I came to on the kitchen floor, choking on nothing, my lungs convulsing like they were trying to vomit air. Each breath scraped my throat like glass. I blinked hard against the burning white above, fluorescents buzzing like flies in a jar. I tried to remember where I was, who I was. The lab coats. The needles. Were they a dream? The fragments were there, jagged and shifting, refusing to come to fully show themselves. Everything hurt. But not in any way I’d ever known. This wasn’t bruising. This wasn’t soreness. This was wrong. Like my body had been repossessed. My skin felt too tight, drawn thin over bones that weren’t mine anymore, like I’d been rebuilt with the blueprints of something else.

“Hello?” I tried to say, but it came out slurred, thick, disturbed. Something wet hit the floor. I turned my head and saw it. My tongue. My own damn tongue, slack and gray, twitching against the linoleum like it was trying to crawl away. Panic swelled. I tried to rise, but my arm folded under me, not broken. Just... folding. Collapsing in on itself like a puppet with its strings cut. The bones were gone. I looked down and my legs were missing. No stumps, no blood. Just... gone. In their place: pale, wet coils of segmented flesh, twitching spasmodically, blind and slick like something born in the dark. My skin, or what was left of it, had gone translucent in places, revealing a grotesque theater underneath: veins turned black and ropy, wriggling like roots through rotting earth. Beneath the surface, something moved. Something tried to push through. I scrambled back, and my palms left a smear, a puddle of something viscous. Pain barely registered. It was eclipsed by the deeper horror, that I was inside something I didn’t understand. My body wasn’t mine. It was a costume that had melted in the sun.

I caught my reflection in the oven door, warped by grime and heat and horror. And there I was. Or some version of me. My eyes were bulged too wide, they were lidless and raw, rolling in their sockets like they wanted out. My nose had collapsed into a flat ridge. My lips had vanished, leaving only a trembling slit of muscle, twitching like it still thought it could speak.

And then, the knock. A calm, almost polite rapping at the front door. And a voice: “It’s time.” I froze. There was a window there, and what looked like a double sided mirror. They were watching. Recording. Waiting for me. And that’s when the betrayal came. Not from them. From me. My muscles spasmed, seized. The slick, segmented limbs beneath me began to writhe with purpose. I tried to resist, but it was like wrestling a river. My hands, clawed now, and wet. They dragged behind me, scraping against my protest as the new flesh took over. Slithering forward. Obedient. Almost Eager. I was being taken somewhere. And I was the one doing it too, against my will. Whatever they turned me into... it remembered how to obey. And it didn’t care that I was still inside, screaming.

The final note hangs over them all, trembling with perfection. For a moment, there’s silence. Then the applause begins. A tidal wave of sound erupts, drowning out my own breathing. I bow, my smile wide and practiced under the heat of the lights, but something feels… wrong.

The clapping doesn’t stop.

At first, I think it’s enthusiasm, but as I squint into the crowd, I see it: their hands slamming together harder and harder, their faces frozen in wide, rictus grins. I stand there with my guitar, trying to catch my breath but the clapping doesn’t stop. Blood splatters from their palms as skin tears and bones crack, but no one flinches. Their eyes shine, fixed on me like I’m the only thing keeping them alive.

Security ushers me backstage, but the applause doesn’t stop. It only grows louder, swelling like a storm battering against the building. The heavy doors groan under the weight of the crowd pressing against them. “You should be thankful,” my manager says, “they’re here for you.” But the fans don’t chant my name. They don’t scream or cry. They clap. And they bleed.

They surge past the barriers, a tide of bodies crashing through the hall, relentless and unstoppable. One girl, her hands stripped of most of her fingers, keeps clapping with raw, bleeding stumps. The sound is sickening, but her face remains locked in an expression of euphoric devotion, her hollow eyes shining with something far beyond admiration. Another woman, her arms twisted awkwardly from fractures that dangle them uselessly at her sides, throws herself against the wall with a force that makes the concrete shudder. Her head snaps back and forth violently, smashing into the surface with sharp, wet cracks. Blood streaks the wall in wide, glistening arcs as she bangs again and again, desperate to replicate the sound of clapping. Her eyes turn to lock onto mine, blazing with an unsettling worship, as though I am her only salvation.

Security yanks me toward the exit. Outside, my driver waits by the limo, the door open and ready. The flashes of cameras burst around him like fireworks, cutting through the night in sharp, dazzling bursts. I climb into the car, gasping for breath as he shuts the door behind me.

But they’re already there.

The fans flood the parking lot, pressing against the car, climbing over one another in a frantic, writhing mass. Their arms twist unnaturally as they claw at the windows, their hands shredding down to the bone. The clapping turns to moist, meaty thuds. One man’s arm finally breaks off entirely, dangling by a few threads before it snaps free. But even then, he doesn’t stop. He slams the bloody stump against the window, his face still grinning, his eyes alive with manic joy. The driver floors it, the tires screeching as the limo tears away from the scene. But the sound follows me. The applause. The judgment. It never fades. If anything, it only grows louder, pounding in my ears, vibrating in my chest. And no matter how far I go, I know they’re still clapping.

At home, the silence doesn’t comfort me. The applause isn’t just in my ears anymore, it’s in my chest, my head, and in my phone. A vibration I can’t shake. I check my socials, they’re filled with videos of the crowd, bloody and smiling, climbing over fences and trampling one another just to reach me. One caption reads: “Our queen deserves this.” Another: “We’ll give everything for her.” I turn on the TV to escape it, but every channel is showing the same thing, me. My face, my voice, my song, what I wear, what I eat, if I sneeze and how I walk, all looped over and over. The sound of clapping drowns out the anchors, the commercials, everything. In the corner of the screen is a small logo: #ClapForHer. I realize I don’t know who I am anymore. They don’t either. I’m not a person to them, just a vessel for their obsession. And they’ll destroy themselves and me to prove it.

I turn over in my bed and look out my big glass windows that look over Malibu and the ocean. They’re there too, against the windows, slobbering and clapping… Putting their faith in all the wrong places. But deep down, what really scares me, is I know I won’t last long and their clapping will fade and I will be left not knowing who or what I am. I will wither away and when they see me, like I see myself now, they won’t even recognize the person I inhabit.

I watch them through the cracks in my blinds during the day. Families laughing on their porches, kids racing their bikes down the street or tossing a ball back and forth. I watch the sweat glisten off the back of a man mowing his lawn. I watch a woman’s skin turn golden as she’s kissed by the sun, tanning in her backyard. I see all of them as I watch from this house my parents abandoned long ago. My father died years back, or at least that’s what I’ve heard. My mother still comes sometimes, but she never stays. She tosses groceries over the fence like she’s feeding something dangerous. On special occasions, like every other few birthdays, I’ll find a letter folded neatly on the front step. Her words are always distant, practical, but her message never changes; I’m something better left unseen.

I don’t leave during the day. I wouldn’t dare. Only after midnight, when the world feels emptied and the air is cool and quiet, do I step outside. Balm makes that possible. Thick, greasy, and foul-smelling, like burnt pennies. It coats every inch of my body, swabbing the folds of my flesh. Without it, the cracks deepen, splitting me apart until I bleed and rot where I stand. The balm stings, but it works. It lets me move. It allows me to wander. Barefoot, I roam the neighborhood streets, my fingers trailing over fences and mailboxes as I imagine what it would feel like to be part of their world, to sit at their tables, to call their names… to be wanted.

Sometimes I stop at their windows. I stand in the shadows, watching them as they sleep. A child curled on a couch under a patchwork blanket, a couple tangled together in bed with their faces peaceful in a way mine could never be. They look so at ease, as if the very air they breathe tells them they belong. I press my hands to the glass and imagine stepping inside. The warmth. The laughter. The way they might look at me with something other than disgust.

Last night, as I stood in the shadow of a house at the end of the street, a little boy saw me. His small face pressed against the window, his hand rising to meet mine on the glass. He didn’t scream, didn’t run. His eyes, heavy with sleep, looked into mine, curious and unafraid. For a moment, I let myself believe. I pictured sitting beside him, helping him build towers out of blocks, reading to him, tucking him into bed. I imagined him laughing with me, maybe even calling me brother. Maybe Dad.

But then the light in his room flicked on, and my reflection bloomed in the glass. The sight of myself, patches of oil glistening over peeling, chapped skin and cracks leaking faint trails of pus, ripped the fantasy away. There’s no way anyone could want me. No way anyone could love me. I stumbled back into the darkness as his mother appeared, pulling him away from the window.

I ran, each step deepening the crevices in my skin. The salt in the night air burned where it touched raw flesh, and by the time I reached my house, I could barely move. Back inside, I smeared more balm over my wounds, but it wasn’t enough to fill my loneliness. It never is.

They called it Marrviðr, the Sea’s Wood, a myth the locals only whispered about. I met Erik, a fisherman, in Istanbul, where he promised riches and fame if we could prove its existence. On Iceland’s black sands, his confidence wavered, but there was something else in his eyes… guilt. “There,” he rasped one night, pointing toward a faint, swaying light near the tide. As we approached, Erik froze. He turned to me, “I’m sorry,” is all he said. His skin bloated and sagged like wet fabric, peeling away from his muscles and bone. He collapsed to the sand like a writhing slug as he squirmed toward the waves.
A deep hum, like the splintering of a ship, rumbled from beneath the sea. Marrviðr rose from the shadows of the waves, its towering antlers scraping the northern lights. Its body an unholy mass of gnarled driftwood, rusted chains, and barnacles that clicked like grinding teeth. Ropes of seaweed pulsed through its limbs like veins while its hollow stomach glowed like a cage of rotted timber and bone that trapped shattered lanterns and the agonized faces of drowned men. Its head was a writhing reef of coral, endlessly pouring water from its pours and its void-like eyes churned with the ocean that watched me with cold precision.
Marrviðr bent low, its jagged limbs creaking as it slurped Erik’s bloated body into its mouth. I watched him slide into its waterlogged belly, as he began dissolving slowly. Marrviðr’s hollow gaze shifted to me, and for a moment, I thought I was next. But it paused, tilting its head as it considered me. Pain shot through my back as my skin split, and gills bloomed along my ribs. I gasped, breathing the water-laden air with ease. Marrviðr looked past me, toward the world beyond the cliffs. I knew then, I was to bring home another.

I know it’s December, but the house feels colder than it should. Even with the fireplace roaring, the cold has crept into the walls, into us. Dad tries his best, he really does. He’s cheerful when he can manage it, setting up games and baking cookies, turning up Christmas movies so loud you can’t hear much else. But I see the cracks. The worry in his face. I hear him crying at night when he thinks we’re asleep, with his sobs that’re muffled against the couch where he now sleeps beside us instead of with Mom.
Mom’s sickness started small, like a shadow creeping in. “Just a fever,” Dad said, but it didn’t leave. Her skin turned pale and her breath became shallow, her voice began slipping away into a rasp that didn’t sound like it came from her at all. The doctors didn’t know what it was, and Dad followed every instruction they gave: soup, medicine, tea. Nothing worked. By the second week, her hair started to fall out in clumps, her nails too. Her eyes sank into her skull, and sometimes she stared right past me, her lips twitching, like she was trying to remember who I was. I loved her. I was scared of her, but I loved her. “Hi, Mommy,” I would whisper, sitting by her bed each night, dampening a cloth for her forehead. “You’re so beautiful tonight.” At first, she’d nod, even squeeze my hand. But then, one night, her lips parted, and her tongue slid out. I’ll never forget the way she looked at me then. Dad stopped letting us into her room after that. “She just needs rest,” he said, but I saw the tears in his eyes. I saw the chains too, and the padlocks, though I never dared ask what they were for. By Christmas Eve, the house was silent, too silent, the banging and wailing that had been coming from her room had been placed by an eerie stillness. Dad didn’t feed her that night. “She’s sleeping,” he said, locking us all in the room we now shared. I tried to sleep, but I woke to the sound of footsteps down the hall and Dad’s whispered voice. “Go back to bed,” he told me. “Santa’s here.”
I believed him.
Christmas morning came, and I threw off my blanket in excitement. “It’s Chri—” My words died in my throat. My brother’s bed was soaked in red, the sheets clinging to his small, limp body. Mom was hunched over him, her hair stringy and matted, her jaw slack as she dropped him to the floor. His face, or what was left of it, was unrecognizable. She looked at me then, and for a moment, there was something in her sunken eyes, something almost human.
“Mom?” I croaked, stepping back off my bed. Her head twitched, the bones in her neck cracked as her mouth opened impossibly wide. I bolted for the door, screaming for Dad, but tripped over him in the hallway. His rib cage and been ripped out and his chest and stomach fell all over the floor. I ran into the snow, barefoot and screaming. Behind me I could hear her labored breaths growing louder. She tackled me just outside the neighbor’s house, her hands clawing into my shoulders, dragging me deeper into the snow. I twisted, kicked and thrashed, but she was too strong. “It’s me, Mama!” I sobbed, reaching for her face. For a moment, I thought she stopped. Her eyes flickered, her hands loosening. “Please, it’s me.”
Then her jaw snapped shut around my nose, I screamed as she chewed it off. I don’t know how I lived. I crawled back inside as blood dripped from my face, watching her stumble toward the neighbor’s house. I thought I was safe. I thought it was over. But now, I’m not so sure. My skin feels cold, and my head hurts so badly. I’m not sure why I did, but I wrapped the chains in my mom’s room around me. I don’t know why, but there weren’t any fireworks for the new year this year… I’m just so hungry.

The bells are what woke me, jingling in the dark like a predator circling its prey. My eyes snapped open, and before I could reach for the light, they were there—thin, gaunt figures hovering at the foot of my bed. Their bodies and limbs were unnaturally long, their faces smeared with soot and their skin was stretched thin over hollow, sunken eyes. They moved like smoke, binding me with thick, frayed cords before I could scream. The last thing I saw was the dark mouth of the chimney as they hauled me upward, the rough stone scraping my head before everything went black. When I woke, the air was damp and cold, reeking of iron and mildew. I was strapped to a metal slab. Beside me, a man just as large as me thrashed weakly on his own table, his eyes bulging in terror. To my right, a heavier-set woman sobbed into her gag, her body shaking as the room filled with wet, sucking sounds. The searing fire in my gut pulled my attention downward, and I gasped, craning my neck to see a thick rubber tube writhing beneath my skin like a parasite, draining me. The creatures moved around me, pressing into my folds as they guided the pipeline further up my body. My eyes followed the conduit as it snaked above us, weaving through dozens of others, each carrying a stream of thick, yellow gelatinous grease, dumping it into a suspended glass globe, like a grotesque ornament. From the bottom of the globe, a hose branched off, winding its way toward another table at the center of all of us. Draped over a nearby chair and next to a pair of large brown leather boots-a red coat, pants and a crimson sash. The hose split into smaller tubes tipped with large needles, each plunged deep into the body of a man on the gurney. His flesh and belly jiggled like jelly as the injections pumped our stolen oils into him.

I would never purposefully make them mad. I’m just a kid after all, but it’s like walking on eggshells around them, one wrong word, one slow response, and it’s over. I try so hard to make them happy, I want their love like any child would. I try my hardest to be a good boy for them, I try so hard to avoid what comes next. “Just for a couple days,” they always say.
This morning, I made a pretty big mistake, I broke my mom’s favorite dish. I tried to glue it back together but I'm no good at stuff like that. It was an accident, but that didn’t matter to them.
When I look into their eyes begging for their love, I don't know... I don't even know if they've ever even wanted me.
Her voice was softer this time, almost sad, as my father lowered me into the ground. I could barely make out her words through the dirt hitting the wooden slats: “It’s the only way you’re going to learn.”
It’s dark down here, darker than normal. So dark it feels like the shadows are squirming on my skin. I used to scream and bang my fists against the coffin until they bled, but I’ve learned better—that only makes it worse in the end. I don’t know how long it’s been this time, but I know that I'm starting not to feel very well. My voice cracks as I try to whisper, “I’m ready to come out now,” but it’s so faint I’m not even sure it’s real. This time, I'm getting really scared that they meant what they said: “Next time, we’ll leave you down there for good.” I pray they don't mean that. "I'm sorry mama, please don't leave me."

I don’t know who to believe. When the lights aren't on, Mr. Giggles never stops whispering that my mom's a liar. My mother insists he’s just a figment of my imagination, something I’ll grow out of. But I can’t ignore how much he resembles the man in the photo by her bed—the one she says is my father. She told me he gave his life for us overseas, that he’s gone forever, and there’s nothing more to it. But if she’s telling the truth, if the man in the picture is dead and he really was my father… then who’s been tickling my feet at night?

This Thanksgiving feels heavier than ever—my younger brother passed a few months ago, and this’ll be our first holiday without him. I dreaded seeing Mom, knowing how heartbroken she’d be. I took a hit from my pipe, tucked it away in the console, and walked up to the house, putting my dad’s shovel to the side before stepping inside.
I was surprised to find my sisters already there, laughing in the kitchen with my mom. My dad gave me an absentminded wave from the couch as he watched the game. I walked over to my older brother, threw a playful punch, kissed my sisters on the cheek, and pulled Mom in for a long hug. “You doin' okay, Mom?” I asked, noticing the slight tremble in her smile. She rubbed my arms, took a steadying breath, and nodded. “I’m okay,” she said softly, quickly glancing at the oven. When the timer buzzed, I grabbed the oven mitts and pulled out the meat. It was already carved and taken off the bone. "Smells good, Mama," my dad said, walking over to the sink to wash some dirt from underneath his fingernails.

My kids tease me every Thanksgiving, both for my collection of air-fresheners and for hoarding all the leftovers, but they don’t understand—it was passed down from my Grandpa. Just like I do now, he’d grin and say, “Leave it here; I’ll put them to good use.” I had to have been about ten when I left my Gameboy inside after everyone else had gone. The door was unlocked, so I slipped back in, calling, “Just grabbin' somethin', Grandpa!” He didn’t respond—just a low, heavy breathing drifted up from the basement. Curious, I crept down the stairs, surprised to find it too, unlocked; it was never unlocked. The smell hit me first, sour and putrid, like spoiled meat. At the bottom of the stairs, I froze. Grandpa was sprawled out naked, lying on a mound of rotting turkey skins. Stuffing, congealed gravy and slick tendons, all piled up into his throne, how did he get so much of it? His eyes were half-lidded and his chest rose and fell with peaceful breaths. I backed away with my stomach churning. That memory forever seared itself into my mind as I quietly slipped out of the house and into my parent’s car. My mom looked back at me, "What's that smile for?" she asked. That same smell follows me now, but I’ve made sure to buy more than one lock.

The engine sputtered and died, leaving me stranded on the loneliest stretch of I-80. I was heading to Cali, chasing the same dream so many had before me. “Gonna make it big,” I’d told my folks before I left, but like always, they just laughed at me. The salt flats stretched endlessly around me, and under the full moon, it looked like a frozen ocean. I stepped out of the car, cursing my luck as the salt under my boot crunched. Smoke billowed from the hood, curling into the night, and that’s when I saw it—just beyond the haze. Maybe someone had stopped to help? I checked my phone, no bars. "Hey!" I called, forcing a smile. "Any chance you’ve got service?" The figure didn’t move, didn’t answer. It just stood there, swaying slightly from left to right, like a pendulum. My chest tightened, but I stepped toward it, the beam of my phone’s flashlight trembling in my hand. The air grew heavier, and the salt beneath my feet seemed to shift, alive with anticipation. Then I heard it: a wet, dragging sound, followed by gurgling, like something savoring the moment. My heart pounded as I turned to get back to my car. But it was already behind me. An old man with wisps of hair barely clinging to his scalp. Its body crusted with salt that glittered like shards of glass embedded in rotting muscle. The salt preserved what was left, but patches of decay clung to its body, the flesh peeling away like wet paper. Its wings—if you could call them that—were enormous, grotesque hands sprouting from its back. The fingers dragged on the ground, the nails scraping deep grooves in the salt, twitching and curling as though they had a will of their own. Its face had no eyes, just sunken pits burned shut like withered raisins. Yet, I felt its gaze—a suffocating weight that rooted me to the spot. It convulsed as it spoke, its words rasping out like a grandfather that knows his time is coming soon, “You... shouldn’t... be here.” The wings snapped open with a sickening crack, the fingers curling and flexing like claws. Before I could scream, they wrapped around me, their leathery touch searing my skin as the salt bit into my flesh. It cradled me like a child and flew into the night, the air rushing past as I struggled uselessly. I tried to scream, but it only patted my head and hummed. When we landed, it dragged me across the dunes, my body limp, the salt scraping against me with every pull. The mouth of its lair yawned before us—a black cavern, jagged and glistening, like the throat of a beast that had just swallowed something whole. With no hesitation, it snapped my legs. The sound of bone breaking and tearing through my skin rang through the cavern as it tossed me aside like garbage. I screamed for help, but the only answer was the creature rummaging through its collection—a pile of broken toys, tarnished trinkets, and other mementos from those it had taken before. It brought over a slinky and played with it in front of me, watching intently, waiting. I know now, I should have played along. There are others here too, tied and pinned to the walls, their bodies crusted in the salt. It doesn't like it too much when we try to talk but it feeds us, keeps us alive, even strokes our heads as if it cares. But still, after all this time it doesn't quite feel like home. He doesn’t laugh at me though, so that’s something.

I could barely see past the fog of my own breath. The wind howled through the snowy peaks as I trudged through the drifts. The villagers below had warned me of "the Hollowback," but I laughed it off—until I saw the enormous footprints, impossibly deep, with no beginning or end in the snow. My lantern flickered as the mountain fell silent, and then I saw it: a hulking figure crouched low, its spine arched grotesquely upward, hollowed out like a frozen cave. Its head turned slowly, revealing empty sockets that dripped black, frozen tears, and its mouth split wide in a silent scream. As it moved closer, I realized the hollow in its back wasn’t empty—it was filled with the half digested, frozen bodies of others who had ignored the warnings. My last thought, before it reached for me, was that no one would ever find my footprints in the snow.

I sit in my rocking chair, gripping my wrist to steady the tremor, willing myself to hold on to something, anything, that will keep me grounded. The little girl beside me looks up, her eyes are so full of a love that I know she has misplaced, and her voice is so soft as she calls me “Grandma,” a name I’ve never known. I know that I'm told I'm supposed to want to know her. But I just don't. The nurse tells me they come and visit me often, but I know that nurse has lied to me before. She tells me I know them, but I can’t trust her, she won’t listen to me when I tell her that I don't know who they are. The woman beside the child, maybe her mother, smiles gently, hiding her tears, “It’s so good to see you, Ms. Grace," she says. I fake my smile and turn my head to see a woman I don’t know stare at me through the mirror. She calls me Ms. Grace, but I don’t know that name either. I can feel the love in her eyes, I can feel the pain hiding there too, and it breaks my heart to know that I am nothing more than an intruder on a life that I will never get back to. When the nurse wheels me back to my room, I feel a hollow ache settle deep within my stomach. I am full of guilt and shame and I cry myself to sleep, fearing that I will wake up tomorrow. As I move to blow out the candle I glance down at my wrist, the faint lines of scars catching my eye, and my heart stumbles; carved deep into my own skin, the words stare back at me: “They aren’t who they say they are.”

The streets of the neighborhood were dark, save for the soft, flickering glow of jack-o'-lanterns lining the porches. On her back deck, the woman sat sipping her coffee. She admired her three pumpkins, their carved faces grinning in the candlelight, while she casually flipped through a worn paperback. She barely registered the blue and red lights flashing against her front windows, and soon a firm knock echoed through the house. Opening the door, two police officers stood on her porch, the taller one pulling out a photo of three children, their young faces hauntingly familiar. "Have you seen these kids, ma'am?" he asked. She studied the photograph for a moment, furrowing her brow before shaking her head. "No, I’m sorry, I can’t say that I have." The officers thanked her and politely asked her to call if she heard anything. Turning to leave, she stopped them, reaching for a bowl of candy. "It’s Halloween," she said sweetly, extending the bowl. "I made them myself. Added a bit of crunch to them this time." They smiled, each taking a piece of chocolate before walking back to their patrol car. She shut the door softly behind her and settled back into her chair. The pumpkins flickered warmly, and she leaned in close to them, "Well aren't you popular" she whispered tenderly.

This year, my parents finally let me go trick-or-treating on my own. They said I was too old for them to tag along anymore, and honestly, I didn’t want them to. The night started out perfect: just me, my wizard costume, and my candy bag. Around the sixth house, I noticed him—a kid about my age, trailing behind me. He wore a mask that looked leathery, like dried, sun-bleached skin. It clung loosely to his face, sagging around his cheeks, and the eye holes were dark and hollow, as if the mask itself had swallowed up whatever lay beneath. I figured he might be shy, maybe nervous being out alone, so at the next house, I turned and said, "Hey, wanna trick-or-treat together?" He nodded but didn’t speak. When I saw he didn’t have a candy bag, I offered to share mine. He still said nothing, just smiled faintly beneath that rotting mask. His wide, glassy eyes were barely visible through the deep, shadowed sockets, but I could feel them—locked on mine, unblinking and too still. As we knocked on the door of the last house on the block, I finally asked him, "Do you live around here?" But before he could respond, the old woman at the door spoke first. "Trick or treat!" I blurted out, but she ignored my greeting. She looked around, her eyes scanning the empty street, then down at my new friend with concern. "Sweetie," she asked him softly, "why are you out here all alone?"

Eventually, he did nod yes to marrying me. Replacing a few more strings shouldn’t cost too much.

It wasn’t the corn gone missing drove me mad, but the whining of our newborn. My wife cries now sure, but there ain’t no more crows in the field.

I’ve been so hungry since Mommy left. Her funeral was closed casket—there just wasn’t enough of her to say goodbye to.

It started shortly after my brother died. My dog, normally energetic and oblivious, began to stare at me for hours on end—silent and unblinking, his eyes wide with something I couldn’t place. At first, I thought it was grief; we had both lost him, after all. But as the weeks dragged on, the staring continued, every night, always from the same spot at the foot of my bed. I tried everything to snap him out of it—calling his name, offering him treats—but nothing broke him. Months passed, and the staring grew unbearable. “What’s wrong with you!” I screamed one night, my frustration taking hold as those familiar eyes bore into mine. That’s when it hit me—he wasn’t staring at me; his eyes were fixed just past my shoulder.

My husband won’t stop with the bruises. They never seem to fade, each one darker than the last. Every evening I go to him and I plead to him, I beg for him to stop. But when I leave his grave and go to sleep… I wake up in the morning and my bruises are even darker. As if somehow by putting him there, I’ve made it worse than before.