- Posting Speed
- Multiple posts per week
- One post per week
- Slow As Molasses
- Writing Levels
- Adept
- Advanced
- Adaptable
- Preferred Character Gender
- Primarily Prefer Male
- Genres
- Slice-of-Life, Gothic, Horror, Fantasy
Greetings ghouls to Iwaku's Horror Contest!
I am thrilled to be hosting Iwaku's first annual horror writing contest and even more thrilled to show you all our excellent submissions this year. To remind you, this year's themes were:
- Abandoned
- Change
- Parasitism
As horror is a genre that often places a focus on traumatizing concepts and events, please be mindful of any trigger warnings attached to each piece. We want you to enjoy your fellow members' creativity, but not at the expense of your mental well-being. I put the warnings in spoilers so that those who wish to avoid story spoilers can, but take a look if you think you'll need them. Be kind to yourself, folks, and enjoy your horror responsibly! I will make sure to reiterate any trigger warnings before they are read aloud, as well.
We would love to have you join us in the Iwaku Discord Server on October 26th at 6 PM CST to hear some of these pieces read aloud by @Fluffy and discuss them. Please keep any critiques for the authors constructive, and remember that all opinions are subjective, so refrain from giving any sort of letter grade or rating. When discussing the pieces, here are some questions you can consider:
- What do you enjoy most about the piece?
- Does it fit well with the selected themes?
- Is it spooky?
Using the poll above, you can vote for which piece you believe to be the best. The voting here will not determine the winners alone, but member votes will play a role in our judges' decision. As a reminder, our judges this year are the wonderful @Lyrikai, @iridescent, and @Sorrelfur. This year, our winners will get to choose from a $50 egift card from a store of their choosing from @Diana, a $30 Amazon card from @Kuno, one month of Discord nitro from myself, Cozy Grove or Inscryption from @kroyote, and God of War: Ragnarok from @Peregrine. We will (hopefully) be announcing the winners sometime on October 31st.
Now, without further ado, please enjoy this year's submissions!
Part of Me
By: @Ashi
Word Count: 270
Chosen Theme(s): Parasitism
Chosen Format: Poetry (altered version of the form A L'Arora)
You came into my life I know not whence
like a thief in the night, breached my defense.
Intentions hidden by unassuming approach,
you targeted me and presumed to encroach
upon my subsistence, persistent. You implanted yourself
according to your wiles. I was beguiled successfully,
a pawn in your vicious cycle. Nonethewiser, I granted
your deepest desire to be a part of me.
By your kiss I was infected, I didn't feel the sting
as you sunk your teeth into my flesh, allowing you to cling
securely and invade my everything. You flourished in your conquest
to pervade my being, my body you impressed.
Reminiscent of a bug that crawls in the ear you entered my brain
and nourished yourself with my vitality.
Your maggots infested my blood and squirmed in my veins.
We became as one, you were a part of me.
A wretched fool, I was blind to the symptoms.
I heeded warnings from no one, not even other victims
who testified against the exploits you committed
hopping from one host to another like a disease transmitted.
You stuck around until your appetite appeased,
To take what you wanted; then up and leave.
Gone away to find your next casualty,
Leaving in shambles every part of me.
Long after, I languished in the wake
of your affliction. I was overcome by pain
physical and emotional – my body felt the ache,
my psyche collapsed under the strain.
I'm broken inside and out, I may never recover
from the havoc you wrought. You completely
destroyed me and left me to suffer.
Yet you will always have a part of me.
By: @Ashi
Word Count: 270
Chosen Theme(s): Parasitism
Chosen Format: Poetry (altered version of the form A L'Arora)
You came into my life I know not whence
like a thief in the night, breached my defense.
Intentions hidden by unassuming approach,
you targeted me and presumed to encroach
upon my subsistence, persistent. You implanted yourself
according to your wiles. I was beguiled successfully,
a pawn in your vicious cycle. Nonethewiser, I granted
your deepest desire to be a part of me.
By your kiss I was infected, I didn't feel the sting
as you sunk your teeth into my flesh, allowing you to cling
securely and invade my everything. You flourished in your conquest
to pervade my being, my body you impressed.
Reminiscent of a bug that crawls in the ear you entered my brain
and nourished yourself with my vitality.
Your maggots infested my blood and squirmed in my veins.
We became as one, you were a part of me.
A wretched fool, I was blind to the symptoms.
I heeded warnings from no one, not even other victims
who testified against the exploits you committed
hopping from one host to another like a disease transmitted.
You stuck around until your appetite appeased,
To take what you wanted; then up and leave.
Gone away to find your next casualty,
Leaving in shambles every part of me.
Long after, I languished in the wake
of your affliction. I was overcome by pain
physical and emotional – my body felt the ache,
my psyche collapsed under the strain.
I'm broken inside and out, I may never recover
from the havoc you wrought. You completely
destroyed me and left me to suffer.
Yet you will always have a part of me.
Stray Proverbs
By: @RiverNotch
Word Count: 884
Chosen Theme(s): Change, Abandonment, Parasitism
Chosen Format: Poetry
Even when he would go out to the field
only to watch someone get shot
out of the sky, only to duck
when the older kids cried out
They're getting low! my grandpa
did not lose his innocence.
The stories he heard of soldiers catching
babies with their bayonets
were only stories, at the time,
while his town was pretty smart
in hiding my great aunts,
or else they learned the art too late,
hiding instead their fear, their shame,
even well past judgment.
Affection has its uses.
Daily, in our town,
from house to house, a crow
totters, leaps, flies,
testing for their panes
windows, peering in
for seeds, coins, baubles,
occasionally eyes,
marking the shut with scratches
and twice swooping
through all the open.
Romance is nothing more
than a tedious night's journey,
a pointless series of fights,
an irritating dance,
an exercise in pain,
and the promise of maternal
torture. Better to be spayed
than to have sex.
A girl I met near Moscow
I vaguely remember fancying
had her birthday today.
Her profile picture had
a blue-and-yellow flag
flying beneath her face.
When we met, we were teens:
every day it felt
like the world was ending.
Now we're seas apart
as we have been, for a while,
and the chimes are silent:
the feeling's given way
to an incessant knowing.
Mates are not meant to be kept.
Neither are litters.
Some kids I played with, when they hid
were never found again.
Our chairs would always disappear
until there were only two of us
fighting for one seat.
When we would run out of food to eat,
some would die of hunger
while others, they would choose instead
to choke on marbles.
The grown-ups always forbid
tag and all its relatives
in case one of us tripped.
Those who refused to jump rope
would later hang by one.
The dying offer tastes
better than the dead,
but beware: an old woman's pity
is a young fool's pride.
I've had to handle the bones of many cats
for a class I once took, comparing
the anatomy of various vertebrates,
including our own. Since this was not a medical school,
there were no human specimens
in our collection: we had to use ourselves
for such examples.
We humans write, for instance, with our phalanges,
our metacarpals, carpals,
even our radii and ulnae, because the various
muscles that control our hands
extend up to our arms, while we think
using no bones at all: the skull protects the brain
and nothing more.
The number of strays in campus let
certain rumors spread
but what our professors always said
was that there was a farm upstate
and, to be sure, another department
spent an inordinate chunk of their pay
spaying and neutering the living among us
albeit some swore that not every creature
they opened up arrived
to their desks intact.
Streets were made to be walked,
cars to be climbed,
roofs to be rattled—
A mother dog eats her young
when they're dead or dying out of birth
to make sure that she didn't just waste
her energy conceiving,
gestating, delivering
one more than the nil she planned
since, driven by pure instinct, she
never plans.
So when she strains at rearing, she
blames her young for bleeding her teats,
drives them out of the home she had chosen
but they were born into, then claims
that she, by Natural Law,
is autocrat—esteems
that health is for the aged,
that the young are merely entitled
to a world they didn't make
or a war they didn't start,
that birth is always best described
as exile.
Birds were made to be hunted,
rats to be toyed with,
dogs to be scarred.
All lives lived in this world
are sick, one way or another.
You start out a sickly child
always vomiting on your mother's shoulder
or your father's lap, then as you begin
to stand up on your own, to walk, to run,
you learn your parents were actually the source
of your many diseases—their impatience
when you were an infant, their present ignorance,
their malice as you are forced
in this uncaring world out of your home
to hold down something even they can't call
a living, to treat your time
as a series of debts to pay, to pass down
your own lack of vision
to the succeeding generation—and then you find
it's not so much a lack as it's beginning
to blur, your arms and legs
are weakening, a mere cold
translates into pneumonia: the end comes
so quickly, instead of a treatment
you think it's one more sickness.
Above all things, freedom,
and above that, the moon.
If ever he were condemned by his genetics
to suffer from dementia, he broke his face
and choked to death on his own blood
in an overfull emergency room
before any of us knew. Instead
there was only the time when the older sister
who'd raised him during the war
was rolled into the crematory furnace
or when after a couple of nights' oscillation
between crying out in pain and cursing those around him
he whispered I'm so sorry
then gave up the ghost
that we saw my grandpa so regain
his innocence.
By: @RiverNotch
Word Count: 884
Chosen Theme(s): Change, Abandonment, Parasitism
Chosen Format: Poetry
Even when he would go out to the field
only to watch someone get shot
out of the sky, only to duck
when the older kids cried out
They're getting low! my grandpa
did not lose his innocence.
The stories he heard of soldiers catching
babies with their bayonets
were only stories, at the time,
while his town was pretty smart
in hiding my great aunts,
or else they learned the art too late,
hiding instead their fear, their shame,
even well past judgment.
Affection has its uses.
Daily, in our town,
from house to house, a crow
totters, leaps, flies,
testing for their panes
windows, peering in
for seeds, coins, baubles,
occasionally eyes,
marking the shut with scratches
and twice swooping
through all the open.
Romance is nothing more
than a tedious night's journey,
a pointless series of fights,
an irritating dance,
an exercise in pain,
and the promise of maternal
torture. Better to be spayed
than to have sex.
A girl I met near Moscow
I vaguely remember fancying
had her birthday today.
Her profile picture had
a blue-and-yellow flag
flying beneath her face.
When we met, we were teens:
every day it felt
like the world was ending.
Now we're seas apart
as we have been, for a while,
and the chimes are silent:
the feeling's given way
to an incessant knowing.
Mates are not meant to be kept.
Neither are litters.
Some kids I played with, when they hid
were never found again.
Our chairs would always disappear
until there were only two of us
fighting for one seat.
When we would run out of food to eat,
some would die of hunger
while others, they would choose instead
to choke on marbles.
The grown-ups always forbid
tag and all its relatives
in case one of us tripped.
Those who refused to jump rope
would later hang by one.
The dying offer tastes
better than the dead,
but beware: an old woman's pity
is a young fool's pride.
I've had to handle the bones of many cats
for a class I once took, comparing
the anatomy of various vertebrates,
including our own. Since this was not a medical school,
there were no human specimens
in our collection: we had to use ourselves
for such examples.
We humans write, for instance, with our phalanges,
our metacarpals, carpals,
even our radii and ulnae, because the various
muscles that control our hands
extend up to our arms, while we think
using no bones at all: the skull protects the brain
and nothing more.
The number of strays in campus let
certain rumors spread
but what our professors always said
was that there was a farm upstate
and, to be sure, another department
spent an inordinate chunk of their pay
spaying and neutering the living among us
albeit some swore that not every creature
they opened up arrived
to their desks intact.
Streets were made to be walked,
cars to be climbed,
roofs to be rattled—
A mother dog eats her young
when they're dead or dying out of birth
to make sure that she didn't just waste
her energy conceiving,
gestating, delivering
one more than the nil she planned
since, driven by pure instinct, she
never plans.
So when she strains at rearing, she
blames her young for bleeding her teats,
drives them out of the home she had chosen
but they were born into, then claims
that she, by Natural Law,
is autocrat—esteems
that health is for the aged,
that the young are merely entitled
to a world they didn't make
or a war they didn't start,
that birth is always best described
as exile.
Birds were made to be hunted,
rats to be toyed with,
dogs to be scarred.
All lives lived in this world
are sick, one way or another.
You start out a sickly child
always vomiting on your mother's shoulder
or your father's lap, then as you begin
to stand up on your own, to walk, to run,
you learn your parents were actually the source
of your many diseases—their impatience
when you were an infant, their present ignorance,
their malice as you are forced
in this uncaring world out of your home
to hold down something even they can't call
a living, to treat your time
as a series of debts to pay, to pass down
your own lack of vision
to the succeeding generation—and then you find
it's not so much a lack as it's beginning
to blur, your arms and legs
are weakening, a mere cold
translates into pneumonia: the end comes
so quickly, instead of a treatment
you think it's one more sickness.
Above all things, freedom,
and above that, the moon.
If ever he were condemned by his genetics
to suffer from dementia, he broke his face
and choked to death on his own blood
in an overfull emergency room
before any of us knew. Instead
there was only the time when the older sister
who'd raised him during the war
was rolled into the crematory furnace
or when after a couple of nights' oscillation
between crying out in pain and cursing those around him
he whispered I'm so sorry
then gave up the ghost
that we saw my grandpa so regain
his innocence.
Dear Journal: The Fairy King's Demise
By: @Fluffy
Word Count: 1950
Chosen Theme(s): Parasitism
Chosen Format: Narrative Short Story
Dear Journal,
We never should have done it. We were warned of the negative consequences, but we did it anyway. We did it thinking that the penalty wouldn't be all that bad. What could be worse than war?
Last night, we were invaded by an enemy. The dark fae rained down on us with malice in their eyes and rage in their hearts. Our feud with them seems neverending. So long as there is light in this world, there will be shadows that attempt to swallow it. My kingdom lives in the light. The only shadows cast down on us are the shadows from the trees. The shade of Lorebloom Forest is a pleasant place to be.
That's what we always believed, anyway.
The dark fae had been using the shadows as a hiding place while they spied on us. They watched us for so many days and nights, learning all our secrets and vulnerabilities. How I never noticed them hiding there is beyond me. They must have learned a new kind of magic that lets them camouflage in the darkness undetected. Usually, I can sense a dark fae before they even have a chance to reach my kingdom. It's one of the many abilities I have as the Fairy King. This time, they managed to avoid my senses. I didn't see them coming at all. No one did.
When they attacked us last night, they were so cunning and ruthless. They took out all the guards before they even had a chance to alert the kingdom. This led to homes being destroyed, shops being looted, and lives being slaughtered. The dark fae came close to taking over the kingdom. We stopped them before they could, though. We turned to our last resort because we were out of other options. I'm so ashamed to say it, but we…
We sacrificed one of the Great Trees.
In the Lorebloom Forest, there are four Great Trees. Each one has magic flowing through it and each one helps maintain the balance of the forest. They are ancient trees that are meant to be protected at all costs. I would go into further detail, but I don't have time for that. I'm dying as I write this and there's so much more I need to say.
In our time of desperation, we turned to the Great Tree nearest to my kingdom. Myself and a group of survivors approached it knowing there would be a punishment for our actions. We were ready to accept it thinking it couldn't be as bad as the damage done by the dark fae. Oh, how mistaken we were.
Without a second thought, we sapped the magic from the Great Tree and used it to defeat the dark fae. I was powerful enough to stand up to groups of them at a time. I have to admit that the rush was delightful. I'd never felt that strong before. I felt like I could do anything.
What I did was wrong, though. By taking the tree's magic, we killed it. When I glanced back at it, I saw a twisted-up husk that looked like it had been sucked dry. What have I done? Oh, gods, what have I done?
Now the forest is restless, ominous, and sick. Not just because of what happened to the Great Tree but also because of what happened to me. The Fairy King is essential to the balance of nature here. I can hear the forest mourning me. The trees are melancholy and the animals are frightened. I can't express enough how sorry I am. I've foolishly brought devastation to Lorebloom Forest.
The dark fae may be gone, but something else has come to take their place. The Great Trees have given their response to my actions. This morning, my fairy subjects and I woke up to something horrible. Something that would deliver us all a slow, painful death.
Nature is beautiful, but it can be cruel, too. This is a cruelty I very much deserve, but I wish my subjects would have been spared. Unfortunately, everyone woke to discover that we had been infiltrated. Not by the dark fae or any other enemy, but by parasites. Tiny, tiny beings that wiggled their way into our bodies to make homes out of them.
Specifically, this attacker seems to be a parasitic fungus. There are growths all over my body that look exactly like mushrooms. They're slowly taking me over. They're on my arms, legs, head, neck, face, chest, stomach, and places I don't want to mention. I even have one growing out of my left eye. The fungus grew behind it, popped it out of place, and took over my eye socket. I am extremely uncomfortable and I'm in so much pain. Nothing I do seems to help alleviate the symptoms. All my natural healing remedies have failed to do anything. My magic seems to be disabled, too. I can't use it to heal any of the dying fairies. I'm so weak and useless.
Part of why I'm writing this is to warn others against destroying a Great Tree. Do not make the same mistake I did. No matter how desperate you are, I need you to know it's not worth it. This fungus is one of the nastiest things you could ever end up with. I can feel every single change to my form. They plant little threads in my body that seem to function like roots. Each little thread embedded in me sends an unpleasant shock through my flesh. It itches, too. It itches so badly. I can't help but scratch at the affected areas hoping to relieve the itch. I get no relief, though. The itches persist and my skin is all the more irritated from my claws dragging across it.
It's such a dreadful sight, too. The first change I noticed was the dark mottled patterns on my skin and wings. Those dark patches are the areas where the fungi are most active. From those patches, the fungi grew. They start as these little spores that poke past my skin. Those tiny threads I mentioned before start to peek through and wave at me like wicked clusters of tendrils. I tried cutting them off, but they would just grow back. Pulling them out didn't work, either. They're deeply rooted in me.
Another thing I can't get over is the odor I give off. I have never smelled anything so foul in my entire life. The fungi give off this musty, Earthy scent that gets more odorous over time. I've tried bathing to see if that helps clear up any of the smell, but bathing is as pointless as it is painful. The smell doesn't go away no matter how much soap I use. And the soap only upset my skin. Sadly, that seems to be the case with anything that touches me. Touch makes me feel extra sore. I couldn't even get a salve rubbed on me without it burning intensely.
Even though I have just one working eye, I can see everything. I can see the fungi growing under my skin, just growing and growing until they force their way past the surface. Oh, that hurts so bad and I can do nothing to stop it. The way it stabs out of my flesh like a plant rising through the dirt is just… Awful. So awful. It makes me sick. I was probably already sick because of the fungi, though. Some of them are growing in my stomach. It's excruciating, especially when they start rising to pierce through the organ and then my skin. This agony has me weeping constantly. I've never been one to cry, but this was impossible to toughen up against.
As these fungi continue to develop, they drain my energy, leaving me feeling fatigued and powerless. The changes to my body just add to the fatigue. Torture has a way of making one feel tired. Even just watching the transformations makes me tired. All the mental anguish it causes me makes me want to just…sleep.
I can't sleep, though. I have to keep writing. And I have to keep observing so I can continue to report my findings.
At no point do I get a break from all of this. It's just nonstop fungal growth. My skin squelches and twists disgustingly while the tendrils rise from the holes they drill into me. My limbs are so covered in fungi that I can barely move them. I appear to be losing control over my body. I struggle even now to write this journal entry. I must constantly fight against the fungi as they weave into my muscles and joints. They're also intertwining with my wings, making it so I can't fly. I've become a host for this parasite.
The fungi are evolving at an alarmingly fast rate. Every time I check on them, they look a little different. The wispy tendrils grow taller and take on the shapes of mushrooms. As they grow, I can see my skin color turn pale. I'm supposed to be as green as the grass. My hair and my branch-like horns are gone, too. I had such pretty brown hair. Brown like the soil. And my horns, oh, they were magnificent. I wore them like my royal crown. But the fungi wrapped around them and broke them as if they were mere twigs. They fell to the ground so that the fungi on my head had room to grow. I'm decaying. All that makes me beautiful is gone now.
I think the fungi have altered my mind, as well. I'm in a living nightmare full of terrors only I can see. There are monsters all around me and I find myself screaming in horror every passing hour. The monsters roar and moan at me menacingly. I make efforts to attack them, but the fungi prevent me from doing anything more than a weak slash with my claws. These restricted movements of mine do me no good. I have no choice but to sit here, exhausted, while the monsters torment me. There's no escape for me. I don't know what's real anymore.
Anyway… I can feel the weariness taking over me. I am now reaching the end of my final journal entry. There won't be much of me left after this. The fungi are eating me alive. I imagine I'll be reduced to a pile of bones that are covered with overgrowth. What a tragic end to the Fairy King and his domain. As I look out the window, I can see my subjects suffering and dying. They perish even faster than I do because they do not have my strength. My strength is waning, though. I haven't got much left in me. Just enough to write a few more words…
I wish to say I'm sorry. From the bottom of my heart, I'm sorry. I have failed as a Fairy King. I was trusted to be a protector of the forest yet I went and destroyed a significant part of it. I hope that the next Fairy King is wiser than me. If there will even be one. With the kingdom now gone, something may rise from the ruins, but we may also end up extinct. I don't know what the future holds.
This concludes my final entry. May whoever finds this journal share my stories. Including this very horrible one. All of Lorebloom should know the fate they will meet if they annihilate a Great Tree. Do this and the forest will mercilessly retaliate. The forest can and will get rid of you.
Farewell, world. It's been an honor.
By: @Fluffy
Word Count: 1950
Chosen Theme(s): Parasitism
Chosen Format: Narrative Short Story
Body Horror
Dear Journal,
We never should have done it. We were warned of the negative consequences, but we did it anyway. We did it thinking that the penalty wouldn't be all that bad. What could be worse than war?
Last night, we were invaded by an enemy. The dark fae rained down on us with malice in their eyes and rage in their hearts. Our feud with them seems neverending. So long as there is light in this world, there will be shadows that attempt to swallow it. My kingdom lives in the light. The only shadows cast down on us are the shadows from the trees. The shade of Lorebloom Forest is a pleasant place to be.
That's what we always believed, anyway.
The dark fae had been using the shadows as a hiding place while they spied on us. They watched us for so many days and nights, learning all our secrets and vulnerabilities. How I never noticed them hiding there is beyond me. They must have learned a new kind of magic that lets them camouflage in the darkness undetected. Usually, I can sense a dark fae before they even have a chance to reach my kingdom. It's one of the many abilities I have as the Fairy King. This time, they managed to avoid my senses. I didn't see them coming at all. No one did.
When they attacked us last night, they were so cunning and ruthless. They took out all the guards before they even had a chance to alert the kingdom. This led to homes being destroyed, shops being looted, and lives being slaughtered. The dark fae came close to taking over the kingdom. We stopped them before they could, though. We turned to our last resort because we were out of other options. I'm so ashamed to say it, but we…
We sacrificed one of the Great Trees.
In the Lorebloom Forest, there are four Great Trees. Each one has magic flowing through it and each one helps maintain the balance of the forest. They are ancient trees that are meant to be protected at all costs. I would go into further detail, but I don't have time for that. I'm dying as I write this and there's so much more I need to say.
In our time of desperation, we turned to the Great Tree nearest to my kingdom. Myself and a group of survivors approached it knowing there would be a punishment for our actions. We were ready to accept it thinking it couldn't be as bad as the damage done by the dark fae. Oh, how mistaken we were.
Without a second thought, we sapped the magic from the Great Tree and used it to defeat the dark fae. I was powerful enough to stand up to groups of them at a time. I have to admit that the rush was delightful. I'd never felt that strong before. I felt like I could do anything.
What I did was wrong, though. By taking the tree's magic, we killed it. When I glanced back at it, I saw a twisted-up husk that looked like it had been sucked dry. What have I done? Oh, gods, what have I done?
Now the forest is restless, ominous, and sick. Not just because of what happened to the Great Tree but also because of what happened to me. The Fairy King is essential to the balance of nature here. I can hear the forest mourning me. The trees are melancholy and the animals are frightened. I can't express enough how sorry I am. I've foolishly brought devastation to Lorebloom Forest.
The dark fae may be gone, but something else has come to take their place. The Great Trees have given their response to my actions. This morning, my fairy subjects and I woke up to something horrible. Something that would deliver us all a slow, painful death.
Nature is beautiful, but it can be cruel, too. This is a cruelty I very much deserve, but I wish my subjects would have been spared. Unfortunately, everyone woke to discover that we had been infiltrated. Not by the dark fae or any other enemy, but by parasites. Tiny, tiny beings that wiggled their way into our bodies to make homes out of them.
Specifically, this attacker seems to be a parasitic fungus. There are growths all over my body that look exactly like mushrooms. They're slowly taking me over. They're on my arms, legs, head, neck, face, chest, stomach, and places I don't want to mention. I even have one growing out of my left eye. The fungus grew behind it, popped it out of place, and took over my eye socket. I am extremely uncomfortable and I'm in so much pain. Nothing I do seems to help alleviate the symptoms. All my natural healing remedies have failed to do anything. My magic seems to be disabled, too. I can't use it to heal any of the dying fairies. I'm so weak and useless.
Part of why I'm writing this is to warn others against destroying a Great Tree. Do not make the same mistake I did. No matter how desperate you are, I need you to know it's not worth it. This fungus is one of the nastiest things you could ever end up with. I can feel every single change to my form. They plant little threads in my body that seem to function like roots. Each little thread embedded in me sends an unpleasant shock through my flesh. It itches, too. It itches so badly. I can't help but scratch at the affected areas hoping to relieve the itch. I get no relief, though. The itches persist and my skin is all the more irritated from my claws dragging across it.
It's such a dreadful sight, too. The first change I noticed was the dark mottled patterns on my skin and wings. Those dark patches are the areas where the fungi are most active. From those patches, the fungi grew. They start as these little spores that poke past my skin. Those tiny threads I mentioned before start to peek through and wave at me like wicked clusters of tendrils. I tried cutting them off, but they would just grow back. Pulling them out didn't work, either. They're deeply rooted in me.
Another thing I can't get over is the odor I give off. I have never smelled anything so foul in my entire life. The fungi give off this musty, Earthy scent that gets more odorous over time. I've tried bathing to see if that helps clear up any of the smell, but bathing is as pointless as it is painful. The smell doesn't go away no matter how much soap I use. And the soap only upset my skin. Sadly, that seems to be the case with anything that touches me. Touch makes me feel extra sore. I couldn't even get a salve rubbed on me without it burning intensely.
Even though I have just one working eye, I can see everything. I can see the fungi growing under my skin, just growing and growing until they force their way past the surface. Oh, that hurts so bad and I can do nothing to stop it. The way it stabs out of my flesh like a plant rising through the dirt is just… Awful. So awful. It makes me sick. I was probably already sick because of the fungi, though. Some of them are growing in my stomach. It's excruciating, especially when they start rising to pierce through the organ and then my skin. This agony has me weeping constantly. I've never been one to cry, but this was impossible to toughen up against.
As these fungi continue to develop, they drain my energy, leaving me feeling fatigued and powerless. The changes to my body just add to the fatigue. Torture has a way of making one feel tired. Even just watching the transformations makes me tired. All the mental anguish it causes me makes me want to just…sleep.
I can't sleep, though. I have to keep writing. And I have to keep observing so I can continue to report my findings.
At no point do I get a break from all of this. It's just nonstop fungal growth. My skin squelches and twists disgustingly while the tendrils rise from the holes they drill into me. My limbs are so covered in fungi that I can barely move them. I appear to be losing control over my body. I struggle even now to write this journal entry. I must constantly fight against the fungi as they weave into my muscles and joints. They're also intertwining with my wings, making it so I can't fly. I've become a host for this parasite.
The fungi are evolving at an alarmingly fast rate. Every time I check on them, they look a little different. The wispy tendrils grow taller and take on the shapes of mushrooms. As they grow, I can see my skin color turn pale. I'm supposed to be as green as the grass. My hair and my branch-like horns are gone, too. I had such pretty brown hair. Brown like the soil. And my horns, oh, they were magnificent. I wore them like my royal crown. But the fungi wrapped around them and broke them as if they were mere twigs. They fell to the ground so that the fungi on my head had room to grow. I'm decaying. All that makes me beautiful is gone now.
I think the fungi have altered my mind, as well. I'm in a living nightmare full of terrors only I can see. There are monsters all around me and I find myself screaming in horror every passing hour. The monsters roar and moan at me menacingly. I make efforts to attack them, but the fungi prevent me from doing anything more than a weak slash with my claws. These restricted movements of mine do me no good. I have no choice but to sit here, exhausted, while the monsters torment me. There's no escape for me. I don't know what's real anymore.
Anyway… I can feel the weariness taking over me. I am now reaching the end of my final journal entry. There won't be much of me left after this. The fungi are eating me alive. I imagine I'll be reduced to a pile of bones that are covered with overgrowth. What a tragic end to the Fairy King and his domain. As I look out the window, I can see my subjects suffering and dying. They perish even faster than I do because they do not have my strength. My strength is waning, though. I haven't got much left in me. Just enough to write a few more words…
I wish to say I'm sorry. From the bottom of my heart, I'm sorry. I have failed as a Fairy King. I was trusted to be a protector of the forest yet I went and destroyed a significant part of it. I hope that the next Fairy King is wiser than me. If there will even be one. With the kingdom now gone, something may rise from the ruins, but we may also end up extinct. I don't know what the future holds.
This concludes my final entry. May whoever finds this journal share my stories. Including this very horrible one. All of Lorebloom should know the fate they will meet if they annihilate a Great Tree. Do this and the forest will mercilessly retaliate. The forest can and will get rid of you.
Farewell, world. It's been an honor.
Our Darkest Desires
By: @DarkMoon
Word Count: 957
Chosen Theme(s): Change and Parasitism
Chosen Format: Short Story
Life is funny! "No, it's not." Yes, it is! I groan inwardly at this voice arguing with me. "There is nothing funny about any of this." But the voice inside chuckles as I shake my head. What you are about to do is very foolish. It whispered, but I didn't care as I sat down in front of the camera recorder. Blood coated the front of me, my eyes cool as I remained in the chair in the middle of my CEO's office. Ever since this change, I'd been trying to think of how to end this. Sadly, I held no answers, yet.
"Hello, My name is Veronica Carlston, I know any who view this video may find it shocking. But I will continue to do this until it comes to an end. As I stated from my first victim...I'm not human, not anymore. I can practically visualize this twisted thing inside me. My new half as the monster that turned me called it. I'd read stories, and even seen movies about humans having dark twisted versions of themselves that most kept locked away. To be honest, despite what I'd been put through during middle and high school I thought I was a decent person.... Turns out I've been lying to myself this entire time. At the age of 29 I have been granted the truth of this world...that there are things we humans...oh excuse me 'you' humans know nothing about. I'd say it would be scary if I weren't one of the worst monsters within it now. We go by the name of Devourers, but in human terms, we are nothing but twisted murderers. If I were to explain how I ended up this way, I could only relate it to some of the theories within zombie movies. A virus takes hold, twisting what was once human into a mad man-eating monster. However, the scariest part in all of this...we don't become the undead or mad. At least not in the sense you may know when it comes to those zombie movies. In fact we don't even change appearance-wise, we only become night and day of ourselves. The darkness inside of us becomes alive, ready to bite, torture, and even eat the flesh of whatever has set us off.
Sadly, I have no control over this other half. I have tasted the flesh of another person before. If you couldn't guess from the unsightly blood bath behind me...it has happened again. I will say that not every set-off is trivial, sometimes it is an instinct to end someone's foul behavior. The person I have killed tonight is the CEO of my company, he had been hitting on every female within our company and tonight he tried to take things a little too far. He found out the hard way, I was the wrong woman to do such with." A smile crossed my bloodied lips, as my bright blue eyes seemed to darken, "I must admit, deep inside a part of me enjoyed the moment my teeth sank into his throat. The gurgling sounds as he choked on his blood. Yes, it was well-earned. Oh, don't think that he died quickly. No..." Now it was the darkness within me talking, as my hand reached over to grab a small portion of his guts. I ate them on camera, deep down I wanted to vomit, but right now...on camera, it wasn't me. No, that monster had taken over and the taste of his blood on my tongue made me moan as I savored it. This was not what I wanted. This hadn't happened when I did the first recording. The sound of this creature using my face to slurp up more of this man's organs made me shiver internally as I fought to gain control.
She chuckled aloud, "Ah...don't worry. I'll return your body to you soon. But first I wanted to add my own section in this video of hers." She used my body, standing and walking towards the camera closing in, "You see me? By the time any of these videos get anywhere. This sweet half of Veronica Carlston will be dead. I'll hold the full reigns over her body. Do you know what's worse? Why she was told we were the worst monsters alive?" An eerie grin crossed my bloodied face, as my eyes held a faint red glow within them that reflected off the lens. "We can't be killed...not easily that is. But I'd never share how to kill us... Don't worry though, we won't cause the extinction of the human race...after all, you guys make for the best meals. I have to admit her attempts to get the word out and trying to find our weaknesses have been cute. But as you'll see...she won't remember this bit. And her tapes...It's convenient how she 'forgets' about them. I'll see you all in the next video, until then stay delicious." As the red hue vanished I found I was in control once again, but a frown filled my face as I held the camera.
"Why am I holding it..." I asked myself in confusion, my mind feeling clouded with pain. You were done. "I am?" I feel the pain from a headache rolling in, something new that had started happening after all this. So I turn off the camera and store the tape in my bag. I know I should review it once I get home, but I feel far too tired. A chuckle echoes in my mind and I groan, leaving behind the mangled body and mess so I can go home and pack my things to move...again.
By: @DarkMoon
Word Count: 957
Chosen Theme(s): Change and Parasitism
Chosen Format: Short Story
Cannibalism (Kinda)
Life is funny! "No, it's not." Yes, it is! I groan inwardly at this voice arguing with me. "There is nothing funny about any of this." But the voice inside chuckles as I shake my head. What you are about to do is very foolish. It whispered, but I didn't care as I sat down in front of the camera recorder. Blood coated the front of me, my eyes cool as I remained in the chair in the middle of my CEO's office. Ever since this change, I'd been trying to think of how to end this. Sadly, I held no answers, yet.
"Hello, My name is Veronica Carlston, I know any who view this video may find it shocking. But I will continue to do this until it comes to an end. As I stated from my first victim...I'm not human, not anymore. I can practically visualize this twisted thing inside me. My new half as the monster that turned me called it. I'd read stories, and even seen movies about humans having dark twisted versions of themselves that most kept locked away. To be honest, despite what I'd been put through during middle and high school I thought I was a decent person.... Turns out I've been lying to myself this entire time. At the age of 29 I have been granted the truth of this world...that there are things we humans...oh excuse me 'you' humans know nothing about. I'd say it would be scary if I weren't one of the worst monsters within it now. We go by the name of Devourers, but in human terms, we are nothing but twisted murderers. If I were to explain how I ended up this way, I could only relate it to some of the theories within zombie movies. A virus takes hold, twisting what was once human into a mad man-eating monster. However, the scariest part in all of this...we don't become the undead or mad. At least not in the sense you may know when it comes to those zombie movies. In fact we don't even change appearance-wise, we only become night and day of ourselves. The darkness inside of us becomes alive, ready to bite, torture, and even eat the flesh of whatever has set us off.
Sadly, I have no control over this other half. I have tasted the flesh of another person before. If you couldn't guess from the unsightly blood bath behind me...it has happened again. I will say that not every set-off is trivial, sometimes it is an instinct to end someone's foul behavior. The person I have killed tonight is the CEO of my company, he had been hitting on every female within our company and tonight he tried to take things a little too far. He found out the hard way, I was the wrong woman to do such with." A smile crossed my bloodied lips, as my bright blue eyes seemed to darken, "I must admit, deep inside a part of me enjoyed the moment my teeth sank into his throat. The gurgling sounds as he choked on his blood. Yes, it was well-earned. Oh, don't think that he died quickly. No..." Now it was the darkness within me talking, as my hand reached over to grab a small portion of his guts. I ate them on camera, deep down I wanted to vomit, but right now...on camera, it wasn't me. No, that monster had taken over and the taste of his blood on my tongue made me moan as I savored it. This was not what I wanted. This hadn't happened when I did the first recording. The sound of this creature using my face to slurp up more of this man's organs made me shiver internally as I fought to gain control.
She chuckled aloud, "Ah...don't worry. I'll return your body to you soon. But first I wanted to add my own section in this video of hers." She used my body, standing and walking towards the camera closing in, "You see me? By the time any of these videos get anywhere. This sweet half of Veronica Carlston will be dead. I'll hold the full reigns over her body. Do you know what's worse? Why she was told we were the worst monsters alive?" An eerie grin crossed my bloodied face, as my eyes held a faint red glow within them that reflected off the lens. "We can't be killed...not easily that is. But I'd never share how to kill us... Don't worry though, we won't cause the extinction of the human race...after all, you guys make for the best meals. I have to admit her attempts to get the word out and trying to find our weaknesses have been cute. But as you'll see...she won't remember this bit. And her tapes...It's convenient how she 'forgets' about them. I'll see you all in the next video, until then stay delicious." As the red hue vanished I found I was in control once again, but a frown filled my face as I held the camera.
"Why am I holding it..." I asked myself in confusion, my mind feeling clouded with pain. You were done. "I am?" I feel the pain from a headache rolling in, something new that had started happening after all this. So I turn off the camera and store the tape in my bag. I know I should review it once I get home, but I feel far too tired. A chuckle echoes in my mind and I groan, leaving behind the mangled body and mess so I can go home and pack my things to move...again.
En Oino, Aletheia
By: @Doctor Jax
Word Count: 1,971
Chosen Theme(s): Parasitism and Abandoned
Chosen Format: Short Story
Theodoros of Attica watched from the edge of the market as the potter Israchos screamed at the feet of his sister.
The youth was on his knees, eyes level with her ankles as she dangled from the tree in the agora. Israchos clutched her calves with digging fingernails, eyes up to her bulging face, the rope tight around her neck. Other men approached to drag Israchos from her, but he fought them off like a dog guarding his master's corpse.
"Third in so many days," Protocléis muttered beside Theodoros, scratching a balding head.
"My wife fears waking to one of our girls in the yard next," the younger man murmured, fingers in his thick, dark beard.
"How old are they?"
Theodoros nodded a white face toward poor Chrysanthe being cut down. A maiden, in the prime of flowering. His skin chilled, despite the morning sun. Israchos clutched her hand, his face buried into it.
"Bury all the rope you have," Protocléis proclaimed, in ill humor.
He had a beautiful wife, beautiful children. Standing in the doorway to the courtyard, he watched his oldest daughter tell some story of another girl's escapades to Fanókleia as she watered flowers. His youngest sat at her mother's feet to have her golden hair braided.
The lines around Fanókleia's eyes deepened with every glance to their girls.
His eyes stole to the tall tree in the yard. Theodoros' hands itched for an ax.
"How many more?!" Theodoros yelled over the cacophony of gathered men. "How many?!"
The council hall was mayhem. Voices clambered one over the other for supremacy inside the amphitheater-like space of white stone, the noon sun shining through the pillars onto the masses of scared animals in their ignorance doing what they could to protect their young.
"Some disease of the mind has plagued these young women!" one shouted.
"Murder! It's a murderer!"
"Menekleídes says his daughter would never kill herself! She was betrothed!"
"A curse!"
"And what are we to do about it, then?!" Theodoros boomed. The crowd, at last, ebbed in its chorus. "Why not bring it before a priestess? To tell us if this is the work of gods or men?"
There was a hush, the rabble now a rumble. Theodoros saw the assembly's mind working, a flock finally coming to rest in the eaves. Another girl had been found hung up, of only fifteen summers. Menekleídes was adamant she had kissed him good night and said no more.
Theodoros' daughter had been friends with her, said she was happy, content with her betrothal.
"To Apollo's priestesses, then," Theodoros called, "shall we take this matter."
The temple of Apollo shone bright in the evening sun, with a view of the bay far below. Theodoros took a shuddering breath before the door.
What if this was the work of a god? Not a curse, not a man, not a spirit?
Would Athens have a single virgin left?
He knocked, and a young woman cracked open the door.
"Yes? Your business?"
"On behalf of the Bouleuterion, I need Priestess Ilaria."
"She is busy--"
"It's about the maidens."
The young priestess paled. She immediately led him toward an altar under the watchful eye of a statue of Apollo, where Ilaria stood, back turned, an aged woman with graying, long hair bound from a lined face, but her hands adroit as she took a knife from an acolyte.
"Ah, you've arrived," Ilaria said. Gripped in an uncaring hand by the scruff on the altar, a lamb bleated, cries echoing in the hall. She slit its throat, and the lamb kicked its feet in throes, gurgling. Theodoros swallowed.
"You already knew I would be coming."
"Of course. This is the fourth, one per girl."
"And what did you see, Priestess?"
Ilaria ignored him, busy opening the lamb from sternum to hip. To his shock, blood did not pour onto the altar, but something thinner and smelling strongly of alcohol.
In ropes, she pulled the entrails from the lamb, inspecting each organ. Ilaria hesitated once naught was left but the heart. At last, she reached inside the lamb again. Her face scrunched in disgust finding what she sought.
She pulled from the lamb a heart that wriggled in her palm. Sewn through its flesh, white worms writhed, the heart full to bursting. Ilaria tossed it back on the altar, where it kicked with parasites.
"Like the other three," she spat. "Something eats the heart of Athens. An evil has been done, but what, I know not."
"But it's cause? What is the cause?" Theodoros insisted, looking down at the slain lamb, fleece soaked purple-red.
Ilaria washed her hands, and still she smelled like liquor, fumes watering her eyes.
"The rage," she plodded, "of a god."
At the well, Ermióna hurried. It was getting dark, but she had not drawn water for the day, and her mother would be furious. She had not meant to talk so long with Sosias, and truly she cared not a jot for horse races, yet he entranced her talking of them nonetheless. Brushing brown locks from her face, she hauled up her pot.
"Here, allow me."
Ermióna looked up to a man beside her. Surreally, she noted his clothes were strange - leopard skin draped over a shoulder, peplos askew, leaves in his hair - yet felt no certain way about them. He had no beard, a youth. Her head swam as she looked into his eyes, dark and tunneling. She handed him the pot obediently, and he settled it against a hip.
At his touch the water turned deep red.
She should not talk to a man alone. Somewhere, her mother's voice railed she knew better. She tried to say 'thank you,' but her words slurred. The evening became fuzzy. He stroked her cheek with his free hand, and she let him.
"Sweet Ermióna. It's a shame. But it was a shame for her, too. And I cannot let that stand."
He smiled, but his eyes continued to tunnel, like holes into the dark, or the neck of a bottle. She didn't understand, but she didn't need to. Everything was buzzing and gold.
"Pick up that rope, would you?"
Walking across the yard, the stranger watched as the girl tossed the rope over the limb of a tree.
Theodoros feared the dawn, his courtyard window, his elm tree. Fanókleia had not argued when he burnt every rope in his home.
This had to end. They had angered a god — well, gods could be placated.
At Apollo's door, he pounded the wood. Behind him, others with the assembly yelled their own demands.
A fifth girl had been found near the well.
But not his, thank the gods. Even as he beat their door.
"Open up! Gods damn you!"
A wild-eyed priestess opened the door, and Theodoros simmered, seeing her disheveled appearance. Recognizing him, she dragged him alone inside, barring the others despite their protest, leading him deep into Apollo's enclave in silence. At last, at a bolted door, she explained, "Priestess Ilaria has been communing since last night. But she cannot hear us. When she hears the gods, she is deaf to men."
She opened the door, and smoke rushed from the entrance. Theodoros waded in, Ilaria's form barely visible where she rocked and groaned.
"… she hangs abandoned, faithful to her father, joining him in death! Who will bury Erigone, who should avenge Icarios, who! Who! Is there no justice?" she asked. "Party is all Athens, defiling hospitality! Worms in the vine's root!"
Ilaria grappled him in frenzied hands, and he jumped.
"The dog knows. Maera will not rest until his master does. She rots like grapes too long on the vine. Cut her down," Ilaria begged. "Bring him the murderers to the body they made."
"What murderers?" Theodoros asked, futile. "To who?"
Ilaria's head whipped to follow something. Theodoros almost saw a canine outline, and Ilaria ran after it out the door. With a yell, he followed her, the elderly priestess dashing after something he could barely see, a heat shimmer with four legs.
He thought he heard a bark.
Half Athen's men tried to follow Ilaria in her mad dash out the city. A quarter kept up, the mad priestess beating bloodied bare feet into the country. They reached the forests, swallowing-dark, and an eighth fell away. Theodoros helped Ilaria over log and branch to keep pace.
And then, they were there.
Theodoros recoiled at the stench in the clearing, men murmuring amongst themselves. On the ground, a man's body lay — several parts, heaped together and worm-infested, buried so shallow as to show through his grave dirt. Another body, female, hung by the neck from a tree over him, swollen and gray. Underneath her, a dog's corpse likewise, but skeletal, starved to death.
Icarios, Erigone, and Maera.
It was not enough to bury the three. Men asked across Attica of Icarios. A famous vintner, some reported, from the east traveling with daughter and dog. He was to teach in Athens, others heard.
He never made it there.
They would never have found the shepherds who saw him last had Theodoros not spied three dogs' corpses in front of the inn they stayed at. They claimed it was an accident, his wine so potent they lost their wits and killed him. We panicked, they said. You abandoned him to rot, Theodoros spat.
In the clearing, Theodoros and the men of Athens stood with the three murderers before three graves. It was dusk, the gloaming filling the air with gold.
"What are we waiting for?" Protocléis asked, and Theodoros shushed him.
In truth, he did not know, only following Ilaria's instructions. The shepherds twitched at every noise. The trees rustled, Erigone's rope swaying with the wind. As the sun dipped beneath the horizon, a figure stepped out of the woods opposite, a youth in a leopard skin, ivy in his hair and black-eyed, carrying a fennel staff wound in vines topped by a pinecone. The woods grew heavy with darkness. Hundreds of shining eyes stared behind him, set in the silhouettes of maybe-women, maybe-beasts.
"So Athens does believe in justice," he said.
"Are we to mete punishment? Or you?" Theodoros asked, skin prickling.
"I shall. Your work was… sufficient."
The youth came forward and raised his staff, and the shepherds writhed on the ground, clawing their skin. Only to their eyes, white worms rose in their flesh, wriggling deep into their bones, between the layers of their skin. They rent their faces where they felt them slide between their teeth, in their scalp, through their tongues. Under their eyelids, into their noses, the worms burrowed. Their guts roiled, bursting full, every orifice their home.
To the innocent, they were simple shepherds driven insane.
"As worms ate my friends in death," the god said, "so shall they eat you in life. None may kill them - Thanatos will fetch them instead."
He ignored their begging, instead turning to the graves. Raising his staff, he spoke a word so sonorous, it clattered inside Theodoros' bones, made his vision quake. From the graves, silent, white light exploded and blinded him, and he almost missed them streak into the sky to find their new homes in the firmament. The men quailed onto their knees, prostrated save for Theodoros, struck dumb.
The youth walked to Theodoros, who shook in place. The wails of the guilty filled his ears, staring into the twilight eyes of one of the gods. The youth touched Theodoros upon the forehead with his staff, a dribble of wine staining him.
"Good or bad, I repay. My thanks," the youth said. "Theodoros-- drink wine, and know the truth."
Stepping over the writhing bodies of the guilty mad, Dionysos ambled back into the forest, and the shining eyes all closed pair by pair, leaving them alone.
By: @Doctor Jax
Word Count: 1,971
Chosen Theme(s): Parasitism and Abandoned
Chosen Format: Short Story
Suicide and Body Horror
Theodoros of Attica watched from the edge of the market as the potter Israchos screamed at the feet of his sister.
The youth was on his knees, eyes level with her ankles as she dangled from the tree in the agora. Israchos clutched her calves with digging fingernails, eyes up to her bulging face, the rope tight around her neck. Other men approached to drag Israchos from her, but he fought them off like a dog guarding his master's corpse.
"Third in so many days," Protocléis muttered beside Theodoros, scratching a balding head.
"My wife fears waking to one of our girls in the yard next," the younger man murmured, fingers in his thick, dark beard.
"How old are they?"
Theodoros nodded a white face toward poor Chrysanthe being cut down. A maiden, in the prime of flowering. His skin chilled, despite the morning sun. Israchos clutched her hand, his face buried into it.
"Bury all the rope you have," Protocléis proclaimed, in ill humor.
***
He had a beautiful wife, beautiful children. Standing in the doorway to the courtyard, he watched his oldest daughter tell some story of another girl's escapades to Fanókleia as she watered flowers. His youngest sat at her mother's feet to have her golden hair braided.
The lines around Fanókleia's eyes deepened with every glance to their girls.
His eyes stole to the tall tree in the yard. Theodoros' hands itched for an ax.
***
"How many more?!" Theodoros yelled over the cacophony of gathered men. "How many?!"
The council hall was mayhem. Voices clambered one over the other for supremacy inside the amphitheater-like space of white stone, the noon sun shining through the pillars onto the masses of scared animals in their ignorance doing what they could to protect their young.
"Some disease of the mind has plagued these young women!" one shouted.
"Murder! It's a murderer!"
"Menekleídes says his daughter would never kill herself! She was betrothed!"
"A curse!"
"And what are we to do about it, then?!" Theodoros boomed. The crowd, at last, ebbed in its chorus. "Why not bring it before a priestess? To tell us if this is the work of gods or men?"
There was a hush, the rabble now a rumble. Theodoros saw the assembly's mind working, a flock finally coming to rest in the eaves. Another girl had been found hung up, of only fifteen summers. Menekleídes was adamant she had kissed him good night and said no more.
Theodoros' daughter had been friends with her, said she was happy, content with her betrothal.
"To Apollo's priestesses, then," Theodoros called, "shall we take this matter."
***
The temple of Apollo shone bright in the evening sun, with a view of the bay far below. Theodoros took a shuddering breath before the door.
What if this was the work of a god? Not a curse, not a man, not a spirit?
Would Athens have a single virgin left?
He knocked, and a young woman cracked open the door.
"Yes? Your business?"
"On behalf of the Bouleuterion, I need Priestess Ilaria."
"She is busy--"
"It's about the maidens."
The young priestess paled. She immediately led him toward an altar under the watchful eye of a statue of Apollo, where Ilaria stood, back turned, an aged woman with graying, long hair bound from a lined face, but her hands adroit as she took a knife from an acolyte.
"Ah, you've arrived," Ilaria said. Gripped in an uncaring hand by the scruff on the altar, a lamb bleated, cries echoing in the hall. She slit its throat, and the lamb kicked its feet in throes, gurgling. Theodoros swallowed.
"You already knew I would be coming."
"Of course. This is the fourth, one per girl."
"And what did you see, Priestess?"
Ilaria ignored him, busy opening the lamb from sternum to hip. To his shock, blood did not pour onto the altar, but something thinner and smelling strongly of alcohol.
In ropes, she pulled the entrails from the lamb, inspecting each organ. Ilaria hesitated once naught was left but the heart. At last, she reached inside the lamb again. Her face scrunched in disgust finding what she sought.
She pulled from the lamb a heart that wriggled in her palm. Sewn through its flesh, white worms writhed, the heart full to bursting. Ilaria tossed it back on the altar, where it kicked with parasites.
"Like the other three," she spat. "Something eats the heart of Athens. An evil has been done, but what, I know not."
"But it's cause? What is the cause?" Theodoros insisted, looking down at the slain lamb, fleece soaked purple-red.
Ilaria washed her hands, and still she smelled like liquor, fumes watering her eyes.
"The rage," she plodded, "of a god."
***
At the well, Ermióna hurried. It was getting dark, but she had not drawn water for the day, and her mother would be furious. She had not meant to talk so long with Sosias, and truly she cared not a jot for horse races, yet he entranced her talking of them nonetheless. Brushing brown locks from her face, she hauled up her pot.
"Here, allow me."
Ermióna looked up to a man beside her. Surreally, she noted his clothes were strange - leopard skin draped over a shoulder, peplos askew, leaves in his hair - yet felt no certain way about them. He had no beard, a youth. Her head swam as she looked into his eyes, dark and tunneling. She handed him the pot obediently, and he settled it against a hip.
At his touch the water turned deep red.
She should not talk to a man alone. Somewhere, her mother's voice railed she knew better. She tried to say 'thank you,' but her words slurred. The evening became fuzzy. He stroked her cheek with his free hand, and she let him.
"Sweet Ermióna. It's a shame. But it was a shame for her, too. And I cannot let that stand."
He smiled, but his eyes continued to tunnel, like holes into the dark, or the neck of a bottle. She didn't understand, but she didn't need to. Everything was buzzing and gold.
"Pick up that rope, would you?"
Walking across the yard, the stranger watched as the girl tossed the rope over the limb of a tree.
***
Theodoros feared the dawn, his courtyard window, his elm tree. Fanókleia had not argued when he burnt every rope in his home.
This had to end. They had angered a god — well, gods could be placated.
At Apollo's door, he pounded the wood. Behind him, others with the assembly yelled their own demands.
A fifth girl had been found near the well.
But not his, thank the gods. Even as he beat their door.
"Open up! Gods damn you!"
A wild-eyed priestess opened the door, and Theodoros simmered, seeing her disheveled appearance. Recognizing him, she dragged him alone inside, barring the others despite their protest, leading him deep into Apollo's enclave in silence. At last, at a bolted door, she explained, "Priestess Ilaria has been communing since last night. But she cannot hear us. When she hears the gods, she is deaf to men."
She opened the door, and smoke rushed from the entrance. Theodoros waded in, Ilaria's form barely visible where she rocked and groaned.
"… she hangs abandoned, faithful to her father, joining him in death! Who will bury Erigone, who should avenge Icarios, who! Who! Is there no justice?" she asked. "Party is all Athens, defiling hospitality! Worms in the vine's root!"
Ilaria grappled him in frenzied hands, and he jumped.
"The dog knows. Maera will not rest until his master does. She rots like grapes too long on the vine. Cut her down," Ilaria begged. "Bring him the murderers to the body they made."
"What murderers?" Theodoros asked, futile. "To who?"
Ilaria's head whipped to follow something. Theodoros almost saw a canine outline, and Ilaria ran after it out the door. With a yell, he followed her, the elderly priestess dashing after something he could barely see, a heat shimmer with four legs.
He thought he heard a bark.
Half Athen's men tried to follow Ilaria in her mad dash out the city. A quarter kept up, the mad priestess beating bloodied bare feet into the country. They reached the forests, swallowing-dark, and an eighth fell away. Theodoros helped Ilaria over log and branch to keep pace.
And then, they were there.
Theodoros recoiled at the stench in the clearing, men murmuring amongst themselves. On the ground, a man's body lay — several parts, heaped together and worm-infested, buried so shallow as to show through his grave dirt. Another body, female, hung by the neck from a tree over him, swollen and gray. Underneath her, a dog's corpse likewise, but skeletal, starved to death.
Icarios, Erigone, and Maera.
***
It was not enough to bury the three. Men asked across Attica of Icarios. A famous vintner, some reported, from the east traveling with daughter and dog. He was to teach in Athens, others heard.
He never made it there.
They would never have found the shepherds who saw him last had Theodoros not spied three dogs' corpses in front of the inn they stayed at. They claimed it was an accident, his wine so potent they lost their wits and killed him. We panicked, they said. You abandoned him to rot, Theodoros spat.
In the clearing, Theodoros and the men of Athens stood with the three murderers before three graves. It was dusk, the gloaming filling the air with gold.
"What are we waiting for?" Protocléis asked, and Theodoros shushed him.
In truth, he did not know, only following Ilaria's instructions. The shepherds twitched at every noise. The trees rustled, Erigone's rope swaying with the wind. As the sun dipped beneath the horizon, a figure stepped out of the woods opposite, a youth in a leopard skin, ivy in his hair and black-eyed, carrying a fennel staff wound in vines topped by a pinecone. The woods grew heavy with darkness. Hundreds of shining eyes stared behind him, set in the silhouettes of maybe-women, maybe-beasts.
"So Athens does believe in justice," he said.
"Are we to mete punishment? Or you?" Theodoros asked, skin prickling.
"I shall. Your work was… sufficient."
The youth came forward and raised his staff, and the shepherds writhed on the ground, clawing their skin. Only to their eyes, white worms rose in their flesh, wriggling deep into their bones, between the layers of their skin. They rent their faces where they felt them slide between their teeth, in their scalp, through their tongues. Under their eyelids, into their noses, the worms burrowed. Their guts roiled, bursting full, every orifice their home.
To the innocent, they were simple shepherds driven insane.
"As worms ate my friends in death," the god said, "so shall they eat you in life. None may kill them - Thanatos will fetch them instead."
He ignored their begging, instead turning to the graves. Raising his staff, he spoke a word so sonorous, it clattered inside Theodoros' bones, made his vision quake. From the graves, silent, white light exploded and blinded him, and he almost missed them streak into the sky to find their new homes in the firmament. The men quailed onto their knees, prostrated save for Theodoros, struck dumb.
The youth walked to Theodoros, who shook in place. The wails of the guilty filled his ears, staring into the twilight eyes of one of the gods. The youth touched Theodoros upon the forehead with his staff, a dribble of wine staining him.
"Good or bad, I repay. My thanks," the youth said. "Theodoros-- drink wine, and know the truth."
Stepping over the writhing bodies of the guilty mad, Dionysos ambled back into the forest, and the shining eyes all closed pair by pair, leaving them alone.
Halo Effect
By: @Orionis
Word Count: 1991
Chosen Theme(s): Abandoned, Change, Parasitism
Chosen Format: Short Story
It's so bright.
The house was a tomb, deathly still and silent. I writhed under the weight of my blankets and sheets. The moonlight that poured through my window was like a pale, sickly serpent, slithering over my skin and wrapping itself around my throat.
The light seemed to have a life of its own, piercing me with an unyielding glare. It felt like a thousand razor-sharp needles were being driven into my flesh, tearing through muscle and sinew. I arched my back, my torso contorting as the pain tore through my sternum and shattered my ribs.
A scream built in my throat, but what emerged was a gurgling choke as my mouth filled with a viscous, metallic fluid. My body spasmed against the bedsheets, kicking and bucking like a wild steed. The pain was unbearable– it was as if someone had poured bleach down my throat.
The smell of copper and freshly-spilled entrails filled the air. I gagged on it, on the blood in my mouth. A choked cough sent fluid erupting from my mouth, covering the edge of the bed and the floor beneath it.
Poor little Erela.
I… was always so sick, wasn't I? Daddy said it was a sickness, that I should be grateful I didn't remember all the pain.
"Be good, and you'll get better," he'd say with that serious look on his face, like he's trying to brand the words into my skull. I want to be good. I want him to love me. I nod. If I do what he says, he'll always love me, right?
He sprinkles "medicine" into my dinosaur oatmeal. The flecks shimmer under the warm kitchen lights, like radioactive confetti. Each spoonful burns down my throat, leaving a trail of bitterness that lingers long after the bowl is empty.
Once, he told me they'd help me stay strong enough to go to school, to be just like the other kids. "Education is important," Dad declares, tapping my head with yesterday's newspaper. The sound echoes hollowly, as if my skull were empty. When he hands me the comics, my eyes widen, drinking in the colors that seem to writhe and twist on the page.
Mom once said my eyes reminded her of tiger lilies. But her gaze held something else – fear? Recognition? She was... eclectic, Dad would say. Her paintings haunt the walls, dried paint like ridges of some alien landscape. I trace them with trembling fingers, half-expecting them to come alive under my touch.
Liora, my sister, loved to drag a brush softly through my hair. "It's like having my own kitten," she'd say, stroking the top of my head. That's love, isn't it? If she finds me endearing, that means she loves me. The books she sneaks to me say so. Romance, poetry, even kiddie horror—ones she says to only read around Halloween. She doesn't know I devour them, that I let each story slip into my dreams like drops of ink into water.
I lifted my hand to the moonlight. The flesh was pale and translucent, dark blood sluggish beneath my nails. I flexed its fingers, and they creaked, skin crackling, joints popping like brittle twigs. A strange, fleshy arachnid wriggling in the dark.
A faint buzzing grew in my ears, rising through my arms until it seeped in, pressing behind my eyes like a second heartbeat. I tried to swallow, but my throat had already begun to swell.
I touched my cheek, rubbing my fingers across cheekbone. Skin hung loose, thin like damp paper, almost... empty. Was this what beauty was supposed to be? Spotless yet fragile, like an aging bisque doll?
Beneath my fingers, something squirmed. Muscles rippled under my skin, contorting my lips into a grimace. I caught sight of my irises in the reflection of my window; a strange orange-yellow, flecked with brown dots.
I thought of my mother then, of her warm hand cupping my face, her voice a murmur of "tiger lilies." She used to sit me at her vanity, laughing softly as she painted me a smile, her fingers delicate as butterfly wings against my skin.
But now my cheek felt thin and dead, like wet paper stretched too tight. My mouth filled with a hot, metallic taste, wet and sticky, as my vision blurred and my head lolled to the side. It hurts. It hurts. I want mom. Daddy…
The buzzing wove itself through my bones, sinking deep, threading into my marrow. The cold beneath my skin sharpened and hollowed, like something was carving out pieces of me.
What strange sickness is this?
But this wasn't an illness anymore—it was emptiness. I felt a hollow ache spreading, an empty shell to be pulled back to sea.
When I woke again, I was somewhere else.
The air was thick with the stench of gasoline and something cloying. Almost… Sweet.I waited for nausea to come, but my body didn't seem to react to it. I was sitting in the front seat of a car. Large, hairy hands gripped the wheel. My hands.
I tried to turn my head. My joints creaked and popped as if they were made of old, dry wood; my skin tight and stretched like a worn-out rubber mask. Pieces of flesh were peeling away in gray flakes as I struggled to move. [I[Where… Am I?[/I]
I reached up, my fingertips pressing into my cheek. Digging at it, the rot soft and yielding like damp clay. The skin sloughed away in strips, exposing raw, wet patches beneath. A large section of my face released with a damp, sickening pop, clinging to my fingers as I pulled away. A part of me shuddered. Is this even real?
The handle of the car door bit into my palm as I pushed it open, my hand slipping on itself. I tumbled out, legs folding beneath me, knees hitting the ground with a dull thud. I caught sight of an aging man's face in the side mirror. It was mottled with different colors, unshaven cheeks sagging and split with sores. Something… moved in them. I didn't want to know. His eyes looked strange, as if they'd been injected with milk.
I couldn't look any longer.
My hair hung around my face, limp and streaked with something thick and dark, sticking to my temples. I reached up, trying to smooth it down as I walked out of the garage's side door, each step stiff and dragging. My skin felt brittle, stretched tight, and where I brushed it, little flakes drifted down, catching the sunlight as they drifted to the ground.
I shuffled onto the lawn, my kneecaps shifting like marbles in a bag. They knocked together with a hollow, brittle sound. Ahead of me, I saw the lights on over a familiar front porch—home. Safety. Warmth. Compassion.
A wet warmth dripped down my cheek, catching on a thin, red vein that dangled from the edge of my lip, like something I'd chewed through without noticing. Daddy would know how to fix it. He could fix anything.
I needed them. They'd love me even now; they had to. My skin was pulling tighter, tearing at the corners of my mouth, a strange smile twisting my lips as I took one more step, then another.
"Liora!" I called, my voice a cracked whisper, strange and garbled as it crawled up from my throat. But I could see her. Liora, my sister, standing on the other side of the lawn, frozen, staring at me with wide, horrified eyes.
I tried to smile at her, tried to wave, but my arm lifted in a jerk, fingers curling inward. "Liora," I whispered, voice breaking. She screamed.
Across the lawn, her face twisted, mouth stretching open in a soundless wail. Her hand clamped over her mouth. She turned and ran toward the house and I followed with my feet dragging through the grass, stumbling forward in a rush of panic. She couldn't leave me. They couldn't leave me.
From inside, I heard another scream, higher, shriller. My mother's voice pierced the air, echoing off the walls of the house. Her voice, my name.
My stomach twisted as something thick and warm slithered up my throat, coiling through my mind. It blotted out the scream in my head as I lurched forward. "Mom," I gasped. It felt as though I were trying to speak around shards of glass. "It's me. I came back, see?"
Liora was already gone, the door slamming shut behind her. My mother's scream rose from the house in long, broken cries. I stumbled to the front steps, grasping for the handle. The metal handle was rusted and pitted, and my fingers dragged helplessly across it, leaving behind smears of blood that shimmered in the sunlight. The edges dug into my skin, creating ragged tears and revealing the raw, pink flesh beneath.
Inside, I could see my father clutching Liora, holding her as she trembled, her head buried against his chest. My mother was on the floor, bent over something, her hand trembling as she stroked blonde hair slick with dark, congealed stains. Will you hold me too, mommy?
I could hear her voice through the window, faint and muffled, calling my name over and over, her words a slow, broken lullaby spilling from her mouth in choked, panicked sobs.
"Erela…"
I was still me. They had to recognize me. If they looked, if they loved me, I could stay. I pressed my face to the glass, as close as I could, feeling the hard surface dig into my cheekbone, my skull, until I thought it might split. If I could just reach a little further, if I could push through... "I'm still good… I'm still me," I whispered, my voice brittle as it scraped past my lips, "and they'll still love me, right?"
My mother kept sobbing over the limp form on the floor, her hands shaking as she touched its cold cheeks. My father clutched Liora tighter, his face pale and fixed on the window, his gaze transfixed by the rotting thing that stared back at him—me. His lips moved, his mouth forming words I couldn't hear. A face drained of recognition.
"Be good, and you'll get better."
Dad's voice echoed in my head, filling every hollow part of me until it was all I could hear, pressing me closer to the glass, as if I could somehow press myself back into their love. I just had to be good, and they'd still love me, wouldn't they? I couldn't feel anything as I pulled my face away from the window, little yellowed clumps of fat dangling from the flesh I'd left behind.
I wanted to touch their faces like I used to, feel the warmth of their hands in mine. My hand pressed harder, my knuckles leaving pulpy, gray smears against the glass, skin slipping off in slick, damp patches as I tried to push through. A faint, brittle crack echoed in my skull, a splitting feeling deep inside; as though something within me was breaking, splitting open from the inside out.
I wasn't enough for them. But I could be. I just had to get closer, just had to show them.
I slid down the door, the wood cold against my cheek, loose patches of skin peeling away as I clawed weakly at the door. My vision blurred, clouded with blood and darkness, but I imagined I could still see them through the glass, their outlines soft and warm. I tried to smile, lips pulling back over teeth sticky with dark clots.
"Please," I whispered, my voice splintering as it left me, "I'm still here. I'm still me."
But the sound was lost in the thick, wet rasp of breath rattling in my chest, drowned out by my mother's quiet, broken sobs and Liora's quivering cries. And slowly, as darkness pressed in, something deep inside of me—something small and frail and Erela—quietly slipped away.
By: @Orionis
Word Count: 1991
Chosen Theme(s): Abandoned, Change, Parasitism
Chosen Format: Short Story
Child Illness/Death, Suicide, Body Horror
It's so bright.
The house was a tomb, deathly still and silent. I writhed under the weight of my blankets and sheets. The moonlight that poured through my window was like a pale, sickly serpent, slithering over my skin and wrapping itself around my throat.
The light seemed to have a life of its own, piercing me with an unyielding glare. It felt like a thousand razor-sharp needles were being driven into my flesh, tearing through muscle and sinew. I arched my back, my torso contorting as the pain tore through my sternum and shattered my ribs.
A scream built in my throat, but what emerged was a gurgling choke as my mouth filled with a viscous, metallic fluid. My body spasmed against the bedsheets, kicking and bucking like a wild steed. The pain was unbearable– it was as if someone had poured bleach down my throat.
The smell of copper and freshly-spilled entrails filled the air. I gagged on it, on the blood in my mouth. A choked cough sent fluid erupting from my mouth, covering the edge of the bed and the floor beneath it.
Poor little Erela.
I… was always so sick, wasn't I? Daddy said it was a sickness, that I should be grateful I didn't remember all the pain.
"Be good, and you'll get better," he'd say with that serious look on his face, like he's trying to brand the words into my skull. I want to be good. I want him to love me. I nod. If I do what he says, he'll always love me, right?
He sprinkles "medicine" into my dinosaur oatmeal. The flecks shimmer under the warm kitchen lights, like radioactive confetti. Each spoonful burns down my throat, leaving a trail of bitterness that lingers long after the bowl is empty.
Once, he told me they'd help me stay strong enough to go to school, to be just like the other kids. "Education is important," Dad declares, tapping my head with yesterday's newspaper. The sound echoes hollowly, as if my skull were empty. When he hands me the comics, my eyes widen, drinking in the colors that seem to writhe and twist on the page.
Mom once said my eyes reminded her of tiger lilies. But her gaze held something else – fear? Recognition? She was... eclectic, Dad would say. Her paintings haunt the walls, dried paint like ridges of some alien landscape. I trace them with trembling fingers, half-expecting them to come alive under my touch.
Liora, my sister, loved to drag a brush softly through my hair. "It's like having my own kitten," she'd say, stroking the top of my head. That's love, isn't it? If she finds me endearing, that means she loves me. The books she sneaks to me say so. Romance, poetry, even kiddie horror—ones she says to only read around Halloween. She doesn't know I devour them, that I let each story slip into my dreams like drops of ink into water.
I lifted my hand to the moonlight. The flesh was pale and translucent, dark blood sluggish beneath my nails. I flexed its fingers, and they creaked, skin crackling, joints popping like brittle twigs. A strange, fleshy arachnid wriggling in the dark.
A faint buzzing grew in my ears, rising through my arms until it seeped in, pressing behind my eyes like a second heartbeat. I tried to swallow, but my throat had already begun to swell.
I touched my cheek, rubbing my fingers across cheekbone. Skin hung loose, thin like damp paper, almost... empty. Was this what beauty was supposed to be? Spotless yet fragile, like an aging bisque doll?
Beneath my fingers, something squirmed. Muscles rippled under my skin, contorting my lips into a grimace. I caught sight of my irises in the reflection of my window; a strange orange-yellow, flecked with brown dots.
I thought of my mother then, of her warm hand cupping my face, her voice a murmur of "tiger lilies." She used to sit me at her vanity, laughing softly as she painted me a smile, her fingers delicate as butterfly wings against my skin.
But now my cheek felt thin and dead, like wet paper stretched too tight. My mouth filled with a hot, metallic taste, wet and sticky, as my vision blurred and my head lolled to the side. It hurts. It hurts. I want mom. Daddy…
The buzzing wove itself through my bones, sinking deep, threading into my marrow. The cold beneath my skin sharpened and hollowed, like something was carving out pieces of me.
What strange sickness is this?
But this wasn't an illness anymore—it was emptiness. I felt a hollow ache spreading, an empty shell to be pulled back to sea.
When I woke again, I was somewhere else.
The air was thick with the stench of gasoline and something cloying. Almost… Sweet.I waited for nausea to come, but my body didn't seem to react to it. I was sitting in the front seat of a car. Large, hairy hands gripped the wheel. My hands.
I tried to turn my head. My joints creaked and popped as if they were made of old, dry wood; my skin tight and stretched like a worn-out rubber mask. Pieces of flesh were peeling away in gray flakes as I struggled to move. [I[Where… Am I?[/I]
I reached up, my fingertips pressing into my cheek. Digging at it, the rot soft and yielding like damp clay. The skin sloughed away in strips, exposing raw, wet patches beneath. A large section of my face released with a damp, sickening pop, clinging to my fingers as I pulled away. A part of me shuddered. Is this even real?
The handle of the car door bit into my palm as I pushed it open, my hand slipping on itself. I tumbled out, legs folding beneath me, knees hitting the ground with a dull thud. I caught sight of an aging man's face in the side mirror. It was mottled with different colors, unshaven cheeks sagging and split with sores. Something… moved in them. I didn't want to know. His eyes looked strange, as if they'd been injected with milk.
I couldn't look any longer.
My hair hung around my face, limp and streaked with something thick and dark, sticking to my temples. I reached up, trying to smooth it down as I walked out of the garage's side door, each step stiff and dragging. My skin felt brittle, stretched tight, and where I brushed it, little flakes drifted down, catching the sunlight as they drifted to the ground.
I shuffled onto the lawn, my kneecaps shifting like marbles in a bag. They knocked together with a hollow, brittle sound. Ahead of me, I saw the lights on over a familiar front porch—home. Safety. Warmth. Compassion.
A wet warmth dripped down my cheek, catching on a thin, red vein that dangled from the edge of my lip, like something I'd chewed through without noticing. Daddy would know how to fix it. He could fix anything.
I needed them. They'd love me even now; they had to. My skin was pulling tighter, tearing at the corners of my mouth, a strange smile twisting my lips as I took one more step, then another.
"Liora!" I called, my voice a cracked whisper, strange and garbled as it crawled up from my throat. But I could see her. Liora, my sister, standing on the other side of the lawn, frozen, staring at me with wide, horrified eyes.
I tried to smile at her, tried to wave, but my arm lifted in a jerk, fingers curling inward. "Liora," I whispered, voice breaking. She screamed.
Across the lawn, her face twisted, mouth stretching open in a soundless wail. Her hand clamped over her mouth. She turned and ran toward the house and I followed with my feet dragging through the grass, stumbling forward in a rush of panic. She couldn't leave me. They couldn't leave me.
From inside, I heard another scream, higher, shriller. My mother's voice pierced the air, echoing off the walls of the house. Her voice, my name.
My stomach twisted as something thick and warm slithered up my throat, coiling through my mind. It blotted out the scream in my head as I lurched forward. "Mom," I gasped. It felt as though I were trying to speak around shards of glass. "It's me. I came back, see?"
Liora was already gone, the door slamming shut behind her. My mother's scream rose from the house in long, broken cries. I stumbled to the front steps, grasping for the handle. The metal handle was rusted and pitted, and my fingers dragged helplessly across it, leaving behind smears of blood that shimmered in the sunlight. The edges dug into my skin, creating ragged tears and revealing the raw, pink flesh beneath.
Inside, I could see my father clutching Liora, holding her as she trembled, her head buried against his chest. My mother was on the floor, bent over something, her hand trembling as she stroked blonde hair slick with dark, congealed stains. Will you hold me too, mommy?
I could hear her voice through the window, faint and muffled, calling my name over and over, her words a slow, broken lullaby spilling from her mouth in choked, panicked sobs.
"Erela…"
I was still me. They had to recognize me. If they looked, if they loved me, I could stay. I pressed my face to the glass, as close as I could, feeling the hard surface dig into my cheekbone, my skull, until I thought it might split. If I could just reach a little further, if I could push through... "I'm still good… I'm still me," I whispered, my voice brittle as it scraped past my lips, "and they'll still love me, right?"
My mother kept sobbing over the limp form on the floor, her hands shaking as she touched its cold cheeks. My father clutched Liora tighter, his face pale and fixed on the window, his gaze transfixed by the rotting thing that stared back at him—me. His lips moved, his mouth forming words I couldn't hear. A face drained of recognition.
"Be good, and you'll get better."
Dad's voice echoed in my head, filling every hollow part of me until it was all I could hear, pressing me closer to the glass, as if I could somehow press myself back into their love. I just had to be good, and they'd still love me, wouldn't they? I couldn't feel anything as I pulled my face away from the window, little yellowed clumps of fat dangling from the flesh I'd left behind.
I wanted to touch their faces like I used to, feel the warmth of their hands in mine. My hand pressed harder, my knuckles leaving pulpy, gray smears against the glass, skin slipping off in slick, damp patches as I tried to push through. A faint, brittle crack echoed in my skull, a splitting feeling deep inside; as though something within me was breaking, splitting open from the inside out.
I wasn't enough for them. But I could be. I just had to get closer, just had to show them.
I slid down the door, the wood cold against my cheek, loose patches of skin peeling away as I clawed weakly at the door. My vision blurred, clouded with blood and darkness, but I imagined I could still see them through the glass, their outlines soft and warm. I tried to smile, lips pulling back over teeth sticky with dark clots.
"Please," I whispered, my voice splintering as it left me, "I'm still here. I'm still me."
But the sound was lost in the thick, wet rasp of breath rattling in my chest, drowned out by my mother's quiet, broken sobs and Liora's quivering cries. And slowly, as darkness pressed in, something deep inside of me—something small and frail and Erela—quietly slipped away.
Deal With Them
By: @LuckycoolHawk9
Word Count: 550
Chosen Theme(s): Parasitism, Change, Abandonment
Chosen Format: Short Story
Nobody went to the house on the hill. They knew this for a fact, as it had been rumored to be haunted. Some claimed of distant howls in the house, screams from behind locked doors and window. It had been like that for as long as anyone could remember. It was why it was the perfect place for them to make a home. Of course, that was before.
It was on a cold night that it all changed. The air was full of the smells of the seasons, pumpkins lingering on the stoops, slowly rotting away from the holidays being over. It was then that she started to walk- no-that wasn't the right word-They knew she ran from the house. Her body bleeding from the side, a wound that looked like it belonged to a knife that had been plunged into her body and then released it.
Of course, They were sure she had heard rumors on the house on the hill. But the dangers in her own home was much too great is what They assumed. It didn't matter if there was death in the house, it was better than the life that she was currently living is what They assumed she thought
It was when the door flung open that they first saw her, a woman in need of help. Usually, they would leave such a thing alone, but the body that lingered and held them was getting old. Broken bones disjointed at angles that wouldn't set back. Blood that wasn't wiping clean. They thought that this host would last longer, but that wasn't the case. They expected the woman to scream, to try to run away. But she didn't.
She stared at Them. " What hurt you?" They asked.
" A horrible man," she replied.
"Would you like us to help you get rid of the thing that hurt you?" They asked. They were met with a shake and They slide into her body. It didn't take long before it felt that this form was wrong. It worked towards making her better, changing her.
The woman didn't scream- they never did, she had agreed to this invasion. Her bones would shift and crack . They continued to work, making her how They were
They watched as the woman became one with them. This form would fit for now and they slide out into the night, avenging the woman and then coming back to the house, covered in blood with a smile-feeling more themselves than before.
They felt the change was good for them. ….even if it did come with the cost of the woman. They moved more cobwebs to make the house seem more abandoned than it was… waiting for their next victim in the night who lost a dare, a bet or just was lost. Their favorite was the owl that lay at the center of them.
They wait….
It had already had so many….. And as it waited, it would get more, feeding on the weak, broken and stupid of humanity.
They Wait….
Could you keep reading for us?
They can come through the mind…. And They are so happy to meet you.
They hope you are happy to meet them as well.
For what great parasite could there be than a deal kept with unspoken consequences?
By: @LuckycoolHawk9
Word Count: 550
Chosen Theme(s): Parasitism, Change, Abandonment
Chosen Format: Short Story
Mentions of Abuse
Nobody went to the house on the hill. They knew this for a fact, as it had been rumored to be haunted. Some claimed of distant howls in the house, screams from behind locked doors and window. It had been like that for as long as anyone could remember. It was why it was the perfect place for them to make a home. Of course, that was before.
It was on a cold night that it all changed. The air was full of the smells of the seasons, pumpkins lingering on the stoops, slowly rotting away from the holidays being over. It was then that she started to walk- no-that wasn't the right word-They knew she ran from the house. Her body bleeding from the side, a wound that looked like it belonged to a knife that had been plunged into her body and then released it.
Of course, They were sure she had heard rumors on the house on the hill. But the dangers in her own home was much too great is what They assumed. It didn't matter if there was death in the house, it was better than the life that she was currently living is what They assumed she thought
It was when the door flung open that they first saw her, a woman in need of help. Usually, they would leave such a thing alone, but the body that lingered and held them was getting old. Broken bones disjointed at angles that wouldn't set back. Blood that wasn't wiping clean. They thought that this host would last longer, but that wasn't the case. They expected the woman to scream, to try to run away. But she didn't.
She stared at Them. " What hurt you?" They asked.
" A horrible man," she replied.
"Would you like us to help you get rid of the thing that hurt you?" They asked. They were met with a shake and They slide into her body. It didn't take long before it felt that this form was wrong. It worked towards making her better, changing her.
The woman didn't scream- they never did, she had agreed to this invasion. Her bones would shift and crack . They continued to work, making her how They were
They watched as the woman became one with them. This form would fit for now and they slide out into the night, avenging the woman and then coming back to the house, covered in blood with a smile-feeling more themselves than before.
They felt the change was good for them. ….even if it did come with the cost of the woman. They moved more cobwebs to make the house seem more abandoned than it was… waiting for their next victim in the night who lost a dare, a bet or just was lost. Their favorite was the owl that lay at the center of them.
They wait….
It had already had so many….. And as it waited, it would get more, feeding on the weak, broken and stupid of humanity.
They Wait….
Could you keep reading for us?
They can come through the mind…. And They are so happy to meet you.
They hope you are happy to meet them as well.
For what great parasite could there be than a deal kept with unspoken consequences?
Without this, there is nothing
By: @strangeatlas
Word Count: 1837
Chosen Theme(s): Parasitism
Chosen Format: Short Story
I feel as if my whole life, I was searching for something. Something! Now, somehow, I've found it, in the middle of outer space, with you.
"Maybe you didn't know how to look," he says, and stretches an arm around me to pull me closer. "Maybe it was I who found you."
I think the universe is what brought us together.
We're sitting on the floor of the aft part of the ship, leaning up against one of the few portholes looking out on the spatter of stars of deep space. More stars shine through that tiny porthole than I could have ever imagined in my life.
Now I wonder, we're supposed to be moving so fast, but it's all so still. I can't help but feel like we're not even moving at all.
"We're crossing such a vast distance," he explains, "we could stare at it for a century and never notice a change."
The universe is boundless, and somehow we end up on the same ship.
"I know," he rests his cheek on my head while his arms cradle me. "There are billions of people in stasis here, and yet somehow, it was us that happened to wake, and at the same time."
Am I really awake? I look up and smile.
He smiles back. "A waking dream."
Time has passed. I don't remember how much.
I'm alone now, walking along one of the thousands of bridges that web the massive hull of the ship. Everywhere around me is darkness except for a thin glow of light from an LED on my headband. I see a handful of bulbs that are suspended by cables from unseen girders, and inside each bulb is a person, asleep, in stasis. I know that in the darkness, there are billions suspended like this, but as I walk, only the bubble of light feels real to me.
It is quiet. Silence is good. Silence means normal. Silence means efficient. You need those things in deep space. If I stop and hold my breath, the only sound in my ears is the thump of my heart, the creak of my joints shifting from imperceptible motions, and the occasional gurgle of my stomach. Everything outside is silent, still, and frozen, everything, that is, except us.
I remember that I was looking for something. I was looking for the reason I am awake.
I stop walking, my glance caught by the sight of a face obscured by hoary ice that has formed over a window on a pod. The face in the chamber is blue and still and the eyes are open as if he is dead.
"Do you ever wonder what really happens when you are in stasis?" His voice echoes through the unseen depths of the ship.
Sometimes I really think you can read my mind.
"Medically speaking, you are dead," I hear him say, and footsteps approach from the bridge behind me. "Who's to say you don't really die, and your soul departs. Then, when you wake, does your soul really come back?" A faint outline of him appears at the edge of my bubble of light, dressed in something white, like the coat of a surgeon. "And if your soul doesn't return, what makes you any different from, say, a machine?"
He begins to walk towards me, but somehow he's not getting any closer. The illusion is making my eyes water. I take off my glasses to rub my eyes.
Well, what if the way it works is this: maybe whatever controls your body, your consciousness or whatever, is your soul, so then, when you wake, of course your soul is still there because your brain is still there.
"There's plenty of things in our body we don't control."
I finish rubbing my eyes, and he's gone.
"Some of those things, in their way, control us."
I stride back, to look where he went. The darkness yields nothing.
"And what really constitutes our body anyway?" His voice floats in the air. "Plenty of things live inside us but they aren't really us—it all seems so… ill-defined."
I think your body is the collective of living things working together to survive. Whatever bonds to you, depends on you and you depend on it, that's you.
"So then, there needs to be a kind of mutual benefit? A symbiosis?"
Yeah, so like, a parasite wouldn't be a part of you.
Everything is quiet for a moment.
"But if we are unsure exactly what is you and what isn't you, then how can you say who benefits who?"
I'm not really sure. This is confusing, and I'm not really sure how we got stuck on this philosophical point. I wanted to talk about going back into deep stasis. There isn't any food on this ship. We'll starve.
"I keep telling you, we have plenty of food to eat."
There's a red glow a few rows down along the passageway. A fire is burning, and something is sizzling, something that sets my mouth watering.
There's no food on this ship. What could he be cooking? I'm not sure I want to look, but my stomach is twisting in a knot, and I realize just how dizzy with hunger I am.
I clutch my stomach and work my way towards the red flame just past a row of pods. The light of the flame flickers. It rises and falls. It's the most alive thing I have seen on this ship.
Past the row, the bridge connects to a wide platform that is lit in the center by the fire. In the center is a small kitchen with a stovetop burner. He stands before it, back towards me, and now I can see the surgeon's coat is really a long apron that is draped over a white shirt and pants. A table is set out with two chairs and a plate and a fork for each of us. His back is to me and he is flipping two pieces of something on a pan as flames lap up from the top of a burner.
I'm watching from the edge of the platform and I don't understand why a kitchen would be found anywhere on this ship. Abruptly, he shuts off the flame. Now the only light is from my LED, and his movements are shrouded in darkness. I see him take the pan to the table and place a piece of something on each plate. He takes off his apron and hangs it on a chair, sits, then pushes the chair opposite out from the table with his foot.
I walk to the empty chair, and lower myself down, and let myself see what has been served. On each plate is a single, rather large piece of cauliflower. I find myself studying it with my dim little light.
The cauliflower head is framed just a little off center of the plate in a thin puddle of cooking oil that is flecked in black, charred pieces. A thick stem rises from the oil and separates into an infinity of branches which dive into the shadows of the head. The clusters of buds cast shadows upon fractal patterns, rising up in spirals to a singular point, the multitude of self-repeating shapes seemed to promise to an avid explorer the depth of detail that rivaled an entire galaxy. Next to the plate, the steel fork lay on the table, brutal and simple.
"Go on and eat, I know you are hungry."
I look up, and he is waiting expectantly. His hand lies on his fork.
I take my fork, lift it and slide its prongs deep into the flesh. I lift it to my eyes. I feel liquid. A tiny stream of fluid drains from the fork, down the handle and to my finger. I look closer at the place the prongs have penetrated. The fractal patterns of buds give way to a frayed edge that seems to shimmer in my headlight.
I look closer. In the far limits of what my eyes can see in the infinitesimal self repeating patterns, I see within the edge billions of dendrites writhing and flailing against the metal of the fork.
I just begin to pull away and he catches my hand. My eyes search his face, but there are no answers. He lifts my hand and forces the florette to my lips until the buds are pressed against them, and I feel the tingle of a billion tiny things moving against my skin.
I slap his hand away and the thing drops to the table.
He laughs, and I stare at him for a moment while he stuffs his entire piece into his mouth, smirking still as he chews the massive piece, open mouthed. I hear crackling and crunching as his teeth pulverize it before my eyes.
The sight and sound makes me dizzy. My hand grasps for the chair, but passes through it as I fall and hit my head on the metal grate of the floor. My leg is trembling uncontrollably. My head is in pain and throbs and the sound of crunching plays above my left ear as if from a speaker. I shut my eyes in pain and
Time is gone again. I'm somewhere else. Passing by frozen people as I crawl on a bridge. I'm dizzy. I feel pain. I'm moving. I don't know where. I wipe my mouth as I think about cauliflower. I never got to taste it. I'm so hungry.
I can see that one pod is open.
"So you really made it here after all."
The voice comes from the pod. I crawl up to the pod. I smell rotting flesh. I pull and he falls out. It's him. He is this man and he is dead. But the crunching voice still sounds behind my ear. A pressure is growing in my head behind my ear.
"Returning to our previous conversation." Crunching, crunching, eating and talking next to my ear. "If you lose your brain a little bit at a time, just the nonessential parts" he pauses to swallow, "when you think your soul finally departs?"
The pressure is building. I scratch at it, but nothing helps. The man. What does it have to do with the man? I find the spot on his head next to his ear. Hidden in his hair, my fingers slip into a large hole. They dangle inside and find nothing.
"If a parasite were to become a part of your brain, an essential part, would that mean that parasite becomes you as well?"
Next to the pod is a hammer for breaking glass. I need something. The pressure is horrible and the sound, the crunching. I take the hammer.
The voice is quiet. The crunching is gone. The hammer falls from my trembling hand, my arm exhausted from swinging. Everywhere around me is cauliflower and blood.
Why is there cauliflower? Where did it come from? I don't care. I'm too hungry.
And it tastes…
good.
By: @strangeatlas
Word Count: 1837
Chosen Theme(s): Parasitism
Chosen Format: Short Story
Cannibalism (Kinda)
I feel as if my whole life, I was searching for something. Something! Now, somehow, I've found it, in the middle of outer space, with you.
"Maybe you didn't know how to look," he says, and stretches an arm around me to pull me closer. "Maybe it was I who found you."
I think the universe is what brought us together.
We're sitting on the floor of the aft part of the ship, leaning up against one of the few portholes looking out on the spatter of stars of deep space. More stars shine through that tiny porthole than I could have ever imagined in my life.
Now I wonder, we're supposed to be moving so fast, but it's all so still. I can't help but feel like we're not even moving at all.
"We're crossing such a vast distance," he explains, "we could stare at it for a century and never notice a change."
The universe is boundless, and somehow we end up on the same ship.
"I know," he rests his cheek on my head while his arms cradle me. "There are billions of people in stasis here, and yet somehow, it was us that happened to wake, and at the same time."
Am I really awake? I look up and smile.
He smiles back. "A waking dream."
Time has passed. I don't remember how much.
I'm alone now, walking along one of the thousands of bridges that web the massive hull of the ship. Everywhere around me is darkness except for a thin glow of light from an LED on my headband. I see a handful of bulbs that are suspended by cables from unseen girders, and inside each bulb is a person, asleep, in stasis. I know that in the darkness, there are billions suspended like this, but as I walk, only the bubble of light feels real to me.
It is quiet. Silence is good. Silence means normal. Silence means efficient. You need those things in deep space. If I stop and hold my breath, the only sound in my ears is the thump of my heart, the creak of my joints shifting from imperceptible motions, and the occasional gurgle of my stomach. Everything outside is silent, still, and frozen, everything, that is, except us.
I remember that I was looking for something. I was looking for the reason I am awake.
I stop walking, my glance caught by the sight of a face obscured by hoary ice that has formed over a window on a pod. The face in the chamber is blue and still and the eyes are open as if he is dead.
"Do you ever wonder what really happens when you are in stasis?" His voice echoes through the unseen depths of the ship.
Sometimes I really think you can read my mind.
"Medically speaking, you are dead," I hear him say, and footsteps approach from the bridge behind me. "Who's to say you don't really die, and your soul departs. Then, when you wake, does your soul really come back?" A faint outline of him appears at the edge of my bubble of light, dressed in something white, like the coat of a surgeon. "And if your soul doesn't return, what makes you any different from, say, a machine?"
He begins to walk towards me, but somehow he's not getting any closer. The illusion is making my eyes water. I take off my glasses to rub my eyes.
Well, what if the way it works is this: maybe whatever controls your body, your consciousness or whatever, is your soul, so then, when you wake, of course your soul is still there because your brain is still there.
"There's plenty of things in our body we don't control."
I finish rubbing my eyes, and he's gone.
"Some of those things, in their way, control us."
I stride back, to look where he went. The darkness yields nothing.
"And what really constitutes our body anyway?" His voice floats in the air. "Plenty of things live inside us but they aren't really us—it all seems so… ill-defined."
I think your body is the collective of living things working together to survive. Whatever bonds to you, depends on you and you depend on it, that's you.
"So then, there needs to be a kind of mutual benefit? A symbiosis?"
Yeah, so like, a parasite wouldn't be a part of you.
Everything is quiet for a moment.
"But if we are unsure exactly what is you and what isn't you, then how can you say who benefits who?"
I'm not really sure. This is confusing, and I'm not really sure how we got stuck on this philosophical point. I wanted to talk about going back into deep stasis. There isn't any food on this ship. We'll starve.
"I keep telling you, we have plenty of food to eat."
There's a red glow a few rows down along the passageway. A fire is burning, and something is sizzling, something that sets my mouth watering.
There's no food on this ship. What could he be cooking? I'm not sure I want to look, but my stomach is twisting in a knot, and I realize just how dizzy with hunger I am.
I clutch my stomach and work my way towards the red flame just past a row of pods. The light of the flame flickers. It rises and falls. It's the most alive thing I have seen on this ship.
Past the row, the bridge connects to a wide platform that is lit in the center by the fire. In the center is a small kitchen with a stovetop burner. He stands before it, back towards me, and now I can see the surgeon's coat is really a long apron that is draped over a white shirt and pants. A table is set out with two chairs and a plate and a fork for each of us. His back is to me and he is flipping two pieces of something on a pan as flames lap up from the top of a burner.
I'm watching from the edge of the platform and I don't understand why a kitchen would be found anywhere on this ship. Abruptly, he shuts off the flame. Now the only light is from my LED, and his movements are shrouded in darkness. I see him take the pan to the table and place a piece of something on each plate. He takes off his apron and hangs it on a chair, sits, then pushes the chair opposite out from the table with his foot.
I walk to the empty chair, and lower myself down, and let myself see what has been served. On each plate is a single, rather large piece of cauliflower. I find myself studying it with my dim little light.
The cauliflower head is framed just a little off center of the plate in a thin puddle of cooking oil that is flecked in black, charred pieces. A thick stem rises from the oil and separates into an infinity of branches which dive into the shadows of the head. The clusters of buds cast shadows upon fractal patterns, rising up in spirals to a singular point, the multitude of self-repeating shapes seemed to promise to an avid explorer the depth of detail that rivaled an entire galaxy. Next to the plate, the steel fork lay on the table, brutal and simple.
"Go on and eat, I know you are hungry."
I look up, and he is waiting expectantly. His hand lies on his fork.
I take my fork, lift it and slide its prongs deep into the flesh. I lift it to my eyes. I feel liquid. A tiny stream of fluid drains from the fork, down the handle and to my finger. I look closer at the place the prongs have penetrated. The fractal patterns of buds give way to a frayed edge that seems to shimmer in my headlight.
I look closer. In the far limits of what my eyes can see in the infinitesimal self repeating patterns, I see within the edge billions of dendrites writhing and flailing against the metal of the fork.
I just begin to pull away and he catches my hand. My eyes search his face, but there are no answers. He lifts my hand and forces the florette to my lips until the buds are pressed against them, and I feel the tingle of a billion tiny things moving against my skin.
I slap his hand away and the thing drops to the table.
He laughs, and I stare at him for a moment while he stuffs his entire piece into his mouth, smirking still as he chews the massive piece, open mouthed. I hear crackling and crunching as his teeth pulverize it before my eyes.
The sight and sound makes me dizzy. My hand grasps for the chair, but passes through it as I fall and hit my head on the metal grate of the floor. My leg is trembling uncontrollably. My head is in pain and throbs and the sound of crunching plays above my left ear as if from a speaker. I shut my eyes in pain and
Time is gone again. I'm somewhere else. Passing by frozen people as I crawl on a bridge. I'm dizzy. I feel pain. I'm moving. I don't know where. I wipe my mouth as I think about cauliflower. I never got to taste it. I'm so hungry.
I can see that one pod is open.
"So you really made it here after all."
The voice comes from the pod. I crawl up to the pod. I smell rotting flesh. I pull and he falls out. It's him. He is this man and he is dead. But the crunching voice still sounds behind my ear. A pressure is growing in my head behind my ear.
"Returning to our previous conversation." Crunching, crunching, eating and talking next to my ear. "If you lose your brain a little bit at a time, just the nonessential parts" he pauses to swallow, "when you think your soul finally departs?"
The pressure is building. I scratch at it, but nothing helps. The man. What does it have to do with the man? I find the spot on his head next to his ear. Hidden in his hair, my fingers slip into a large hole. They dangle inside and find nothing.
"If a parasite were to become a part of your brain, an essential part, would that mean that parasite becomes you as well?"
Next to the pod is a hammer for breaking glass. I need something. The pressure is horrible and the sound, the crunching. I take the hammer.
The voice is quiet. The crunching is gone. The hammer falls from my trembling hand, my arm exhausted from swinging. Everywhere around me is cauliflower and blood.
Why is there cauliflower? Where did it come from? I don't care. I'm too hungry.
And it tastes…
good.
You did well.
I apparently don't know how spoilers work so I'll message wren
