Oh glorious cathedral of questionable hygiene,

where the floor glistens

with substances I refuse to identify,

and the toilet paper

is thinner than my will to live.

How your automatic flush

fires before I’m even finished,

spraying me with the holy water of regret.

Blessed be the motion-sensor sink,

which turns on for exactly 0.3 seconds

and then gives up on me

like my high school math teacher.

Yo...

“You absolute toaster-brained goblin,” Carla hissed, pointing her spatula at Jeremy like it was a sword forged in the fires of domestic rage. “You folded the laundry before the dryer was done.”

Jeremy blinked, holding a half-warm towel that was somehow both damp and aggressively wrinkled. “I thought it felt dry?”

“You also thought a raccoon was a stray dog and tried to pet it, Jeremy.”

“That ra...

Mara found him again in the woods—same place as always, near the crooked tree that looked like it was about to give up and fall over but never quite did.

Eli was sitting on the big flat rock, hood up, fingers picking at the seams of his sleeves. He hadn’t heard her approach, which was rare. Usually, he knew the sound of her steps before she made them.

“You’re late,” he said without looking up.

...

Tessa read her horoscope every morning before she even checked the news. Sometimes before brushing her teeth. She followed a small astrology blog run by a woman named CelestiaMoon333, who signed each post with a star emoji and the phrase: “The universe whispers, and I translate.”

Tessa believed that.

When it said “Avoid water today, dear Pisces,” she canceled her swim class and refused to shower...

They took turns like it was a game.

Ghost stories.

Urban legends.

The kind you swear never happened,

but say them anyway

because the dark makes everything sound better.

Someone mentioned the girl in white

who waits at the edge of the lake,

asking for help with her eyes,

never her voice.

Say yes—you vanish.

Say no—you dream of drowning.

Someone else told the story

about the tall thing in the tree...

He spent twenty minutes writing it.

Scratched out the first four tries.

Settled on something smooth.

Mysterious.

Cool, but not trying to be cool.

“You seem different. In a good way.”

Underlined once.

Folded like a secret.

He waited for the teacher to turn.

Slid it across two desks.

It landed perfectly at her elbow.

She looked down.

Looked around.

Looked confused.

He panicked.

Was that the wron...

On Halloween night, every phone in town lit up at once with a photo—your own house, taken from inside, while you were asleep.

No one could trace it, no number, no account—just the caption: “You looked so peaceful. Don’t wake up next time.”

By morning, seven families were found gutted in their beds, mirrors turned inward and screens shattered into their eyes.

The town tried to cancel Halloween the ...

(I had this prompt, rewrite a classic fairy tale as if it were in a different time, but I lost it soooooo. Yeah. This is it.)

She wore the hood like armor,

not for wolves,

but for stares on subway platforms,

for whistles like claws dragging behind her.

The forest was concrete now,

its paths split by neon signs

and alleys that didn’t ask questions.

Grandmother didn’t live in a cottage.

She live...

She didn’t set fires to destroy.

She lit them to wake the sleeping things.

Old dreams buried under dust.

Walls too clean, too cold, too careful.

People called her dangerous.

They didn’t understand that some rooms

need to burn

before they can breathe.

She walked barefoot through fields of ash

and planted wildflowers in the soot.

Not everything was lost—

just what couldn’t carry the heat.

She wh...

There was no music when it broke.

Just the sound of something splitting quietly

beneath the surface.

Not bone,

but belief.

I did not scream.

The silence felt more honest.

Pain came like a teacher,

without kindness,

without pause.

It peeled away the soft parts

and left only what could survive fire.

I wanted to run.

I wanted to vanish.

But the mirror held me still—

made me watch the shift,

the un...