The September Blues

September is a month of transition, when our lives become–Busyness.

Our lives can run the mill–sometimes uncontrollably. But we have to sometimes put that aside–at least, long enough to notice the little things.

Ignore the subtle–at risk.

👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️

Todd had gotten on the bus to school just a few hours earlier, and Janine was already ready to throw in the mummy towel. But it kept wrapping around her. The single mother still had to plod on– she went through her routine in the small town, trying frantically to rush through endless errands before her son returned for lunch.

The small town prided itself on its civil readiness– all citizens responded in synched time to the call of sirens. Lockdown practice was mere child’s play. Janine barely noticed the peaking decibels, chalking them up to traditions that did chaotic dances in her ears. But this sounded more—

Alluring.

Persistent.

Like a call to somewhere– unworldly.

Still, she brushed the thought aside and paid quickly for her groceries. She didn’t want to leave a little boy wailing outside her home.

This year’s call seemed–

Different. The wails refused to end.

Hurried breaths over a YouTube video broadcast.

The street emptied of her neighbours almost as quickly as it ended.

“Mommy, everyone ran home faster than the Flash.” The 11-year-old Todd whisked his head around, taking in the chaos. “What’s happening?”

“Just an extended drill, Todd. Don’t worry about it.” But her words and heart were an uneasy mismatch. The hairs on her arms stood on end–

Too straight.

She was at the cutting board, trying to execute perfect slices of cucumber, when she felt a tugging on her sleeve.

It was Todd.

Her usually stoic son’s fish was deathly pale.

He gestured wordlessly to the backyard.

A figure that at the pots of dandelion she had painstakingly nurtured from scratch.

Unmoving.

Featureless.

Hollow eye sockets.

It remained still, watching,

Janine froze herself, knife in mid-air.

The figure turned–just enough for it to catch the corner of her eye.

The sirens wailed louder.

Todd whispered, pointing. “Look Mum. It’s swaying. Like your dandelions.”

Janine’s pulse quickened–Todd.

She moved towards it, knife in a tight grip.

The figure stretched towards them. The doors creaked.

Todd pulled her back. “Not now.”

The figure tilted its head– its teeth were in a sharp snarl.

Blood seeped out of its temples.

The sirens deafened.

Janine’s breath caught. Todd.

It was fight– or flight.

The figure moved towards Todd, arms outstretched.

Janine’s knuckles were white on the knife’s grip.

Then, the siren softened.

The figure backed into the garden.

Facing them. Staring.

Todd nodded. “It moves with the call.”

The figure lingered in the garden, fixing them with an empty gaze, its presence louder than the sirens.

Not to be ignored.

👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️

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 Whispering Husk

It’s World Coconut Day, so we give credence to a fruit that is the lifeblood of the tropics. The juice within is refreshing– but tempting to a grieving heart.

Grief can consume you.

🥥🥥🥥🥥🥥🥥🥥🥥🥥🥥🥥🥥🥥🥥🥥🥥🥥🥥🥥🥥

Henri was hungry; the call of island coconuts was too strong, even at midnight. He cracked the too-soft shell with a practised swing of his axe.

It cracked open. Too quickly. And–

A tremor of recognition shivered from within.

The white liquid moved–slightly.

A faint whisper—and memory.

His grandfather’s smile. And voice.

“Henri…”

His name whispered, strained, billowing through the palms like smoke through the frigid air. The hair on his scrawny arms stood–yet, it was a sound he longed to hear.

The voice cracked with a soft plea.

“Drink deep. The only way to end the strife.”

He took a first sip, then stopped, as though guilt had sealed his lips.

The coconut water bore odd, trembling ripples– it had the pulse of something–

Living.

Waiting.

He looked at the cup towards his lips, then stopped.

And again.

Each lift brought the cup closer to his lips.

Each time the ripples grew stronger, thickening.

Shimmering.

A hush filled the room– it was pregnant with an unacceptable–yet irresistible–promise.

Henri succumbed to the husk’s call–his young form collapsed against a tree. Its branches were outstretched, waiting to catch him.

The husk trembled violently, beating like a trapped heart.

Henri stiffened. His body began to hollow. His skin–too tight, sinking inward.

Fingers– Bent. Out of place.

Something inside the husk seemed to be answering Death’s call. Henri’s fingers curled around its emptiness, its voice braiding with his into a single, indistinguishable sound.

The husk had found its echo.

🥥🥥🥥🥥🥥🥥🥥🥥🥥🥥🥥🥥🥥🥥🥥🥥🥥🥥🥥🥥

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.

A Black Rose

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.

The Gift of the Left Hand

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.

The Day the Ocean Texted

This story is a response to the alerts following the Tsunami that struck Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula yesterday.

A response to the need to tackle climate change.

Listen–when it calls.

🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊

The 2035 oceans were a crystal blue–watchful, ready to lap over unsuspecting coastal dwellers at a moment’s notice.

The waves had stopped their sentient whispers–ones they had sent out decades ago, when they had fallen on closed ears.. Now, they sent frenzied alerts.

About them drawing far back–gathering breath. Low tide came with blinking mobile screens, their owners’ soft skins still caressed by the sun.

🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊

Maia couldn’t hear the tide–she mapped waves and tide lines by touch and the skills of a well-honed nose.

The cartographer made up for what she couldn’t hear with a trait only she had–she knew the ocean.

She smelled sea salt long before waves appeared.

Its texts haunting vibrations on glass.

Their instructions.

Their warnings.

Which none heeded when she gave them.

Pish.

Tosh.

Their inane static was her countdown.

🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊

She got up on July 30th to the ping of another cryptic text.

Grainy and wavy.

“7 breaths left.”

The subtle threat pushed her to carve it it driftwood. Power was fading; cell towers were losing their stability.

The words weren’t prophecy–just the result of poor carbon footprints on the beach.

Higher ground.

She ran to it–not to escape, but to heed.

🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊

A wait of ten hours. Then, a seismic shift beneath 30 feet of water.

The sea bellowed. Then pulled back.

Hermit crabs crawling for their lives on a too-vast shore.

Then–they stuck.

Overwhelming the people Maia’s village, all in mid-prayer.

All swept away–clutching salt-screened phones.

The message: “Zero breaths. Tag. You’re it.”

There was a final ping that filtered through the clouds:

“You did not listen.”

🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊

Ten years later, in a classroom built on high ground, children examined a piece of driftwood during a science lesson.

It was hot–three degrees hotter than a decade earlier.

The teacher held up the driftwood.

“Does anyone remember Maia?”

A raised hand.

Tentative.

“Wasn’t she the cartographer who tried to tell our village about the Tsunami of 2004? It swallowed the village. No one listened.”

Then, a few whispers in the class.

” She smelled the wave before it crashed.”

Outside, a figure, unseen.

A fingertip pressed against a glass window.

The teacher’s screen pings–faintly.

“You heard–remember.”

Maps work–read them.

🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊

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 Turnstile

Treasure the moments–before they are gone.

🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇

It was a typical July afternoon in Singapore–the sort that smelt like Kopi O and a crowded train platform.

50-year-old Deanna Ling stood in place in front of the turnstile in the MRT station.

Her fingers still held warmth from her breakfast coffee, but the world around her was–

Frigid.

A moving wave of blank stares that was too cold.

She was a statue in a city that ran on milliseconds–everything moved faster than her breathing.

Her ticket wouldn’t scan–it had anchored her to the platform.

It had worked before. Before the call.

Perhaps she had tapped it a second–

Too slowly.

The turnstile gate beeped.

Again.

And again.

The line of people behind her lengthened-weaving, a line of blurred faces that refused to stop.

The light on the turnstile blinked. And the world blinked faster than the throbbing in her head.

🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇

The scenes outside the train’s windows swapped from tree to building–the Flash was running circles around them.

The whirl was a series of too-quick pants blowing in Deanna’s ears.

The train was breathing too quickly–moving too fast for her to align with its steps.

She sat in her seat, unable to move a muscle. It had left her seat– and her–behind.

The crowd in the train gathered around her, a whirlpool moving in nanoseconds.

Someone dropped a bao. No passenger noted. It disappeared faster than it hit the ground.

The train stopped.

Inertia lingered–for just a second.

A quick sigh of air, then…

A human tsunami made its way through the door.

🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇

Then–mental negatives.

Herself, in the hospital room.

The doctor’s words were a verbal blur–like the scenery outside her train.

Her mother, on a bed. Her pacemaker had stopped.

Never restarted.

They moved to the operating theatre–too fast for tears to form.

She walked out carrying her mother’s coat. Not her mother.

Her ribs gave in. She melted onto the floor.

🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇

The next human wave rushed in, along with a decibel crash.

Over her.

Someone jostled her up.

“Are you alright?” A quick whisper.

She nodded. The train had to move.

She rose, in pieces.

But able to stand.

Her legs couldn’t work. The crowd did it for her.

And it kept going.

So did she–faster than her tears.

🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇🚇

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 Dining Room

Today is Wine and Cheese day– the perfect day to celebrate our guilty pleasures.

So it is that we tell a story in its honor.

Where there is wine and cheese, a critic won’t be far behind- and he will learn– when it comes to serving judgment, time will come to taste.

🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷

Le Caveau de Minuit was a picture of ordinariness– a restaurant situated in the misty hills of a forgotten European Village bearing a name that Lisette couldn’t pronounce. The village with no name was spartan– few houses, few people, and even fewer chances to do what Lisette loved most of all– taste testing at restaurants.

Ordinary.

Maddening.

She arrived in front of the ruined door of the restaurant, ready to wield her critique’s knife and fork. She had seen and heard about such restaurants many times before– unseen guests making themselves at home at tables, floorboards that creaked under the weight of the invisible, and curtains that shut in synchrony, an eerie orchestra performing for no audience.

“There’s no fear that a good brie can’t cure.” she consoled herself, taking a tentative step through the door.

But it was small consolation. Fit to eat?

She wasn’t sure.he arrived in front of the ruined door of the restaurant, ready to wield her critique’s knife and fork. She had seen and heard about such restaurants many times before– unseen guests making themselves at home at tables, floorboards that creaked under the weight of the invisible, and curtains that shut in synchrony, an eerie orchestra performing for no audience.

🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷

She strode with confident cynicism into the sparse dining room. At the long dining table, its edges hewn and uneven, sat a motley crowd of three.

Three oddities.

Each looked-

Grave.

Yet the restaurant was no stranger to wine pairing. Pairing had been done– each of these guests sat with tailored wine and cheese.

Tailored to their quirks.

In front of Mavis was cheese–

Broken. Her wine looked–

Sour. Rancid.

The wine next to Barry was covered with film.

Unwanted froth. The cheese was like the words he spoke–

Tough.

Not chewable.

Samantha sat with wine that was–

Sweet.

Too saccharine.

And the cheese with her was–

Faux.

A sample put in a display case.

Lisette wasn’t left out. Her wine was a smoky red. Her cheese?

Veined blue.

That bled.

Ever so slightly.

The sommelier provided service– with a cryptic difference.

He spoke in riddles that an unamused Lisette dared not decipher.

The establishment had an owner– one whose presence was felt rather than seen.

Oddly felt.

Only whispering through walls.

🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷

The food came before them, each dish stranger than the last.

A dish of escargot whispered.

“Eat me,” one invited.

Grilled fish moved, writhing in pain.

“I’m burned,” it cried as it announced.

Then the guests themselves began to change.

Mavis began to shatter.

Broken.

Discouraged.

Like her cheese.

Bob’s skin hardened.

Too hard.

Wrinkled.

Flaky.

Like the cheese before him.

A white substance began to cover Samantha– she began to smell

like an overstretched bakery.

Wonderful was covered by icing sugar, way too sweet.

Lisette herself started to develop visions– visions of herself crushing a weakened soul with reviews far from rave.

White film caked her tongue.

It was dried.

Without the softening touch of water.

Her voice developed a second layer.

Too coarse.

Like sandpaper that grated when carelessly used.

🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷

Lisette recoiled as the cheese in front of her bled.

Her wine hadn’t aged.

It recalled.

The bitter beverage stung the eyes before it hit the tongue.

The cheese?

It was sour, cultured from the chefs whose careers were no more.

Ruined.

By her.

The walls with their endless whispers.

“You’ve crushed.”

“You’ve soured.”

It was the host.

Her angst-ridden soul.

🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷

Lisette bolted for the door.

Which swung shut.

Locked.

She caught sight of herself in the mirror.

With a sommelier’s apron.

Ill-fitting.

She had to serve.

A new critic.

His arrival?

Looped.

His tongue?

Cutting.

Gaps in the heart that would not close.

Like Lisette’s.

She learned a lesson that all critics someday face–when serving judgment, remember time will come to taste.

🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷

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 Smiles And Doesn’t Blink

This day–17 July–is World Emoji Day.

It’s about faces–frozen in planned expression.

It’s all about the masks we wear–

To placate.

To please.

To calm.

But do they placate, please or calm–ourselves?

🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤

Mr. Ding was that constant ghost in the neighbourhood–always smiling, in a suit so well-pressed that irons would heat up in shame. He loomed on one’s memory, like ivy weaving through windows; silent, sudden, impossible to miss. The children spoke of him, unsure whether he was waiting–about the house with lights that flashed dim, dying signals, struggling to keep time.

🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤

The air wrapped its heavy arms around Mr. Ding’s home on Halloween night, but it didn’t seem to have caught the joyfully screaming children on the street.

Still, the lights around his house flickered impatiently, almost aggressively–in slow, twisted time.

Little Liya knocked his front door, driven by candy canes and Hershey’s kisses.

Mr. Ding finally opened it—after a full half hour.

He smiled—in a thin line.

“Trick or treat,” the basket in Liya’s hands trembled.

No candy. He put something else in her hands.

A mask.

“It will keep you safe.” The chill in his eyes didn’t match his smile.

Liya grasped the mask in her hands–one that covered more than she knew

🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤

The air wrapped its heavy arms around Mr. Ding’s home on Halloween night, but it didn’t seem to have caught the joyfully screaming children on the street.

Still, the lights around his house flickered impatiently, almost aggressively–in slow, twisted time.

Little Liya knocked his front door, driven by candy canes and Hershey’s kisses.

Mr. Ding finally opened it—after a full half hour.

He smiled—in a thin line.

“Trick or treat,” the basket in Liya’s hands trembled.

No candy. He put something else in her hands.

A mask.

“It will keep you safe.” The chill in his eyes didn’t match his smile.

Liya grasped the mask in her hands–one that covered more than she knew.

🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤

Liya walked away from Mr Ding’s home, her steps anchored by an unseen weight. Halloween revellers scattered all over the path before her, walking with joy that was–

Off.

Children walked by her without a glance backwards. She was transparent glass to the adults.

And her voice? It wasn’t her own. Her mother acknowledged that with a pale face.

The mask wasn’t in her hands.

She glanced at herself in the hallway mirror.

A shriek that nearly broke it.

She made desperate clutches at her face.

No feeling.

Her smile wouldn’t disappear.

🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤

Halloween returned a year later, with Liya at home.

Her silhouette in the window.

Passersby who looked up walked past faster than their legss would carry them.

She couldn’t move. Wouldn’t– or couldn’t–talk.

But she could smile.

It was the only thing she could do.

Mr. Ding’s home no longer flickered– the pulse of the lights were even.

Satisfied.

There were knocks on Mr. Ding’s door.

Another child. Just a child.

Naively asking for treats.

At least, until Mr. Ding and Liya opened the door.

And Liya held out a tray, the permanent smile stretched across her face.

With a mask that he would wear to placate someone. Please someone. Calm someone.

But not himself.

🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤🎭🖤

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 Vacant Chair

The nondescript youth centre was where Jia wanted to work –understated, with angsty youth who needed a hand-up, not a handout.

The 33-year-old counsellor had her work cut out for her. The knives below her underprivileged charges’ feet made them bare their teeth; budget cuts made designing revolutionary programs near impossible; staff came into the workspace bleary-eyed and walking on tenterhooks.

In fear of what, Jia couldn’t understand. She stared at the vacant workspace before her.

But one name always surfaced.

Elaine.

Elaine had been the counsellor before her, now painfully absent.

The Counsellees’ favourite, not least because —

she connected.

No photos of her, no files. Her desk was empty, save for a poster board filled with Post-It notes with her signature motivational quips, the handwriting on it cursive.

Rounded.

Heartfelt.

An empty chair remained, rooted –like a full-stop no one dared to position.

🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑

The first few days at the centre were an emotional tidal wave for Jia. Her teen charges wanted another Elaine –her handwriting. Listening ears.

Heart.

They spoke of her as if she still graced the community centre’s halls —

“She told me my silence still meant.”

Elaine was not cut from the typical counsellor’s cloth. She didn’t talk at them –she talked with them. She did things that mattered.

She knew their phone numbers at the back of her hand.

She used nicknames.

She let them draw on the table with erasable ink –to vent.

She let them sit under desks —

To cry.

When they needed space.

She was a counselling welterweight –impossible to overlook.

Desperate to live up to expectations, Jia scoured through employment records –but no Elaine.

The teen’s stories didn’t match.

She was a heavy whisper –invisible but felt.

🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑

One of the centre’s regulars, Khai, had visited after hitting his mother –she had just told him about the divorce.

But it was Counsellor Jia.

Not Elaine.

Jia froze, tongue-tied.

A frazzled Khai stormed out of the room.

She sat behind her desk in the office, face wet, sobs almost strangling her.

She felt the community centre and its charges slipping through her fingers.

She remained behind her desk after everyone left, furiously typing.

“Dear Mr. Lim,

It has been a pleasure working for you. However, the teenagers who come here need someone…they know.”

She couldn’t help the ellipsis.

She later returned to the counselling room, eager to collect her counselling materials.

She didn’t find them —

Not at first.

In their place was Elaine’s chair.

With a sticky note attached.

Addressed to Khai.

“The quiet ones may not speak. But they listen. And hug.”

Dated –the next day.

🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑

She paid the director of the community centre a much-needed visit.

But not to resign.

“Mr. Lim,” Jia raised her voice –a few decibels above its usual pitch. “I need the truth.”

He glanced at Elaine’s chair for a long moment.

“Alright, young lady. I know these last weeks have been tough –we do have a handful here. You deserve to know.”

He paused.

For a long while.

“You see, there was –is — has never been an Elaine. We created her to encourage the kids, to give them someone to believe in.

“Each time she was to conduct a session, one of us would try to do something quirky –to help them connect with us. With themselves.”

He paused again.

“The kids began to create their images of her. Then, she became everything.”

Jia dropped her files.

🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑

Mr. Lim’s revelation stayed with Jia –all night.

She tossed and turned beneath her blankets.

But the lightbulb lit.

Elaine was not a fraud –she was hope. A name given to comfort in the worst moments. To build needed courage.

Jia didn’t erase her. But she did pen stickies –in Elaine’s signature rounded cursives.

She placed them under desks, in bags, under books.

From Elaine.

And one day, she received one.

Taped to her chair.

On it: “With love, from someone who needs to learn.”

Elaine –now Jia, was Care. When no one else could be.

🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑

Elaine’s empty chair remained.

Jia sat in it when she needed her inspiration.

At other times, she left it vacant. Just in case one of the teens needed to find a sticky note on it.

The room was now warm –with her memory.

She still lived, in what she thought.

In what Jia did.

The chair always felt warm.

🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑

Original story by Michelle Liew. AI tags are coincidental.

She Who Barked Once

Based on actual circumstances. Names have been changed.

Beware the website you visit – it may not welcome.

💻🐾💻🐾💻🐾💻🐾💻🐾💻🐾💻🐾💻🐾💻🐾💻🐾💻🐾💻🐾💻🐾

Tara was a sceptic –the paranormal was more than financial fodder for her blog. The horror junkie combed through bytes of data daily to keep her website thriving –debunking paranormal myths for a living.

The introverted and avid writer had few friends –save for two dogs, Mop and Cloudy. The black-and-white duo kept vigil by her side –Mop calm and loyal, Cloudy, senses tingling.

And so it was on a typical Wednesday afternoon –Tara was drawn by demonologist Lara Chong’s legacy, with Mop and Cloudy perched close by.

Lara Carter’s website opened. Then, a sudden growl.

Mop had turned to face the wall. Typically placid, she growled louder than ever.

Cloudy had joined her, teeth bared, gaze fixed on the same spot.

A photo on the wall tilted at a slight angle –but there was no wind.

Tara’s screen flickered in unseen anger –the air was an iron against her chest.

The snarling went on for a full ten minutes. Then, barking.

Unrestrained.

Angry.

The usually muffled Mop bared her white teeth in a tense snarl. Cloudy’s stretched fully across her face.

They stayed by Tara’s side that day — refusing to leave for dinner.

She slammed the laptop shut and slept with the lights on, nerves in tatters.

The placid black Mop passed some time later. In one of Tara’s dreams, a voice.

Low.

Dissonant.

“Life is always gentle and soft…”

She adopted another black dog, Zorra –but she has never barked like that since.

Tara is still the sceptic –with a twist.

She knows some websites keep. And never opens them.

After all, logic cannot explain the truths tucked away in the heart’s recesses.

💻🐾💻🐾💻🐾💻🐾💻🐾💻🐾💻🐾💻🐾💻🐾💻🐾💻🐾💻🐾💻🐾

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.