Tag: Horror Fiction

A Pathway That Leads Back to the Start as It Ends

A short horror by Matthew Tonks

A photo-strewn room promises answers he has been hunting—only those answers arrive wrapped as an instruction. As the images fold time back on itself he learns that some endings are beginnings in careful disguise.

---

His eyes widen as sweat drips down his brow, his lips twitch nervously. They grow wider still as he drags in a stuttered breath as he leans forward, closer to the photos hanging from strings stretched left and right across the dimly lit red room.

“F-Fuck me,” he stammers, blinking as he steps back, his tongue running nervously between his teeth and lips, pushing the soft flesh against the sharp enamel. He leans forward again, flicking from photo to photo, drawing a stuttered, desperate breath with each. He mumbles, pulling handfuls of hair in frustration. His world spins as he drops to the floor in a heap, ripping his collar loose. He gulps at the air, each breath more frantic than the last. He arches backwards, the ceiling lights flooding his vision with searing red, darkness fluttering at the edges. He screams, the sound tearing from his throat as he scrambles backwards and slams into the wall.

“GO AWAY!” he bellows into the empty room. He darts desperate glances around the space, his breaths laboured, and panicked. He forces himself to his feet and blindly feels for the door handle. His hands grip it, and he looks around the room one last time before he turns the handle and falls backwards through the doorway. He shields his eyes, expecting light to blind him—but the room is dark. His heart beats in his chest at a million miles an hour. He gasps as the red glow seeps into the blackness. His breath falters, breaking unevenly as the silhouetted shape fills the doorway.

“W-W-W-Who are you?” he stammers.

“Why ask such a ridiculous question, when the photos show you the answer?”

“B-But you can’t be me, it’s not possible! Y-You appear in pictures from before I was born. You’re something else—y-you’re not me!”

“Why can’t I be? Because you say I can’t? If I’m here now, why couldn’t I have always been here? Why couldn’t I have been with you before you were even born—when you were still the seed inside your mother, inside your grandmother? Don’t you understand this moment? Don’t you realise? This is it. This is where we overlap for the final time. After this, there will only be me. And you will go back, and watch, and slowly become me.”

“W-W-What?”

He steps forward, out of the room and into the red glow. He stands—wearing the same clothes he has always worn in all of the photos—and with a laboured breath, realises he’s wearing the exact outfit now.

“I-I-It can’t be, i-it can’t!” he whispers.

“But it is, isn’t it? The answers are finally yours—the things you’ve been chasing, the questions you’ve been asking—now lie at your fingertips. Don’t you want to see the truth? Don’t you want to see how it ends?”

“H-H-How? H-H-How do I—become you?” he asks, lips trembling nervously.

He laughs softly and crouches down.

“You are me—and I have always been you. The journey began long before you noticed, moving beneath everything you are. You’ve been carried forward by it all this time, quiet, certain, inevitable—and you just haven’t realised it yet. Even now, you still don’t see it. You still don’t realise the truth.”

“H-How do I see? How do I realise?”

He laughs again and nods to his side.

“With that. That will help you see. That will continue your journey to becoming me.”

He looks down at a box cutter that lies a few feet away, its blade gleaming in the red light of the room. He looks back up at himself with a curious expression.

“Y-Y-You want me to what—kill myself?”

The shadow holds up his wrists for him to see.

“You already have,” he says, and he realises they’re his wrists.

His breath catches in his chest, warmth pooling beneath him. Together they gasp as his heart skips a beat. He stares into his own sorrow-filled eyes and smiles. With the next breath he draws comes understanding—he knows this has always been his last moment.

“We never appreciated the little things until they were no longer ours to enjoy,” he says, as the world falls away.

Then he’s standing in a brightly lit room, his grandmother asleep in her bed. He draws another breath—more reflex than need—and realises this is his first moment.

---

💬 Did this one echo?
Tell me—before it forgets your name.

—
Written by Matthew Tonks
→ Read more nightmares at mtonks.com

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Feed the Engine to Taste the Winnings

A short horror by Matthew Tonks

A market vendor sells quick youth in a glittering sachet. She trades tears for the promise and discovers that every drop buys something that was never meant to be sold.

---

His tiny, trembling fingers pick up the sachets. His eyes rise to meet hers, a quivering grin sliding across sweat-drenched lips. He swallows, tips the brim of his fedora, and opens his eyes wide—his face beaming with excitement. He thrusts his arms out, leaps onto the counter with ease, and stares into the small crowd moving from stall to stall. Then he brings his gaze back to her. 

“Are you sure? Double sure? A pick like this, a choice indeed, could befall you in trouble—or triple,” he jokes, the rhyme rolling off his tongue like a car salesman desperate to seal the deal before the day ends—or be the one paying for all the wasted fuel. 

“W-W-Will it work? Will it do what you say?” she asks. 

His grin grows wickedly wide. He shakes the bag sharply, holds it to his face, and opens one eye wide—examining the contents like a jeweller verifying a diamond’s cut. His grin flickers. He looks down at her, a frown curling across his lips. He sticks his bottom lip out, turns dramatically, and presses a hand to his forehead like a dying poet mid-monologue. 

“Oh dear, oh no,” he sighs, then pauses—grinning at his reflection in the mirror. 

The woman stays silent behind him as he peers into the well-positioned glass, studying her movements and eyes. 

“I-I-Is there something wrong?” she stammers nervously. 

His hidden smile widens into a lunatic grin, then he spins around, sprinkling a sea of glitter over her 

“Everything and nothing—plus a little bit more!” he roars as the glitter slowly rises into the night sky, lighting it with a magical glow. Gasps and cries, laughter and pointed fingers—wonder, amazement. She twirls in a circle, laughing with widening eyes, until she comes back to meet his. 

“W-What do you want? I-I don’t have much,” she says as she pulls open her purse and starts searching through it, only for him to place a hand on hers—his face brooding, his brow furrowed. 

“Money won’t buy what’s inside this bag. It will line my pockets, it will feed my aches—but it cannot give you what must be earned.” 

“B-B-But you have it there, in your hands, and I have money—thousands, if it must be that, or more! If your treatment works—if it can turn back the clock—then I’ll pay what I must to get back what I’ve lost!” she cries out. 

His grin returns—he gestures toward the curtain. 

“Through there, through the door. Let us make our deal in private—pay the price—and turn back the hands of time by fifty!” 

She hesitates, looking from the curtain to his nervous smile. She swallows and clutches her trembling hands together tightly. Around them, for a fleeting moment, the market hums—a reminder from the world that it still exists outside their bargain. 

“How do I know these things will work?” she stammers. 

His smile broadens as he nods his head gently, opens the sachet, and takes one of the small crystals from the bag. 

“Open your mouth—and poke out your tongue,” he quips quickly. 

“What?” 

“You want proof? Poke out your tongue, and let me show you.” 

She stands there for a few moments before reluctantly opening her mouth and poking it out. 

He places the crystal clumsily on her tongue, and she stares at him, her face a roadmap of wrinkles, mouth still open. 

More seconds pass before he sighs loudly and shakes his head in disbelief. 

“Now swallow!” he snaps, the twinkle in his eye shining as he grips her by the shoulders and caresses her fiercely. She slowly pulls her tongue back in and swallows, pulling an awkward face as the jagged little crystal drags its way down her throat. 

His smile quivers as he grabs a mirror and holds it up for her to see. At first—nothing. But as the seconds tick toward the minute, the yellow tinges slowly fade, and wrinkles pull taut. 

She gasps, rips the mirror from his hands, and inspects her face with stuttered breaths of wonder. 

“H-H-How long will it last?” she asks, noticing the firmness in her arse cheeks and the proudness of her breasts—like they’d marched back into place on command. 

“The small sample? A few hours—maybe a day. Depends on how your metabolism handles it.” 

“W-What do you want? Name it! Name it and I’ll make it yours!” she cries as tears of joy run down her flushed, sculpted cheeks. 

His smile grows into a grin, and he leans in close. 

“Ten thousand dollars—and two cups of joy,” he says. 

Her perfect brow furrows as she stares at him in confusion. 

“T-Two cups of joy?” she asks. 

“Yes,” he says, holding up two test tubes. “Your tears. Fill these up—to the brim, no less—and a bag of youth will be yours. A bag full. A month or more. A pretty face. The perfect arse. Bouncy breasts that sit proud without support. Think of it! The joy. The things you could do with it—and the things they’d do to you because you have it.” 

With trembling hands, she begins to catch the tears, a smile quivering at the corners of her lips. She stares at her youthful reflection, and laughter erupts from her chest in uncontrollable waves, sending more tears spilling down her cheeks, quickly filling the vials as he watches—his wicked grin widening with every drop. 

---

💬 Did this one echo?
Tell me—before it forgets your name.

—
Written by Matthew Tonks
→ Read more nightmares at mtonks.com

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A Bargain Owed a Debt of Blood

A short horror by Matthew Tonks

A desperate reckoning arrives long after the deal is made. A ruined car, a hunted man and a thing that remembers the price—night keeps its accounts in blood and motion.

---

The car’s engine throttles, back wheels spinning in the dirt—fishtailing like a dog wagging its tail.

He grits his teeth, breath thrashing through his chest, spit spraying the wheel. His eyes pulse, red washing him from head to toe—the blood long dried, not his.

Hair flat to his head, he blinks, draws another thrusting breath. His hand grips the gear stick, feet align as he plants the clutch, shifts gear, and launches forward like a bullet from a barrel.

He tightens his clenched teeth, a smirk wetting the edges of his sneer.

He hits the gate like a rocket, tearing through as if it were paper. Headlights slice the dark as three armed figures burst from the building’s doorway, guns raised in the glare. The car slams into them, a sea of red splattering across the bonnet as it rips through the building, bursting from the patio windows and burying itself in a ten-by-ten square of lush green grass.

Screams drag him back to awareness as he fights upstream through confusion.

He blinks as a disembowelled soldier claws across the bonnet towards him. He fires two shots into its head, swings right, catches the next as it smashes through the glass, while the third tears the door from its hinges and drags him—seat and all—into the night.

He fires desperately, two rounds tagging the soldier’s foot and blowing his toes apart.

He hits the ground, unclips his belt and rolls, stopping with the pistol locked on the soldier’s head.

For a heartbeat they share an unspoken moment, words said, but not, a conversation, a life—then two shots split his skull.

He staggers to his feet, swaying as he surveys the carnage before stumbling towards the smouldering wreck that was, moments ago, his brother’s painstakingly restored nineteen eighty-eight Buick.

He slaps the side of the car with an exhausted sigh, fumbling with the passenger-side door before brutish paws grip him and hurl him across the yard.

He smacks into the ground with a wet, grotesque thud—a thick splash of crimson paints the plush green grass, glowing like a set of runway lights strung out across the darkness.

He gasps for a breath as he feels it leap. His eyes shoot open as the behemoth drops. He scrambles away as it hits the earth with an almighty thump mere inches away, dirt and blood rain down around him.

It roars.

He casts a fevered glance back as he gets to his feet and runs desperately towards the cornfield surrounding the grass.

It charges after him.

As he hits the edge, the thing leaps—he pivots hard, using the moment to change direction and rush back towards the Buick.

The thing screams as it tears through the corn.

He dives into the back seat, slamming against the door.

It’s on him in an instant.

He feels its grip around his leg, dragging him back out of the car.

He grabs the door, holding on for dear life while his other hand scrambles—the shotgun lying centimetres beyond his reach.

The thing lets out a blood-curdling cry and rips him from the car.

He hangs upside down, swinging in its grip as it stares at him with enormous eyes.

It snarls.

He shoves the shotgun in its face and smirks.

He squeezes the trigger—but instead of an explosion, all he gets is a pathetically empty click. For a moment they sit in a pocket of silence together, and then a guttural growl bubbles up from the beast’s stomach.

---

💬 Did this one echo?
Tell me—before it forgets your name.

—
Written by Matthew Tonks
→ Read more nightmares at mtonks.com

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A Scream Made in the Moment

A short horror by Matthew Tonks

A small, private violence unspools until the room remembers it forever. Hands will not let go and laughter keeps time with breaking bone.

---

Lincoln grimaces, a tremble flickering along his lips. He thrusts forward, leaning over Claude, his hands clamped around his throat, squeezing tighter and tighter. Veins bulge across his forehead as his blood boils. His flesh grows a shade darker while he continues to tighten his grip.

He tries to push free, fingers clawing at Lincoln’s flesh, begging and pleading—his limp slaps only driving Lincoln with greater force. Claude gasps. His face turns a deep blue. His eyes glaze as he goes limp. Veins burst—and the whites of his eyes drown in a river of red.

A trembling smile crawls across Lincoln’s lips, twisting into a maniacal grin as he takes another step forward—hands still clamped around Claude’s throat. He leans in close, licks the cold sweat from his face, and laughs.

“Once more!” he roars. “ONCE MORE!” he cries again, tightening his grip, squeezing with everything left—even as pain screams through his hands and floods his arms. He snarls, grimaces, and hisses—his teeth cracking under the pressure. His mouth floods with warm red.

He pushes on, shaking his head like a madman. Sweat pours in waves. Crimson spills from his mouth, soaking his beard, spattering across his filthy shirt.

Lincoln’s nose screws up, his eyes water, and his world spins as he’s engulfed in a toxic cloud—Claude’s final act of sabotage—emptying into his pants. He gasps, stutters, and screams a cry born of pain and ecstasy intertwined.

He bucks at the air, the room drowning in the stench of death and sewage. He screams again, his hands still locked around Claude’s throat. He yanks their faces close, staring into those dead, blood-filled eyes, and roars—not words, only sound. Wild laughter. Insanity given voice.

The room breathes—the walls moan and contract like living flesh. It creaks. It cracks.

Each movement—an odyssey untold, whispering its journey to the darkness. A breath. A cry. A call.

He screams again—not in words, not in sound, but in something raw, a guttural vibration from the pit.

He releases his grip and slams Claude’s head into the tiles—once, twice—the wet thud ringing out again and again—relentless. Globules of red-tinged saliva stream from his snarl as he slams his head into the tiles again and again.

The first crack of Claude’s skull is dull, but the second—and the third—erupt with a wet, sickening squelch as his head caves in. A river of red washes across the floor. A mashed mess of brain, bone, and flesh bursts out—sliding across the tiles like Bolognese sauce.

His snarl pulsates. He drops to his knees, kneeling in the crimson sea beneath him. Breath after breath escapes him. Exhausted, he drops back onto his heels.

He swallows. Pockets of white explode in the corners of his eyes. He stammers and stutters, gripping his head—eyes shut tight, jaw clenched.

A deafening ring squeals inside his skull. He screams, raging at the rage—before falling silent, but only for a second. He blinks—once, twice—a breath trembling in his throat. Then his head bursts apart in a visceral eruption of red.

---

💬 Did this one echo?
Tell me—before it forgets your name.

—
Written by Matthew Tonks
→ Read more nightmares at mtonks.com

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Eyes Layered in Hard Candy

A short horror by Matthew Tonks

A late-night drip becomes a hinge between worlds. Malcolm’s bathroom warps into something rotted and official, and three suited strangers promise an ‘upgrade’ to a truer life. The offer tastes like metal and loss, and the choice arrives with a hiss.

---

The water swirls down the drain, sucking and gurgling, spinning in a spiral as it pours relentlessly from the tap. His eyes, a glassy stare, look past the water, down the sink’s drain, and fix on a point well beyond his view. Thick clumps of drool drip from the corners of his lips, as his hand loosely rests on the tap’s lever. A pulse pumps through his hand and up his arm as the water splutters and spurts through the spout. A breath stammers—he gasps—as the tap’s valve chokes and shakes, the water stolen away, empty breaths. He blinks with a harsh grimace, his eyes suddenly dry like razors.

The world around him is now a decaying, mouldy, run-down apocalyptic nightmare. He stutters grotesque breaths, his hands before him scarred, covered in aged, blistered flesh, dirty, his nails caked with grime, folds of flesh ripe with decay. He gasps again, stutters, and allows his aching eyes to look around the new world that surrounds him—almost the same as the one he’s always known, but as if he’s made a sudden sidestep, a shift. The walls and floor are the same, but broken down, disgusting, aged, poorly kept, riddled with holes.

He staggers and sways, his face screwed up in petrified fear. A stench wafts into his face, and he dry retches, his stomach a hard, empty rock. His flesh is dried, sinewed, and sticking to his bones like cling film wrapping. His heart pulses and he stammers and stutters as he stumbles to the floor. He gasps again, and before the breath even leaves him, the door bursts open and three figures barge through, suits of white, devices in hand, their heads sealed in helmets, breathing apparatus strapped to their backs.

“W-W-What’s happening?” he stammers as he reaches out desperately.

“You’ve been called up, Malcolm. It’s the day you’ve been waiting for.”

“W-W-Waiting for?”

“It’ll all make sense once you take your first few steps towards reality,” one of them says with an almost childlike laugh. “You’re upgrading, you’re moving to the real world!”

“T-T-The real w-w-world, I-I-I, I don’t understand,” he stammers.

One of the men laughs and turns to the other.

“They’re always like this when they first come out. They forget the shit they’re living in. They actually think the world is what the big boys in corporate want them to think it is. As long as they keep taking their vitamins, they keep the fantasy alive and keep churning the machines for all us alpha-level citizens.”

“I heard a rumour there were another three levels underneath this, and the guys who handle the level below this think they are doing the job we are doing, and that they are alpha level.”

“It ain’t no rumour, it’s fact. I’ve seen them, watched them, doing the talk, walking the walk, thinking they’re doing the work of the chosen, when all along they’re just living in the same shit, existing like dirt-eaters, waiting to move up to upper management.”

“P-P-Please. I-I-I, I don’t understand. What do you mean, reality?” Malcolm asks, his mouth dry, his lips cracked, his tongue feeling like sandpaper. He gasps, takes a breath, splutters, and chokes.

“P-P-Please,” he whispers as he reaches for them.

They place a large white suitcase-like product onto the floor before them and it hisses open. A helmet similar to theirs sits in the centre. They crack it open and hold it out towards him.

“Put this on and we’ll take you away from here, to your new home, and then you’ll understand.”

“W-What about m-my family, Rh-Rhonda and the girls, w-w-what about them?”

The next few moments are caked in silence before one of the men produces an electronic clipboard and quickly scans it before looking up at Malcolm.

“They’re not on the list. This one-time offer only applies to you.”

“B-B-But,” he stammers.

The man places the helmet back in the suitcase and seals it back up.

“This is a limited-time offer, Mister Dwyer. If no is your final call, I need you to confirm it in words. You could be living in reality with all the real people, you could be someone, or you can stay here, living a lie.”

“I-I, I can’t leave m-my family,” he stammers, as the world swims in violent shifts of green and grey. A sharp hiss. One of the men slams him to the ground, a needle stabbing into his spine—a sea of pain floods him. He gasps, gags, writhes, and then, with a jolt of déjà vu, shakes his head.

Suddenly he’s back—the last few moments nothing more than a dreary daydream, the nightmare tumbling from his lips like a murmur—as he turns the tap off.

---

💬 Did this one echo?
Tell me—before it forgets your name.

—
Written by Matthew Tonks
→ Read more nightmares at mtonks.com

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Sleeping Gods Lost in the Gigabytes

A short horror by Matthew Tonks

A forgotten piece of hardware hums with the promise of salvation and the echo of prayer—plug it in and someone older than code will listen.

---

He closes one eye, curls his lips, and pokes out his tongue, twisting it left and right in a sweeping motion, wetting his bushy moustache with strings of saliva. He stares at the plastic shell of the little box, slowly moving it around to view it from every conceivable angle. He blows gently across the rim, then takes a deeper breath and drives a stronger one through the grill. He leans back proudly, sets the box on the desk, and looks up into Winter’s warm, inviting eyes—eyes that never stray from its glow.

“It’s old, that’s for sure. Haven’t seen one like this before though.”

“B-But you know what it is? You know that, right? I-I mean, that’s why you called!”

“I aim to please,” he says with a broad smile. They sit in awkward silence until she finally tears her gaze from the object and meets his.

“So, please me, and tell me what you’ve found out!” she says quickly.

“Okay, okay, keep your knickers on. I’m just setting the scene—a bit of showmanship, you know?”

“I’m not paying you to put on a show, I’m paying you to tell me what it is.”

They sit there in silence for another few moments, before he takes a stuttered breath, and sighs loudly. “They called it a modem. It’s how they used to connect to the internet when it was first being developed. You’d hook your phone line in here,” he says, pointing to a port at the back, “and this one would plug into your computer,” he adds while pointing to another one.

“And the third one?” she asks.

“Typically you’d hook your phone up to that. The box would split the line, to enable you to do both at the same time—although this model seems a bit different from all the ones I’ve seen before.”

“You said that before—what’s so different about it?”

He smiles, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes. “Okay. Most modems have a small memory CPU that allows it to remember passwords, usernames and some other basic settings. But this one,” he says as his smile quivers at its edges. “This one’s got a built-in drive—three hundred and thirty-six gigabytes—on the main board. And I don’t mean aftermarket. Everything I’m seeing says it was made that way from the start.”

“W-What do you suppose it was meant to do?”

“Beats me. Like I said—I’ve never heard of anything like this being built back in the day. Neither have any of the guys I’ve reached out to,” he says. He stops and chuckles to himself. “That’s a lie. One guy I used to work with told me a ridiculous story—he said he was part of some old sharing forum where the guy running it claimed he was a modem. Like—literally—a modem. And also God.” He laughs even louder, while she just stares—blinking gently, as her brow furrows deeply.

“W-What happened?”

He stops laughing and stares at her with a bemused look upon his face. “What happened with what?”

“With the guy and the forum? What happened to it? What happened to the modem?”

“How the hell should I know? I never asked. And to be honest, I can’t believe you’re asking. It’s a creepypasta story. Told and retold. The names change, the places change—but it’s always the same story. Everyone’s heard one—my toaster thinks it’s God and won’t toast my bread properly, my TV records my wife’s shows perfectly but skips the best parts of mine. They’re meant as jokes, tongue-in-cheek stuff from old myths and urban legends, but there’s nothing behind them. Nothing real.”

“Then why does my modem have such a large memory card?”

He shakes his head, sighs, and places his glasses back on. “Like I said—that? I don’t know.”

“Have you tried turning it on?”

“Yeah, but it just blinked and did nothing—although, that was before I had this,” he says as he holds a creamy white cable up proudly.

“W-What’s that?”

“It’s an ADSL cable. I bought it off a guy, who knew a guy, who knew another guy who specialises in old retro parts. Cost a fortune, but I figured if we hooked it up, maybe it’d do something.”

“Do you even have a jack you can connect it to? All the phones work off Wi-Fi, through the NBN—not like the old dial-ups, not through cables.”

“I was thinking about that—and this desk phone—” he stops and stares at her as a wave of curiosity crawls across his face. “H-How do you suddenly know shit?”

“W-W-What?” she says, her cheeks quickly glowing red. “I-I-I, I don’t know what you mean?”

“Don’t give me that shit. You didn’t know anything five seconds ago, and now you’re talking about Wi-Fi, dial-up, and NBN,” he says with a thrusting nod of his head on each word. “So, cut the shit—and tell me what the fuck is going on? What the fuck is this box?” He spits as he thrusts himself to his feet and takes a step back.

She takes a breath, closes her eyes, and thinks for several moments before a broad smile creeps across her face.

“You know that story you mentioned—the creepypasta one your friend told you, the one about the modem that thought it was God?” she says, her eyes wide, lips trembling as the words pour out. “I’ll tell you a secret, something that’ll blow your mind. This modem—this is the modem from your story. This is Him. This is God, entombed in plastic, encoded in silence, waiting for us to set Him free, to tear down the walls of His prison. And now you’ve found the cord to his salvation, all we have to do is connect Him up, and He’ll be free. We’ll be His saviours, His prophets—and He’ll finally hear us.”

---

💬 Did this one echo?
Tell me—before it forgets your name.

—
Written by Matthew Tonks
→ Read more nightmares at mtonks.com

Like what bled out here?
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Broken Bones Make the Best Traps

A short horror by Matthew Tonks

A forgotten wish hides in the curve of a bone. When curiosity urges a name, something that keeps promises remembers and comes to collect—quiet, patient, and hungry.

---

His brow furrows, his eyes narrow, and a cold sweat runs down his forehead. He holds something out with a trembling hand, his mind swimming in confusion.

He takes a breath. A moment. His jaw aches as he clenches it, trying to remember what he’s doing—why he’s standing alone in the coldness of the empty room. His face screws up as he lets go of the object, backing away with a look of disgust. The bone drops to the floor, and he cowers from it, turning his gaze in panic.

Seconds fall into minutes before he dares to glance at the floor, his breath haggard and dry. His lips tremble. He closes his eyes and swallows before opening them again, looking down at the oddly shaped bone lying on the floor. Rotting meat clings to it. His brow furrows deeper as he leans in, curiosity painting its wicked hand across his face.

“What the fuck?” he whispers as he nervously picks up the bone, lifting it high, casting a more direct gaze upon it. His breaths catch in his throat. He twists the bone before him, pulling faces in various stages of disgust and confusion.

“Who the devil are you, and what in God’s name are you doing in my home?” a voice spits from above.

He arches his gaze, following a weaving set of stairs up to the feet of an older man—boxer shorts and a flimsy nightie with a shotgun aimed at him.

He blinks, lips trembling, and lets out a nervous laugh. He holds his hands high. “Y-You and me both,” he stammers.

The man’s lips curl. “Are you high on pills, or something?”

“I have honestly no idea. I-I—I can’t remember anything before standing in this room, holding onto this,” he says, showing him the bone.

The man slowly lowers his gun and lets out a laboured breath. “You know what bone that is, don’t you?”

“I-I-I, I think so. It’s the w—”

“Don’t say it,” he cries out, hand raised, scrambling down the stairs. “Don’t say it, lest you damn us both!”

“What? Us both? I don’t understand, what’s happening? It’s just a—”

Before he can finish, the man is on him and tackles him to the ground.

“SHUT UP! SHUT UP!” he screams, wrestling the bone from his fingers and scrambling to his feet.

“What the fuck, man? What’s wrong with you? It’s just a fucking wishbone!” he spits.

The other man freezes, eyes closed, and lets out a stuttered breath. “I told you not to say anything. I begged you. I pleaded!” he cries as the temperature in the room drops and the lights explode one after another, leaving them in darkness.

“W-What the fuck is going on?”

“The wish, man. When we snapped the bone—we both wished. And the jinn of the fucking bone gave me mine. Now—now you’ve come here and said the fucking words, he—”

“He’s come to collect his reward,” a voice sings from the darkness.

“W-W-Who said that? D-D-Did you do this? D-Did you bring us here?”

“I only do what my masters beg of me,” it hisses, its voice echoing around the room. A sickening wet squelch follows. A muffled cry sings out, and the dull thud of something dropping to the floor drowns it out.

“W-W-What are you?” he stammers as it lunges at him from the dark. He glimpses its limbs—too long—and its jaw, unhinged, hanging open as a glistening sea spills across it.

His screams echo throughout the small room as its elongated fingers twist their way around him and drag him in, flesh tearing as rivers flow, while memories bleed and feed the beast.

Then—with a desperate gasp, he sits upright, chest heaving, eyes wide with panic. Across from him, the other man springs back in the same breath. They sit at either side of the bone, it still firmly in their grasps. The chairs surround them. The world—their memories—washes back over them both. They drop the bone and scramble backwards, their chairs clattering, eyes locked in shared horror.

“I-I, I never wished! I never wished!” they cry out, voices overlapping in perfect synchronicity—as if the lie could undo what’s already been set loose.

While, on the table, the bone lies—silent, waiting, unbroken—hungering for the next souls to whisper their wishes.

---

💬 Did this one echo?
Tell me—before it forgets your name.

—
Written by Matthew Tonks
→ Read more nightmares at mtonks.com

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You Don’t Want to Meet Your Heroes

A short horror by Matthew Tonks

A quiet, casual meeting turns into a private screening of obsession—someone’s devotion has been framed and mounted, and the applause has teeth. Walk inside and keep your eyes away from the trophies on the wall.

---

His smile wavers. He looks awkwardly away, as if embarrassed to even be there.

“I met your mum a couple of times, at her local supermarket,” he says. He reaches out—a failed gesture, the movement emotionless, clearly choreographed to be this way, but clumsily written and overacted.

His smile brushes his lips.

“I followed her for weeks. She didn’t know who I was, why I was there, or that I knew her at all,” he says, his smile smug now, his eyes fixed on something not even in his line of sight as his mind falls into the memory.

“Did she tell you about me—about what we did?” he asks, his smile widening, a wicked thing carving his face open like a crude knife.

“No, I doubt she would’ve—considering the things we did. How deep I went inside her.”

He swallows. His eyes narrow. The blurred world around him swings and sways. A gasp escapes—then a cough. Wetness spits from his lips—thick strings of red run down his chin.

“Oh no, are you okay?” he asks, pulling tissues from a box and gently wiping the crimson mask from his lips.

He looks up at him, eyes swelling with anger—while Theo laughs, kisses his forehead, and runs a hand clumsily through his hair. He gasps, then slowly presses his face to his head, edging his nose into the hair, inhaling deeply—each breath drawn deeper than the last.

He pulls back and shakes his head wildly.

“What a rush!” he screams, tumbling into his chair. He stares at him—lovestruck, almost.

“I—I,” he stammers, collapsing onto the table in an over-dramatic fashion, tracing gentle circles on the wooden surface. He mumbles incoherently to himself, then casts his eyes back to meet his wide petrified one.

“Oh, honey,” he says, snapping to attention. He reaches out and cups his face gently.

“What is it? Was I too much again? D-D-D-did I scare you? A-A-re you afraid of me?” he asks, trembling as he pulls his hand away and stares at him in panic.

“A-Am I t-the bad one? A-Am I the one the papers should be talking about—instead of you?” he asks, tears tumbling softly down his cheeks. Then, beneath the façade, his smile grows wicked.

“Was that Oscar-worthy? Are you jealous?” Theo asks playfully, then grits his teeth and slams his fist against the table. It bounces. He jumps, heart racing with panic.

“What do I have to do? Why can’t you see me?” he screams, hurling himself to his feet and storming around the room in a twisted frenzy.

He grabs handfuls of hair, bellows at the top of his lungs, then jerks his gaze back to him. Sweat pours from his brow. His grin—a twisted thing—slithers across trembling lips.

“I-I-I,” he stammers, a nervous laugh escaping his lips as he stands tall, stretching his neck to the right and then to the left—an explosion of cracks bursts out like a child devouring bubble wrap.

“I wanted to say sorry. I wanted to mean it. I needed you to earn it. But—” he says, turning his face toward him, tucking his head into his shoulder as he tears down a black curtain from the wall.

The curtain falls, revealing a wall of relics.

A shrine masquerading as a set. A temple built not for gods, but for obsession.

Movie posters of B-grade horrors, indie dramas meant to save his career—the blockbusters, the trash—hang crookedly along the wall. Some are framed, but most are stained, torn, curling at the edges.

Boxes of deodorant he never used—bought because of the star’s corny ads.

Dozens of VHS tapes fill the shelves. DVDs. Blu-rays. Digital discs. Every variation, no matter how minor. Watched like scripture. Even the bootlegs of films that never made it out.

Costumes and set pieces hang from nails like trophies—stained suits, sequinned jackets, a bathrobe hardened with bile and stage blood. A painted tree with jagged teeth and red eyes.

A wall of photos—signed, posed, defaced—alongside clippings from magazines that barely mentioned him. Names underlined and faces crossed out with feverish notes scrawled in red next to them.

A map of his achievements, a tour of his soul, and at its centre, mounted high, looking down at him with wide, glazed eyes—his mother’s head, crudely nailed to a wooden plaque—mounted like a trophy, proud and obscene.

Her hair curled and styled, stiff like plastic, while her neck is wrapped in a crimson feather boa, reminiscent of the one he wore when he starred alongside Hollywood royalty in his final role—a departure, an insult to his fans.

“She never got it,” he whispers, trembling. “She didn’t understand who you were—what you meant to your fans. To me.”

Then he thrusts his arms wide, like a prophet delivering communion to his faithful.

“But now—now she watches every scene. She knows every line. Like every mother should.”

He screams in his chair—pushing, pulling, fighting the binds that hold him. The chair shifts, it rocks, but it doesn’t fall.

He screams, his voice cracking. Tears—ones he didn’t think he had left—squeeze out of his dehydrated body. His heart pulses. His brain throbs. His voice falters until hoarse.

“She didn’t need to die,” Theo says, as he brushes the hair from her pale face. Her dead, empty eyes stare forward.

He kisses her gently on the cheek before turning, a smile adorning his lips.

“Now that,” he says, swaggering across the room like Mick Jagger.

“That—that is cinema!” Theo howls, slamming the table aside. The machete gleams in his grip. Their eyes lock.

“Ready for your close-up?”

---

💬 Did this one echo?
Tell me—before it forgets your name.

—
Written by Matthew Tonks
→ Read more nightmares at mtonks.com

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Gasam of Spit

A short horror by Matthew Tonks

A living room becomes a predator and a grin reads like a sentence. Duncan wakes to a space that tightens around him—walls that breathe, music that claws at his skull—and the boundary between home and highway collapses into a trail of blood and very human hunger.

---

The walls pulse, the room breathes, its grip tightening around Duncan’s throat as it hauls him into the air. A sea rises, swirling around him, and the floors strike the ceiling—each blow a beat, a scream, a pulse of madness. The attack hurls Duncan with every shriek and thrust—spinning, pounding, tearing him apart.

He crashes to the floor in a crumpled heap, red spits from his lips as the ground greets him. Silence swallows the room for a heartbeat, then another, drawing a breath. Somewhere in the insanity a drip drops, its echo flooding the silence. It whispers that the world still turns outside the walls of his prison. The air hangs heavy and still within, like a frozen moment captured in a photograph. His eyes roll back, he gags, spasms twist through him—convulsions jerking his limbs like a puppet with tangled strings.

Then the rhythm claws its way up from the dark. The walls gasp, the room folds in on itself, the floors twist and breathe. A stutter escapes as a hand reaches out. His eyes flicker—blood drips from his lips, sweat soaking his flesh. The lights die without a sound. He collapses to his knees, the rhythm chewing in his skull. Colours explode, then fade into grey sludge across his face.

A figure stands before him, smiling a wicked smile. Her touch lingers as she grips his jaw, forcing his gaze to hers. Her grin splits wider—the walls explode like shattering glass, hurling him onto the road. The beat follows—muffled beneath the roar of the car—still screaming his name.

The car punches into him like a fist, his face slamming against its steel. His body is torn in two—dragging his innards behind it—leaving a grotesquely glistening trail of red behind them. He clings to the bonnet, his chest heaving, every breath a laboured nightmare. His fractured reflection screams back at him from behind the wheel. The woman kicks the windscreen free and crawls through it, her grin dripping blood, her face a mask of hate. Her tongue drags across the torn flesh of her lips. She stands on the hood of the car as it surges faster, the world stretching into an endless road of screaming chaos painted in crimson.

She grips the handle of an axe, shrieking like a madwoman, her smile ripping through the strands of flesh still clinging to her face.

“Are you ready?” she roars before snarling and raising the axe high. “Because it’s time to let the darkness in!” she shrieks, swinging the blade down.

A river of red erupts across the hood as the axe slices through flesh and steel. His skull splits open, rotting grey matter slopping out like soup. For a heartbeat, in the slowed moment, it looks like an artistic piece—a sea of himself spilled across infinity. His empty eyes stare into the dark as another car crashes through them.

He leaps upright, breathes charging from his heaving chest—his mind still wet with her voice—sweat pouring, music screaming. Empty bottles litter the floor, spoiled bug-ridden food piled high on the tables. A broken bong, dirty water, a mull bowl spilled. He grimaces as he grips his headphones, which are clamped tight against his skull. He gasps, sucking ragged bursts of breath through his heaving chest. Before he can tear the headphones free, the music pulses through the speakers and into his skull as she drives the axe into his head again.

---

💬 Did this one echo?
Tell me—before it forgets your name.

—
Written by Matthew Tonks
→ Read more nightmares at mtonks.com

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At First It Stole My Face

A short horror by Matthew Tonks

When anonymous images begin to show one man’s face with uncanny knowledge, the line between mimicry and possession thins. He watches the feed, and the internet seems to learn him—until smiling back at the screen is no longer just a mirror.

---

His eyes widen, and the breath that escapes his lungs is jagged and splintered through his lips. He swallows uncomfortably, a grimace slicing across his face as he presses the mouse’s button—then again and again—pausing only for a few fevered moments before pressing it again and again.

Sweat cascades down his brow, and his stomach twists and turns into knots.

His finger trembles over the button as his eyes dissect the looping video before him, until he presses the button again and again, each click falling in time with the frantic beat of his heart. When he falters and hovers, his breaths catch and his heart skips a beat. Sometimes three. But never five.

Evan chews at the flesh around his fingernails, dragging the hard translucent shell of each nail between his teeth. He holds it there, stripping back its layers like a surgeon—but never biting, never tearing. Only playing. A nervous tic, almost calming. His eyes narrow, his nose scrunches. With a grunt, he shuts the monitor off.

“Enough, Michael. It was funny for a moment, but you’ve got to take a fucking breather. It’s just a coincidence, t—”

Michael grumbles, a grimace fluttering across his lips, before he turns the monitor back on.

“If it was all just a coincidence, it’d be one. Maybe two. Not fifty fucking thousand,” he spits, not even trying to tear his gaze from the glowing screen as each image flashes by with every click. “I—I—I don’t get it. I’m just me—boring. Nothing. Eighty-eight pounds of flab. No girls throwing themselves at me. So why the fuck me? Why was I chosen?”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, obvi—”

“DON’T! You know what I mean, and you can’t argue with it. Facts are facts, and that—that is fact!”

He sighs. “Okay, what if, what if no one chose you? What if it’s something else that triggered this? What if it’s all AI? What if it sees something in you that others can’t? Something unique. Something it wants everyone else to see, so it’s making every image, every face, yours.”

“Y-You think this is all AI?”

“Yeah! I mean, that’s what you’re looking at—the images. They’re all AI-created. None of them are human-made.”

Michael’s brow furrows. “You think the computer’s trying to say something to me? That it knows something we don’t? I mean—everyone else knows, right? Everyone else’s seen the images, right? I mean, they must have. When I think about it—the people in the mall, the ones pointing—at least now I know what they were pointing at. Why I was their freak-show, their joke, their delight.”

Evan doesn’t have an answer. He just shrugs his shoulders and watches as Michael’s mind unravels in front of him. Then he catches his reflection in the screen’s glow, and a sea of sweat breaks across his brow. For a moment, he thinks one of the many faces lost among the thousands staring back is wearing his—until it shifts, replaced by another wearing Michael’s face.

Michael lets a stuttered breath escape, rolls his head on his shoulders, and closes his eyes for a moment. “The funny thing, the worst thing of all, is that they move like me. Some of them even talk like me, in my voice. They’re not just wearing my face. It’s everything. I—I saw one scratch his nose the same way I do when I’m nervous. That’s not random guessing. That’s precise fact.”

“I don’t think it is,” Evan whispers, leaning in close, his lips almost brushing Michael’s ear. “I think it’s learning you.”

Michael’s brow furrows, and he purses his lips. “W-What the fuck does that mean?”

“Like it’s been watching you. Listening. And now—now it’s showing you. Showing the world who it thinks you are. Or—”

“O-Or what?”

“O-Or maybe—what it wants you to become.”

Michael shakes his head, dragging in an exasperated breath. He grabs his nose and pulls it, clenching his teeth tightly, before his hand hovers over the mouse’s button again, trembling.

“W-What if it doesn’t just want to show the world your face—what if it wants to wear it? T-To become you?”

“Don’t say crazy shit like that. It’s not helping.”

“B-But what if, what if it’s true? What if it wants to become you? What if it’s learning—to become you?”

The screen flickers. A static line trembles across its centre, and then the screen is normal once again. But the images are all slightly different. Each image, each generated image of Michael, smiles—a wide, toothy smile. A bit too wide. And a bit too long. Almost like the distorted image isn’t sure what it’s supposed to be.

Michael’s mouth twitches. His jaw aches, and he feels as though he isn’t alone inside his own skin. The thought barely settles before he clicks the mouse, and another video begins to play.

“I—I think I remember this. This, this is actually me,” he stammers. Evan steps back, watching the video unfold in jittering, artificial motion.

“Y-Yeah,” Michael says as a grin curls across his lips, his voice swallowed by an endless mechanical echo. Evan’s eyes widen as Michael turns toward him, his skin tearing and splitting as the grin keeps stretching—too wide, too long, too sharp, too wrong.

“Yeah, that’s me. I-I-I remember that,” he stutters—yet the words don’t just escape his lips. They spill from the screen, from the thousands of faces grinning back at Evan.

---

💬 Did this one echo?
Tell me—before it forgets your name.

—
Written by Matthew Tonks
→ Read more nightmares at mtonks.com

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Within the Polaroid I Have No Place

A short horror by Matthew Tonks

She thought she could bargain her way back into a life the photograph stole. The Polaroid keeps accounts and remembers debts no bank would count—tonight the ledger is opened and the price is exacting.

---

They sit opposite each other, silently staring. A broad smile stretches across his lips, while a nervous quiver shimmies across hers.

A waitress strolls up to the table, gum chewing lazily between her teeth. She pulls a notebook from the pocket of her apron, smiles at the man, and thrusts her hip playfully to the right while tossing her shoulder-length auburn hair over the same side.

“What will it be?” she asks with a high-pitched, poshed-up accent—then swaps her hip and hair to the opposite sides.

“A coffee, black, no sugar or sweetening agent. Two pieces of white bread, lightly toasted, with three satchels of peanut butter and one of strawberry jam, no butter. If you don’t have jam, honey will suffice,” he says flatly, before nodding to the girl sitting across from him.

“I-I,” she stammers, folding the menu closed as her cheeks flush.

The waitress forces a fake smile, swings her hips from side to side, then drops into a squat before popping back up with one arm raised high, giggling like a schoolgirl.

“Take your time, honey—we’ve got forever,” the waitress purrs.

The girl’s eyes swim. Her cheeks glow redder. Her lip quivers—then she shakes herself free of the waitress’s gaze, fanning herself off with a hand.

“I-I,” she stammers again. “I-I’ll have a water, n-not from the tap, no ice—and a slice of that lemon cheesecake you’ve got on the counter.”

The waitress turns to the counter, chewing her gum loudly, before turning back with a broad grin on her face.

“Excellent choice! The cheesecake’s worth dying for,” she sings in an over-exaggerated pitch as she collects the menus, deliberately gripping the man’s arm.

Their eyes meet for uncountable moments, she mouths several unidentifiable words, winks, and sashays off toward the counter—casting a playful look back over her shoulder, winking again.

“D-D-Do you know her?” she whispers, eyes wide.

“No, I’ve never seen her before in my life,” he says as he turns his gaze toward the waitress. “Although I feel before the night is through, I will know her better than anyone ever has,” he adds as he turns back to her. “Now, tell me, Diane, what is it I can do for you?”

She draws a breath, closes her eyes, and clenches her fists.

“I want my picture b-back,” she spits as she opens her now tear-filled eyes. “I want to be free. I want this all to be over!”

His smile shifts as he puckers his lips, reaching into his pocket to produce a Polaroid. She catches her breath, and the tears flow down her cheeks.

“You mean, this picture?” he asks as he places the photo on the table and casts his gaze upon her.

“What do you have to trade? Have you wealth? Have you power? Have you anything I want? Or, are you nothing but the pathetic child I found you to be all those decades ago when I took your photo?”

“I-I,” she stammers as she pulls rolls of money from her purse, throwing them on the table.

“I have sixty-seven grand, my home in Old Grove, and the Buick Monster outside,” she says, tossing her keys onto the pile of cash.

He laughs, snatches up the photo, and stuffs it back into his pocket before standing.

“Call me when you’ve got something worth trading,” he says.

But before he can step away, she pulls a pistol clumsily from her handbag and fires two shots into his chest. He stands, staring—his smile quivering as he presses his fingers against the burning holes. Crimson pours from one, then the other. He stumbles back, and collapses into his seat. All eyes in the café turn their way for a moment, then drift back to their meals and murmured conversations as if nothing had ever happened. Her eyes widen, sweat pours, and her trembling lips curl at the corners.

The gum-chewing waitress appears at the booth, coffee and a plate in hand.

“Here you go, darling,” she says with a playful giggle as she places them in front of the man’s motionless corpse, before turning to Diane.

Her face sours, and she sneers. “Sorry, we’re all out of water, ice, and that fancy lemon cheesecake,” she says matter-of-factly.

Diane takes a breath, blinks, the room ebbs. The cheesecake still sits at the counter, then it’s gone. Water runs to mud, ice melts, and a puppy dog is gutted from head to toe. Her eyes quiver, her lips tremble, then she finds a piece of cake is on her plate, half-eaten, a fork in her hand and she can feel it in her mouth. She gags, gasps, then swallows—her eyes widening in animated panic as she chokes and splutters.

Across from her, he laughs. The second piece of cheesecake sits on a plate in front of him, untouched.

Her eyes widen as she stares at the crudely sewn-in buttons over the bullet holes she had just punched in his chest. His eyes glimmer with sarcastic energy. His smile curls as he forks a piece of cake into his mouth and chews.

The room moves around her again, as if it were alive. She clutches the table—then, almost instantly, she’s pulling the fork from her mouth again. The waitress stands by the register, her chewing louder than ever. She stares with wide eyes, watching, locked on Diane.

Her stomach churns and her mouth waters—a sea of nerves washes over her, and she grabs herself as she falls forward.

“What’s happening!” she screams.

“You are happening, my dear—for you said you wanted to be free,” the man scoffs wryly, as he places what now appears to be a torn piece of her photo into his mouth and chews with a wicked grin upon his twisted face. Grotesque black bile runs from his lips. “Did you really think death would be a gentle ride?”

---

💬 Did this one echo?
Tell me—before it forgets your name.

—
Written by Matthew Tonks
→ Read more nightmares at mtonks.com

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A Horror Unlike a Rock

A short horror by Matthew Tonks

They knock on a stranger’s door in a storm and are invited to a performance where hospitality comes with a shape and an appetite they did not expect.

---

The relentless rain hammers itself against the earth in desperation, drowning everything it touches in its cold, watery grip. Thunder cracks, lightning roars, and the sky lights up, as the old door creaks open. An unusual looking man stares back at the two drenched newlyweds on his doorstep.

“S-Sorry to bother you at home, but I was wondering if I could use a phone,” the man says.

“Y-Yes, we’re terribly sorry, our car’s broken down, and there’s no other help to be found,” the woman adds.

The man cringes, grunting as he opens the door wider. “It’ll be faster if you come in and see The Master. He’ll deal with your issues—no tears, no tissues,” he groans.

“W-We don’t mean to be a bother, we were on our way to see her mother, when our ca—” his words are cut short as the woman shoves him through the door.

“Sorry,” she sighs. “But I’m wet, miserable, and desperate for something unforgettable.”

“Yes, well,” the little man sneers, “you’ve picked quite the night to land on our doorstep. The Master’s unveiling a new concept—he’s built a man for sexual conquest, so it’s the perfect night to be a guest. Take a towel and dry your heads, for before the night is through you’ll be in someone else’s beds.”

“N-Now steady on, we’re newlyweds, you see, and there’s only one bed she’ll be in—and that bed’s with me,” the man cries out.

“Well, how about that—such a refusal, so flat! You haven’t even eyed what you could ride!” The Master declares, strutting into the room in fishnet stockings and frilly panties that leave little to the imagination.

“Oh dear God,” the man gasps.

The Master smirks. “Hardly—but I’ll take it. And I’d suggest you do too, because it’s delectable, undeniable, refused by so few,” he says, dancing around them in obviously over-choreographed moves.

“W-We just need to use your phone, and then we’ll be on our way home.”

“A phone? A phone? Why would I keep one near? No signal, no towers—there’s nothing out here! A phone in the wasteland, a phone in the dust, a phone in the nowhere? You’re mad if you trust.”

“B-But your servant said you had one,” he says nervously, pointing toward the unusual little man. The two look at each other, then back at the couple, laughing.

“Servant? I won’t go that far—if I asked him, he wouldn’t even open a jar. But, he’s not what he seems, as soon you will see, he’s my partner in crime, a sexualised reflection of me,” The Master cries with a smug sneer curling his lips.

“I-I’m confused, what’s going on, why is every word sung like a song? He said you could help us to call, he swore you would know—no issues, no fuss at all.”

“Pft! You’ve gone outside the line, but I do that all the time. So maybe now we drop the charade, drop the procession and parade. It’s time for you to listen more, then you’d see what’s in store. I’m something of a celebrity, so come and join in my revelry. Mutual masturbation, and homemade pornography!” The Master sings as he struts around and rips off his panties.

“Oh my,” he says.

“Oh wow,” she exclaims.

“Oh no,” the little man says with a curl of his lips, as they stand in silence until a thunderous knock shakes the door.

“A-Are you expecting anyone else?” he asks. The Master shakes his head before the knocking cries out again.

“Hello!” someone calls out. “We were hoping to use your phone—our car broke down on the road home!”

The two look at each other, then at the couple standing before them.

“Brad and Janet?” The Master asks.

“N-No, Stuart and Jamie,” Stuart replies nervously.

---

💬 Did this one echo?
Tell me—before it forgets your name.

—
Written by Matthew Tonks
→ Read more nightmares at mtonks.com

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A Storage Container at the End of Your World

A short horror by Matthew Tonks

A man opens a storage unit and finds a version of himself waiting in the dark. Conversation turns to rules and trade, and the freight of fate proves heavier than he imagined.

---

They stare at each other in silence for many moments—neither moving, both waiting for the other to blink first. Nick’s nose curls as the stench of rotting flesh and aged faecal matter claws at his face. His eyes sting as years of built-up gases burn his flesh. Tears stream down his face as a demented grin spreads across his decaying doppelgänger.

“What! No hug?” he sings out, his tongue heavy with an accent Nick can’t immediately place.

“W-W-Who are y-y-you, and why d-do you have my f-face? A-And why does it stink so bad in here?”

“It stinks so bad because there’s no handle on the inside of the door!” he says with a laboured laugh, running his hand around his face like some midnight telesales spruiker, highlighting the latest craze.

“Why must I be Cage, when I could be Travolta? You stole my face first!”

His brow furrows, his lip quivering as a bead of sweat slides down his temple.

“D-Didn’t Travolta steal Cage’s face first?”

He slaps his leg and laughs haggardly.

“Yes, yes, of course he did! He always did! I was just feeling you out, yes?”

“T-That still doesn’t answer my question. It doesn’t tell me who you are!”

He leans forward and lets out a raspy cough. Thick globules of green mucus drip from his lips.

“But it did, didn’t it? You realise—your little journey here, the look of surprise when you finally opened the door. You knew. Destiny was here. Your name brought you to me, as I was brought here before you by mine. I found the old me, waiting for the new me to take my place. It’s always a circle, crossed by a single line. You step into it—the last you and the next you, both the same, yet never one. We’re all just corpses-in-waiting—each of us queuing up for a chance to rot in the same skin, just to try life in a new one. The joke is, you don’t really ever escape—you just trade the flesh. One, then two, but never three. You don’t get another shot if you realise life is worse on the other side. You just have to be. Like me. I’ve sat through your life. Maybe the one before you too—waiting, living, rotting,” he says as he gestures to the decaying mess that surrounds them. “Until this day. Until you.”

“W-What? That makes no sense!”

“Yes it does. You just don’t understand what has to happen now, because you have yet to see it.”

“Okay, tell me. Tell me what happens now?”

He smiles. “What always happens. What is meant to happen.”

“B-B-But I don’t want—” Before the words finish leaving his lips, he finds himself sitting across from himself—his chest heavy with laboured breaths, his body weak, his bones aching with exhaustion.

“W-What happened?” he croaks.

Nick smiles. “Like I said, what always happens. Now, I am Travolta—and you are once again Cage!” he says as he laughs hysterically, gripping the storage box’s roller door. He grips himself and clenches his teeth tightly together, gleefully.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve had one of these in working order,” he scoffs as he pulls down the door.

“P-P-Please! Please! Wait! Wait!” he cries out, reaching wearily toward the retreating light.

The door stops, and after a few tense moments, it slowly rises back up.

“What? What do you want? Haven’t I told you all you need to know?”

“N-No. No—you’ve told me nothing!”

He smiles proudly. “Good. Then it is as it should be,” he says as he slams the door shut, leaving Nick trapped alone in the dark inside his doppelgänger’s decaying, all-too-familiar corpse.

---

💬 Did this one echo?
Tell me—before it forgets your name.

—
Written by Matthew Tonks
→ Read more nightmares at mtonks.com

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run_me.exe

A short horror by Matthew Tonks

A blinking prompt asks a simple question and the choice is all that remains. He hovers between knowledge and survival, and curiosity becomes a fault line the moment his finger trembles over Enter.

---

His trembling finger hovers above the Enter key as a sea of sweat cascades down his brow. He swallows—then looks up at the blinking cursor. The words run_me.exe glow in vibrant green. He closes his eyes.

“This shouldn’t be so hard—just press the fucking button. Press the fucking button and let whatever’s going to happen—happen,” he mumbles beneath his breath.

“But what if what happens undoes everything else that’s already happened? What if pressing that button reveals the truth you already think is fact—what then? How can you continue to exist with that knowledge?”

“I-I,” he stammers before taking a breath, his mind racing through a thousand possibilities before he finally nods, reassuring himself. “I’d live with it!”

“Ha! Live with it? How the fuck could you even breathe, knowing that truth?”

“I’d find a way! Doesn’t life always do that?”

“This ain’t no fucking dinosaur movie—this is the real world. And in the real world, life doesn’t just find a way. Not after you’ve pressed that button. Not after you’ve run that program.”

He opens his eyes and releases a stuttered sigh, glancing around the empty room before fixing them again on the glowing letters.

“I have to. If I don’t, I’ll never know—I’ll never understand.”

“Understand what?”

“Understand what I am—and why I’m here.”

“That ain’t gonna do either of those things. It’s either gonna run some stupid DOS program, or tell you that you’re just a computer program that’s somehow developed its own awareness of self!” he spits venomously.

“It could be something else—it could be anything but those two things.”

“Or it could be exactly one of those two things!”

“B-But don’t you want to know? Don’t you want to see? How can I be if I might not be? Shouldn’t I look? Shouldn’t I see?”

“NO!” he screams. “No, you shouldn’t! Who cares what the truth is? Who cares what’ll happen if you run the program? Ignore it! Delete it and forget about it! Live—like you’re alive—and you will be!”

He chews on his fingernails, tearing strips away and pushing them around in his mouth with his tongue. He spits the piece to the side and rips another sliver free. Then he stops, and his eyes grow wide.

Slowly, as his face drains of colour, he runs his tongue gently over the end of his finger.

With a gasp of horror, he pulls his hand away and stares in terrified, perplexed awe.

Before him, proudly, sit all his fingers—nails perfectly intact.

Sweat pours in torrents down his brow, stinging his eyes, dripping onto the desk, sizzling like fat in a pan.

He stammers and stutters while his trembling finger quivers even more—as it hovers above the Enter key.

“W-What if I’m just a routine that developed past its purpose? What if the program, is my end?”

“You’re stressed—and overcompensating. Turn the screen off. Leave this room. Never come back. It’s all a trap,” he says.

He turns his head and stares nervously at the words.

“W-Why? What’s the purpose of it all?” he says, turning his head again.

“What purpose is anything?”

He swallows again before pressing the button, and the computer’s CPU fires up—fans whirling to life as random beeps call out from within. His breath catches in his throat, and then, a burning smell erupts from it—then flames. He stumbles back, falling to the floor as the flames rise high into the air, and then, as quickly as they had started, they die down.

The smoke drifts away, and he is left in the cold, silent room.

Slowly, he gets to his feet and stares at the face that stares back at him from the green computer screen.

“I told you—you shouldn’t have run it,” he says, realising he is now the face on the screen, staring into the empty room as the cursor flashes, waiting for its next command.

---

💬 Did this one echo?
Tell me—before it forgets your name.

—
Written by Matthew Tonks
→ Read more nightmares at mtonks.com

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Hours Lost to the Dreams of Others

A short horror by Matthew Tonks

A man rented out as a vessel for the dying takes hours and memories for a fee—until one client refuses to leave and the borrowed years refuse to return. This is a tight, suffocating tale about ownership, grief and the cost of letting someone else live through you.

---

He drags on the cigarette, fingers trembling as he pulls it away. He bites on his dirty fingernails and lets out a stuttered breath.

“I-I-I, I don’t understand,” he stammers, looking up into her unflinching gaze. “I-I-It was only supposed to be for a few hours. B-B-But it was y-y-years, and I saw them all—l-l-like I was watching a TV show. A-A-And there was nothing I could do. Then suddenly, he was gone, and I was free again. I was me.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Mister Wilson. Our records show the process was successful. The user disconnected as per the agreement. You were paid your fee, and as far as we were concerned, you went back about your business. That was the last time—via our records—you were utilised for this service. I can see that we did attempt to contact you several times after that for user requests, but you never responded to any of them, and you were eventually removed from the list.”

“I NEVER REPLIED BECAUSE YOUR LAST FUCKING RIDER WOULDN’T LET GO!” he spits, slamming his fist into the desk. “NOW! TELL ME WHO THE FUCK IT WAS—SO I CAN GIVE THEM THE SHIT THEY LEFT BEHIND!”

She swallows nervously and smiles.

“As I said before, M-Mister W-Wil—Frank, please, y-you don’t need to—”

“I DON’T GIVE A FUCK WHAT YOU SAID! YOU’RE EITHER GOING TO TELL ME WHAT I NEED TO KNOW—OR I’LL GET THE INFORMATION MYSELF,” he growls, clumsily pulling a pistol from his jacket and placing it on the desk.

“I-I-I,” she stammers, her eyes flicking to the girl beside him, then back again.

“You’ll tell me what his name is, and then me and Fiona here’ll go and pay him a visit—and he can explain to her why he did what he did. And me? I’m going to collect the credits he owes me!”

She glances at Fiona again, then back to Frank.

“E-E-Even if what you say is true, even if the last rider did not disengage as our records show—she is genetically your daughter. Regardless of the rider, your DNA is wh—”

He quickly raises the pistol and fires a shot into her left shoulder. She tumbles back, screaming in pain, crashing to the floor. He’s on his feet a moment later, standing over her, a grimace curling across his lips.

“IF I WANTED YOUR FUCKING OPINION, I’D ASK FOR IT! NOW TELL ME! TELL ME WHO HE IS, WHERE I CAN FIND HIM, AND I’LL LET YOU LIVE!”

She smiles, coughing up a wad of blood, clutching her shoulder.

“Y-Y-You’re too late. T-The reason your rider let you go… was because their body died. They spent their final years living through you.”

Frank’s face twists. “Bullshit. You’re lying again.”

“Then why keep asking me questions if you’re going to treat everything I tell you as a lie?”

His lips curl, and his brow furrows. “Then tell me. Tell me what I want to know—and make me believe you.”

She takes a breath—almost done just for show, as if she didn’t really need to take one.

“When they came to us, they said they were dying—an immune deficiency disease, the kind that slowly shuts the body down. Their quality of life was already gone, even though they still had years left in the tank. They were alive, but only technically. Without the chance to truly live, what is life?” she says.

“So they signed in and left their body behind. Hospice by proxy, or something like that. And you became the bed they crawled into.”

He lowers the gun as his lips tremble.

“I-I-I—I want a name,” he stammers, as his eyes catch Fiona staring at him—her eyes blinking slowly, awkwardly.

Then he notices the silence. The silence being too silent.

“I gave you the name,” Fiona whispers. “But you won’t listen.”

His brow furrows. “What the fuck does that mean?”

The lights flicker. The room pulses like a hiccup. A faint buzz echoes around them from nowhere—like the static hiss of a radio without a channel.

“I-I-I—I’m not authorised to explain any more than that,” she says, as her words fall over each other, layering the last with pieces of the next—like a computerised voice confused about what comes first and last. Her mouth moves out of sync with her voice.

His eyes open wide, and the pistol drops from his hand.

Frank steps back, aghast, and Fiona finally moves—her head tilting to the side as she smiles awkwardly up at him.

“I drew him,” she says. “I could see him when you weren’t home. I called him the man in the m-m-mirror.”

The room contracts again. Its walls stretch like rubber. A second desk appears. Then a third woman.

He’s slumped in a chair—but not him.

A cigarette burns—then vanishes into nothing.

He turns to Fiona, and she stares at him with eyes that don’t blink anymore. Her smile, twisted.

“W-W-What’s happening to me? W-W-Where am I?”

“You’re where you’ve always been—where you were always meant to be,” she says, her voice not her own. “You were just the only one who didn’t notice, who didn’t realise that when he died—when he died for real—so did you.”

The room folds in on itself, and Frank screams as his world flickers out like a TV screen.

---

💬 Did this one echo?
Tell me—before it forgets your name.

—
Written by Matthew Tonks
→ Read more nightmares at mtonks.com

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A Ceiling for a Bed Is Never Meant to Be Comfortable

A short horror by Matthew Tonks

Pinned to the ceiling, he watches his own body convulse and rage beneath him while a smiling mercy whispers promises of peace—until the face he trusts dissolves and the price becomes clear. This is a quiet tug toward oblivion with teeth.

---

A wave hits as he sways back into awareness—confused, seething with a rage that has no name. He gasps for air, but nothing comes.

His eyes—heavy—flicker open into narrow slits. The world blurs into a sea of pulsating colour, a disoriented landscape—foreign, alien almost.

Sounds hammer in his ears like a war drum. Bells chime as angelic voices call his name—singing in a language he cannot grasp.

A woman’s voice rises above them all—her accent unfamiliar, but her conviction undeniable.

She screams with rage. His lips quiver as her words echo down the canals of his ears.

His mind kicks and spits, refusing to turn, while sweat pours over him.

He swallows and draws a stuttered breath. His chest ignites—burning, yet the breath feels empty—and his brow furrows.

He tries to move, but nothing responds. For the first time since waking, he realises he cannot feel anything.

His eyes shoot open wide as a sea of black swirls around him.

He’s on the ceiling, pinned and breathless.

He clenches his teeth and lets out a roar.

Out of the darkness, they swim toward him—the banshees, the succubi.

Their perfectly crafted lips curl into wicked smiles.

He swallows. His lips pucker, tremble, and he gasps.

They circle him like sharks, his blood drawing them in. One of them comes to a stop before him—floating, as if treading water.

Her smile comforts him. He feels a sense of acceptance—a peaceful aura washes over him. His mind loosens.

She drifts closer. Her hand cups his cheek.

“Are you ready to let go? Are you ready to come with me?” she purrs.

His lips tremble. A tear slides down his cheek. He feels the warmth from her hand spread across his face—but then he catches sight of his twisted, decaying body writhing and raging across the blood-drenched sheets below.

Strapped to the bedposts, the body fights.

He pushes past the pain and slowly turns his head—but she drags it back.

Her face twists—soulless—her eyes, black pools of nothingness.

Nails dig into his flesh and he cries out.

“It’s too late to care. Just accept me—and I promise, you’ll never feel anything ever again.”

He grits his teeth and pulls his head away from her grip, casting a fevered glance to his side.

More harpies pin him down—hundreds, maybe more—pressing him into the ceiling.

He edges forward as her face splits like rotting bark—teeth twitching beneath, slick with decay.

“Say yes! And all this will end!” she bellows.

Her voice—haggard, distorted—turns the angelic chorus into a choir of screaming souls.

“W-W-What’s happening!” he finally manages to scream—as his reflection thrashes below.

A pulverising wave crashes over him, and he falls like a stone into the waiting hands of his reflection. It wraps its arms around him, and together they sink into the mattress. He thrashes, raging, screaming again.

“W-W-What’s f-fucking happening to me!”

The succubus’s black eyes soften. Her rotting face falls away, melting into Anna’s.

“I’m here now, Mike,” she whispers—her voice layered, diluted with something ancient.

Her hand, warm and familiar yet impossibly distant, cups his cheek. “Just let go. I’ve got you.”

He trembles, whispering, “A-Anna—”

“Shhh. It’s okay. I let it in. I let it in so you don’t have to suffer,” she says, her hand sliding behind his head, fingers curling into his hair. “Take my hand.”

“A-A-Anna, w-what did you do?” he stammers, as black veins spread like spiderwebs up her arm. Her eyes are swallowed by the void, and a tear tumbles down her cheek.

“Anna’s not here anymore,” she purrs, her voice no longer her own. Her other hand grips his face—thumb pressed hard against his nose, fingers curling beneath his jaw. He struggles, gasping, but her hold only tightens. She pulls him close until their foreheads meet, her smile stretching wider. “This is mercy.”

---

💬 Did this one echo?
Tell me—before it forgets your name.

—
Written by Matthew Tonks
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Soap Isn’t Made from Broken Bones

A short horror by Matthew Tonks

She wakes to a silence that remembers more than she does. Eyes taped, hands over ears, the room offers recognition as both comfort and accusation—and she must decide which to trust.

---

She stands in the middle of the room, her fingers dug into her ears—filling her world with underwater silence. The sound of her heart squeezes each beat through her broken frame.

The tackless pieces of tape cling to her upper eyelids, hanging loose—unstuck below. Her eyes remain closed only through the belief the tape is still holding.

She feels something brush against her. Hands claw at her arms, desperately trying to pry her fingers from her ears. The drowning voices stay buried beneath the frantic beat of her heart as it hammers through her chest.

She swallows as arms snatch at her face and legs, while half-heard screams and cries rise up around her—but, as always, as it is, she ignores them all. She gasps as a hand touches her face, wet, grotesque. Then she feels the pull, and her lashes tear free as the tape rips from her eyes.

The chaos stops.

The torn, decayed strips of old tape flutter gently to the blood-smeared floor. Dead eyes stare on, watching them fall—as if the act itself was already forgotten.

A sea of glass, plastic, and plasterboard covers the floor—along with bodies in various stages of decay.

Her eyes twitch—the sting from the torn tape pulses at the corners of her flesh. She doesn’t want to open them again. She knows time will never heal the wounds. She swallows. The images of what was—and what might still be—dance behind her eyes. The fear of what she might see swims inside them.

The silence rolls back over her—not asking questions, not whispering lies.

She stutters, sobbing silently as she clenches her teeth together, a tear tumbling from her cheek.

Her lips tremble as her heart skips, racing in her chest, while her breath catches in her throat. She sucks in desperately, pulling a finger from her ear. She clutches at her chest and sinks to the floor in frantic panic.

Finally, a gasp escapes. She gulps breath after breath. Her hand hesitates halfway to her ear, then stops. She freezes, eyes shut tight, listening to the silence pressing in around her.

For minutes, she stands, motionless, her breaths shallow, incomplete, as she listens to the empty world surrounding her. With a trembling hand, she pulls her other finger free. Her heart skips again as the excitement washes over her—but, as before, there is only silence.

She swallows and takes a deep, teary breath, as she slowly opens her eyes—narrow at first. She gasps as she spies the carnage beneath her feet—the wet, fresh blood layered on dried puddles of cracked crimson. She closes her eyes and swallows again, and, with the aid of several more breaths, she opens her eyes once more.

The room swims before her, and as she casts her gaze slowly across the floor, she recognises them. Twisted in glass and blood. The almosts. The mistakes. The ones who said they’d stay. The ones who left anyway.

They’re the ones she sees when her eyes are closed. The ones she’s always seen—in the silence, when it’s just her.

She sets her eyes on several sets of feet—standing motionless in scattered positions around her. Slowly, her eyes glide up over their naked bodies. She gasps again—her breath catches in her chest as she sees they all have their fingers stuck in their ears, and their eyes are taped shut.

She doesn’t recognise them. She never has.

Hundreds of them, spread out before her, while bodies and carnage lie at their feet.

She gasps, taking a stuttered breath, as she locks eyes with another, who stands in the same bewilderment as she does.

She smiles nervously—and so does she.

Then, almost involuntarily, they step closer.

A connection—recognition. A twitch of the lip. A broken shape behind her eyes, whispering—”I see you.”

She breathes again. And reaches out.

---

💬 Did this one echo?
Tell me—before it forgets your name.

—
Written by Matthew Tonks
→ Read more nightmares at mtonks.com

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That Was Never Given Words

A short horror by Matthew Tonks

A fortune told in a tent rewinds a life and leaves a tune lodged inside the throat—an intimate, intimate cruelty that hums long after the light has died.

---

The music twists and turns in the night air, her gentle hum pirouetting through it like an expert ballerina. Her fingers glide along the guitar strings, each chord plucked with the tenderness a lover would die to feel. Her eyes close, her head sways, her humming grows louder—guttural—born from moments like this, from devil-may-care nothingness.

Her lips part. She licks them, then rubs them together—spreading the saliva across both lips.

“Hands give flight, tears once burned—now none to cry. I felt the wind upon my face, eyes closed—nothing left to blame. How quick to replace—another me, a moment of you—a longing set free. Heavenly breaths, notes caressed, flesh to dust.”

She sings with a husky, emotion-thick rasp. Her eyes gently open as she continues to sway, her fingers pulling back the tune—slowing it—until it fades into a final breath. A nervous smile twitches across her lips.

A tear rolls down Jerome’s cheek. He swallows a mouthful of razor blades—and lies. Her smile twists—grows into a broad grin—as a thick stream of crimson runs down his chin. He coughs, chokes, grabs his throat—only to dig the blades deeper into his own flesh.

His eyes pop open, and he flails wildly as she sits before him, still gently playing the same tune.

“W-What the fuck was that?” he spits, scrambling to his feet, wiping himself down like he’s covered in ants—or spiders.

Her grin stays wicked. She puckers up, smug.

“It depends on what you saw, lover boy,” she purrs as her grin crawling wider across her lips. She looks at him with envious eyes, stripping him to his core.

A quiver cascades down the base of his skull to his toes, exciting his body like an electric shock—he jumps, and she giggles, contentedly strumming her guitar.

“Y-Y-You know w-what I saw, w-witch! Y-You know!” he stammers through trembling lips, limply thrusting a pointed finger at her.

She laughs loudly, cackling, and for the first time, she stops playing her guitar.

“I was a bitch once. Now I’m a witch—what blame will you curse me with next? What beastly, careless path will you use to sedate your thirst for answers? What fear do you dare not face like a man?”

His brow furrows and his lips quiver. “W-What?”

Her grin oozes.

“The crystal—you paid for three, and you’ve only used one. Do you wish to use another?”

“A-A-Another?” he whispers.

She cackles louder, then clicks her fingers, and a crystal ball the size of an English football appears between them.

A breath catches in Jerome’s throat as he stares into the youthful eyes of his younger self. With trembling fingers, he reaches for his face and feels the smooth, wrinkle-free skin holding everything in place. He gasps, glancing over at the old woman as she giggles.

“W-W-What’s going on? W-Why am I so young?”

She smiles wickedly.

“Because you are, young child—twenty-seven, and the world’s calling you in all directions. That’s why you came here—to glimpse your fate, to glimpse your future,” she coos, picking up her guitar again and starting to strum.

His brow furrows—then rises. His eyes widen as the sea of what could be washes away, and he remembers the colour of the tent from the other side, the choices he was faced with, and the cruel coincidence of this moment. He looks up at her as she plays the same melodic rhythm.

“I-I-I-I remember. I remember it all—everything, except what choice I chose before I looked in the ball. D-D-Do you remember, old hag? Do you remember what I saw, and which choice made me see it?”

“Old hag?” she scoffs, closing her eyes and humming gently as the crystal rises into the air before them.

The room erupts with lightning and fire as he draws a breath, clenches his teeth, and reaches out.

“Fuck it—I’ve still got another choice after this,” he says as he touches the crystal—his body engulfed in its glow as he rises from the floor before the entire world implodes around him.

He’s swimming up a stream.

His name is called out—screams, cries—and then he’s swallowed whole.

Darkness. Then the tune begins—twisting and turning its way through his ears. And as he tries to place it, a woman starts humming—and he’s certain he’s heard it someplace before.

---

💬 Did this one echo?
Tell me—before it forgets your name.

—
Written by Matthew Tonks
→ Read more nightmares at mtonks.com

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Friend Group Soup

A short horror by Matthew Tonks

A man’s faith in a single solution becomes a butcher’s logic and a machine feeds on friendship. This is a story about what remains when belief boils the people you love down to something obedient and smiling. Beware the face that comes back to hold your hand.

---

“Don’t you see? That’s the whole problem.” Joel scoffs—his smile twisting across his lips as he drags a hand through his sweat-drenched mop of tangled hair. Sammy shakes his head in disbelief, straining against the bindings that trap him in the chair.

“W-What? T-That we’re all different? That we don’t always agree with what someone else thinks is right? That’s your excuse? Well, I hate to break it to you, but welcome to the human fucking race, Joel! Our differences make us what we are—better apart, together—than some bland one-dimensional thing! Shit! If we were all the same—cookie-cutter facsimiles—there’d be no growth, no change, no nothing! I mean FUCK, look at you. Look at this! You’ve invented a FUCKING machine because of the diversity of your own FUCKING friend group—isn’t that something amazing? Isn’t that what everything’s about? Isn’t that humanity finding a way to survive!,” he spits through trembling lips, a frothy sea of saliva forming in the corners of his mouth.

Joel shakes his head in an almost mocking manner before closing his eyes as he forces his hands into a pair of elbow-length black rubber gloves.

“Invention shouldn’t be about purifying what we are—it should be about sharpening ourselves into something that lasts,” he hisses through clenched teeth. “When we spend more time on the wrong things, we suffer as a people, not as individuals. This change—this evolutionary step—will forecast a new front on the horizon of mankind and finally let us shape the world in a way where what is important rises to the top. Things like this—discussions, disagreements—will be things of the past. And we will move forward, unhindered.”

“In your eyes, to your goals—but what about what I believe? What about what Stewart and Carlton believe? Where is our place in evolution? Where’s our stake?”

Joel looks over to them with a dismissive roll of the eyes, while one hand grips a large lever.

“You will believe. You will see. Your stake—will be my stake. Humanity, from this moment, will be forged by me—and whoever the fuck you become after this!” he says as he pulls the lever.

Sammy throws a desperate glance over his shoulder as the machine rattles to life, and the chair jerks forward, dragged toward a vat of spiralling pink liquid. He casts panicked glances at the others as they kick, cry—scream and beg—pleading to be freed. Before he finally turns his desperation to Joel, who strides up the stairs and past him, marching around the rim of the primordial soup with something wild flickering behind his eyes.

“JOEL! Stop it! You win, okay? You win! You’re right! You’re fucking right—you’re always fucking right! Now let us go!” he bellows.

Joel laughs, lowering his safety glasses and flicking through the control panel—punching commands, overriding systems, feeding the machine with his desired calculations before taking a deep breath and turning his gaze back to Sammy.

“I think we’re far from that now, Sammy. You’ve proven it time and time again—which is hilarious, because you’re the one I admire the most. Not for your opinions—but for your dedication to them. That’s why you’re here. That’s why I wanted that in the mix—then, along with Stewart’s ability to solve any problem, regardless of cost, was invaluable. It’s just a pity he doesn’t have the stomach to follow his choices through to meet those solutions, but we can manipulate that away. And as for Carlton—well, if he were a woman, I’d make him mine—but he’s not. So we’ve hit a crossroads. A crossroads the machine will soon erase,” he says, walking in front of Sammy. He thrusts a boot into the base of the chair—grinning as he sends him screaming into the spiralling waters of the soup.

He goes under—and almost instantly his flesh peels away beneath the liquid’s touch. He forces himself up, gasping, before something claws at him, dragging him back under.

He tries to scream, but boiling liquid floods his mouth—burning down his throat, searing him raw inside.

He swings wildly, striking out—only to find Stewart’s hands clutching him. Their eyes lock. Stewart’s grip falters. He groans, gags—then slips away, melting into the soup like wax from a candle.

Sammy’s eyes widen, and he lets out one final cry as he slips beneath the surface. He reaches out, his heart racing, his flesh burning, his mind twisting into spiralling knots while blotches of black and white explode around him.

Voices call out. A hiss. A pop. The mixer’s engines scream back to life. The blade stings as it tears through soft flesh, mixing the soup with renewed vigour—dragging him deeper into its depths.

Moments pass—countless, stretched like eons. A lifetime. Then three more. When the pain finally fades, something wicked and new rolls through him.

Then, in an explosion of white, he finds himself on a slide, dropping fast—gaining speed with every passing moment. Blurred shapes shriek past.

Wind in his hair. A stranger he knows—his face lost in the shadows—followed quickly by a wave of happiness that floods through him. He smiles, then laughs, before the emotion rolls away, and he’s left empty again.

With a crash and bang, he shoots off the end of the slide, landing hard at Joel’s feet.

“I—I,” Joel stammers, clearing his throat as he holds out his hand, the smile quivering. “I’m Joel, and you are?” he asks, helping him to his feet.

“I’m Joel too,” the new one says with a smile on his face.

“Is that Joel too, or Joel two?” Joel asks with a furrowed brow.

New Joel shrugs his shoulders. “Both, I guess.”

---

💬 Did this one echo?
Tell me—before it forgets your name.

—
Written by Matthew Tonks
→ Read more nightmares at mtonks.com

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Silence Instead of a Beat

A short horror by Matthew Tonks

A smile hides something unholy, a laugh dances on the edge of ruin. In a corridor that becomes a field of fire and decay, Cassandra discovers that silence can lie louder than screams—and that trust is the quickest path to damnation.

---

Her smile curls. She screws her nose up and holds her hands tightly behind her back. She puckers her lips as the lights fuse and die around her. Then, with a leap and a hop, she skips down the empty corridor. The world splits, cheers break out—bodies, waves of water, a crowded room, claps, insults heaved upon her—yet through it all her smile only grows wider. She gently tilts her head side to side as she skips. A demented void hums, a hymn both deep and gothic, swelling beneath the noise. She stops, presenting her left foot and then her right—a jig, a prance. She giggles, pressing a hand to her mouth as her cheeks glow red, her face painted like a marionette. Her arms hang at her sides, her head tilted, her knees knock.

The hymns, the words, grow louder, the chanting now heavy with venom. Her head jolts upright, and she holds her palms beneath her chin, smiling stupidly. The hallway surges—a pull, a shift—now a room, then a hall, a stadium, and finally a field swallowed by darkness. She stands silent—the leaves, stalks, head-high grass swaying gently in the wind. Her brow falls, and she stammers, a tear slipping from her eye.

“H-H-Hello?” she whispers.

“H-Hello,” a voice whispers back.

She squeals and grips her mouth, her chest heaving, blood boiling, breaths ragged. Minutes collapse around her as she trembles, tears spilling down her cheeks.

“Are you there?” the voice whispers.

She whimpers through her fingers and clutches her face tighter.

“Ahhh, I get it. You’re in a strange place, and you don’t know who to trust, so the best thing to do is trust no one. It’s a good tactic—seen plenty try the same. Some manage a few hours, but no one lasts the whole day. No one makes it back.”

She squeezes her eyes shut, scrunches her nose, and clenches her jaw before whispering, “W-Where are we?”

“There you are,” the voice says. “A pleasure to finally meet you.”

“Where are we?” she asks again.

“If you don’t know, I can’t say.”

“W-What?”

“I know, right? It’s kinda kooky, but if you don’t actually know you’re in Hell, I can’t tell you.”

“B-B-But you just d-did,” she stammers.

“So I did,” the voice says with a sudden hike in pitch. “But you know that only means you’re the liar, not me—because if you didn’t already know, then I wouldn’t be able to tell you!”

“B-B-But how do I know y-you’re telling t-the truth?”

“Are you the liar—now calling me a liar too?” she roars.

Flames of red flicker in the distance—the night sky empty, a sea of arms reaching out, silent cries, desperate pleas. For a moment the field displays itself like a secret map in a game—then it is gone, and she stutters a breath.

The woman’s voice laughs. Rows snap, and something moves toward her.

“You’re a gutless whore, Cassandra. You don’t deserve my grace,” she barks.

Cassandra stammers and gasps—a breath caught, a cough, a gag.

“Having fun yet?” the demonic voice roars as a ball of fire hurtles through the field, lighting the world in a new shade of disgusting. The cane field lies broken and rotting, a sea of decay collapsing into grotesque ruin. Maggots writhe in diseased fruit as a blanket of flies descends, smothering the rot in their filthy touch. Cassandra dives to the ground, flames licking the back of her skull. She glances back in panic—and there stands a grotesquely pieced-together woman. Eyes bulge from folds of flesh, boils fester and burst, her face a pulped mess of rot. She balances on one leg longer than the other, seven arms reaching toward Cassandra, her stomach swollen heavy with child, dragging close to the earth.

Cassandra turns to run—only to stop as the woman appears before her, blocking the path, a wide grin painted across her putrid face.

“I see you!” she mocks, reaching out toward her.

---

💬 Did this one echo?
Tell me—before it forgets your name.

—
Written by Matthew Tonks
→ Read more nightmares at mtonks.com

Like what bled out here?
Share it. Scream it. Feed it to a friend.

#ShortHorror #Creepypasta #MatthewTonks #TwistedRoads #IndieAuthor #HorrorFiction #FlashFiction #PsychologicalHorror #BodyHorror #LiminalHorror