Keira sits on her bed and stares vacantly at the opposing wall. She’s tired and she’d sell her soul to get a few winks in, if only for bad dreams. It’s Halloween night, but she’s not done much to mark the occasion. Just a drink and a chat with her mates. Non-costumed. Somewhere unbusy. Mature. Just a drink and a chat. Her phone buzzes. “Your Halloween memories”, it reads. A newish feature. She taps on the message and a selection of appropriately festive images of her life greet her. It’s typical fare. A selfie with mates. A spooky concert. An embarrassing picture of 9-year-old her trick-or-treating as a generic princess, sent to her by her mother. Thanks mum, she thinks.…

They kept sending us money, that was the problem. Even after the drugs which made your mind spiral into rainbow hell, and the noxious smelling salts, and the obscure rituals, they never cut funding. Even when we got desperate, they still kept pumping in the surplus of our good taxpayers. It wasn’t just money either, they kept us in good stock of all sorts. This included the drugs, obviously, alongside the sleek and sinister machines, chrome-plated man-made horrors. They kept us in good stock of all sorts of horrible things, yes, but arguably the worst things they kept sending us were the kids. More hypersensitive and/or strange children from all over the country than you can shake a menacing middle-school…

My parents live up North, and so every Christmas my drive to their house is defined by a lot of grey, brown and white, as well as bitter cold. Never liked the cold. I spent the first 18 years of my life in it, so I think I definitely have an educated opinion on it. I don’t like the passionless white-skied coldness, or the stark freeze of the deep dark night where you can see your breath billowing out from you like a smokestack, and I especially don’t like when the sky is a deceptive bright blue and all sunny, the rippled clouds all golden and hazy purple, and you go outside thinking it’ll be warm and it’s still fucking…

Under gravel and twisting roots there lies an intricate system of life, hundreds of sizes smaller than our species. Like pale, empty veins they stretch out to dig downwards into damp soil. It is dark. Darker than sunless skies. The realm underground is the realm of corpses. They settle between debris like shells pushed under sand by careless ocean waves. Deeper, and deeper. While you walk overhead on solid ground, thinking of the casual facets of life, corpses are clawing overhead themselves, grasping those roots and pulling at them with a vengeful desperation to return to life. We never hear their wailing, but the earth’s surface shakes with their conviction. Ghosts are known to protest against going quietly. If they…

My parents live up North, and so every Christmas my drive to their house is defined by a lot of grey, brown and white, as well as bitter cold. Never liked the cold. I spent the first 18 years of my life in it, so I think I definitely have an educated opinion on it. I don’t like the passionless white-skied coldness, or the stark freeze of the deep dark night where you can see your breath billowing out from you like a smokestack, and I especially don’t like when the sky is a deceptive bright blue and all sunny, the rippled clouds all golden and hazy purple, and you go outside thinking it’ll be warm and it’s still fucking…

Keira sits on her bed and stares vacantly at the opposing wall. She’s tired and she’d sell her soul to get a few winks in, if only for bad dreams. It’s Halloween night, but she’s not done much to mark the occasion. Just a drink and a chat with her mates. Non-costumed. Somewhere unbusy. Mature. Just a drink and a chat. Her phone buzzes. “Your Halloween memories”, it reads. A newish feature. She taps on the message and a selection of appropriately festive images of her life greet her. It’s typical fare. A selfie with mates. A spooky concert. An embarrassing picture of 9-year-old her trick-or-treating as a generic princess, sent to her by her mother. Thanks mum, she thinks.…

Under gravel and twisting roots there lies an intricate system of life, hundreds of sizes smaller than our species. Like pale, empty veins they stretch out to dig downwards into damp soil. It is dark. Darker than sunless skies. The realm underground is the realm of corpses. They settle between debris like shells pushed under sand by careless ocean waves. Deeper, and deeper. While you walk overhead on solid ground, thinking of the casual facets of life, corpses are clawing overhead themselves, grasping those roots and pulling at them with a vengeful desperation to return to life. We never hear their wailing, but the earth’s surface shakes with their conviction. Ghosts are known to protest against going quietly. If they…

They kept sending us money, that was the problem. Even after the drugs which made your mind spiral into rainbow hell, and the noxious smelling salts, and the obscure rituals, they never cut funding. Even when we got desperate, they still kept pumping in the surplus of our good taxpayers. It wasn’t just money either, they kept us in good stock of all sorts. This included the drugs, obviously, alongside the sleek and sinister machines, chrome-plated man-made horrors. They kept us in good stock of all sorts of horrible things, yes, but arguably the worst things they kept sending us were the kids. More hypersensitive and/or strange children from all over the country than you can shake a menacing middle-school…

My parents live up North, and so every Christmas my drive to their house is defined by a lot of grey, brown and white, as well as bitter cold. Never liked the cold. I spent the first 18 years of my life in it, so I think I definitely have an educated opinion on it. I don’t like the passionless white-skied coldness, or the stark freeze of the deep dark night where you can see your breath billowing out from you like a smokestack, and I especially don’t like when the sky is a deceptive bright blue and all sunny, the rippled clouds all golden and hazy purple, and you go outside thinking it’ll be warm and it’s still fucking…

Under gravel and twisting roots there lies an intricate system of life, hundreds of sizes smaller than our species. Like pale, empty veins they stretch out to dig downwards into damp soil. It is dark. Darker than sunless skies. The realm underground is the realm of corpses. They settle between debris like shells pushed under sand by careless ocean waves. Deeper, and deeper. While you walk overhead on solid ground, thinking of the casual facets of life, corpses are clawing overhead themselves, grasping those roots and pulling at them with a vengeful desperation to return to life. We never hear their wailing, but the earth’s surface shakes with their conviction. Ghosts are known to protest against going quietly. If they…

They kept sending us money, that was the problem. Even after the drugs which made your mind spiral into rainbow hell, and the noxious smelling salts, and the obscure rituals, they never cut funding. Even when we got desperate, they still kept pumping in the surplus of our good taxpayers. It wasn’t just money either, they kept us in good stock of all sorts. This included the drugs, obviously, alongside the sleek and sinister machines, chrome-plated man-made horrors. They kept us in good stock of all sorts of horrible things, yes, but arguably the worst things they kept sending us were the kids. More hypersensitive and/or strange children from all over the country than you can shake a menacing middle-school…

Keira sits on her bed and stares vacantly at the opposing wall. She’s tired and she’d sell her soul to get a few winks in, if only for bad dreams. It’s Halloween night, but she’s not done much to mark the occasion. Just a drink and a chat with her mates. Non-costumed. Somewhere unbusy. Mature. Just a drink and a chat. Her phone buzzes. “Your Halloween memories”, it reads. A newish feature. She taps on the message and a selection of appropriately festive images of her life greet her. It’s typical fare. A selfie with mates. A spooky concert. An embarrassing picture of 9-year-old her trick-or-treating as a generic princess, sent to her by her mother. Thanks mum, she thinks.…