Note: I am reposting this since I accidentally published it out-of-order.

A Different Life

Everyone moved slowly except for Lucy. They had done so for as long as she could remember, and had grown accustomed to it at this point. She sat, sketching the scene of the lecture hall before her, as the professor slogged through the lesson on character development, one word at a time. With so much more time than everyone else, Lucy had explored and developed several interests—from art to writing and reading. She felt as if she lived in a different world than everybody else. It got lonely.

The Shadow

The group looked up and it was there, standing before them, face turned down to peer at them. It was seven or eight feet tall and practically a shadow in the night air, save its face—that was something else. It was a mess of tomato-red bumps, with dark crimson in the valleys between them. Two dark holes—near the edges of its face—resembled eyes.

The Shadow advanced on them in a sudden motion, and, as the group turned to flee, the Shadow formed an arm of similar texture to its face and—with impossible reach—seized one of the friends by the head.

Note from Theory: in the following story, "Not Sorry", the bold text is meant to represent "dialogue" in a monospace font such as Courier New, but - do to the limitations of this forum - that was not possible (to my knowledge). The best text styling to convey what I intended by choosing monospace that I can think of is SMALL CAPS, but it is honestly easier to just use bold and italics.

Not Sorry

Did you...accomplish the task?

…yes…yes I did.

Good, good. Next, I want you—

Next!? But you said—

You and I both know that what I said is not relevant.

Don’t you even…even care about the people you…the people you…

Sometimes, yes. But ultimately I am not sorry. It needed to be done.

CAUTION: The following story contains a creepy and murderous clown.

The Clown

The clown’s smile was the first thing that actually unnerved Roy in this place. The clown's teeth were yellow and rotting, with hints of red on them. Roy took a step back.

“What’s wrong? Did I scare ya?” the clown said, sitting up and taking a step toward Roy. “Well, good. You oughta be.”

The doors slammed shut behind Roy, and the clown reached into his pocket. “Wow, that was actually pretty scary,” Roy said, relaxing as he realized this must be all part of the haunted house.

“Oh, you thought that was scary?” the clown said, giggling, as he pulled out a bloodstained butcher knife—how did that fit in his pocket?—and chucked it straight at Roy.

More tomorrow!

- Theory