Screams and Memories

🩸 Monologue — The Becoming Canvas I wanted to be an artist. There was a time when I’d carry a sketchbook in my bag and charcoal under my fingernails, seeing the world in vibrant color and stark contrast. But life got in the way, and I buried my art beneath shifts, bills, and the crushing weight of fear—fear of being irrelevant, of failing, of waking up with nothing. So I stopped chasing anything.  And now? Now I wake up with black smudges on my arms I didn’t draw, and my dreams are filled with static and screaming faces. My body aches in places that weren’t sore yesterday. Something is changing within me, subtle yet insidious, like a slow, deliberate repaint of my very being. I used to ignore the strange things I saw—the flickers in crowds, the colors that didn’t belong, the auras leaking from strangers like oil slicks.  Just yesterday, the woman serving my coffee had eyes that seemed to ripple like stagnant water, a fleeting distortion that vanished when I blinke...

Episode  By the Nightly Storyteller I woke up this morning tangled in my sheets like I’d fought them in my sleep. My head pounded like church bells in a thunderstorm, and my throat was dry enough to host a tumbleweed. My clothes—what I had left of them—were scattered, wrinkled, and faintly damp. My jacket was draped over the lamp like I was trying to smother the light. Classic me. After a long week of work chaos, I had let off steam with friends last night—and the aftermath hit like a truck. As I sat up, I heard it: the soft patter of rain tapping the rooftop like fingers trying to get in. No flea markets. No garage sales. No sunny strolls through rusted treasure troves. Just a gray sky and the smell of regret. I flicked on the TV to the morning news—mostly as background noise while I debated crawling back under the blankets. But then I heard it: "Reports of a strange, blood-curdling howl echoing through the downtown area during the night. Residents are shaken. Authorities claim i...