"Come on! You'll love it, I promise!" Katy said, reaching out to draw the heavy red curtain aside. "She's really good!"

I rolled my eyes. "Doubtful," I mumbled, wiping the sweat off my brow.

I was assaulted with an overpowering small of incense and the light tinkling of bells as we both stepped inside the cloying, smoky tent. And there she was, in all her predictable glory - the great Madam Kost...

First there was the strange smell like burnt leaves and cat piss. Then there was the wall of clown dolls. Holy John Wayne Gacy! Dolls are creepy enough. Jessie must’ve noticed my sour expression because her perpetual smile wavered.

“I think it’s sage, you know to cleanse the house of evil spirits,” Jessie said.

Just then decrepit one eyed tuxedo cat wandered into the living room and hissed at me...

“Bible basher!” some idiot laughs as they shove me into the wall.

Nothing’s changed, really. I am still the strange kid from the Catholic school ten minutes’ walk away, even if I’ve technically been missing for a couple of months. I am still someone who is different, someone easy to taunt, and that… well, that didn’t even change in Karatela.

But I guess I’m incredibly different, aren’t I?

Hones...

The flap to the tent fell with a heavy slap to my back. Layers of its red, lacy fabric muffled the commotion from outside. The stillness prickled, uneasy on the back of my neck.

My shoes sunk deep into the plush paisley rugs, and from the tent’s spire, a dim lamp dangled, the wire cage around it casting sharp shafts of orange light that did little to eliminate the shadows.

Sweet, perfumed smoke...

I step out of the room, and something feels different. The light brush of the wind against the tiny hair follicles on my body. The almost silent song of blades of grass rustling. I feel the ground beneath me, but also the ground for miles and miles more. All the way down to the center of the earth. I feel the tree roots reaching as far as they can, desperately hoping for more food, for another cha...

“im, what? this is too fake!” I scream at the psychic as I run out. It all sounds too much like a novel. A forgotten princess in a modern world. Right? I could see the novel. I write it off as a joke as I walk out. I remember what she said before I left

“maybe not a perfect novel. Be careful of the color.” It all just sounded like a joke, but as I walked out I screamed. The world was covered in a...

After meeting Madam Sombra de la Muerte, Ernest knew how to try to get money for his car. Looking online, he found a website of seance and studied everything to perform a ritual of the dead. He laughed as he wrote notes. “Like taking candy from a baby.” He took a towel from the bathroom and wrapped it into a turban and put heavy dark curtains in the family living room. His mother never minded his ...

“Oh come on let’s go in, besides I already paid them for this hour of the unknown” my so called friend said as he pulled me thru the

Smokey colored mysterious glass door. As we slithered slowly to the female that was sitting in front of some orange colored tapestry

that separated my life from hers my knees grew surprisingly weak. “Are you my next victim or perhaps not” she asked with a sly

G...

“Yes! There beside me. Allen say something” he stuttered but said nothing, he looked petrified (Allen is scared of cops)

“Young lady, I’m going to need to come with me,” said the cop

“WHY!”

“Because I think you have Dissociative disorder”

“What?” I said in a small voice, I had just learned about this in school. People with dissociative disorders escape reality in ways that are involuntary and ...

Allen (my best friend) believes in this crap, and they thought that we should go see the old hag who was coming to town in her pop-up shop. I told them like a million times that I didn’t want to go but they insisted.

“Fine!” I said Fed up with their asking. We were in my car, on our way to get some bubble tea. “When you want to go?” I asked with a sigh.

“Well………”

“What?”

“I kinda hack ed your ...