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…

The terrible sense of Déjà vu swept over him as Billy threw him to the black top. He knew he had been here before as his tormentor mounted him pinning him to the ground. His shrill cries only caused Billy to grin sadistically as he threw the first punch that broke his nose. His piercing screams that had served in his childhood to force his daycare provider to attend to his needs served no purpose in the brutal, adolescent world of high school. Billy set into the beating that would haunt his dreams the rest of his adolescent and adult life. The brute laughed even louder at his feeble attempts to defend himself. He had always been scrawny, and it…

I laid in bed last night unable to sleep. I tossed and turned, for hours, trying to focus on falling asleep. My eyes closed and breathing slowly and deeply; Still, sleep never came. As I laid there, wrestling with the wake demon, searching endlessly for the sandman, I was frustrated with my inability to pass into the dreamland. After four long hours, I sat up in my bed, thinking about my son; Sad for what I had done, for what I had to do; for all that had happened. It was all just a blur now but still, it resonated sharply enough to have an effect on me. The memories were still fresh enough to haunt me. It was 1976,…

I don’t want to tell this story, I don’t want to tell it because I know no matter how much I warn people, somebody is bound to try it. I’m telling this story as a cautionary tale, if anyone ever finds instructions on how to play “The Subway Game” pretend you never saw it. I can’t state this enough. It all started on a summer afternoon. I was over at my friend’s house, we’ll call him Tim. This was around the early 2010s and me and Tim were browsing random forums, it was summer and we were both 15 at the time. We had just come home from the pool so we were cooling off in Tim’s room. Anyway, after…

“I’m going to Saturn,” Isaac said under his breath. I looked over towards his desk and jokingly said back, “You’re going there for summer break?” Isaac just stared downward scribbling something in his notebook, ignoring me, mumbling to himself. I sighed and moved back in my seat and stared at the clock. Only 10 minutes until we’re out of here and summer finally begins. Isaac and I weren’t exactly friends, at least not since we were kids, but we got along all right during the school year. We worked on some projects in class and sat together at lunch every so often. We’ve been talking a lot less in the past few months, though. Recently he’s been a lot more…