#journals

“Bobby! Pay attention!” he heard his teacher say. He snapped out of his reverie and looked up to see her glaring at him. “Did you hear anything I’ve been saying?” she continued. Bobby shrugged his shoulders. Prior to being disrupted, he was daydreaming that he could freeze time, and before that he was imagining himself navigating the classroom if he was only 5 inches tall. The teacher continued to rant at him, just as they all did, then she placed him on detention Friday night after school.

I’m kind of scared guys. I’m a journalist at small town newspaper and just received an anonymous envelope containing some kid’s hand written journal. The name on the front cover of the journal has been scratched off, and there are what appears to be some blood stains on the cover and on some of the pages. I don’t know what to make of this journal or its contents yet, but I think something horrible happened to this kid. It seems so surreal and terrifying that something like this could even…

I am a dead man. I would like to think of myself as a reasonable, level-headed individual; and that is exactly why I know that there is no happy ending for me by any measure whatsoever. I have only one thing left I can do… whether it works or not, this document is to serve as my last will and testament. I will not try to diminish my responsibility in what happened, but before I die the blame will be placed squarely on the heads of those who deserve it. It was the combined hubris of two men that…

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.

May, 1689 Josiah’s boots christened against the granulated sand as he hopped off the launch raft. His head shot upward, taking in the sight once again. The beach was peppered with large palm trees, each either gray or brown. In the distance, he could see the various mountains peeking over the tips of the jungle foliage ahead. It was a wall of trees and bushes, and Josiah knew it would be a challenge to navigate through.

This Is How You Teach a Child to Die Slowly. "I exist in two places: here, and where you left me." — Margaret At wood. • There it goes again. It starts with a frightening silence. Then… slam! "Jesus!" my mother screams, like she's just realized how close she is to actually meeting Him. We run again. My brothers dive under the bed. My sister clings to my mom, as though she's thinking "maybe this time, she'd actually go, and I can go with her."

I needed the job. Without a bachelor's degree, my previous nursing work hadn't paid much, certainly not enough for me and my four-year-old son Julian to get by. So yeah, life as a single Black mother wasn't easy. Especially considering I was only twenty-three.

Dear Diary,

Tuesday, October 11

The following are the final excerpts from the journal of Dr. Arnold Richards, who, at sixty-seven years old and in perfect health, was found dead in his bedroom, lying in a pool of his own blood, a single sleeping pill in his hand. The incidents surrounding the events reported in his diary were investigated thoroughly, but the case was never solved.

I guess I’m not really sure what to write down. These past few weeks feel…It’s just hard to put to words what’s going on. I can hear sirens in the distance. Not much time left now. The police’ll be here shortly. Only one more thing left to do, but first I want to leave some kind of a record. Some testament to what happened so when they look back on this insanity, maybe somebody will know I wasn’t crazy. At least, not completely. I’ll write down the facts as they happened, try and give you a…

I usually don’t write my experiences down in journals like this. Typically, I’d prefer to just keep my unsavory memories in my head to let them rot away over time, which makes the pain easier to cope with. However, with everything that has happened to me recently, I’d feel guilty if I just let all those traumatic experiences simply be forgotten about, especially since they involve friends and people so dear to me… So, I shall tell the story of that godforsaken Airbnb and how it led me down a…

Day 1

Important Reminder: This Post Has Been Deleted The following content consists of Facebook posts made by the deceased Zhang Yaxin in the past few days. To prevent causing panic, these posts have been deleted. The copies you see now have been processed. Image: A fortune teller's face with one gold and one blue eye, wearing vintage glasses, a prominent nose, slightly curly hair at the ends, looking about 24 years old.

"I heard birds singing outside. I didn't know birds still came here." "It is a beautiful day to be alive." — Unknown ... I wake to warm light slanting through the curtains. The air smells of toasted bread and coffee, and in the distance, I hear my mother humming a familiar tune, soft, gentle, but off-key. It sounds like she's humming with her mouth closed.

Between December 2041 and February 2042, twelve isolated incidents of extreme violence were recorded across six states. Each case involved a first-time offender with no prior criminal record, no psychological instability, and no identifiable motive. The victims varied: spouses, colleagues, children, strangers. Yet the offenders’ demeanour during the acts remained disturbingly alike: calm, focused, deliberate.

I didn’t really like either of the sons-of-bitches. The only problem was I was married to Ed. At thirty years old, I’d gone from Sharon Wilson to Sharon Wam. I know. Changing to such a silly last name was only an awful beginning to an awful marriage. Unlike me, Ed didn’t like going out much. He much preferred to drink at our little house on East University Street. The married months weren’t kind to us. Ed’s curly golden hair was always a mess, his good-looking face hindered by constant anger.

Summer in Colorado Springs was exceptionally hot that year. Jim, Jack, and their younger sisters, Judy and Jill, were spending their time carelessly, playing in the front yard. One day, their parents went out shopping, leaving the siblings with strict orders not to wander off and to watch the house. As the shopping took longer than expected, the boys grew restless and decided to go for a short walk in the woods. Their sisters followed them.

There resides a local legend in Salem, Alabama. One tucked far away in the corner of rural America, far off the beaten path, and far from even the middle of nowhere. A legend that rears its head only once a year: Pope's Haunted Farm.

2 Thessalonians 2:11- and for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: