Kingdom of Paths and nocturnes

I woke up in a panic from a dream and began to look around trying to find where she was. The dark hid many things so I leave my room lights on because I could no longer sleep in the dark. It’s been 3 weeks now that I am living under witness protection, again, but this time they are taking me seriously. She is hunting me and because she was wounded when she attacked me had driven her into a frenzy. The 3 letter agencies were now trying to find a link between myself and Razormouth, I called her that when I first talked about her and now everyone calls her that. I have been moved 5 times since I was taken from the town; she still finds me somehow. The trail of blood that follows her leaves nothing for the police to find but I now know why. When she attacked me in the town, I finally saw why her mouth shone that day, she created braces with sharpened nails, the bite she took out of my hand was a chunk of flesh. I am still recovering from that wound; I still cannot use it for anything whi...

  The old miner sat on rock weighing his hands as though they would fall if he did not give them some attention, he was tired and he could feel his chest struggling to breath from all the coal he inhaled while working in the mines. The night was clear and the air was clean, he did not remember when he was able to sit for just a moment before he would cough out his lungs. How old was he, he was trying to remember but it felt just out of reach in his mind. The few clouds that passed through looked like plumes of smoke in the night, the stars were like little reflections of light from the coal underground. The miner smiled at this then looked down at his soot ridden hands, they were black and no matter how many times he tried to clean them he could never wash away the black dust. The coal dust clung to them reminding him of his debt, to his father and then later, to his daughter and wife. He never asked to be a miner, but it was all he knew, the town thrived because of the coal mine...

  I worked as a highway patrol officer on a long forest route, it was a lonely road that wound its way past a forested path. It was built back in the days when the region was heavily used for logging and mining but now it was just a scenic route for people to take when they want to break away from their realities. My partner, Mark, and I would set up at a midway point to wait for a call or someone to ask for assistance or an emergency. It was usually crazies talking about aliens and the like, so we usually braced ourselves for the reports of people talking about how they saw bigfoot crossing the road and how their cameras suddenly stopped working. It took a lot of patience to avoid getting angry and telling them to fuck right off, but we held our own and waved them away saying we will check it out only after we put in a report to let HQ know where we were. It helped as there were a couple of gas stations and towns along the route which was also where we could get something to eat a...

  The phone rang incessantly as Alice tried to do her chores, the floors were already scrubbed twice and she eyed her clothes on the line unsure if they were dry or not. The weather was pleasant outside but she was scared the wind might pick up and blow the clothes away, the stew she was making for dinner bubbled away in its pot but she was nervous. The phone was off bounds for her and if Bud found out she picked it up he would beat her, he was the local muscle and repairman so he was never much at home, and this brought a shudder from within her. Still after an hour of ringing the phone stopped and she let out a sigh of relief, then it started again. This time it felt like it was louder, Alice could no longer stand it and walked over to the phone and picked up the receiver and listened. There was no voice on the other end, still listening the sound on the other side was that of someone near a lake as the sound of water passing by was evident. She did not say anything for a momen...

Natasha was breathing in gasps as were now more than 50 meters down in the cave, it was not yet ventilated, and she was not used to being so deep in a dig. I tried to calm her down and ask her to go back and get her breathing in control, Nawazir also tried to talk to her but she said she will be fine. We were 7 of us in this tunnel system and from the looks of it there is an entire network of them here. Jonathan, our lead archaeologist, was already trying to map the tunnels ahead as he wanted to make sure we have a planned route for research. I joined him after making sure Natasha was able to walk unaided, “Richard, there you are. Its amazing here isn’t it, to think this place was buried under a lake no less. The tunnels are bone dry which begs to question why was this place built like this.” “I suppose its to keep it away from raiders unlike the Valley of kings we were in last year. Or it could be to lock something here, either way I supposed we will find out sooner or later, I just...

The battlefield lay open to her, she stood there with her sword in hand looking at the field where her dreams were to be made. The wind blew sorrowfully across the landscape, the valley that this ground was nestled loomed over it like silent sentinels. The queen looked down on where the bodies were once, she was old now and her kingdom had grown. Here men and women fought in the name of what they held dear and believed in. The soil was once rich with life now bore the scars of death and destruction, the river that ran on the western edge had dried up out of shame from carrying the blood of hope. The queen fell to her knees weeping at the memories of those that fell, she was young and full of hope when she stood on the hill with a young boy holding the flag of her small kingdom. They all looked up to her the guiding light, the pain brought by the greedy king had bled the people dry and children had less to eat and no future. She knelt there with tears running down her cheeks, it was 3...

How do I begin this story or rather the experience I suffered; there is no place I can find that will house me because she is right behind me when I get a little comfortable. I don’t know who she is but for some reason she had latched herself to me. A while ago I had given her a name Razormouth and went into witness protection but that lasted for a while before the team that was investigating was disbanded and I lost protection. All that time she was the scratching in the walls and the whispers that could be heard when I tried to sleep. The disappearances did not stop but they became sporadic as the police were actively looking for her. I tried to reach out to the detective about the appearances but they were dismissed. It was after the lifting of the protection when things became worse for me, the detective disappeared a week after being removed from the case. The policemen who responded to my call also disappeared only their remains were found later but no description on what was f...

The old man walked on a path down that was set against a tree lined avenue, there was nothing beyond the trees but an open grassland. He was looking at the grassland and the setting sun wondering why he was here, he could not remember how he got there just that he was there and walking down the path. He lifted his hands to check the suit he was wearing and it was his old wedding suit but he could not remember why he was wearing it. Who was his wife, even that seemed like a distant memory lost in the fog of age. We kept walking as the shadows of the sunset were deepening and the cold will soon follow. Looking around further, the trees were cherry trees and the fence that was behind was a small wooden kind of fence. He was puzzled by all this, he wanted to turn back and see where he was coming from but when he did the path was long and foreboding. He turned to look ahead and he saw a light in the distance, bringing his right to his face he was surprised to find that he was not wearing ...