesthesia was monitored. I was concerned because I remember awakening during the procedure. It wasn't painful, despite my abdomen being open, but I do remember the OR personnel talking.
By Gerard DiLeoabout a year ago in Fiction
The Whistling in the Walls
My dearest Linette, You’ve always teased me for my curiosity. "Wren," you’d say, "you’ll drown in questions one day." But it wasn’t water that nearly took me—it was the silence. The silence of the man downstairs.
By Paper Lanternabout a year ago in Fiction
I remember being a star
I remember the silence of space. Not the kind you think of, filled with darkness and void, but the kind that pulses with purpose. With gravity. With ancient rhythms and nuclear fire. I remember being a star. --- For eons, I watched. I hung suspended in the velvet dark, tethered by gravity and duty. I was one of billions,maybe trillions, glowing in the night sky above your Earth. You never knew me by name. Perhaps you called me Antares, or maybe nothing at all. Still, I watched you. Your oceans shimmered like starlight. Your winds whispered in patterns that made my plasma ache. And then, one night, I saw her. She stood in a meadow, arms outstretched to the sky, laughing beneath my glow like I was something more than heat. I wanted to understand that laugh. I wanted to be where she was. --- So I prayed. Not to matters or time, but to the Architect of motion, the Composer of stars. The god that created us all. “I am willing,” I whispered into the vacuum, “to die a thousand deaths if it means knowing what it is to feel.” And the Architect, in all His mercy, replied: > “Then fall.” --- I remember falling. It wasn’t fire. It wasn’t burning. It was unfolding .Like shedding eternity and squeezing into something impossibly small—a body. Bones. Breath. Blood. A name: Lucien. And suddenly, I was there. Earth. --- I was confused at first. Light had weight. Air stung my lungs. Time wasn’t fluid—it dragged. Hunger gnawed at me. Emotions—strange chemicals—I had no language for them. And yet… The first time I touched water, I wept. The first time I tasted bread, I laughed. The first time I held her hand, I forgot the stars. --- Her name was Eila. She was everything Earth distilled into one being: soft and strong, wild and kind. She taught me how to eat strawberries and lie on grass and chase clouds. She told me stories about god and ghosts, and I told her stories about fusion and nebulae. She called me “old soul.” I called her “my miracle.” She never knew I was once a star. She just thought I was strange and in love with everything. She wasn’t wrong. --- I never told her about the deal. That to become human was to die human. No resurrections. No solar rebirths. No nova, no echo. Just… Silence. I gave up eternity for a heartbeat of life. And I was happy. --- Years passed. I lived slowly. I wrote poems about raindrops. I painted sunrises. I married her. We danced barefoot on riversides and sang lullabies to children we never had. Every night, I looked up at the stars and whispered, “thank you.” Even when the cough started. Even when my legs failed. Even when the doctors used words like "terminal." --- On the last day, she carried me to the field where we first kissed. The grass was taller now, greener. The wind smelled of rain and lilacs. “I love you,” she whispered, lying beside me, her fingers intertwined with mine. And I—barely breath and bone—smiled. “Did you know,” I whispered, voice thin, “that before I was a man… I was light?” She laughed through her tears. “Of course you were.” “I loved you then, too,” I said. “Even before I knew what love was.” And then… I closed my eyes. --- Somewhere far away, a star went dark. But no one wept. Because on Earth, in the memory of one woman, and in the whisper of every leaf, and in the warmth of sunlight, he remained. --- Eila planted a tree where he died. She named it Lucien. She said it still glowed sometimes, when the wind was right and the sky was clear. And people came from all over to sit beneath its branches. To feel something they couldn't name. --- And if you listen closely, when the night is still and the stars blink gently above, you might hear him whisper: > “I remember being a star. > But oh—how I loved being human more.” --- End. ---
By E. hasanabout a year ago in Fiction
Starlight Debt
The signal arrived on a Tuesday. Juno was feeding her daughter breakfast when the message blinked into existence—just a soft tone on her tablet, like an email. Harmless. Innocuous. It only read: “The debt has come due. Prepare for retrieval.” —Orion Covenant Office, Station Eos Her blood went cold.
By E. hasanabout a year ago in Fiction
All I Hear Is Screaming. Content Warning.
All I Hear Is Screaming My name is Catriona Heath. Everyone calls me Cat. It seems my whole life to this point has been shaped by one defining moment that I cannot even remember. My mother was killed when I was 15 months old. A violent home invasion that ended with my mother being stabbed to death while trying to protect me from thieves that insisted there were more valuables in the house to be stolen. They never caught the assailants. Murderers. They never caught the murderers. Growing up without a mother wasn’t easy. Although, I don’t have an alternative to compare it to. My dad did his best and has always been there for me. To this day, he is the first person I call when I have good news or need advice or just want to laugh. He’s my rock. My grandmother, my mom’s mother, was an amazing woman who showered me with love and attention until the day she died. She and the mass of female cousins I have provided me with more maternal and sisterly support during my childhood than you can imagine. My cousins are more like sisters to me and we’ve remained close as we’ve become adults and ventured onto our own paths.
By Erin Mabout a year ago in Fiction
Where the Pines Lean
The view from Montcairne Hill is what folks write verses about. I know—I’ve written them. The kind of place where the sky wears its Sunday best and the wind behaves like it was taught manners by somebody’s grandmother. All the fields below look like quilts the Lord laid out for airing—patched in wheat, cotton, and the shimmer of cane.
By Taylor Wardabout a year ago in Fiction
The Shape the River Remembers
They say the Lord gives and takes in equal measure, but I have known Him to take things He never rightly gave me to begin with.
By Taylor Wardabout a year ago in Fiction
The Voice on the Commute. Top Story - June 2025.
Mable bit her lip as she looked at her car, the chill of the morning slithering past her clothes and sinking deep into her skin. She was on her way to work. In fact, Mable had to be there in about ten minutes. She had to leave now if she wanted to get there on time.
By Rebecca Pattonabout a year ago in Fiction
You're My Favorite Murder (Chapter 13). Content Warning.
Chapter 13: 𝓓𝓪𝓻𝓴𝓼𝓲𝓭𝓮 “I'll kill him” I mutter under my breath to my burner phone, working my lip with my teeth. An impatient bounce in my right leg as my eyes scan over the latest in a long line of annoying and manipulative messages.
By 𝓗. 𝓒. 𝓡𝓾𝓫𝔂about a year ago in Fiction
Buried Truths and Cursed Vows
“For once, I felt like I was right. I had lived, died and lived again…oh how foolish was I to believe that the life I left behind wouldn’t come back to haunt me.”
By K.H. Obergfollabout a year ago in Fiction
Buried Truths and Cursed Vows
They were nothing but echoes in an otherwise empty home. To save his life, Mark Thompson would either have to kill her, or kill himself and this was proving to be quite a difficult decision to make. The problem was, people assumed she—his wife—had died a long, long time ago— something about an obituary, or an accident? A couple mistaken dates and a one hell of a slip-up at the DMV—later, he was in a pickle. He couldn’t just kill her again, how would that work? Besides, she hadn’t done anything wrong. She was the perfect wife, until she wasn’t.
By K.H. Obergfollabout a year ago in Fiction
One More Chance Before It All Repeats
Written by Joey Raines I didn’t see any light. But I wasn’t in the dark either. There was no pain. Still, I didn’t feel safe.
By Joey Rainesabout a year ago in Fiction