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The heavy mahogany door clicked shut, sealing out the relentless autumn drizzle. Ashley leaned back against it, exhaling a breath she felt she’d been holding all evening. The wedding reception had been a blur of champagne flutes, blinding flashbulbs, and well-meaning relatives. Now, finally, it was just her and Dave.

I have 847 hours of field recording across three years of this work. I can tell you the exact timestamp — 2:14:37 AM — when a door opened by itself in a farmhouse outside Carbondale. Baseline decibel reading before it moved, the spike, the return to baseline in 0.4 seconds. Filed, labeled, cross-referenced with humidity readings and structural reports. Probable explanation still listed as HVAC pressure differential, confirm with building superintendent. The superintendent retired in 2019.

Ever since I dropped out of university the only jobs I ever had was in the security sector and I will be honest I didn’t get my SIA security licence through legal means but knew someone who could get me an SIA licence for a price. I had contacts with all sorts of people within the security sector which is how I got jobs in the first place and in this profession its all about who you know rather than what you know. I bet you don’t feel safe now knowing what the security industry is really like…

One night, there was pure white snow, five feet deep, below my window panel as I looked outside at the winter wonderland in awe and fear, a pair of eyes watching me from across the street. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me start with the bringing of this day, before creatures of snow and ice came to my doorstep. My name is Rose Winters, I'm 31 and I have dark red hair with pale blue eyes. I dress very girly and I never stop talking about something.... dear to me.... Let's start...

To sell your dream. Dreamselling Sold dreams Someone decides their dreams impossible and sells them to someone without dreams "I've had it!" I yell: "Mine is just simply unachievable!" My colleague laughs: "Some dreams just are that way, many people here sell them, here there's no need for them anyway. Dreams just get in the way of getting finished." We're sitting inside the grey lunch room of our workplace. I turn to him and lean back: "Did you sell yours?"

My name is Michael, I'm 30 years old. I live alone in a rented apartment. The silence is maddening. The rare hammering of new neighbors is almost pleasing — you know that feeling. I turn on the TV just so I'm not bored and at least I can hear someone's voice. One day I decided to visit my aunt. The road was long, but what can you do? Anything to not be lonely. I packed a small bag — just some clothes and a phone charger. I didn't even check if she was home. I just needed to drive.

I work as a night-shift moderator for a major social media platform. My job is simple: I watch the videos that the AI flags as "disturbing" before they go live, and I hit Delete or Approve. You see things that change you—car crashes, animal cruelty, the worst of humanity. But after six months, you go numb. Until last Tuesday. The AI flagged a video titled IMG_00042.mp4. It was only twelve seconds long. The thumbnail was just a dark room. I clicked play.

Lisa was an ordinary teenager who loved going for walks and hanging out with her friends. She was helpful and kind-hearted toward everyone. Her parents were teachers; her mother was French and her father was German. Lately, however, misunderstandings between them had become more frequent. They couldn't find a common language anymore, and the air between them was thick with the threat of divorce.

Once upon a time in a remote village there was a very old house and the people who lived around the house used to say that this particular house is haunted and if people go inside that house many kinds of apparitions can be seen inside this house.There were also a few young boys and girls living in this village who used to laugh at those people who used to say that this particular house is haunted.So one day when it was night time and everyone was sleeping in the village these young boys and…

It's hard to imagine strange things like those you could hear on the road from chance fellow travelers. The muffled clatter of iron footsteps bringing a soothing rhythm to the capricious flow of life. Fragrant steam rising above an almost cozy little table infecting the soul with a sense of weightlessness. And memories out loud free from the etiquette of dependence.

Never look beneath the deadfall. I don’t actually think Edgar needed this to be explained. But then, maybe it wasn’t really for him. Maybe it was for me. I like explaining it. It’s like a dark, dirty secret that every kid in our school knows.

*Originally published in the Flash Phantoms June 2026 issue

I guess you could call me an old codger – the kind who’s spent his entire life living in the same small village on the west coast of Ireland. Call me the parochial type – wedded to the land, having spent my working life as a small hold farmer before enjoying my retirement amongst old friends and family. These days I prop up the bar at McCafferty’s pub, sipping pints of Guiness whilst telling tales of years past.

"Skin touched skin." "Speak!" "Hands touched a pink patch of skin." "Speak! Please speak!" "Hands touched a pink patch of skin—a swarm of interjections poured out as a pink rash and loud holes, meaningless holes in space." "That was in the beginning, right? In the beginning?"

it starts with the reporter Dan come to ask my story, a no name reporter who wanted fame for himself but nobody, even police believe him enough to give him my story, so he secretly came into my room in the asylum, pretending to be my relative Dan:*coming to the cell* hey, your the guy named Alex, the white haired with red scarf you always hold like a lifeline? I heard you were hard to the staff I was barely awake in my white room y-yes?

Hynensborgs Skogar Det höll på att bli höst i staden Hynensborg, en av årets mörkaste och regnigaste perioder. Det är också den tid då unga människor vill fördriva tiden med något, då folk ofta sätter sig tillsammans runt en eldspruta och berättar mörka historier för varandra. En grupp kemistudenter och vänner – Noah, Freyr och Vidar – bestämde sig för att spendera en av septemberkvällarna under den inledande helgen på precis det sättet... Befriade från vardagens bekymmer och oro bestämde de…

A beautiful August afternoon, with its gorgeously blazing sun, encouraged them to hit the road and abandon the comfort of their couches and armchairs. Out of the corner of his eye, Garreth admired the lovely surroundings of Woodblacke. • It's so beautiful here! - he said aloud to his travelling companions. Nick nodded in agreement. Susan had just woken up and began her ritual of stretching in the back seat. • We're almost there, just a few hundred metres more and we'll be at our destination…

My wife and I always dreamed of living off-grid on our own land, but we were never able to afford anything—not even a small quarter-acre lot. We were sick of paying rent for shitty houses and apartments that charged way too much for the condition they were in, so we started wondering if there was anywhere we could actually afford to live.

This story is based on the chilling true events that inspired A Nightmare on Elm Street the "Asian Death Syndrome" cases of the 1980s, where young men died in their sleep after experiencing petrifying night terrors. Asher hadn't slept in four days. He kept his eyes pried open with caffeine and the sheer terror of what was waiting behind his eyelids.

Oct 10 - Today is cloudy Starting today, I'm going to keep a diary! My family includes little Jack, my mom, and the "Red Devil" too! My mom and the Red Devil are always getting into fights! It’s a total blast—whenever the Red Devil comes home drunk, a fight with Mom breaks out. Little Jack is really timid and just cries when he sees it, but I actually find it fun! Oct 11 - Today is warm