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Ever since I was a boy, I have always loved the woods. Well, had might be better word, but I'm getting ahead of myself. As a child, I lived in a house right next to a heavily wooded area. Every day, I would go out into the woods with my friends. We covered nearly every inch of those woods. Hiking, camping, climbing trees, you name it. The woods were our playground and we controlled them. Or so we thought....

“Houston, come in. This is UN Space Station Libra. Come in, Houston.” No reply, just like every other time. I throw the receiver in disgust, the weightless environment causing it to float mockingly in front of my face at the end of its retention strap. I'm bathed in the soft red glow of emergency lights that serve to illuminate every inch of my tiny cell. I take a deep breath to calm my nerves before returning to fiddle at the maintenance panel. I've been in here for two weeks now.

Now, when I think back to the excuses my parents used to make, I feel like an idiot. I remember being twelve years old, standing at the top of the staircase and watching all of the people filing into our basement. Some men wore white masks, some women wore bonnets. But they all had small suitcases, as though there was a bus stop beneath our house. And every one of them looked pale, frightened.

Wipe your feet when you come inside. Cliché. Old school. Who does that anyways? Well, the shit your grandmother tells you isn’t always bad advice. Quite the contrary really. I’m about to tell you a story you won’t believe. A story that will never leave me. A story about what exactly happens when you don’t WIPE. YOUR. FEET. And please, whoever finds this, heed my advice. Read the story. It’s too late for me…

He never smiled I never understood why he cried. I would see him everywhere I went, he would cry over everything I did, he would always be sad.. like he just lost some one he loved. His hysterical sobs would fill my senses and I could never block him out. His woeful eyes, dull and glazed over would stare in my direction, but never directly at me as he heaved for breaths between his trembling tears.. he.. it... never smiles.

Max Theodore pushed past the boisterous throng of laughing kids and settled down at his usual table. Max’s best friend, Isabella, bounded over to him with her typical energy. “Max!” she greeted, hugging him as if she hadn’t seen him in days. “You won’t believe what I was able to find last night!” Max grinned and shook his head. Isabella had a reputation as a paranormal fanatic. On Saturday night she could be found in her home watching black and white horror films while eating buttered popcorn.…

The day you left me is still clear in my mind. Why would you do this? You know I love you. We're meant to be. We are destined to be together, the stars told me so. You used to love hearing that. You shouldn't have talked to that guy. I wouldn't have gotten so angry if you had told me you wanted permission first. But you were never good at hiding things, were you? Like your house key. I mean, you put it under the welcome mat?

Eva rummaged through her messenger bag frantically. Once again her notebook had disappeared into thin air. Cursing the missing piece of educational materials she opened a fresh one and began taking Russian notes on page one. Lucky for having scanned the pages into her desktop. Moving her long dark hair behind her ear she obediently repeated as she was asked to. And as the bell rang she moved to her next class. College was no different from High school, she was fortunate to have graduated in…

It had been a while since I had visited my cousins. Believe it or not, it had been five years since I saw any of their faces. The last I time I saw them I was eight years old and had not yet learned that the world had no consequences. I skipped gaily around their two story ramshackle house joyously, singing my favorite songs and playing with the six year old twins. This playtime, however was constantly tainted by my Aunt Clarissa.

I cannot tell you when it all began. I have always been plagued by sleep paralysis. I have somewhat learned to deal with it, to recognise it for what it is and wait it out. It always begins with the need to yawn or speak, but my mouth is shut tight. I then try to sit bolt upright, but my arms and body are clamped down to the bed. Sometimes my eyes are open. Sometimes I see things.

My end is near. I know this now. The thing my master says… It’s all too much at times. I heard my master saying something earlier… It sound like.. like he’s going to… replace me. It feels like, soon, he’s going to perform an operation on me... and I’m scared.

I couldn’t take the calls any more. I just couldn’t take knowing. There was nothing I could do to stop them from coming through; I had to put an end to it.

I’m breaking every single one of my rules for survival doing this and yet I know if I don’t I’ll die of hunger in a few weeks or worse they’ll find me when I’m sleeping and carry me off to where they dwell nestled in the tunnels beneath the city. I stare into the abyssal depths below me, nothing to make out but the now motionless escalator stairs, poking their way out of the blackness. I take one last deep breath savour the clean crisp February air and make my way down to find Nate. Nate’s the…

I am glad to have friends. I know a lot of people find high school a really lonely and difficult time, but for me it was surprisingly easy. I wouldn't say I was popular by any stretch of the word. Maybe there were just a whole lot of "outcasts" at my school so I fit in perfectly. The closest friend I had was Bridget. She and I both loved to play online games like WOW or GTA and that's actually how we met. It's nice to have a crew in GTA or a clan in WOW and so I joined one and she was the…

Moving into a new apartment wasn't easy when I first started college. The main issue was the rent. I couldn't pay it alone so I started networking and getting to know other girls. Callie was the first friend I met and after a few weeks of getting to know each other she decided to move in. We were still struggling so we took on another girl, Amber. Our apartment was beautiful and it didn't take long until we filled it with everything that we loved. The time we spent together was great and I even…

In 2003 a photograph depicting a lost child began circulating on the internet. There was no detail on the child other than what was seen in the actual photo and could be found under the search parameters 'find_me.jpg'. The photo showed a smiling young girl about eight or nine years old. The girl is seen standing alone in front of a swing set, wearing a purple dress with a white flower in her hair. Her name or where she was seen last were never mentioned.

There are some places in Texas I advise you to go to: San Antonio. Austin. Poteet. Dallas. La Vernia. Just to name a few if you want to experience real Texas in a breathtaking way. And then there's Kosciusko, Texas, a place that I would never bring up in normal conversation. It's a place you don't go to. It's a place you drive far away from when nighttime falls. It's a place where your car stops and stalls and you feel sweat beading down your neck as you try to jiggle the keys in fear.

Around me are the sounds of panic and horror. Gunshots fill the once silence air and people in white lab coats are screaming and running past my room. I know they are because I can see them through the reflective wall that shows my own reflection. How is this possible you might ask? Well, I was once the hope for humanity. This is how it began. I was thirteen and still had some sort of life stitched together if you could call it that. My father was nonexistent and my mother trying to form a…

Mandy watched the girl on the television run. She was about thirty minutes into Halloween and honestly she was unimpressed. Was this really what she was staying up past her bedtime for? Was this really worth the risk of her mother finding out that she was not in fact really asleep, preparing for the next day in which she would go to school and learn just like the good children?

To whoever receives this letter, these are the final words of me, Cynthia J. Hill. They will sound like the ramblings of a mad woman, but I swear I am and have been of sound mind. It happened something like this: