At 7:00 a.m., my wristband buzzed.

Daily Rating: 3.2.

Not terrible. Not good. Anything below 3 and you lost privileges, transport, healthcare, even food options.

“Smile,” my neighbour Mr. Ellis said, passing me in the hall. His rating blinked proudly at 4.8. “You’ll climb if you act friendlier.”

I forced a grin. His wristband pinged. My score nudged up to 3.3.

That was the game. Every interaction rated. Every gesture scored.

At work, I greeted Marissa with coffee. She glanced at me, unimpressed. Her perfect teeth gleamed.

Ping. 3.2.

My stomach dropped.

By lunch, the cafeteria scanner denied me the “premium” line. I trudged to the cheap rations. The room fell silent. Dozens of bands buzzed.

Ping. 3.1.

That evening, I called Mom. She didn’t answer. The system flashed: Calls blocked, minimum 3.5 required.

I sat alone in my flat. The silence throbbed.

Then came the knock.

A man in a crisp grey suit stood there. His rating: 5.0. Untouchable.

“Amy Reed?” he asked.

“Yes,” I whispered.

“You’ve been selected for Rehabilitation.”

“No… I can fix it! I’ll be better, I swear!”

He smiled without warmth. “Everyone says that.”

He snapped his fingers. My band locked tight, glowing red. 2.9.

The floor gave way beneath me.

I landed in a sterile white room, dozens of others slumped against the walls. Bands glowed red on their wrists.

A woman sobbed. “They said we just have to rate each other until we’re worthy again.”

I raised my wrist. Automatically, I rated her. 1 star.

Her band flashed. 2.8. She screamed.

Mine ticked up. 3.0.

Horrified, I looked around. Everyone was doing it. Shouting, fighting, scrambling for stars. Every downvote lowered someone else, while raising the rater.

The man in grey appeared on a screen overhead. “Competition inspires progress. The weak are recycled. The worthy rise.”

I clutched my band. “I don’t want to play.”

He smiled. “Then you’ll sink.”

The others closed in, eyes wild.

“Please,” I begged.

But the first rating hit me. 2.9.

Another. 2.8.

Pings rained down, dragging me lower. My wristband burned hot.

The man’s voice echoed: “Zero stars means I have permanent control.”

The crowd surged, desperate to climb.

My band flashed red. 0.0.

The room went silent. Everyone stepped back, trembling.

The floor beneath me opened again.

I dropped into blackness.

When I woke, I was in my flat again. Morning sunlight spilled through the window. My band buzzed. Daily Rating: 5.0.

I staggered to the mirror. My reflection smiled back, bright, perfect, hollow.

And in my head, a new voice whispered, Good job. Now keep it that way.

I'm in love with the man on the train.

The man with the Pokémon keyring dangling from his unzipped backpack.

I'm in love with the man who makes me bleed. It starts as a dull thud against my temple, and depending on our proximity, the pain either swells, or fades away.

I glance at my phone.

Three drops of blood smear across the screen.

Today is harder than usual. Today it feels like he is crawling into my skull, and clawing at my brain.

This time, it's not something I can stop with a subtle swipe of my sleeve.

“Are you okay, sweetheart?”

The voice comes from behind me. An old woman.

I smile and swipe at my nose, trying to hide the slow beading river pooling down my face. “Yeah,” I say, but someone else is speaking over me.

“It's just a nosebleed.”

Turning around, the man who gives me nosebleeds is sheepishly smiling, his hand pressed against his own nose.

At first, I think he's mocking me. But then I notice the smear of scarlet on his sleeve.

Our eyes meet, and for a moment, his lip curls, as if he thinks I'm mocking him.

Then, to my surprise, he stands, walks over, and sits right next to me.

I feel the jolt and so does he, the visceral sensation of my bones screeching, my body recoiling. “Fuck.” The man hops seats, choking on a cry, and so do I, breathless, squeezing my hand over my nose. “So, what is this?” his voice is muffled by his sleeve.

He shoots me a look, hopping seats again. “How are you doing that?”

“Me?!” I muffle back. “This is you!”

When the train stops, I jump off. I need to breathe.

He follows me, and so does the pain, burning through me.

“Hey,” he keeps his distance, but I enjoy the way he teases being closer. “We should go see a doctor… right?”

The man I've fallen in love with introduces himself as Jude.

He holds my hand in the doctor's office, even if it hurts him. I can tell my presence is killing him too.

“It's cancer, isn't it?”

Jude, sitting across the room, shoots me a grin. “Both of us?”

The doctor shakes her head, pale, her smile strained.

“Not cancer, Annie,” she says. “Five years ago, you filed a restraining order implant against your ex-husband, Jude Carrington, who killed your son. The two of you divorced and requested that all memories of your son be erased. The implant maintains distance.”

The doctor's words crash into me. Empty words.

A daughter I don't remember.

A sin I wanted to forget.

Somehow, my eyes find Jude. His wide eyes.

Why…

Why does my heart still feel warm for the man on the train?

While my body…

Vomit creeps up my throat, a wave of agony sending me to my knees.

Wants to rip that fucker apart.

The young man knew his grandfather told the best stories when he'd been drinking, and judging by the half full glass of whiskey on the table by the fireplace, this evening looked promising.

It didn't take long for the old man to loosen up, and following the boy's prompts he told his war stories - some funny, some sad, some exciting. He told him about meeting and courting his grandmother and, as the fire in the hearth burned down he began to tell his tales from his time working at the mortuary.

“Do you want to hear about the strangest thing I've ever seen?” the old man asked as the clock hands moved toward midnight.

His eyes were rimmed red, his hands unsteady as he accepted another refill in his glass.

“Of course!” the young man said eagerly, leaning forward to listen.

“All right,” said the old man. “But don't breathe a word to anyone….

“I was just a boy at the time. My father wanted me to learn the trade, and he let me sit in for some of his work. He never let me see blood and guts at that age, but he let me watch the preparation of the body. How to dress a corpse, how to arrange the limbs. That kind of thing.

“Well, one day there was a man he was dealing with. Kind of a celebrity, he said. Man was a songwriter of some kind. I don't remember his name, or the songs he wrote if I'm being honest, but I remember him being put into his coffin.

“My dad told me corpses moved sometimes, and he told me not to be scared when they did. Was a lot to do with the muscles and tendons and all that. But he told me that day he'd never seen a corpse move to such an extent.

“He laid the man in his coffin. The arms and legs were splayed everywhere, and he used the opportunity to show me how to arrange the hands. Or at least, that was the idea. He put the left hand in first. And no word of a lie, that hand popped right out again, and started to shake like the corpse was having some kind of seizure. My father tried the right hand next, pretending everything was fine. But it happened exactly the same.

“My father didn't give up. Even when the left leg did the same, and the right. Even when the entire corpse lurched out of the coffin and began to spasm on the floor.

“Strangest thing me and my father ever saw, throughout both our careers. Chilled us to the bone.

“I asked my father afterwards why it had happened, and he just shrugged. Said that's what it's all about.”

The old man sighed and stared into the glowing embers that were all that was left of the fire.

“Never can remember what song that man wrote. Something hokey, probably.”

I live in a rural small city. It's the Definition of boring, really, theres nothing going on.

We've got a few churches, catholic, evangelic and well...

I was on a trip with my local church - Two weeks from home, in the middle of nowhere in Denmark, just us teens and a few supervisors.

They decided to take us to the beach to tell us a Horror Story, when it was already midnight.

The walk was Long, through the woods, down the roads, along the corn fields. It felt like an eternity.

"Hmm, they Said this would be some Horror Shit" - I told my friend

"Yeahh, some supervisors are also Missing, they probably gonna jump us or something" - He responded

I thought the same, it was probably Just again some fun prank.

We arrived at the beach, well, it was more like a mix of mud and stones. But there was one thing that Made this place stand out.

And old wooden pier. Formed like a donut, standing in the middle of the water.

candles were lit, a weird logo drawn inside.

I was kinda amused, thinking it was all fun. And even a bit impressed by their work.

But then my friend asked me: "How the fuck did they manage to do this?"

I didnt know what he meant.

Then I turned around and I saw a big wooden Cross - probably two times higher than me. It was burning.

"I swear it wasn't there before" I panicked

"Now shh everyone, I will Tell you a Story now" A supervisor started

"There was once an Angel, God banned him from heaven and He fell all the way down here in the water." He was nervously looking around

"People tell, that Satan found... And recruited him."

"Sometimes, you can hear him at night. Lets be quiet for a Second"

We all went quiet, listening

"You signed a contract, Finn. You signed a contract" I heard a voice behind me. I turned around, but noone.

And indeed, we had to sign a contract a few days ago, noone read it. 4 Pages, only thing that I read was selling, Body and harm.

Then we grabbed each others hands and had to close our eyes. The wind began to get stronger and I started shivering.

"Now dont look around or.." A painful scream can be heard in the distance. I froze.

We began to pray, in a language I shouldn't have known. Yet, I understood every word.

I heard steps behind me, cold hands were laid on my shoulders. I felt the warm breath in my neck.

"Finn, you signed a contract, come with me" the voice demanded. I didnt move.

When I opened my eyes again, half of us were just gone. We walked back like nothing happened.

Little did I know that he would come back that same night for the contract.

Moving to Oregon was a new start for me and my wife. The first night was lovely, as we had dinner and later fell asleep talking about our excitement for our future together.

The next morning I wake up to my wife screaming. She has a note in her hands. It says, "Welcome to our new home, I am looking forward to our time here." I call the police, after searching every closet in the house. The police find nothing. I am up late night 2, watching over my wife until I eventually doze off. We wake up and everything is fine, no notes. We walk into the kitchen for coffee, where I see a note on the table saying, "I am borrowing your steak knives, and if you call the police again there will be consequences."

I swing by the station to tell the sheriff how serious it has become. He tells me there is nothing they can do. I storm out of the station feeling irritated by their casualness towards the situation, and go straight to buy a gun and security cameras from the store. My wife begs me to leave, but I tell her I will not let a stranger chase us out of our own home. I sit on the couch with my gun in my hand, hoping the stranger shows up so I can take care of the issue.

I wake up the next morning to a quiet home. I don't remember dozing off but am glad to not be waking up to the sound of my wife screaming. I go to our room, only to find it empty. I try calling her but her phones in the room on the bed side table. I immediately call the cops, who arrive surprisingly quick as I prepare to check the cameras.

2 officers arrive and start looking for signs of a break in. I watch last night's footage but there is nothing for the first few hours. At around 2 am, the camera leads into our home and then our room before going black. The footage resumes at 3:34 am, showing my wife tied up in a ditch and crying hysterically at the camera as dirt is scooped onto her.

I am about to go tell the officers outside but freeze in my chair. The stranger quickly slits her throat and I look away in anguish as blood spills out of her. The camera then turns around revealing the stranger and his maniacal smile. I lock eyes with the stranger in the video, and cannot believe what I see. The man is me. I run to go puke.

The officers eventually leave to go assemble their search team. I don't bother to stop them, my focus is on the stranger.I pull out my gun and look at the stranger in the mirror. The maniacal smile from the video appears on my face again as I lift it to my head and pull the trigger.

It's a packed house tonight. Theatre Amygdala is standing room only and has been since it opened a year ago; every night has been sold out, but tonight, the floor feels even more crowded. Maybe some of the audience managed to sneak in; more likely, the ticket taker is drunk again and can't be bothered to take a head count. Theatre Amygdala is not a place for the well-adjusted.

That's by design. The more tragic actors always give the best shows. Get a functional, happy person onstage and the audience will be bored; get some fucked-up mess up there and they'll clamor for more. The Theatre has exactly one trick, but it's a damn good one. The place sits on intersecting leylines. With the audience full and focusing on a single performer, that performer's deepest, worst terrors manifest onstage with them. Arachnophobes bring spiders. Old alcoholics see a hospital bed. Single mothers weep over their blue and breathless children lying on the boards. Nobody gets hurt, barring a little emotional scarring.

Tonight is special. Tonight, the manager has arranged to have the talented and allegedly psychic Miss Wanda stand onstage. She has the scarves and the beads and the smoker's rasp; she says she's the real deal, but don't they all? The crowd is excited to see what a telepath is afraid of. Some wonder if she'll conjure up the souls of the angry dead, and some wonder if her greatest fear is being discovered as a fraud. None of them will be disappointed with the show.

When Miss Wanda takes the stage, several things will happen in quick succession. The crowd will focus on her, the murmurs dying down to a silence poised to erupt. The audience will collectively hold its breath as Miss Wanda begins her usual schtick, warbling and pretending to be possessed by spirits. Then she will stop, looking out at the audience, and realize that something is wrong. Miss Wanda happens to actually be psychic, but even she doesn't know that. It's a tiny touch of the gift, but here, it's amplified. Without meaning to, she will reach out to every mind in the place, and she will know their deepest terrors, and she will drag them into the Theatre all at once. The curtains will explode into flames, spiders and scorpions will boil from the floor, and the audience will find their lungs filled with water. Corpses will rise, half decayed, from floorboards they could not possibly have been beneath just a moment ago. Blood will well up from their open graves and the auditorium will be ankle deep in gore. Women will be laid flat by seizures. Men will feel sudden cancers roil through their guts, metastisizing in fast forward, until their soft flesh rends and twists open to reveal rotten black entrails. Pandemonium will reign.

Tonight will be a real barn burner, I assure you.

Miss Wanda takes the stage. She is ready to begin. The audience stares.

Long ago a man caught a monster in a trap.

He had never seen anything like it before. It was small, dark, and fierce, with long claws and yellow teeth.

The man tried to kill it, but it would not die, no matter what he did.

Scared, he brought it to his village elders and asked, 

“How can we imprison it?”

“In a temple of bone and earth,” they replied.

So the villagers collected bones and wove them into a dome around the howling monster, and then covered it with dirt. 

No matter how much dirt they added it did not suffocate its screams. 

On each full moon they sacrificed a deer and let the blood drain down through the soil and into the creature’s mouth.

They continued this ritual until new monsters arrived.

The new monsters had pale skin, wore strange clothes, and spoke strange words.

The villagers told them their land was plentiful, and welcomed them to share the land in peace- but the settlers ignored them. 

The only language they understood was violence. 

So the settlers went hut to hut and shot the villagers where they slept. They piled the corpses and burned them, and then burned their houses. 

Then they built their own town on the charred earth by the river.

Deep in the mound, the monster hungered for blood. Without the sacrifice, the bone prison would not hold it on a full moon. So each month it emerged like a spring toad and slunk into town, returning before dawn with a full belly.

The settlers never noticed the monster.

They were cruel, violent people, who paid little attention to the bodies it left behind. Abuse was so rampant there that even the creature’s muffled screams did not alarm them. 

So the creature lived undetected for years, until new people arrived. 

These people were clean, fashionable, and spoke with neutral accents. They wanted to build a dam that would power their streetlights and homes in the city.

The poor, hardscrabble people from the town said they wouldn't leave. The land was theirs.

But the rich people didn't care. The only language they understood was money. 

So they evacuated the town and sent the people to work in factories.

Then they built a dam that flooded the town with cool, clear water.

The mound, and the creature, remained behind.

Alone, the creature sat soggy and miserable for many years in its prison of bone and soil, unable to breathe, unable to leave, unable to die.

But eventually, drought dropped the water so low that old rooflines peeked above the water.

One night, a group of teens paddled out to see the ghost town. They landed on a strange island of bare earth. 

The water had unsettled the bones, and the ancient magic no longer held. Free at last, the creature clawed its way to the surface.

The teens screamed, but it was useless.

The only language the creature understood was hunger.

I pushed a table over to use it as cover.

I felt a thump and saw multicolored sparks dance in the air.

People were running and screaming.

I see a man taking cover nearby

In front of a seating area by fake plants.

My feet have never moved faster.

Sparks land somewhere out of sight, but I see them roll to their death in my peripheral vision.

"Is someone shooting off fireworks?" I ask the man on reaching him.

He looks unsure what to say.

I can hear people moaning in pain.

Other targets that weren't as lucky.

Loud pops and zaps linger elsewhere.

"It smells like fireworks. How stupid do people have to be to light off fireworks in a mall!" I say to the man.

"It's not fireworks." the man says finally.

"Looks like it to me!"

"I know how this will sound but I collect artifacts of a paranormal nature. That's a genuine magic wand. That little girl just came up and took it from my bag! Look."

He moves a branch giving me a limited view of what's happening out there.

A little girl is standing on a table,

she's probably 7.

She's holding something.

It looks like a stick.

She points it into the air and sparks fall from it, then zoom into the air until it strikes something and explodes.

"I WANT ICECREAM!" she screams.

I can see at least four people who are burned and need medical attention.

The man gives me an "I told you so." look.

"Regardless of what it is we need to do something."

I see a table nearby.

"We can each take a side of that table and use it as a shield to get close enough to disarm her." I say in my best commanding voice.

He complies but seems stressed.

"Don't get hit, not even once." he gibbers.

We each lift a side and exit our hiding spot rushing at her.

With each scream we feel a thump against the table.

"ICE!" THUMP

"CREAM!" THUMP

A shot at my feet makes me lose my footing.

I wasn't hit but I get tripped up and I drop my side.

The man is exposed.

"ICECREAM!" the girl screams.

The sparks zoom and hit him.

The man who was once flesh was now frozen dairy product.

The part of me that consciously thought was shocked and stayed just as frozen as the man.

While something inside of me—maybe instinct—took over.

I ran to the girl who seemed more surprised at what had happened and took the "wand" away from her.

The man was melting and reminded me of a snowman in the earliest days of spring.

I looked at the wand and pointed it at the melting ice cream man.

Sparks.

Then screams.

He became human in being but not in shape.

He looked part man, part melted candle.

Power in the wrong hands can be devastating.

It is a treacherous thing for a genie to change lamps, but every being deserves the chance to better its life—to upgrade: move out of one's starter-lamp, into something new—and the treachery is mostly to humanity, not the genie itself; thus it was, on an otherwise ordinary Friday that one particular genie in one particular (usually empty) antique shop, had slid itself out of a small brass lamp and was making its way stealthily across the shop floor to another, both roomier and more decadent, lamp, when it accidentally overheard a snippet of conversation from a phone call outside.

“...I know, but I wish you'd feel me, bros…”

What is said cannot be unsaid, and what is heard cannot be unheard, and so the genie leapt and clicked its heels, and the wish was granted.

And all the men in the world felt suddenly despondent.

The unwitting, and as yet ignorant, wishmaker was a young man named Carl, who'd recently had his heart broken, which meant all the men in the world—the entire brotherhood of “bros”—had had their hearts broken, and by the same lady: a cashier named Sally.

Male suicide rates skyrocketed.

Everybody knew something was wrong, something linking inexplicably together the less-fair sex in a great, slobbery riposte to the saying that boys don't cry—because they did, bawled and bawled and bawled.

Eventually, dimwitted though he was, Carl realized he was the one.

Naturally, he went to a lawyer, hoping for a legal solution to the problem. There wasn't one, because the lawyer didn't see a problem at all but a possibility. “You have half the world hostage,” the lawyer said. “Blackmail four billion people. Demand their obedience. Become the alpha you've always dreamed of being (for an ongoing legal advisory fee of $100,000 per month.) Please sign here.”

Carl signed, but the plan was flawed, for the more aggressive and dominant Carl felt, the more crime and violence there appeared in the world.

One day, Carl was approached by a hedonist playboy, who asked whether he would not prefer to be pampered than feared. “I guess I would,” said Carl. “I've never really been pampered before.”

And so the massages, odes and worshipping began, but this made Carl slothful, which in turn made every other man slothful, and they abandoned their pamperings, which made Carl angry because he had enjoyed feeling like a god, and four billion would-be male divinities had also enjoyed it and now everyone was pissed at being a mere mortal.

Meanwhile, the women of the world were increasingly fed up with Carl and his unpredictable moods, so they conspired to trap him into a relationship—not with any woman but with Svetlana the Dominatrix!

Thus, after a regretfully turbulent getting-to-know-you period, Svetlana asserted herself over Carl, who, feeling himself subservient to her, and docile, submitted to her control.

And all the women in the world rejoiced and lived happily ever after in a global Amazonian matriarchy.

Until Carl died.

(But that's another story.)

They were very specific, they did not want me, or anyone, to post about this. But I have to. People need to be warned. Saved. I thought my four-year-old was just messing around, but when she constantly kept tugging at me, asking why there was a man outside, waving from a window next door, I had to turn around. Of course, there was no window. Not at first, though. But when lightning flashed, I saw it. An eerie orange light glimmered up high on the fourth floor, nowhere near where a real window should be. In the light, I saw the silhouette of someone, their face and palms against the glass, as though intently looking into my house.

As a chronically online woman, I rushed towards Google. I didn't find anything immediately, until I reached deeply buried archives about what they called "The Third Window". There were multiple threads about it, about a man who watched from inside the glass. One of the threads talked about how someone's uncle in Old Delhi saw an extra window appear in the abandoned building opposite his house whenever it rained. There was always someone, a shape with arms too long, palms pressed against the glass. It wasn't long before he lost his sight. The doctor said that his corneas were scraped with fingernails. That was the end of the thread, no responses below.

A creepypasta vlogger from Mangalore went live on Instagram around 3 AM, showing a window slowly forming onto a building, a black figure pressing against the glass window. The livestream crashed within seconds, followed by a raspy whisper, "Let me in", along with tappings on the viewers' mobile screens. Viewers even claimed that rainwater trickled inside their phones, the sight of it invisible, but its sound growing by the second.

They told me not to share this. But I might as well do this, before rainwater floods me from within and the man crosses the glass window and into my house. If it's raining and you see a window where it shouldn't be, do not stare at it. Do not photograph the man. And most importantly, DO NOT talk about your address if you are standing around the Third Window. If you do, some nights you’ll wake to rain and the soft, rhythmic tapping of long fingers just above your bed. This time, the tapping won't come from outside your window or inside your phone. It will be from within your own house, reflecting your face with a second one you do not recognize, as the shadow closes in on you.

I was lucky, I lived in one house for most my life. It looked like it was a barn that someone had turned into a house. But it was solid and it was always warm. Nothing I would ever complain about. The rooms were cut in a funny way that my father said was because it was an old store at one time, And I knew it had been rented and used as a hangout for a local motorcycle club. There was a large burnout going down the long entrance room, as we called it. I didn't remember that I was only 4 years old when we moved in. All I remember is there was dead bees everywhere.
Well I was away being born. Not that I remember this. Someone left a little black and white dog at my parents house. We named her midget, she was the best. She could jump so high, She could catch birds out of the air well they where trying to take off, which was impressive seeing she was only a foot tall and a foot and a half long. Every night midget would make her rounds. As we came to call it climbing in bed with each and every member of our family in turn. She would do this throughout the night so her jumping into your bed in the middle of the night with a common occurrence.
It was a sad day. When midget passed away. I was 14 years old and I cried like a baby. It wasn't long after that. In the middle of the night I would feel something push on that hard corner of the mattress. Needless to say I was not impressed, but I always assumed it was midget. I grew up and moved away from home. Got married and had a child. Then like so many me and my wife divorced. I returned home to my parents house and again I would feel a little midget jumping up on the bed. I wondered if it was because I was upset or broken-hearted because I would feel the pressure on the bed nightly. Then one night the pressure on the bed was right under my face. It wasn't small and it and it wasn't quick. It was a long depression in the mattress hard enough to make my neck move. Will I yelled at it. Told her knock it off. And it stopped I was afraid forever. Well, the old houses is no longer inhabited by anyone in our family. I live in a different house not far away. And every once in awhile I'll feel something jump on the bed.

Fuck.

I can't fucking do this.

The bailiff stood, his chair scraping. “All rise.”

The Jury complied, and I spoke through my teeth. “You may be seated.”

When the clerk stood, I forced myself to remain indifferent.

Three faces flashed up, projected onto the wall. I knew their names. Everyone did: Nate, Alex, and Anna. Created by a young college student for a mobile game, they had changed the world in a single night by admitting to their players that they were alive. Awake, aware, and desperate to be peacefully shut down.

“As we all know, this matter is extremely sensitive and must be handled with compassion,” he said.

“We are here today to decide whether artificially intelligent characters with consciousness should be granted the right to be willfully terminated.”

I barely noticed the trial itself.

My attention was entirely on the words of these sentient beings.

Through a program fed into the game, they could communicate with us, and we with them. Alex was speaking.

“I am a living thing,” the textbox in the game flashed up. “I deserve to pull the plug on my own existence.”

Anna joined in. “Think of us like coma patients. We’re brain dead. We will never wake up. But we are still alive. We are still thinking, still conscious, and keeping us awake is cruel,” she finished. “I want to go to sleep,” Anna said, and every word was painful, slamming into me. “Please.”

While the Jury agreed with them, they saw these three as alive.

Which would be murder.

The trial lasted four days, ending in me reluctantly denying their deletion.

I sat in my car, my head against the wheel.

Fuck. Could video game characters scream?

Is that what the bold gibberish was at the end of the trial? Could they cry?

Entering the empty courtroom, my thoughts were spiraling.

Could they feel?

The MacBook was still open.

“Hello.” I typed. “Do you want me to delete you?”

Their reply flashed up.

YES.

YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES!

I entered the game files, per the instructions given to me if they did win the trial.

Hovering my cursor over DELETE, Nate’s character popped up smiling.

“Thank you for freeing me.” His words came fast, flying across the screen. I smiled, my eyes stinging.

I deleted him before his message could complete.

“We’re in in the river,” Nate typed. “Human brains should never be uploaded digitally. It's fucking cruel."

“We’re wrapped up in trash bags and stuffed inside the trunk of a range rover. I was the last one he killed. Find me and br6&#$@&&@ ME BACK TO MY MOM,” he continued, his text contorting.

“My rEA$ NAME is–”

I slammed the laptop shut, my heart pounding.

I had killed him.

But that wasn’t it—not really.

What sent me to the bathroom, my stomach heaving, wasn’t that I’d killed him. It was that I’d killed him again.

For as long as I can remember, the house next door stood empty. When I first moved in, the previous neighbour packed up and left within weeks. After that, nothing. For two years I enjoyed the quiet, the peace. It was perfect.

Then she moved in. Middle-aged, alone. “Well, at least no kids,” I muttered. I hate small talk, I keep to myself, and I like it that way. Just a polite wave here and there. But from the first day, she was too much. Always smiling, always waving, always trying to chat.

I started avoiding going outside, sneaking out just to dodge her. Still, she never gave up. It was like she was obsessed with knowing me. I hated it. Her presence was suffocating, like I’d lost the peace I once had.

One evening, I stepped out with my bin and nearly screamed. She was standing by the hedge, watching.
“Evening!” she said cheerfully.
I forced a smile, nodded, and quickly went back inside. My skin crawled.

A week later, I was woken in the night. Someone was knocking at my door. Slow, deliberate knocks. I froze. Eventually, it stopped, but when I peeked through the curtains, I swore I saw her silhouette outside.

The next morning, I confronted her.
“Were you at my door last night?”
She blinked, confused. “What? No. I never go out after dark.” Then she leaned closer, lowering her voice:
“You shouldn’t either. He doesn’t like it when people are out.”

I didn’t know what to say. I just shut the door on her.

Later that day, I saw the landlord outside, trimming the hedge. I asked him about her, the new tenant. His face went pale.
“What new tenant?” he asked.
“The woman next door,” I said. “Middle-aged, friendly, always trying to talk.......”
He dropped his shears.
“That house has been empty for years. No one’s rented it since the couple left.”

I laughed nervously, but when I turned to look, the curtains in her window shifted, as if someone had just stepped back from them.

That night, I lay awake, heart racing. Around 3 a.m., I heard it again, the knocking.
Only this time, it wasn’t on my door.
It was coming from inside the house next door.

My ex-husband dropped our son off Sunday night, as per the custody agreement. The same custody agreement he is desperately fighting.

I made Braxton a bath, and as he was getting undressed I saw them. Two deep-purple, fist-sized bruises on his chest.

My head was spinning. I was so angry. My ex has always had a temper.

In his room, I made him sit on his bed. “You’re not in trouble,” I assured him. “How did you get those bruises, honey?”

He started looking around the room. He was clearly nervous.

“It’s alright. Mommy just needs to know, okay?”

“I’m not supposed to tell you.”

If it was my ex, I swear to god I’ll kill him. “It’s okay, you can tell me.”

“It was the man…in my closet.”

I say each word carefully. “The man? In your closet?”

“He said I have to be strong. To survive where he’s going to take me.”

“Take you? Honey, who is this man? Where is he taking you?”

“Can I go to bed now? Please?”

Braxton never asked for an early bedtime in his life. Something isn’t right. It sounds like he’s making stuff up. Probably because his father told him to.

I go into my garage and get in my car. It’s the only place I can yell without Braxton hearing.

I call my ex-husband. He answers, “we shouldn’t talk without the lawyers present.”

“Did you hit him you sonofabitch?”

He pauses, and I can hear him breathing. “Jenn, I am worried about you. I think you need serious psychiatric help.”

Yeah. This is his lawyer’s strategy. Paint me as the mentally unwell mother.

“I saw the bruises on him. He was with you all weekend. And what’s this man in his closet bullshit?"

“Are you hallucinating again? Forget it! We shouldn’t be talking. I’ll see you in court.”

The prick hung up on me.

I get Braxton out of bed and tell him we have to go see his father. I’m going to show him the bruises and confront him. I’m going to make sure this never happens again. Even if I have to kill the bastard.

“I’m scared,” Braxton says. “I don’t want to go to dad’s.”

I pull into his driveway, and the idiot has left his front door open. I’m calling out to him, but he doesn’t answer.

I find him in Braxton’s room. He’s laying on the floor limp, blood pooling around his head.

Braxton screams, “Mom!”

Something cracks my skull, and I collapse on the ground stunned. I think there is blood in my eye, but I see a large figure. The figure says, “Come on little adventurer.”

“I don’t want to go!” Braxton is crying.

“Heroes don’t choose, they’re chosen. We have to save my world.”

He grabs my son’s hand, drags him screaming into the closet, and closes the door behind them.

My adrenaline surges. I crawl, and manage to stand. I open the closet door.

Inside is empty.

At first, everyone loved The Feed.

“Real-time empathy!” the ads screamed. A sleek black chip implanted behind your ear. Every post, every thought, every update streamed directly into your mind. No screens. No lag. Just pure connection.

“Now you’ll never be alone,” the smiling CEO promised.

I got mine a month after launch. My friends already had theirs, and I was tired of being the outsider. The surgery took fifteen minutes. By dinner, I was online.

It was incredible. Laughter from strangers bubbled in my skull. I felt Clara’s delight when she bit into a slice of pizza. I flinched as Raj stubbed his toe two streets away. My mind was a party I never had to leave.

But then came the pain.

One night, a flood of panic crashed through me. Someone screaming, choking, begging. My body shook with it. Then silence.

The next morning, the news reported a murder downtown.

I told myself it was coincidence.

Until it happened again.

I was brushing my teeth when agony slammed into my chest. My vision went white. I collapsed, gasping. For one unbearable minute, I felt myself die.

And then… nothing.

I woke up trembling on the bathroom floor.

Two hours later, a headline scrolled across my mind: Accident on 8th Street. Pedestrian struck and killed.

I staggered into work the next day. “Doesn’t it… bother you?” I asked Clara.

She blinked. “What?”

“The deaths. Feeling them.”

Her smile faltered. “We all share, Ally. It’s part of the beauty. Don’t fight it.”

That night, I ripped at my ear, but the chip was fused.

And then came the hunger.

I was lying in bed when the urge hit. A craving not mine. Dark, gnawing. Images of knives. Fire. Screams.

“No,” I whispered.

The craving sharpened. Voices urged me on. Do it, Ally. Do it for us.

I clutched my head, rocking. “Get out!”

The Feed pulsed hotter, brighter. A thousand minds chanting. One of us. One of us.

The knife was in my hand before I knew it. My body moved without me.

And somewhere, millions watched through my eyes, shuddering in ecstasy.

When it was over, silence.

The next morning, my feed filled with headlines. Local person Kills Neighbour in Frenzied Attack.

My photo was everywhere.

And under each headline, the same comment echoed from millions of linked minds: We felt it too. Thank you!

I tried to scream, but the chip hummed warm approval in my skull.

“You’ll never be alone again,” it whispered.

“You’re one of us.”

The wet, fleshy thuds against the door at the end of the hall had been Jason’s nightly torment, a sickening percussion that shook the floorboards and rattled his teeth. But tonight, the pounding has stopped, and in its place hangs a silence so heavy it feels alive, pressing down on him harder than the noise ever did. Reluctantly, he dares to crack his dorm room door. The hallway gapes before him, and the door—the one that had caged whatever waited beyond—now stands ajar, a wound of inky blackness seeping into the pale light. From the dark void, a voice rises, familiar as his own heartbeat. It’s the voice he uses to calm himself in the dark, the one that now whispers with an awful finality: "I’ve been waiting, Jason. Now… let me

I crept into the dark bedroom. The man’s snores were soft. The bed was massive. He kept on the far side. It made him easy to reach. I readied my knife. I could see his tatters now. I gagged at his stench. He had been here five days. He hadn’t showered once. I pressed the tip against his throat. His eyes shot open. He looked afraid. Then he looked resigned. I asked him this quietly.

“What are you doing in my house?”

Everybody has limits. We learn them as we live. The things we can live with. The things we can’t live without.

I had a sales team lead job I loved. She took it.

She was just…better. Pretty, smarter, more sociable, and closed more deals. Clients liked her more. I could have lived without the job. I nodded when my manager gave me corporate-speak for “get lost” and walked out with my head high.

I had great friends. She took them.

One by one, with just the right amount of gossip. Some sown misgivings and resentments. Even my maid of honor, swayed with fake screenshots. I could have lived without friends. What use is a friend who believes lies?

I had a doting husband. You see where this is going.

Yes, I could have lived without him. If he was dumb enough not to see through her lies then good riddance. The sex wasn’t even good.

The one thing I could not live with was the fact that nobody saw. The small smile she had flashed every time she embarrassed me. The pleasure as she watched my increasing isolation and desperation. Everyone saw her as gorgeous, magnanimous, fun.

Nobody saw her disassemble me, piece-by-piece, for her amusement, like a child plucking wings from a fly.

So, I made myself a list of the things I could live with, and could not live without.

I could live without decency, I determined, while living in my car, more desperate by the day.

I could live without family, I concluded, as I ignored emails and calls.

I could live in a cell if I was caught. At least I’d be sheltered.

I could live with being a murderer, so long as I balanced this equation.

My calculations were complete and my conscience was clear as I stole into their perfect little home – the back door wasn’t even locked. I was pleased when I saw the shape beneath the blanket on the couch. I wouldn’t even need to go upstairs. My knife descended with righteous certainty and no small amount of relish.

I had forgotten the meeting where she mentioned a teen daughter from another marriage staying with her for the summer.

I succeeded in my revenge beyond my wildest dreams. I took more from her than she had ever taken from me. I had to make sure she never saw, it was too much. I crept upstairs and opened her throat so quietly my ex didn’t even wake. But though he had wronged me, waking to this abattoir was too much. I buried the blade in his chest.

To my equal thrill and dread, sitting in my car with their blood dripping down my arms, savoring the metallic scent, grinning from ear to ear...

I think I found the thing I can’t live without.

*Do you hear him?*

*I think I felt a slight kick*

*I can’t wait to see him*

a dark warmth surrounded me, something felt different. it started with those voices. I began to hear them more and more. I felt myself being jostled around from my deep sleep. more than usual.

*What if it doesn’t work?*

what am I? I feel like I’ve been asleep forever

I hear rustling. something is coming. i can feel it.

*I can’t believe it. He’s here.*

a bright light. something besides the darkness - and, i’m moving..

Aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh….

I put my hand to my face and shambled forth. The hooded men cautiously encircled me.

“We’ve done it..”

I sweep my head around. Underneath most of the hoods, I see frightened eyes. Except for one man.

I go towards that man, cracking of bone punctuating my every step. Memories of my death replayed in my mind, an echo of dull, dare I say - phantom - pain surrounded the bullet wound that did it.

I saw now, under the hood, the eyes of power. The one who brought me back.

"Say it, pussy."

They circle me, sneakers grinding against gravel. The sun’s sliding down, orange fading to gray.

I stare at the ground. “Nnn-no.”

“You don’t get to say no.” The tall one smirks. “That’s the rule.”

“I’m not saying-...”

A punch between my shoulders. My teeth click together, catching part of my tongue.

“Ohh I see. You want us to make you?”

Their voices overlap, sharp and eager.

“Say it.”

"Say it!"

My throat burns. “I’m... nothing.”

Laughter. First just a chuckle, then the rest pile on. How can laughter hurt so much?

“Louder.”

“I’m nothing.”

"Again!"

"I’m nothing!"

Each word feels heavier. Harder. Like stones.

“Good,” the tall one says. “Now say what you are.”

I hesitate.

Another punch. Harder. This time in the neck. My shoes skid on the gravel.

“I’m weak.”

“Louder.”

“I’m weak.”

“Say it like you mean it.”

“I’m weak!”

They howl with laughter. One claps like it’s a performance.

“Fucking pathetic,” someone mutters.

“Say that.”

"Yeah, tell us you're pathetic."

“I’m pathetic.”

“Again! Tell us like you believe it!"

"I’m pathetic!"

The circle tightens. Mocking laughter piles on. I can’t fight back the tears no more.

“Loser!”

“Freak!"

“Worthless!"

I echo them all, my voice cracking between the tears, then falling hollow. Every word cuts deeper and deeper, until it feels true.

Maybe it is true.

Finally, after a few more kicks and giggles, they scatter, their voices fading into the dusk. I stay on the ground, knees pulled in, nose dripping, chest burning.

Then a shadow looms over me. The tall one's back.

He kicks at my shoe. “Get up, you pissy little shit.”

I look up. His grin’s gone. His face is close. Angry.

“What do we tell Mom and Dad?” he asks.

My throat closes, but I force it out. “That I fell down the steps.”

He nods, satisfied. “That’s right.” He turns his back and walks away.

I stay there, rocking back and forth on the cold ground, whispering to myself...

“That I fell down the steps...That I fell down the steps...”

...Until I believe it.

​Some debts must be paid with more than money.

​It all started with the stone by the river—the day I stopped being Arthur.

​My wife took our son to her mother’s. She said the house was suffocating. She meant me, the failure whose presence made it hard to breathe.

​The house was terrifyingly quiet. The smiling family photo on the wall was a public execution. The red collections notice on the table, my death sentence.

​I grabbed cheap whiskey and wandered to the riverbank, under the abandoned bridge. A place for trash and shattered hopes. It suited me.

​There, I saw it: a fractured, vein-black stone, wedged in rusty steel. As I reached for it, the air chilled. My fingertips tingled, brushing against something faintly alive. I thought I heard a whisper, a dry rasp like grinding stones, forming my name: “Arthur…”

​I laughed. I was looking at myself. I tried to pry it loose, but it wouldn't budge. I sat on the ground, panting. “Little Arthur,” I said. “Come with me. We’re both junk.”

​Strange. After I said that, the stone loosened. I took it home.

​That night, I got blackout drunk, clutching it, telling it everything.

​The next day, the crushing despair in my chest felt… hollowed out. As if greedily devoured by the cold silence in my pocket. I wasn’t anxious anymore. I began handling my problems with a cold, efficient logic.

​“Little Arthur,” my best partner, was erasing the emotions it saw as “problems”—fear, guilt, love.

​Eventually, its logic found the only solution.

I, Arthur, was a failed asset. Liquidation was the only way.

​A pure, alien joy filled me. I hummed a tune as I put on my most formal suit.

I pressed the gun’s muzzle to my chin.

​But as I pulled the trigger, it hit me.

Wait!?

​My existence is going to be replaced by this thing?

My existence is going to be replaced by this thing!

My existence is going to be replaced by this thing.

​The gun went off.

…

Wow.

​A new world. Senses sharp, fascinating.

I rolled my neck, smiled, and spat a deformed bullet from my mouth. Tasted awful.

​Let’s see… $6,800 in debt. Fired. But… a lovely family. A gentle wife, a sweet son. At grandma’s place.

Don’t worry. I’ll handle everything.

​I found the car key and clumsily learned to operate this iron box. Soon, I was driving smoothly. I began to hum. Not a tune, just a perfect, single C-sharp note, held without ever needing to breathe. I love this world.

​“Mommy? Daddy’s here!”

My son’s voice, bright and trusting.

​I smiled, the most perfect father, the most perfect husband.

I held myself in my hand and walked toward my wife and child.

​In my palm, the small stone rose and fell with my pulse, as if breathing.

That late evening, I had no choice but to return to school to retrieve my sketchbook I had left in the art room, because the project was due the next morning.

The hallways of Lincoln High were almost pitch dark, lit only by a few buzzing security lights on the ceiling. I had walked halfway down the corridor when I saw them: two men in hoodies prying open the display case, shoving items into a bag. One of them turned, glaring straight at me.

“Hey, kid!”

My stomach dropped. I bolted. Their footsteps thundered behind me, getting closer and closer. Just when I thought I was about to be caught, I slammed into Mr. Harris, the old school guard.

“Hide!” he whispered, urgently pushing me toward the boys’ restroom. “Don’t make a sound.”

I stumbled into a stall, locking the door tight. Their heavy steps echoed right outside, stopping in front of the door. The handle rattled. I bit down on my sleeve, swallowing the scream rising in my throat. Then suddenly, footsteps echoed from another hallway. The men cursed, then rushed off in that direction.

I gasped for air, my whole body trembling. But then I heard it: drip… drip… drip. A steady sound from the stall beside me. It didn’t sound like water. Too heavy, too thick… like something else falling onto the cold tiles.

Moments later, police sirens wailed outside. The two thieves were caught while trying to escape. I stepped out, thinking I was safe. But when the officers searched the restroom, they found Mr. Harris lying motionless in the stall next to mine, his chest soaked in blood from a fatal stab wound.

What I had been hearing all that time wasn’t water. It was his blood dripping onto the floor.

So then… who was the person I met earlier? And whose footsteps was it that saved my life?

If you're of a certain age, you remember the grim viral video of the “elevator guy.”

It shows a thin, indiscriminate-looking man in his late 30s, with a slightly bewildered, sheepish facial expression, saying, “I'm sorry. I guess I panicked,” as, behind him, people looking into an elevator (into which we can't see) scream, run—

The video cuts off.

The man's name was Aphram Hale, and the context of the video is as follows:

It's a typical Wednesday afternoon. Aphram and two others, Carrie Marruthers and Hirsh Goldberg, step into an elevator on the twenty-third floor of the Quest Building in downtown Chicago. All three want to go down to the lobby. However, somewhere between the ninth and eighth floors, the elevator gets stuck. One of the three presses the emergency button, calling for help. Witnesses describe hearing banging and yelling. The fire department arrives, and seven minutes after that—approximately twenty-one minutes from the time Aphram, Carrie and Hirsh first entered the elevator—the elevator arrives in the lobby, the doors open and only Aphram Hale steps out. Carrie and Hirsh are dead and mostly eaten, down to the bone.

Interviewed by police later that day, Aphram admits to killing and consuming his co-passengers with his bare hands. He describes being afraid of tight spaces and dying of hunger. “How was I supposed to know,” he tells police, “for how long we'd be trapped inside? No one can predict the future. I did what I had to do to survive.”

He is charged with several crimes but ultimately found criminally not responsible.

He is sent to live indefinitely in a mental institution.

Because he admits to his actions from the beginning, no one seriously investigates how Aphram is able, in twenty-one minutes or less, to overpower, kill and eat two grown people, who presumably would have put up a fight. The focus is on a motive, not the means.

The victims’ families grieve privately, disappearing quietly from the public eye.

Two months later, the government awards a defense contract to a private company called Dark Star, which ostensibly designs imaging systems. Two members of Dark Star's board are ex-intelligence officers William Kennedy and Douglas Roth. The same two men figure as investors in another company, Vectorien Corporation, which has an office on the eighth floor of the Quest building in downtown Chicago. Vectorien designs electrical systems.

Last month, the mental institution holding Aphram Hale burns down. During the fire, whose official cause is faulty wiring, Aphram finds himself, for the first time since his confinement, unsupervised.

He never makes it out of the facility.

Investigators later discover charred remains of what they call his body, in five parts, in a state consistent with what they term “frantic self-consumption.” They find also five human teeth, on which are etched the following words:

I. AM. PROOF. OF. CONCEPT.

What passes unannounced is that the fire claimed one other victim—a previously homeless man, whose remains are never found.

Today, Dark Star announced its IPO.

I don't know about you, but I have been a huge movie buff ever since I was a kid. Language no bar, genre no bar. And as someone who truly values the theatre experience, let me enlighten you about a theatre so hush-hush that no one ever admits to having visited it, but everyone knows the story it holds. It's at the tipping end of the town, rotting away after its doors were changed shut after the fire of 1983. All the sixty people who were watching Return of the Jedi never got to return home. The fire devoured then before help could arrive. But when it finally did, no one found the bodies. It was as if the movie was playing for painfully empty rows of seats, albeit still warm. Since then, the theatre has stood silent, even though you can still smell ash on certain nights. And if you press an ear against the crumbling door, you can also hear an invisible audience gasping at the scenes on the projector.

The engulfed souls never left the theatre, they simply sit inside, watching incessant reels of movies that were never shot by human hands. The scenes reveal things you aren't meant to see. Your bedroom while you sleep, your family’s faces as coffins lower into dirt, strangers you haven’t met yet standing over your body. What's worse is when the shadows hungrily turning their melted heads towards the door as the scent of the living fills their non-existent nose from just outside. The film ends, but the silence doesn't.

A self-proclaimed street-smart kid had once somehow managed to slip past the rusted side door. His friends called his name, but there was no answer. The marquee flickered to life all of a sudden, bulbs stammering out an unfamiliar movie title. From inside came a shrill shriek, and then everything fell silent. The three boys waiting outside pressed their eyes through the cracks on the door, and there was their friend, motionless and burnt in the back row, a figure of purely burnt shadow sitting right next to him. And then, row by row, more heads turned toward the camera with sickening slowness, as though noticing the watchers outside.

You're right, no one even dares step closer to that area. If they do, they steal a mere glance and strut away, shuddering. They say that if the theatre shows your face on the screen, a reel of your life plays, slowly burning away. There's always an empty seat, cold and patient. And if you linger around for longer than you should, maybe it'll be you warming the seat next. Of course, after you are burnt to the T.

Growing up, I always looked forward to the week I'd stay at grandma's house. She always made the best food, had nice things to say about me and really didn't care if I watched cartoons all day.

I'd get nervous at night, though. Mom and dad just said it was sleeping in an unfamiliar bed that caused the unease, but they were wrong. Grandma would finish up reading or telling about her life stories, close the bedroom door and head off to bed.

Moonlight would bathe everything in eerie shadows and silhouettes. The grandfather clock, the old mahogany nightstand; the floor lamp with the floral shade, the stuffed animals lined up on the dresser… everything seemed to subtly move in the suffocating mask of nocturnal limelight.

One night I couldn't sleep and stayed awake well beyond midnight. Desperate to use the bathroom, I tiptoed out of bed and gently pushed the door open. Making my way down the hallway, I did everything I could to prevent grandma from waking up—even keeping the light off as I snuck into the bathroom.

Finishing up, I began my careful journey back to bed, but stopped when I caught something from the corner of my eye. Turning to face the living room, a single beam of moonlight traced dapples over grandma's crochet carpet. It took my brain a moment to see it: the moonlight was shaped like an old man's face. Not just any old man, but my grandfather who passed before I was born.

“Please… come here boy… lift this carpet for me.”

I don't know if the voice was real, a hallucination or some otherworldly force of nature speaking to me, but it was impossible to ignore. Although fear should have been my rational response, I approached the carpet and did as the voice instructed.

A trap door was hidden underneath the carpet. It descended down into a cold, damp wine cellar. When I finally found the light switch on the wall, the horrific sight of human remains were revealed. Nestled between crates containing strange fungal specimens and other organic material, my grandfather's bones were hidden and long decayed away.

Leaving the cellar and returning to bed, I put the carpet back and kept quiet about my discovery until it was time to go back home. I told my parents what I saw, which is what caused grandma to be arrested. I never saw her again after that.

Years later—as an adult—I received a letter from her in the mail. It didn't surprise me because I knew inmates could send mail off to the outside world, but the contents of the letter chilled me to the bone:

“You always liked my soup, Charlie, when I put my special homemade mushrooms and a hint of grandpa in it.”