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.
The studio was dark, its walls lined with lingering mildew. Faint static buzzed through its walls, a hungry sound.
Watching.
Eli Leong was within, speaking to and adoring female fan on an ending call line.
On the rotating console was an unmarked vinyl– it had appeared almost casually.
Humming.
Ready.
Rotating.
Amid the smoke of Eli’s cigarettes.
Waiting to spin.
🎵📻🎶🎧🎵💿🎶📀🎧📻🎵💿🎶🎵📻🎶🎧🎵💿🎶📀🎧📻🎵💿🎶
Eli Leong lived in the night–he was the silky voice millennals and Gen Zs turned to when they craved nocturnal addiction. His popularity gave him a cocky edge–his voice merged effortlessly with radiowaves. Few could resist their velvetine charm–even when it smothered like a too-warm blanket.
WRAE 103.3 FM squatted at the fringes of the town, an old relic with walls bathing in mildew. Its corridors bore the perturbing scent of formaldehyde under the musty cologne of cigarette smoke. The static emitted from its studios was silence waiting to scream.
August marked a time of rising unease in Singapore– a time when the spirits of the Dead graced the walls with unresolved angst.
It was also a time when Silky Smooth Eli started having company in the studio.
And it wasn’t wanted.
Whispers beneath music tracks. Self-looping playbacks. Barely audible, as if the static was breathing.
Then, an unmarked vinyl appeared on the turntable, playing deep breaths.
Not warm or comforting.
“Who’s with you? You’re my favourite DJ! In the studio?” A call from a jealous fan.
“Absolutely therapeutic. Please arrange for a return appearance.”
Eli was shagged; he hadn’t had a day off the night shift for months. He’s been vinyls without viewing their labels.
Days of plying empty studio corridors in the dead of the night were forming Crow’s Feet and laugh lines– public relations boo boos for a famous personality.
The breathing had escalated– in contrast to his show’s ratings.
But he was not one to keep adoring fans on edge.
He spun the unmarked vinyl one evening, hoping to trigger a rash of emotion– then, conversation.
The breathing transcended into urgent, overlapping breaths.
The phones rang off the hook– some lines dead when he answered, others with distorted pleas at the end.
He got off his chair and stepped away from the console.
And it would have been fine– except that he brought the grounded mike with him.
Seared firmly to his lips.
He had become part of their hunger– their constant need for attention.
His voice resonated in unending, silky echoes.
Melding with the static.
Like him.
Eli was now part of the studio’s insatiable appetite. His voice still flowed with radio waves, echoing with the static.
But there was uncanny–
Order. Amid the chaos.
Dead line calls began to drop off, and the relentless breathing quietened.
At least, for a short while.
His spirit trapped with the console, Eli came to a realisation– the studio’s spirits thrived on attention.
Not violence.
He was now its conduit– and captive.
He stepped back from the console, the mic refusing to leave his mouth.
Always humming.
Waiting for his silky voice.
🎵📻🎶🎧🎵💿🎶📀🎧📻🎵💿🎶🎵📻🎶🎧🎵💿🎶📀🎧📻🎵💿🎶
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.
Young Nara poised her fingers over the keys, ready to launch into a version of Beethoven’s Ode To Joy that was distinctly hers—modern, upbeat, unconventional–very impatient.
Nara was known for her divaesque displays–torn curtains and damaged floorboards remained, a testimony to her quick, sometimes violent temper.
The dark concert hall enveloped her. She was alone onstage, save for the dim yellow spotlight that danced on the black and white keys.
She began.
A crescendo of arpeggios in G enveloped the auditorium. She revelled in her magic—but her fingers hovered over the keys.
The notes were almost too ethereal — melding, harmonic—
Together. With a presence she hadn’t welcomed to rehearse with her.
One that was lingering too long, exacting pressure on the keys that complemented hers.
The arpeggios had ascended with chords finished by something else.
Her eyes flicked around the hall–she hadn’t arranged for an accompanist’s recording.
She hadn’t intended a harmonised sound for Ode to Joy. This resonated.
To her–off-key. She clenched her fists, ready to bang the ivories.
🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹
The eclectic, yet dissonant harmonies drew her to the hall for practice each night–an unseen hand tweaking and melding phrases with hers. Their contrast with her legato runs had a piercing edge–far sharper than she intended to deliver as a pianist.
Each legato returned to enwrap her, a blanket that was cold–not comforting.
The music intoxicated–she swayed with it in almost drunkenness.
The duets were at first routine—but her need for them grew.
And grew–becoming obsessive. Urgent.
She pressed the ivory keys–harder.
Haunted. Her silence was full.
Her ethereal notes were not lost on her audience–the harmonic layers even more prominent.
🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹
She was faithful to her practice sessions—her unseen partner just as dutiful. They came with musical highs and lows–unforced errors, too-loud legatos, and crescendoes that went off-key when they transcended scales. They were her guide–calming her trembling fingers, shaping notes when they needed sculpting.
Her inner diva shrunk—there was less need for a tuner to repair ravaged keys. The omnipresent being kept time with her—and reined in her temper.
🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹
The day of her grand performance dawned, along with rising anticipation and expectation. Nara had nurtured her soul and talent for this–nothing could fail.
She launched into an eclectic blend of legatos and staccatos–naughty notes that sneaked in when no one expected them in a performance of Ode to Joy. The echoes of her notes crescendo—they would rise with her , a duet with an omnipresent, invisible partner.
But they didn’t.
Just as Nara held the sustain pedal to bring the Ode to a thundering climax, there was nothing.
But–silence.
She paused, eyes flickering over the hundreds of pairs in the hall staring back at her.
Not. A. Single. Note.
Then, she broke the wait.
She had quiet power in her hands. Anticipation.
Nara’s fingers climbed the ascending steps of the scale with her ‘partner’—
Resonant.
Beautiful.
Confident.
She continued gracing the ivory keys with her fingers, notes rising to that climactic crescendo, vibrating and cajoling ivory keys—in a virtual duet.
And the missing echo became the loudest note. A silent accompanist.
🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹
Nara’s concert tour ended in calls of “encore” after every performance–calls generated by a humble accompanist who melded with the hall’s velvet curtains.
She never heard from him–or her–again.
But her fingers kept tracing the keys–each time as if their presence was in perfect sync.
Her crescendoes resonated to their peak, swelling like invitations — answered by an ever-growing audience.
She played for the echo that never abandoned her–it had stood, comfortable with her talent, in the shadows.
She graced every single performance–unlike the temperamental diva that once lay within.
The absent conductor continued to mould her sound.
🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹 🎵 🎶 🎼 🎹
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.
Today is I Love My Feet Day–and we could love them a little more.
After all, they are the unsung heroes of life’s journey.
We offer our gratitude for them, and the ground beneath.
👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣
They led me through
First steps, uncertain
Barefoot through the playground
Stumbling, balancing me.
👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣
They danced me through youth
Never rsting, always roaming
In ill-fitting shoes
Yet carried me–
To Being.
👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣
They donned leather shoes
That never tore
Through endless hours
Crossing thresholds
Of love–bearing loss.
👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣
Now they wear flats
Steady, sure,
Worn, not torn.
Hiding my journey’s calluses
And scars.
I ride in them
👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣
The carriage of Life’s journey
And place my heart
In thanks
When I-
Alight
In awe.
👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣
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.
She grabbed the phone on the bedside table, her eyes bleary.
The number was too familiar. Her grandma.
But she’d been dead for months.
Her trembling fingers hovered over the answer button.
Fuzzy static.
A faint cough.
“Hope you’re doing well, grandma. But what you did–“
The phone went dead.
She checked her answering machine in the morning. Perhaps it wasn’t working. But there was no record of their call.
Just a blank screen, staring back at her.
Then, it hit. She needn’t have waited.
She hadn’t been waiting for her grandma’s voice. She’d been longing to hear her own.
🦯🦯🦯🦯🦯🦯🦯🦯🦯🦯🦯🦯🦯🦯🦯🦯🦯🦯🦯🦯🦯
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.
The waves Touch My toes As I tread Notebook In hand Pen Hovers Like waves over sand. Waiting– to catch Time. ☁️ ☁️ ☁️☁️ ☁️ ☁️☁️ ☁️ ☁️☁️ ☁️ ☁️
The birds wings Flap Walkers Drift. As I do. Like them, I ask– Did I leave— Was I too– ☁️ ☁️ ☁️☁️ ☁️ ☁️☁️ ☁️ ☁️☁️ ☁️ ☁️
Fog Covers The waves I pause. Draw– A breath. The fog Rises Ever Slowly. ☁️ ☁️ ☁️☁️ ☁️ ☁️☁️ ☁️ ☁️☁️ ☁️ ☁️
It rises– Slowly– I wonder if He was— She touched— She? Him? What of— Me? What if? ☁️ ☁️ ☁️☁️ ☁️ ☁️☁️ ☁️ ☁️☁️ ☁️ ☁️
Did she? My best– Friend? ☁️ ☁️ ☁️☁️ ☁️ ☁️☁️ ☁️ ☁️☁️ ☁️ ☁️
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.
No flower was supposed to bloom in the barren soil.
Yet, a single Black Rose blossomed every winter, its petals pressing too closely against the window of widower Bob Vance.
Eleanor Rise was a seamstress with a relationship with the dead was—
Beyond the pale.
Eleanor had a seeing eye–her left. It discerned shadows that wore gowns–not with exquisite sheer–and far from elegant.
They fit.
Like coffins.
The skilled embroiderer knew not only her craft–she understood the lost souls of those who had crossed the inevitable bridge.
🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀
Late that evening, the rose’s shadow lengthened, almost stalking, across the workshop. Candlelight flickered, forming its long shape.
A man entered Eleanor’s workshop, face covered in tears.
Bob Vance. The recent widower.
“I have something to ask, Eleanor, and I must know.” Distress was in his quivering voice.
With his distress came shadows–darkness that only Eleanor could discern.
Then, whispers.
With a frosty chill.
“You’ve tried to bring back the past, haven’t you?” Her eyes passed over him, wary.
He touched his quivering fingertips, not meeting her gaze.
Abruptly, he rose. “Thank you for your time.” An almost indiscernible mumble, and he stalked out of the room.
🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀
Bob returned to his mansion, its detailed, arched windows shuttered and shadowed.
Casting furtive glances around his garden, he planted a small thorn–one from the black rose in Eleanor’s store–and began to tend it.
It grew.
Petals, black.
Beautiful.
Thorns–unweidly. Sharp.
And whispers began.
Short. Just barely discernible.
The mirrors in Bob’s home didn’t just reflect–they came to life.
At least, the reflections within them did.
Chairs in the dining room were–
Misplaced.
As the roses’ petals drifted onto the wooden floor, there was a faint whisper.
Almost a taunt.
“You called?”
Bob’s mother, who had come to assist with his laundry, laid eyes on the dark flower.
A shrill cry.
The plate she carried clattered on the wooden floor.
🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀
Night turned to dawn in Bob’s mansion.
The whispers grew louder.
The silverware Bob laid on the table changed positions on the dining table when he laid eyes on them.
Bob had an inkling of the reasons for the events.
He tried to uproot the single black flower in his garden.
But the plant remained rooted.
Defiant.
Its petals dropped.
Protesting.
Scattering themselves across the floor–each time he cleared them.
🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀
At his mother’s insistence, Bob resigned himself to leaving the rose alone.
But he still heard whispers in the hallway.
He turned to look, expecting quiet.
After all, he’d left it alone.
But in the mirror, a face.
A stretched smile.
His.
And hers.
One.
The rose lingered in his garden, petals fiercely rooted in the soil.
Elegant.
Black.
Faint whispers.
“Still here.”
Across town, another black rose pressed against a window’s glass.
Eleanor Rise passed it with a grim nod.
Unheard, they grow.
🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀
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.
Barbed wire unravels Spools across streets Holed. Cratered. Unerasable scars Fester Mould that stays.
🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱
A child sees all Peeking through a curtain The eaves above his window Try to close. Protect. The smell of stone, Damp, Dividing.
🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱
It falls. Shatters In parts. Concrete Remains. A whole heart– Now two. Sentences, cut off Half spoken.
🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱
His eyes– Open. Eyelids raised. Time does not– Stop. She Hums his name A lullaby In a prison Beyond the wire.
🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱
Concrete Crumbled. Still hardens lost souls. In streets With patched holes. A soft lullaby Hummed.
🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱
The soft lilt trails. But then circles. With etched footprints That spool– Beyond New Wire.
🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱
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.
Today is International Left-Handed Day–a day for those who are left-handed to raise it proudly.
In a world where the right-handed steer the course.
The left hand rises when the right hand stays still.
🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️
Adam Chong sat in the back of the auditorium of Greenridge High, glad that his pale green leather jacket merged with its grass-green walls. He was glad for the distance between himself and the speaker in front; had enough of subtle bias.
His jacket.
The pale green tweed coats of the rest.
Open bias.
Taunts.
Pushes from bullies, caustic words spilling out of their mouths in a merciless fountain.
He was seen–way too much.
His left hand generated a spotlight that was way too glaring.
It mutated him. Differentiated him in a world where only the rights held sway.
Just once, he wanted to return a punch, in more ways than one.
His left hand trembled, its fingers moving with lives of their own.
Not from fear, but his defiance.
In the world of the Rights, the Lefts rebelled.
Secretly.
🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️
An abrupt block of his view.
A popular crowd of Righties sat in the seats in front of him.
Their stalwartian faces set, uniforms neatly pressed.
Priceless Go wristwatches decorating their wrists–ornaments of intimidation.
They blocked his lecturer. He needed the guru’s notes for the next day’s exam.
The group slouched in their seats casually, each a tall shadow in the darkened room.
Each surrounded his seat.
His pen twirled between his fingertips of his left hand in unspoken defiance.
Then, whispers of “leftie…leftie…”
🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️
Adam looked at his nondescript Casio, still blinking in his left hand.
He could either take it off–or suffer a beating and residual TikTok shame.
Shame he had suffered for the three years he had studied in Greedridge High.
Looks of avoidance and pity from other students in the school hall.
The first whack.
The instant, live broadcast on TikTok.
His left hand wasn’t a flaw–it was a left hook of glinting steel, waiting to strike.
One that was no longer silent. No longer afraid.
🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️
Adam stood, his small form a gripping shadow lining the pale green wall.
His Casio stayed firmly on his left hand.
The world was right-handed. He couldn’t change that.
But it could never see his left coming.
He raised it. Proud.
🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️
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.
I shift the air. It pauses. Goes still. The wind’s breath stops. Draws in. And goes silent.
💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧
Palm leaves fold in. Flat. The chirping of birds Goes unheard. My hand Is heavy.
💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧
My gust lifts. A metallic taste. My dark clouds hang Their mouths open Ready to throw.
💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧
They hold One last Breath.
💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧
Then— About to fall.
💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧
ROAR.
💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧
Never again the same– Their last drop.
💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧
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.
The Getting Literal Writing Alcove 