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I can't remember how it started. All I know is that I have to turn them on. All of them. The lights. Something is in the darkness. I get a glimpse sometimes. When it gets close. When the lights flicker. I can hear it breathing too. Whatever it is, it's not a nightmarish collection of body parts barely clinging to life. It sounds fit, strong. It sounds like a hunter, biding its time.

This used to happen to me quite often when I was younger, but lately I have had “different” experiences. To start with, I would like to say that this is all true. Everything I write here is fact, and you don’t have to believe me.

Blogs seemed to be growing in popularity lately. I never really seemed interested in them, but I followed my friend's blog all the same. He lived somewhere in Canada, and I lived in London at the time, so it was nice to have a way to keep updated on what he was up to. Before too long, though, I noticed something strange in his posts. I can't see anything strange at all before the 28th of January in 2001... 01/28/2001

On a scale of one to ten, what's the surest you've ever been at any one moment that something absolutely sinister was looking straight at you? I'd rate my experience earlier tonight at about an eight.

Jake had no love for cats. Especially the one in his home. Of course, it wasn’t explicitly his cat. It was his roommate’s cat: a black and white stray that he’d adopted a number of years ago. But since his roommate was away for a few weeks, the cat was Jake’s responsibility. Each day, he fed her, changed her water, cleaned out her litter box (with far more frequency than his roommate ever did). Small additions to his daily routine that didn’t actually require a lot of effort.

My name is Harold Granderson, and I've been the director of the Cleveland Opera for 39 years. I'm sure that doesn't sound like much, what with the picture of Cleveland as a post-industrial wasteland deprived of fine culture, but I can assure you we don't harbor talentless hacks. I make sure of that. Admittedly, it's difficult to attract equally discerning ears. We live in the shadow of the Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame, where the off-key caterwauling of drunken pseudo-poets is worshiped. Even the…

Do you have someone you hate? Someone you would do anything to hurt, pay any price for vengeance? If so, you may want to consider visiting Lightless City.

You awoke in a cold sweat from your dream, looking around the dim room with a fright. You didn’t remember anything that happened in it except for a loud BANG! at the end, but you passed it off as just a nightmare. It had been a recurring nightmare you’ve had for the past few days now. You slowly arose from your bed, preparing your lunch for the day before heading off to work, stopping at a local store to pick up a little something along the way.

Hello there.

No one knows that my affluent aunt bequeathed me her favorite thing in the world, the beach house she bought many years ago on the Florida Panhandle. I’ve been renting it out for years actually, though I haven’t visited it since I was a kid. She knew how much I loved her beach house and how overly giddy and thankful I was every time she took me on one of her vacations. My guess is that’s why she gave it to me; I may have been the only one in the family to love it as much as she did. I think she…

Last night at around 1am, my wife and small child walked to my car after a night at my bro-in-law’s house. He lives in a sketchy suburban neighborhood so we are always conscious of our surroundings. As I was getting ready to sit in the driver’s seat I noticed a young black man staring at me with determined eyes. I stared back and nodded but he just stood there staring back at me.

Hope. It really is the most powerful yet dangerous and cruel of human traits. It forces us to defy logic, sometimes at great cost. Other times it guides us through treacherous waters and back into the arms of our loved ones. We cannot live without being in its presence yet we can die tragically while being draped in it. It is truly a paradox.

When people who died and come back to life say they saw a bright light, they are full of shit. It’s not necessarily their fault though. The mind has a difficult time figuring out things it has never experienced, therefore the mind cannot understand. I’m one of the special, select few who have experienced death and rebirth…often.

I rest for a while. Now is time to get up and try once again to find an exit. Walking and looking for markings on the walls, a stain, a scratch, a spider web I haven't seen yet. Nothing. Perfect walls, untouched. I examine one of them looking for imperfections. Nothing. The maze looks like a work from Nature itself, a little trap created by the forces that rule the universe so they can have fun watching vermin like me struggling for a little bit of sunlight.

Returning from an international gaming convention, I couldn’t wait to put my pictures on Facebook. Half the fun of being adventurous is bragging about the awesome things that you had a chance to see and do. And if you can find kooky games that never got released in America you can inspire a little bit more jealousy in your friends with each bizarre gem found. As I was preparing to upload the photos I noticed Shaun, an old friend of mine, in chat. I hadn’t spoken to him in a while so I threw out…

I have watched enough crime shows to have heard the adage that everyone screams when they fall. More than one mystery has been started with a detective puzzled by the lack of a scream from an apparent jumper. According to the cinema detectives, even a jumper will show a moment of remorse and scream in terror as they plummet. I had never questioned this wisdom until I began having the dream.

In June 1972, a woman appeared in Cedar Senai hospital in Los Angeles, California in nothing but a white, blood-covered gown. Now this, in itself, should not be too surprising as people often have accidents nearby and come to the nearest hospital for medical attention, but there were two things that caused people who saw her to vomit and flee in terror. The first being that she wasn't exactly human. she resembled something close to a mannequin, but had the dexterity and fluidity of a normal…

I was driving home late one summer evening. It was dark and everyone was in their beds. My eye lids felt heavy as I struggled to pay attention to my driving on the dark and empty country road. I knew this road so well I probably could drive home with my eyes closed. It didn't sound like a bad idea as I sleepily nodded.

Have you ever experienced the typical thunderstorm as your head lay sleepily upon your pillow as a kid? I believe we all have many a time. Were you scared? I’m sure a good portion of you were. Of what though? The gusting winds? The hammering thunder? The epileptic lightning flashes that seep through your windows blinding you as fear seeps into your mind from the unknown frenzy outside? Or maybe its...the tree branches. Rapping against your windows. Watching the dark cast its aura transforming…

Sitting at home alone, you find yourself aimlessly searching the internet from the comfort of your bed. While scrolling through your Tumblr dashboard one of your followers post an interesting link. Looking anywhere for entertainment you blindly click it. Your web browser is whisked away to a plain white screen with nothing but a playful whale trying its heart out to eat your mouse cursor. Finally with some entertainment you find this whale to be a companion when you are alone. After several…