#psychological

I lost my wife a few years ago. Most people hear that and picture someone older–fifties or sixties. I’m twenty-one. Rose and I were born in Insurrection County, West Virginia. Rose was a southern belle, even though she always said that West Virginia wasn’t the real South. Rose’s hair was strawberry blonde, and she had deep green eyes and freckles that would pop when her face was sunburnt.

When I was 17, my grandfather passed away. Save your condolences for my dad. I was never close to him. Hell, I wouldn't even say I knew him. I had only "met" him twice, once when I was a newborn, and another when I was five or six years old. Everything I knew about him was from what my dad told me. He always told me how my grandpa was not only a loving father and family man, but a pillar of their small community.

Xavier Truman drove with one hand resting loosely on the steering wheel, the other drumming against the door in rhythm with the radio. Late afternoon sunlight filtered through the windshield, bathing the quiet neighborhood in a warm, nostalgic haze. The radio crackled softly.

[This is not a story about objects] It's that time again. The time to clean up unwanted, unneeded things. It's not always fun, but not always that bad either. With each object there are memories. Those can be difficult to get rid of, though there are some simpler cases. For example, simple candy wrappers are easily thrown away, while something like stuffed animals that have known and given warmth are more difficult. I don't like to admit it, but it does get easier eventually.

Lucas Thorne gulped as he turned the corner and saw the rotting corpse of a house that sat at the edge of town. The house seemed twisted as its warped wooden frame sagged under its weight. Grime smeared the windows, reflecting only the fading light of dusk. As his eyes darted around, he confirmed one thing: he was alone. He reconsidered his choice to volunteer for the cleanup.

I put on my running shoes with springs, designed to cushion the impact on the ground. It was my nightly ritual, something I did every single day without fail: running to the neighboring town, keeping my body busy and my mind free of thoughts. It was almost five o’clock, and the sun still stubbornly lingered in the sky, painting everything with a pale golden light.

The release wing door buzzed before it opened. There was no ceremony to it. No applause. No relief. Just a metal door that opened and closed without emotion. Daniel Danvers stood beside his car in the visitor lot, cigarette balanced between his fingers, smoke unraveling into the cloudy afternoon sky. The gravel shifted under his shoes when he adjusted his stance. He checked his phone again. No new messages from Alexander.

“Where do you live, man?” I asked, reaching out to grab the Skol can left by the window. “Cuiabá.” “Man… that’s a beautiful city.” “You’ve been there?” “Yeah. Made a lot of deliveries in the capital.” “So why do you want to go to Nova Esperança?” “For my grandmother’s wake…” “I’m sorry, kid. Losing a relative right at the start of the year…” The young man lowered his head.

​Lisa was an ordinary teenager who loved going for walks and hanging out with her friends. She was helpful and kind-hearted toward everyone. Her parents were teachers; her mother was French and her father was German. Lately, however, misunderstandings between them had become more frequent. They couldn't find a common language anymore, and the air between them was thick with the threat of divorce.

​Steve was a respected city official who, from time to time, liked to break away from his daily routine and visit his hometown, located about 30 kilometers away. He stood at the station dressed in an elegant suit and hat, carrying a large suitcase. The weather that day was drowsy and rainy; he had forgotten to bring an umbrella. Thus, when the train arrived, he boarded quickly, took a window seat, and began to read a book. The front of the locomotive bore a sign: "Train to Nowhere."

You think you understand the whole system? Read again. The door only sticks sometimes, but it always opens when I need it to. I noticed it first during the rainy season when the air felt heavier and everything in the house took longer to settle. The wood swelled a little, I think. It pressed into the frame and made the handle feel tighter than usual. Most people would panic at that. They would force it. Shake the handle. And make a scene out of something that just needs time.

“I have good news and bad news,” my boss Chester said. If there is a more butthole clenching phrase said at a struggling company during a sudden all hands meeting, I don’t know what it is. Thing was, Chester didn’t need to say a single syllable. His slouched shoulders, pale(er) face, and hangdog expression told us the entire story. The company was going under.

The Doorman

​His friends kept calling out, but Sara was nowhere to be found. They decided to split up. Suddenly, Tom spotted a curious exhibit: a large, double-sided rotating mirror. At first, he saw only his own reflection, but a moment later... he saw Sara. ​"Sara, what are you doing? You gave us a real scare. We were so worried about you. We were afraid something had happened." ​"I’m sorry, but this is just so... incredible," she replied. "Ah, women," Tom muttered under his breath.

The ring light is staring at me like a cold, neon eye. I hate how much I need it. "Okay, so for the night-time routine, consistency is literally everything," I tell the camera, rubbing the serum into my cheeks. I'm watching the little heart icons bubble up the side of the screen. 1.8k viewers. My pulse does that little flutter, the one that feels like winning. "If you aren't double-cleansing, you're basically just..."

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'm going to die here, or maybe I can't. The only thing I have here is a pen that never seems to run out, and this book that has infinite pages and funnily enough is waterproof. I originally woke up in a strange room with yellow wallpaper, fluorescent lights that hummed, smelling the mold and mildew infesting the walls.

okay, so.. today I was playing the original 1989 super Mario land on a game-cube I got from a yard sale.. but, I started noticing some strange things like faces in the backgrounds of the levels, like.. weird large JAGGED grins. I tried searching it up on my phone to see if that's a known bug, nothing on reddit nothing on tik-tok OR you-tube.. just nothing, NOTHING. it was like the internet went dark or something aside from occasional emulators popping up here and there as that was the usual…

The trip was fun. From what we could remember at least. Olivia and I had made the weekend trip down to St. Augustine, Florida with her younger brother John. The four hour drive from Albany, Georgia to one of America’s oldest cities was long and boring. The four-lane highways we traveled along were barren and isolated, surrounded by nothing but miles of impenetrable forest save for the occasional shithole rest stop.

Call me tasteless but I enjoyed running Southern Fried Murder. Growing up, I loved horror movies, especially slashers, but as I got older I became more drawn to true crime… To the real life monsters walking among us. Like most people, I was initially drawn to the sensationalized Bundys and Dahmers of the world but the local cases scared me more. I became more intrigued by the murders and vicious crimes that happened in my neck of the woods here in the American South. These were also the crimes…