The Novella Life of Illuscia Nester Himawari

I don’t know what to do anymore. I’m so scared and I can’t trust anyone. I went camping about three weekends ago in the Huntsville national forest in Texas. Me and three friends that came home for the weekend, they are all in college and usually we all get together at least once a year, old friends from high school. For the camping trip we planned to go backpacking deep in the forest, live off of fish that we catch and animals that we can trap. We have been doing this for awhile in Texas and in numerous places, Arizona, Colorado (if anyone is familiar with the Spanish peaks there), New Mexico, so we‘re pretty much used to anything you‘d encounter out there. It was my turn to pick where we went camping, so I chose Huntsville (more accurately it’s Huntsville/New Waverly). So we drive up there park our car in a camping park spot and start walking off into the forest. We had some laughs along the way, everyone catching up with eachother’s lives. We walked until it started to...

My father is a great man. Fourteen years ago he was sent on a solo mission to be the first man ever to travel through a wormhole, located a massive distance from Earth. His return was unguaranteed, but he was prepared to make the sacrifice. I was twelve when he left our planet to explore the Great Unknown, not knowing when or if he would return. It took seven long years for his craft to reach the edge of the wormhole, and we prepared ourselves to never hear from him again. Nine minutes after his spacecraft breached the wormhole a single message was received before transmission was cut: “Don’t trust it”. The cryptic message was dismissed as interference and I made peace with the fact that I was never to see him again. That is, until five weeks later when the signal came back online. His ship had returned from beyond the wormhole and was traveling back towards Earth intact. Seven anxious years more, and his ship touched down in the ocean. I was already a grown man with a wife and a fami...

I’m terrified of my grandparents’ house. Literally I refuse to go there. I’m 22 now and live in another state but I still get scared at the thought of my old bedroom. When I was around 16 I lived with my grandparents. One afternoon we were watching TV (they live in a double wide trailer), the front door for no reason just opened as if someone was walking in. My papa (grandfather) jokingly said “come on in”. Worst decision of his life. A couple days later my mimi (grandmother) started noticing things going missing. She would place her coffee cup in the morning on the island and then, in her words. the coffee cup would ‘disappear later to be found still hot’. My papa doesn’t believe in ghosts so we never really said anything about the odd misplacements. Then I started to notice things. My bedroom wall which connects to the wall where the bathroom was would groan at night as if someone was pressing against it. I would have moments where I literally felt someone staring at m...

I always have a torch in my pocket these days. I found a small LED one at an electronics store for a couple of bucks, and I keep it on me at all times. It’s actually really bright, despite the size. I bought five, the other four are placed in strategic locations around my house, so I can get to any of them quickly if need be. I won’t be caught in the dark again, you see. It’s bad enough that I see her every time I close my eyes, I don’t think I could handle seeing her again with my eyes open. But, I digress. Perhaps this would be better told from the start. I used to work in an office building in town, for the public counter service of a Government Department that shall remain unnamed. The work was fine, it basically involved taking and checking applications, talking to the public about different services that our department provided, that sort of thing. Nothing out of the ordinary with the work, or my colleagues, who I got on very well with. The building, however… To look at it from ...

Sometimes, otherworldly beings find interesting ways to try and contact you. They might use a Ouija Board, or maybe come to you in a dream, or sometimes they speak through another person. They each have their own style and preference that’s particular to them. The one who contacted Jack spoke to him through his computer, or, I guess you could say the communication was through onscreen text. The first time it happened, Jack had been sitting at his computer playing Solitaire. A blinking red light from the router indicated that his internet connection was down again. This was at least a weekly occurrence, and Jack was getting used to this spotty internet service. As he moved his cards, the game faded into a solid black screen and the red text appeared. “Hi Jack, I need a favor from you. You’re a very special person and I know you’ll help me. I can’t ask this of just anyone. I really need your help.” Jack paused for a second. The router light was still blinking red. “Is this ...

My neighbors are puppy sitting again. This is only the second time they’ve done it. How do I know? Because that puppy will not shut up. Whining, barking, growling… I hear it all. Whoever they puppy sit for has a terrible pup. All I’ve heard is that damn puppy all night. Throwing it’s body weight against the garage, howling to be let out…must be looking for some action I guess, but still! And they have a young child, Eric. Isn’t this keeping him up too? How inconsiderate. The first time this happened I didn’t say anything cause I figured they wouldn’t sit that puppy anymore but now…. I hear louder banging on the garage door. I look out the window that gives me a perfect view of their driveway. Lit by a full moon, I see the garage door shaking. At least it’s holding. I guess I’ll have to talk to them tomorrow…. – Credits to: krshann

I always liked Joshua. He was a nice kid, if a bit slow. He was radically unpopular the way one person always is in a school. Too beefy to be good at any sports, too clumsy even if he slimmed down. Hardly smart enough to even stay with the rest of his class, consistently scraping by with D’s across the board. His writing was particularly chicken-scratch. He spoke well enough, but it seemed like he couldn’t make those same sentences on paper. But I liked his big, goofy, uncoordinated self. Some kids might smack his books out of his hands (unnecessary, he likely would have dropped them in a few moments without any help, tripping over his own feet) or slap an “I’m Stupid!” sign on his back (again, unnecessary. According to rumor, he had the lowest scores in every subject, and everyone knew it), and I would always help him gather his stuff back up, or tip him off there was something on his back. When I woke up this morning, I found a letter taped to the outside of my window. It’s not easy ...

Below is a very true event that happened to my girlfriend and I, and why we always tell our friends and family to avoid Highway 77 when coming to visit us in Tucson. Our car had broke down on a nearly empty stretch of highway between Tucson and Globe, AZ. We were on our way to the White Mountain Apache reserve to visit some friends and do some hiking. I hear a knocking noise and our car starts to lose power. Pulled over, lifted up the hood, started up the car and then a spark-plug shot right out. Turned out the threading for the spark-plug hole had worn out. This happened during dusk, so I grabbed my flashlight and searched the ground for the missing spark-plug. Found it at the bottom of the cattle guard we were parked next to, the damn ceramic on it shattered to pieces when it shot out and bounced off the steel bars. It’s night now, so we both pull out our phones and begin climbing the small hill we’re next to where we parked and try to call a tow-truck and some friends. No signal. M...

My dog was a stray before I picked him up, so he tends to be pretty skittish and defensive. A skipped rope halfway down the street could start a barking fit so intense he actually threw up once before he calmed down. So you’ll imagine I was worried when I heard the door slam shut downstairs without another sound besides the shower steaming around me. I panicked a little, I admit, willing myself to hear the doggy’s raspy howl mingled with the pops and hisses of the water and the pipes rumbling through the walls. I wrapped up in a towel and hesitated at the bathroom door. A million stories roamed my head. I pushed it open slowly, scanning the wall for shadows cast from halfway down the staircase, sniffing for a sweaty invader, waiting for a sharp breath from the kitchen. I poked my head out. The front door stood at the bottom, locked. The floor was clean. The towel pushed up against the threshold, a poor seal against the winter drafts. Safe and sound, and still no peep from the puppy. I ...

Like most men, David had never liked his in-laws much. The exception was his wife’s grandmother. His wife had always been her favorite grandchild, so he was treated like he had always been a part of her family and not just married into it. She had recently passed away, and not surprisingly, left her house and all of her earthly belongings to his wife Gloria. If not for the location being two states away from where they lived and worked, he would have eagerly moved into the large two-story Victorian. Instead, but not to a detriment, the property would be sold along with any valuable items inside of it. It sounded simple enough to go through the house and separate the things that would be sold from the items that would be kept. David had no sentimental connection to any of the items, so he only saw things that would be sold and things that would be thrown away. Gloria’s perception of everything in the house was either sell or keep. The boxes of things to keep were outnumberi...