Some exhibits don’t need feeding. They just need you.Some exhibits don’t need feeding. They just need you.

🔑🗝️🚪🌑🐒🩸👁️‍🗨️🗣️🔒

By all accounts, Eli Lim loved his new job as head groundskeeper of the Whispering Pines Zoological Reserve. It suited him to perfection –there were no questions. No voices.No witnesses. Just cages and animals

But something felt—off. The security cameras around the zoo clicked. Clicked again. Buzzed. Buzzed and buzzed. Then spat static, vigourosly. They seemed to resist, then release.

He kept an eye on the cages. They watched him. 

Exhibit E? Off limits. 

The management  told him never to feed the exhibit, but never told him what it was.

The enclosure lay under Darkness’ cloak–one that shrouded curses and beings which only appeared then. Eli never stepped into it–he had no reason to.

Until the sounds began. He patrolled the grounds dutifully each night, with the ravenous animals looking forward to his rounds—and their feeds. Then came the scratching. Then, odd screeching.

Then, dissonant howling.

Meat deliveries that he received each week weren’t…in sync. They came at the wrong time, on the wrong day.

Eli had more than a few burning questions for his manager. She looked up at him as he walked through the door, greeting him with her usual friendly aplomb.

“Eli! What brings you to the catacombs?” She sounded the first syllable with relish.

Eli demurred—he didn’t need his colleagues to think of him as quirky. “Hi Rita. I was hoping that you’ll be able to tell me what’s happening with Exhibit E.”

Her smile slowly faded. “Oh. That doesn’t need feeding–it feeds itself. Do you need help with the other animals?”‘

An adroit change of subject. The other archive staff judiciously avoided eye contact. The shelves leaned forward, listening keenly. 

Well, The Lord helps those who help themselves, he thought. He browsed the archive shelves for a few much-needed answers.

Until he came across a door. A sentry. Bolted.

A faint knock. Faint. Rhythmic. Patient. 

The sounds increased in capacity—more murmuring, more twittering–and volume. The river of cacophony drove the usually stoic Eli to finally break protocol.

It drew him in on one of his routine patrols.

And he unlocked the exhibit.

All was quiet and dark. Then the murmuring began again–and rose to become a tsunami of noises that flooded the mind. 

Covering his ears, he stumbled through the exhibit, almost crashing to the floor.

In front of a pale figure. With a name tag–Night Keeper Miguel S. In a tattered zoo keeper’s attire

He raised his lowered head to meet Eli’s gaze–one with dried blood that had once streamed down its sides.

He was what happened to keepers who asked too many questions–no longer a keeper.

He stared at Eli with pleading hollows–not eyes.

“The keys….cages…”

Its bloodshot gaze fell on Eli, shifting —not from fear, but to tell Eli something.

To warn.

Eli turned to run–but a hail of lights greeted him. The other keepers had arrived.

Calm. Ready.

But Eli—Eli was ready too.

And this time, he wasn’t just holding keys. 

He gripped them harder. The cages answered. 

Eli roamed the enclosures, shepherding monkeys that refused to return to their places in the treetops.

The zoo had new exhibits–Exhibit A wasn’t off limits, but always growled:

“I won’t entertain!”

Exhibit B would greet the hoards of tourists who came in tattered pants and a torn shirt, peeking from the trees.

No longer nightkeepers–but on show.

🔑🗝️🚪🌑🐒🩸👁️‍🗨️🗣️🔒

Original story by Michelle Liew Tsui- Lin AI tags are coincidental.

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Love stays, even when illusions don’t.

🐾🌅🐾🌙🐾🌅🐾🌙🐾

Peter was quiet. He often kept to himself, but I knew that he carried something heavy in his heart. He never said what it was, but I could feel it; it was a shadow that followed him wherever he went. I wish I could chase it away for him.

I was his second pair of eyes. A nose that smelt what he couldn’t. Ears that heard the creaks behind doors that he couldn’t.

Then something began to change. I started to act funny. I knew that something was off; my tail refused to wag when I asked it to. I barked at the attic door–I just knew something was hidden. I could almost sink my teeth into it. I knew that Peter was ready to find it.

But he didn’t believe me. To him, I was just his dog–something to feed and pat, that he was responsible for. But I could see the way his eyes flickered when I nudged the drawer open. I knew I was getting to him.

He opened the drawer, and his face changed–I could see the utter surprise, the confusion. The locket his mother always wore. It was there, but it was empty. Broken. He held it in his hands. It had always been shattered, vacant. But a piece of his mother. His fingers brushed it, as though it had been waiting for a forgotten truth.

As he continued fumbling through the drawer, his fingers brushed against a simple, but curious box. Nondescript as it was, it was compelling–he picked it open with a nearby pin.

In it was a series of old photos and documents. As the photos spilled out, his face lost its colour. Each one was a silent accusation, showing Peter the father he barely knew–the older man tangled in a web of lies that shattered lives.

She had been a lady his mother had known all her life. Her confidante. They had been together when his mother was at work, unable to give his father the attention he needed, even when I was around.

Peter wasn’t the same after looking through those photographs. I could tell from the way he patted me, or walked me around the block–he just seemed–distracted.

Now, he doesn’t grip the leash so tightly. He still looks at his father’s photos, but at a man he never really knew. He’s hurt. But petting me is therapy. I could never use words–I only had my eyes, ears, and nose.

I never asked for thanks, but just being by his side helped him to face what he needed to. I was there through all the silence and pain.

His partner.

We’re watching the sunset from our backyard – me, with my head on Peter’s lap. He’s putting on his thinking cap — probably wondering why he never noticed the obvious.

Me? I only notice the well-deserved treats.

After all, I showed him that loving without strings means being there. The truth sits in the drawer, no longer a shadow, even if it’s not so tidy.

🐾🌅🐾🌙🐾🌅🐾🌙🐾

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🕯️📖🌒🖋️👁️‍🗨️💀🌩️📜🕯️

Edwin Chong. Once a celebrated novelist, now a near-silent shadow. He had retreated into his reclusive world of darkness and words. His once-strong body denied him daily now, each breath he took heavier than the last.

A dilapidated house on the outskirts of town kept him within its dark walls. Once a beautiful rosewood writer’s den, it was filled with ageing manuscripts, the bated breath of horror novels, and the cloying scent of nostalgia.

The crime writer simply couldn’t put pen to paper; inspiration wouldn’t flow, and neither would his words. He penned fewer and fewer novels; orders for them eventually disappeared. He became lost in the cobwebs of his mind, his thoughts becoming tangled with a dark notion- to write his death- was a way of rewriting his life.

The opportunity for him to recreate himself–his life–came one day in the form of a letter. Untitled, anonymous. The words crept beneath his skin- details of the symptoms of the sickness he was experiencing, down to a T. Symptoms no one knew anything about. In it was the ominous refrain:

“Recraft your ending to know what ails you.”

There was nothing to do but follow the cryptic directive. Struggling with his mental health, Edwin began to pen a novel–one where the protagonist died in mysterious circumstances.

As the novel took shape, the events followed. What he put on paper…

Manifested.

The first of the stories he wrote after receiving the letter was about a shadowy stalker who lurked outside his home. Soon after publication, a mysterious figure appeared outside his window.

The protagonist became consumed by a fatal illness. Edwin himself experienced symptoms similar to those he wrote about.

In one more, his protagonist came across an obituary of himself in the newspaper. He nearly gagged on his coffee when he saw one of his own in the Nation Times.

Things came to a head when he received a voluminous manuscript – over 50 pages that he had no recollection of–foretelling his death in bone-chilling detail.

Margaret, his long-absent sister, dropped in for an unexpected visit.

“Edwin, you know we love your writing. But writing your own death seems—unnecessary. Morbid.”

With a shrug of his shoulders, Edwin turned away, dismissing her words. Uneasy, she turned to an old family friend and detective, Rowan Lee.

He watched Edwin’s home discreetly — confrontation would only hinder. The stalker, obituary and manuscript—were eerie, but trivial enough to be mere coincidences.

As the novelist’s health continued its accelerating decline, the disease became a part of the story he was penning. Struggling with a myriad of thoughts in his head, he became convinced that his illness was part of his story–the line between fiction and death had become blurred.

The manuscript lay before him, the ink glistening as though freshly spilled. Except that he had not raised his pen in hours.

Driven by desperation, he penned his own death scene, as though the words themselves could free him from his fate. As his heart palpitated, the storm outside mirrored its rhythm. His reality had an uncanny echo.

Lightning flashed outside his window, illuminating his reflection–he was a gaunt ghost of his former self. The walls caved in, and the air became dense with the scent of old paper and something else. Something that signaled the end.

His heart hammered wildly, each throbbing beat a toll of the inevitable.

A whisper sounded from the unseen: “You wrote this.”

The clock struck midnight, and with it, Edwin Chong drew his last breath. He passed, exactly as he himself described, in circumstances that would turn one’s skin into a field of goosebumps.

Including Detective Rowan Lee. As he reviewed, he blinked.

His scepticism came apart as he put together the details of Edwin’s death. Each moment of his investigation advanced the horror story.

He had no choice but to leave the case open. He wondered–did Edwin lead himself into an early grave, or had fate intervened in the cruellest way possible?

As Edwin’s sister, Margaret, read her brother’s final words, she wondered: Had her brother created his own fate, or had it created him?

A few days later, another letter arrived, as if in answer:

“Edwin’s story is but a short chapter in a tale yet to be told.”

🕯️📖🌒🖋️👁️‍🗨️💀🌩️📜🕯️

Original story by Michelle Liew Tsui Lin

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Feelings return to those who own them.

🧠💼📄📄📄

They pay me to feel. 

This is my work. 

They hire me. 

So they feel nothing. 

I take what they avoid. 

😐➡️😶

They pay me. 

I grieve at funerals. 

I take on their denial. 

Their stress is mine. 

Assignment. 

Remorse. Anger. Fear. Regret. 

😐➡️😶

But work ends. 

My feelings do not. 

They overlap. 

Theirs and mine.

I cannot tell.

And I strain.

💔💔💔💔

No more real feelings. 

No one feels either. 

Not anymore. 

I was hired to feel love.

I was hired to feel remorse.

 I don’t know what to feel.

But they know again.

😐➡️😶

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Functioning is not the same as living.

🚶‍♀️🧹🛏️🔁⚙️😐💭🕳️💔

Not sitting, still walking.

Not lazing, still moving.

Not sleeping, still rising.

Functional, and fine.

🚶‍♀️🧹🛏️🔁⚙️😐💭🕳️💔

I still walk the dog,

I still clean the floor.

I still make the bed.

Still functioning –

Fine.

🚶‍♀️🧹🛏️🔁⚙️😐💭🕳️💔

But I stand, yet slip.

Move, yet delay.

Speak – yet pause.

Still functioning.

Not feeling.

🚶‍♀️🧹🛏️🔁⚙️😐💭🕳️💔

Still standing.

Still moving.

Still functioning –

Not fine.

🚶‍♀️🧹🛏️🔁⚙️😐💭🕳️💔

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