The Eternal Circle: Part One Chapter One – The Letter Rain fell in thin, persistent sheets, tapping the windowpanes of Claire Hammond’s third-floor flat like a nervous visitor unwilling to be ignored. She sat at her small oak table, untouched tea cooling in a chipped mug, staring at the envelope that had been slipped under her door an hour ago. It was cream-coloured, thick, and without a stamp. No address, no return infor...

Down in the valley that bloomed alongside the dense forest, there have long been whispers of a mysterious woman in the woods. Folks say she tried to speak to the townspeople once, walking straight out of the trees, wearing her black cloak and pointy hat. The men hurried the women and little ones inside, then grabbed their pitchforks. She retreated to the woods, never to enter the village again. Each retelling of the story...

The sky was the colour of pewter, the clouds dragging their weight low over the horizon as the last of the daylight bled away. Hannah tugged her denim jacket tighter around her and glanced sideways at her friend. “Come on, Lila,” she said, forcing a light tone, “it’s just a shortcut. Five minutes tops.” Lila bit her lip. “Through the cemetery, Hannah. At dusk. You know I hate that place.” “You hate everything after sunset...

CHAPTER 09 – Revenge, sweet revenge They cheered and started passing the small barrel, which they downed quickly. Three minutes later, they were all snoring. I was tempted to slice their throats, but to kill sleeping men was something more in the habit of the Spanish, ok, I’m Spanish, they are too and they are cruel and I hate them… but I still have some moral limits… attack a village in the early hours of the morning, wh...

The Woods Of Galicia The moon hung low over the wilds of Galicia, its silver light spilling over ancient trees draped in moss. The forest was alive with the chorus of nocturnal sounds, a symphony of rustling leaves and distant howls that could send shivers down one’s spine. It was a place steeped in mystery, where the whispers of the past brushed against the living, and stories of old echoed through the night air. Carlos...

I: What Comes In The Night The sun began its descent beyond the horizon, painting the Caribbean sky in hues of orange and crimson. Laughter echoed across the tranquil waters as five friends—Evelyn, Marco, Tessa, Brad, and last-minute addition Zoe—sank into the comfort of their luxurious yacht, The Sea Whisper. They had spent a week sailing toward hidden coves and sun-kissed beaches, but as night loomed, an unsettling feel...

Every day is a great opportunity to do that which is right and that which is good, to live our lives according to the precepts of kindness and decency however most of us fail in some way or other to live up to these ideals. Why is this? what is it in us that makes us not realise our full potential to be the people that we are meant to be. For some of us it is selfishness, for others it is a proud and boastful nature and t...

The rain had slicked the streets into sheets of glass, reflecting the sickly glow of sodium lamps as DCI George Hill pushed open the door of the incident room. The air smelled of stale coffee and wet wool coats. On the wall, fifteen faces stared back from photographs—smiling women, all of them snuffed out by the same brutal hand. Beside him, DS Melanie Sommers shuffled a stack of crime scene reports. She looked younger th...

Chapter Six – The Oak at Midnight The moon hung sharp and cold above Norfolkshire, silvering the frost-bound fields, when Jasper roused his brother from uneasy slumber. Jeremy started from his bed, heart racing, for he had dreamt again of Willie’s pale face, lips moving soundless words. Yet Jasper’s hand was upon his shoulder, urgent and hot with fevered purpose. “Up, Jeremy,” he whispered harshly. “Dress thee and come. W...

Chapter 08 – Enacting the last plan. “We will need a plan. Can you trust your men? But there is one more important question that you will have to answer.” “Only the young maid. I’ll have to leave her here. The others think I trust them, but I’m using the chance to double my revenge. They know only the doctored version of the story. They’ll take the blame when I flee. They were plotting against my husband, stealing from hi...

In the quiet grove, Sable Squirrel fell hopelessly in love with a walnut clinging to her tree. “Come with me, my darling,” Sable whispered, brushing her paw along the shell. The walnut blushed inside her husk. “I’m not ready to fall,” she murmured, “the world seems so... hard.” Every day Sable returned, telling her stories of sunlight, laughter, love. One breezy dawn, the walnut let herself go, tumbling into Sable’s arms....

The Fitzroys: Part One Chapter One – Shadows of Norfolkshire It was in the waning years of that restless century, when revolutions smouldered abroad yet the ancient privileges of rank held firm in England, that the Fitzroy estate stood in grim isolation amidst the flat expanses of Norfolkshire. A house of venerable stone, weather-beaten by many a winter gale, it looked out upon fields where peasants bent their backs in ce...

Chapter I: The Pharaoh’s Blood London’s fog-wreathed streets lay quietly under the first hush of midnight, yet in grand Mayfair drawing rooms, candles burned bright. Beneath crystal chandeliers and atop Persian carpets, figures draped in velvet and silk murmured over claret. They were the city’s finest: dukes, industrial magnates, famous artists—each unknowingly enmeshed in a centuries-old web. At the center of the larges...

The station claws at the edge of nowhere. Unmarked on any chart, unmapped by any road, it rises from a clearing choked by firs, a rusted sentinel against the perpetually gray Oregon coast. The sea breathes close, its mournful sigh audible on a favorable wind, though no one who has arrived here has ever lived to find the shore. A single, skeletal dirt road snakes towards the station, twisting through the ancient forest as...

I call her my midnight whisperer, though I’ve never heard her voice. Once, I called her my whisperer from the past, because she had named me her Future Man. She lives inside my head and Three Doors Down. Not literally, but in the way a song lives there. That song. It never belonged to me until the radio caught me one night, stalling me on a stretch of highway that asked nothing of me but the hum of tires and the glow of t...