#urban ghost stories

[urbanghoststories]

The Curse of the Crying Boy

Many of you might have heard about the infamous painting that has caused a stir in paranormal circles. The Crying Boy is a haunting portrait that depicts a young child with teary eyes and a sorrowful expression. It gained its notoriety due to the urban legend surrounding it—an alleged curse that brings misfortune and disaster to anyone who owns the painting.

Legend has it that the original artist, Giovanni Bragolin, made a pact with the devil, imbuing the painting with supernatural powers. The story goes that a fire broke out in a house, destroying everything except for the Crying Boy painting, which was left unscathed. Since then, tales of fires, accidents, and even death have been associated with those who possess the cursed artwork.

The lore surrounding the painting has grown over time, with many claiming that the boy's eyes follow them, or that they can hear the faint sound of crying when in its presence. Such eerie occurrences have left people mesmerized and fearful at the same time.

But is there any truth to these spine-chilling accounts? I've dug into the origins of the Curse of the Crying Boy, so lets shed some light on the matter.

Firstly, it's important to note that the Crying Boy painting isn't a single artwork, but rather a series of prints created by Bragolin. The artist himself denied any involvement with curses or supernatural elements, stating that his intention was to capture the melancholic expression of a child. The fame and subsequent rumors surrounding the painting came as a surprise to him.

Many experts believe that the curse is nothing more than an urban legend fueled by fear and superstition. The alleged string of misfortunes associated with the painting can be attributed to coincidence or simple statistical probability. After all, the more popular the painting became, the higher the chances that someone who owned it would experience misfortune, regardless of any supernatural involvement.

Moreover, skeptics argue that people's imaginations can play tricks on them. The perception of the painting's eyes following you or the sound of crying might be nothing more than our own minds projecting fears onto the artwork.

Nonetheless, it's fascinating how the Curse of the Crying Boy has managed to capture our collective imagination and send shivers down our spines. It serves as a reminder of the power of urban legends and the allure of the mysterious.

So, whether you believe in the supernatural or not, the Curse of the Crying Boy remains a captivating tale that has stood the test of time. As with any paranormal phenomenon, it's up to you to decide where you stand on the matter.

#paranormal #ghost stories #urban legends #urban ghost stories #creepy #eerie #ghoststories #ghostcore #hauntings

[starry-bi-sky]

okay so i was thinking of a joke earlier about how in DPDC Amity Park's slogan "a great place to live" is not only city propaganda but also the city lording it over the rest of America for being normal. But then I remembered that, despite how many DCU Cities with heroes in it there are, the amount of cities in America without heroes still far outnumber the amount of cities in America WITH heroes.

So I did a little digging so the joke would still land. Something most heroes have in common is that they operate in major cities. What makes a major city? I found that the general consensus is that the population is roughly over or around a million. THEN I looked up the populations of cities in the DCU that I thought of off the top of my head. So Gotham, Metropolis, Starling City, Central City, Jump City. All of them ranked up to millions in population (most of them were in the tens of millions).

Amity Park's wikipedia describes it as being similar to specifically Philadelphia, Chicago, and San Francisco.

Philadelphia's Population: 1.576 million as of 2021 Chicago's Population: 2.697 million as of 2021 San Francisco: 815,201 as of 2021

Whiiich means that Amity Park if we take that from canon, is probably a major city. There are approximately 19,000 cities in America with probably less than a hundred that are major cities. Adding the DCU major cities wouldn't skew the data too much.

Which MEANS that I can make the joke that Amity Park's "great place to live" is not only just typical city propaganda, but also its Amity Park lording it over the other major cities for being one of the only major cities that doesn't have problems bad enough to warrant a superhero or a vigilante. Cue stage left the Fentons and Phantom :)

Amity Parkers were probably SO proud that they didn't need a superhero. They didn't have to worry about things like 'world ending threats' and 'super-powered individuals' and 'staggering property damage'. And then enter Fentons.

It also could be used as an excuse for why nobody took notice to Amity Park getting ghosts if folks like me aren't huge fans of the notion of a media blackout via Tucker, Technus, or the US Government. Or if you want to keep Amity Park as its urban city self. Amity Park's news on ghosts gets drowned out in a week because there's news on more popular, well-known cities going on every other day. The shit going on in Amity Park is every other major city's regular Tuesday and it gets filtered as such.

#dp x dc #dp x dc crossover #dpxdc #dpdc #plus amity suddenly going 'we have ghosts' could be seen as a case of city-wide FOMO finally hitting so nobody believes them #and thats if the belief of ghosts not being real is as strong as it is in dp canon #the media blackout could also be /city-induced/ too #where amity parkers are so proud of being 'normal' and 'not having superheros' that many of them try and deny the existence of Phantom #and the mayor and news sources themselves just. stubbornly refuse to let news of ghosts get out to the other cities #do you know how much shit they'll get?? they'll be a laughingstock! #gothamites would never leave them alone. neither would central city or the metropolitans or starling city or-- #the other big cities will make fun of them :( #my new favorite hc that stemmed from this is that every major city in the dcu is rivaling with each other #there's a lot you can experiment with this idea imo lmao #this whole post sums up my writing and thinking process pr well tbh #this stemmed because im making a childhood friends au short story doc and wanted to avoid the typical tropes about how AP went undetected #from the rest of the US. bc. im not a fan of the media blackout idea via tucker/technus/gov and i wanted to keep AP an urban city #so i had to come up with something else #hence me looking into DCU cities and how many there are and realizing that there is a decent amount of other cities other than the main #popular ones and being DELIGHTED because then i could use that as an excuse for why amity went overlooked. bc there are many cities with #heroes in it. so its not surprising if another city gets a hero TOO. plus the news also focusing on more popular heroes and cities so again #the news of amity getting a hero gets drowned out by whatever new thing the JL or someone from the JL did that week

[whereserpentswalk]

There are things all around you in the world, trying to survive, that you'll never get a chance to notice.

There's a werewolf in the café that you always go to, working on his laptop. It's already far enough into the lunar cycle so that he's becoming semi wolflike at night. He'll spend to weekend upstate this month when the full moon finally hits, like he always does. He tells himself it'll be nice to get the fresh air, and he's glad he's privileged enough to not end up hurting anyone. You just think of him as taking business trips every month.

There's a ghost whose possessing a human body for the first time in a long time, standing on the subway platform with some of her living freinds. She's laughing about how weird it is to walk around as a person, and slightly nervously commenting on how there's plastic in this body's blood. This is her first time she's possessing a male body, and the awkwardness of it has given way to a strange fascination and euphoria as to how it feels compared to her body when she was alive, she likes how people look at her, and how handsome she feels.

There's a goblin whose been stealing food from that deli that you always go to, and petting the cat every time he get a chance to. He lives in subway tunnels, because it's safer to dodge trains then dodge the eyes of humans. The world is a much bigger place to someone so small, and the streets and buildings weren't built for him, and neither were the trees or animals. He wakes up every day hoping to survive, in a world where humans are giants that stalk the streets, and where scaring someone is a crime that may cost him his life. He prays he won't die for the crime of being small, or the crime of being ugly.

There's a vampire on your college campus, trying to still have a normal life after being turned. She knows everything from her human life will be gone in a hundred years, it was supposed to be gone the momment she was bitten but she tries to make it so she can still keep moving forward. Her body lacks so much that it used to, she doesn't sleep, doesn't desire sex, doesn't eat, but she's still a person, who can talk to her freinds, and still go to classes like she used to. She'll survive like this as long as her family is supportive enough to let her stay in their apartment, and as long as her girlfriend let's her drink blood from her hand, as if she was handfeeding an animal. And for awhile it'll be like she's still a person.

There's a demon on the sidewalk near your campus, standing right near the subway station, whose having to focus their energy on a spell that makes them look human, knowing their true form would terrify the humans around them. They're walking every street so excited, so amazing by the city around them, by the world around them, the glistening towers, the people outside talking, the sky that's so very blue. It's all so mundane to the humans around them, but to a demon, who was told they never deserved any of it, that they'd never see anything but the underworld, it's the most amazing thing possible. And the world is so pretty, so hopeful, through their doomed eyes.

#196 #my thougts #worldbuilding #writing #my writing #fantasy #my worldbuilding #urban fantasy #vampiric #vampirism #vampires #vampire #vampcore #demons #demon #werewolves #werewolf #goblins #goblincore #goblin #ghosts #ghost #short fiction #short story #flash fiction #original fiction #mythical creatures #mythology #monsters #sympathetic monster

[seeminglydark]

‘I wasn’t allowed to watch scary things, so I told one of the stories my childhood best friend and neighbor told me. The one about the girl in the mirror.

But the thing is, when he would tell me these stories, I would cover my ears and squeal and giggle and miss half the tale, so I wasn’t sure on the specifics of WHY there was a girl in the mirror. I just knew there was one. And supposedly, you could evoke her to appear, covered in blood, by saying her name three times in the mirror in the dark.

You know this story. Everyone has some version of this story.

So I told it.’

(Tw cartoon blood warning below the jump)

(Mary is from my horror fiction podcast, Mil-Liminal, episode 4, found wherever you listen)

#original characters #bloody mary #ghost stories #horror podcasts #I love her so much I had to draw her #urban legends #mil-liminal podcast #ghosts #mirrors #blood

[madametamma]

Every neighborhood has that one house that has urban legends attached to it that the town’s children tell each other to scare one another. 

“A Witch lives there.”

“A murderer lives there.”

They pass by on their bikes and dare one another to ring the doorbell. Calling whoever refuses to do it ‘chicken’.

In Amity Park that house is definitely Fentonworks.

“Mad scientists live there.  At night they zoom around the neighborhood looking for kids to turn into ghosts to do experiments on.”

“They made a creepy monster in their basement.”

(Yes all of the stories are somehow purposeful variants of what happened to Danny)

#Danny Phantom #Neighborhood urban legends #DP #Ghosts stories

[churcvh]

The Poss House

visited a lovely old house that belonged to a family named the “Poss” family a few weeks ago. this is the back of the house, i didn’t get any good pictures of the front sadly. i visited with my parents and my father, who has had many “paranormal” experiences, felt very uneasy and had a huge cold spot show up behind him despite the 100+ degree Georgia heat. i didn’t capture any ghosts on camera, but we left pretty fast after that!

#photography #rural america #rural gothic #southern gothic #appalachian gothic #southern goth aesthetic #urban exploration #urbexplore #urbex #georgia #southern aesthetic #paranormal #ghost stories

[kowai-araene]

Kwaidan (1964) by Masaki Kobayashi - 3h3m

☆this is an anthology who adapts four famous folk tales of japanese ghost stories in beautiful and original cinematography☆

#japanese movie #japanese horror movie #japanese horror #japan #horror aesthetic #horror #asian horror #horror movies #ghost story #japanese ghost #japanese urban legend #kwaidan #jdrama #asian cinema

[professionalscrublord]

The Black Marauder IIC

Turnaround:

WIPs:

The "Black Marauder" is a horror story of a cursed mech. Over the years urban legend has built it up into some kind of extradimensional beast, a living machine that moves of its own volition, consumes the souls of its victims and strikes fear in all that come close to it. It emerges from mist and shadows to kill efficiently and mercilessly before disappearing once more.

So I know the story says it looks like an inner sphere MAD-3R, but the way it's described as looking "Off-proportioned" and "Too smooth, almost organic-looking" makes me think it's a IIC. That and it having "Teeth", which the IIC's array of chin-lasers could be mistaken for. It also has a tendency to oneshot mechs with PPCs to the cockpit, which only Clan PPCs have the damage to do reliably. It performs unusually well in smoke/fog (advanced clan sensors perhaps?). Maybe the pirates didn't recognize what they were looking at given they lived on the opposite side of IS space from the Clan invasion front. It's also black with bits of red, the paint scheme of a certain Wolf's Dragoons "mercenary company" (read: Clan spies roaming IS space) which would explain the lack of factory markings/serial numbers. The stories mention weird behavior and unidentifiable mechanical issues so it could've been left behind since it was a liability, stripped of insignia and left on a forsaken airless asteroid in some random uninhabited system to conceal the trail. That's just my pet theory, anyway.

Pictured: Teefies (and bloody claws)

This one was difficult for a different reason, not painting this time but being my first time working with greenstuff and sculpting/modifying a miniature.

The paint job itself was fairly quick because of the almost uniform coloration despite the number of steps: -Primed with matte black -basecoated with Night Scales metallic black (It barely shows up, there is a faint glitter in some spots but mostly it looks like a slightly lighter black.) -Heavily drybrushed with Rough Iron, a dark rust color metallic -Lighter drybrush with Gunmetal, grayish/silver metallic. at this point I thought it was too light/shiny so I went over some panels with matte black paint, keeping away from the edges I'd drybrushed. -Mars Red in the eyeholes. White on the lasers/cockpit later covered with Red/Green/Blue speedpaint. -Blood Red speedpaint over the "monstrous" bits. It disappeared into the black, until: -Gloss varnish over the speedpaint brought the red back out again. I wanted everything to be black but still have the monster bits to stand out texturally, the gloss makes them glisten nicely. -Anti-shine matte varnish on the rest. That still looks pretty shiny to me but what can you do (Vantablack miniature paint, anyone??) -The label says MAD-BLK in the Standard Galactic Alphabet. At some point I knew how to read/write it after it featured in Minecraft enchantments, though by now I lost that and had to look it up.

The sculpting was interesting. -Green stuff is tacky and sticks to my fingers when fresh, hard to apply to the model in a careful manner, but is pretty easily workable on the model, once it's on. At some points I used metal sculpting tools almost like chopsticks to avoid touching it with my hands. I twisted a pointed tool like a little drill bit to get the eyeholes in. -Getting closer to the 1hr mark it stiffens up and becomes the opposite. Easier to apply and get off my fingers but harder to work into the shapes I want and fit in the crevices for a good hold. -The claws are superglued given they're sticking out a fair bit. Roughed up the plastic surface before applying glue for a better bond. The other greenstuff I trusted to stay on since they were molded into the surfaces pretty closely. -The blood was red ink Speedpaint mixed with good old AK water medium.

I'll have to do more modding in future, truly customize my mechs.

Last Lance of Cardinal Sins featured a Zeus, only too late did I have the idea of modding a ZEU-X with the wing-like cooling vanes. Fortunately I have a King Crab waiting for me (my favorite mech!) to make a prototype KGC-010 with. It has flush-mounted dual PPCs with spiky cooling vanes sticking out the back. Should be fun.

#battletech #mechwarrior #miniature painting #green stuff #modeling #sculpting #art #sci fi #monster #ghost stories #urban legends #eldritch #horror

[insomniac-dot-ink]

Stories for the Salt

(Genre: Spooky campfire story urban fantasy, wlw background romance)

Summary: A daughter is visiting her mother to help pack up her house and move her out of the mountains. Instead, she encounters a bedraggled hiker that appeared from the woods.

PART 1

Casper had heard two things since she arrived at her mom’s house: "Don’t touch that." And "Fresh air is good for you." Emphasis on the good like Casper had yet to fully grasp the concept. Casper, however, was discovering a limit for how many times you could stand on top of a mountain and contemplate the meaning of life. Then again, maybe that's what is “wrong with city people.” City people were the third topic Casper was hearing all about since her arrival. 

She sat on the counter, collecting plates from the top shelf of the cupboard, valiantly ignoring the eyes boring into the back of her head. Their cat, Cassie, was unhappily somewhere else and no help whatsoever--sibling solidarity a lost cause.

Her mom cleared her throat. “I love you so much, honey bee. And I am so proud of you.”

Casper groaned at the ceiling. Where was that cat?

“But,” her mom punctuated the word like an airsoft gun release. “I have decided to cancel the movers.” “The movers aren’t canceled, mom.” Casper had checked this morning.

Her mom sat at the dining room table with one foot elevated. Pillows and ice packs cushioned the sides of a gauze-strangled ankle. Casper’s mother crossed her thin arms over her chest. One set of crutches leaned against the table next to her and her other foot was shoved into a muddy boot.

Casper desperately wanted to pack the woman’s hiking boots first, but forced herself to finish with the delicates. She wrapped a plate without looking up, her mom’s eyes weighing her down like cement.

“I’m sure the movers haven’t started up the mountain yet,” she enunciated each word. “Three more weeks, honey bee. The doctor said only three more weeks–that will go by in a blink of an eye.” 

Casper groaned again. Is this what dad had felt like?

She plastered on a smile. “The doctor said some distractions might help too. You know, there’s this great little Greek restaurant that opened up near me. I know how you like Greek food.”

Her mom snorted. “Better than Angelo’s? Have you met my neighbor Angelo? He’s from Greece originally and his wife is from Belgium. Lovely woman and you wouldn’t even notice the false eye. They invite me over some nights in the summer, it’s a summer home and they check in on me now and again . . .”

Ah, Casper noted her mom was returning to her other favorite topic: daughter, there are neighbors. Stop worrying. Casper also wished she could stop worrying. 

She finished wrapping the last of the plates and faced her mom.

“Do Angelo or Martine have medical degrees? Mom, we’ve talked about this. This whole mountain is nearly empty. There isn’t a hospital for forty minutes. People die alone out in the woods like this.”

“Only if they’re dumb. Do I look dumb to you?” Her mom barked, utilizing one of her well-worn Mom Jokes: “Okay, don’t answer that. The point is, I’ve been getting along out here for longer than most ‘solo travelers’ have been alive.” “And even well-equipped and intelligent people make mistakes. When alone. In the woods.” She gestured to her mom’s ankle swollen up to a grapefruit.

“I could just as easily take a fall in the city.” She waved Capser off. “What are we supposed to be so scared of?”

“Bad Cell service.”

“Gloria got taken for all she was worth by a phone scammer just last year. They’re targeting old bags like me, safer to be away from all that.”

“No wi-fi!”

Her mom nodded sagely. “Safer.”

Casper rolled her eyes and started listing, “a fall off the mountain. Stalked by mountain lions. Gas leak. Contaminated water–”

“Honeybee, you must think I’m dumb.”

“Bears!” She threw her hands up. “Eaten by bears!”

Her mom tightened her arms over her chest and made a guttural noise in the back of her throat. “Better than being taken out by serial killers in the city. Or eaten by them! I’d rather be eaten by bears. At least you know what they are thinking. Bear spray works a lot better than pepper spray anyway. Do you know, most attackers use the stuff back on the woman?” Her mom clicked her tongue. “Bears don’t have thumbs.”

Casper collapsed back against the cabinet. She grumbled under her breath like she was a surly teen again, “Not yet they don’t.”

“You know something about bears I don’t, missy?” Her mom raised one eyebrow. She took a deep breath. Casper was in for it. The gusto entered her tone. “You know, last year I saw a mother and two cubs. Right by the Hand Bone's trail. And I said to myself, Isla, you're only going to see this once in a lifetime. Once! You better stay right there. I didn't move a single muscle.

I wouldn’t take the bear spray out for the life of me either. She knew–that momma knew–I had my own two cubs of my own and nothing less.” The chair creaked as her mom sat up straight in it, getting into her primary story-mode. “And you know what?”

Her mom gestured. One of the ice packs dropped to the floor. Casper jumped down from the counter. She grumbled, “You saw them again the next week.”

“Once in a lifetime I told myself, only once, but what do you know, that exact mother and her cubs were crossing Jay Road the next week. I was in my car this time, much safer, but I must’ve stayed parked there for thirty minutes.”

Casper gentled her voice. “You have lived a magical life out here, mom.” And now it’s come to an end.

“No where else like it!”

Casper picked up the ice pack and tucked it against the bandages. Her mom’s ankle was still the size of a small melon and she winced when Casper adjusted the position. 

Mugs and cups next. Shoes and winter coats and sweaters after that.

“It might do you some good to spend some time out here . . .” Her mom commented, probably noting the sheer number of wallowing noises Casper had been making.

Casper tilted her head all the way back and stared at the ceiling. She gathered her strength. “There’s a huge community garden right next door to me. You’ll love it. . .” Her mom gave her plaintive look and Casper mirrored it. “I don’t want to be the bad guy. You know I’d move up here if I could– or get Joey to.”

Her mom patted Casper on the sniffed and sniffed. “Would you?”

“The movers are coming in the morning.” Casper finished lamely. Her mom took her hand back. 

“You both think you know so much more about what’s good for me,” the sour-ness leached through her mother’s words–like they had been a lot lately. Less poetry readings like from Casper’s childhood or bird identification out in the yard.

“And what happens if you get in trouble and I can’t get up here in time?” Casper said quietly, heart squeezing. We could read poetry in Denver, she wanted to say. I could find you birds in the rafters.

But Casper wasn't 9 anymore.

Her mother snorted. “You mean if you can't get up here in time to wrap my plates or hand me two ibuprofen . . . The city? Really? You don’t have to go back either. There’s nowhere like this in the world, honeybee.” Her eyebrows arched. “You might even meet someone.” 

Casper pushed to her feet. “It’s getting dark. I’ll get the cat in.”

“There are plenty of people out here! I’ve been asking around for. Hen, my neighbor with the chickens of all things, has a granddaughter like that." Her eyes sparkled, she laughed. "Gay I mean. Oh, I used to have trouble in polite company, but age cures all foolishness. Gay, lesbian, is your daughter a homosexual? My neighbors, the Dutch woman and the Greek, looked like they’d seen a ghoul when I asked, but they admitted it’s easier to be plane once you’ve started–”

“Love you mom!” Casper called over her shoulder. “Super proud of you. Going to text the movers now.”

She heard her mom groan in the background. 

---------------->

PART 2

When Casper was younger, age seemed to stretch out into infinity. When you are ten there is no such thing as twenty-five and when you’re twenty-five thirty feels like an entirely different planet. You never really expect when your mom gets old enough to hurt and you have to help her to the toilet in the middle of the night. Thirty-two snuck up on Casper.

She ran a hand through her hair, squinting out over the mountains. The peaks were covered in scraggly pine trees and washed-out summer skies. More than a mile high and the air was thin and chilled in her lungs. The sun dipped behind the far mountains and the gorge lit up in oranges and pinks. Dipping and rising, the mountains rolled like ocean waves. Clouds like tides nestled between the teeth of the land, glowing a sun-dipped rose color.

Has anyone else ever felt so miserable staring at something so beautiful? Casper sighed.

Maybe her 16-year-old self had been right. There is something wrong with you. Casper chuckled at the thought. At least she never had to be 16 again.

One or two houses dotted the mountain, but mostly there was nothing but sky and trees clinging to the side of slopes. Pockets of real estate had managed to establish summer homes and outdoorsy Airbnbs, but they were far between. Jay Road wasn’t even called Jay Town after all these years. The neighbors her mom prattled on about lived a mile apart each and some of the cabins didn’t even have running water, just outhouses and wood stoves. Which was fine. It was all fine.

But she was Casper’s mom. Brilliant and impractical. Affectionate and painfully honest. Chatty and yet obsessed with being alone. She was her mom and Casper had to do something about the distance to the hospital. Had to do something about the number of accidents piling up. Had to do something about the isolation.

Casper had unfortunately inherited her dad’s careful nature instead the ability to jump off cliffs into waterfalls or hitchhike across countrysides.

A fire lit in Casper’s belly. Her brother said he’d be back when he could. Australia didn’t have great cell service. Rescheduling flights was complicated. Mom would be fine, she was tough. It was only a few more months.

Casper started walking in the opposite direction of the gorge. She had always been proud to be called “mature for her age” and puffed up when her brother was scolded, told to act “more like your sister.” But it turned out nine-year-old maturity wasn’t something you got dividends on. Figured.

Casper trudged down their long driveway. Gravel skidded with each step and Casper called loudly, “Cassie!” The sound of her voice echoed from somewhere. “Here kitty, kitty!”

For all her mom’s monologuing about the virtue of living by herself, it had not escaped Casper’s notice that she named her cat Cassie. Granted, the cat’s full name was Cassiopeia and her last two cats were Orion and Ursa Major.

“Cassiopeia!” Casper was already going hoarse from yelling. She walked all the way to the road. It was all gravel and dirt and potholes, and the only details of humanity were janky mailboxes lined up in a row. Their wooden posts decaying and metal sagging inward.

A hush settled over the twilight and Casper found herself wandering aimlessly. Tiny stars popped out. She wound all the way toward the cowpaths through the woods–makeshift trails that were more like dusty grooves through the pine needles. They were called Desire Paths for those with a romantic bent.

“Cassiopeia! Cas! Here kitty.”

The pine trees had a malnourished look, thin and brittle, spread far apart from one another like estranged cousins. There wasn’t enough air or water this high up for green grass or big shrubbery and she could see her house through the trunks.

Casper kicked a stray pinecone and gave herself a little lecture: Breathe in the summer pine air. Listen to the birds. Feel the crunch of needles under your boots. Be present.

It was no use, of course, whatever she was supposed to feel out here, Casper didn’t feel it. Plus, there were mugs to wrap and dinner to cook and mom’s impossible house to finish packing up.

A soft meow cane from up ahead.

“There you are!” she called. A small black cat trotted through the trees. Casper knelt down and Cassiopeioa purred loud enough to wake the dead. The cat had a narrow elfin face and impossibly thick whiskers like an old man’s wiry beard. She was a small thing, but could generate a truly astounding loud rumble– a tiny motor trying to terraform the dusty landscape.

“Don’t tell the others,” Casper whispered. “But I always knew you were the smartest.”

Her mom trained all of her cats to come in by dark, but Cassiopioa was the only one that came when you called by name. Her rumble vibrated through Casper’s palm and there was a temptation to just . . . stay there. She could squat in the woods until her heart stopped squeezing and the world stopped spinning.

She scratched the cat behind her ears. “Sorry, bud. The cat carrier won’t be any fun but I promise it’ll be short.” Casper shook her head “Well. Let’s get today over with.” She stood. “Come on, sweetie.”

The cat trotted at Casper’s heel. She was a slow walker and would stop to sniff the ground or pretend she wasn’t following you around at all. Casper wasn’t in a hurry, though.

Twilight left ribbons of pink and purple through the sky and Casper forced herself to think about art and love and buying more plants for her apartment. She tried to listen to the music of nature or whatever it was. Casper stopped. Her skin prickled, the forest was quiet. Birdless. The cat let out a low growl and Casper jerked around.

A hiker stood behind her. The woman was pale and bedraggled and staring straight ahead. One of the hiker’s hands was outstretched behind Casper’s neck, fingers hooker, poised behind her collar.

Casper let out a muffled sound and jumped back, the cat scrambling out of the way behind her.

The hiker’s lips were cracked to the point of bleeding, the skin around her mouth chapped and red all the way to her cheek bones. Her eyes were bloodshot. A red windbreaker clung to her in damp splotches. An enormous pack hung off her shoulders, depleted and torn in parts. She was breathing hard.

The woman’s knees buckled inward. She fell to her knees.

The hiker rasped, “help me.”

---------------->

PART 3

Casper staggered, sweat beading on her brow. The hiker was limp against her side—head lulled onto Casper’s shoulder and eyes half-lidded and empty. Holding most of her weight, Casper was lucky the woman was light as a large pile of sticks.

Gravel crunched under Casper’s shoes and her mother’s robin-egg-blue house drew near. The cat was lashing her tail back and forth at the back door, waiting, ears pressed to her skull.

Casper side-eyed the hiker, dragging her to the door. She wet her lips. “How long have you been out here?” she asked in soft tones, gentled into a nursery-rhyme rhythm. “Do you know where you are?”

The woman’s eyes remained half-open and unseeing. Her lips were parted and cracked to bleeding. Casper winced.

“I’ll get you some water the moment we get in,” she hissed, and the woman closed her eyes.

They crossed the lawn and the hiker managed to prop herself up as Casper ran to get the door open. The cat darted into the house the moment the door was cracked, and Casper called through the hallways.

“Mom!” Casper was suddenly glad she had her mother. “Can you get the first aid kit?”

“What’s that?” Thumping sounds answered and soft “ow.”

Brine filled her nose. Casper swung around and the woman was standing behind her, eyes bloodshot and wide. “Um,” Casper flattened herself to the wall, mind racing. “Do you want to wait outside actually?”

The woman swallowed several times and pointed to her mouth.

“Right, right, right.”

Her mom rounded the corner, crutches clattering against the hardwood floor, expression pinched.

“Who is that?”

“Mom! Stay with, uh, her. I’ll be right back.”

They got the hiker into the house despite Casper’s worry flaring like a rash. She supposed there was no point in talking about the importance of having neighbors if she refused to be neighborly. Her mom shot off questions and then petered off when the woman coughed into her fist, whole chest shaking.

“Where did she come from?” Her voice shook and Casper paused. Isla, of all things, was not known for being fearful.

“I don’t know. I picked her up in the woods.”

The hiker leaned against the doorframe, eyes fluttering shut and muttering strings of hoarse words. Casper darted to the kitchen. The nearest hospital was a long way away. She filled up an enormous glass of water, remembering to add some electrolytes.

“Good lord is that woman alright?” her mother muttered. She stood in the hallway, eyeing the stranger.

Casper glanced between them, her mom’s crutches, the woman’s ragged form. The timing couldn’t be worse. It was just Casper.

“Mom, I may need to borrow the car–”

“Who is that?” Her mom repeated, staring.

“She’s not well. I don’t think ambulances come up this way–”

“They don’t. Casper! Who is this?”

Casper strode into the living room, mimicking how she imagined the ER doctors held themselves upright. Grabbing the couch cushions from the unwrapped furniture, she lined them up on the floor. She tuned-out her mom’s questions and guided the woman across the room.

“Here, ma’am, please lie down.” The woman stammered something back and Casper held her breath. The hiker smelled overwhelmingly of stale sweat. Casper ignored how her own shirt was damp from holding her up and eased her down on the makeshift mat.

The woman pointed at her mouth again and Casper held up the glass, tipping her chin up. “Just a small sip.”

Water dribbled out of the side of hiker’s mouth, running down her cheek. She closed her eyes in the next second and collapsed back. Casper exhaled. Well. Shit.

An image flashed in her mind’s eyes. The woman, standing behind her, hand outstretched, fingers hooked near Casper’s neck and a shine in her eyes. Casper shook her head as to dislodge the thought. She worked in a hospital, even if it was just administration. She knew better than to expect shock to look the same on everyone.

Her mother cleared her throat. “So. Where in the woods?”

“Nearby. She was looking for help.”

Casper stood, knees cracked and back straining. Food would probably help. More water.

“She must’ve gotten lost from one of the trails.” Casper silently urged her mom to not mention solo hikers being “dumb.” She glanced between them. “Or from that big gorge one.”

Her mom pursed her lips, brow furrowing. She looked coolly over Casper’s shoulder. “Dear, which trail were you on? Do you remember?” Casper whipped around and the woman’s eyes were open wide. “What happened to your gear?”

The hiker shook her head, shaking. Casper knelt without thinking and handed over the water. “Here. A little more.”

The woman grabbed the glass in both hands. She tilted her head back and drank like a racehorse, glugging and noisy. Water spilled down her front and Casper politely looked away, some sense of propriety surfacing.

Casper willed her brain to work. Twilight was descending and the roads were awful to drive on at night—she’d have to do something quick.

“Mom, let’s go talk in the other room.” She stood, whispering, “is the truck filled up?”

“The truck?” Her mom frowned. “This young lady should get to decide whether she wants to be forced off the mountain.”

Casper rubbed her temple. “What?”

“She survived this long. Some people don’t like quitting halfway through.”

Casper narrowed her eyes to slits. She couldn’t be serious.

“No!” The hiker spit-up water down her front. “I can’t go back. Look, it’s dark.”

They studied her. The woman’s entire front was wet, straight black hair plastered to her cheeks and chest heaving.

“Easy now,” her mom put out a hand. “We won’t force you. I understand these parts. We can take you wherever your party is or down the road to the sheriff–”

The woman shook her head vigorously. Her pupils seemed to pulse, and she spoke in rapid gulps, “Not back. Not down that way. They’ll come from there.”

“Okay.” Casper put her hands up like calming a spooked animal. “We don’t have to go anywhere just yet. You can rest here, you’ll be safe.”

“No!” The hiker gnashed her teeth and the alertness returned to her gaze. She glanced around, faltering upright and falling back down again. “Where are we?”

“You’re near Hand Bone’s peak. Off the main road,” her mother said slowly.

“Do you know how you got here?” Casper added at the same moment. This might be a worse case than she thought.

“How late is it?” the woman’s chest started rising and falling rapidly. “How big is the moon . . .?”

Casper and her mom shared a look. Her mom recovered first.

“Want some more water, dear?”

The woman pressed her palms to the floor and lifted herself up in a painful lurch. Casper put a hand on her shoulder.

“You’re not well,” she murmured. The woman’s shoulder was chilled and shaking under her touch. “Can I get some more water? A blanket?” Casper ran through her mental list: blanket, first aid kit, maybe some bread, a call down the mountain.

Then packing the house. Somehow.

Her mother gasped and Casper wanted to shout, “what now?!” The woman had wrenched the sleeve of her jacket up. Her arm was covered in purpling bruises.

“Casper!”

“I’m on it.” Casper fumbled for the first aid kit her mom dragged out. The hiker went very still.

“It’s quiet,” she said, eyes roving over the room and body taut. Casper remembered the hand behind her collar. “Where is your cat?”

Shock looks different on everyone.

Casper held herself motionless, mirroring the young woman. “What’s your name?”

The hiker’s eyes narrowed. She growled, “Who are you? Whose house is this?”

“Easy now,” her mom repeated. “It’s mine. You’re not feeling very well right now. Would you like some aspirin? We’re going to call someone to help you feel better.”

The woman's forehead was slick with sweat. She itched at her arm and Casper forced down bile. The odd bruises covered her forearm like an abstract painting, purples and yellows molting together.

Casper tore her eyes away and took deep even breaths. The moon was enormous through the window, a perfect yellow disc through the trees.

The hiker’s breath came in rapid bursts and Casper forced herself to grab her shoulder again and ease back down.

“My name is Casper Lake. Do you know what year it is?” Casper asked clumsily. “Do you know your name?”

“My name is Maya,” she said through gritted teeth, lips bleeding sluggishly. “And I am trying to get out of here.”

“We’ll try and help y—”

Maya jerked forward to her hands and knees all at once. Casper put a hand on her back and then recoiled, falling to the floor and paling. Clear water poured from the woman’s open mouth as she puked an endless stream on the floor.

---------------->

#campfire story #urban fantasy #short story #spilled ink #ghost story #part 1 #stories for the salt #long post cw

[bodhranwriting]

But There is No Road Through the Woods

An elderly forester, cursed with immortality, accepts the arduous task of guiding an eclectic troupe of travellers through the Lost Forest; a wilderness claimed by spirits, fae, and the undead. But as he struggles to keep his charges alive, he finds himself being reminded of his humanity and his long-buried desire to find something worth living – or dying – for.

The Lightning Herders

Barely a day after their move, a young family’s farm in rural Canada is trapped in a dangerous and never-ending thunderstorm. Determined to stop it, Third – an autistic aspiring inventor – sets out on a quest to uncover the many mysteries of her new home. Why is their landlord’s room glowing green and why does he have a chained chest under his bed? What does the destroyed angel monument have to do with anything? Is the forest truly full of ghosts?

But when another young girl falls out of the sky in an inexplicable flying machine, Third’s world suddenly gets a lot bigger. There is an entire domain of danger and magic above the clouds… and it’s all connected back to Third’s new home.

The London Necropolis Railway

A medium who spends his days secretly reassuring the departed on the Victorian railway to the graveyards beyond the city reunites with a childhood friend only to learn a feared necromancer has infiltrated the train and is putting deadly wheels into motion. Now it’s up to a man who jumps at his own shadow to hold his own amongst the living dead.

#writeblr #writing #deaf #queer #polls #fantasy #urban fantasy #ghost stories #steampunk

[urbanghoststories]

It's getting there ❤️

#thelittlemagiccornershop #pagan witch #witchcraft #witches of tumblr #urban ghost stories

[glitterandtoadstools]

Bookish Mothman

Bibliophile and spooky aficionado, Mothman, enjoying his favorite ghost stories.

prints and more available at www.glitterandtoadstools.com

#cottagecore art #goblincore #cottagecore #mothman #cryptid #cryptozoology #illustration #small artist #cryptid art #mothman art #ghost #ghost stories #urban legends #bookish #reading

[publishinggoblin]

TAKE ME TO THE DARK

Take Me to the Dark: 3 Games of the Strange by Publishing Goblin — Kickstarter

In early October, TAKE ME TO THE DARK: 3 Games of the Strange is coming to Kickstarter! Click the link above to signup and be notified of the campaign's launch!

Take Me to the Dark: 3 Games of the Strange by Publishing Goblin — Kickstarter

Three card-run TTRPGs that take little to no preparation to sit down and play, not even for the person(s) running the story. $25 a piece, or $60 for all three games in a bundle.

ZOETROPE: Death Didn't Take is the second edition of time travel madness! Play time agents trying to stop (or cause) time anomalies in a ridiculous game. Build the timeline on the table with your action cards, so when you rewind (or fast forward) time, you know exactly what did or didn't happen.

SECRET HALLS is 1993 Chicago urban fantasy at its best. You are mages tasked with keeping the peace between other mythological beings, while trying to keep the mortals blissfully unaware of the supernal dream hiding in the dark alleys of their city.

WHAT WE POSSESS is a game of vignettes of the living, paired with the onlooking hunger of the dead. Figure out why your ghosts are haunting this space before their energy fails and they fall to the Whispers that keep them locked here.

#kickstarter #take me to the dark #ttrpgs #ttrpg #rpg #indie rpg #indie ttrpg #secret halls #urban fantasy #zoetrope #time travel #what we possess #ghost #ghost story #haunting #october #halloween #scary games #scary stories #strange

[dude-the-ancient-dragon]

Alright Tumblr commons, let's do a Reddit style thread.

Tell me a ghost story from your area, I want to know about the haunted places you grew with.

For example my school was said to be haunted by the ghost of a little girl that was kicked by a horse and died.

#Ghost story #Urban #Folklore #And it's always little girls #ooc

[orange-photoproject]

#horror art #photo blog #urbex #horror #horror films #psychological horror #paranormal #ghost stories #scary #haunted #urbexworld #abandoned places #abandoned #urban decay #lost places #blackandwithephotography #black and white

[whereserpentswalk]

Imagine waking up to see the only thing in your field of view being a perfect crisp image of whar would be displayed on a computer monitor. Nothing exists beyond the display, there's nothing beyond the borders. You cannot turn your head to change your field of vision, you cannot move your eyes, and you cannot close them.

You can't feel your body. When you try to move you can't. But you can make the inputs you would on a desktop with a keyboard and mouse. You can hear but only what the computer could produce. You realize you have no body, you can't feel anything, you just have this vision of a strange computer.

You decide to go on the internet. You're able to exist that way. And you can entertain yourself for awhile, looking at the online world. Though there really is no end to it. It's not even like being alone in your room, you can't even eat or sleep.

But your still alive. There is still value. You contact your old freinds online, and make new freinds. You aren't alone. You don't need a job, but you do find a role in society. You're able to make creative works, and dedicate more time with it then anybody else. You have a life, and people you care about. Yet still, it's been so long since you've touched anything, so long since you've even eaten or slept, so long since there's been a person who you've actually met. You just want to be able to hug one of the people you've met.

Time passes. The works you've created are now culturally important enough to have products in the real physical world inspired by them that you can never see. You've watched people you love grow old but you're still the same. You know more about the internet then anyone else. You've met other people trapped online like you are. And you've seen websites normal humans don't see, parts of the internet only powerful organizations know about, parts that only people who know that magic is real use, parts where eldrich horrors live, and parts where faries and demons post. Yet time still passes.

After decades of being trapped online more and more technology you'll never see appears. Eventually robotics starts advancing, so much you can control mechanical limbs though an online connection. You do everything you can to be able to experience this, it's been decades since you could touch anything in the real world after all.

When you do it's strange. When you first try it it's nothing like what you think you remember human touch being like all those years ago, though it's still a lot. But it gets better, and the time passes. It's awkward controlling a robot body at first, trying to remember how to move, how moving and interacting in 3d space even is supposed to feel like. But eventually it starts feeling more natural, and the body is a full body, not a human, but something like it. It's been more then a hundred years, but you feel the earth beneath your feet again. Nobody remembers who you were before you became trapped online, but there are people who care about you here and now, and finally, you can touch one of them, and look in their eyes.

#196 #my thougts #worldbuilding #fantasy #writing #my worldbuilding #urban fantasy #my writing #science fantasy #science fiction #short fiction #short story #flash fiction #body horror #psychological horror #internet culture #ghost in the machine #robot #robots #ai #horror #weird #weird fiction #weirdcore #webcore #magical realism