"Fear is the swindler of reason." Ern-Geist glided smoothly from one end of the chalkboard to the other. "It is the one human instinct most prone to error."

With heavy-lidded eyes, Benjamin surveyed the classroom sleepily. His fellow spirits were slumped on their desks in varying postures of boredom, their levels of disengagement indicated by their levels of transparency. In the back corner of th...

Crumbs.

That's all Sharia could see.

Crumbs on the white upholstery of her two-week-old sofa. They stood out starkly on the pristine fabric, like vile fleas tangled in a show dog's fur.

She walked to the hallway closet and retrieved her handheld vacuum, lips pursed, teeth clenched, fingers curved into talons. More frequently every day she found her body locked into these contortions of suppress...

"I have found the only man in the world who can provide me with my every material whim, but still I wonder..." She paused. "Where is my happiness?

"For that is what I have not found. All these four decades, it has eluded me. The joy that comes with each new possession is short-lived, perishing after a few short months or, tragically, even shorter days."

She turned to the window, which was coated...

Garret was faceless in the mirror. The glare from the ceiling light reflected off the smooth surface, eliminating his features, replacing them with a blank, searing white. No matter how he positioned himself, Garret couldn’t get a glimpse of his face. It was as if the glass in front of him were absorbing his essence.

“I know you’re watching me,” Garret said aloud, directing his words to the mirro...

May 25

Jeremy,

I spoke with Alison today. She seems to be moving past the debacle at Spinster, but I don't want to make any assumptions. One month may sound long, but the mind has a way of warping time. Hours pass like minutes, months like days.

Your letter dated May 12th feels like it arrived just yesterday. How are Eliza and the baby doing? Have you chosen a name for your handsome son yet? His...

It was really too bad that humans had such a knack for storytelling. With just their words, they could make anything sound as if it were the most precious, most unobtainable thing in the universe. Often, these exaggerations would be harmless: you would only end up buying a house or a car, or marrying someone you met online and had only met three months ago.

It became worse when humans began to te...

[Currently reading Hell House by Richard Matheson]

Edith Barrett was a haunted person. When she escaped Hell House, she felt the specters following in her wake—wisps of the tortured, demented, and lonely. Donning masks of comedy and tragedy, their ghostly laughter and lament formed an ever-clinking chain that restrained Edith through her daily existence.

She thought a cruise to a distant island ...

Andrea went back down the stairs, her dejected footfalls heavy on the hollow steps. As she neared the bottom, she heard a slow, ominous creak coming from the first floor hallway. Clutching the banister, she slowly turned toward the sound and noticed a patch of light growing wider, illuminating the dark hallway. She approached the light, which was emanating from a small niche between the wall and t...

The dainty tinkle of the bell staggers across the large expanse of foyer and I look up and immediately think another infestation.

There are four of you and you all look like you don’t belong here. Because you can’t read or, if you do, you only read hardbound and only the first few pages. So you can post pictures of your aesthetic books and brag this is what I’m reading now #bookworm.

You’r...

Amelia approached the jagged rocks that were pointed at the sky like gargantuan spikes. They slanted away from a shallow crater in the mountain rock, as if a small meteor had blasted into the ground around which they congregated.

The air about them held a welcome warmth; Amelia had been traversing the cold forest for days with only a light coat to protect her from the wind, rain, and icy air. Sni...