SEE EMILY PLAY
This is a warning. If you hear kids calling outside your window after 2AM—don’t go. Don’t answer. And whatever you do, don’t say your name.
There’s something wrong with my street, and it starts after midnight. You’ll hear laughter—children playing. Sometimes tag, sometimes jump rope, sometimes just… calling.
But we all know better. You don’t open the window. You don’t peek through the blinds. You never go outside.
I told Emily this, but she didn’t believe me. She thought it was just some dumb story I made up to scare her.
She doesn’t think that anymore.
Because she’s gone.
THE DIRT WITCH
My best friend stole a cursed crystal. Now she’s gone, and someone—or something else has her face.
We were just two art students crafting costumes for Comic Con—until my best friend stole a strange red crystal to cosplay the Dirt Witch, a local legend known for vengeance and blood. Now she’s missing… and something wearing her face won’t stop staring at me.
THE JESTER
My family is dead and everyone thinks I killed them—but it was the Jester, I swear.
I didn’t hurt anyone. He did. He tricked me. It was all just a joke. A bad joke.
I’m getting out tomorrow. Ten years in juvie. They say I’ve made “progress.” That I’ve “accepted responsibility.”
But they’re wrong. I didn’t kill my family. I was the victim. Preyed upon by that toy—that evil thing.
The Jester.
THE HOLE
I still dream about the fire. The way the flames clawed at the old barn, the smell of burning wood and something worse. The way my little brother screamed for me to save him.
ROOTS
My uncle Jonas was a recluse. I thought he was interesting, but nobody else in my family could stand him—especially my mom, his baby sister. She blamed Vietnam. It wrecked him, stole the big goofy brother she once loved, and replaced him with an imposter dredged from the putrid mud of a battlefield. When the war ended, Uncle Jonas moved in with my grandma and never left. After she died in the late ’90s, when I was just a kid, he and my mom fought bitterly. She wanted to sell the house, but he refused. Being the oldest, he had just as much claim to it as she did, and he dug his heels in.
HARVEST OF ASH
Jaycen’s parents always told him that progress came at a cost. He just never thought the cost would be their lives.
The fire in the main house cast long, twisting shadows across the greenhouse as the masked men dragged him forward. The air reeked of burning plastic, blood, and gasoline. His mother’s screams had stopped. His father’s body lay somewhere in the inferno, their life's work crumbling with them.
POWER CHORD APOCALYPSE
Power Chord Apocalypse
Troy’s off key voice bellowed through the room as Wolf’s fingers moved up and down, strumming and wishing his vocal chords could match that ego. Nothing he could do could drown out the weak voice of his lead singer. But he had no other options now and he just wanted to play with a band and hope they’d notice his talent.
THE HUDSON ABDUCTION
The river was calm, moonlight shimmering on its dark surface as Jake cast his line. Beside him, Ryan cracked open a beer. "Perfect night," he murmured.
Then, the sky split open.
An eerie orange light descended, wrapping around them. Their limbs went stiff. They could think—they could scream in their minds—but their bodies refused to move.
Final Transmission
Aten floated alone in the sealed wing of the Odyssey-9, the emergency lights flickering in erratic pulses. His hands trembled as he replayed the events in his mind. Europa. The ice. The way something moved beneath it. How the parasite clung to his suit, invisible, waiting.
THE GIFT
Emily’s phone buzzed—Jill. Her cousin’s name glowed on the screen like a ghost from the past. They hadn’t spoken in five years. The message was simple: I’ve been thinking about you. I miss you so much. I’m back in New York. Join me this weekend in Woodstock. It will change your life.
Sasquatch’S AWAKENING
Alone in the woods, Dave had eaten way too many psychedelic mushrooms. So when a massive figure—hairier than an overgrown lawn, with eyes that glowed like fireflies emerged from the shadows and stood over his campfire, he didn’t even panic.
CHAMP 2.0
Billy Walsh was a shitty, mad scientist whose anger caused a lot of issues in his life. With an emphasis on mad—he was also an arrogant, grudge holding asshole with mommy issues, whose rich parents footed the bill for his life. The people of Ticonderoga, NY, had shunned him after The Incident (which involved a genetically mutated squirrel, a taser, and an unfortunate explosion at the Stewart’s gas station). But tonight, revenge would be his.
MARIO’S SPECIAL PIZZA
Mario, the lab’s most promising chimpanzee, had always been curious. His handlers, marveled at his growing intellect as they pumped him full of experimental pharmaceuticals. The VR headset, designed to boost his cognitive abilities, was his gateway to a new world. The only thing Mario loved more than the pizza he was given for doing a good job in VR by his favorite scientist, Dr. Kim, was the world itself. He excelled at navigating through it unlike the other chimps—those vibrant landscapes, the endless possibilities were a respite from the real world and cruelness at the hands of Dr. Keller. But today, something was different.
RABBIT MEAT
Ben awoke violently to the sound of a large thud. The smell of damp earth and rot filled his nose as he opened his eyes. His wrists burned from the ropes binding him to the cold, wooden floor of the dilapidated house. He turned, realizing now, that the noise that brought him back to consciousness was his best friend, Jake. His lifeless body leaked a pool of blood onto the floor. A grotesque, half-rabbit figure stood over him menacingly. Ben looked into its eyes, glowing with malevolent hunger. The cultists, draped in filthy, ragged rabbit masks, left the room. Ben could see them through the open door in the hallway as they circled the altar, chanting in a language that made his skin crawl.
THE DEMON’S DESERT
Grandma rocked in her chair, the firelight flickering in her cloudy eyes. “Your great-grandfather told me stories, bambina. From Calabria, where he was a boy. Dark stories.”
WOLFMOTHER
Rachel crouched in the darkness, fingertips brushing the metal band at the base of her skull. Below, five men laughed—her family’s murderers.