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Write a story about a character who can’t tell what’s real and what’s not.

Posted in Horror on Oct 31, 2022

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✍️ 80 stories

How Was The Drive?

Submitted to Contest #167

Six am sounds early to start a journey. I expected darkness, quiet, that feeling when you get up for primary school in November and the street lights are on. I forgot, however, that it was May. The sun was up and ready whilst I scrambled around with toast and unwashed hair. The quiet was certainly there, though. The fuel station was empty and the roads clear. Traffic slowly built along the way. Not traffic in the sense of delays, just more and more cars. Drivers are much calmer in the morning, by the way. It could be to do with the extra sp...

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Wet paint and gold lettering

Submitted to Contest #167

Routine never fails to surprise. A peck on my soft cheek lays a wet parting gift as my mother trips out our brightly painted door. The sunshine yellow now starting to peel and twist into wrinkles at its edge, justifying our impulsive stroke of competence of suddenly knowing how to paint weathered hardware. A hand flies into the crack of the closing door as a last wave before escaping the jaws, snapping back into the doorframe. I stand once again in stillness, eyeing the two hands printed on the door face with craft paint signing our existenc...

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The shower gel reads Feel alive

Submitted to Contest #167

The shower gel reads Feel Alive I’m dreaming. I’m walking on a sidewalk the sky is grey, and the air around me is bitterly cold. The pavement and the monolithic skyscrapers are all grey. Even my coat and clothes. I’m standing behind myself quietly observing and pondering the difference between existence and life. Is there one? More and more I find myself simply watching my existence play out before me. I have no more control over it than a couch potato watching their favourite sitcom. My consciousness has somehow faded out from the shell I...

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Forget Me Not

Submitted to Contest #167

Blue flowers grow in my windowsill. They stretch like antennas toward sunlight on the other side of the glass pane. When the window is open, the summer air delivers hints of rich soil, peach, and mandarin along with a memory I can’t entirely piece together. I don’t remember where the flowers came from, but I do know they bring me a feeling of rare nostalgia and joy, especially when I see them dancing in the breeze.  “Do you know where these flowers came from?” The woman turns and stares at me for a moment. She’s middle-aged, has bro...

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In the Dark

Submitted to Contest #167

Please be forewarned of sensitive content regarding mental health and violence that some may find triggering. In the DarkONEBlack. “...yyyyyyyy.” It buzzed inside me. “...nyyyyyy.” Darkness began to give way. “...nyyyyyy,” the noise reverberated within the expanse. And in that moment, between the hum of my name being called and the hazy depths from which I surfaced, everything changed.  My eyes opened wide and instantly I tried to lift my head. I blinked deliberately as though, if my eyes might fo...

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Fireflies

Submitted to Contest #167

They came in a crumpled sheet of printed paper, that looked like a page from one of those supermarket junk mail catalogues. Patrick laid them down on top of the coffee table and then pulled out a chair so he could sit and observe them for a while. They looked smaller than what he expected and most of them were quite damaged and bruised. He took one of them by the stem to examine it up close. The brown cap had a sad appearance of a half-closed umbrella and the stem itself seemed to be fragile, so he handled it with care, making sure he didn't...

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Magic M

Submitted to Contest #167

“Do you believe in magic?” she asked, flaunting the wild smile that had bewitched Sean since he met her, earlier that evening. She held out a closed hand toward him, palm up. On her wrist, peeking out from her coat sleeve, Sean saw part of a crucifix tattoo. He didn’t know what she was holding, but he knew that, in her hand and in her eyes, she held the answers to all the questions he didn’t want to ask.  Thirteen years later, almost to the day, as the cancer in his bones consumed him, Sean McKinney was to remember that evening he met t...

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The Old Woman

Submitted to Contest #167

The Old Woman By Christopher Galvan “Why did I agree to come in today?” she thought to herself. Meredith was starting to rethink her decision to cover Denice. If she did not need the extra money, she wouldn’t have. Then again, being a waitress in a sleepy little town wasn’t so bad. Everyone knew each other and most of the regulars tipped well. Besides, she wasn’t covering the lunch rush, so she could take it easy. This afternoon had been slow. Not a lot of customers had come in. All the busy work was finished, so most of the staff were just ...

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The Ghost of Red

Submitted to Contest #167

The sirens. The screams. The flashing fire truck lights fronting a flaming background of red-orange heat. Unbearable heat. My mother is still in there. I’ve got to save her. I feel the tightness in my throat as panic claws at the back of my neck. “Ma’am, please come with me.” I turn my head to a very concerned firefighter holding out his hand to me. Ray. The embroidery on his coat ruffled with his movements. His sandy blonde hair clung to his damp, tan forehead. He looked so young. Too young. I want to take it, his hand, and follow him t...

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Dissociated Reality

Submitted to Contest #167

“Margot. Margot!” said my mom. I snapped out of my safe space and into the great unknown.  With what felt like word vomit, I uttered, “yes - I’m sorry - what did you say?” I made eye contact with the woman behind the counter, swallowed, and felt my stomach drop as the next words came out of her mouth.  “They’re ready for you whenever you are!” she said with a smile; a grin that was somewhere in between sincere and deceiving. “Through those double doors you’ll head into the lunch room where they’ll have daily inspection.” Again wi...

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Fears and Psychosis

Submitted to Contest #167

Arachnophobia, more commonly known as the fear of spiders. It is said that roughly one in five people suffer from this fear. In some cases it just causes a slight discomfort in people when they see one of these creepy little critters crawling across their floor. In other cases, the fear is so overpowering that the person either goes into a panic attack or shuts down completely. In either case, the person can usually manage their fear, or find ways to prevent spiders from invading their private domains. But what happens when the fear becomes ...

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Ringworm

Submitted to Contest #167

Operation Ringworm—Programmed to Kill By Del Garrett Can an honest man be programmed to kill? Dexter Guidry has something under his skin that is driving him crazy. He calls them worms. They race up and down his arms, and sometimes try to leap out of his body. His doctor can't figure them out. Maybe it’s all a dream. He has strange dreams. In most of them, doctors strap him down, violate his body with harsh chemicals. Always the same doctors, same room, same alteration of his body—his arms, to be precise. In the dream, Dexter no lo...

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A Shady Brady

Submitted to Contest #167

I couldn’t recall exactly where I’d  been, but I definitely heard Mom calling all of us to dinner so I snapped out of my fog. The long table next to the family room was big enough for the entire family and it was nicely set. Even though we were made to drink milk with dinner which I didn’t like. Mom and Dad had grownup drinks it seemed. Maybe it was iced tea but I didn’t think so. I would have preferred it to milk no matter what it was.  Cindy, Marsha and I sat on one side of the table and Bobby, Peter and Greg sat on the other...

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We’ll Meet Again

Submitted to Contest #167

“You bushwhackin’ sidewinder!” Tristan Calendar shouts. He quickly surveys the grubby saloon, realizing he’s surrounded by half a dozen of Cody Dillinger’s men. “This is between you and me, not your hired shooters,” Tristan says to his foe. “Let’s settle this like gentlemen.” Dillinger reaches for his pistol. “No one’s ever accused me of bein’ one.” Tristan draws first, pointing his gun at Dillinger’s head. “All right let’s be civilized then,” Dillinger says, holding up his oversized hands. “I’m unstrappin’ my gun. You do the same, and ...

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Shadow Land

Submitted to Contest #167

 Greenville, South Carolina                                  “Where’s my kid?” The small man’s dark, handlebar mustache trembled. He leaned forward and placed his hands, palms down, onto the paperwork-littered surface of the police sergeant’s desk. “Where’s my kid?” he repeated. “I know he’s here. I need to take him home. He’s…he’s not stable.”    &n...

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