SpawnofHastur

The woods are silent. Except, not really. Whenever anyone says that 'everything was silent', they are usually quite wrong. Even if the cannot hear a thing, there is always something making sound, be it a beetle scuttling across the floor, the fibres in a piece of wood expanding, or even a worm burrowing. The sounds are subtle, gentle, and blend together into lulling background noise that is mistaken by most for silence. In the woods, amid the sounds of animals moving to gather food, the faint whistle of the wind, and sound of trees growing, there is movement. This isn't unusual- it is rare to find an animal completely still except in death.

The shirtless man yawns, standing slowly from his chair, stretching and blinking. Running a palm through his fringe- a nervous tick, he thought, but a harmless one- he slowly begins to walk through the debris littering the room- the odd bits of paper, the collection of shoes that he'd never worn, the heater, the weight, the bin. He steps out into the kitchen, moving towards the stove, but his gait seems to betray a sense of purposelessness. He's almost on autopilot; there's no real intention there. He pauses before the stove, raising a hand to the shelf above it, fumbling for the lighter. Pulling it down towards eye level, he smiles, flippin

The businessman checked the figures of this year’s production, tapping his fingertips on the tabletop. He was noted among those who knew him for being fastidious- moreso than his contemporaries, certainly. They would have hired a clerk to do the figures for them, provide them with a short report of the ups and downs of the market and profit margins. But the businessman wasn’t entirely trusting when it came to his livelihood and the foundation of his wealth. He’d rather be seen as an eccentric than miss some crucial knowledge of the market- that was, he felt, where most other traders went wrong. In any case, his reputation for

When I awaken, the first thing I hear is the sound of my breath. It’s…heavy. Scratching. Laboured. I can feel something around my throat. The pressure is light, but firm enough to make it clear that it’s still dangerous. After taking in the sound of my breath, and what I think might be causing it, I notice the positioning of my body. My hands are above my head; I can feel something cutting into my wrists, and my shoulders feel like they’re an inch away from dislocating. Me feet are planted on something, but I’m leaned forward; the reason I’m not falling on my face is the fact that my hands are firmly secured abov

You open your eyes. Groan. Turn your head, first to the right, then to the left. Sit up. Rub your eyes, trying to see if you can rub the senselessness of what you see out of them. You’re somewhere you’ve never been before. A café, or maybe a nightclub. It’s entirely unfamiliar. Very smoky. From a jukebox in the corner blares a song you’ve never heard. You find the beat very compelling; it’s like someone is tapdancing on a set of bongo drums. It’s enticing; it makes you want to dance, it makes your soles itch. You stretch, and stand up. No-one else seems to think of you as new here. You think that you must h

We –the band- fiddle around with our equipment a bit. We’ve got to get it perfect; anything less will alter the sound away from what it needs to be. My fellow bandmates are fiddling with their amps, trying to get the settings just right, the tone just right. They need to make sure that every song they play is an extension of them, part of who they are in some way. My settings have never been that fiddly. Plug bass into amp, roll down the treble knob to none, put the mids and the bass as high as possible, and play without even touching the tone knob. Easy. My bass isn’t perfect, but it definitely gets the sound I want when I wan

Day One I go to the sink, pouring myself a glass of water. A great feeling of trepidation overtakes me; I’m worried. I’ve heard bad things about this stuff, really bad things, but people tell me it will be worth it. But that doesn’t stop the doubt running through my mind: it’s got side effects, it’s gonna kill you, it’s not gonna work, you’re gonna die, it’ll make you worse, you’ll commit suicide, you’ll kill your family… I try to push the train of doubt out of my mind, trying to ignore the occasional image flash of the deaths of my family, shaking my head violently. This is gonna help

I’m crouched, here, in the mud, as the sun begins to droop; looking at it and the sky it lies in, I could almost feel that it is as tired as I am. But I have to keep going on, and the slumber of the sun doesn’t help me in any great sense. It makes it harder to see, but it also makes me harder to see, so…I guess it breaks even. I inch along, looking back over my shoulder every few moments, to make sure that my mates are at my back. I don’t want to be in here alone. I can’t be in here alone. With what little sunlight is left, the world around me is grey and brown, dank, dark, every shadow highlighted. The air is still,

Dominick Fernow The Story: There are some people who have no friends. Dominick Fernow is not like that. There are some people that have many friends. Dominick Fernow is not like that, either. He has many acquaintances, a fair number of chums, a few pals, and maybe three real friends. It’s not that he’s a loner; on the contrary, he can be very outgoing and even charming when he has to be. The thing is, despite being charming, Dominick doesn’t seem entirely there. He’s not insane, he’s quite rational, and reasonable, but for some reason Dominick exudes a field of emptiness, as if what was going on behind his eyes was