r/microhorrorstories

People always ask if I remember the last time I saw my best friend.

I do. We were ten, cutting through the woods behind our neighborhood, chasing the last light of summer. He stopped when someone called his name from between the trees.

I couldn't make out the figure's face, only its silhouette. He smiled, told me he'd be right back, and disappeared into the forest.

Thirty years later, I still wake up hearing his voice. Always reassuring me he'll be back.

The car always knew exactly how far out I was.

In my driveway, charging was almost free.

Twenty minutes out, a warning. The rate had doubled.

The dash claimed it was "load balancing." But it was 3am and every charger I passed was empty.

Nothing to balance.

I worked it out, at a charging station off the highway while watching a new message scroll across the dash.

"Upgrade subscription to premium for preferred pricing."

The price wasn't tracking demand, time or load.

It was tracking distance.

From my home.

The further I went, the more each mile cost to replace. Like the car was paying out slack on a leash...and billing me for the length.

I watched the rate fall on the drive home. Cheapest in my driveway.

I understand the arrangement now.

I can go anywhere I want. The battery just empties faster, and costs more to fill the further I get from where it can find me.

So I take short trips now.

Top up at home.

Stay in range.

I am being followed by a number.

I'm a teacher that went against the school curriculum. Now my students know how to read, write, count, analyse and critically think! And I am so proud of them. Now the principle and the other teachers are going to punish me. They are going to punish me by teaching me how to walk.

They put me in front of a machine that made me go a mile in the shoes of each of my students. I experienced their home trauma and now I am going through trauma, but when I was put in the class room, I was even more determined to go against the school curriculum.

I sluggishly turned around in bed and checked the alarm clock on the bedside table; 03:00am, just like every night.

The whimpers turned into cries, then wails. The sound echoed through the dark room, it burrowed deep into my ears and rang through my head.

I began to weep.

I threw the covers off of myself and shuffled out of bed, walked over to her, picked her up and cradled her in my arms, rocking her gently.

"Mummy's here baby, go back to sleep" I whispered.

After a while, the cries stopped.

I turned, placed the urn back on the shelf, climbed back under the covers and cried myself to sleep.

I looked down at the still-beating heart resting in my palm, its warm surface twitching between my fingers. Around me, shoppers casually filled their carts with bags of lungs, jars of eyes, and neatly packaged strips of human muscle.

"Fresh today," the clerk said, pointing to the display behind him.

I glanced at the label.

HUMAN HEART — FREE RANGE — NO ANTIBIOTICS — $8.99/LB

"Where do you get these?" I asked.

The clerk smiled.

"Local farms."

My employees are complaining about my smelly food and so I finally sorted it out. Using company money I installed an air controller and an oxygen booth that can fit 1 person.

So when I brought in smelly food and heated it, I quickly went into the oxygen booth, because in 5 minutes the air controller took all of the oxygen and air out of the office. Now no one gets to smell my smelly food.

Inside the chamber, I could feel everything: every heartbeat, every muscle fiber flexing, every drop of blood rushing through my veins. Yet there was no light, no sound, no pain, no taste, and no sensation beneath my feet. I wandered through an endless void, screaming until my throat went numb.

Behind the glass, the scientists watched the test subject.

>"His brain was completely destroyed six hours ago," one whispered.

Another stared at the monitors.

>"Then how is he still moving?"

I have to train my younger self who is going to replace me in my job, I couldn't allow that to happen as I needed this job as me and my wife have a new baby now. So working in underwater oil rigging, it's very easy to set someone up to fail and die.

When I set my younger self to make a fatal error which led to death, my children disappeared and as I started to disappear, I realised it's because I killed my younger self. This is what the managers wanted.

Then something grabbed me from behind and sank its teeth into my flesh, and I realized that I won't be making it till sunrise. I will become one of them. One with the hivemind.