Drenched in the twilight of a weary day, I rappelled down the sheer cliff-face into the unknown. My eyes were heavy, my body aching, my boots caked in mud. I had walked and climbed for endless miles toward the source of the smoke, and I had found it… I am a restless man. A curious man. A man who sought to understand the world and himself. I yearned for a sense of belonging, and searched anywhere and everywhere, hoping to find it. I explored, to the extent I could, the city of Akatharta—the city I called home. I wandered its streets and alleys, its buildings and monuments, its people and their stories. I had no family, no close friends, but…

This is the continued part of The Ballerina. Let’s begin. Chapter 8: Love is Terrifying The next day, in school. Davian walked over to Amy and tapped her shoulder. Amy looked at him with surprised eyes. He asked: “Would tonight be a good day to study for the midterm for history?” Amy was so excited that her dark prince was asking her. She had to reply quickly before Davian changed his mind. Amy replied, sweetly: “Sure. Let me ask my dad quick.” Amy texted her dad, and he said sure. Before Amy could tell Davian. He disappeared. She looked around her to find him. He was heading to his first class. She remembered that he had a test today in…

Sometimes, people get stuck somewhere in time. Hours pass, but the world seems like it’s already stopped. The second hand on your watch keeps ticking, the ice in your drink melts away and yet time refuses to move forward. It was one of those nights for Tommy. He slouched on a bar stool under a dim, yellow light hanging from the ceiling, watching the ice cubes in his glass dissolve with the focused attention of a sports fanatic watching their favorite team’s final match. The light above the bar seemed to shine only on him. The rest of the room — the dark carpets, green tablecloths, and empty chairs — looked like shadows that had drifted in from outside of…

I’m kind of scared guys. I’m a journalist at small town newspaper and just received an anonymous envelope containing some kid’s hand written journal. The name on the front cover of the journal has been scratched off, and there are what appears to be some blood stains on the cover and on some of the pages. I don’t know what to make of this journal or its contents yet, but I think something horrible happened to this kid. It seems so surreal and terrifying that something like this could even possibly exist, but given the events a few years ago at that facility just outside of town, I think there might be something here. I want to do some more…

I have been imprisoned here in this hell hole for the last four years. Fucking TDCJ psych ward. This is where they send the real fucked up prisoners. I’m in for murder, but I managed to make the courts believe I was completely insane. I thought I’d get to go to some hospital. I figured I could handle a lifetime of dealing with the crazies, then having to fight everyday to protect myself and my man-hood. These motherfuckers threw me in the psych ward of the damn prison. So not only do I have to fight to defend myself, but I also have to deal with the crazies. Talk about a double whammy. So here I sit in my cell.…

One night a child heard crying from somewhere in the house. She wandered the grand manor, in search of the source. Her little bare feet barely made a sound on the old, creaking wooden floor. In each room she looked, she found nothing—nothing but moonlight seeping through thin moth-eaten curtains or chipped porcelain sinks. Down hallways that became galleries for picturesless frames. But still the wails persisted, muffled behind doors and walls. After searching for nearly the whole night, the child came across her father. Sitting in a room where the wooden stain was uneven in its coverage of the floor and darker in color. He was sitting on the edge of a little bed, something far too small for…

Last time we discussed the Not-human hypothesis, and since then, a discovery has been made that has been linked to these ancient humanoids. Though this one is rather unique, as it shows us how Neolithic and Paleolithic humans might have viewed and interacted with them. Instead of bones, this discovery came in the form of cave paintings, found in Chauvet Cave, a site in the Ardèche region of France, known for its rich collection of Paleolithic and Neolithic artwork. The paintings were discovered by a group of scientists providing yearly care to the cave’s fragile environment and artwork. A previously unexplored passage was discovered during the group’s tour, and feeling curious, they decided to investigate. Gaining entry proved difficult, however, as a…

A priest once gave me a gift in Aragon. He said it had belonged to a saint. That was a lie. Whatever power dwells in those dice does not answer to heaven. I have no expectation that this account will be believed, nor do I seek redemption by its writing. If absolution were mine to claim, I should have knelt at a confessional long before now. But the hands that hold this pen are soaked too deep in blood — not from war, which is honorable, but from a quieter, meaner kind of murder. The sort done with laughter, wine, and the clatter of dice on a mess-table. My name is Lucien Moreau, born in 1782 in Dijon, in the…

ICON Systems Group TL-07: Neural Language Analysis Internal memorandum #TL510513 1A Dr. Elin Saber [Routing: Office of Internal Ethics Oversight] To: IEO General Director Hevlen Please, read carefully. I do not know how long I can keep my thoughts straight, or if they are even mine anymore. As your office is already familiar with the work conducted within TL-07 and the broader ICON initiative, I will not restate our objectives here. Instead, I am writing to clarify my own role, as principal linguistic systems architect since ICON’s transition to unsupervised outputs, and to formally document concerns that I no longer believe fall within the scope of our existing ethical protocols. When we designed ICON, we told ourselves it was a…

I love the rain. I love how it seems to make everything feel… better. Smoother, somehow. Most people just enjoy the idea of rain. They like the sound it makes on the windowpane, or the cathartic feeling it gives. But it seems few actually enjoy the rain itself. But I’m different. I don’t love it just because I find it relaxing—which, don’t get me wrong, I do. But I’m not the type to absently daydream out of a window or bury myself in some book when the rain falls. No, I love to be in the rain. I love to be in the kind of rain that’s so suffocating you can’t see the woman sneak up behind you as you…