He can hear them approaching ever closer

thump thump thump thump

The rhythmic sound of boots pounding against the hardwood floor of his home. He built this house with his own hands for him and his family

Thump Thump Thump Thump

He simply did not like large urban areas, they made him uncomfortable. His wife too. That's why they moved out here, to be away from a world they could not stand living in, but never once interfering with the lives of others. Live and let live was their motto

THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP

Living in the wilderness, he and his family needed a means to protect himself, and so he bought rifles, hand guns, shotguns, anything needed to hunt deer, kill pests, or even take down bears if the need arose. Living so far away from civilization he assumed it wouldn't matter what he did to his own property

THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP

He had a healthy armament, much of it being illegal to own in some fashion, but he would never think of using such weaponry on animals unless forced to, he simply had them for fun with target practice. He also had a farm and water well to sustain his family, along with cows and chickens, wild game was more of a 'holiday treat' in his household due to the abundance of fish, beef, poultry, and vegetables. He had a gasoline generator, but only used it during the harshest of winters and was otherwise without power. Now he sits alone, in his empty two person bed and cradle, wondering why the world is so cruel

BANG BANG BANG

"ATF, OPEN UP!!"

The man was able to hold out in his home for over three days, and only retreated deeper into his household after his wife and young son were shot. In his final moments, he simply sat and prayed to God to see his wife and child again.

The End.

I awoke surrounded by an endless plane of flat white. Nothingness on all sides; a bleak and stark horizon which stretched to infinity without even a single object in sight anywhere. I sighed, getting to my feet and turning in all directions. I'd been here before.

This was a place I'd been coming since early childhood. It had started out only when I dreamed, and I'd originally thought that everyone came here when they went to sleep. When I described it to my parents, though, they told me that most people go to different places every time they dream. That wasn't the case for me; I always came to this place. However as I've gotten older, it's begun to be more and more frequent. I have zoned out at meetings and found myself here; lapsed attention in traffic and suddenly found myself sitting on this floor. I would spend hours or sometimes even what felt like it must be days here, only to suddenly find myself back out again.

When I come to, I'm always minutes or hours ahead of where I was when I left. If it happened at 3pm, I might come back at 3:05pm. Or 4:30pm. Or 11pm. Either way, I have no memory of the intervening time, despite having obviously done things. If I zone out in traffic and come here, I could drop back in and find myself at home sitting on the couch.

This place, which I have simply come to call The Void in my mind, can't really be described as inside or outside. There is not wind or air current of any kind, and the temperature is always the same. I can never tell precisely, but it's just on the edge of warm. It's well lit, but there is no visible light source. As I mentioned, there is nothing inside of it. Not a stick of furniture nor shred of clothing. There is no food, though I always grow hungry inside of it.

I've always wondered what it is, but I've had no hope of finding out. No one I've ever spoken to deals with something like this, and it's a difficult concept to explain. But it feels very real; just as real as anything I've felt during my waking hours. The problem isn't just that it's becoming more frequent, though that has certainly been the case. The problem is that I'm afraid of what I'm doing while I'm here.

I don't mean what I myself am doing. What I mean is that as I said, I always come back and find myself having done things in the time I was "away from the wheel" so to speak. I have come back and found myself cooking dinner, etc.

The last time I came back was different, though. I felt groggy, as if I'd only slept a little. I was in my bed, and when I sat up I saw that it was 11am. The last thing I remembered was watching TV the afternoon before, perhaps 4pm. Then I was in the other place, and I wandered there for what felt like days. As I pulled back the covers to stand and try to get my wits about me, I saw a stain on my hand. Brown, dried and crusty. Blood. Blood which had been there for a while.

I rushed to the bathroom and looked at myself, finding my clothes splattered with more blood. I initially thought I was wounded, but there were no obvious marks anywhere. I couldn't find the source and eventually gave up, having to accept that the blood had come from something (or someone) other than myself.

I've now been stuck in The Void for at least two days by my best estimate. It's hard to track time over here but I have developed ways over the years and I know it's been at least that long. That would have to translate to at least a day of time in the real world. I don't know who is controlling my body, how or why, but I am afraid of what they are making me do.

It was noon, I got home

It was quiet,

It was very quiet,

Chill runs down my spine.

Its very out of place to be scared at noon.

But I suddenly feel...., something is lurking within the house.

I hid my secret, there's no way in a million timelines they would find it.

That sheet of a tree bark should not been found, I meticulously did it with no soul ever knowing.

But how?

I stepped on the cold tiles of the house, trudging further and further, checking every corner that comes my way.

And then nothing......

Nothing, just complete isolation from the rest of the world.

...

...

...

...

Calmed myself down, I brewed myself some coffee--

Or not! Someone is in there!

FOOSTEPS! I KNOW WHAT THEY ARE FROM THE SOUND ALONE!

Shit! Shit, shit, shit, SHIT!

Nervous, I peeked on to the corner.

I need to make out the figure on who that is,

....? A foot sized object hurdling towards me? WAI---

.......... ..........

In my fading consciousness I only heard one thing and one thing only.

"Why are you not like Johnny? I didn't raise such a dumb kid to get A- !"

And then everything went to black, until the next morning............

I don't know how to make horror and is my first time trying one, I won't know if it will be good or not but that's fine.

"Who was it?" her mother asked, still busy with dinner.

"I'm not sure," Roxi answered, confused. "Someone doing a late Halloween prank, I guess?"

She made her way back to the kitchen, where she had been working on her homework at the bar.

Her mother was chopping vegetables, by the sink. Roxi stretched over the cool countertop, not eager to return to her essay. It was hot for November, warm enough for shorts, and she was on the verge of melting.

"What kind of prank? Like, a TikTok?" her mother guessed.

"Yeah maybe," Roxi shrugged, her arm sticking to the counter she was laying half across. "Nothing I recognize. Something about chemicals."

She yawned, fighting the urge to close her laptop. It wasn't like she had been making any progress on her essay, but she had promised her parents she'd at least try. Almost being held back a grade once was humiliating enough; having to have that talk with your parents was gut-wrenching.

Her mother stopped chopping, and turned to look at Roxi over her shoulder.

"Something chemical?" she pressed. "Did they give you anything?"

Roxi shook her head, suddenly very sleepy. It was so warm, and she was so tired. She coughed, and her vision swam.

"Roxi? Roxi, honey?" she heard her mother, but she was suddenly calling from somewhere far away. "Roxi!?"

Roxi fell, gasping, into oblivion.

There were noises from outside, she realized. People were yelling.

She coughed, and it was like being kicked in the chest. She coughed again, dizzy, sick. She tasted something nasty, and her head hurt. When she moved, her skin felt like it was on fire.

Roxi fought for breath, gasping, choking. She wheezed wetly, fighting to get enough air. Fighting unconsciousness, she forced herself up. It was like waxing her whole body at once; her skin felt like it was tearing. But she couldn't breathe enough to scream.

She had somehow been moved to the couch. Disoriented, Roxi stumbled around to find the door. Yanking it open, she stood gasping in the doorway, leaning hard against the wall.

Outside was chaos. People ran, screaming, choking, coughing, hacking. Men ran, carrying their children on their shoulders. People were wearing masks, cloths, rolled up shirts over their mouths and noses. Children, closer to ground level, were gaping like fish, struggling more than the adults. Roxi panted weakly, watching a toddler being dragged by the hand by his mother, saw when he went limp. His mother reached down to scoop him up but fell beside him, coughing and gasping.

So many people were moving, but she didn't immediately understand where, or why. Cars were stuck, traffic standing still, and people were abandoning their cars, climbing on top of them. The ones moving, mostly moved in one direction. Uphill, she realized.

She coughed again, wetly, and spit out blood. Blearily, having trouble concentrating, she turned and unsteadily made her way back to the kitchen. She wanted to join them, wanted someone to show her where she could go to breathe. But there was something important she was forgetting. She just had to remember what it was.

She broke into coughing again, spitting blood and doubled over with the pain of it, before she found it: her mother, sprawled out on the floor in the living room. Roxi tried to bend down to help her, but she tasted a lungful of the horrible air, and realized why everyone was moving uphill. She couldn't breathe at all, nearer to the ground.

With shaking hands, she exhaled as she brushed the hair away from her mother's face. Her mother's white face, her blue lips, her black tongue. Bloodshot eyes stared unseeing. Roxi's mom had spent too long helping her, lifting her, carrying her to the couch. Her mother had unwittingly killed herself, saving Roxi.

She lurched, dizzy, and almost fell. Her mom was... no. She couldn't... mustn't think about it. She thought about her dad, her sister instead.

"Phone," she slurred, staggering. "Daddy."

A light flashed nearby. Her oxygen deprived brain thought it recognized it. Coughing, gasping, she climbed onto the coffee table, grabbed the ceiling fan for support.

"Aleshsa," she tried, then wiped the blood from her mouth. "Alexa. Call dad."

She gagged, retching, as the light flashed obediently.

"Calling: Dad."

It rang. Rang again. Her fingers hurt, holding the fan blades, but she could almost get a breath that didn't splash inside her. The call went to voicemail.

Al-" she started, then coughed hard, spraying blood on the wall. She blurted it, afraid she would lose the ability to talk. "Alexa call dad."

Ringing. Ringing. Voicemail.

"Alexa, ca-" she said, voice breaking as she fought not to cry.

She was dizzy. She was off balance. Her fingers slipped, and she fell. Flailing, she tumbled. Into the bad air, into the gas.

She landed hard, what little breath she had knocked from her. She tried not to gasp, tried not to, tried so hard to fight her way back up to her feet before she took that breath... but her body betrayed her. She collapsed, helpless, and she breathed.

Her lungs and her eyes opened at the same time. It burned, it stank, it hurt. It broke her heart. Facing her, almost kissing her, her mother's corpse lay beside her.

Unable even to cough anymore, her lungs a twisted knot pouring blood into her chest, Roxi reached out and touched her mother's hair. Her final breath was a gurgling wrench of pain, boiling messily inside of her. Roxi's vision darkened, and in that final moment, she thought she saw her mother's body smile, thought she felt her mother's cold arms wrap around her and pull her close.

The last good thing in the world went out of her, there in the gas, but at least she wouldn't be alone.

• Inspired by true events.

"Stop!" he shouted, and though I was almost upon him and any bystander would infer he was speaking to me only, in my spirit I perceived that he was addressing the immediate vicinity of the universe in general.

And so the immediate vicinity of the unuverse responded by freezing in place, including me, though I retained my powers of thought and my physical senses.

"The Administrator warned me about you, said that I should be wary of you," he continued casually, as though life and time around us both were continuing as normal. "I know you were just trying to be a helpful stranger, and I appreciate the sentiment."

I had just saved him from evidently throwing himself in front of a city bus.

Touching my shoulder, he freed me of his spell. His releasing 'adjusted' my posture to an upright standing position as opposed to the ungainly mid-stride in which I had been caught. My instinctive reaction was to try to catch myself from falling over and the reaction itself almost made me stumble anyway.

He continued in a rather hurried tone. "I know you. I have seen you in visions. I have delved you and I know we would meet, but not like this. Listen: you meddle in matters not your concern, and and would do more harm woth good intentions that most evil members of your kind attempt on purpose."

His body language had no hint of the same adrenaline rush I was feeling after having just saved a person's life. Had he not stopped the procession of everyrhing around us with the mere power of speech, I would still find his calm demeanor unsettling.

But in my dismay at what had just happened, a dozen different questions competed. The only one I dared ask at first was, "What is this?"

He answered, "I am a jinn. No, not like the movies. Not like the angels or the spirits some call jinns by mistake. No, we are not monsters from some game; we are people like you, only better. You were not meant to be here, but you were. Yes, I meant to die, but soneone turned you aside to save me, and I want to know why."

Before I could tell him I had no idea what he was talking about, he said, "No, you don't know I'm talking about, and fate willing, you never will. Now I must repay you for your kindness. A life for a life. How shall I do this? Perhaps I will send you back, let you do it all over again. Yes. I will make a tulpa to scry over you and perhaps it will observe the interloper and report back to me in the fullness of time. Yes. We will do that."

"A 'tulpa'? 'Scrying'? Look mister, you're speakimg English, but what are you talking about? I was just trying to do the right thing. How could that be any harm? And what Adminstrator? And what's a jinn anyway? And—"

"Enough questions," he complained, and suddenly I couldn't finish my sentence and barely my train of thought.

"Look here. In due time you will return to this place and report back to me. And we will figure this all out. Now go."

A familiar voice from childhood suddenly rang in my ears. "Charlie! Wake up and pay attention! This is important!"

My eyes siddenly snapped open amid the quiet rumble of chuckles and snickering around me. I was sitting at a desk in a classroom full of children. They were huge. Or rather, they were the same size as me. i looked around. A feeling of dread mixed with more familiarity washed over me.

That voice was Mrs. Leno's, and I had grown up with these children. I remembered when my family moved, I was glad to be rid of them and their drama and fads and episodic soap opera sweetheart relationships. Only to get enmeshed in a different high school's drama amd couplings. The fads stayed the same, though. Some things are just universal, like the Big S.

I had a sickening feeling. I hated this class, I hated these people. Most of all, I hated this teacher, because she cared and tried and I didn't understand her manner of tough love until years after I left.

A voice whispered in my ear, seething and wispy, the movement of air tickling my ear. [Yes, Charlie, stay awake.] At this, I involuntarily turned my head to see the face of whoever, or whatever, had just spoken to me. I saw only the empty assigned seat of some student absent from both class and my momentary recollection.

[Thank you. I will take note of Mrs. Leno.]

Now that sickening feeling turned into a sour physical sinking feeling in the put of my stomach.

Oh no.

[You must follow your path. You must not deviate. I will remind you of your appointment in due time.] Hours later, I would realize the sensation of the tulpa's breath tickling my skin was a physical hallucination in my brain trying to make sense of a foreign consciousness resting on my shoulder, as it were, and manipulating the energies in my brain to let me hear its unreal speech.

A feeling of being burdened, a sense of being 'more', suddenly vanished. A sensation you would notice only after its absence. I seemed to be alone in my thoughts.

I hoped never to feel that again, but I would find out too soon that hope would be dashed long before my appointed rendezvous with that mysterious stranger now years in...the future?

I had a job to do, but I resolved to make a mess of it as best I could. Not just for my own sake, but for Mrs. Leno's, whoever she was—is, whatever she might be.

I was a terrible student.

Though academics and the thought of obtaining knowledge allured my curious mind to actually sit down and read a book was a skill I did not possess.

Why do that, when there were so many more interesting things to do? I could play with the cat or spin tales with my toys in the garden, I could play games with my friends or tease my father for getting old. I could just lounge in my bed and watch videos. If I felt really lazy, I could just sleep!

As the years progressed and my grades worsened I finally realized I needed to put in just a little more effort. But that was okay, I still had lots of time to have fun.

I had a lot of fun. No moment was especially dull. My parents often referred to me as blessing, because I was so good at keeping myself busy. It wasn't hard to- there was always something fun to do.

Then I got a little older. I had to start thinking about what to do with my future, something I had never given much thought. But it was alright, between my vague planning I spent hours talking to my friends online. ... My father passed away. But it was okay, I came to live with my partner, whose family graciously took me in. We never spent a moment apart.. Its easy to feel better when your love is there to keep you busy. ... Money is now getting tight. There's not enough to send us to university. I had a lot to think about, jobs and budgets and time. Time. Time.

...My exams are over. I have a months vacation. I have to look for a job in between, but I've got plenty of time. Now I can do something fun I open my laptop, excited to do something I want to do for once, and...

...I'm at a loss. The screen stares back . I remember back to what seemed only minutes ago, I remember the fun I had. The time.

I sit now at my desk and feel suddenly heavy. I rub my neck, trying to soothe my permanently aching shoulders.

A hard voice speaks to me, not entirely devoid of sympathy.

I have the time now, but

I forgot how to enjoy it.

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