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Chapter 1 – Life & Shit
-
Max muttered the words more to himself than to anyone else as he leaned back on the barstool, turning the glass in his hand. The flickering neon tube above the counter buzzed like an indecisive thought, and somewhere in the back room dishes clattered faintly. Outside, the rain had already begun to turn the street into silver streaks, and Max knew he should have left an hour ago.
But something kept him there. Maybe it was the smell of wood and whiskey that reminded him of earlier days. Maybe the nostalgic melody drifting from the old jukebox. Or maybe it was the message vibrating in his jacket pocket, the one he didn’t quite have the courage to check.
He took a final sip—warm, smooth, comforting—and let his gaze wander across the room. That’s when he noticed her: the young woman at the window table, who had been glancing at him now and then. Her look wasn’t intrusive—more like someone weighing a decision.
As he reached for his wallet to pay, she suddenly stood up and approached him.
“You shouldn’t leave before you see who’s trying to give you a little courage,” she said, smiling as if she had read his thoughts.
Max blinked. “Do I know you?”
“Not yet.” She slipped a small card from her pocket and placed it on the counter. It held only a name and a time. 10:00 a.m. Tomorrow.
“If you want to know why you couldn’t go home tonight… just come.”
Before he could respond, she was already out the door and into the rain. Max stared at the card, then at his empty glass.
Just one more before heading home—and suddenly he realized that this last drink might be the beginning of something that could change his life entirely.
by J. Dunn
-
Lila pushed through the crowd as if the music itself were carrying her forward—heavy, vibrating, relentless. The strobe lights carved her movements into sharp, flashing fragments, and every pulse of color felt like it synced directly with her bloodstream. She told herself she was fine. She always did. Just another night, another rush, another moment where she could pretend everything was under control.
But tonight felt different.
She reached the center of the dance floor, where people blurred into a single breathing organism. Her hands trembled, not from fear but from the weight of everything she’d been running from. The deal she shouldn’t have made. The friend she shouldn’t have betrayed. The promise she kept breaking to herself.
Suddenly the DJ cut the beat for a split second—enough to make the whole club inhale at once. In that thin slice of silence, Lila heard something she wasn’t prepared for: her name. Clear. Close. Real.
She spun around.
A man stood at the edge of the dance floor, his expression steady despite the chaos around him. Daniel. The one person she’d hoped never to see in a place like this. The one person who knew the truth behind the glamour she faked so well.
“You need to come with me,” he said, his voice firm but not unkind.
She shook her head, a wild, disjointed motion. “Not tonight. I just need—”
“You need help,” he interrupted. “Before this place swallows you whole.”
The beat dropped again, the crowd erupting around them like a storm, but Lila suddenly felt outside of it—floating, detached, as if the music was no longer hers.
Her heart pounded harder, not from the drugs now, but from the terrifying thought that he might be right.
She took a step toward him.
Then another.
For the first time in months, the base wasn’t the loudest thing in the room. Her conscience was. And it refused to let her drown in the noise any longer.
by C. Hoekoven
-
It wasn’t entirely the dog’s fault. Reggie had a talent for pushing things just one step too far. The vintage corduroy pants three sizes too short. The mustard-yellow beanie he insisted on wearing even in July. The unicycle. Especially the unicycle. Rufus, a dignified old retriever with a silver snout and a strong sense of self-respect, simply couldn’t be seen next to that.
On this particular morning, Reggie pedaled gracefully—at least in his own mind—down Maple Street, a fresh cup of single-origin Ethiopian coffee sloshing dangerously in one hand. Rufus walked far to the right, pretending to examine every tree trunk with scholarly focus. Pedestrians stared. A small child pointed and whispered, “Why is that man balancing on a wheel like that?” Her mother replied, “Sweetheart, some questions have no answers.”
Reggie, however, was blissfully unaware. He was on a mission.
A new pop-up gallery had opened in an abandoned laundromat, showcasing “sound sculptures”: metal structures that made tones when touched by wind, humidity, or—according to the flyer—“the emotional residue of nearby humans.” Reggie felt spiritually obligated to attend.
As he arrived, he hopped off the unicycle with the confidence of someone who had practiced that move in a mirror. Rufus sat several meters away, pretending to belong to another owner entirely.
Inside, the gallery was dim and smelled faintly of detergent from its past life. Strange contraptions hummed and pinged as if holding quiet conversations. Reggie wandered reverently between them, sipping his coffee, nodding knowingly at shapes no one else understood.
Then he saw it—a sculpture made of bicycle chains, glass shards, and a rusted toaster. It vibrated softly when he approached, emitting a low note that sounded eerily like disapproval.
Reggie’s eyes widened. “It senses my aura,” he whispered.
Behind him, Rufus let out a single, unimpressed huff.
But then something unexpected happened: one of the chains snapped loose, swinging forward and catching Reggie’s beanie, pulling it clean off his head. His carefully curated hairstyle collapsed instantly into something resembling damp seaweed. Visitors gasped. Someone snorted.
Reggie froze.
Rufus trotted in, picked up the fallen beanie delicately, and dropped it at his owner’s feet with a long, apologetic sigh. For the first time in ages, Reggie knelt down and scratched behind the retriever’s ears.
“Maybe,” he murmured, “I’ve been trying a little too hard.”
Rufus wagged his tail, relieved that enlightenment had finally dawned.
Reggie stood, slipping the beanie into his pocket instead of putting it back on. When they left the gallery, they walked side by side for the first time in months.
It wasn’t that Reggie had stopped being a hipster. He was simply—miraculously—learning moderation.
And Rufus, loyal as ever, approved of the new direction.
by M. Dunbar
Chapter 2 – Trips & Places
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Most travelers avoided it, choosing instead to take the long way around the mountains, adding three days and twice the risk of bandits. But Taran had no choice. By dawn tomorrow, he needed to be in Morloco—needed to deliver the sealed parchment tucked against his chest, warm from his body heat and heavy with consequence.
He stood at the edge of the infamous path, the bleached skulls staring at him with hollow resignation. Some claimed they were placed there by raiders, a grim warning to strangers. Others swore the bones belonged to those who ignored the spirits that haunted the valley. Taran didn’t know which was worse.
He tightened the straps of his satchel and stepped forward.
Dust rose under his boots, drifting toward the remains as if greeting old friends. The silence pressed against him, thick and unnatural—no birds, no insects, not even the wind dared disturb this place. And yet he felt watched. Not by raiders. Not by men. By something older.
Halfway through the valley, he saw her.
A woman stood among the skeletons, draped in a tattered gray cloak that shimmered at the edges. Her face was hidden, but he sensed her eyes—cold, curious. She did not move, but the air around her pulsed softly, like a ripple on still water.
“Traveler,” she said, her voice echoing in a way that made his skin crawl. “Why do you walk a road meant to be forgotten?”
Taran swallowed. “I must reach Morloco by sunrise.”
“And this burden you carry—is it worth the cost?” She lifted a hand. The skulls rattled faintly, as if answering her.
He hesitated. He thought of the village behind him, of the sick who waited for the antidote recipe sealed in the scroll. “Yes,” he said finally. “I believe it is.”
The woman tilted her head, considering him. Then she stepped aside, gesturing with a movement both graceful and unsettling.
“Then walk. But know this: every road has a toll. Yours will be collected soon.”
Before he could respond, she dissolved—like fog burned away by sunlight.
Taran stood alone again, the silence heavy as stone. He forced his legs to keep moving, each step slower, more deliberate. It wasn’t until the skulls began to thin and the valley opened toward Morloco’s distant lanterns that he dared breathe fully.
But even then, he felt her presence lingering behind him.
And though he delivered the parchment at sunrise, just as promised, he knew one thing with chilling certainty:
The toll she spoke of was already following him—patient, silent, inevitable.
by C. Wolcott
-
It stood at the edge of Millstone Town, leaning slightly to the left like a drunk who never quite recovered from a bad night. Its wooden sign, carved with the face of a snarling dog, creaked in the wind and warned newcomers of the chaos within. Locals didn’t need the reminder—they knew the Old Bark as a magnet for trouble and a sanctuary for those who sought it.
On a stormy October evening, the pub was packed tighter than a prayer in a sinner’s mouth. Miners with soot-stained faces crowded the counter, slamming their pints like punctuation marks. Cowboys argued politics no one understood. The piano man in the corner hammered out a tune that sounded like it was losing a fight of its own.
And in the center of it all stood Nora Finch.
She wasn’t the biggest, nor the loudest, but she had a reputation sharper than a broken bottle. Rumor said she could knock a man out with a single punch. Rumor also said she drank whiskey like it was water and patience like it was poison. Tonight, she was doing both.
When the door burst open and a drenched stranger stepped inside, the entire room paused—just for a breath, just long enough for the storm’s howl to slip in. The stranger was tall, with eyes that held more winter than the season outside. He brushed rain from his coat and surveyed the room like a man searching for a ghost.
His gaze landed on Nora.
“Nora Finch,” he said, voice calm but cold. “I’ve come for the map.”
A murmur rippled through the pub. Fights paused. Glasses froze midair. Even the piano man’s fingers hovered above the keys.
Nora took a slow drink, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and smirked. “Plenty folk come lookin’ for things in the Old Bark,” she said. “Most leave with less than they had.”
The stranger stepped closer, water dripping from his coat onto the floorboards. “I’m not here to fight.”
“Then you came to the wrong place.” Nora rose from her stool. Chairs scraped. Someone muttered a prayer.
But instead of throwing a punch, she reached under the counter and pulled out an old, weathered piece of leather. Not quite a map. Not quite a promise. Something in between.
She held it up. “This what you’re after?”
The stranger nodded once.
“Then listen close,” Nora said, leaning in. “You take this map, you take what follows. And what follows ain’t never pretty.”
A flash of lightning illuminated the stranger’s face. He didn’t flinch.
“I know,” he replied. “And I’m ready.”
For a long moment, the Old Bark Pub remained silent—no fists, no shouts, no spilled whiskey. Just the weight of something dangerous shifting hands.
Then Nora tossed him the map.
The fight resumed a heartbeat later, louder than ever. Pints shattered, curses flew, and the piano man played with renewed desperation. But the stranger slipped out quietly, swallowed by the storm, carrying with him the kind of trouble that didn’t need fists to hurt.
And the Old Bark Pub, as always, didn’t ask questions. It simply kept pouring whiskey by the pint, waiting for the next story to stagger through its doors.
by L. Schneider
Chapter 3 – Sex & Violence
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Detective Clara Haldon had seen her share of gruesome scenes, but something about this one gnawed at her ribs like a trapped animal. The ring lay half-buried in the mud, still shining beneath the morning frost. The glass eye, perfectly intact, rested atop a mound of darkened leaves—as if Remo himself had placed it there, demanding one last look at the world that had betrayed him.
The forest around them was silent. Not peaceful—silent. Even the crows stayed away.
Officer Jarvis knelt beside the remains, swallowing hard. “You think it’s… them again?” he whispered.
Clara didn’t answer. She didn’t have to.
For three months, bodies had been turning up in this stretch of woodland, each stripped down to fragments, each missing the same strange piece: the back molars. Remo Fontana made victim number seven. But he was different—he had a story the others didn’t.
Remo had vanished two weeks earlier, right after telling his wife he “finally had proof.” Proof of what, she never knew; he’d left the house with a folder of papers and the wild look of a man who’d uncovered a secret too heavy for one pair of shoulders.
Clara scanned the clearing. Something about the way the leaves were disturbed, the shallow impression in the soil—it all felt staged. Intentionally careless. Like someone wanted the police to find Remo, but not the truth.
“Bag the remains,” she said. “We’re missing something. It’s not just a killer—it’s a message.”
Jarvis hesitated. “Detective… the eye is staring at you.”
“I noticed,” Clara muttered.
She crouched and studied it. The craftsmanship was meticulous: fine lines etched into the iris, a faint scratch on the surface—shaped almost like a letter.
No. Not almost.
It was a letter.
A perfect, deliberate V carved into the glass.
Clara’s breath hitched. She stood abruptly, scanning the treeline, suddenly certain they were being watched. “Jarvis. Pack up. Now.”
“What’s wrong?”
“The killer’s not done.” She shoved the eye into an evidence box. “He’s escalating.”
As they hurried back to the patrol car, the forest seemed to exhale behind them—a low, unnatural sound that raised the hairs on Clara’s arms.
Later, back at headquarters, she studied the eye under a lamp. The carved V glinted like a blade.
A signature.
A warning.
And tucked inside Remo’s wedding ring—discovered only after a closer inspection—was a tiny folded scrap of paper with three words written in trembling ink:
“You’re next, Clara.”
Her blood ran cold.
Remo Fontana hadn’t died because he found a secret.
He died because she was getting too close to it.
by S. Hope
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Marla stood at the edge of the swamp, boots sinking into the soft earth, the humid air clinging to her like a second skin. She liked this place—liked how it smelled of rot and secrets, how the fog twisted through the mangroves like gossip with nowhere to go. Most people in Hollow Bend kept their distance from the swamp. Marla, however, considered it her second home.
She knelt and traced a finger through the murky surface. The water rippled, reflecting a distorted version of her face—wide eyes, sharper intentions. Somewhere beneath the surface, she knew, the truth waited.
And so did he.
Detective Orren Hale had been following her for months. He thought she didn’t know. He thought she couldn’t possibly have noticed the quiet footsteps two alleys behind her, the rustle of pages whenever she entered the library, the way he always happened to show up at the market right after she did.
Poor Orren. He believed he was hunting a criminal.
He never realized he was the prey.
Marla smiled faintly as she pulled a small, mud-stained box from her satchel. It was no bigger than her palm, sealed with rusted hinges and wrapped in a strip of leather. Inside were the items Orren had been searching for—the jewelry, the missing letters, the locket with the initials of the mayor’s vanished wife.
Not that Marla had killed the woman. No, she was far too clever for something so crude. She simply… nudged things along. Offered words at the right moment. Encouraged the wrong man. Stirred jealousies like a witch stirring broth.
People destroyed themselves, she often mused. Someone just had to set the table.
She tossed the box into the swamp. Bubbles rose, then vanished. Evidence gone. Story erased.
Branches snapped behind her.
Orren.
She didn’t turn immediately. She wanted him close. Wanted to feel the tremor in his breath when he finally realized what she was.
“You shouldn’t be out here alone,” Orren said, voice tight. “This place isn’t safe.”
Marla slowly faced him, her smile soft and cruel. “Oh, detective,” she replied. “But it is. For me.”
His gaze flicked to the water. “What was that you dropped?”
“Closure.”
Orren stepped closer, hand hovering near the holster he wasn’t sure he would dare to use. “Marla, I know you’re involved. I just don’t know how.”
“That’s the tragedy of men like you,” she whispered. “You only ever investigate after the damage is done.”
She took a single step toward him, just enough to see him flinch.
“And by then,” she added, “it’s far too late.”
A distant splash echoed across the swamp—deep, heavy, familiar. Orren’s face drained of color. Marla’s eyes gleamed to match the water.
“You didn’t bring backup,” she said. “Bold.”
Or foolish.
The thing beneath the surface stirred again. Orren finally realized what Marla had truly been feeding all these months—not lies, not chaos, but something older. Something hungry.
He reached for his gun.
Too late.
The green water erupted. A scaled limb, massive and quick, wrapped around Orren’s legs and yanked him backward. His scream cut short as he disappeared into the murk.
Silence returned as swiftly as it had been broken.
Marla watched the ripples fade, her expression serene.
“The water was as green as my eyes,” she murmured. “But you never looked close enough.”
She adjusted her coat, stepped onto the path, and began her walk back toward town—where fresh mischief waited, where new stories begged to be twisted.
Behind her, the swamp swallowed its secrets whole.
C. Bernard
-
Not literally, of course—though in the town of Glenshore, some swore otherwise. The rumors clung to her like perfume: sweet at first, intoxicating, then strangely unsettling the longer one lingered.
Dalia moved through the world with the kind of confidence that made doors open a second before she touched them. She smiled rarely, but when she did, men forgot the names of their wives, and women double-checked the locks on their doors. No one really knew where she came from, only that she’d appeared one evening during the Harvest Festival, gliding through the lantern-lit streets like a secret looking for a home.
Leon Avery—quiet, predictable Leon—never meant to cross her path. He preferred books to people, the library to the bar, and logic to anything resembling danger. Yet danger had a way of finding him.
He first saw Dalia under the old elm by the riverside, her silhouette framed by the dying sunset. She turned her head just slightly, enough for him to feel as though she’d been waiting specifically for him. A chill crawled up his spine, but curiosity tugged harder than fear.
“Beautiful evening,” he managed, trying not to stare at the impossible crimson of her lips.
“For now,” she replied, voice smooth as velvet on skin. “But beauty never stays long. Not in this town.”
Leon frowned. “What do you mean?”
She didn’t answer. Instead, she stepped closer, her scent—something ancient, something floral with a metallic edge—wrapping around him. Her lashes fluttered lazily, shadows dancing across her cheeks.
“Tell me,” she murmured, “do you believe people can be… cursed?”
He swallowed. “I’m not superstitious.”
“Good.” She smiled—slow, deliberate, devastating. “Then you won’t be afraid to walk with me.”
Against every instinct honed by years of practicality, he did.
They wandered the river path until twilight thickened. She asked him questions—strange ones. About loneliness. About loyalty. About how far a person might go to protect a secret.
When they reached the bend near the abandoned mill, she stopped. Her expression shifted—something sad, something tired, something hungry for something he couldn’t name.
“You should go home now, Leon,” she whispered. “Before you start seeing me the way others do.”
“And how is that?”
“As the ending to something that shouldn’t end.”
He opened his mouth to argue, but a gust of wind cut him off. When he blinked, she was already walking away, swallowed by the dark.
Leon stood there, heart racing, not sure if he’d narrowly escaped danger—or brushed against the edge of the most dangerous kind of desire.
The next morning, Glenshore woke to the news that another man had gone missing. Fifth one that season.
People whispered the same name behind their hands.
Dalia.
Leon said nothing. But as he caught his reflection in the library window, he realized with a jolt that his collar smelled faintly of her—flowers, moonlight…
…and the metallic bite of something far older than fear.
M. Buehler
-
Eli Sanderson sat up slowly, the ache in his skull blooming like a violent flower. The ground beneath him was cold stone—uneven, dusty, unfamiliar. A faint draft crawled over his bare skin, raising goosebumps in places he wished were covered.
“Great,” he muttered. “Another quality decision, Eli.”
He tried to piece things together, but his memories felt like shattered glass—sharp in places, but impossible to assemble. He remembered a bar in Kraków, a dare involving absinthe, and a woman with a laugh so bright it felt like it could cut through darkness.
Everything after that was a fog.
He pushed himself to his feet and squinted around. He seemed to be in an old cellar, the kind that belonged to abandoned buildings or vampires in bad movies. Stone walls. A wooden door. A single candle flickering on a crate. And on the floor beside it—a folded note.
He hesitated before picking it up.
You owe me a favor, it read in looping handwriting. Consider this the down payment.
No signature. No explanation.
Eli rolled his eyes at the ceiling. “Fantastic. Love a mysterious benefactor with questionable ethics.”
He looked around for anything he could wear and spotted, in the corner, a burlap sack. Not ideal, but it was either that or streaking through whichever Eastern European alley he had been dumped in. He tore a hole for his head and arms and fashioned a tunic that made him look like a displaced potato farmer.
The door wasn’t locked. That worried him more than if it had been.
Outside, the night air slapped him awake. He stumbled into a narrow street lined with crooked houses and flickering lamps. Somewhere in the distance, a violin played a mournful tune. A black cat watched him from atop a trash bin with deep suspicion.
Eli walked until he reached a small square with a fountain. In the water’s reflection, he saw it: a small mark on his neck. A stamp. Like the kind clubs used to let people back in after smoke breaks.
He leaned closer.
The stamp was a symbol—a circle with three intersecting lines. And beneath it, in small lettering barely visible:
The Orpheum Society.
Eli’s stomach dropped. He had heard of them. Urban legend. Underground collectors of secrets, memories, debts. People didn’t join the Orpheum Society; they were taken by it.
Suddenly, footsteps echoed behind him.
Three figures approached—hooded, silent, moving with the calm certainty of people who were very used to being feared.
“Eli Sanderson,” the tallest one said, voice patient like a teacher addressing a slow student. “You attended last night’s gathering. You pledged. Now you must complete what you agreed to.”
Eli raised his hands. “Okay, so—small issue. I have absolutely no memory of that. Can we rewind?”
“No,” the figure replied. “But we can begin.”
“Begin what?”
The hooded leader smiled a smile Eli couldn’t see, but very much felt.
“Your initiation.”
Eli sighed. “Of course. Why not. And hey—while we’re at it—any chance you guys know what happened to my Rolex?”
The figures didn’t answer.
Somewhere deep inside him, a sliver of memory flickered: the woman from the bar. Her bright laugh. Her leaning in close. Her whisper:
Run while you still can.
He should have listened.
Now, barefoot in a potato sack and surrounded by people who dealt in shadows, Eli had only one certainty:
Whatever he had agreed to last night…
he was going to regret in the morning— if he lived to see it.J. Pluska