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…

The homunculus was a thin, flat, disproportionate thing that was too smooth, too round, and seemingly forever dissatisfied with its own ludicrous appearance. The first time I ever laid eyes on it, I had just arrived at my tech job, fresh from a stay of extended medical leave, mind already ablaze with the problems of yesterday’s virtual meetings. A semicircle of young and middle-aged colleagues surrounded and watched in hushed excitement as the thing changed. What I initially recognised as an absent man sporting a brownish complexion was moments later a shaved white girl. Then someone considerably older. Then someone else. It showed no signs of stopping. Blurry, smeared features sank and melted apart, continuously forming anew. Faces were perceivable,…

“Samantha?” I heard Rosalyn ask hopefully as she picked up the phone. I was calling her because she had recently come across an anomalous VHS tape of a man burying a premonition he had written down in my cemetery, convinced that it would one day be of great value to me. She had showed it to me, and I had of course agreed to see if I could find it. “Hi, Rose. Yeah, it’s me,” I replied, unable to hide my disappointment. “I dug around in the area where the guy buried his time capsule, and I couldn’t find anything. Whoever picked up and turned off the camera at the end of the video must have taken the time capsule…

It’s been 25 years to the day since my friend Baptiste disappeared. Not officially. The date in the police record says ‘September 14’ because his aunt didn’t report him missing until three days later. I was the last person to see him though. I know when and where he disappeared, and I told the cops, but they brushed me off. I was just making things up to protect my friends, they said, and that I had watched too many horror movies. Baptiste and I were thick as thieves ever since first grade. To most people, we must have been an odd pair. The shy, withdrawn kid with the thick Haitian accent our classmates often made fun of, to a point…

I Newcomer It was midday on a Sunday, and Johnathan Urbez was driving his dream car, an RX7. The engine was modified to be even faster; the tuned machine used a racing transmission, special brakes, suspension, and tires. The body was covered in all kinds of paintings and designs. After five years of hard work, dedication, and a lot of money, this beast was ready and John had to take it out for a ride. The engine was roaring, and the feeling of going over two hundred kilometers per hour was exhilarating. The tension on his arms from handling the wheel, his brain-aware state—this must be what a professional race driver feels; then the curb came, he misjudged his skills and…

The Sinking House by Tristan Mason Colt was only thirteen years old when he rowed as fast as he could away from Benji and Caleb, the most menacing boys in Troop 0172.  It was the dead of night and only the faint orange moonlight lit the narrow path for Colt’s tiny canoe, which was starting to overflow. Benji and Caleb, whose kayak was much bigger and rowing skills were far superior, were gaining on him, shouting from less than fifty away. “Give up, faggot!” Benji hollered, his ugly words bouncing off the tide. “Just give up!” Caleb followed, his voice slightly straining. When Colt was sure he reached the center of Gardner Lake, he stopped rowing and let go of…

Part 1 It would have been so much easier just to keep telling myself the worst parts of my past were all in my head, and assure myself it wasn’t healthy for me to think too much about it. What took place in this story occurred a long time ago, and until recently, it was something I pushed back to the deepest, darkest part of my mind. I attempted to convince myself, almost, that it didn’t really happen at all, that all the chaos in my life and the psychological issues I was dealing with merged together into a horrible messed up delusion I used to process everything. I almost succeeded. So many years went by and I managed to…

“Well girls, which car should we take on our little road trip? Dad’s Chevy Nomad would be practical, but the Chevy Nova’s got a bit more flair to her. Of course, if it’s flair we’re going for, I don’t think anything we have can compete with a classic Cadillac,” James Darling said as he surveyed his automotive fleet with a sense of satisfied pride. The Darlings had acquired many vehicles over their long and nefarious career, more often than not stolen from their victims and repurposed into future instruments of entrapment and torment. James had kept their favourites running flawlessly over the years, modifying them as necessary with his own mechatronic inventions when conventional parts simply wouldn’t do. “That’s a…

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.” — Matthew 7:13 Faith is a strange thing. An invisible current, tugging people toward something they couldn’t see, couldn’t prove, yet clung to with unwavering certainty. Some found comfort in it. Others, like me, found it incomprehensible—a construct built on nothing but hope and fear. A way to explain the unexplainable. A reason to kneel when the world felt too heavy to stand. I never thought much about it. Religion, faith, belief… they were like relics from another time, things people inherited rather than chose. I grew up watching others pray before meals, cross themselves in front…

I Every man fears something, whether they want to admit it or not, and I must admit that I myself am still afraid of windows 10 years after what happened to the Surfadelics. I’ll recount what happened that night in the most detail possible, just to see if anyone could possibly relate or share a similar experience to what me and my friends had gone through. II I was playing in the garage band with my friends, we’ll call them Deakin, the backup-drummer, Toby, the guitarist, Jay, the drummer, and myself, the bassist and pianist. We called ourselves the “Surfadelics”, since we incorporated a lot of surf and funk music into our jams, as well as because we only knew…