Dire stories

  The caravan rolled into the edge of the sleepy town of Elmbrook just after sunset, wheels groaning like dying animals. The townspeople gathered as they always did when travelers arrived—curious, cautious, hopeful for something new to break the monotony. At the head of the caravan stood a tall man with sunken eyes, a curled smile carved into a face that looked half-forgotten by time. He introduced himself simply: “I am Morrow, the Puppeteer. And tonight, your children will laugh, your elders will weep, and all will remember.” He bowed low with jerking grace, his limbs moving like something tugged by invisible strings. The people clapped, not knowing why their stomachs churned at the sight. Morrow’s stage was set at the center of the town square by nightfall. Velvet curtains framed a crude wooden theater, and painted backdrops shifted with the moonlight. The puppets themselves hung in place—six of them. They were disturbingly lifelike, each with glimmering glass eyes that did...

  I found the library by mistake. It was buried deep beneath the old cathedral in Marrowhill, where the stained-glass saints watched in silent judgment and dust clung to everything like skin. I'd been sent to catalog the remaining manuscripts before the place was demolished. They said it had been condemned—mold, asbestos, time. I’d expected rats and rot. I hadn’t expected the trapdoor under the altar. It wasn’t locked. Just… forgotten. The staircase beneath twisted in a slow spiral, and I descended with only the flashlight on my phone and the growing sense I was doing something very wrong. At the bottom, the air grew colder, like the breath of something old exhaled in the dark. Stone walls, carved with script I couldn’t recognize, stretched into shadow. A single brass plaque above the archway read: "Scriptorum Deorum Oblitorum" — The Library of Forgotten Gods. And I, idiot that I am, went in. It wasn’t like any library I’d ever seen. There were no rows of organized ...

 It started with a shadow that didn’t move. On the morning of July 8th, a dark, bloated cloud swallowed the sky, stretching from horizon to horizon. Weather services said nothing. No warnings. No radar pings. Just... silence. Like they were cut off, or worse—watching, and saying nothing. At first, people went about their days, squinting into the sky. A few murmured about ash from wildfires, or volcanic fallout. But this wasn’t smoke. It was too still . No breeze pushed it. No sun cut through it. The world dimmed like a theater before a show, except no one clapped, and nothing felt staged. Three days passed before the rain began. But it wasn’t water. I was in the kitchen when I heard the first drop hit the roof. A thud , not a splash. I thought a bird had fallen, or maybe a tree branch. But then came another. And another. Each one landed like wet clay thrown against glass. I opened the front door and froze. The drops fell slow, thick, like gelatin-filled sacs. When they hit t...

  At first, no one noticed the strange slime seeping through the cracks in the high school’s boiler room. It was slow, quiet, and nearly invisible against the rusted pipes and dim concrete. But it was hungry—and it had been waiting. Jefferson High was old. Built in the 1960s, it was a patchwork of outdated architecture, asbestos warnings, and questionable smells. The students joked about it being haunted, but most of the creepy stories were just that—stories. That is, until the week before fall break. It started with a janitor. Mr. Collins was the type of guy who always smelled faintly of Pine-Sol and had a pocket full of crumpled mints. He was dependable, always muttering about kids not wiping their feet and lights being left on. So when he didn’t clock out on Friday night, nobody worried too much. Maybe he took the weekend early. But when he didn’t show up Monday, and his cart was found parked outside the basement door, Principal Mendez called the police. They searched ...