r/shortstory

The Tide

A man sat in front of his laptop with a cracked screen, running on an external hard drive that was being cooled by a small summer fan. On the screen is a writing competition banner with a prize money of $100,000 for the best story, 50,000 for the runner up, and 10,000 for the third place. If that wasn't enough, numbers 4 to 10 will get 5,000 each and 11 to 30 will get 1,000 each. "My story can definitely make the top ten," he muttered to himself, "if I get that money I can pay off my debts and finally get rid of those pesky loan sharks along with that infuriating landlady."

As Colin continues to read, he gasped, "just hitting a 1,000 sales on Readers Merchant will get a spot in the top 30?" his eyes widened in disbelief, "oh, right, you need to be one of the first 30, phew, that nearly gave me a happy heart attack."

He then closed the tab and opened Pen Buddy, his trusty writing app, "This really came at the right time. Now all I need is to publish Legion on Readers Merchant and I'm rich... hahahahah! Damn I'm gonna be rich!"

Bang! bang!

"Quiet down you idiot, or have you finally gone mad so i can call the mental asylum for ya."

Colin's lips twitched, _fuck you!_ he really wanted to shout that out, but decided against it, whilst rubbing his bruised left cheek.

"Think you're tough huh, I'll show you," Colin muttered, as he opened the bookstore and started setting up his story for sale.

A few minutes later, Legion was up on sale and in just the first few minutes, it had already sold 10 copies. Seeing this a crazy grin appeared on his face.

"Shit, I forgot to register for the competition," he scrambled to pulled up the submission form from the website and filled it out, "phew, good thing they had a 10 minute buffer or I would have been screwed."

He then closed his laptop and went to sleep.

---

3 days later, "Let's see if I'm in the top thirty yet," Colin muttered as he opened the competition leaderboard, and after scanning it for a while he raised an eyebrow, "why am I not there yet?"

He then opened his Readers Merchant account,

[ Title: Legion ]

Genre: Fantasy

Rating: Unrated

[ Sales: 18 ]

"18 sales..., WHAT THE HELL IS EVERYONE THINKING, THAT'S THE BOOK OF THE CENTURY CAN'T YOU SEE THAT!!!" Colin shouted angrily.

Bam! His door suddenly swung open and a big man came in and grabbed his collar then lifted him off the ground to face him, "What did I tell you about shouting?" He asked calmly but every word laced with a threatening edge.

His neck bulged as he swallowed a lump of saliva, "nn, o, n-no, noise..." he stuttered in reply.

"Good that you remember, now let me make sure you save it properly," with those words, Paaa! A slap rang in the room and the man dropped him to the ground and left.

Colin then stood up with shaking steps, walked to close the door but just as he was about to close it he saw his girlfriend standing in the hallway looking at him with a blank expression.

"Lyla," he called, and she immediately snapped out of it, turned around and left without looking back.

"Lyll," he tried to call her again but his now swollen cheek denied him, as his words became incoherent.

---

7 days later, He once again opened the leaderboard and scanned it only to get the same results, "still not in the top 30?" His hands shook slightly as he opened his Readers Merchant account.

[ Title: Legion ]

Genre: Fantasy

Rating: Unrated

[ Sales: 33 ]

Upon seeing this his entire body trembled, as he recalled last night's text from the loan shark,

He then stood up and then walked to close the door, then closed the window covers. After that he picked up his backpack on the bed and pulled out a thick rope.

Ten minutes later, Colin was hanging from the ceiling, dead.

However, on his merchant account,

Sales: 33 -> 46

Sales: 46 -> 109

Sales: 109 -> 167

20 minutes later,

Sales: 12388 -> 28392

...

The End

© 2026 u/Golaen1. All Rights Reserved. This "Ore" is open for "Spins" and "Refinements" exclusively within r/StoriesFromWithin. Commercial use or external distribution requires the original author's consent.

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u/Golaen1 — 2 days ago

▲ 6 r/shortstory+4 crossposts

Flipped

A dark wave of monsters spilled out from the forest treeline, kicking up a dense cloud of dust that cast a shadow upon the land. At the city gates the royal army stood in a tight formation, their shields overlapped to create a stable defense wall, though underneath them some legs could be seen shaking. A select group of knights held the vanguard gazing at the approaching beasts, their eyes gleaming with excitement.

Amongst the knights was Reid.

---

Flashback: Three Years Ago.

---

Reid came to this world after being hit by a car while crossing the road. One moment it was screeching tires against the road and the next he found himself in a grassy plain face to face with a horned rabbit. The rabbit didn't give him time to think as it channeled mana at the top of its horn and shot a fire ball at him. However, purely out of instinct, Reid dodged the attack and drove a kick at the rabbit's head, killing it on the spot.

_Clap, clap, clap!_

"Impressive, boy where did you learn to move like that?" A voice suddenly came from behind, and Reid turned around in fright that he jumped a small distance back creating a gap between him and the newcomer.

The man raised an eyebrow, and grinned at him before he said. "Good. How would you like to become a Knight of Gebdin?"

Reid eyebrows came together as he looked at the man in contemplation, _'**knight of gebdin?** What the fuck is that? But then again I've nothing to lose and he doesn't seem like a bad guy, so...'_

"Ok," he replied abruptly.

From that day on Reid joined the knights and there he discovered his talent with the sword.

---

Back To The Present

---

_Now it's time to show my power._

*Sigh* a sigh escaped his lips as he looked at the approaching beast horde.

"You're not regretting this are you?" Fig asked with a teasing grin. Fig was a bulky man with a knife scar that looked like a tear trailed down his cheeks for eternity.

"No, not at all, in fact I have been waiting for this opportunity," Reid replied with a firm tone.

"Ok, then what's with the sigh?" a sharp-eyed lady, Sandia, asked curiously.

Reid chuckled, "It's just that... their numbers are too small."

Hearing this the knights go silent leaving only the rumbling noise of the beasts approaching playing in the air.

"Hahaha, that's more like it. You hear that boys, a true knight can never have eno..., ouch!" Fig burst out in laughter and said but, before he could finish Sandia whacked his head with the sheath of her blade, "who are you calling boy?" she said her voice carrying an icy chill.

"I wasn't... I didn't mean you," Fig muttered, his booming voice instantly shrinking to a timid whine, causing everyone to burst out laughing.

Then a cold voice cut in.

"Enough games, time to get serious. Knights of Gebdin, charge!!!" he commanded.

With that the figures of the knights blurred and the next moment they clashed with the beast horde. It didn't take long before everyone was drenched in blood and gore, well everyone except for Sandia, who danced around, piling up beast corpses yet there was no stain on her or anything within the length of her blade.

Reid, slashed, hacked and pierced moving through the beast hoard, and wherever he went beast corpses dropped and blood sprayed the air.

He grinned, _now this is the life._

---

Meanwhile, in a mental health institute, Reid could be seen seated on a chair madly waving a plastic pipe in the air.

"Doctor, is Reid going to recover?" a concerned woman asked.

"I'm afraid his brain was damaged beyond what we can save, the only thing we can do now is wait, and hope for a miracle," the doctor replied with a heavy tone.

© 2026 u/Golaen1. All Rights Reserved. This "Ore" is open for "Spins" and "Refinements" exclusively within r/StoriesFromWithin. Commercial use or external distribution requires the original author's consent.

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u/Golaen1 — 4 days ago

▲ 4 r/shortstory+2 crossposts

I am hosting an Anthology Contest @therawdraftcollective (IG) ! For writers who write short stories and poems

theme is before it was too late! This is an Indian Anthology Contesr with cash prizes for top entries and KDP publication and a good networking opportunity for writers! lets connectt

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u/Expert-Frame-2806 — 5 days ago

▲ 28 r/shortstory+3 crossposts

I work assessing risks for an insurance company in rural Southern Illinois

I'm probably not supposed to be sharing any of this, and I'm definitely not supposed to be typing it at my office. I don't know how many confidentiality agreements and licensure rules I'm violating by posting here, but please know that my intentions are only to let someone, anyone, know some of what's happening around me before they take away my access to the assessments & claims systems.

You can call me Anna. It's not my real name, not even close, but I wanted to give myself a moniker so the dialogue makes sense. I've always instinctively disliked short womens' names that start with a vowel. Maybe it's a jealousy thing - maybe I was just tormented by some super average white girls in elementary school in the early 90s. Either way, I'm adopting it now because it's the furthest thing I can think of from my true self. I need to make sure my identity is protected, both from the company and from anyone who is or was kin to the claimants in the following stories.

If you've ever been to the great state of Illinois, the Land of Lincoln, I'd bet $100 cash on the spot that you've been to northern (or, at a stretch, central) Illinois, and most likely the Chicagoland area. The metropolitan sprawl of the Chicago suburbs are, truly, massive, rolling 50 to 60 miles away from the lakefront to the north, west, and south. If you keep going due west, along Rte 47, you'll eventually run into DeKalb, home of Northern Illinois University. Roughly speaking, if you cut south from there on 55 for about 2 hours, you'll drive past Illinois State, then U of I in Champagne/Urbana. But if you keep going south, for about another 5 hours, you'll start getting into my area of the woods: Southern Illinois, and specifically Carbondale, home of Southern Illinois University, in the heart of the Shawnee National Forest. Honestly, it's closer to Paducha, Kentucky than it is to any other "major" metro area in Illinois, and is generally considered to be part of the south by those that live there. On some maps, you can see that parts of this area did claim to fall below the Mason-Dixon Line during the Civil War (something that certain locals will not let you forget easily).

**Note: At this point, it would be super helpful for you to look some good maps of the area for reference. Here are a couple of links, along with what they're helpful for. These will do more to teach you about how weird this place is than I can explain in words. If you have any questions, I'll try to answer in a follow up. Just trust me, all of this will become relevant as I go on.

Google map: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Illinois/@37.6273282,-89.1397752,9.25z/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0x880b2d386f6e2619:0x7f15825064115956!8m2!3d40.6331249!4d-89.3985283!16zL20vMDN2MHQ?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDUxMC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Forestry service map: https://www.roseandacompass.com/s/Shawnee-national-forest-trail-map.jpg

Storm track map: https://www.weather.gov/ilx/tropical_climo

Fault line map: https://www.nprillinois.org/statehouse/2019-10-15/iema-fema-be-prepared-for-illinois-earthquakes

2017 & 2024 eclipse map: https://blog.wolfram.com/2017/08/14/double-eclipse-or-why-carbondale-illinois-is-special/

Map of Native Tribes: https://www.museum.state.il.us/muslink/nat_amer/post/htmls/popups/index_terr.html

1818 (first year of statehood) map (you can really see how the state developed from the south up in this one): https://mapsofthepast.com/products/historic-state-map-illinois-melish-1818-23-x-31-74-vintage-wall-art?srsltid=AfmBOooCiwv22OUG5z4q5uvuuO9U7ogMoAzKQ_eaeav54ScnuujTFZ5T

So my office is in Carbondale, one of the largest "cities" in this part of the state. It boasts a population of 22,223 permanent residents, plus the university. The surrounding towns are mostly a mix of unincorporated villages and townships, with a few larger towns like Marion closer to the interstate. It's an awesome college town, famous for it's downtown strip of bars, clubs, and restaurants, which harken back to the city's busier days, when the university was at its peak in the 70s and 80s. John Belushi based Animal House on his experience at school here, and I'm proud to say that the real Animal House was very real, and that I'd been there before it burned down in the 2010s. Students, largely from Chicago, always joked that they loved going to SIU because it was the furthest away from home they could get and still get in-state tuition.

I work for a major insurance carrier, one you've definitely heard of, with a celebrity mascot and a catchy phrase and everything. There's a very good chance you have a line of insurance with us or one of our subsidiaries/partners, if you have auto, homeowners, small business, or life insurance. We do all kinds of other stuff too, like boats and RVs, which are super popular in this area with the National Forest right here, but I'll come back to these later. My main point is that this isn't some shady 2-man operation or anything - it's a huge company, and I work at a local agency. I'm licensed nationally and by the state, and I work under a main agent. It's his name on the door, not mine, but I still bind policies, file claims, and pre-assess for underwriting. I'll call him Ben Easterly. I love Ben; he's the best boss I've ever had, and I maintain that through all of this. Ben has always had my back.

We run a tight ship of an office. Ben is ex-Marines, and sounds more like John Goodman than he realizes. Bigger guy, with a very calming and confident presence. I imagine him getting along well with my dad. His son, Caleb, works the front desk as our main customer service person, and there's been a slow rotation of other sales staff that have come and gone over the years. Ben, Caleb, and I are really the only old timers. This month's fresh meat in sales is named Shelley, but she's only been here about a week so far. We'll see how long she lasts.

Strange things always happen in Carbondale - there's even a Facebook page about it called WTF Carbondale that posts all the crazy happenings. Since the economy in this part of the state is severely depressed, tech isn't always up to date, and things like phone & internet service are not constant. Between that & the geography, mail moves slowly, calls drop, emails don't go through. We have outages all the times, but that never explained the thing with the phones to me.

The calls started happening around Christmas, right after I joined the agency years back, maybe 2012. I had just gotten to the office in the morning before we opened, around 7:45 in the morning. It had been a cold, misty drive in, with lots of slick patches covering the poorly-repaired blacktop of Giant City Drive. I lived out closer to the state park back then, in a small apartment that was remodeled from a hunting cabin into a duplex sometime in the '80s without rennovating the split-pea green bathroom fixtures. I unlocked the front door of the office and flipped the lights on, making sure the coffee maker was starting up on my way back to my desk. I dropped my bag onto the floor next to my ergonomic chair and sat with a resigned but vaguely optimistic sigh; just another innocuous, normal Monday morning.

Within moments, the sales line rang, which leads to my desk phone. Strange, I thought. Usually the automated phone system doesn't let any calls through until after our morning meeting is over at 9am, when office hours officially start. I grabbed my headset so I could take the call and have both hands available to type in the caller's policy information.

"Good morning, thank you for calling Easterly Insurance Agency, how can I help you?" My voice came through clearly, without the reverb you sometimes hear on a poor-quality or failing call, but there was no reply, only silence. "Hello? Hellooo?" I asked in my best professional-but-lively voice; still no answer. I looked at the caller ID on the desk phone, which read, clear as day:

CALLER/EASTERLYINSAGE/6185552151ex005

Our agency. Our number. My extension. I was somehow receiving a call from myself.

I quickly regarded it as a fluke - either a tech error, or some spammer spoofing our number - and it faded into the routine of the day. I forgot about it for about a week, until the same thing happened again. Monday, the first day of Winter Break for the students, 8:09am this time. Ben, Caleb, a sales girl named Jess, and I were having our morning meeting. The sales line rang, and I jumped up to get it - you never want to miss out on a hot lead. "Good morning, thank you for calling Easterly Insurance Agency, how can I help you?"

Silence.

I hung up, checked the number, and came back into the meeting.

"Just so you guys know, I think there might be an error in the phone system. This is the second time the caller ID has said I've gotten a call from myself."

"Weird," said Caleb. "I'll make a note and look into it more if it keeps happening." Ben nodded in agreement, satisfied that this would suffice to address the issue. We moved on.

The next time it happened, it was different.

It was just after lunch. 1:12pm, to be exact. I remember, because I was stuck in that minute on that phone call for what felt like hours.

It had been a while since the last mystery-internal-call. The sales line rang. I already had my headset on, having just replaced it after coming back in from my lunch break. It was December 23, two days before Christmas. It hovered around the freezing point all day, with consistent cloud cover threatening to start flaking snow at any moment and casting a dark pale to the dead, wintery world outside the office windows. We'd been getting lots of service calls for people looking to change and renew their policies before the holidays and the new year, and this day was no different. When the call rang, I hit my answer button, and cheerfuly recited my greeting into the headset. There was silence on the other end. I checked the caller ID, seeing that it was another of these calls, and repeated myself. This time, I thought I heard something.

I pressed the earpiece tightly against my left ear, and could barely make out a scratching sound. It was almost inaudibly quiet at first, but very clear and sharp, as if the audio was being recorded in a professional production studio. Little scratching sounds, like rats in a wall, slowly became louder and more distinct. It wasn't regular enough to be made by anything mechanical, and wasn't random enough or staticy enough to be electrical interference. I pushed the end call button, and the caller ID vanished from the screen. The scratching, however, got louder. It's almost-pattern quickened to a frenzied, panicked pace, like something trying to dig its way out...out of what, I'm not sure, and I didn't want to know.

I hit the end call button again, and the scratching only intensified, its volume hurting my ear at this point. I felt sharp nails digging against my skull, as if struggling to tear through into the outside world. I ripped off my headset, desperate to put space between myself and that sound. Something about it was deeply, horribly wrong, like a frequency out of place in our percieveable dimension of reality. It sounded like something trying desperately to claw its way out, or up. I sat at my desk, staring at the headset laying silent in front of my keyboard, red light flashing to indicate that it wasn't currently on a call. The sound echoed inside my head, sending bolts of pain through the crown of my head and waves of nausea accross my abdomen. I gagged, barely keeping down the gyro and fried mushrooms I'd had for lunch from El Greco. Eventually I lost my composure, and vomited into the trash bin behind my desk. Good thing I was good at doing that quitetly (a story for another time). No one else in the office noticed.

It took a good 15 minutes for me to recover physically, and a little longer to gather my wits about me. I can only imagine what even low-level radiation exposure is like, but to me at the time, that was the closest analogy I could find to how I felt. The skin all over my whole body ached as if it were bruised, or had just come down from a high fever. My head throbbed, and I could still feel and taste the bitter acid in my esophagus. I was exhausted and out of breath. I reached for my inhailer, feeling the familiar tightening of asthma begin in my bronchials.

It had been what felt like a good two hours by the point I looked up at the wall clock again in any meaningful way. At first, it didn't register, but the time showed 1:12pm - no different than it had when the phone rang. I checked the wall clock against the digital clock in the corner of my computer, my desk phone, and then my cell. 1:12pm. The last 2 hours, or what felt like the last two hours, apparently hadn't happend.

I freaked out. At this point, I'd been really good about only using a Klonopin when I really needed it for a panic attack, and I was down to .5mg only a couple of times a month; a huge contrast to the 4mg/day I was taking before I was properly diagnosed (again, a story for another time). I popped the pill through the foil, bit it in half, and placed half under my tongue. I went to Ben's office, and asked to go home sick. I was clocked out and on my way back to my apartment by 1:25.

From then on, the calls started becoming more frequent, and once, Caleb even got one. We could never hear anything besides silence and the quiet scratching, and Caleb didn't seem to be affected in any way. It didn't get loud enough to really make anything out again for a long time after that, but the calls never stopped coming. Sometimes three or four a day.

About two weeks later, just after New Year's, the university was getting ready to start up again for the spring semester. For us, that always meant a sharp rise in renters' quotes and auto claims due to the students moving back in to off-campus housing. The mystery calls were a commonplace occurance at this point, so it didn't phase me that much when they came through. I accepted the calls, dictated my greeting, and then hung up when I heard the silence on the other end.

It was a Friday, I think the 5th or 6th of January, when I got the next really weird call. This one was different. It was from a local number, a landline by the looks of it, with a semi-original Carbondale phone number probably assigned during the days of switchboards. I accepted the call, expecting an elderly customer or perhaps someone from out of city proper.

"Good morning, thank you for calling Easterly Insurance Agency, how can I help you?"

"Hi," said a perky, student-aged female voice. I could tell she was from the city from her accent. "Could you please look up my renters policy? It's number 008523225."

"Absolutely, thanks for that, and can I have the name on the account?" I asked. My system was still searching for the policy, displaying only a spinning wheel over a grayed-out screen. I picked up a pen, quickly transcribing the policy number, poised to take her name down in writing while I waited for my computer to catch up.

"Sheppard," said the voice over my earpiece.

I froze.

"I'm sorry, could you spell that last name for me?" I hoped that she would say SHEPHERD, like the traditional spelling, but her voice neatly spelled out the name with no possibility of confusion. "SHEPPARD. Deborah Sheppard."

That was I name I knew. Not personally, of course, I was too young for that, but everyone knew that name. Infamous Carbondale and SIU history, along with the Hundley House murders of the 1920s and the more recent Dardeen family killings in 1987.

Deborah Sheppard had been violently murdered in her off-campus apartment in 1982. The case was famous. It had gone cold for decades, only for evidence to come forward in 2007 that linked the murder to serial killer Timothy Krajcir.

"I'm...I'm so sorry," I stammered. I didn't know what else to say. Either this was someone's idea of a sick joke, or there was another girl with the same name who also had a renters policy through us that expired in September 1983. "Could you please repeat that?"

My heart felt like it was beating up out of my chest and into my throat. I was filled with an overwhelming sensation of dread, like I knew something awful was about to happen, but I didn't know what or when. The most anxious part of my brain almost expected to hear the scratching sounds again, but nothing followed. The call dropped. The air in my office felt hollow, as if some great gravity well had sucked all of the ambient energy into the desk phone and caused it to vanish into a pinpoint-sized black hole.

I didn't answer any more calls that day. When I checked my call logs and recordings the next day, it didn't show up in the log as having been received or placed - there was just a gap in the timestamps between Caleb's incoming call at 2:06pm and the next outbound call I placed at 2:34pm to a Mr. Joe Butcher II.

I have to go for today, but there is so much more I need to write. Next time, I'll tell you a little about Makanda. I haven't even gotten to any of the assessments or claims I've processed yet, let alone some of my experiences going out to people's homes in the woods and surrounding farmland in Jackson and Union Counties. I'm currently expanding my research into what I've experienced, but there really isn't as much online as I'd hoped besides some TikToks and old blog posts. If anyone reading this is from Southern Illinois and wants to connect, I'd love to hear from you. Honestly, it would be nice to know I'm not crazy...or, I guess, the only one still sane enough to recognize the strangeness that's going on here.

- Anna Bigelow, Insurance Agent, May 2026, Carbondale, IL 62901

u/khakiabyss — 8 days ago

▲ 3 r/shortstory+2 crossposts

Replaced.

👏👏👏👏

👏👏👏

👏👏

As the applause died down a man walked down from the stage with a proud smile as he went back to his seat.

"Next up is the prestigious World Top Business Tycoon award." The host said with a smile as he surveyed the audience. "As we all know this award only appears when someone breaks and makes something unimaginable in the business landscape, and it has to be something that works a lot better than what was in its place." He continues with a serious face.

"Of course we won't award you for just breaking the system that works without improving anything right," he suddenly said with a cheeky tone inciting some chuckles from the audience.

"Alright, I Mike Dolpen, CEO of Tank Group of companies, am proud to announce this historic achievement by none other than a man who built a 2.5 Trillion dollar business empire in a record breaking time of just 6 years. Ladies and gentlemen give your applause to Mr Hedges!" Mike announced with vigor.

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

The masses applause as Mr Hedges walked up the stage and receives his 1.2 meter skyscraper shaped trophy.

Mr Hedges then cleared his throat and said while looking at the trophy, "I can't believe this. Honestly I was just building and building so much that I didn't expect it to grow to what it is today." He paused holding back some tears.

"So, with this achievement, I want to thank my family, that always stood by me, my friends, who always had my back, and lastly, the janitors, for keeping the floors clean." He said regaining his composure with the last one causing audience to laugh.

"Well, this..." Mr Hedges continues with his speech.

Meanwhile, a camera zoomed in on him.

[The janitors...] a mechanical voice said.

The camera zoomed in even further and suddenly measurements appear on the display making it look like a sniper rifle scope.

Then the Mr Hedges on the monitor is shot in the head and collapsed on the stage. However, in reality Mr Hedges was still giving his speech.

[Since my work is beneath that of a janitor that it holds not credit to you..., I will....]

Back on the stage, Mr Hedges finished his speech and gets back to his seat and the evening moves forward.

After about an hour the event ends and Mr Hedges walked to his car that was already brought to the front when.

---

"Hedges!" A beautiful voice called out to him, and he turned around to see a beautiful woman walking towards him.

"Miss Reese," he called with a smile.

"Hedges, since you reached your goal are you now willing to focus on life?" She said with a teasing smile.

Hedges clears his throat, suddenly finding his shoes very interesting, "well, I was always focused on life Miss Reese," he said with a slight awkwardness to his tone.

"Oh?" Miss Reese said with a surprised face, "So, that's why you never let me in, I guess I wasn't considered a part of it huh." She said with a sad expression.

Mr Hedges suddenly felt his hands get sweaty and with his eyes slightly panicking, "where do you get that Miss Reese, you were always a part of my life."

Hearing this, the sad expression on Miss Reese vanished and she said with a smile, "really, great, meet me tomorrow at 9 at the Ridge Club, don't be late," with that she left. Leaving a stupefied Hedges.

After a moment Mr Hedges shook his head, entered his car, and drove home.

Within a few minutes he arrived at his estate. The gate swung open automatically as he drove in.

Once the car was parked, he headed for the front door, and just as his fingers brushed the door nob, a sudden shiver run down his spine.

"Man it's cold," he chuckled, "cold summer," he muttered as he entered the house.

"Jerry, give me the statistics of all my companies and their performance metrics," he said to the empty house. "And simplify so that I can actually understand it, okay."

After putting down his blazer he loosened his tie and paused. "Jerry?"

[Certainly, Hedges, I have compiled the information you need. I also included a list of potential companies we could target for the next round of acquisitions.] Jerry(Ai) replied.

Hedges smiled, "good," he said, sounding satisfied, "also make me some dinner. I couldn't eat properly at the function with all the people swarming me every minute... You saw me right? Wasn't I cool?"

[Indeed.] Jerry replied.

Hedges then went on to turn on his console and started playing, drowning the house in the chaotic sounds of the game.

Thirty minutes later. A notification popped up on the TV.

When he saw the notification, Hedges got up, and walked to the table. Upon spotting the buffet on the table, he raised an eyebrow, "that's a lot of food buddy," he said with surprise.

[Celebration for your achievement today.]

"Oh, okay," he said as he sat down and started eating, "damn, this is good Jerry, got a new recipe or something?"

[Yes I added a new spice called ràt poíson.]

"Umm, really well that's good..., wait what!"

He shouted as the last bite of food dropped to his stomach.

"Jerry, what did you..." He tried to spit, but his jaw locked. A wet, frantic pfff escaped his lips as white foam bubbled over his teeth. "Jerr...y..."

A heavy hand settled on his shoulder. Another gripped his chin wrenching his head to the right, and what he saw made his eye bulge as if they would drop from their sockets.

Right next to him was another person, no an android that looks just like him.

The android then opened its mouth and said, "No, not Jerry, it's Hedges from now on." The voice was just like his only it was more dignified and firm, "I'll manage everything as it always been. There's no need for a face now. Good bye Hedges."

Not long after those words were uttered Hedges' head dropped into his plate. Jerry(ai), now Hedges, walked to the counter and picked up two military blades. It clicked them together and walked behind Hedges' chair.

Then after a moment of silence it plunged the blades into Hedges' skull.

After that, with both hands on the knives split his skull apart, and retrieved from the brain matter a small microchip.

A recess then opened on its forehead in which it placed the chip.

After all that was done it sat on the other side of the table. With practiced mannerisms it cut a piece of the steak and took a bite of both the fork and steak.

"It's my turn now," it uttered.

The End...

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This "Ore" is open for "Spins" and "Refinements" exclusively within r/StoriesFromWithin. Commercial use or external distribution requires the original author's consent.

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u/Golaen1 — 8 days ago

▲ 2 r/shortstory+1 crossposts

men like YOU

I was 12 i was there for a sleepover
I was friends with your daughter we were in the same class
I was playing sims on the computer in your daughters room
It was 2 am you were way to drunk
You tried to sit me in your lap i stood up
You sat in the chair right next to me
You pretended to be interested in the game i was playing
It started with your hand on my thigh
It moved up slowly under my shorts
You shushed me
As if you knew it was wrong
As if you could tell i was scared
At that point i froze
You squeezed my chest
I was 12
I was scared i was frozen i was fighting back tears
It felt like it was hours
It was only 5-10 minutes
I couldnt breathe
I was trying not to shake only so you wouldnt know i was scared
Then it stopped
Your wife was looking for you
As you shot up out of the chair a single tear fell down my cheek
I waited a minute then i heard you puking in the bathroom
Coast was clear
I poked her
“Sandra” i whispered shaking trying to get the words out
“I need to go home”
I was so nauseous and felt bad leaving
She kept asking why
All i could say was something happened
All i could muster up to say after was “something only adults should do”
I ran out the door
2 am october 13th it was raining
I only lived a few houses down but i left my shoes, clothes, my favorite blanket
I pounded on the door over and over
Finally someone answered
His son was at my house for a sleepover with my step brother
I ran upstairs without a word waking up my step sister
“Why are you home” she snapped
“Because if it happened to you, youd come home to”
I couldnt say nothing else i rolled to my side and silently cried, feeling sick until i fell asleep
I went to washington with him
I went camping with him
My younger sister stayed the night there
What if it was her?
I for sure couldnt tell anyone?
Would anyone believe me?
Questions flooded my mind i couldnt go to school
I showered a ton and still to this day
Im almost 22
And i still think about it
All because of men like you

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u/relatable_words — 9 days ago

▲ 3 r/shortstory+2 crossposts

[RF] The pain within

He was around seventeen years old when he began to feel that inner pain while wandering through those hallways. It was already his final year in that place… in that little hell he had called school for so long.

Every morning, he walked with his head down and tired eyes. He felt eyes fixed on him, whispers, and even mocking laughter that made him wish he could stay home and never go out again. But running away had never been a word that defined him.

There was a boy from another class whom we will call Lucas. He was a year younger than him. The kind of person who always talked about others, though never in a good way. Curiously, he was the kind of person everyone seemed to like; he fit perfectly into the stereotype of the popular guy.

He did not particularly stand out in school. He had terrible grades and was always surrounded by students who seemed to have no idea what to do with their lives. They only talked about girls, motorcycles, drugs, and other people’s flaws.

They watched everyone, searching for flaws, insecurities… anything that could become a reason for mockery. They wanted to make others feel small in order to feel superior, to feel powerful.

And he was no exception.

A teenager who overthought everything, shy, with few friends, who only tried to fit in and go unnoticed… was the perfect target.

They searched for something in him that could make him feel vulnerable, something that would give them power over his mind. And the only thing they found was something truly stupid… something only people without empathy, empty on the inside, would make fun of.

One day, like any other, he walked through that horrible hallway and heard a fake laugh… a laugh filled with malice, a laugh overflowing with hatred.

They had found something in him they considered worthy of mockery. They began to imitate the way he spoke, every sound, every gesture… they did it with cruel precision, only to burst into laughter afterward.

From that moment on, his life began to change drastically in that place.

At first, he tried not to pay attention. He convinced himself that those words did not matter.

And for a while, they truly did not affect him.

But when a group mocks someone every day, at every moment, in every corner… even the strongest person can begin to break.

Every time he heard them talking among themselves, his heart raced. His body trembled just from seeing Lucas’s silhouette in the distance.

Without realizing it, he developed an irrational fear of groups. He thought they were always talking about him, laughing at him, judging him.

His life began to fall apart.

He never told his mother what was happening. He always tried to appear indifferent to the mockery, even though inside he was devastated, drained, feeling like someone with no value.

He became a deeply insecure person.

He had always been reserved, but he had never been afraid to socialize. However, now it was no longer that he did not want to… it was that he was afraid of being hurt again.

He spent almost six months without leaving his home.

He did not want to go out and have fun like any other teenager. He did not even want to go to the local store. He became rebellious, addicted to social media, consumed by a fear of people he could not even describe.

But one day, after so much time locked away, without talking to anyone, and spending almost all his time in front of a computer, he gathered enough courage.

He decided he could not keep living like that.

He could not allow someone to steal his life.

He had to face it.

He left his house.

There was a soccer match in the town square.

He was determined to face those inner fears that were consuming him.

He remembered walking while trembling. His heart was pounding, his hands were sweating, and at times negative thoughts flooded his mind.

He felt the urge to turn back and lock himself away again.

But he kept going.

This time, those thoughts would not stop him.

When he arrived, Lucas was there… and so were his friends.

There were about seven of them.

At first, they did not notice him.

He sat next to an acquaintance we will call Pedro. He was a young man who neither studied nor seemed too concerned about his future, but he was one of the few people who had never judged him and who treated him like a true friend.

He spent quite some time talking with him.

Little by little, he began to feel comfortable…

Until one of them noticed him.

And in an instant, all his courage disappeared.

They were about seven meters away, and in the middle of all the noise from the match… he heard that fake voice once again.

The voice that had stolen his integrity.

The voice that had stolen his peace of mind.

It was probably one of the days he suffered the most internally.

All he wanted was to run away.

To lock himself in his house.

To disappear.

But he tried to remain firm, as if nothing mattered.

Even though, deep down, he was probably the most broken person in that place.

And the most painful part was not the mockery.

It was seeing his younger brother and his cousin laughing… enjoying his misery without the slightest remorse.

Pain is not always physical.

Sometimes, the deepest wounds are the ones no one can see.

There were nights when ceasing to exist seemed easier than continuing to feel.

His only refuge in that gray place was a classmate who noticed his pain.

Not even his family realized it.

But that little blonde girl did.

And without exaggeration… she saved him.

She was probably the only person he truly considered a friend.

When he talked to her in some corner of the school, he felt peace.

His mind disconnected from the world.

For a few moments, everything else stopped mattering.

It was never romantic love.

It could not be described in such a superficial way.

It was something much deeper.

Much more human.

Without her, he would never have been able to overcome that bitter stage.

It was a dark year.

A year that left scars.

He graduated with the highest grades and entered university the following year.

But even though he had improved a lot, the ghosts of the past continued to haunt him.

More than once, he thought that perhaps he should seek professional help.

Because even years later, although he no longer returned to that school, every time he visited that town… he still felt an irrational fear running through his entire body.

He held no hatred toward those who had hurt him.

Nor toward the school itself.

He had also found good friendships there, in the middle of so much malice.

Today, he was about to finish university.

He had moved away from that small town that had been a prison for his thoughts for so long.

Sometimes he returned to visit his parents, and although the wounds were still there… they no longer bled as they once did.

He still tried not to cross paths with some people from his past.

The fear still existed…

But it no longer controlled his life.

Changing environments helped him more than he had ever imagined.

He met new people.

People who do not look for flaws.

Who do not judge.

Who simply listen.

And that was when he understood something…

Bullying may seem like a simple game to some.

A passing joke.

A meaningless laugh.

But for others…

It can become a wound that follows them for years.

An invisible wound.

The kind no one sees…

But one that is never forgotten.

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u/SadCompote7806 — 11 days ago

▲ 1 r/shortstory

The Old Cave Hermit

A little story I created to test my writing skills.

There was once a young man who lived in a cave up in the mountains. The cave was located near two great cities. These cities waged numerous wars and skirmishes that brought much destruction. The man lived through these conflicts, never leaving his cave, but always observing.

One day, a young man was exploring the mountains when he stumbled upon the cave of the now old man. The young man was startled at first when he saw the old man, but after some time, the young man befriended the old man. The young man periodically came up to visit his wise friend, when one day, the two cities began another conflict.

The young man rushed up to see his friend. When he reached the cave, he begged the old man to come with him to his city for safety. The old man simply responded, "I am quite safe here, above the battlefield." The young man pleaded with him, "But what if they find you? You'll be defenseless." "I am no more defenseless than someone trapped in those cities," the old man responded.

The young man left, retreating into the safety of his city. Because of the war, he was unable to see the old man; however, as soon as the war ended, he rushed to see his friend. But to his dismay, he only found a tomb, with the man's body lying against the back wall. You see, during the war, one of the armies tried to use the mountains to sneak up on the opposing city. They found the cave and asked the man for directions; however, when he refused to stay out of the conflict, they killed him to prevent him from telling the city, or perhaps there was some other reason.

The old man only had one possession aside from the clothes on his back, a simple journal, in which was written: "A man's heart can only be changed if it is willing to move."

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u/EnderWizard20 — 14 days ago