recursal/Fanatic-Fandom huggingface dataset:
Solution

Her words had seemed so sincere. Had she not upheld her promise of traveling to his home, without money or even directions? He should have trusted his gut feeling to leave her alone when he had the first doubts. It was so easy to be a kinder person when your only method of communication was text.

This was the best way to get her off his back. She had not let go of his small, frail body since the moment she’d undone her robe. It had been the same every night. Now, it came to either this, or endure a life with the girl who held him down on the sofa. All her family knew was that she had gone to live with a distant friend who had a spare room.

The soreness lingered long before he had lain down hours ago. Having slept next to her, he wriggled out from the warm blankets and stumbled to the kitchen. The shining blade waited in the holder on the kitchen counter. He would have to use steel; guns weren’t kept in the house.

A faint pulse beat in her pale neck. She was sound asleep, not even snoring. Placing the silver across her pale flesh, he narrowed his eyes to dark slits. It would be easy to say she had turned the knife on herself when he had left her. Without allowing any more delay, he sliced the major vein, his stroke rough and sloppy.

She was hardly awake, her legs crumpling like a fawn’s as she half-attempted to stand. Not a moan escaped her paling lips as blood spouted over her hands and the fallen knife. In a moment her gasping, desperate breaths had stopped, and her attractive figure crumpled on the floor in an expanding puddle.

*Credited to Grizzly Bear*
Thanksgiving Dinner

You’re sitting at a Thanksgiving dinner, an invited guest of a middle class family. Odd looking foods sit on the table as the head of the family, the father, comes out of the kitchen and sits down at the table.

“Are we ready?”

The rest of the family nods. He looks at you, and you nod as well.

The mother stands, and splits the food up on the respective plates. There are other foods as well: Mashed potatoes, turkey, salad, rolls, etc. A gourd of fruit adorns the middle of the table, which is covered by a white table cloth.

“Ok, now let us pray.” You respectfully clasp your hands together with the other family members, and the father begins to speak again:

“Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this food. We thank you for the great blessings you have bestowed upon us this year, and we thank you for this blessed day you have set aside for our celebration, Lord. In your name, Amen.”

“Amen,” everyone else, including you, state out loud in prayer.

“Now, let us eat.”

You pick up a fork and knife, and decide to start with the odd meat. It appears to be brown colored and circular. You think it possibly maybe a steak, but then again, who would have steak on Thanksgiving?

You cut a bite off, and jam the fork into it. Picking it up slowly, you eye it for a moment, unsure.

“Something wrong, dear?” the mother asks you. The children are busy stuffing their faces, or being stubborn and picky by refusing to eat, but you can still hear enough to answer.

“No, it’s nothing,” you reply. With that, you stick the piece in your mouth. It is oddly chewy, and sour. It tastes different from any steak or meat you’ve ever tasted. It barely goes down but you manage to swallow it.

The odd taste makes you even further questionable. You turn to the mother, and ask a question.

“Miss, do you mind if I ask what this odd meat is? Is it steak or something?”

She looks at you and laughs.

“No dearie, it’s not steak. It’s James.”

*Written by Velvet Rose
Content is available under {{#NewWindowLink:http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0%7CCC-BY-SA}}*
No Will

David now sits in the living room of what just used to be his parents’ house, contemplating suicide and looking back on how he wasted his life.
Days ago, in the same house, David lived with his parents. He stayed in their basement, which had been made-over to become a living area rather than just storage space. Because he had his own microwave, refrigerator, and bathroom in the basement, David rarely left his “man cave.”

However, had he bothered to venture out into the "real world" of upstairs, he would have known what was about to happen to him. His parents were tired of him mooching all day with no job for years. His mother, who for years had been trying to pretend that this was only a setback, finally saw that David was turning into a worthless lump in their basement. He was little more to them than someone they saw once a month when they brought him fresh groceries.

They had agreed to change their will to leave him enough money to get an apartment for a short while, but not enough for him to live without a job. They wanted it so that he would be forced to be useful for the first time in a long time in his life.

It wasn’t long after they met with their lawyer to get their will changed that they both were killed in a car wreck. The worst part about their deaths is that David only found out when his brother came to tell him about the terms of the will.

The real reason that David’s brother had come was to tell him he needed to move out. He was left the house, not David. He gave David the check for the few hundred dollars left to him in the will, and told him that he had until the end of the day to get his stuff out of there. His parents left strict orders in his will that he move out. With the paltry sum of money he had, David quickly gathered that he would have to get a job.

After his brother left, David pondered the future. He realized that he would be hard-pressed to find a job, being as old as he was and having done nothing with his life. He also didn’t want to have to face the reality of not having his parents to care for him and buy him groceries. Having to learn to fly was a horrifying idea for the chick that had spent far too many years in the nest.

So, here sits David, in the living room of what used to be his parents’ house, contemplating suicide and looking back on how he ruined his life. *Soon*, he thought to himself as he toyed with the gun in his hand, *my brother will be here.*

*Credited to ClericofMadness*
Phyllida and Corydon

In the merry month of May,

In a morn by break of day,

With a troop of damsels playing

Forth I rode, forsooth, a-maying,

When anon by a woodside,

Where as May was in his pride,

I espied, all alone,

Phyllida and Corydon.

Much ado there was, God wot!

He would love, and she would not:

She said, never man was true;

He says, none was false to you.

He said, he had loved her long:

She says, Love should have no wrong.

Corydon would kiss her then,

She says, maids must kiss no men,

Till they do for good and all.

Then she made the shepherd call

All the heavens to witness, truth

Never loved a truer youth.

Thus with many a pretty oath,

Yea, and nay, and faith and troth!--

Such as silly shepherds use

When they will not love abuse;

Love, which had been long deluded,

Was with kisses sweet concluded:

And Phyllida, with garlands gay,

Was made the lady of the May.

*Credited to Nicholas Breton*
Spirits of the Dead

1

Thy soul shall find itself alone

'Mid dark thoughts of the grey tomb-stone —

Not one, of all the crowd, to pry

Into thine hour of secrecy:

2

Be silent in that solitude

 Which is not loneliness—for then

The spirits of the dead who stood

 In life before thee are again

In death around thee—and their will

Shall then overshadow thee: be still.

3

For the night—tho' clear—shall frown—

And the stars shall look not down,

From their high thrones in the Heaven,

With light like Hope to mortals given—

But their red orbs, without beam,

To thy weariness shall seem

As a burning and a fever

Which would cling to thee for ever:

4

Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish —

Now are visions ne'er to vanish—

From thy spirit shall they pass

No more—like dew-drop from the grass:

5

The breeze—the breath of God—is still —

And the mist upon the hill

Shadowy—shadowy—yet unbroken,

Is a symbol and a token—

How it hangs upon the trees,

A mystery of mysteries! —

*Credited to Edgar Allan Poe*
Lenore

Ah, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever!

Let the bell toll!—a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river;

And, Guy De Vere, hast thou no tear?—weep now or never more!

See! on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore!

Come! let the burial rite be read—the funeral song be sung!—

An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young—

A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so young.

"Wretches! ye loved her for her wealth and hated her for her pride,

"And when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her—that she died!

"How shall the ritual, then, be read?—the requiem how be sung

"By you—by yours, the evil eye,—by yours, the slanderous tongue

"That did to death the innocence that died, and died so young?"

Peccavimus; but rave not thus! and let a Sabbath song

Go up to God so solemnly the dead may feel no wrong!

The sweet Lenore hath "gone before," with Hope, that flew beside,

Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy bride—

For her, the fair and debonair, that now so lowly lies,

The life upon her yellow hair but not within her eyes—

The life still there, upon her hair—the death upon her eyes.

"Avaunt! to-night my heart is light. No dirge will I upraise,

"But waft the angel on her flight with a Pæan of old days!

"Let no bell toll!—lest her sweet soul, amid its hallowed mirth,

"Should catch the note, as it doth float up from the damnéd Earth.

"To friends above, from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven—

"From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven—

"From grief and groan, to a golden throne, beside the King of Heaven."

*Credited to Edgar Allan Poe*
Lost and Found

Lost and found bins are often full of unclaimed items such as coats and watches. Derrick, a cheapskate, frequented them in an effort to save money on clothes. Distance was not a problem for him, as he did not mind having to travel to a new bin location.

“Yes, that’s mine,” he said as he pointed to a nice hat at his latest stop, a train depot. He had spotted a well-worn bowler that he thought looked like it would go well with his other ill-gotten finery.

Laughing at his good fortune and at yet another successful scam, he donned the hat and went back to his house for a well-deserved rest.

His house was decorated with all the finest in whatever he could get on sale at the thrift store or ‘liberate’ from large chain stores. He lived alone at that house for obvious reasons, namely that he loathed spending money even on himself.

Lacking anyone to talk to, he opted to parade in front of his bathroom mirror for him to see all of his ‘glory.’

Though over the next few days he found many items, he always wore the bowler, having taken a shine to it.

One morning, though, Derrick awoke to find that he was losing clumps of his hair. Deciding against shelling out for a doctor, he contended that he never liked hair. Besides, he thought, it would save him money on shampoo.

However, he would not be able to remain so optimistic over the next few days. He would die in his yard, trying to save money by refusing an ambulance.

The paramedics, noting his death, went to move his body when the hat fell off, revealing a grim sight: he lacked skin where the hat was.

Seeing this, the paramedics called the CDC, who in turn called HAZMAT. It turned out the hat belonged to a homegrown terrorist who had been working on a dirty bomb.

Though the official cause of death was listed as radiation poisoning, it could just have been greed.

*Credited to ClericofMadness*
Practically Deserved It

I hate practical jokes. Well, I hate being the receiver of them. I guess I just don’t take it well. Let me just say this now. All my life I have been the butt of one big joke. For instance, this year for my birthday, my mother “baked” me a cake. It was made of concrete. She thought she was pretty clever.
I thought I was pretty clever when I baked her in the oven.

Last week, I went camping with a friend. He thought it would be funny to leave a used condom in my tent at night and thank me the next morning.

I thought it would be funny to castrate him and make him choke on it.

My old boss got a big laugh out of pretending to fire me yesterday.

I’m going to get a big laugh when they fire the cannon on the square and chunks of him will come flying out.

Next week is the first day of April. It’s going to be a fun day.

*Credited to ClericofMadness*
Romeo and Juliet/Prologue

Two households, both alike in dignity,

In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,

From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,

Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.

From forth the fatal loins of these two foes

A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;

Whose misadventured piteous overthrows

Do with their death bury their parents' strife.

The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,

And the continuance of their parents' rage,

Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,

Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;

The which if you with patient ears attend,

What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

~~*< Previous Act*~~       |       **Next Act >**
Simply Nervous

Charlotte always told herself that whenever she felt someone watching her, that she was simply nervous. She would turn around and there would be nothing, but still the feeling was always enough to send her running to her destination.

One day, when Charlotte was walking down the sidewalk to her subdivision, she got what she termed her “typical paranoid delusion.” It was also then that, in her moment of lapsed concentration, she tripped over something. Despite the fact that she feared stopping, she picked up the object and looked at it. It was a side-view mirror from a car, obviously lost in a wreck. She knew the road there was dangerous.

Then, Charlotte gasped. In the mirror, she saw a figure standing a few feet back. Its face was human, but warped. Its arms were outstretched; the nails of its fingers were long and twisted. Then Charlotte shrieked in horror.

**“OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR.”**

*Credited to ClericofMadness*
On the late Massacher in Piemont

Avenge O Lord thy slaughter'd Saints, whose bones

Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold,

Ev'n them who kept thy truth so pure of old

When all our Fathers worship't Stocks and Stones,

Forget not: in thy book record their groanes

Who were thy Sheep and in their antient Fold

Slayn by the bloody Piemontese that roll'd

Mother with Infant down the Rocks. Their moans

The Vales redoubl'd to the Hills, and they

To Heav'n. Their martyr'd blood and ashes sow

O're all th' Italian fields where still doth sway

The triple Tyrant: that from these may grow

A hunder'd-fold, who having learnt thy way

Early may fly the Babylonian wo.

*Credited to John Milton*
Pygmalion

***Pygmalion*** (1913) is a play by George Bernard Shaw. It tells the story of Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics, who makes a bet with his friend Colonel Pickering that he can turn a Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, into a refined society lady merely by teaching her how to speak with an upper class accent and training her in etiquette. In the process, Higgins and Doolittle grow close, but she ultimately rejects his domineering ways and marries Freddy Eynsford-Hill, a young but poor gentleman.

* Preface
* Act 1
* Act 2
* Act 3
* Act 4
* Act 5
* Appendix
Mr. Midshipman Easy

***Mr. Midshipman Easy*** is an 1836 novel by Frederick Marryat, a retired captain in the Royal Navy. The novel is set during the Napoleonic Wars, in which Marryat himself served with distinction.

* Chapter 1
* Chapter 2
* Chapter 3
* Chapter 4
* Chapter 5
* Chapter 6
* Chapter 7
* Chapter 8
* Chapter 9
* Chapter 10
* Chapter 11
* Chapter 12
* Chapter 13
* Chapter 14
* Chapter 15
* Chapter 16
* Chapter 17
* Chapter 18
* Chapter 19
* Chapter 20
* Chapter 21
* Chapter 22
* Chapter 23
* Chapter 24
* Chapter 25
* Chapter 26
* Chapter 27
* Chapter 28
* Chapter 29
* Chapter 30
* Chapter 31
* Chapter 32
* Chapter 33
* Chapter 34
* Chapter 35
* Chapter 36
* Chapter 37
* Chapter 38
* Chapter 39
* Chapter 40
* Chapter 41
Mother's Call

A young girl is playing in her bedroom when she hears her mother call to her from the kitchen, so she runs downstairs to meet her mother.

As she's running through the hallway, the door to the cupboard under the stairs opens, and a hand reaches out and pulls her in. It's her mother. She whispers to her child, "Don't go into the kitchen. I heard it too."

*Original Author Unknown*
Romeo and Juliet

*Romeo and Juliet* is a tragedy play written by ***William Shakespeare***  in 1597. It is written about two star-crossed lovers whose deaths are reconciled by their families. It is a long play, written in 5 acts and a prologue. It's so long that it was separated into 6 pages.

## The Acts

Prologue

Act 1

Act 2

Act 3

Act 4

Act 5
The .GIF

On March 12, 2007 on the /b/ board of 4chan, an anonymous user posted a .GIF image. At a first glance, strangely, the .GIF image wasn't animated. It was titled IM\_HAPPY.GIF, and showed what appeared to be a drawing of a smiley face, only with realistic looking eyes and mouth. People who clicked on it saw the smiley face's smile slowly turn into a frown, and the eyes taking on an angrier appearance.

The smiley face would then scream loudly - loud enough to burst eardrums - and gruesome images of rapes, bomb test victims, aborted fetuses, mutilated bodies, and animals being tortured would flash by quickly. After about five minutes, it would show the text "*Have nice day*" (sic), and the user's computer would automatically close out of the browser and would stop working, as if a virus had corrupted the hard drive.

People whose computers were infected would shortly be found in their homes, skinned and mutilated, with a smiley face painted in blood on the floor next to their corpses. moot, the founder of 4chan, would always claim that the picture never existed, and that the murders were unrelated. However, somewhere in the archives, the picture still exists. Most people who attempt to post it are usually swiftly banned by moot.

*Original Author Unknown*
Silent Nightmare

Children are always warned not to stay up on Christmas Eve and wait for Santa, let alone try to sneak a peek at him.

There’s a good reason for this, in fact. Santa knows when you are sleeping, and he knows who has been naughty. For children who have been naughty, being awake on Christmas can be... Well, unfortunate.

How, after all, do you think he gets those small, young elves?

*Credited to ClericofMadness*
NES Godzilla Creepypasta

Text copied from Creepypasta Wiki.

**NES Godzilla Creepypasta** is a very ***LONG*** pasta about... well, just that. Originally written by Cosbydaf on Bogleech, this pasta is known both for its length and for being extremely image-heavy. It is so long, in fact, it had to be split into subpages. Retrieved from here. The original, posted in the Bogleech forums, can be found here.

## Table of Contents

* Chapter 1: Earth & Mars
* Chapter 2: Pathos
* Chapter 3: Trance
* Chapter 4: Dementia
* Chapter 5: Entropy
* Chapter 6: Extus
* Chapter 7: Zenith
* Chapter 8: Finale
* Epilogue
That Feeds You

I woke up to the sound of padded feet and click-clacking nails on the hardwood stairs leading up to my bedroom. I let out a weak ‘oof’ as the dog jumped onto my chest and began to sniff me. He then licked my hand until he had coated it with a thick layer of drool.
“My,” I whispered, trying not to wake my wife, despite the fact that she’s a moderately heavy sleeper, “You’re a heavy boy, aren’t you?”

The dog growled at me and unceremoniously leaped off the bed.

“I figure you want a walk,” I said, getting out of bed and slipping into my fuzzy bunny slippers. As much as they were tacky, they were the same amount comfortable.

I groped around the dark hallway downstairs, trying to find the leash, but wound up deciding he was big enough to fend for himself. “Sorry,” I told him with a shrug. “No leash tonight.”

The dog—as big as it was—then tried to squeeze through the cat door. “Excited, aren’t we? Now, now. You’ll have to use the door like the rest of the big people.”

After extracting the dog from the poor cat’s door, I ushered him outside, whereupon he promptly—much to my dismay, moreover since the outcome should have been obvious—ran off, barking madly and running in a staggering, zigzag pattern. It was something like what a drunken person would do walking.

Cursing, I turned to go back inside but was shocked to see my wife coming down the stairs. “What’s going on in here? What’s with the smell and all the barking?”

“Oh, the usual,” I told her, still barely half awake and drying my hand off. I stupidly used hot water instead of warm, which only aggravated the gash on my hand I got that morning repairing a barbwire fence.

“I just took the dog outside for a walk, and he ran away. He should be careful, there’s a rabid dog out there. I was just about to go get the flashlight and find him.”

I looked up from my hands and the towel to see my wife dialing a number on the phone. She stared at me with an odd look.

“What? What’s wrong? I’m sure he’ll come back. I was jus—.” She cut me off.

“It’s not that,” she said, the phone in her hand shaking as it rang slowly. “We don’t have a dog.”

*Credited to ClericofMadness*
Man on the Train

<poem>
I once saw a man on the train,
Who seemed he was in a lot of pain.
His eyes were gone,
His throat was slit,
And yet he still carried on.

I couldn’t help but stare
And at first he didn’t care.
But that’s when I saw the pair
Of large red eyes,
Hidden within his hair.

I tried my best not to look
I directed my gaze into a book.
But suddenly he was there
As if he were made of air
He said “it’s impolite to stare.”

My eyes began to bleed
Until I could no longer read.
The sound began to fill the air
Like venom in my veins,
“It’s impolite to stare”

And the pain was far from done
I tried so hard to run
I could feel the cold hard metal
Make my neck leak
The liquid as red as rose pedals

So now I get onto trains
And forever feel his pain
I can no longer breathe fresh air,
But I don’t care,
Because it *was* impolite to stare.
<poem>

*Credited to NotSoCrazyAfterAll

Content is available under {{#NewWindowLink:http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0%7CCC-BY-SA}}*
Numb

Almost everyone has felt it before. That strange feeling in your cheek after you have your tooth numbed from the dentist. It's sort of like the side of your face feels swollen or puffy. Or sometimes like it's not even there.

"Two cavities," said the dentist, looking into the mouth of nine year old Natalie's mouth, "I'm going to fill one of the cavities now and you can come back for a checkup later to fill the other one."

"Why?" asked Natalie.

"I don't like to numb both sides of the face at once. It can be dangerous," said her dentist. Natalie tensed up in her chair.

"How so?"

"Because you won't be able to feel your face and you could harm yourself while you're eating. You could make sores on your tongue or cheeks from biting them," he said smiling at her.

Natalie tasted the sourness of the Novocaine numbing the left side of her face. It felt swollen and puffy. She decided to test what the dentist said by biting her cheek. She couldn't feel a thing and she felt confident about the procedure. So the dentist drilled her tooth and fixed her cavity painlessly. Her mom set up an appointment for her to come back for the other cavity in a few days.

On the ride home, she couldn't stop biting her cheek. It was amusing to her. She couldn't feel a thing. Eventually, she felt chunks of her cheek rolling around in her mouth and she could taste blood. But why stop if she couldn't feel it? This was fun.

She got home and kept chewing and chewing. Spitting chunks of bloody flesh onto the floor.

"Natalie?" her mom called. "Where are you?"

Natalie's mom heard a strange gargling noise from her room.

She slowly peeked in through a crack in the door and saw her young daughter in the corner, her face toward the wall.

"Natalie?" she called out once more.

"You know," said Natalie's nearly unintelligible voice. "The dentist is right."

Natalie turned and faced her mom with a most terrifying sight.

Her whole cheek. Gone. Her jaw was hanging off the other side of her face as if on a hinge, and Natalie sat in a pool of blood which cascaded from what was left of her mouth. She tried to form a smile, but the stretching of her face caused her whole bottom jaw to fall off.

In a slurring, gargling voice she managed to say, "I can't even feel a thing!"

*Credited to Bipolaroid

Content is available under {{#NewWindowLink:http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0%7CCC-BY-SA}}*
Memory

In the valley of Nis the accursed waning moon shines thinly, tearing a path for its light with feeble horns through the lethal foliage of a great upas-tree. And within the depths of the valley, where the light reaches not, move forms not meant to be beheld. Rank is the herbage on each slope, where evil vines and creeping plants crawl amidst the stones of ruined palaces, twining tightly about broken columns and strange monoliths, and heaving up marble pavements laid by forgotten hands. And in trees that grow gigantic in crumbling courtyards leap little apes, while in and out of deep treasure-vaults writhe poison serpents and scaly things without a name. Vast are the stones which sleep beneath coverlets of dank moss, and mighty were the walls from which they fell. For all time did their builders erect them, and in sooth they yet serve nobly, for beneath them the grey toad makes his habitation.
At the very bottom of the valley lies the river Than, whose waters are slimy and filled with weeds. From hidden springs it rises, and to subterranean grottoes it flows, so that the Daemon of the Valley knows not why its waters are red, nor whither they are bound.

The Genie that haunts the moonbeams spake to the Daemon of the Valley, saying, “I am old, and forget much. Tell me the deeds and aspect and name of them who built these things of Stone.” And the Daemon replied, “I am Memory, and am wise in lore of the past, but I too am old. These beings were like the waters of the river Than, not to be understood. Their deeds I recall not, for they were but of the moment. Their aspect I recall dimly, it was like to that of the little apes in the trees. Their name I recall clearly, for it rhymed with that of the river. These beings of yesterday were called Man.”

So the Genie flew back to the thin horned moon, and the Daemon looked intently at a little ape in a tree that grew in a crumbling courtyard.

*Credited to Howard Philips Lovecraft*
Morning Coffee

The oily sheen in my freshly brewed, black coffee swirls about and breaks apart, forming numerous swirling spirals and circles, constantly changing. They are the galaxies I have created.

I wonder what planets might exist in my little universe. I blow and poke at the surface of my morning brew, destroying galaxies and civilizations with every stab. Blowing sends the universe into upheaval, entire solar systems crashing into one another. I laugh, applauding myself for being such a wicked deity today.

I take a sip and nearly heave. The brew is bitter and I can almost feel it fighting back. It tastes like anguish. It's not nearly as bad as the universe in my soup last night. Gave me heartburn with all the fires of Hell.

Being God isn't easy, especially when you create life every time you wake up. Watch out, humans. Tomorrow, I might decide to have your doughnut for breakfast.

*Credited to ClericofMadness*
Rocking Motion

My wife must hate me. She gave birth two weeks ago and I kept refusing her requests for me to hold the child.

I’m not a bad person. Really, I’m not. Ever since we got home from the hospital, she keeps herself cooped up in the baby’s room, rocking her tightly wrapped bundle to sleep. I avoid walking by, or she’ll ask me to hold it. I can’t stand to look at it. I never wanted this to happen, not to her, not to us.

But I am not mad at her. How could I be? I mean, it breaks my heart to see her rock it back and forth until she falls asleep.

I knew coming back from the hospital empty-handed would be hard, but I never thought it would be this bad.

*Credited to ClericofMadness*
Quiltmakers

If an old lady asks you to help her make a quilt, it’s best to politely decline.
In the area surrounding the town of Pearl, Mississippi, people began to go missing. Eyewitness reports told of a set of three elderly ladies. The word was that at least one of the three would talk to the victims before they would mysteriously vanish in the following days.

One lady, possibly the last intended victim, was approached by one of the women about helping her and her two other friends make a quilt. She mentioned that they would pay well. Before the old lady left, she handed the woman a business card.

Luckily for the woman, sketches of the three old ladies had been televised recently, and she recognized the person to whom she had just spoke as one of those three.

When the police raided the address listed on the business card, they only found an unfinished quilt made from patches of human skin. Other than that, they never found a trace of the old women.

So, if an old lady is paying well for help with a quilt, you should decline.

*Credited to ClericofMadness*
Night Voices

Father, father, who is that a-whispering?

Who is it who whispers in the wood?

You say it is the breeze

As it sighs among the trees,

But there's some one who whispers in the v wood.

Father, father, who is that a-murmuring?

Who is it who murmurs in the night?

You say it is the roar

Of the wave upon the shore,

But there's some one who murmurs in the

night.

Father, father, who is that who laughs

at us?

Who is it who chuckles in the glen?

Oh, father, let us go,

For the light is burning low,

And there's somebody laughing in the

glen.

Father, father, tell me what you're waiting

for,

Tell me why your eyes are on the

door.

It is dark and it is late,

But you sit so still and straight,

Ever staring, ever smiling, at the door.

*Credited to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle*
Sable Revery

Black roses sprout across the sky,

Pipes sing insensate 'neath the sea,

The clamant heads of madmen fly

And shatter with a dark outcry,

As tones transpose to deeper dye

And leaves whirl wild with jubilee

Through the mad organist's rambling brain;

In the disordered sepulcher

A lady's dead eyes strive to stir,

She dares to laugh, but all in vain;

Three-fingered hands paint a far frieze

With the black blood of vanquished devils,

Who sway and slay the music-breeze

In their daft and dying revels.

Now ebon fluids 'gin to flow

And drip with waxen candle-men;

Black disks of stone are trundling low;

From the organ's bosom fuming slow,

Fouler and sadder perfumes blow

To drown the bourns of demon ken;

Skulls flown from swarthy corpses kiss

And feed upon the organist's soul,

Which ne'er doth cease to toll and roll

Bell-like within this dusk abyss;

Fell plants and flowers writhe in wombs

Of blighted worlds remote from morn,

And musty myrrh exhales from tombs

Whirling in utmost stars forlorn.

Swart suns on sounding waters swell

The turgid notes to direr din,

And murky spirits soar from hell

To flap their cerements palpable

In the wild player's face, and tell

Jet jewels into his mouth, and spin

Mad gossamers amid his hair;

Swift raven locks entwine his throat,

His eyes no longer glare and gloat;

As from a tower high in air,

The console wakes a weirder fear;

His flaming, fitful fingers chill;

One tear he weeps, a dead man's tear:

The sable revery is still.

*Credited to Robert Nelson*
Old News

“It’s the apocalypse, Pete!” yelled Jacob as an explosion lit the skies. Downtown, which was close to Jacob, was suddenly and violently filled with screams and bright explosions.
Already having flashbacks to World War II, Jacob began to panic even more when he saw people shambling about, going to and from the location of the explosions.

Pete, his loyal old dog, growled feebly at the people passing by. They appeared to be walking corpses, and this became clear to Jacob after another bright explosion lit the area enough for his old eyes to see clear enough.

Jacob turned for his door and yanked Pete’s collar. The old hound went tumbling in with Jacob as he slammed the door shut and went about setting the various locks in his house.

After securely locking down his house and setting in place his window bars, he got up the nerve to take a peek outside. Out there, the sky flashed with explosions that rocked his house.

Suddenly, a face popped up right in front of him. Startled, he fell backwards and onto his coffee table.

“I know you’re in there old man,” the person outside groaned. From the lighting inside his house, he could see the burn marks and missing flesh on the person’s face.

Shouting wildly he hit the lights and ran to his bedroom, which was upstairs. Pete was right behind him.

The man outside banged on his door. “Come out and join the party!” he groaned in a dead voice. After a few breathless minutes, the banging stopped and Jacob figured the man would bring a whole horde of his undead friends back to get him.

He reached into his dresser drawer and moved away his socks, retrieving a pistol.

“They’ve been saying the zombie apocalypse was coming, ol’ Pete. I read it on them sites. Now it’s true. I’m sorry old boy,” he said, aiming the gun at his lifelong companion, curled up on a pile of that week’s newspapers.

The dog died with only a quiet whimper. Next, Jacob turned the gun on himself.

“I planned for this day so carefully, but now they know I’m in here. Damn it, Sally, I’m coming to see you,” he said as he pulled the trigger.

That was not his last thought, however.

The very last thing that went through his mind in the last few moments while he was still alive and breathing was a headline on one of the newspapers under Pete.

“Zombie Costume Party Downtown Halloween Night.”

*Credited to ClericofMadness*
Silence

There are some qualities—some incorporate things,

That have a double life, which thus is made

A type of that twin entity which springs

From matter and light, evinced in solid and shade.

There is a two-fold Silence—sea and shore—

Body and soul. One dwells in lonely places,

Newly with grass o'ergrown; some solemn graces,

Some human memories and tearful lore,

Render him terrorless: his name's "No More."

He is the corporate Silence: dread him not!

No power hath he of evil in himself;

But should some urgent fate (untimely lot!)

Bring thee to meet his shadow (nameless elf,

That haunteth the lone regions where hath trod

No foot of man,) commend thyself to God!

*Credited to Edgar Allan Poe*
Swamp Demons

The lights that wink across the sodden moor

Like phosphorescent eyes that beckon men

To risk fell footsteps in the treacherous fen,

And sink in loathsome muck, without a spoor—

What ghosts of former days, what dread allure.

Abides within this subterranean den?

Or, reaching out, snares victims to its ken,

With wraith-like fingers, to a peril sure?

'Tis told that evil things lurk out of sight

With human bones that fester in the ooze;

Belike 'tis true, these bones that once were clothed

In fleshly form now harbor deadly spite

Against the living, and this swamp still brews

Within its bubbling depths the curse men loathed

Before they turned to leprous Things of Night!

*Credited to C.A. Butz*
Love's Philosophy

The fountains mingle with the river,

And the rivers with the ocean;

The winds of heaven mix for ever,

With a sweet emotion;

Nothing in the world is single;

All things by a law divine

In one another's being mingle: —

Why not I with thine?

See, the mountains kiss high heaven

And the waves clasp one another;

No sister flower would be forgiven

If it disdain'd its brother:

And the sunlight clasps the earth,

And the moonbeams kiss the sea: —

What is all this sweet work worth,

If thou kiss not me?

*Credited to Percy Shelley*
Split Ends

In the city of Batesfield, in the Central United States, a serial killer was murdering women by cutting their heads open along their hairline.
As a response to this, the women set aside their pride and shaved their heads.

After a week of no murders, they felt safe.

That was, of course, until the body of a woman was found. Her head was smashed in.

*Credited to ClericofMadness*
Lycanthropus

The jellied night has oozed its miry black

From out the hills to fill the valley floor.

Atop the ragged hills the torn cloud-wrack

Is lightning-limned into a hellish door.

A gust of wind across the sky is hurled—

The gods of old are loosed upon the world.

Age-old, the blood-lust wells within my throat;

Tensely I wait, and feel my body shrink;

My hairless hide becomes a furry coat.

Blood-hungry, through the opened door I slink;

I raise my head and howl in horrid glee—

And from the plain a howl comes back to me.

*Credited to C. Edgar Bolen*
Lines Addressed to a Young Lady

*[As the author was discharging his pistols in a garden, two ladies passing near the spot were alarmed by the sound of a bullet hissing near them, to one of whom the following stanzas were addressed the next morning.]*

Doubtless, sweet girl! the hissing lead,

Wafting destruction o'er thy charms

And hurtling o'er thy lovely head,

Has fill'd that breast with fond alarms.

Surely some envious Demon's force,

Vex'd to behold such beauty here,

Impell'd the bullet's viewless course,

Diverted from its first career.

Yes! in that nearly fatal hour,

The ball obey'd some hell-born guide;

But Heaven, with interposing power,

In pity turn'd the death aside.

Yet, as perchance one trembling tear

Upon that thrilling bosom fell;

Which I, th' unconscious cause of fear,

Extracted from its glistening cell;—

Say, what dire penance can atone

For such an outrage, done to thee?

Arraign'd before thy beauty's throne,

What punishment wilt thou decree?

Might I perform the Judge's part,

The sentence I should scarce deplore;

It only would restore a heart,

Which but belong'd to thee before.

The least atonement I can make

Is to become no longer free;

Henceforth, I breathe but for thy sake,

Thou shalt be all in all to me.

But thou, perhaps, may'st now reject

Such expiation of my guilt;

Come then—some other mode elect?

Let it be death—or what thou wilt.

Choose, then, relentless! and I swear

Nought shall thy dread decree prevent;

Yet hold—one little word forbear!

Let it be aught but banishment.

*Credited to George Gordon Byron*
Sexagenarius Loquitor

From our youth to our age

We have passed each stage

In old immemorial order,

From primitive days

Through flowery ways

With love like a hedge as their border.

Ah, youth was a kingdom of joy,

And we were the king and the queen,

When I was a year

Short of thirty, my dear,

And you were just nearing nineteen.

But dark follows light

And day follows night

As the old planet circles the sun;

And nature still traces

Her score on our faces

And tallies the years as they run.

Have they chilled the old warmth in your

heart?

I swear that they have not in mine,

Though I am a year

Short of sixty, my dear,

And you are — well, say thirty-nine.

*Credited to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle*
My Little Bird

As time passed, our love has blossomed.

It had blossomed into a beautiful rose.

The time for our love is perfect in this season,

As the flame of our hearts, burning with passion, shows.

It has been a short period of time, but our love seems eternal,

Even if other emotions disrupt us.

This feeling that we share, isn't normal,

And through it all, we share a bond unlike any other and hold each other's trust.

Time has flowed through our grasp

And I have only shined brighter being accompanied by you.

You have made this heart arise when it collapsed,

And too few have done this, that is true.

Although I do wish to show you my feelings through actions and not words.

I love you a lot, my little bird.

By Fatal Disease
Luna Aeternalis

By an alien dream despatched and driven

In a land to strange stars given,

Stars that summoned forth the moon,

Singing a strange red eldritch rune,

I heard the coming of the moon

With tremulus rim that clomb and rang,

Whose rondure on the horizon rang

A gong distinct with silvern clang,

Re-echoing distantly, until,

Arisen soon,

In silent silver stood the moon

Above the horizon ringing still.

Half-waned and hollow was her brow,

And caverned by the night; but now

Her twilight turned the stars' loud rune

To muted music in a swoon,

Her low light lulled the stars to drowse.

Flicker and fail, and vaguely rouse:

I felt the silence come and go

As the red stars muttered low...

Old with moonlight lay the night,

And on the desert lay

Ancient and unending light

That assured not of the day;

For the half-moon stood to stay

Fixed at the heavens" height

And eternal ere the day.

Triumphant stood the moon

In a false and cold and constant noon:

Surely in conflict fell

The true, lost sun of noon;

The golden might of Uriel

Met some white demon of the moon.

By an alien dream despatched and driven,

I found a land to demons given,

To silvern, silent demons given

That flew and fluttered from out the moon,

Weaving about her tomb-white face

With mop and mow and mad grimace,

And circling down from the semilune

In a dim and Saturnalian dance,

To pirouette and pause and prance,

To withdraw and advance,

All in a wan eternal dance.

*Credited to Clark Ashton Smith*
On a Stolen Kiss

Now gentle sleep hath closèd up those eyes,

Which waking kept my boldest thoughts in awe,

And free access unto that sweet lip lies

From whence I long the rosy breath to draw.

Methinks no wrong it were if I should steal,

From those two melting rubies, one poor kiss.

None sees the theft that would the thief reveal,

Nor rob I her of aught which she can miss.

Nay, should I twenty kisses take away,

There would be little sign I had done so.

Why then should I this robbery delay?

Oh, she may wake, and therewith angry grow.

Well, if she do, I'll back restore that one,

And twenty hundred thousand more for loan.

*Credited to George Wither*
Ouroboros

It was in these moments that Al Elloan felt like God, when he was covered in someone’s blood. He savored the moment of having control over life and death. It was an ephemeral pleasure, but it was one of the only things that he truly enjoyed in his life. His job was menial, his love life was non-existent; the only time Al felt alive was when he was standing triumphant over his prey with weapon in hand. He had murdered over a dozen people and he had no intentions of stopping. There was no one who could stop him.

One of the most exciting parts of it to Al was the stalking and memorizing the patterns of the people he decided he wanted to kill. He would watch them go to work and make a schedule for them. He would write down what times they were most likely to be caught off guard. His favorite part was when he finally jimmied the lock on their house and began looking for a weapon to use against them. He never brought his own, he liked to let inspiration strike and see what he could use against them. There was always something he could use. Like a golf club, a cleaver, or a nail gun.

One of his favorite memories was surprising a young woman in her bedroom with a heated-up curling iron that he used like a baton. She didn’t even try to escape when she saw him, she just resigned herself to her fate. The sizzling slap of scalding flesh excited him so much that he thought of it late at night when he was alone and his hands were wandering southward. The image of her bruised and scalded flesh sent him over the edge every time.

Another pleasant memory flooded his memory. He had been waiting for a man in his garage with a hammer. He didn’t notice him until it was too late. It was all too easy. He incapacitated him with the hammer and set to work breaking all the bones in his hands. When the meat screamed, he set to taking out his teeth too with the hammer’s claw. He didn’t like it when they screamed or pled. They were just meat to him, something to give him enjoyment.

Recalling those two stirred something deep within Al. He wanted another memory. He wanted another victim. It was so soon after his most recent kill. He would find someone new, someone to give him that transient rush. Maybe a married couple this time? Better yet a family? It didn’t matter. No one could stop him, not even God. There was no God, there were no people, there was just Al Elloan.

Al Elloan could not see the signs. The way the world extended only as far as his consciousness clawed. The way the world ceased to exist when he closed his eyes at night and exploded back into being upon waking. There were people in his solipsistic world because he wanted them there. He thought, therefore they were. He was the only person in the universe that had free will and sentience. The others were automatons born of his mind. There were homunculi that existed as facets of his psyche. Al knew none of this, he only sought the pleasure of the kill. He didn’t even realize that he was killing himself bit by bit. Al would continue to kill until there was no one left and he consumed himself.

*Credited to EmpyrealInvective*
Saint Valentine's Day

Well dost thou, Love, thy solemn Feast to hold

In vestal February;

Not rather choosing out some rosy day

From the rich coronet of the coming May,

When all things meet to marry!

O, quick, praevernal Power

That signall'st punctual through the sleepy mould

The Snowdrop's time to flower,

Fair as the rash oath of virginity

Which is first-love's first cry;

O, Baby Spring,

That flutter'st sudden 'neath the breast of Earth

A month before the birth;

Whence is the peaceful poignancy,

The joy contrite,

Sadder than sorrow, sweeter than delight,

That burthens now the breath of everything,

Though each one sighs as if to each alone

The cherish'd pang were known?

At dusk of dawn, on his dark spray apart,

With it the Blackbird breaks the young Day's heart;

In evening's hush

About it talks the heavenly-minded Thrush;

The hill with like remorse

Smiles to the Sun's smile in his westering course;

The fisher's drooping skiff

In yonder sheltering bay;

The choughs that call about the shining cliff;

The children, noisy in the setting ray;

Own the sweet season, each thing as it may;

Thoughts of strange kindness and forgotten peace

In me increase;

And tears arise

Within my happy, happy Mistress' eyes,

And, lo, her lips, averted from my kiss,

Ask from Love's bounty, ah, much more than bliss!

Is't the sequester'd and exceeding sweet

Of dear Desire electing his defeat?

Is't the waked Earth now to yon purpling cope

Uttering first-love's first cry,

Vainly renouncing, with a Seraph's sigh,

Love's natural hope?

Fair-meaning Earth, foredoom'd to perjury!

Behold, all-amorous May,

With roses heap'd upon her laughing brows,

Avoids thee of thy vows!

Were it for thee, with her warm bosom near,

To abide the sharpness of the Seraph's sphere?

Forget thy foolish words;

Go to her summons gay,

Thy heart with dead, wing'd Innocencies fill'd,

Ev'n as a nest with birds

After the old ones by the hawk are kill'd.

Well dost thou, Love, to celebrate

The noon of thy soft ecstasy,

Or e'er it be too late,

Or e'er the Snowdrop die!

*Credited to Coventry Patmore*