MY LABYRINTH
Reader discretion advised.
Author already warned you.
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Welcome to My Labyrinth—my home for nightmares on paper: short, brutal stories that trap you fast, mess with your head, and don’t let you out the same way you came in.
A city boy, caught in a storm and injured, stumbled upon a cabin deep in the woods. Inside, a peaceful fire burned. A chair rocked back and forth. Safety from the storm… or so it seemed. When Oliver opened the wrong door, the cabin opened back.
Some doors should never be opened.
Jake survived the crash that killed his brother, and now every breath feels like theft. At home, grief curdles into cruelty, and the people who should protect him treat him like the mistake that lived. When a new girl at school sees straight through his silence, she offers something Jake hasn't felt in weeks: a way out. But the harder he reached for relief, the farther away it felt.
Hannah is good at keeping order, snacks, songs, and small hands safe, until a new child's first day arrives with a warning that feels more like a demand. But the less special she treats him, the more the child's mother's words echo in her head: Take care of Matthew. As the classroom routine starts to fray, Hannah realizes attention isn't kindness anymore; it's survival.
Some promises don't let you go.
Exhausted from another long shift, Nurse Alice only wants to help her patient. But when the hospital's regular elevator is out of service, she's forced to take the old one, a relic that creaks and groans as it carries her into the unknown.
And in the back of her mind, she can still hear the warning whispered to her by her patient: Don't get lost.
Austin wakes to a blaring alarm and a town too quiet to be normal. The same morning keeps snapping back into place, and something he can't name keeps watching from mirrors, windows, and shadows. The more he fights to stay in control, the more his reality frays, and his loved ones become collateral in a game he can't understand. When the day resets again, the question isn't how to escape… it's what it wants him to do.
I'm doing everything right. I show up to work. I go to class. I try to be a good boyfriend. I even keep my temper in check, which, frankly, should qualify me for some kind of award considering the number of assholes I encounter on a daily basis.
Do they even make those?
If not, they definitely should.
But lately, it feels like everyone's poking at me. Not enough to get caught, just enough to see if I'll react. A comment here, a look there, a casual little accusation slipped in like it's nothing. It adds up. It always adds up.
And I'm starting to think they've already made up their minds about me.
The funny part is, I know what really happened. I know how people act when they think no one's watching. I've seen it. I remember it.
They just don't like the idea of me saying it out loud.