#Welcome to Micro Monday Hello writers and welcome to Micro Monday! I am excited to present you all with a chance to sharpen those micro-fic skills. What is micro-fic? I’m glad you asked! Micro-fiction is generally defined as a complete story (hook, plot, conflict, and some type of resolution) written in 300 words or less. For this exercise, it needs to be at least 100 words (no poetry). However, less words doesn’t mean less of a story. The key to micro-fic is to make careful word and phrase choices so that you can paint a vivid picture for your reader. Less words means each word does more! Each week, I provide a simple constraint or jumping-off point to get your minds working. This rotates between simple prompts, sentences, images, songs, and themes. You’re free to interpret the weekly constraints how you like as long as you follow the post and subreddit rules. **Please read the entire post before submitting.**   *** #This week’s challenge: **Theme: Dreams** **Bonus Constraint (worth 5 extra pts.):** - Music plays a meaningful role. Let’s into our ! The theme (or the idea) should appear in some way within the story. You may interpret the theme any way you like as long as the connection is clear and you follow all post and subreddit rules. Use of the bonus constraint and image are not required. **Don’t forget to after the submission deadline!** (The form usually opens at about 11:30am EST Monday.) You get points just for voting.   *** #How To Participate - **Submit a story between 100-300 words in the comments below.** You have until **Sunday at 11:59pm EST**. (No poetry.) - **Use to check your word count.** The title is not counted in your final word count. Stories under 100 words or over 300 will be disqualified from campfire readings and rankings. - **No pre-written content allowed.** Submitted stories should be written for this post, exclusively. Micro serials are acceptable, but please keep in mind that each installment should be able to stand on its own and be understood without leaning on previous installments. - **Come back throughout the week, read the other stories, and leave them some feedback on the thread.** You have until **2pm EST Monday** to get your feedback in. Only **actionable feedback** will be awarded points. See the ranking scale below for a breakdown on points. - **Please follow all subreddit rules and be respectful and civil in all feedback and discussion.** We welcome writers of all skill levels and experience here; we’re all here to improve and sharpen our skills. You can find a list of . - **Nominate your favorite stories at the end of the week .** You have until **2pm EST** next Monday to submit nominations. (Please note: The form does not open until Monday morning, after the story submission deadline.) - **And most of all, be creative and have fun!** If you have any questions, feel free to ask them on the *stickied comment* on this thread or through modmail. *** #Campfire - On **Mondays at 12pm EST,** I hold a Campfire on our server. We read all the stories from the weekly thread and provide live feedback for those who are present. Come join us to read your own story and listen to the others! You can come to just listen, if that’s more your speed. Everyone is welcome! *** #How Rankings are Tallied Rankings work on a point-based system. You can complete the following things for points. - **Use of prompt/constraint:** 20 points (required) - **Use of bonus constraint:** 5 points, unless otherwise stated (not required) - ***Actionable* Feedback:** 5 points each (up to 25 pts.) - **User nominations:** 10 points each (no cap) - **Bay’s nomination:** 40 pts for first, 30 pts for second, and 20 pts for third (plus regular nominations) - **Submitting nominations:** 5 points (total) *Users who go above and beyond with feedback (more than 5 detailed crits) will be awarded Crit Credits that can be used on r/WPCritique.*   *** #Rankings - **First:** - Submitted by u/katpoker666 - **Second:** - Submitted by u/katherine_c - **Third:** - Submitted by u/FyeNite - **Bay’s Spotlight:** - Submitted by u/wileycourage *** ###Subreddit News - Join to chat with authors, prompters, and readers! We hold several weekly Campfires and other fun events! - Join in our weekly writing chat on . We discuss a new topic every week! New here? Come introduce yourself! - Try your hand at serial writing with ! - You can also post serials to r/Shortstories, outside of Serial Sunday.


“My chest hurts” I tell the doctor. “It feels like something is trying to escape”. “Hmm... I’m not seeing anything. I don’t hear or feel anything. Without any more symptoms, I’m afraid I can’t help. Hopefully it goes away on its own”. I go through life with this pain. It comes in waves. Some days I hardly notice it, other days it’s unbearable and I can’t do anything but lie in bed. This heavy feeling, like I’m being suffocated, is torturous. I feel it moving inside my body. I swear I’ve seen something push against my chest. Doctors never find anything no matter how many tests they do. Some say it’s even in my head. Walking the halls of school feels terrible. It feels like everyone can see the pain and yet no one sees me at all. I feel invisible and yet entirely exposed. My grades slip. They don’t take ‘chest parasite’ as an excuse though. “You just need more focus. If you would actually pay attention and do the work, you would excel just like you used to”. I used to do amazing. I used to have straight A’s in everything. I used to be motivated and hopeful. I had things I aspired to do. But this pain is so distracting. This pressure and choking feeling make it difficult to focus on anything. The worst part is, I don’t think it’s just a chest parasite. I think it truly is a living creature that grows. I think it controls my choices and actions. I find that sometimes, this creature makes bad decisions for me. I feel like everyone can see it and it upsets people so I stop going out as much. I tell my mom this and she shrugs it off. It’s always shrugged off. It’s no big deal to her, and I don’t even talk to dad. He’d just say I need to man up. But it’s inside me, eating away. I feel it, I hear it, I know it’s there. My girlfriend broke up with me yesterday. I kept trying to tell her about the parasite but she couldn’t see it. She said I changed, that I was exhausting and a burden. At least that’s what I heard. Why couldn’t she see the parasite? It feels like it’s going to burst out of my chest. It constricts my heart, creating bizarre rhythms that feel like a heart attack waiting to happen. I can’t control how exhausting I am, so I guess I’ll stay at home more. I won’t bother finding another girlfriend or making new friends. The old ones left; I became too much of a drain to be around. One night, lying in bed, I feel it move inside me. It likes to remain hidden, make everyone see me as insane. But it tortures me. It plays with me. I watch as it moves in my chest, a small bump sliding under my skin. It moves down my stomach and to my thighs. I feel a sharp slice as a gash appears. I never see the parasite, but it just cut me. It opened me up in a thin red ribbon. It knows, no one will see this. It knows I won’t show anyone. They all think I’m crazy, so why bother. It does another cut. It hurts, but it almost feels good. Sometimes it turns my emotions off, makes me numb. It’s allowing me to feel this pain and I almost enjoy feeling something. I wear pants the next week. I decide to hide the parasite, pretend it doesn’t exist. I don’t speak to anyone anymore. I feel insane, how can someone not notice a creature living inside of me. I have no friends; my ex-girlfriend has blocked me. My teachers have stopped trying to get me to participate. I go home and lie in bed. I don’t sleep. I just stare at the ceiling, thinking through my choices in life. The parasite grows bigger, clutching my heart and lungs. Sometimes I can’t breathe. I almost enjoy the ritual of it slicing my legs and arms. It feels normal. I feel like I can finally see it. No one else does. I stand on a bridge. The water cools the air to an almost painful temperature but I hardly notice. I only notice the pain. The parasite hasn’t let go of my heart in 3 days now. It hurts. I would cry, but I can’t. I feel empty. There’s only one way to end this pain, one way to escape. I’ve written a note, letting my parents know that the parasite finally got me. I feel almost happy. I’m excited to not feel this pain in my chest, my brain, my stomach anymore. I’m confused though. The parasite seems almost happy too. Like this is what it wants. Like this is what it’s been pushing me to do for so long. No matter, as it’s finally time to end the parasite. I’ve been invisible my whole life. No one saw the parasite, no one realized the pain even when I tried to explain it. No one realized that the reason I was so exhausting as a person was that I felt so much pain all the time from this parasite. No one realized that the reason I never hung out with them wasn’t because I hated them, but because I hated myself. Maybe the parasite isn’t real. It felt real to me but I was told it’s in my head. I tried exercise, I tried dieting, I tried going outside and socializing. Just like my dad told me. It didn’t work. It helped, but the parasite stayed there, holding on. I jump. The parasite finally lets go of my heart. I finally can breathe again.


The restaurant in question rode the line between fast food and a proper sit down experience, but the quality of the food was unquestionably delicious. Ash had decided to stop by Dale's Deal Diner on the way home from work for a change of pace. Rhea normally brought her dinner, but she wanted to spare her "inn mate" (just up the hall) from cooking just once. The Triple D (as it was often called) had advertised a special menu for tonight featuring local produce, including opportunities to buy said produce fresh. The new menu items featured avocados, pickles, sweet potatoes, and some more exotic vegetables that she knew came from far away. It left her questioning if vegetables brought over from a dead world could be considered imports. All the same, she'd included sweet potato fries and avocado burgers in her takeout order, anticipating that those would go over well with her group. She was particularly looking forward to the sweet potatoes, if only to further her running joke of being an egregiously orange person, but she didn't doubt that they'd taste good too. While she was waiting at the counter, she was about to ask about the origin of the produce promotion when a familiar voice called out to her. "Asherah?" She turned around to see a fluffy creature with a green body and a red head festooned with a small chef's hat waddle out of the kitchen doors. "Watenou?" she asked, stuffing down several sources of confusion. "What are you doing here?" The Gremelon leader adjusted his hat. "Supplying the ingredients for a special event," he said. "Yes, before you ask, all of the produce on tonight's menu is Gremelon-grown." "That's not really surprising, but are you cooking the new recipes too?" Ash knew that the Gremelons were avid gardeners and farmers, but she was less certain about their culinary skills. "Cooking some, assisting with others," Watenou said. "Burgers and other meats are still handled by the regular chefs. However, I am seasoning the new vegetarian options and guiding the kitchen with our more... different offerings." A beat passed. "You ordered the sweet potato fries, did you not? I think you'll like the blend I chose for them." "I'm, uh, looking forward to it," Ash replied. "It's not every day you experience food cooked by a fuzzy guy with what would be advanced degree in several natural sciences." Watenou grinned and puffed his chest out, one snaggletooth showing. "I believe there are fewer greater honors in life than escorting the literal fruits and vegetables of one's labor from farm to table." "That sounds very... what do they call it? On brand for you," Ash said, smiling for the first time in the whole exchange and finally shoving aside the thoughts of the planet she once shared with the Gremelon leader. "I take it that's a compliment?" Watenou gave a short chuckle. "And I take it you'll be at next Saturday's farmer's market at Canteloop?" "Of course, of course. Rhea loved the barklogs you sold her at the last one." Ash's gaze averted as she remembered the strange veggie; it looked like a cucumber but it had a woody, almost nutty texture and flavor beyond the skin, which supposedly gave it its name. "Perhaps I ought to give your rabbit-eared friend some recipes from the 'old world' as well," Watenou mused, tapping what would have been his chin. "What better way to keep them alive?" "Oh gosh, you're right!" Ash felt astounded that she hadn't thought about that sooner. "We can post them on the NexusNet too!" "I like the sound of that," Watenou said, nodding. "I am curious to see what twists they would take as they went across the Akatasphere." "Order 21 for Cole!" "That's my cue." Ash scooped up the bag. "I'd better get these back to Rhea and Khiro before they get cold. See you at the farmer's market!" "Khiro? Ah, yes, the cat man. Her significant other. I've never seen someone eat a salad with that sort of gusto." Watenou waved a paw in farewell. "I'll gather my favorite recipes for our next stream on the NexusNet. Until then!" As Ash left the diner, she couldn't help but feel buoyed by the notion of preserving more than just stories from a world long gone. Food and recipes were a part of culture, and those who would enjoy the next postings would understand just a bit more of like was life on Aylith before the end. It made sense that Watenou, devoted to preserving nature, would carry along the lost world's culture as well.


# Welcome to Roundtable Thursday! Writing is so much fun, but it can also be very challenging. Luckily, there are so many other writers out there going through the exact same things! We all have unique skills, areas in which we excel, and ways we’d like to improve. This is our weekly thread to discuss all things writing and to get to know your fellow writers!! We will provide a topic and/or a few questions to spark discussion each week. Feel free to join in the discussion in the comments, talk about your experiences, ask related questions, and more. You do not have to answer all the questions, but please try to stay on topic! # This Week’s Roundtable Discussion - **If this is your first week joining us, please feel free to introduce yourself! Tell us a little about you and your writing!** **Additional Questions this Week:** - **How do you approach topics you’re not familiar with or used to writing about? How do you approach *genres* you’re unfamiliar with?** - **Is it difficult for you to write about new things? Are you comfortable writing outside what you’re best at or known for?** *** # Reminders * **Use the comments below to answer the questions and reply to others’ comments.** * **Please be civil in all your responses and discussion.** There are writers of all levels and skills here and we’re all in different places of our writing journey. Uncivil comments/discussions in any form will not be tolerated. * **Please try to stay on-topic.


Keith liked to watch the fish. To see them shoot through the water like silver bullets was always captivating. Their streamline forms so elegant and beautiful, the water parting before them with a graceful bow as they twirled and danced in their private watery world. To be admired such as these fish was Keith’s dream. Sadly, Keith could never be on the receiving end of such admiration and desire. How could he? Keith is a banana. A lowly, rather typical, dull, banana. There was nothing special about Keith, and he knew it. He was much the same as any of the other bananas in his bunch where they sat squarely in a wicker basket in the food court. The only thing to set him apart was his rather peculiar dream of becoming a fish. Or at least to be seen as a thing of beauty much in the same way he saw those wonderful fish. To be craved and envied as much as those slippery angels that torment him with their lustrous figures and tantalising performances. He’d watch their lithe bodies dart back and forth, envying their grace and slender frames compared to his sluggish rounded curves. The other bananas didn’t seem to care much for the fish, or of anything at all for that matter. They didn’t spend their days longing to be something they weren’t, something they never would be. They didn’t do a whole lot of anything, Keith thought. They just sit there in silence, blissfully unaware of the magnificent splendour taking place right in front of them. Oh how they were missing out on nature at its finest. This was a good thing, Keith thought. It was a good thing that he was the only one capable of appreciating the finer things the world has to offer. It contented him to know that the spectacles of the fish were for him and him alone. If only he could venture further, beyond the confines of the bunch, beyond the food court, beyond the barrier that separated his mundane existence from their splendour. To join them in their watery performance. To be seen as something as remarkable as them. But alas, he was not destined to penetrate the firmament which held back the briny heavens that those beautiful fish lived in. He would just have to live with the fact that he was nothing but a simple banana who would never be seen as anything more. It was a shock when, one day, while enjoying the show, Keith felt a sudden rush of air as he was hoisted into the sky. A great being held him as if he was nothing, a tiny insignificance in its mighty grasp. His stomach dropped as fear crept up his spine and filled his heart with dread. The ground swayed and tumbled in a dizzying display of colours as he was lofted ever higher until he was staring into the face of God. Then he saw it, in the eyes of the deity that swept him away. Staring back at him was a look of joy and of lust. A warmth seeped throughout his entire being as the opulent diamond blue eyes drew nearer, a smile forming across a widening maw. This warmth was what Keith had craved all this time. The feeling of being wanted and appreciated for just being himself, a banana. He couldn’t believe that God had chosen him, an average and clunky fruit, over that of the silvered works of art swimming behind them. As his outer layer was slowly peeled away, despite the pain it causes him, Keith closed his eyes with a smile on his face as he welcomed what was to come and basked in the delight of being desired even more than those remarkable fish.


The Pope betrayed me. Hey everyone, sorry that I haven't given an update on the grease war recently, I have had some minor setbacks which have forced me to rethink my existence. The most recent one being that the Pope has betrayed me which is something that I expected, but something that I never could have foreseen. Anyway he suddenly disappeared and left only this note: [Dear fleabag, I have four things which no other human has... they are all fingers. Yes, I have four extra fingers. I spoke to my doctor several decades ago about having them removed so that I would have just 12 fingers like a normal person but he said that that would involve effort and so he will not preform the surgery. I am fine with this because I do not trust doctors. Besides, it's just like my mother used to always say, "having four extra fingers is like having four extra toes, just on your hand instead of your foot." Now if you are reading this then you may be wondering what the point of this letter is, and, well, I regret to inform you that the point of this letter is not my extra fingers. Have you heard of the black plague? It happened a long time ago. It also is not the point of this letter. No, the point of this letter is the matter of my sudden disappearance. Sorry Ronald, but I had to leave. I have mysterious Pope stuff to do, you wouldn't understand. Also, I took the shovel with me in case I have to dig a hole or hunt a large army of tobacco farmers. I also took your lawnmower, I think that it was your neighbor's but it's ok, I took it anyway. Actually there are a couple reasons that I took the lawnmower which I feel that you deserve to know, first of all I needed a speedy mode of transportation and that thing can go like eight miles an hour, second of all it is my hope that you will think that I am doing mysterious landscaping stuff and not mysterious Pope stuff because that is a secret. So if you are watching the news and the headline is "Pope mows the grass in the Vatican City with stolen push mower" that is not me, that is a different Pope, he is probably Mexican or something. Finally I must conclude this letter, but before I do, I have a favor to ask of you. Please inspect the back of this page and see if there is a small man taped to it. He would be about 3 feet tall, with a 17 inch nose and six foreheads stacked on top of each other, it would be his belief that he has a double chin which he does not, but he is very self conscious about his chin so don't mention it. His name would be Yeewee Bastard but don't call him that as that would get him on the topic of endangered species of unnamed plants, something which he is rather passionate about. If he is there, he is not real, he is a hallucination, ignore his hatred of fossilized fruits, do not let him persuade you. Now for the favor, please go find one of those Vietnam veterans who hold the cardboard signs that say "anything helps" and donate this letter to them, it should help, the sign says so. With unmatched hatred, farewell crusty, we shall meet again soon.] So there it is, now I have been left shovel-less, Popeless, and with my neighbor's lawn mower no longer hidden in my chimney. I am actually so upset right now that I literally went outside and paved my neighbor's garden for him. At least those pesky plants won't be bothering him anymore.


You're all alone in this shithole. Your family is long gone by now, and you're not sure where to. Could be to another district, perhaps a different city. Hell, could be to a different country altogether. You don't give a damn that's for sure. They left you here to rot all by yourself and the the worst thing about it was the feeling that you completely deserved it. But of course you don't give a fuck about that as well. No reason to, since it won't change a damn thing anyway. It's a dark neighborhood you're living in. Well, "living" is quite of an exaggeration. **Surviving** in District A16 is more like it. Yeah... Much, much more like it. Tall, crumbly, and very old apartment buildings with more floors that one can even count fill up dozens and dozens of square miles. It's funny how many apartments the government was able to cram in each building, just to fill them up with all of the human trash they're dying to get rid of. For what it's worth, half of those buildings are either completely abandoned, or not suitable for living, not even for farm animals. The rest are filled with the poor and unfortunate, drug addicts, prostitutes, and random hobos. Families who couldn't afford living in some of the better suburbs, ended up here too, just to find out that they have no bright future for their children in this place, whatsoever. You're in the 67th floor, in your family's tiny, 2 bedroom apartment that's more often than not infested with cockroaches and rats. It's kinda late at 21:47 and you're not really doing much aside for lying down on your mattress, staring aimlessly at the ceiling. The apartment is mostly dark except for a one, barely working lamp in the small kitchen. Your stomach makes weird noises, but you know for a fact that there's no food in the fridge, or in any of the cabinets for that matter. Gotta step outside and see if there's something worth fetching. Lurking these streets at night isn't really all that advised here, but then again, District A16 isn't too terrific even if it's 8:00 in the morning. The word "Police" could make everyone here choke on their own laugh. **THUD.** Something big just slid and fell down in the Nelson's apartment that's close to yours. There's a thin drywall separating both your apartments so you could always hear them argue about stuff when they were home. But that's strange; the Nelson's left the place a year ago after their older child, Cory, was stabbed multiple times to death in a bar fight. Poor kid was only 19. They left with their remaining daughter and were no where to be seen since then. It could be a case of someone breaking in and searching for something valuable to steal. But in this place... Well, nobody wants to be seen, heard, or talked to. A burglar wouldn't want to raise that much of attention unless they were armed... And with that lightning revelation, you're jumping at once out of bed, grabbing a sharp knife from the kitchen and reach the front door, gazing nervously through the peephole. This is gonna be a long, long fucking night.


We, as humans, have the propensity to create our own answers to questions nor science, nor common sense can offer a reasonable explanation for. Examples of this are best found in the older religions. We didn't know why the sun set and rose every day, so we attributed these happenings to a God. An almighty creature, of whom we were at its mercy every day. We have come a long way since then and most of humanity no longer subscribes to the notion of a sun, rain, harvest or moongod. We now look to religion for a moral compass, guidance and support through the rougher times in our lives. However; our modern science only takes us so far and with a big part of both the universe and the human mind left unexplored we sometimes still have to find our answers elsewhere. Cryptids, ghosts, ghouls and monsters. They aren't just for entertainment on a gloomy saturdaynight, they are, in rare cases, the only reasonable explanation. In others just a viable option. Did those campers get mauled to death by a bear, or was it a wendigo? Did that ship perish due to a storm or did it venture in to a grumpy krakens territory? One thing all of these creatures, all be it gods, cryptids or ghosts, have in common is that they are hunters. They survive off of humans in some fashion. Gods thrive off of our admiration, cryptids tend to be a lot less elegant and just eat us and ghosts are alledged to feed off of our energy and fear. With our world being as vast and unexplored as it is, it is very likely that there are creatures out there we aren't talking about. Creatures that walk and talk like we do, but still view us as prey. As a means to their survival. A way for them to thrive. This leads me to the point I am trying to make, the story I am trying to tell. What if we're wrong? What if we overscienced things and accidentally left the door wide open for the more intelligent creatures among us to feed of of us, our energy, our love. Because when you think about it; is there anything more intense, more consuming, more powerful than loving someone? What if there are creatures out there, walking around looking for people to love them, to feed off of, to absolutely drain and move on to their next victim? To leave their victims uncapable of love. To leave them longing and in doing so creating an infinite source of energy to tap in to, growing ever more powerful and desirable with every person they leave as a shell of themselves. Maybe some creatures out there don't need to do us physical harm to feed off of us. I know they're out there. I know, because I loved one of them. These "monsters", for a lack of a better term, seem to appear when you're at a point in life when you're "okay". You're not miserable, but you're not great either. Life is, as they say, "good enough". They appear, seemingly out of nowhere, and seemlessly find a way to become a steady part of your mind. Maybe they're the cute barista that keeps giving you that free muffin, maybe they're that one friend that never really feels platonic. Maybe you'll be lucky enough to never meet one. How do you protect yourself if you do? Well, it serves us well to remember that certain monsters only have the power we give them. Just as demons who feed off of fear don't have anything to feed off if we're not scared of them, these "cupids" have nothing to gain if we learn to never love someone more than we love ourselves. They can't win if we don't take all of our self esteem, happiness and general sense of being content from the, admittedly, tainted bank they offer us. Supplies always seem to be plenty, but beware, they never are. Said recourses will appear to be dwindling, and you will react by working harder, doing more in an attempt to get back to that initial level. That's where they thrive, feed, grow stronger. That's how they drain you, break you and once they do, you will never be the same. Love is the most powerful thing out there, but you're in control. Hopefully.


#Welcome to Micro Monday Hello writers and welcome to Micro Monday! I am excited to present you all with a chance to sharpen those micro-fic skills. What is micro-fic? I’m glad you asked! Micro-fiction is generally defined as a complete story (hook, plot, conflict, and some type of resolution) written in 300 words or less. For this exercise, it needs to be at least 100 words (no poetry). However, less words doesn’t mean less of a story. The key to micro-fic is to make careful word and phrase choices so that you can paint a vivid picture for your reader. Less words means each word does more! Each week, I provide a simple constraint or jumping-off point to get your minds working. This rotates between simple prompts, sentences, images, songs, and themes. You’re free to interpret the weekly constraints how you like as long as you follow the post and subreddit rules. **Please read the entire post before submitting.**   *** #This week’s challenge: Welcome to Week 1 of my absolute favorite month, **Spooktober!** Each week, your prompt will be **inspired by the horror genre**. There will be **2 Bonus Constraints** each week; one will be a subgenre and the other something to include. I encourage you to lean into the genre and try new things! But you are not required to write horror or Halloween-themed stories. These are just starting points. - **Image Prompt:** *Image originally titled ‘Halloween’.* - **Bonus Constraint 1: Genre is comedy horror.** - **Bonus Constraint 2: A talking pet appears or is mentioned.** This week’s challenge is to use the above image as *inspiration* for your story. You may interpret the image any way you like, as long as the **connection is clear** and you follow all sub and post rules. You do not have to use the entire image. You can use any part you like (i.e., the title, theme, subject, setting, etc.). **The bonus constraints are not required.** You can check out my ever growing if you’d like some fun, spooky music! **Don’t forget to after the submission deadline!** (The form usually opens at about 11:30am EST Monday.) You get points just for voting.   *** #How To Participate - **Submit a story between 100-300 words in the comments below.** You have until **Sunday at 11:59pm EST**. (No poetry.) - **Use to check your word count.** The title is not counted in your final word count. Stories under 100 words or over 300 will be disqualified from campfire readings and rankings. - **No pre-written content allowed.** Submitted stories should be written for this post, exclusively. Micro serials are acceptable, but please keep in mind that each installment should be able to stand on its own and be understood without leaning on previous installments. - **Come back throughout the week, read the other stories, and leave them some feedback on the thread.** You have until **2pm EST Monday** to get your feedback in. Only **actionable feedback** will be awarded points. See the ranking scale below for a breakdown on points. - **Please follow all subreddit rules and be respectful and civil in all feedback and discussion.** We welcome writers of all skill levels and experience here; we’re all here to improve and sharpen our skills. You can find a list of . - **Nominate your favorite stories at the end of the week .** You have until **2pm EST** next Monday to submit nominations. (Please note: The form does not open until Monday morning, after the story submission deadline.) - **And most of all, be creative and have fun!** If you have any questions, feel free to ask them on the *stickied comment* on this thread or through modmail.   *** #Campfire - On **Mondays at 12pm EST,** I hold a Campfire on our server. We read all the stories from the weekly thread and provide live feedback for those who are present. Come join us to read your own story and listen to the others! You can come to just listen, if that’s more your speed. Everyone is welcome!   *** #How Rankings are Tallied Rankings work on a point-based system. You can complete the following things for points. - **Use of prompt/constraint:** 20 points (required) - **Use of bonus constraint:** 5 points, unless otherwise stated (not required) - ***Actionable* Feedback:** 5 points each (up to 25 pts.) - **User nominations:** 10 points each (no cap) - **Bay’s nomination:** 40 pts for first, 30 pts for second, and 20 pts for third (plus regular nominations) - **Submitting nominations:** 5 points (total) *Users who go above and beyond with feedback (more than 5 detailed crits) will be awarded Crit Credits that can be used on r/WPCritique.*   *** #Rankings - **First:** - Submitted by u/katpoker666 - **Second:** - Submitted by u/NotMuchChop - **Third:** - Submitted by u/Pancakes-and-Waffles - **Bay’s Spotlight:** - Submitted by u/katherine_c - **Crit Star:** - u/katpoker666 - **Crit Star:** - u/FyeNite *** ###Subreddit News - Join to chat with authors, prompters, and readers! We hold several weekly Campfires and other fun events! - Join in our weekly writing chat on . We discuss a new topic every week! New here? Come introduce yourself! - Try your hand at serial writing with ! - You can also post serials to r/Shortstories, outside of Serial Sunday.


Murray Stinson didn't like Fridays. Mondays were better–he never had to lay anyone off on a Monday. Layoffs at MultiCorp happened on Fridays. The meetings were quick and soul crushing, usually scheduled for the end of the day, involved a fair amount of crying, the occasional flurry of invective, and left him feeling like a destroyer of worlds. It was for that reason that Bill Morris, Analyst, would be his final layoff. Ever. After nearly thirty years with the company, the destroyer of worlds would retire. Murray pressed the call button for the elevator and studied the poster on the wall next to the doors. LEE WILSON. MISSING. IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION CONCERNING HIS WHEREABOUTS, PLEASE CALL 917-555-9495. Beneath the text, the smiling, stubbled face of Lee Wilson, mail clerk, stared back at him. The poster had been up for a week. Lee had gone out for lunch and never returned, and Murray's favorite theory was that Lee had simply walked away and started a new life somewhere. Murray wished he'd had the guts to do that, to walk out into the sunshine, throw his tie in the garbage can, and drop off the face of the earth. He'd fantasized about opening up a little bar on a beach somewhere, where he would serve happiness to sunburned tourists instead of grief to overstressed, pasty-faced cubicle dwellers. The elevator doors opened, and Jim McKittrick, Vice-President of Sales, flashed a smile. "Murray." "Jim." "What floor?" "Ten." Jim pressed the button for ten, and the doors slid shut. "Bill Morris, huh?" Jim asked. Murray nodded. "He's going to play the discrimination card." "Probably. I can handle it." "Better you than me. I can't stop looking at it when I'm around him." "It wouldn't be a problem if he kept that sack on, but he won't." The elevator slowed and a chime sounded. A glowing red 8 filled the readout. "Good luck," Jim said and exited the car. The doors slid shut, and the elevator resumed its slow, rumbling climb. *Luck,* Murray thought. If he'd been lucky, Lewis Pike, who was barely thirty and had been stuck with Bill's portfolio because nobody else in human resources wanted it, wouldn't have called in sick, and he'd be down at his desk planning his retirement. Lewis was probably faking; kids had no work ethic, these days. The elevator chimed and the number 10 popped onto the readout. Murray turned left out of the elevator and walked down a row of empty offices. Most of the staff had been relocated to the lower floors when it was announced that the company would lease its upper floors as part of its Right Sizing Program. Only Bill Morris remained on ten: a hermit who needed to be kicked off his mountain. Murray reached the end of the hall and stopped in front of a closed door. It was strange that Bill kept his door closed when he was the only person on the entire floor, but then Bill was a bit of an anomaly. He knocked. "Come in." Murray turned the handle. The door opened with a click, and Bill Morris, seated behind a desk overloaded with thick binders and stacks of paper, frowned at him. "I've seen you around. HR?" "Yes." "On a Friday afternoon." "I'm afraid so." Bill leaned back in his chair, his shoulders drooping. "I usually deal with Lewis." "He called in sick." Murray forced himself to keep his eyes on Bill's face and not look at the tentacle. It wasn't easy. The eye wanted to focus on it, wanted to linger on the thick, gray-green, suction-cupped appendage where Bill's left arm should've been. The tentacle tapered to a round point that Bill slowly tapped on the desk, the way one might drum one's fingers if one possessed any. "May I sit?" asked Murray. The tip of the tentacle flicked toward a chair placed against the wall near the door. Murray rolled it over to the desk and sat down. "I'm sorry to—" "It's my arm, isn't it?" *That ain't an arm, pal,* Murray thought. "Not at all. Your position is being—" "Just say it. It's the arm." *Don't look at it,* Murray thought again. *Do your job and go home.* He cleared his throat. "Your position is being made redundant. The current state of the economy necessitates--" Bill leaned forward. His left shoulder moved under his short-sleeved dress shirt, and the tentacle rose into the air and swished back and forth in front of Murray's face. "Just. Say. It." Murray swallowed. A trail of slime glistened on the desk where the tentacle had been resting. "Okay. Unofficially it's the tent..." He paused as Bill's eyes narrowed. The word tentacle had been deemed offensive and its use discouraged when in Bill's presence. "Sorry. I meant unofficially it's your arm. Yes." "That's discrimination." "It's making people uncomfortable, and by refusing to wear the, um..." He pointed to a leather sleeve folded on top of a filing cabinet. Everyone called it 'The Squid Sack", but the delicacy of the situation required a more politically correct term. "...the apparatus, you're violating the conditions of your employment." "My arm cramps up when I wear it. And it's hot." "Regardless, you agreed to the condition." "I only agreed to it because I needed the job. I'm not going to hide anymore. Travis Cooper has a mole on his nose the size of a watermelon. It's disgusting and no one's forcing him to wear a bag over his head." "That's not the same, and if I'm being completely honest," Murray said, glancing at the slime trail, "the excretion issue has become a problem." "Oh that's ridiculous." "There have been complaints." "Would you fire someone for having excessively sweaty palms?" "No." "Same thing." "Bill--" "Save your breath." He pounded the desk with the tentacle. Mucous spurted from one of the suction cups and splashed across Murray's shirt. His eyes widened, and he blushed. "Oh. Shit." He opened a desk drawer and pulled out a box of tissues. "Ok. Maybe it's getting worse." Murray dabbed at his shirt with a tissue. Hot bile rose in his throat, and he choked it down. *Think of your retirement. Think of your retirement.* Bill pushed away from the desk and walked to the window. The tentacle dangled at his side, while his right hand slipped inside his pocket. He stared at the office building across the street, a wall of windows behind which an army of regular, non-tentacled people went about their day. Murray wondered how often he stood there, watching, maybe wishing he were like them. Wishing he were normal. "I didn't ask for this," Bill said, raising the tentacle. "I didn't get a say, you know. There wasn't a voice in the womb that said, 'Hey, kid. You'll be coming out soon, and you can either have a normal arm or a really neat, totally original tentacle. Your choice.'" Murray dropped the slick wad of tissue into a wastebasket. "Can I ask you a personal question?" "Why do I have a tentacle for an arm?" Murray nodded. "Do you know how long I've been waiting for someone around here to ask me that? To show a little interest?" "I think people felt rude asking." "Did they think it was rude to ask me about my weekend? They never bothered with that, either." "People can be jerks." *Myself included*, he thought. It had never occurred to him to ask Bill about his weekend. Bill was Bill. You saw him, you nodded, maybe waved, and moved along, mostly in an attempt to not stare at the tentacle. Unlike a prosthetic limb, which gradually, over time, one became accustomed to seeing until one stopped seeing it altogether, the tentacle never ceased to revolt. "What did the doctors say when you were born?" "I think the general reaction was 'What the hell is that?'" "What about your parents?" "My mother died giving birth to me." "Did she—" "No. She had two perfectly good arms. She had perfectly good everything. She was beautiful." "Your father?" "Took off. Never knew him." "Family?" "I have an aunt. She agreed to take me in on condition that they amputate. So they cut it off." Murray felt the bile rise again. "It grew back?" Bill nodded. "It grew back thicker and longer." "And your aunt?" "Guess." "I'm sorry." "She sent me money every month, though. I guess the checks made her feel less guilty about donating me to science." "Do you know if there's anybody else out there with your condition?" Bill shook his head. "I looked. I'm alone." Something twitched deep inside Murray, a pang of sympathy for this man forced to go through life as a human squid, this man whose job most likely provided a note of normalcy in an otherwise lonely and alienated existence. And here he was taking that away from him. The destroyer of worlds strikes again. "I really am sorry, Bill." The tentacle shot out and pointed at Murray. "I hate that word. 'Sorry'. I lived in a lab until I was eighteen, and I heard that goddamn word every week for 18 years. Doctors were sorry, nurses were sorry, the techs were sorry, but they kept me there. Everyone was sorry, but at the end of the day, they all went home to their families. Not one person had the courage to back up that sorry with a little action. No one wanted to give the freak a home." Murray usually felt like an asshole after one of these meetings, but this was different. He'd reached a whole new and depressing level of assholedom. Not only was he taking away Bill's job, he was adding to the long list of people who had disappointed him. He was just another boot pressing down on the back of a man trying to force his way out of the mud. Bill took a step towards Murray. "You can't take this job away from me." The anger had left his voice. "Do you know what it's like to be rejected your entire life? It took me fifteen years to land this job. Fifteen years of showing up for interviews, and rejections, and watching people's eyes bug out of their heads. I can't wait another fifteen for someone to take pity on me again." "There's nothing I can do." "I need to work. It takes my mind off..." He paused and searched for the right words. "...the changes." "Changes?" The tentacle made a wet, squishy sound as Bill leaned on the desk. "Help me out. Please. I can understand if I wasn't performing, but--" "I'm sorr–," Murray caught himself. *Don't say sorry.* "I'm just the messenger." Bill sighed. His expression hardened. "Then what good are you?" "Excuse me?" "You're just one more guy getting in my way. Just like that asshole Lee Wilson. Did you know he made a private Facebook group about me? " "No. I didn't." "Someone screenshot a bunch of the shit he'd posted on there and emailed it to me from an anonymous account. Memes, comments, theories, pictures he'd snapped when I wasn't looking–he even had shots from inside my apartment when I wasn't there. Selfies. On my bed, my toilet, went through my fridge. I don't know how he got in, but he did and he was careful, too. Nothing was out of place. And then he put the pictures in an album called In The Belly of the Beast." Murray tensed, the fantasy he'd had of Lee boldly leaving his dead end job for a brighter future crumbling under the weight of suspicion. Did Bill have something to do with Lee's disappearance? It sure as hell sounded like it. The springs on the chair creaked as he got to his feet. "Maybe we should reschedule." Bill loosened his tie. "What are you doing?" "You asked about the changes." "It's okay. You don't have to—" "You know what they say," Bill said, pulling his tie over his head, then undoing his collar. "'If you can't join 'em, beat 'em.'" Bill ripped open his shirt. "Jesus Christ!" Two tiny eyes bulged from the tips of Bill's swollen nipples, round, red-veined balls the size of chickpeas. "I just wanted a little compassion, Murray." Murray's gaze shifted from the eyes, the impossible, blinking eyes, to the rigid black scar running from the base of Bill's chest bone to his belly button. "Oh God..." The scar split down the middle, a slow, moist unzipping from top to bottom. "What...are...you?" The words, barely whispered, tumbled out of Murray's mouth. His brain screamed at his legs-- Move! Run!--but his legs ignored the command. "I wish I knew," Bill said. The scar had turned into black lips behind which Murray glimpsed two vertical rows of teeth and a flash of pink. A tongue. There was no time to react. There was only the tongue, a pink streak, lashing out. It wrapped his head in wet, foul-smelling muscle and jerked him forward. He tried to scream, but there was no air, only the pinch of teeth around his neck and the sudden intestinal dark. Murray Stinson didn't like Fridays.


The House of the Wolf I was but twenty and one when I came to the New World. We arrived to establish some trading missions further inland with the local tribespeople and through my encounters as a Steward I encountered a great deal of peoples. But none had stood out to me so much as the people of the Red River for whom we called the “Blue Eyes” on account of their physical appearance, which was by far the most distinct from all the rest. Now the reader should not trouble themselves in attempting to read more upon them for now they have already been either destroyed by conquest or plague like many other peoples I encountered. But for a time they had lived upon a river which gained its name from the clay that stirred beneath it. (Though others would claim it was from the blood that stained the rivers after a certain woman murdered her babe in its waters. But that is a tale for another time). It should be known there were others before us who sailed fourth up that very river but few men returned, and those who did spoke wild tales of men who shifted into animals and attacked them and their band. Others spoke of Pagan natives sacrificing Islemen to their Gods, and even further even spoke of wolves the size of bears that chased men of their senses. Wether these tales were true or not was irrelevant, as our Lord Sir Arthur Dayne wished to seek his riches with the people of the River anyways and brought a host of men to ensure it was done. After a day of sailing upriver we came upon the village we were met by an incursion of their warriors and elders in a show of force, as our presence in these lands has been noted for some time. One can only imagine they expected the worst of us as their womenfolk and children daughter shelter either in their thatch covered homes or in the trees beyond our vision. Once we pulled our ship ashore and unfurled our banner of the Golden Stagg and a akward silence befell upon us until we made the gesture that we meant them no harm and offered them gifts of Bread and Salt like we did with the other tribes we had encountered down there river. Now the reader should know there were 12 of us in all: 6 men at arms, 2 stewards (including myself) 3 sailors and one knight. The last one, Sir Arthur Dayne was true to his mission and made sure we acted on our best behavior to the point of making us kneel before their chieftain when we finally met him (an act the King would find repulsive but nesscary no less). Relations however warmed as the river men brought us to our village and we were allowed to take a closer look into their daily lives for whom we had interrupted, and after a while even the women and children approached us. Though they dared not come very close as we must have looked something like goblins to them but it was here I was able to write down their features. Now the Blue eyes were not like the other tribes we encountered along the coastline. Their skin was pale like snow and their eyes were blue like the water and they had Black hair as the raven whereas the Bearskins that we had encountered on the coastline had brown eyes and brown of hair and were more thin in appearance than their brethren in the inland (if we could even consider them brethren). Their people were also curious of us in turn and more particular the arms we carried and the clothes we wore. However, much to his annoyance many amongst them stayed away from Sir Dayne when he attempted to speak to the Blue eyes. In general speaking to them was difficult. I myself asked them many questions as was my duty as a Steward. I asked them about their Pagan Gods they might have worshiped, how they lived and most importantly, where could pelts be found so as we may have something to show for our efforts. However in return they just smiled and nodded in the sign that they had no idea what I was asking in the matter most natives of the continent generally did. However it should not be assumed that these were an ignorant people. For their survival in these frigid lands of the North was a testament to their knowledge of the land and their knowledge of primitive bronze working I could see from the hatchets their warriors held and some of their people even wore shoes and belts like ourselves. The Village itself was also a small wonder in itself. Unlike the villages of the bearskins we encountered these people had assembled their village in a circular pattern along the river, with the smallest of huts leading to the largest one in the center of the village. For a time we assumed that this building, (for it was much too robust to be considered just some hut) was the home of the Cheif. But We did not realize our folly until the Cheif himself refused to be even nearby it much less ourselves and even less Sir Dayne whose patience was growing thin with our hosts. For some reason or the other however me and my colleague were allowed to study the building for a time (perhaps it was because we were the only ones amongst our retinue who were unarmed) , and it’s likeness I shall describe: unlike the other buildings of this village (or this land in general) it was made of cut stone blocks held together with a sort of cement. A pair of wolves the size of men carved in stone guarded its entrance that was 2 oak wood doors and upon them were several drawings of men dressed as wolves fighting against Staggs in some sort of mythical hunt. I once assumed this was some sort of ancient story amongst their people. Little did I know at the time it was a grave omen. Day turned into night as the Blue eyes became more welcoming of our presence and welcomed us by their fires. I had learned little in the time I was there frustratingly but things however changed when all the village people began to go to the building and for once they did not protest our being there. They opened the oaken doors and we entered with all the rest to find it to be some sort of Hall with the center of the roof exposed so we could see above us like a beaming light the full moon shining. From there we sat down on some tattered hides as they began their ritual. Nothing of this kind was unusual about this as we’ve witnessed many peoples of these lands do so. They would begin to dance in the moonlight as they dawned wolf skins and chant as they did so in their language and this continued for some time. Then a band of children welcomed Sir Arthur Dayne himself to this ritual tugging at his hand and laughing in a friendly manner. Sir Dayne being a God fearing man did not want to participate in such a pagan ritual but he did not want to disappoint the children and so he continued much to the laughter of his own men in good cheer. Sir Dayne stood there a bit akward staring at the men dancing around them as they chanted louder and louder when suddenly they drew their knives and without honor began to stab at him to death where his armor that bore the sigil of the Stagg could not protect him. His men at arms at once descended upon a fury to save their Lord as people screamed and acted wickedly as they Howled and such and descended into a mad frenzy of their own biting and attacking us in the process. I myself almost lost my life as I ran for the door when suddenly a woman no older than twenty and two grabbed a rock and bludgeoned my arm before drawing her arm back to crash my head in. If it wasn’t for the timely encounter of a sailor who drew his knife and killed her I would have surely perished in that Stone cornered Hell. Others were not so fortunate, for our Lord Sir Dayne paid for insulting God with his life. For even though his men tried their best to save his life he was too far gone and they could not reach him in time when he fell to the floor with blood flowing from his neck. The only honor in his death was that he died as he lived: with sword in hand. The rest of us descended to the ship from the Hall with the Blue eyes chasing us the whole way. A few men fell along the way but there was no saving them for we could not spare the time. We reached the ship with the grace of God and pushed off the shoreline. A men at arms who under ordinary circumstances would be knighted for his heroism pushed the ship so that it may take off before he drew his sword to keep our pursuers at bay and the last we saw of him he went down fighting upon the shore. We then decided to end our journey and return to our homelands for we had been gone many months now and if there was ever a sign from God to leave it was that. And so I end my testimony of the lands beyond the Red River and the death of Sir Arthur Dayne. I can now confirm the rumors that were once put fourth are not true. There are no monsters beyond the River only men.


Once I came upon a girl swinging in the park near my house. The late summer trees surrounded the playground like a cradle of leaves and the moon was half full. She wasn’t swinging very hard. She just swayed a bit to and fro over the ground, her feet tapping the wooden plank underneath that had been put there to obstruct the mud. Tap, tap, her feet went as she swung back and forth. She was smiling, her head slightly lowered, her eyes gazing at something on the ground. I climbed onto the swing next to her and said, “Hello.” “Hi,” she said, not looking at me. “Why are you smiling?” I asked her. “I don’t know.” “It’s kind of creepy,” I said. She shrugged. “I like being creepy.” “Why?” “It’s happy, but not proper happy,” she said. “Oh,” I said, confused. I turned my attention to the swing and concentrated on moving back and forth, my legs going up, and down, until my mind was empty and content. Then when I was done, I scraped my shoes against the ground until I was still. I got up. “Goodbye,” I said. “Bye,” she said. Days went by, and the leaves fell until the ground was a brilliant orange, and the branches were bare against the lamplit sky. Sometimes I’d pass and she wouldn’t be there. But sometimes, she’d be there, still smiling, a soft smile. I’d get on the swing next to her and we’d swing, not talking, just silently moving back and forth. Sometimes when I got into the feeling of it it would feel like time had stopped, or never existed, and I didn’t exist either. I was just a pendulum hanging from the metal rod above, separate from reality. One day I felt particularly bad but I still said “hello” to her as usual, and got onto my swing. I felt grumpy, and lonely. Why did she never talk? Why didn’t she ask me about my day? I was always here for her, wasn’t I? I suddenly felt frustrated by her quietness and her empty smile. “Stop smiling,” I said. “Why?” she said. “Stop it,” I said louder. “Why,” she said. “STOP SMILING,” I shouted, and like a crack on a cup of porcelain, her smile shivered and broke, and the tap, tapping of her feet on the wooden plank stopped. She stood up from the swing, her mouth opened ajar, her eyes unblinking, and the wooden plank under her feet creaked open like a door into the ground. A moaning began in her throat, low and unearthly, until it bellowed in my ears like the moaning of the wind. I didn’t like the sound. “Stop it,” I said. “Stop that at once.” “Daddy,” she said, “I’m sorry I broke it I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry–” “Be quiet,” I said. “--sorry sorry sorry sorry” “Close your mouth,” I said, and wrapped my hands around her face, and tightened them to muffle the sound. When I opened my hands, I saw nothing but scraps of a cafeteria lunch fall onto the floor, and walls wherever I looked.


Despite the rain methodically pounding its way through her oilskins, Sara slowed as she climbed the broad, deep steps of the Archives. Grand, fluted pillars, bases scarcely lit by the street's gaslamps, rose on either side, disappearing into fog and darkness. The bronze double doors at the top were covered in carvings, biblical and classical scenes intertwined with little rhyme or reason. She chuckled, just a little, at the image of Eve handing Adam an apple as decoration on a repository of knowledge. The tolling of the evening bell prompted Sara back into movement. The bronze doors refused to budge, and she drew a shaky breath, praying that her grandmother's journal was right. After a quick glance around to make sure she was still alone, Sara placed a hand on the sculpted apple and released a flare of forbidden magic. Silently, the left door swung inwards, and she slipped inside the moment the gap was wide enough. The door shut again with the slightest click the instant she was through. Gas chandeliers hung from the arched ceiling, lighting a long, cavernous vault. The pillars continued inside, leading the eye to the single desk at the end where a man sat writing, seemingly undaunted as he was dwarfed by the space around him. She scurried across the marble floor, wincing with every echoing, squeaking step. It seemed to take far too long to traverse the foyer, and she paused for breath before the desk. Without looking up, fountain pen still darting across a book, the man said, "The Archive is closed for the night." Sara shivered at the tone of utter dismissal, but said the words her grandmother had written. "I'm not here for collections fit for the light of day." At that, his pen paused. "Name?" "Sara." "Your *full* name." She licked her lips. "Sara Williamson." He looked at her at last, and she had to force herself to meet his gaze. She'd thought the stories of the Archivist were exaggerations, but standing before him, the weight of his centuries—millennia—bearing down upon her, she suddenly understood the tales. But then, the keepers of the supernatural were always *other*, and there were few places left as magical as the Archives. She found herself staring at the floor, wondering why she'd ever thought to lie, when he repeated, tonelessly. "Your name. Please." "Sara..." it was hard to force out after years of hiding. It was harder to ignore him. "Sara Leódrúne." She braced herself a reaction to the family title, declaring their status as witches. Instead, he only nodded. "And the reason for your visit?" Perhaps it mattered not at all to a creature who'd been around longer than the first of her kin. "To study the dark arts." Her magic began to roil, responding to her growing excitement. Surely, it couldn't be this easy? Surely, there was some trick? His nodded, and pulled out a small, leather-bound tome from a drawer, turning it towards her. He opened it to the first page, blank and whiter than any paper she'd ever seen, and handed her the pen. "Sign in, please." Sara gulped at the feel of the pen, skittering across her magic like shower of falling sand, light but omnipresent. It took far too much effort to finish her signature, and she swayed as the sensation redoubled. He took the book from her unresisting fingers and tucked it into a pocket. "Follow me," he said, and she scurried to catch up. Beyond the entryway, the Archives seemed like any other library, with rows upon rows of shelves. But as he led her deeper, all traces of organization began to steadily disappear. Soon, shelves were covered with texts on every topic imaginable, in no order that she could determine. Penny-dreadfuls in a foreign tongue next to Aristotle, cookbooks beside tattered scrolls, They moved on. Questions came to mind, but Sara could never find the courage to ask them. The silence felt sacred amid the empty aisles, and so she followed the Archivist without a word. He brought her a section of blank wall, identical to those on either side, and stepped through it. Sara saw the telltale signs of a illusion rippling around his form, and copied him. For a brief moment, she felt the wards of the Archive, ancient and terrible, twitch, paying just the slightest attention to her. But the flow of sand around her responded, whispering that she belonged. The wards settled, so quickly she almost believed she'd imagined the sense of impending doom, and Sara could breath again as an invisible weight vanished off of her. But all thought of ancient defenses was driven from her mind, and Sara gasped upon seeing the shelves beyond the illusory wall. *Thee Darck Artes: Maladys and Miserys* caught her attention first, but on the way to grab it, she spied *Mala Gesta*, which she noticed was beside an actual, unburned copy *Weal, Waye, and Witchery*. Frozen by the plenitude of choices, the Archivist had to shake her by the shoulder to get her attention again. "I'm glad to see you so enthusiastic about our collection, but your book must come first." "My book?" But then she was scrambling after him again to keep up. She stumbled the first time they passed someone, a man in robes generations out of style, reading *Exemplary Excruciation* as he stood among the shelves. She was unable to hold back the questions any longer when they passed a group of three witches, whispering passionately among themselves while gesturing towards yet more illegal books. "How many people are in here? How many practitioners of the dark arts are there?" The Archivist swept past them, and said, "Most of you find your way here, at some point in your lives. We're building quite the collection." "I'm surprised more people haven't noticed the witches and wizards coming and going." But it would be splendid to finally *talk* to others about the art, something Sara had dearly missed since her grandmother passed on. The Archivist ignored her, running a finger along the packed shelves, murmuring to himself in some tongue that sounded vaguely like ancient Egyptian. At last, he said, "Here. Here will do." He pulled the guest log out of his pocket and tucked it in between a pair of much larger volumes. The feeling of sand falling over her magic vanished, and its muffling daze was immediately replaced by dread. Sara's gaze darted to the small book, and she found herself frozen when she saw the title, pressed in gold leaf along the spine. *Sara Leódrúne*. She floundered for words as the Archivist began to walk away. "What- what is this?" She stammered, reaching for the book and discovering she was unable to touch it. He looked at her in confusion. "Your book, of course. You wished for access to the dark arts." Even as she tried and failed to pass the protections on the book, she felt chains wrapping around her magic. A light bond, scarcely there at the moment, but she could feel the strength waiting to constrict, to choke, if she tried to leave. "Welcome to the Archives, Miss Leódrúne," the Archivist said, and for the first time, she heard genuine emotion in his voice, the slightest hint of warmth that sent shivers down her spine. "We hope you'll be a fine addition to the collection.


The air smelled of bitter antiseptic with undertones of fragrance from the soaps and cleaners. It was intense as she inhaled through the tubes in her nostrils. She looked down at the needle in her arm, she had been poked and prodded so many times over the last 6 years that her veins had collapsed. Her skin looked almost translucent, showing a map of veins, bruises and imperfections across the surface. Long gone were the days of her golden olive skin. Her heart thumped in her chest as she remembered that her husband Jim would be arriving soon for his punctual daily visit. 7:00pm sharp. Never a minute late. He’d stood by her through thick and thin, ‘til death do us part. Her heart started to race and was mirrored by the beeping monitors around her. She thought about the decision she was about to tell him. She had been rehearsing all morning. She hoped he would accept her wishes, but knowing Jim, she knew that was unlikely. Tick tock. The clock hung above the door struck 7:00pm. Jim entered the room. A squeaky wheelchair passed by the open door, the patient it was holding let out a defeated grunt of pain as they readjusted themselves. Jim’s joyful smile was out of place here. She looked up at him weakly and forced a smile that quickly faded when she spotted the large bouquet of flowers in his hand. She had told him before not to waste money on flowers. They just died. It brought her no joy watching them go on the same journey she was on. But like clockwork, he brought them every week on Monday. She hated Mondays. He said they brought life and joy to the room. That’s because he didn’t have to sit in a bed watching them slowly wilt and die week on week, it was like Groundhog day. “My love.” He came over and kissed her delicately on the forehead. Just like when they were in highschool, she used to live for those kisses. He had always been so smitten with her. The perfect boyfriend. The perfect husband. He was like a loyal golden retriever, looked a bit like one too with his shaggy brown hair and kind brown eyes. His love for her only seemed to grow over their past 22 years of marriage, which she didn’t think could be possible. Whereas hers had probably plateaued years ago if she was being truly honest. Susie’s heart started to race again, the monitors beeped wildly. “Someone’s excited to see me.” Jim joked as he put the flowers into the empty vase on the bedside table. The nurses would carry away the dead flowers every Sunday in preparation for the new. She couldn’t help but be annoyed, but she knew he meant well. Alright, she needed to rip the bandage off. Tell him you’re tired, she thought. So tired. This battle had taken everything that had once brought her joy. She missed the days when her fingers could gracefully dance on the strings of her violin, creating beautiful woody harmonics with every draw of her bow. Making 1st chair in the San Francisco Symphony had been one of her greatest accomplishments in her short 41 years of life. Jim approached her and placed a warm sturdy hand on top of hers. “I have great news Suze!” He beamed and gripped her frail, veiny hand a little too tight. She grimaced and remorse instantly shot across his face as he quickly loosened his grip. Everything inside her hurt. His hopeful smile returned, “Suze, I was talking with Dr. Liang and there’s a new cancer trial starting next week at UCSF Medical Center. We looked into it and guess what hun? You qualify!” He exclaimed excitedly. She dropped her eyes and tuned out the rest of the words that were coming out of his mouth. Well fuck, she thought. She was not expecting this. Her mouth was dry and tasted like cardboard. Her stomach turned. Her thumb hovered over the button that dispensed the morphine drip. One press and she could go along for the ride, like she had been doing for years. She could hop on Jim’s happy train full of hope and keep pushing forward as her body slowly failed her and withered away. Yes Jim, sure Jim, yes honey. She had always done whatever he thought was best. I mean, he had guided her safely through life over the past 22 years with so much thought and care, she had never given it a second thought… until recently. Suddenly an overpowering force from within her stomach crept up through her oesophagus and erupted from her mouth. Word vomit. Pent up word vomit. “NO!” she screamed, sitting up in the hospital bed abruptly, gripping the side rails tightly. She felt like a toddler confined in this bed all day. “I’m done Jim, I’m fucking done.” Hot tears rolled down her face. The salty drops burned the corners of her dry, cracked mouth as they swept down her sunken face. The floodgates had opened and there was no turning back now. His kind brown eyes lost their warmth and filled with sadness and then erupted into tiny flames that went out with defeat almost as soon as they were lit. Memories of their marriage vows filled her thoughts, “In sickness and in health.” Jim’s jaw loosened then tightened and then froze with pure shock and disbelief. She never defied him. He was only doing what he thought was best for her and she always listened but he wasn’t the one stuck in this bed, stuck with needles, watching flowers die on repeat as her insides slowly died along with them. Jim’s love for her was infinite, but it had grown to be infinitely suffocating. “Suze…” he whispered. “We can beat this. I told you I would never give up on you. We are fighters. We will fight this. Don’t you see hun, this trial is our opportunity -” Susie erupted again, cutting him off mid sentence, flailing her arms in the air, she knocked over the vase full of flowers next to her bed. “Stop speaking for me Jim! You’re not the one living this life in a shell of your body. I love you but I’m done. You have to let me go.” He stood there defeated looking down at her with tears in his eyes. She pressed the morphine drip hard. Darkness. She opened her eyes and squinted up at the light, a spotlight flooded down on her. She was on stage, but no one was seated in the red velvet seats that lined the concert hall. She was alone. The familiar smell of resin filled her nostrils. Looking down she noticed her beloved violin in her lap. She smiled at the familiar sight. Picking it up she tucked it comfortably between her jaw and collarbone. Taking a deep breath of the fresh vanilla air she raised her bow, pausing briefly as it hovered above the strings and closed her eyes. The notes danced across her eyelids as the music flowed from her soul through her bow, then the strings, then the hollow wooden body of her violin and finally freely into the air. It was the most beautiful song she had ever played, sad, but beautiful, and free. She drifted with the music until she was looking down at herself, the young Susie she knew, olive skin glowing in the warm spotlight, eyes closed, living the music. She smiled and let herself drift away with her sweet, sad melody. Bright white light filled the space around her. She had found her peace at last.


I fear the hulking giant that waits just outside my home. I'm too afraid to even look up at him in his full size. He stands two, maybe three stories tall. Silently watching me, his silhouette a pitch-black void against the starry night sky. At any moment, he could rip through this flimsy shelter I call home like a dull knife through skin. Why doesn't he? Why doesn't he get it over with already, instead of staring me down? He’s waiting for me to go outside so he may crush me and put me out of my misery. Giving in to him seems more and more appealing as time goes by. Because as much as HE scares me, there are more of them out there. A lot more. Some smaller, some even bigger. They're all around you, too. And you know they are. I don't know how you can even ignore them: they're everywhere. If you look out your window right now, you can see one if you are lucky. Dozens of them if you are unlucky. You might even have a few lining your driveway. You might even have a tire swing hanging off one of their branches... My name is Dr. Adam Collier, and I am afraid of trees. You may think it's funny or unusual, but I promise you that by the time I am done telling you my story, you will fear them as much as I do. You'll have to forgive me for any pauses or slip-ups you may hear in this recording. I am trying as best as I can to recount everything in one take, with as much detail as possible. As I said, I am a doctor, specifically of Chemical Engineering. I am a Research and Development Technician for The DuPont Company in Wilmington, DE. My team and I are responsible for developing and testing prototypical chemicals for— all sorts of things, really. I suppose the NDA doesn’t matter anymore… I was working on synthesizing a form of carbonic anhydrase to offset carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere. But even the best test result out of all my trials required L-aspartate, fatty acids, uracil, L-argininine— Sorry, force of habit. I'll try to refrain from using too much technical jargon from here on out. What I meant to say is that, after a series of failures, the closest thing I could come up with still required too much to be feasible. I asked my new assistant, Dr. Anna Nemours, to contain and dispose of the chemical, as I had deemed it a failure. But, unknown to me at the time, she continued to perform tests with it. She theorized that the desired reaction could occur if the compound was introduced to isoenzymes of β-carbonic anhydrase—sorry, if she provided the compound with organic plant matter to consume. She took some of the byproducts of my tests and made them into a mixture of her own, and she put some of that mixture onto a fern she kept on her desk, completely against protocol and off the record. She told me all this later after her own tests had failed to produce anything— let's just say her tests had failed as well. Not only did she break a dozen rules, but she also failed to create anything that could even be considered close to a "success" for our purposes. Looking back now, I should have fired her. She also showed me something entirely unexpected and deeply interesting: the chemical had not eaten away at her fern, like she expected. In fact, the fern that she claimed was almost dead had sprouted new leaves. Quite a few, actually. At the risk of being penalized for my own assistant's actions, I hesitantly reported this to my superiors. Instead of punishing me, they encouraged me to perform more tests! They saw potential for this as a new fertilizer. From that point on, things moved quickly. Our entire team ran more tests on the original compound I had made. It turns out the chemical was more than just a decent fertilizer: we saw a 2% increase in the rate of construction of plant cells. Once my team published our findings, funding started flooding in from all over. Government agencies, farming corporations, and agrochemical powerhouses were all chomping at the bit. Our findings could impact food shortages or help places that couldn’t regularly grow crops. It wasn’t too much of a stretch to say that our research could have solved world hunger. With all the funding and more than enough manpower thrown at this, we pressed on to the prototype development phase. Everything seemed fine, no issues and no downsides. We further engineered the chemical to make the affected plants drought and frost resistant as well. We even devised a means of controlled distribution. Two dizzying months later, we conducted the first tests on outdoor crops. Tests proceeded admirably, but this latest batch grew a little too fast. And, more concerning, our control crops, which should have been untouched by the chemical, also showed accelerated growth. We determined the test plants themselves were producing their own version of the chemical, which must have spread to the control crops by being carried on the wind. Or perhaps it had penetrated deep into the soil, or maybe some bees had carried it across fields? We weren’t exactly sure. Regardless of how it reached them, leaves and stems on all plants in both testing plots were growing 5-10% faster at the cellular level. Unfortunately, it wasn't just the test and control crops that were affected. Two days later, we noticed that the forest surrounding the test fields had grown 50 yards closer. That’s when we knew we had a problem on our hands. Hazmat was called in to do cleanup. They burned down all plant life and salted the soil 200 yards into the surrounding forest. They also burned and salted the test and control crops as well. While it was an embarrassing mistake, we were relieved that it was successfully contained. Our relief only lasted a few days. The forest was back to where it was originally in just two days. This extreme rate of growth made no sense. And to make matters worse, it wasn't contained. There was evidence that it had spread even further than the woods. Faster growth meant more dispersal of plant matter, which potentially meant more plants were getting tainted with the chemical. Hazmat was called in again, but this time the damage was too widespread. Within days, plants all around New Castle County showed signs of hyperactive growth. On my morning drive to work, the same blind turn that I had taken dozens of times before was blocked by a giant branch that would have surely killed me if I had not stopped in time. The branch wasn’t there the day before, I’m sure of it. The next day, that road was closed. In just a few short days there were reports of major roads being swallowed up by greenery as far as 15 miles from our testing site. And it was still spreading. But we still didn’t know how. We think the wind must have picked up the pollen, or leaves, or seeds of the tainted plants and carried them all over the state, maybe even further. The DuPont Company called in an emergency response force the size of a small army. They burnt and salted as much greenery as they could, not leaving anything to chance. Hundreds of trained professionals managed a controlled fire. The company’s ties to the outbreak still hadn't reached the public. But when the massive cloud of smoke blocked out the sun, reporters came to the largest chemical company in the tri-state area for answers. And that was DuPont. Some news outlets claimed the extreme overgrowth was a result of a bioweapon test gone wrong or an intentional act of domestic terrorism. Some even reported that it was a sign of the end times. Panic spread across the nation. And so did the chemical. The first reports of accelerated growth in the Redwood Forest on the west coast came out in just two short weeks. We didn't know enough about it. Nobody did. Was it the wind that was spreading the chemical? Was it bees? Was it people? The government didn’t want to take any risks: all flights and boats out of the country were shut down. The United States tried to quarantine the overgrowth. Reports of property damage flooded in to news agencies. Top-heavy trees were toppling over and crushing people’s homes. Tree branches were breaking in through windows and piercing walls. Apartment buildings were being torn apart by roots plunging into their foundation. I remember the first story of a direct death caused by the plants. All too vividly… Brendan Waters was an elderly, bedridden man staying at the Forwood Manor Nursing Home. He woke up one day to find that his small room was being invaded by wiry vines. Those same vines were thickest around his bed, where they had coiled themselves around his legs. He tried to pull them off, but they were so thick and he was so weak that he couldn’t. He called for help, but the nurses were unable to get into his room: a patchwork of vines and roots had barricaded the metal door from the inside. Brendan could only weakly shout for help. Hours passed like this. We know every detail of the agony that Brendan went through, because nurses were right on the other side of his door as he screamed about the cause of his pain for 35 excruciating hours. The vines that tied him down sprouted sharp thorns that tore into his legs as they crawled further and further up his frail body. The Wilmington Fire Department was called in. Firefighters tried going in through the third floor window, but an immense tree completely blocked it. The same window that Brendan asked his nurse to keep open on beautiful days was how the overgrowth got into his room in the first place. Firefighters worked in shifts to chop through the thicket surrounding the window, but it was much too slow, and the branches got thicker the more they chopped. Roots squeezed Brendan’s chest. The firefighters cleared out the entire nursing home and went to work tearing down the wall nearest Brendan’s bed. He couldn’t feel his legs anymore. When they eventually opened up a hole into his room, they still had to contend with a mesh of pale roots on the other side. Brendan cried out for his family. None of them were there. By the time the firefighters finally carved through the thicket, Brendan was no longer screaming. His body had been pierced by dozens of sharp, tiny branches. There was no blood on the scene. The news reported that his face had bright green leaves growing out of it by the time the coroner arrived. … That report came out a month ago. Many, many more have suffered the same fate since. The country fully succumbed to panic. Many attempted to burn the aggressive forests down themselves. Gasoline became more useful for starting fires than it was for cars. All major roads were blocked anyway. So many people died in these amateur controlled fires. And they died for nothing. The plants just grew back, even faster. And it wasn’t just people that were falling victim to the overgrowth. Greedy tree limbs grabbed power lines, causing power outages everywhere. Communications eventually went dark, too. Thirsty roots pierced the water pipes and they soon went dry. The overgrowth took so much. Too many people have listened to the screams of their loved ones slowly being strangled by bright green leaves. All they could do was abandon them— or join them. People tried to retreat to deserts. But even the deserts showed more and more signs of the overgrowth. We’d made sure that plants treated by our chemical could be used in places where it's hard to grow crops, after all. They were drought and frost resistant, too. Who knows what the death count is at now. I’m sure I don’t want to know. I was shipped off to the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica by the US government a few days before the borders were closed. Some of the original research team were flown out here, too. We were working on modifying the original chemical, attempting to turn it into an herbicide. They even flew in Dr. Nemours, too. It was clear that she was in way over her head. I should have fired her. Our team wasn’t sure if the overgrowth had reached anywhere outside of North America by that point. We hoped it hadn't. But a French scientist that the United Nations flew in confirmed what we had all feared: The overgrowth had crossed the ocean. Her and her team traced the chemical to algae that had made its way to their shores via fish. Her wife was crushed to death by a falling tree. Her name was Giulia. Disturbing questions spread throughout our makeshift research team: if fish could carry the chemical all the way from North America to Europe, how long before it made its way to other continents? How long before it made its way here? These international scientists provided invaluable information for our research. We saw some debatably hopeful results, but they were coming much too slow. We were all desperately fighting the nagging fear that we were much too late. But as the foremost experts on the chemical, if we couldn’t figure out how to stop the overgrowth, who could? One day I overheard the guards talking about the Antarctic coast having a "green shore" that wasn't there before, climbing up the ice walls of the glaciers. The research team and I tried to ignore these reports, hoping they weren’t true. We had to ignore them and focus on getting the herbicide to work as fast as possible. But hastiness is what got us into this mess in the first place. So we ignored the guards. We ignored the fact that they started carrying flamethrowers. We ignored the way their numbers gradually decreased. We ignored the green fuzz cresting over the mountainside, and how it crept closer each day. We ignored the streaks of green in the snow that appeared in our footprints as we made our way from our quarters to the lab. Dr. Nemours didn't come into the lab one day, even though we couldn't afford days off. I had to ignore the thick, teal moss that covered her like a blanket when I went to check on her in her quarters. I should have fired her. Less of my team showed up to work as days went on. They might have felt this plan wasn’t going to work and decided to go out on their own terms. I had to ignore the splotchy moss that covered their quarters, and how it might have meant that they didn't go willingly at all. I have to ignore all of these things and focus on my work, because if I don't... There is one thing that I can't ignore, though. And it's standing about 60 feet away from me. Is it closer than it was yesterday? I first saw it as I was walking in the hall. I passed a window and saw a sharp green antenna poking out of the snow. I didn't think algae could form structures like that. A few hours later, I saw what I could only describe as “leaves” form on its ends like lopsided veins. This was surely a new kind of plant life that has never existed before. It would be considered beautiful if the circumstances were different. If there was anyone besides me around to see it. But it looms out there, silently watching me. Standing two, three stories tall, waiting for me to go outside so it can put me out of my misery. Silently watching me, its blue-green skin a vulgar wound against the pure white snow. It waits just outside these walls. And I think it's getting closer.


The devil has a girlfriend. A human. Every night when he comes home, she’s there waiting. And every night when he comes home the devil’s anxiety starts to act up. He doesn’t know why. Maybe it’s the neighbors. They’ve been asking a lot of questions here lately. That must be it. His hands shake as he turns the key in the lock. His heart pounds and his vision blurs. He takes a deep breath. His nose twitches as he opens the door. God, she smells good. “Babe.” “Babe.” He walks past her into the bedroom to take his coat and shoes off. “How was work?” “Not much to tell. Demon got a wing clipped today.” “Just the one?” “No, I mean on accident. In the revolving door.” “Oh.” They make spaghetti for dinner. Or rather, the devil makes it while his girlfriend sits at the table and asks him questions. “How’s your new secretary doing? She’s awful pretty, isn’t she?” “Is the wisteria tree I gave you still alive? I bet it’s not.” “Did you stop by to pay the rent this morning, pet?” With every question the devil hears the voice in his head whispering and muttering. *Don’t let it happen tonight.* He struggles to keep up with her, as usual. “She’s doing great. I suppose. It’s thriving, actually; it’s in bloom. I got it paid on my way home.” That last one was what got him. It happened as he was putting her plate down in front of her. “On your way home?” “Yes.” *No. No. No.* The devil secretly loves cooking for people. He can’t admit it. He has an image to keep up, after all. For guests he sets the table with subtle flourishes and grace. But he flinches and swallows as he puts his girlfriend’s plate down. His ears lay back along his head. “You were supposed to pay it this morning, Satan. You know the office closes at six. You cut it way too close *again.*” “I know–I’m sorry, babe–” “Don’t ‘I’m sorry, babe’ me!” “Honey, please–” “Please *what?* You’ve done this the last three times I’ve asked you to pay something. This is unacceptable behavior!” Her chest heaves as she seems to struggle for breath. “What do you have to say for yourself?” “I…I…it wasn’t a big deal, the office was open for thirty minutes after I got off work, honey, and–and it’s not a big deal if I pay it a day late–” “Not a big *deal?* It’s a big deal to me, you absolute jackass!” He feels himself recoil and has to stop. *Keep your teeth in your mouth, for fuck’s sake.* The pop on his snout stings, but the next words sting worse. “You’re a bad dog.” She storms into the bedroom and slams the door. The devil sits down at the table. His spaghetti gets cold as he stares at it, whimpers trying to force themselves out of his throat. He swallows them down. He’s a man; a wolf; the devil himself. He can’t be crying. Ridiculous. But when she calls him a bad dog, he has to admit it hurts. And the worst part is, he almost bit her this time when she hit him. How could he stoop so low? *She wouldn’t be hurting me unless I did something wrong. She’s such a sweet person. I have to be better. I can’t turn abusive.


#Welcome to Roundtable Thursday! Writing is so much fun, but it can also be very challenging. Luckily, there are so many other writers out there going through the exact same things! We all have unique skills and areas in which we excel, as well as places we’d like to improve. So I’d like to present a brand new weekly feature. This will be a weekly thread to discuss all things writing! And… to get to know your fellow writers a bit! Each week we will provide a topic and/or a few questions to spark discussion. Feel free to chime into the discussion in the comments, talk about your experiences, ask related questions, etc. You do not have to answer all the questions, but try to stay on-topic! *** #This Week’s Roundtable Discussion Spooktober is upon us! The terrifying, the unexpected, and the strange are everywhere. Horror is my absolute favorite genre (shoutout to , specifically). There’s so much to play with and there’s always new ways to leave your readers feeling a bit unsettled, or completely terrified, whether with creepy creatures, ghostly apparitions, or with utter ridiculousness. So let’s talk about the horror genre a bit. - Have written any horror stories? Do you enjoy writing within this genre? Why/why not? - What do you think makes a good horror tale? What do *you* need in a scary story to feel properly frightened (i.e. a particular kind of monster, a certain atmosphere, etc.)? - If you haven’t dabbled in the genre, what’s stopping you? I challenge you to try writing at least 1 horror story this month. (Don’t forget to come back and tell us how it went!) - New to r/ShortStories or joining in the Discussion for the first time? **Introduce yourself in the comments!** What do you like to write? You can check out previous Roundtable discussions on our ! *** #Reminders - **Use the comments below to answer the questions and reply to others’ comments.** - **Please be civil in all your responses and discussion.** There are writers of all levels and skills here and we’re all in different places of our writing journey. Uncivil comments/discussion in any form will not be tolerated. - **Please try to stay on-topic.