Category: Short Stories

Rain lashed against Elena’s face, mirroring the tears she refused to shed. Not here. Not now. She stood rigid at the edge of the fog-choked harbor, the desolate docks stretching like skeletal fingers into the grey water. Around her, hushed murmurs at the graveside blurred into the mournful cries of unseen gulls. This funeral –… Read more

Evelyn Harper didn’t pause at the cemetery gates. Fog, thick as grave shrouds, clung to Ravenwood Cemetery, each breath tasting of damp earth and decay. She adjusted her black gloves, her slender fingers tightening around the worn leather of her satchel as she moved with purpose through the rows of headstones. Her goal: reach the… Read more

Rain lashed against the stained-glass windows of Ravenwood Chapel as Emma Clarke pushed through the mourners. Not grief, but a prickling unease tightened her chest. The air, thick with incense and damp wool, vibrated with something more than sorrow. A low thrumming echoed from the altar, where the ancient Ravenwood Relic, a circular window of… Read more

Lena Mercer, slender and determined, jacked into the Nova Prime network, fingers flying across her datapad. Her goal: bypass Sector 7 firewalls. Static crackled around her as a surge of energy, not from the grid, but something deeper, pulsed through the station. Alarms blared, red lights strobed, but on Lena’s screen, a holographic map shimmered… Read more

Evelyn Winters coughed, the damp Ravenbrook air clinging to her lungs like a shroud. Around her, mourners huddled under black umbrellas, their faces grim. Not for the deceased, she realized, but for something else. A low growl, not animal, not human, vibrated through the soggy earth, silencing the priest mid-sentence. The ground bucked. Headstones tilted.… Read more

“Another dreary Harper funeral,” Evelyn muttered, adjusting her slender black gloves. Rain lashed against the canvas awning, mirroring the chill that had settled deep within her bones long before Uncle Theron’s sudden demise. But it wasn’t grief that gnawed at her; it was curiosity. Theron, in his cryptic will, had bequeathed her not his fortune,… Read more

Evelyn Harper splashed black coffee onto the cobblestones, the bitter liquid mirroring the taste in her mouth. Ravenbrook’s perpetual fog clung to her slender frame as she adjusted her old camera bag, its weight a familiar comfort against the unsettling quiet. A raven’s harsh cry split the silence, startling a rat that scurried into the… Read more

Dust choked Alex’s lungs as she pried ferrocrete from a fallen beam, her calloused hands raw. Rats scattered, their eyes gleaming in the dim light filtering through the ruined skyscraper’s skeletal frame. A tremor, deep and resonant, shook the debris pile she stood on. Dust rained down, revealing a dark, gaping hole where moments before… Read more

Emily Thornton arrived at Ravenwood under a sky bruised purple and grey. Fog, thick as cotton batting, clung to the weathered stones of the lighthouse, obscuring the churning sea below. She wasn’t here for the view. The funeral of her estranged aunt, Clara, was underway in the small, stone church. As the coffin was lowered,… Read more

Evelyn Harper knelt at the fresh grave, the damp earth clinging to her black gloves. Gulls cried overhead, a mournful chorus to the priest’s droning words. A sudden, unnatural chill swept through the cemetery, a dense fog rolling in from the sea with impossible speed. Visibility dropped to near zero, the priest’s voice fading into… Read more