PhantomLotus

Did you know tens of thousands of people die in their sleep each night? Most of them succumb to natural causes like heart disease, stroke, or just plain old age. But in that vast group of the fallen, a small subset of them have perished with no explanation at all. Hell, I've heard some have outright disappeared. The funny thing is they all shared one curse that led them to such a demise.

It started with my friend in Japan. He was a hacker and pirate and always left his computer on, along with AIM and MSN. When he logged out on both, I assumed his computer finally died from overload. It was then I noticed all his posts on our favorite sites were gone. All his accounts, all his videos, all his comments.

The verdict was final. I wished I had just died then. The people tasked with performing this ritual drank, Drank until they couldn't anymore, For if they were sober, They wouldn't have been able to go through with it. They stripped me of my clothing. They flogged me. Scraps of metal and shards of glass, Embedded into each tail of the flogger. Each tail would wrap around me, Glass and metal digging into my flesh. Then they would pull it back, Shards dragging inside my skin,

Danny was a necrophiliac, that was no secret to him.

The old storage sheds along the tracks were abandoned shortly after the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad was built, and it wasn't long before the poor folk of the area moved in. The sheds provided shelter - of a sort - although the winter wind still pierced through every crevice, and the small fireplaces that the poor constructed did little to keep the cold at bay.

I jumped and dropped my paint brush when I heard the front door slam shut. My nerves were immediately settled when I heard the familiar voice of my husband. “I’m home!” My painting could wait. I smiled and made a beeline to the front door. He wasn’t supposed to be back from his work trip till tomorrow. “You usually text me when you’re getting home early,” I commented as I went in for a hug. “I lost my phone. I’ll have to go get a new one tomorrow,” he replied.

When I was a child my family moved to a big old two-floor house, with big empty rooms and creaking floorboards. Both my parents worked so I was often alone when I came home from school. One early evening when I came home the house was still dark. I called out, “Mum?” and heard her sing song voice say “Yeeeeees?” from upstairs. I called her again as I climbed the stairs to see which room she was in, and again got the same “Yeeeeees?” reply.

There is, in a small national park somewhere in the US, a bike path. This bike path is hardly unusual: it is roughly twelve miles long, and makes a circuit around a small lake. Most of the path is wooded, and it is regarded by the locals as a beautiful little place to take a breather and catch some peace and quiet. Many who jog or bike along the path observe nothing out of the ordinary. But there are those lone bicyclists who happen across the Runner.

I should have listened to my brother all those times he told me about the mirrors. I should have believed him when he said mirrors were like a different dimension; a portal into a bad, horrible alternative reality. But, I did not believe him. I thought he was just being a pesky teasing older brother. That's the way Brandon usually was anyway. Why would I have thought he was really telling the truth?

I’m sure many of you have heard of the Uncanny Valley effect, for those who haven’t it is essentially the sense of fear or unease a person can feel when they see a creature or object that resembles a human; but there is something about the entity that makes it not look right, think mannequins or robots. However, this fear has caused a lot of debate, mainly about why we have it to begin with; most of our main fears and phobias can be traced back to our ancient ancestors; and what they…

Hello. I suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, which is an anxiety disorder in which people have unwanted and repeated thoughts, feelings, ideas, or behaviors. In other words, my life is a a systematic pattern. But yesterday, I experienced a flaw in my own system. I awoke that morning in my lakeside home promptly at 6:45AM, as I do every morning. Before leaving my bedroom I made sure to touch the doorknob three times. I have to. I need to.

Stephen Hillenburg is one of the better-known names in animation. Born on August 21, 1961, he was not only an animator but also a marine biology educator. He passed away on November 26, 2018. He is best known for shows like Rocko’s Modern Life and SpongeBob SquarePants, the latter of which continues to air to this day.

In Berlin, after World War II, money was short, supplies were tight, and it seemed like everyone was hungry. At that time, people were telling the tale of a young woman who saw a blind man picking his way through a crowd. The two started to talk. The man asked her for a favor: could she deliver the letter to the address on the envelope? Well, it was on her way home, so she agreed.

Have you ever had one of those feelings that something was wrong? I don’t mean during the day either, but at night. I mean that sudden unprovoked feeling of dread that commands you to wake. Funny, it’s almost like nocturnal evil gives something off that your sleeping brain picks up on. I had one of those recently. It forced me up at 3 a.m. Normally when you have that feeling you’d lay still feigning sleep, or if you’re feeling adventurous you’d take a quick check around the house. After you…

You wake up in the middle of the night. Your cat is cozily nested behind your knees and the weight of your blanket warms your tired body nicely. You sigh happily. When you are about to drift again into a sweet slumber, your cat hisses and runs frantically off your bed and hides behind the curtains.

I’m Nina Rodriguez, i’m a police officer, have been for a good seven years. In my time in the force I have seen some pretty… pretty fucked up shit to say the least: crazed druggies, abusive parents, and even a few calls for help from the suicides. But, none of those could ever hope to compare to an emergency call I’d taken last month.

The noises had started around two in the morning, and while the house tended to make noises during such frightful snowstorms as this current one, these noises didn't sound normal for a shifting house. I lay awake in bed, not daring to move. The sounds were not scaring me, let me get that straight. I am not scared by much. No, the sounds were confusing me, that was all. I wasn't sure what to make of them. They seemed to be getting closer, so I silently got out of bed and picked up a knife I keep…

I work the night shift at a local mom-and-pop convenience store at the front of my neighborhood. We sell snacks, drinks, milk, bread, all the normal stuff that people need but aren’t willing to make a traditional run to the grocery store for. There was talk about adding a gas pump out front, but it hasn’t happened yet.

Maybe it's late at night, but you can't sleep. You're bored, or you can't stop a bazillion thoughts from racing through your skull, or maybe you had too much coffee, or you're a little drunk. Whatever the case, I've been there, my friend. I know how it feels to sit there and realize that you're not really living right now. You're just existing. Surely there's something you can do, right?

It was late, right around 8:00 P.M. For November this meant that the shadows of the night were already engulfing the world. It wasn’t cold out though. The wind was gentle and carried with it the smells of foliage thanks to the various gardens that littered the campus grounds.

You are home alone, and you hear on the news about the profile of a murderer who is on the loose. You look out the sliding glass doors to your backyard, and you notice a man standing out in the snow. He fits the profile of the murderer exactly, and he is smiling at you. You gulp, picking up the phone to your right and dialing 911. You look back out the glass as you press the phone to your ear, and notice he is much closer to you now.

It’s a commonly held belief in the world that machines can do anything, that, given enough time and resources, robots and computers will one day replace humankind, or that the constant evolution of machines could bring back what we lost. But I remember when we learned our lesson, when we understood that maybe, the dead should stay dead.

What is the most frightening thing you can think of? There is actually a unanimously correct response. By going into the darkest and most horrific part of the brain could one finally understand what one certain fear causes the body to go into hyperdrive and activate the "fight or flight" response. Any living being is ultimately condemned to choose fear or curiosity at this one, simple piece of knowledge: the unknown. This is why people are afraid of the dark, of monsters, of heights. The thrill…

I’d had them ever since I was a kid. I can remember being incredibly self-conscious about them, hiding them in my pockets under books and bags. The kids at school never said anything to my face, but I knew they were laughing behind my back. I remember asking my parents to take me to the doctor, to get them checked out. The growths on my hands seemed to be the elephant in the room back then, since they’d just say I was fine and change the subject. But I knew better.

Ever since I was little, I knew there was something wrong about the storm drains that lined my road. They were stealthy and silent. However, there was always the thought that if I listened long enough I may hear something begin to whisper. I never lingered long enough to hear though, because I was terrified. I could hardly stand to walk across them. Most of the time I would keep a long space between the eerie enigma and myself.