fiction
Horror fiction that delivers on its promise to scare, startle, frighten and unsettle. These stories are fake, but the shivers down your spine won't be.
When the Past Calls for a Ride: Ghost Passengers of the Tōhoku Tsunami
A Disaster That Still Echoes It’s been nearly five years since the devastating Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami struck Japan on March 11, 2011. The magnitude 9.0 quake triggered a massive wave that reached 133 feet in some places and pushed more than 6 miles inland.
By Areeba Umair10 months ago in Horror
8 Cursed Objects Still Haunting the World Today
Sometimes people leave behind memories, legacies, and occasionally… nightmare-fuel objects that ruin lives. You’d think that if something brings disaster, illness, hauntings, or death, humans would immediately destroy it.
By Areeba Umair10 months ago in Horror
Moon-Map Projection
They say moonlight reveals what daylight politely ignores. I’d never believed that—not until the night the house opened its throat and exhaled a secret meant for me. It happened just past midnight, when the air felt thinner, as if the hours themselves were holding their breath. I had left the back door open to let in the cool September breeze, and the moon hung low enough to peek in like a curious visitor. Its silver beam stretched across the wooden floorboards, wavering slightly as the branches outside shifted with the wind. At first, I thought it was just light. But then the light began to gather. The glow sharpened, pulling itself into lines and curves, sketching shapes with steady patience. A soft shimmer spread out in a widening arc, and suddenly, the floor wasn’t a floor anymore—it was a map. A glowing one. A map rendered in moon-blue strokes, as delicate as ink on vellum, pointing unmistakably toward the oak tree outside. The old oak. The one everyone in the family called Grandmother Tree. I stared, afraid to even breathe. The house had whispered to me before—those swirling memories in the wallpaper, the warm pulse behind the stairwell—but this was something else. This was the house giving me direction. And my feet obeyed. I stepped outside, the night air brushing gently against my skin, carrying the scent of damp earth and something older—like forgotten stories rising from the soil. The moon sat directly above the oak, its branches casting long shadow-arms across the yard. At the base of the tree, where two thick roots curled like sleeping animals, the ground felt different beneath my hands—lighter, loosened, as if someone had turned the soil not too long ago. I fetched a small shovel from the shed and began to dig. The earth gave way easily. Too easily. Within minutes, the metal scraped against something wooden. My breath snagged. I knelt and brushed away the remaining dirt with my fingers. A box. Old. Weathered. But intact. The lid creaked open with the stubbornness of time, and inside, wrapped in layers of fabric softened by age, was a single envelope. Yellowed. Handwritten. Fragile. The name on the front was one I knew. One I had grown up hearing in stories told at family gatherings, always half-myth and half-memory. Evelyn Hartwood. My great-grandmother. My hands trembled as I slid the letter free. My dearest one, whoever finds this— I am writing for you. The handwriting was elegant, a looping script that shifted between firmness and hesitation—like someone writing both in hope and in fear. If this letter has reached you, then the house has chosen you. It always knows who listens. I swallowed. Hard. There is a kind of magic in this place. Not the dramatic sort—the quiet kind. The kind that remembers. The kind that waits. The kind that reveals itself only when a heart is ready. A breeze rustled through the oak above me, its leaves murmuring in agreement. You come from a line of keepers—people who hold stories, not hoard them. I hid this letter because I knew someday, someone would need to hear the truth: This house is alive with us. With everything we’ve loved, and everything we’ve lost. A warmth spread through my chest, the same warmth I had felt in the hallway when the walls pulsed like a heartbeat. Do not be afraid of its whispers. They are echoes of who we were, guiding who you may become. I exhaled shakily, blinking back the sudden sting in my eyes. If you found this during a time of uncertainty—good. That means the house believes you’re ready to uncover what’s waiting. Follow the light. It will not mislead you. Moonlight spilled over the page as if affirming the words. And one last thing: Do not run from your inheritance. It is not a burden—it is a lantern. Carry it forward. The letter ended without a signature, as if Evelyn trusted that her name had already done enough. I sat beneath the oak for a long time, the moon climbing higher, the night folding itself around me like a quilt. The letter rested in my lap, glowing faintly in the silver light. A lantern, she’d called it. Something to carry forward. When I finally stood, the map on the floor was gone. The moonlight now lay plainly, innocently, on the boards—as if it had never known how to draw. But the house felt different. More open. More awake. And somewhere deep inside, I felt it waiting—patient and warm—for the next step I would take. I closed the back door gently, whispering a quiet thank you to the empty room. Sometimes the past doesn’t stay buried. Sometimes it shines its way home.
By Jhon smith10 months ago in Horror
No Welcome Home?
It had been several weeks. Thank God the monster goddess has not come, as she promised. She probably knew she wouldn't be welcome. In the meantime Ivory and I began to get along very well. She was a good girl, just about a woman, with a good sense of humor. She had many friends on this small island nation…some human and some not. I didn’t have the nerve to ask which was which because I didn’t want to know. I had come here to escape all of the news and confusion and it was working.
By Om Prakash John Gilmore10 months ago in Horror
The Voice Note I Received From My Sister, Two Days After Her Funeral.
The Voice Note I Received From My Sister, Two Days After Her Funeral. Grief makes you hear things. That’s what the therapist told me. She said it’s common for the bereaved to hear the voice of their loved ones in the wind, or imagine their footsteps in the hallway. It’s the brain’s way of coping with the sudden vacuum left by a person’s existence.
By Noman Afridi10 months ago in Horror
My New Night Shift Job Has 3 Simple Rules. I Just Broke Rule #2.
My New Night Shift Job Has 3 Simple Rules. I Just Broke Rule #2. I needed the money. That is the only sentence that can accurately explain why I took this job without asking enough questions. When your landlord is knocking on your door for rent and your bank account is in the negatives, you tend to overlook the red flags.
By Noman Afridi10 months ago in Horror
A Summer Alone in the Dorm
The summer break was just a few days away. Trains were already full to the brim, buses tickets were sold out at a fast rate and the campus looked as if it was going down with the ship since it was getting emptied very quickly. Everyone was in a hurry to get home. Clara, a second-year literature student at St. Agnes College in northern England, didn’t feel like going with the crowd. She was suffocating with her coursework and the silence of the nearly empty campus was like a lifeline to her. She made a decision to stay. When the last suitcase was taken out, only two girls were left on the whole third floor of Willow Hall: Clara and a girl from the room next door whom Clara had talked to a couple of times. Her name was Sarah. Sarah had a nice smile and a bit of a limp that she never told the cause of. Since both of them were staying back, Clara proposed that they become each other’s company. “If you want you can come and live with me,” she said. “It’ll be less lonely.” Sarah’s face was covered with light. “I would really like that,” she answered. “I can’t stand being alone.” At 2:47 a.m. that night, Clara was wakened by an urgent need to go to the bathroom. There was absolute silence in the corridor except for the low humming of the vending machine at the far end. Sarah was sleeping on the spare bed and her breathing was even. Without turning the light Clara went out. The bathroom was located at the very end of the corridor, after a series of closed doors. She pushed it open—and stood there motionless. The whole floor was very slippery with blood. It was not that the blood was splattered. It was poured. As if someone had take overturned the whole buckets of it. The disgusting smell of blood hit her like a fist. She lifted her eyes. Suspended from the ceiling was a severed leg, the point of the cut was immediately above the knee. The skin looked very pale, almost see-through, and a thin silver anklet shone in the dim emergency light. Clara could not scream. She was completely unable to do so. She took a step back, the door hit the wall with a loud bang, and she ran off. She came running to the room and was trembling all over. “Sarah… Sarah, wake up!” Sarah immediately sat up, very composed and collected. “What is the matter?” “There’s… there’s a leg in the bathroom. A real one. Hanging from the ceiling.” Sarah neither laughed nor panicked. She simply reached for the glass of water on the nightstand and gave it to her. “Drink. Then tell me exactly what you saw.” Clara drank the water very quickly, her whole body was shaking. “It was… pale. And it had this little silver anklet.” Sarah didn’t say a word for a moment. Then, very slowly, she uncovered her legs with the blanket. The right one was amputated just above the knee. It was the place where the cut had been, precisely. Clara’s eyesight got very narrow. The glass of water that she had just taken from her hand fell to the floor and broke into pieces. The last thing that she could remember was Sarah’s gentle, almost pitying smile. Cold water was very effective in waking her up. She was laying on the carpet. Mrs. Dawson, the cleaner during the night shift, was kneeling next to her, and there was a look of concern on her face. “Clara? Are you able to hear me?” Clara wanted to sit up with her own strength. “The leg… Sarah… she...” Mrs. Dawson’s face changed. She looked around the empty room and then changed her expression. “Sarah, who?” “The girl next door. She was with me.” Mrs. Dawson spoke in a lower tone of voice. “Just listen to what I am telling you. No student has lived in 3B for three years. Not since the accident.” Her blood turned very cold. “Three years ago,” Mrs. Dawson explained, “a girl named Sarah Kelly fell from the fire escape. Her body was found on the concrete below… but her right leg was missing. It was the railings that cut it off cleanly. Some say that she walks the corridor at night, looking for it.” Clara looked at the empty bed in the spare room. The bedclothes were untouched. There was no indentation. No warmth. Mrs. Dawson told her to get ready and leave the next morning with her first train. “Some doors are better kept closed during summer break.” Clara decided not to spend any more nights at Willow Hall. When she came back in September, she asked the maintenance people to take off the silver anklet that, for some reason, was still hanging from the ceiling of the bathroom. They said that nothing had been there. Sometimes, on very quiet nights, students from the third floor can still hear one foot dragging softly along the corridor… and then a faint, almost apologetic whisper: “Have you seen my leg?”
By Rubaiat Tanzim10 months ago in Horror
