Roaring winds banged angrily against the window while Bobby lay awake, staring at the flickering lights. He felt as if someone was watching him.
Tap… tap…
Bobby thought it was just the wind. But the tapping continued.
His fear grew stronger.
Mason hated silence because silence reminded him that nobody in the house really spoke anymore. Ever since his parents divorced, everything felt dead.
His mother dragged herself home exhausted every morning from hospital shifts, barely able to keep her eyes open long enough to ask how school was. Sometimes she forgot what day it was entirely, staring blankly at the kitchen counter with dark circles hanging beneath her eyes while cold coffee sat untouched beside her.
Funny thing, I used to have this doll when I was six. I used to play with it a lot.
Then the nightmares came.
The same nightmare returned every night. The doll stood beside blood-covered bodies before slowly turning her head towards me. Her eyes were bloodshot and her mouth stained red. Then she would smile and say,
“Daddy, may I have a taste of this murder?!”
Because of this nightmare, I threw the doll away and forgot about it.
Or at least, I thought I did.
Little did I know what would happen twenty years later…
Polly’s room lit up in the shades of the morning sun. Rays slanted through her translucent curtains and fell across the posters taped to her walls, most of them featuring Twinkles the Unicorn from Fluffy Friends Funhouse. Ever since what had happened at her aunt’s house years ago, Polly had been terrified of losing the very essence of who she was. That was why a large framed photograph of herself stood beside her rickety old bed — braces, gap teeth, contact lenses and all. Proof that she was still Polly.
That morning, her foot accidentally knocked the frame off the side table.
Clatter.
Polly jolted awake.
“Oh no — my picture!”
The frame lay shattered on the floor, glass splintered around the smiling version of herself trapped inside the photograph. Tears burned her eyes instantly.
Just then, her mother stepped into the room.
“Polly dear, what happened? Oh… the picture broke.” She sighed softly. “It’s okay. We’ll fix it.”
To most people, it would have been nothing. But Polly’s anxiety made tiny losses feel enormous.
Her mother smiled suddenly. “You know what today is, right?”
Polly sniffed. “What?”
“You got selected for the Fluffy Friends Funhouse live stage show! Sweetie, you’re a star now!”
“REALLY?!”
The sadness vanished immediately.
Even though the show was meant for little kids, it had always been Polly’s escape whenever she felt lonely or invisible. And Twinkles had always been her favourite character. She had survived exhausting auditions just to get a role.
Within minutes, she was downstairs gulping cereal straight from the bowl while stuffing spare clothes into a duffel bag.
“Don’t eat so fast!” her mother called after her.
But Polly was already running out the door.
I would recommend Project Hail Mary to readers who enjoy science fiction, mystery and space adventures. The story follows Ryland Grace, a science teacher who wakes up alone on a spaceship with no memory of who he is or why he is there. As the story progresses, he slowly uncovers the truth about his mission and what could happen to Earth if he fails.
She didn’t understand why it happened, only that it never stopped. The doctors called it a “break from shared reality”. They gave it a name — one she stopped repeating after the third appointment because names made it feel real in a way she couldn’t survive.
It began with drawings that didn’t match memory. A chair she sketched appeared in her room the next morning, except it was slightly wrong. The legs were too long. The shadow pointed the wrong way.
