#writing_advice

[thesaturdaystorytellers-blog]

shintei-m asked me for some advice over on deviantart, so I answered. Here are the tips I gave her, and I thought I’d upload them for anyone here who might find them useful.

[ecotone99]

Full Disclosure

"A sign at the bottom right of the page here, another on the next page, and one more on the last one." With those words I am taken to the operating room, my pen scribbling on the documents as the nurse pushes my wheelchair in.

Two minutes later I am lying on the medical bed and the doctor is inserting a syringe into my arm, a moment later all of my body relaxes and I find myself unable to move.

It is quite a terrifying experience but I try not to panic, instead focusing on what it is going to be like to be able to walk without excruciating pain once more.

"Deep breaths, slow and steady, I will be administrating the sedatives shortly." The doctor speaks in a calm and soothing voice as he keeps moving around me, checking all of the equipment.

There is the noise of a door opening in the corner of the room, out of my field of view, then another deeper, authoritative voice speaking, "This ones a SEC-15, here's the file."

The footsteps fade away as fast as they had come.

The sound of papers being flipped fills the air for another minute.

"Fuck!" The doctor curses under his breath.

Then the doctor is again in view, looking down at me, a serious look on his face, a thin file under one arm.

He begins speaking in a monotonous tone, "As per the hospital policy we do a background check on all of our patients and we have found a two year old unpaid parking ticket under your alias which has, after identification, been deducted from your account."

I look at him confused, unable to comprehend why he would be telling me this.

"As per the documents you have signed we were permitted access to your account information and have found it now has an inadequate amount to pay in full for your surgery."

Understanding dawned on me as I realized that there would be no operation. I close my eyes shut as a sense of hopelessness envelopes me.

Unperturbed by my reaction, the doctor continues " As per the 'CARE TILL THE END ACT', we are under legal obligation to perform the operation according to its price, thus we have readjusted our procedure based upon the fee that you can afford to pay and will now be performing the operation without sedatives."

I open my eyes, looking at him in confusion, followed by disbelief and then terror as he moves the scalpel towards me.

submitted by /u/writing_advice [link] [comments] source https://www.reddit.com/r/shortscarystories/comments/fyfq3t/full_disclosure/ via Blogger https://ift.tt/2Rt5vJ9

[ecotone99]

Don't drive in the rain.

It was a stormy night, heavy raindrops pattering against the windshield, the view outside barely visible.

Thankfully I had been on this road hundreds of time, the twists and turns etched into my muscles.

When I saw the curve I was more surprised than scared, I instinctively made the wrong turn, moving too fast for it to have made a difference even if I had made the right one.

The next few moments were all blurry images, bits of pieces in the car smacking into me, something sharp hitting the area above my left eye, the sound of the windshield breaking, the view of trees spinning before me as the car flipped over multiple times.

When I regained my senses the rain was still hitting as hard as before, the wipers still moving to and fro over empty space, the pieces of broken glass scattered all across the top of my car which had now become the bottom.

I could feel pain all over my body, little cuts and lacerations everywhere. I found myself stuck in the seatbelt, drops of blood dripping to the ground below me.

I tried to press on the seat buckle latch but it had become stuck in place, unwilling to yield due to my weight pulling on the release. I tried to bend further to get a firmer grip and felt pain shoot through the left side of my body.

The car was filled with cursing for a while after that, something important was definitely broken in my body.

I moved to reach my phone which had fallen away from me onto the passenger side, more careful with my movements so as to not hurt myself any further.

As I moved the discomfort increased and I paused reconsidering whether this was such a good idea.

That's when the howling started.

I held my breath, my ears tingling in anticipation. Then I heard it again, closer now.

"Maybe its a friendly dog". I told myself, more out of fear than hope.

That's when the howling started in earnest, coming from a dozen mouths.

"Friendly dogs don't move in packs". Said the voice of reason in my head.

The howling made me throw caution to the wind and I lunged for the phone, a scream escaping my lips from the burst of pain that went through my entire body. I missed.

The animals were thrown into a frenzy from my screams and were now running faster towards my direction.

Through clenched teeth and sharp breaths I again made a lunge towards the phone, this time managing to grasp it by my fingertips.

I pulled it towards me and almost cried from the mix of pain and relief.

With shaking fingers, after three tries, I manage to dial the number of the emergency services and pressed call, the sounds of breaking branches now audible outside the car.

A message popped up on the screen and I could no longer hold back the sobs. "no signal", it said.

submitted by /u/writing_advice [link] [comments] source https://www.reddit.com/r/shortscarystories/comments/fxs05k/dont_drive_in_the_rain/ via Blogger https://ift.tt/2RohPdK

[ecotone99]

HIDE AND SEEK

"Rebecca! It can still hear you in the closet!", Jason shouted in a jovial voice.

He could imagine Rebecca cursing his name with hate but unable to say anything. The breathing in the closet had quietened down now.

A barely visible silhouette passed at the edge of the lighted area that Jason was sitting in the center of. It seemed to be about the size of a giant gorilla.

Jason could hear it tear the doors apart and Rebecca's screams abruptly cut short with a loud snap.

Then the snapping continued for the next few minutes.

Jason wondered if any one of his peers understood that they were being toyed with.

To his right he heard a can fall down. He felt quite certain that it was Sebastian, unable to move quietly with his large build.

Once more the silhouette passed before him. This time it was longer, reedy, like a slithering beast from the forest depths.

A deep voice shouting 'fuc-' before being replaced with screaming confirmed Jason's suspicions.

This time the screams and snapping sounds continued together.

"Good." Jason thought to himself.

He had never liked Sebastian.

Now Alice was the only other person that remained.

She was the only one who had always treated him with kindness.

He shouted in the direction opposite the beast," Alice! If you are hiding anywhere between the hallway and the dining room run towards the light!"

He hoped for her sake that she wasn't frozen still by fear.

Another minute passed with only the sound of jaws snapping and flesh tearing engulfing the flat.

At last he heard the footsteps skittering towards the light from his left.

The creature too reacted instantaneously and gave out a roar that shook the walls. It rushed towards Alice, the sound of broken furniture following behind it.

Alice managed to fling herself into the light with the creatures claws missing her by an inch.

The creature stood still by the edge of the light and Jason could now make out more of its features.

The thing that stood in front of him was a giant rat taller than him standing on two feet, claws dripping with blood.

Jason looked at it in disgust and disdain.

"Alice, don't worry", he said,"We are safe in the light."

Alice held firm to Jason's arm as they both looked at the beast. One with disgust, and the other with terror.

The creature stared back at Jason, and he in turn spat in its direction.

The creature took a step into the light, then another.

Alice let out a yelp and pushed Jason forward, who crashed into the ground dumbfounded.

"You cannot hu-hunt in the light", stammered Jason, in a state of shock.

They both turned their gaze towards the front door as they heard the handle rattle, unwilling to open.

The giant rat returned its gaze towards Jason and spoke for the first time.

"I don't hunt in the darkness, I hunt by the darkness in you."

submitted by /u/writing_advice [link] [comments] source https://www.reddit.com/r/shortscarystories/comments/dnbyww/hide_and_seek/ via Blogger https://ift.tt/2BLT96I

[ecotone99]

My house is haunted

I have been living in my house for the past 12 years.

It took me two years to figure out that my house might be haunted.

It seems like a long time to figure something like that out, but I had my reasons.

Firstly, I was hardly ever home. It was more a place to keep my things and to comb my hair and sleep rather than some place I spent all my time off from work.

Secondly, I had a who was impossible to train and I always assumed that she were misplacing the items.

It was only after I one day got really angry at the dog and she ran away that I realized that she was never the culprit.

Thirdly, ghosts is never the first explanation that a reasonable person goes for. The first few days I figured that I was misplacing the objects myself and forgetting about it.

When the drawer in which I had started to lock some of my equipment was broken open is when I realized that wasn't what was happening either.

I thought it must be a homeless person living in my house then, but after going over every inch of my house with a baseball bat in my hand, that too thrice, I realized that was not the case either.

It was at this point that I started to think about the possibility of ghosts, an idea which was confirmed when I decided to stay home the entire day to see what was happening and saw objects moving in the house on their own.

At this point any reasonable person would have run away, sold the house after moving into a motel.

I did not have the luxury, I couldn't afford it even after all the time spent between my two jobs, and the ghosts had never tried to hurt me in the past two years either.

So I stayed. The items in my house moving on their own every few days before the activity would stop on it's own until next time.

Things went on like this for the next five years, at which point I managed to get a good enough job that I now had free time to spend in my house.

This is when things changed for the worse, items did not just move but also started to disappear.

First it was the small everyday objects over the course of a few weeks, then one day I could no longer find the mirror or the wardrobe.

At this point I was scared enough that I decided to leave the house, only to find the door handle missing.

I tried to open the windows but none of them will open either.

The last few days even the walls seem to be fading away and now I am surrounded by pure whiteness on all sides.

I don't know how long I will be able to survive like this, but I can hear some chanting now.

"Spirit be gone now." A small chorus of voices keep mumbling.

I think someone has come to help me from back in the world, trying to save me from this horrid fate.

I hope they win over the spirits soon, I keep getting weaker and I don't know how long I have.

submitted by /u/writing_advice [link] [comments] source https://www.reddit.com/r/shortscarystories/comments/dgg73i/my_house_is_haunted/ via Blogger https://ift.tt/329AcGq

[ecotone99]

There are 3,25,000 stars in that single pixel. [The 325,000 Contest

Look here, you see this image of the night sky, covered in hundreds of stars?

This is the image of the sky taken from an average quality telescope after a 24 hour period of long term exposure.

Now look at this one here, this is from a high quality telescope. Same principle, but far better at collecting the light from distant stars. Here you can see thousands of little specks dotting the night sky. Beautiful isn't it.

Now look at this one, it probably looks the same as the last one I showed you, but it's actually not. This was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. It's a far more precise image of what's out there, without all the pollution of earth limiting the view.

You can zoom in on any pixel in this image and there will be thousands of stars in that space.

That is not the truly interesting part though.

Now look at this image, its the same as the last one, but you see that little dot there, the one marked in red. Yes, that area. If you look into that area of space there's supposed to be around 3,25,000 red stars there. I know that sounds like a big number, but in the vastness of space it's not that impressive. The impressive part is that area of space is older than anything else around it.

Now look at these images, they all look like empty black pages. That's the space around those stars for around a million light years.

Now that was the image taken ten years ago. The last one I got is from two years ago. Before all access privileges were revoked for everyone except the project head and the top military brass.

In that last image, that area of empty space had increased to sixty million light years. None of the models anyone has ever come up with can explain this phenomenon.

A week back, I got news the project lead shot himself, and four days later I and many of my colleagues got a package delivered to our doorway.

That package contained the images from the past two years.

Here, take a look for yourself, as you can tell the empty area of space starting from those stars has been increasing in one direction now, that too at an exponential rate.

That direction, young man, is the direction of earth.

submitted by /u/writing_advice [link] [comments] source https://www.reddit.com/r/shortscarystories/comments/dewvix/there_are_325000_stars_in_that_single_pixel_the/ via Blogger https://ift.tt/30RnpqQ

[ecotone99]

SINNER

He could hear the TV running in the living room downstairs.

His father had forbidden him from leaving his room when he returned from work yet Jake had a really hard time controlling his desire to go downstairs.

After an hour of hearing a dozen shows Jake could no longer control himself and moved to the staircase.

Step by step, walking as slowly as possible he made his way downstairs at the speed of eternity, praying that his father had fallen asleep on the couch.

At the bottom of the staircase he turned right and hid at the corner of the wall, peeking in to look at the TV as a gunshot went off on screen and a woman screamed.

He watched mesmerized for the next few seconds until he felt a heavy hand on his shoulder turning him around.

His heart skipped a beat realizing that he had miscalculated where his father was.

His father, with a stern expression looked him in the eye and asked him what he was doing downstairs.

Jake looked away at the ground feeling too guilty to be able to say anything.

His father seemed to take that as a sign of his guilt and started berating Jake about how he was too stupid to be able to understand all the sacrifices his father made.

Did he not understand how they would all starve to death because Jake kept troubling his father, causing him to lose his job when everyone found out his son was a sinner. Did he not understand how ashamed his mother would be of him if his mother were here today?

The chastisement went on like this for some time.

Jake had tears falling down his eyes long before his father was finished. He kept flinching every time his father's hands moved near his belt, feeling the marks he already had on his back and hips.

His father ended the conversation with a smack to the head that sent Jake tumbling onto the ground, followed by a final word in his direction.

"You will be punished by the angels for the sins you commit."

At that moment, consumed by guilt, Jake wished for the same with all his heart. He wished for punishment so that the angels would fix him. He wished that the angels would change him so that he could be a good boy loved by his family.

The lights flickered in the house. Jake kept staring at his fathers shoes in fear and saw giant wings appear behind them.

There was the sound of snapping of bones and his father fell facing him, his face still holding an expression of disdain and anger, not yet having caught up to his state of death.

Jake closed his eyes shut as tight as he could, unable to move, shivering on the ground, waiting for punishment.

submitted by /u/writing_advice [link] [comments] source https://www.reddit.com/r/shortscarystories/comments/dd91w8/sinner/ via Blogger https://ift.tt/2oPEzrG

[ecotone99]

Anger Management

His eyes jumped around in his skull moving all over the well lit white room, his body strapped tightly to the chair in the center.

The door in front of him creaked open and the doctor walked in with his eyes focused on the file in one hand, holding his coffee in the other.

The doctor stopped in front of him, and announced in a relaxed voice," #124, you have been chosen for the new anger management trial program, volunteering for this program earns the applicant the right to a state pardon and no additional charges in case of a successful trial."

The Doctor skimmed over the rest of the page without word and flipped over to the next page.

The Doctor frowned for a moment reading the contents of the page." As you have not volunteered for the anger management program, instead being referred by the court of law under article 235 section C-2, Rehabilitation of The Unwanted And Betterment of The Social Order Act 2034, you shall not be considered eligible for any benefits accrued to volunteers and are required to carry your entire sentence as per the law."

124 barely heard what was being said, feeling the stimulants in his system start to take affect.

The doctor snapped the file shut and at last looked up directly at #124 and spoke with the hint of a pleasant smile in his voice,"#124, you are going to be under my care for the rehabilitation program." His hand moved to the metal helmet strapped to #124's head and pressed the red switch.

124 became stiff for a moment feeling the surge in his head. The room suddenly became darker for #124, as if it was being consumed by the shadows.

"What we are going to do is to replace your anger with another equally strong emotion that will over time fully replace it to help stop you from harming others." Came the voice of the doctor from further away.

124 began to struggle against his binds, his heart rate monitor now beeping in warning as a giant spider began to move towards him from the darkness.

In the distance, barely audible #124 heard the doctors final words,"The most effective emotion we have found to replace anger is fear." followed by the sound of a door being shut.

submitted by /u/writing_advice [link] [comments] source https://www.reddit.com/r/shortscarystories/comments/dc60c4/anger_management/ via Blogger https://ift.tt/2ooWPb1

[ecotone99]

My dreams showed me the end.

I have been having a dream consistently every few days for the past month now.

In the dream every time I am walking in some new location. Sometimes it's an island with dead trees, sometimes a village with dry wells, sometimes a desert with black and white bird corpses lying about.

Every the world around me is getting worse.

Always a different part of the world yet a few things remain consistent. The sky is a glaring red, there's a mirage all around and recently everything's about to start burning from how hot it is.

Yesterday night I was on a skyscraper facing the boiling ocean. There was a woman on the balcony, she was sitting in a tub filled with fast melting ice and yet her face was red and covered in perspiration.

I could see what she was looking at. A giant tsunami coming towards us. The wave reached a few feet above our level and when it hit it swept away the tub and its occupant along with it.

The last image of the woman I remember was a look of resignation.

I would have taken some time to pity her fate had it not been for what the ocean waters had deposited before my legs while they passed.

There lay a man with all of his skin melted off. All of his flesh was exposed to the elements and had the color and wet squishy look of the chalazae found within an egg.

I was certain that he was dead yet he managed to fill me with equal parts pity and revulsion when he gasped for air.

He got up on his knees and hands and somehow I knew that all of his body hurt like a burnt open wound and I grimaced at seeing him put weight on the exposed flesh of his palms and knees.

Yet his need to be in a position to be able to puke out the water that was drowning him from within was great enough to make the pain caused by his actions acceptable.

This is when I noticed the finer details on his body. His eyes had been melted shut and his face would have been too if it wasn't for the non existence of his cheeks. There was a little hole in his lower chest from which I could see a part of his lung and beating heart.

It was a cruel miracle that he was still alive.

Before I could inspect him further another wave hit and the body before me was once again swept away. I prayed for a swift death for that man and the woman I had seen earlier.

In place of the man the wave had deposited another object before me. It was a calendar. On it was a date marked in red. It read 21st of August 2030.

submitted by /u/writing_advice [link] [comments] source https://www.reddit.com/r/shortscarystories/comments/cxy789/my_dreams_showed_me_the_end/ via Blogger https://ift.tt/34bGkiV

[ecotone99]

THE UNDULATING FLESH

My breath rattles in my chest as I ran as fast as my legs can move. I have been running from one end of the town to the other without stopping, the burning in my lungs and the blurring of my vision acting as as a constant reminder.

I can't even tell if my assailants are still behind me, the sound of their steps blocked by the thumping of the blood pumping through my ears.

I turn my head for a moment to check behind me, and in that moment I lose my footing and crash into the ground. I close my eyes shut from fear expecting hands to grab onto me and tear me to shreds at any moment.

The moment never comes.

I stay there for what must have been minutes, the sweat upon my brow quickly cooling in the cold fog; my lungs now burning from the cold air.

At last I get up the courage to raise myself from the ground and look behind me, I see nothing in the fog and yet, still overcome by my irrational fear, I hesitate to move from my position, expecting figures to come running at the slightest movement.

It takes quite some time but at last I manage to convince my feet to start moving towards my destination once again.

Along the way I see boogeymen at every corner, yet I make it to the hilltop unharmed.

From here the view is clearer and I take a look around me. At last I see them. Barely visible in the fog, they stagger towards me on misshapen legs. I can see the skin on their bodies rising and falling as if being pulled in a hundred directions at once.

I am about to start running once more when I feel it. A pain in my foot moving upwards. I look upon the ground to see it covered in red worms and one of them has burrowed it's way into my foot and is slithering further in.

I give out a shriek and try to pull it out with my hand. The other worms take this as an opportunity to strike anew and some of them clamp down onto my hand and start burrowing in.

By this time dozens of the worms are entering into my feet and making their way up. Soon enough I can feel them in all parts of my body under the skin.

I see and feel my flesh undulating with the movement of the mass of parasites that have made their new home under my skin. My body now moving by a thousand little twitches caused against my will.

I rise in my bed with a scream. It takes a moment for me to realize that it was all a nightmare. I let out a sigh of relief and that's when I notice it, the small round scars on my hands and feet, and the movement in my belly.

submitted by /u/writing_advice [link] [comments] source https://www.reddit.com/r/shortscarystories/comments/ctbstb/the_undulating_flesh/ via Blogger https://ift.tt/2MAN3xB

[ecotone99]

Grey Goo

The first day I noticed it there were just some flecks of it on the table edges in my home. I quickly wiped them off and went to work.

The next day it was back and it seemed to cover half the table. It took a little longer to clean and I wondered if maybe it was some sort of fungal infestation.

I searched it up online but found no matching results.

That day I found out that others in the office were also having this strange grey goo appearing in their houses. We all talked with annoyance as to how it kept growing back so easily.

The third day I woke up to find the lower half of my house covered in the stuff. I had to cancel my office trip that day to call in a professional cleaner to take care of the mess.

The cleaners turned out to have a full schedule for the entire week with complaints from all over town. I had no choice but to clean it myself, it took an entire day to work through.

The next day is when all of us began to panic. I woke up to find the goo had reached till my bed upstairs. I tried to remove a bit of it only to find the furniture itself break off into the goo.

That's when I decided to leave the house and move to my relatives place in the next town over.

I made it five minutes in the direction towards the outskirts of the town before I was stopped by another vehicle coming back.

The woman looked terrified. She said that there were now army vehicles around the town perimeters and they were not letting anybody through. She had seen a man try to argue with the soldiers and he had been shot in the head. She did not stick around any further to see what happened next.

I decided to go into the forest instead and sleep in my car instead of trying to leave town.

When I woke up the fifth day I could see the town buildings in the distance all covered in the goo. It had even begun to appear on the trees and plants.

On the sixth day I found specks of it on my hands and legs. I removed it as fast as I could but the spots where they previously were seemed to be missing a few layers of skin.

It's the end of the week now. My entire hand, both legs and my torso are covered in grey now. It's getting harder to breathe. I tried to remove it initially but my entire arm seemed to start breaking off into the goo when I touched it.

At the speed it is going I know I won't make it till tomorrow. I just wonder if it has managed to spread outside. Everything as far as I look is grey now and I wonder how far it goes.

submitted by /u/writing_advice [link] [comments] source https://www.reddit.com/r/shortscarystories/comments/crya4g/grey_goo/ via Blogger https://ift.tt/31HWqyE

[ecotone99]

The Ocean Depths

There I fell crashing through the skies, shot down by a lucky hit from the enemy. The right wing had taken a compromising hit and my partner's head had just been blown off into the wind. Things were looking pretty dastardly but my 12 years of service experience helped me to keep me and my bird in check long enough to crash it into the middle of the ocean without killing myself.

There was a loud roar followed by a moment of deafening silence as I hit the waters surface followed by water going up my nose as I was spun about.

It took a few moments before I could open my eyes and look about to see the darkness below me with the wreckage falling into the abyss; and the light a few dozen feet above me.

I swam towards the light, towards the scattered pieces of driftwood, towards life and salvation no matter how short lived it might turn out to be. There was a moment of panic when I was hit by my partners sinking corpse and my hand got stuck dragging me a few feet further down before I managed to free myself.

Once more I swam as fast as I could towards the surface, my lungs burning from the lack of air.

I burst out of the water and took a few large gulps of air before I found myself unceremoniously pulled back into the water by the foot. I looked below me expecting another piece of tangled debris but instead found myself faced with the largest squid I had ever seen dragging me down. The thing must have been easily 20ft long.

To my good fortune I still had my military knife hanging around my waist and managed to dissuade the creature with a few swipes at its tendril.

Once again I found myself lost in the land between salvation and the abyss. Once more I swam towards the surface but paused momentarily to look beneath me when I felt a shaking in the water. I felt myself being pulled back towards the darkness a few feet as if something was sucking the ocean in.

Looking down only filled me with fear and regret, for I found myself looking down at a vision straight out of the nightmares of seamen; before me law a maw the size of a skyscraper filled with thousands of teeth like jagged rock the size of buses moving towards me; with a thousand different unseen multitudes of the deep depths moving in my direction from within its maw trying to outrun it.

In those final moments I did wish the squid had taken me.

submitted by /u/writing_advice [link] [comments] source https://www.reddit.com/r/shortscarystories/comments/crkds9/the_ocean_depths/ via Blogger https://ift.tt/2OVFd3d

[ecotone99]

Ghosts are no longer scary in the modern age.

Hello everyone, I would like to talk to you about ghosts.

Ghosts, they have been a staple of the horror genre for millennia.

They are an universal symbol of the unknown. All over the world, in every culture, whether it be Asian, American, European, there will be a version of them, in one form or the other. This concept of someone remaining in the world in some form long after the person has long ceased to be.

Often times this person is someone who lost their way; who has been wronged in life; someone not allowed to move on as divine punishment or staying back by voluntary choice caused by an incapacity to let go. Sometimes depicted as confused and benevolent, and at other times lucid and malevolent.

We see both these versions in our stories in our society where the ghost is spoken of as a creature that causes no harm but great fear, due to their otherworldly nature. Often times those with a malevolent nature are said to cause harm to anyone and anything that trespasses on their grounds, giving no thought to legal ownership of land.

It is my personal belief that all of these stories come from a time when we were surrounded by the unknown, incapable of controlling the world around us, where the shadows surrounding us could hide a predator at all times. This was a world filled with disease with no where to seek a cure. We had to stay away from certain places to survive. We had to warn each other of the shadows and the darkness and the phantasms they held within.

I am here to tell you we no longer have to fear these things in a world covered in light, a world where everything is an open book, where all knowledge resides in the palm of our hand. We no longer have to fear the unknown for it is only a puzzle for us to comprehend and utilize.

You see now we no longer need to fear ghost stories, for here I have one locked in our MESCA grade A certified box, safely contained and harmless. You no longer have to fear the dead who would try to overstay their welcome, instead we have found use for them, the soul of Mr. Myers, a man who died from a heart attack a month ago and without paying his student debt, capable of charging your home for the rest of your life.

I tell you, we have overcome the darkness, and so can you, at the small price of $899.99.

Thank you everyone. Now I would like to welcome Ms. Yonava, the owner and CEO of Futurin. If you wish for a 100 year post-death free movement guarantee, apply for the base futurin plan, I have myself gotten the premium 500 year plan.

submitted by /u/writing_advice [link] [comments] source https://www.reddit.com/r/shortscarystories/comments/cikjyj/ghosts_are_no_longer_scary_in_the_modern_age/ via Blogger https://ift.tt/2JV8yX7

[ecotone99]

A nightmare I had

This is a real nightmare I had that I thought was creepy enough to go here.

As all dreams do it starts somewhere in the middle. We are in the neighbourhood, a bunch of friends hanging together and its about to get dark soon.

One of the women in our group has to leave now so I offer to accompany her through the forest.

We exit through the door leading out of the neighbourhood and climb down the stairs. We make our way to the tall grass and trees and the woman looks nervously around her. I reassure her that this forest is a whimsical place even if some of the denizens are quite strange.

It is at this moment that I feel hands pick me up and carry me away from the woman. I look at the perpetrator and see that it is a creature with a dogs head and the body of a human covered in fur. It carries me to a small grassless spot and let's go of my struggling body there.

As I fall to the ground I notice a group of menus lying on the ground and on closer inspection notice that they have options for different types of human bodies written on them.

I come to the conclusion that the creatures of the forest are collecting human bodies to change them into the thing that carried me right now and I feel a sense of despair at the idea of having the same happen to me.

The creatures seem to sense the despair I am going through and I can now hear then running towards me to catch me.

I run back towards the door back into the neighbourhood as the woman warns me from behind that they are coming after me. I can hear them moving through the grass behind me. Despair is etched onto my very being.

I manage to reach the door with the creatures seconds behind me. I try to open it but notice that it is locked now.

I turn around to see four of the humanoid things surround the staircase. Two to my right now, one at the bottom of the staircase, and one climbing the staircase with a face that is a mix of dog and deer.

While that one was approaching me my brain decided to nope out and that's when I woke up. I noted the dream down and fell back asleep after a few minutes.

submitted by /u/writing_advice [link] [comments] source https://www.reddit.com/r/shortscarystories/comments/cgp5sc/a_nightmare_i_had/ via Blogger https://ift.tt/2OexGfF

[ecotone99]

FOOD CHAIN

The food chain is a concept that suggests a cyclic and balanced system as the running state of nature where everything feeds off of everything else.

This system worked quite well until mankind began killing off entire species leaving gaps large enough to collapse the local ecosystem and kill off the rest from starvation or overpopulation over time.

Over the decades this area of effect only got larger as we moved from destroying local wildlife to killing wildlife on a continental scale, followed by a global one.

By the end of it all we were the official cause of the sixth mass extinction event. Killing off species in the dozens every hour, hundreds every day, thousands every month.

The food chain all over the world collapsed to the point where even the average citizen was no longer in a position to ignore the calamity. The death of the African Rhino may have been a newsworthy tragedy from a distant region, but the disappearance of all the bees and ants everywhere was certainly a cause of concern for all.

Everyone started taking action at this point, but it was already too late. There were reports hidden from the public that had predicted more than a billion deaths and collapse of modern civilization due to the ecological collapse around the world.

They were wrong.

During those days it was a common belief among the scientific community that mankind did not have any records of more than three quarters of all life on earth. It was believed all of this life was concentrated in local ecologies in populations of thousands at most. It was expected that they would all go extinct unseen by human eyes.

They were wrong.

Instead what we found was never before seen life rising from beneath the earth and the oceans in the billions ready to close the gap. All of them alien creations of a hidden world forced to leave their domain in the face of a dwindling food supply.

On the surface all they found was us, and they feasted.

We tried to fight as best as we could but this was life that had evolved over millions if years not only to survive, but to thrive in environments we had been unable to even develop technology to fully explore.

Most of our weapons were ineffective against them and those that worked were too low in supply to leave a definite mark.

For the first time in millennia mankind found itself the prey in the natural order of things.

Soon enough through experience the survivors realized that the beasts they fought against now weren't just the new apex predators, they were the replacement.

submitted by /u/writing_advice [link] [comments] source https://www.reddit.com/r/shortscarystories/comments/cf8ks2/food_chain/ via Blogger https://ift.tt/2O2pOxN

[ecotone99]

THE HOLE

There's a hole in our village next to the road going out. You can usually recognize it by the different shade of the overturned dirt used to cover it.

The hole has the tendency to open from time to time every few days and would be covered by anyone who came across it as fast as possible.

This was due to decades of having our elders tell us to close the hole as soon as possible whenever it was open.

Nothing terrible ever happened, there was nothing foreboding or supernatural about the hole except it just being there every few days.

You could even go into it and find it a few feet deep and covered in darkness.

Yet it had created a ferverently believed local superstition around it.

We unquestionably followed this dogma until most of the old guard were long gone and we found ourselves too modern to hold weight in the superstitions of long dead men.

The day came when the hole was there again, and we left it as it was.

That night our community was shook by the death of a young woman in the neighbourhood who was leaving the next day to get married in the city.

We were all shocked and shaken and the men who went inside the house to check on her came out looking pale and tight lipped.

Nobody was allowed inside the house after that except to collect the remains to be cremated.

The next night there was another death, this time the local doctor.

Again the house was closed off and nobody was permitted within.

The next day is when we found the carcasses of all the people who had tried to leave the village in the past two days in a water stream running near the dirt path leading out.

This is when we decided to cover the hole again and swore to never let it be left uncovered.

That night everyone in the village could hear the sound of nails scraping against dirt coming from outside their homes.

The next day two more people had gone missing.

When we went to inspect the hole that day it was uncovered once more.

We threw salt and silver and all our divine signs and symbols into the hole and then covered it. Then we went to our homes and locked our doors and salted all entrances.

That night three more people died. We checked their house. They had packed their luggage and were planning to leave.

That morning the hole was open again. Whatever had been kept buried within all those years could no longer be contained.

It started with the people that tried to leave the village, but after those ran out the people who stayed began to go missing.

This village used to have 300 people. It has 30 now.

Every night we all sleep as if it's our last. Knowing that if not today then by tomorrow we will be gone.

submitted by /u/writing_advice [link] [comments] source https://www.reddit.com/r/shortscarystories/comments/cep3ju/the_hole/ via Blogger https://ift.tt/2xQz3WL