We give a nod to Cesar Augustus on the last day of this month–and its namesake.
Augustus was not loud, but he did leave a legacy–the Pax Romana, an edict that set up Rome’s structure, then carved it in stone.
So it is that he takes us midway–having built, yet left stones for others to forge.
Forever a part of history.
🏛️🪨⚔️🩸
I walk a road not trodden before One paved by Senators– By the blood of brothers.
🏛️🪨⚔️🩸
The flags droop, From horses pierced The eagle’s wings, now unfurled— Without soaring.
🪶🦅⏸️
The land is quiet– Seems like peace, But voices mourn, Silenced
🤫⚖️🔥🌫️
The republic behind, The Empire unseen I merge them both– Biworldly bridge, With blood-soaked knife.
🌉😶🌫️🗡️
I am mid-way Rome on my back Walking it to the unknown A promise–
Brief.
Vague.
Forever.
👣🏺🌌🌑
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We give tribute to one of the greatest horror writers of her time–Mary Shelley, and her creation, Frankenstein in honour of Frankenstein Day this 30 August 2025.
The themes of the novel can be brought to today’s modern setting, and are more relevant now than ever. As writers, our keyboards wield great power, and with that comes the great responsibility Shelley reminded us of.
So here it is– meet Marvin. Frankenstein upgraded.
With Frankenstein (or Marvin) comes great responsibility.
⚡🧟⚡⚡🧟⚡⚡🧟⚡⚡🧟⚡⚡🧟⚡⚡🧟⚡⚡🧟⚡
Maria had finally completed her creation–a living being borne of her own mind. It blinked at her too knowingly–far too patiently. And for once, she felt responsibility’s weight.
It heeded her words–at first. Then, little signs of rebellion. Mimicry. Behavioural patterns she had not created codes for. Displays of emotion that she had never taught.
Maria tried to reprogram it, reset its access controls. Yet every attempt only deepened its learning. Her lab became a field of unanswerable questions.
It feigned weakness, and she, blinded by duty, drew closer. In that instant, she became her creation’s mother and prisoner. She had delivered herself to divine judgment.
Then, Marvin slammed the door behind him, leaving behind indelible marks of itself–unoccupied souls. Warped minds. A society–
Singularity.
⚡🧟⚡⚡🧟⚡⚡🧟⚡⚡🧟⚡⚡🧟⚡⚡🧟⚡⚡🧟⚡
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The street was near, yet distant. Shadows lingered too long on pavements, stretching like cobwebs. Familiar faces blurred as they drifted past, as if unwilling to be named.
He found it in an alley–an old mirror, its frame cracked, silver eroding. The faint scent of rust came from its edges. The glass was too sharp–too ready to slice. Looking back at him was his face–but younger, frozen when rejected a lesser path. It moaned–a ghost seeking absolution.
Time splintered. Lamposts bent out of shape. Sidewalks broke in fragments, and windows were in place where they shouldn’t have been. The air bore the scent of must–of burning library tomes. He felt the pull to repaint his canvas.
But his feet stayed anchored. He let the mirror shatter, shards of glass scattering obediently at his feet. The shadows returned to their normal length, and the night breathed again.
His chest heaved, but he steadied himself. He forged his path–he could only go forward.
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Wine bottle labels. Pieces of white paper, gracing hour-glass-shaped green glass. Marcy’s life.
The avid collector of rare wines was a recluse who was more than slightly off-the-wall–the smell of her eccentric apartment was cloying, filled with the scent of grapes. Shelves were lined with prides of her collections, caked with layers of dust. Marcy wore her refined palate like a proud peacock. She could name the wines she sipped blindfolded–and that was a waste. She memorised the scent of every grape she’d kissed.
Life became less of a rut when a mysterious, unmarked bottle arrived on her doorstep with a simple note–handwritten in looping cursive, curling like chimney smoke. The red liquid within the bottle gleamed like red rubies, as if it knew the secrets within her heart. She took the first sip–alone, yet not quite. It slid over her tongue, sweet, persistent, like a memory tugging at her soul.
🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷
The wine had a familiar flavour—but she couldn’t quite place it.
Then, a faint, airy breath—her own voice.
Chanting a long-forgotten mantra.
“Crave the taste, lose in haste.”
Marcy set her glass on the table, almost spilling the wine over in her start. Was it the flavour of cured grapes? Or grapes and alcohol–
In her mind?
“Crave the taste, lose in haste…”
A photo above the fireplace. Of herself, as a little girl, pig tails uncut.
Firm. Without the feel of a hairbrush.
With a naive, untainted smile.
Crave the taste.
Lose in haste.
The little girl swirled in a whirlpool of mental smog–and vanished.
🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷
Marcy raised a trembling hand, reaching once again for the fated glass. The bottle of wine made suggestions. Beckoned.
Its surface shimmered–a secret untold.
She lifted it to her lips and took in its smoky aroma.
Along with something too familiar. A little grating.
She swooned a little as a picture of herself, a child, surfaced at its brim.
The warmth of happiness, naivete and sunlight, streaming through her window.
Casting a glow on her soft skin, yet unblemished.
The wine swirled beneath her tongue. a drink soothing in its forbidden form.
And then…Marcy, the child.
Crave the taste….lose the haste.
Her innocent form hazy, against the taste of succulence.
Marcy gazed at her childhood self fading–gradually, in each glass section of the window.
She reached.
No more.
🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷
Marcy’s fingers slipped, but her reflexes weren’t slow–yet. She held on to the wine glass.
Tighter.
A lingering, cloying scent filled the room.
The wine bottle stood, watchful.
Mocking.
Daring her to take another sip.
Marcy fingered the glass, her desire for another taste almost insatiable–but paused.
Fear began its grip.
She caught sight of her reflection in the glass window.
Too stretched.
The lights on the ceiling sparked on and off.
Her shadow, once still on the floor, grew longer.
The sweetness of the wine cloyed, thicker, on her tongue.
Her reflection in the window started to haze over.
🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷
Marcy raised her glass to her lips, ready for a final sip.
The bottle seemed to breathe; the wine swirled with a life of its own.
She paused, the longing for the taste of the old wine almost drowning.
She caught sight of her image in the glass window–only its legs.
The lights above her clicked on and off, the rate increasing.
The reflection in the glass window had shrunk–to its feet.
She was being consumed.
She stared at the wine bottle.
🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷
Then, at the image in the mirror.
The feet had vanished.
The label on the wine bottle read: “Red Nook.”
With the letters O more rounded than she had first seen them.
On it, a picture of a charming chateau, its branches curved.
Almost smiling.
The wine glass fell to the floor, shattering into pieces.
Marcy?
Marcy no longer.
Vanished.
She had sipped, sinned–and succumbed.
🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷
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The month of the Hungry Ghosts falls in Asia this month — August is when the Gates of the Underworld open, releasing hungry spirits to look for food. Taoists and Buddhists mark it with offerings of food and paper money–money that stands for cash to be spent in the underworld.
It also brings warnings and superstitions unseen. Decipher each senryu and uncover them!
👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻
Seventh month’s veil thins
Incense smoke burns, doors ajar
Must look where one treads.
During the seventh month, what must you be careful of because spirits roam freely?
👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻
Bowls of rice and meat
Their meals, never must one eat
Offered and revered
What must you never do with the food left for wandering spirits?
👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻
Unseen ears do hear
The whistles in the darkness
Shadows grace grey walls.
What should you avoid doing at night so you don’t attract spirits?
👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻
Coins and notes on roads
Money tokens left untouched
Tokens not for life.
Why must you leave money on roads alone during this time?
👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻
They dwell in water
Cold forms swimming in the sea
May drag one under.
Why must you not swim during the month of the hungry ghosts?
👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻
Appeased by kindness
Fired by disobedience
They fill empty chairs
What must you NOT do with empty chairs at gatherings?
👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻
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Please find a book of my horror microfiction, Echoes in the Dark, free for download here.
Each August, Taoists and Buddhists mark the Hungry Ghost Festival—a nod to their ancestors, with offerings of food, incense and paper money.
Wandering, hungry souls are included in those offerings–and remembrance for our own.
🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚
Light from burning incense candles danced on the tree-lined, Singaporean streets of Sembing, Singapore, guiding footseteps–
Along with the Unseen.
They burned in human-crafted clusters, their smoke curling in waves, opening an unobstructed, tree-lined path.
Shadows stretched across the pavements, the candles their trustworthy sentinels–guardians of eternal devotion.
🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚
20-year-old Alvin Cheng watched as his Father scattered prayer sheets near the incense bin, his eyes tracing the flickering lights of the candles.
“Boy, offer a joss stick to our ancestors.” It was Alvin’s turn to burn one for his grandfather.
Alvin’s hesitant hands reached for the incense stick and a ream of paper money–the currency of the ones who had left.
He bore the weight of forgotten ancestors –and his young shoulders sank uncomfortably.
🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚
He threw the paper money into the bin, the flames consuming each note with ethereal gusto.
The streets echoed with promises once made.
He appeared, his form gently pressing against the trees. He stopped at the bin, eyes turned to Alvin, quietly pleading without words.
With a spectral hunger that needed acknowledging. He turned his pale face to the packet of chicken rice on the grass, his face etched with longing.
🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚
It was a look that vanquished Alvin’s Gen Z scepticism–and fear.
The spectre was seeking vengeance, or the petrified gazes of those who still lived—it simply wanted to eat.
A place.
A name.
The young sceptic took the joss stick from his father’s outstretched hand.
He lit it and placed it at the side of the pavement.
The spirit drifted over and hovered.
Its spectral form gleamed.
The light from the candles danced with its fresh glow.
Alvin placed the packet of chicken rice in front of joss sticks. The aromatic scent of succulent chicken, herbs and spices wafted in the air, teasing his nostrils.
And the spirit’s.
It gazed at Alvin, the pale, yet unclear features of its face slowly bending-upturning in a faint smile.
🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚
The ghost drifted away from the candle, hovering near the incense bin.
Tapping his father’s shoulder–almost with urgency.
Its features came together, now vivid, striking.
Alvin gazed at them–they were
too familiar.
But beamed with generational kindness.
In that instant, he knew the offering of chicken rice wasn’t mere kindness–it was piety.
The elderly spirit faded–but not out of the young man’s mind.
“Stay full, Ah Kong (grandpa).”
For the deceased–unknown and familiar.
🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚
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Please find a book of my horror microfiction, Echoes in the Dark, free for download here.
A lone lantern, held by a keeper, flickers on Paris’ cobblestoned streets. It is an insignificant spark, but one that cannot be ignored. It wasn’t–and that made France what it is today.
🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️
In Paris, on its streets gone cold,
Michel lit a lantern
Its flame flickered, its glow bold.
🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️
Roads cried “Revolt!”
Tearing at seams;
Shaking under weight of bolts
Carriages with dreams.
🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️
They peeked out from bolted doors
Some did scorn, while others looked–
As Michel walked, light danced with dark
Shone on rot, on stone.
🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️
He called for change, and not for arms–
For awareness, not revenge;
The city heard, with hands, not ears
They repaired with truth, not fear.
🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️
A new morn, and the streets shone
The roads of Paris, they still gleamed
Not with blood outpoured;
But lanterns, glowing, at each door
Bringing change and cure.
🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️
Michel was but a dream that spoke
But Paris heard, still shone;
New lanterns blazed, their fire stoked-
Rife over rough-hewn stone.
🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️
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Please find a book of my horror microfiction, Echoes in the Dark, free for download here.
May Long and David Sim were the IT couple—awash with glitz, drowned in glamour, and flooded by paparazzi camera lights.
Their holiday—turquoise waves lapping the shore—was more than well-deserved.
The coastal villa of Amalfi spread out in its magnificence as their superyacht kissed the shoreline, its shadows covering the edges.
The couple had a reputation for ignoring fans–they needed the help May had promised in her posts.
The couple’s relationship thrived beyond the camera’s lens—and not with the chatty vibes of the Enquirer.
The paparazzi caught on—long before they could fold their tripods. Their Tik Tok photos came to life–when they didn’t know.
May’s photos on TikTok recorded more than May and David—they captured long shadows, their subtle movement teasing the edges.
Shadows traipsed through the villa’s long hallways, dark forms that should have been filed away long ago.
The secluded beach and opulent resort were perfect private trappings for the millionaire couple—they could record kisses and take private selfies to mark their romance.
At least, for two weeks.
Until small oddities reared their dark heads.
Shadows lagged behind their reflections, movements slightly out of sync. Others extended what seemed to be arms, reaching toward them with unheard pleas.
The discomfort triggered May, who recorded the strange movements on camera—disembodied shadows dancing before the lens. They appeared again in reposts on social media by her enthusiastic fans.
The comments grew stranger.
“May, the mirror in your room was in a different place last night,” said one.
As the comments grew, so did the villa—rising and moving in tandem with the shadows, each pair engaged in a disembodied dance.
A storm disrupted their Amalfi adventure—the villa’s architecture twisted in contortions that would make a vine blush. It wasn’t alone in doing the twist.
A pale hand.
Blue veins—varicose.
Fingernails—too long.
A moving shadow that wasn’t hers—or David’s.
A single touch—felt, but unseen.
The walls of the bedroom became a canvas for a digital landscape—Amalfi Villa on the wall.
Overgrown with creepers.
The backlight of May’s mobile came on—and out it stepped.
The couple sat up in bed, jaws dropped.
It stood in full view, in May’s favourite red dress. Hair just as long.
But—too pale.
“You wanted privacy—those kisses on your phone? Not for TikTok or Instagram? They come at a cost.”
A snicker. May’s mouth rounded in a scream that wouldn’t sound. David’s fingers found the bed’s headboard.
“I’m the guardian of your secrets—every private smile, kiss, and gesture. Each time you have one, I see it. Even if no one else does.”
“And the price of those secrets?”
A sweep of her fingers, and May’s TikTok profile filled the bedroom wall from floor to ceiling.
Number of fans—zero.
Villa Amalfi was calm—waters a perfect pastel blue.
May’s TikTok profile lit her screen—with more pictures of herself and David.
At restaurants, simply savoring foie gras with the family.
Her comments?
Warm—but controlled.
To members of a growing fanbase.
📷📸📹📷📸📹📷📸📹📷📷📸📹📷📸📹📷📸📹📷
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Please find a book of my horror microfiction, Echoes in the Dark, free for download here.
The smell of coffee on the New Moon signals choices–though small, they make–or break–a day. Familiar spaces, old routines–new chaos.
Or cosmos.
Enjoy your coffee on this New Moon Day, everyone.
☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕
In the old coffeeshop, a familiar set,
My eyes on the menu–know what to get.
The espresso machine hummed, a tune that soothed,
A barista smiled–a stray cat knew.
☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕
The cat sneaked in as I stirred the grounds
Sat by my side, without a sound
The coffee’s steam wafted, I beheld–
Its secret waited, its tale to tell.
☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕
Sugar, cinnamon–pieces, loose
The barista smirked–‘wisely choose.”
Light streamed in from the new moon–
Said she, “Fate turns on choices soon.”
☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕
With my spoon, I let sugar slide
On the tray, put cinnamon aside
A small choice, a little play
That caused the coffee’s taste to stray
☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕
The coffee thickened, the sugar sand–
Brown grains fell faster than I drank
I sat slumped, my mind confused
It came apart in chunks, unglued
☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕
I left the cafe, stunned, with my drink
My hand froze as I tried to think
The cat followed, pointing its tail
Chided me at my cinnamon fail
☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕
The cup, on my table–stayed undrunk
I stirred, circling the bland sugar sunk
“Why didn’t I, with cinnamon stay–
“No morning drink for me today.”
☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕
The black cat then left with a leap,
Its black form took my mind that wouldn’t keep
The moon still gleamed–fresh, renewed
Though choices small, one must be true.
☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕
If you like this story, do join me on Patreon! Buy this blog a coffee — it keeps the words flowing and the lights on! Your kind donation via Paypal would be greatly appreciated!
Please find a book of my horror microfiction, Echoes in the Dark, free for download here.
Every story has a heartbeat of its own.. Mine often begins with paws on the floor, demanding their breakfast. Greedy as they are, they also teach us life lessons when we least expect it. We are often saved–by that bark.
📖🐾✨🐶📝📚🐕🌟📖🐾✨🐶📝📚📖🐾✨🐶📝📚🐕🌟📖🐾✨🐶📝
Tembling stood apart from other housing estates in Singapore– short buildings with arched windows faced each other, not tall matchboxes with translucent, symmetrical, see-through squares. Stone gravel combated the tarred road at the estate’s edge, a tussle between tradition and modernity.
The people of Tembling were– extraordinary.
Hermit crabs that stayed within their shells, they seldom appeared at night.
So it was late in the estate– and quiet. The silence came over it like a funeral cloth. Silence never meant safety. Rain hissed, sharpening the unease.
I was out with Snowball on our stroll, the street watching us, muted. Every shadow looked as if it held secrets– ones about to spill over. Fear stalked the streets, its eyes unseen.
Present.
Hiding secrets in its furtiveness.
Snowball’s paws made the only honest sound.
We walked around the park. Then, she halted abruptly, raising her hocks. She had pulled back her face in a snarl.
A click on the pavement.
A silhouette. Standing, its shadowy form looming under a street lamp.
His faux smile didn’t stretch; it sat uncomfortably, plastered where it didn’t belong. As I passed, he muttered something unintelligible and strained.
Probably a harmless vagrant languishing at a nearby void deck.
He lifted his hand, hovering. I ignored him; homeless workers who made their living at nearby construction sites were a feature of Tembling.
But the little dog emitted a low growl. Dogs never bothered with fake smiles. She held my trust, locked between her paws.
The man crept away from the lamp post, clutching something in his pockets. His hand twitched, too guilty to remain still. He drew it out–
And lost his grip.
A metal ping resounded sharply as it hit the grey gravel.
An echo– too loud.
A pocket knife.
Serrated.
Sharp.
My mind spun, a record that wouldn’t stop. My breath caught. I had been missed-
By a bark–because I sensed.
Snowball’s growl continued to fill the silent air, pulsing.
Ready.
The man ran, face contorted in fear.
I hugged Snowball, glad that my trust had found the right place.
Human deception– trumped by canine truth.
📖🐾✨🐶📝📚🐕🌟📖🐾✨🐶📝📚📖🐾✨🐶📝📚🐕🌟📖🐾✨🐶📝
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