#slow horror

[cabbageheadgames]

I have Kitty Horrorshow's Anatomy on the brain.

[mouthtapedguy]

The patience of God and the malice of fate

[surfeit-of-stoats]

Slow Horror Aesthetic

- they say you can get lost in the greenhouse. they call it the Ramble, because you don’t go there for anything but a good long ramble. the plants don’t seem to require anyone to tend them, or maybe their caretaker just isn’t ever noticed. there’s so much green. fog drips down the glass. you can get lost, but no one ever does. the Ramble always returns those that come to it.

- there’s a basement here in the school, with impressive, imposing pillars, and echoing space. it’s smaller than you expect, and completely unused. the door is always locked except when it’s not, which is always. the air smells of mold and cigarette smoke. it tastes of despair.

- the boys here all have the fluffy hair, the rich boy smile, and the expensive watches. they all blur together until you’re unsure if the blonde smiling boy, hands in pockets of uniform khakis, elbows akimbo, affably discussing history to is Elan, Robert, or Kingsbury or maybe none of them, someone else entirely, you can’t be sure you can’t be sure you can’t be--

- you can’t leave. the virus is spreading. life grinds to a halt. you’re trapped here, here with the hungry windows and copy-paste boys who all smoke while pretending not to and wallow in existential despair of all flavors. before you thought them pretentious, but now you think them unbearable.

- the hallways all echo. the ceilings are too tall to be comfortable, and the windows are only friendly during the day. night darkness creates fearsome portals out of them, hungry, ready to swallow your soul. if you stare too long at the moon out these windows, they’ll fill you with their hunger, set you searching. but you’ll never find

-  you walk down the hall the first week, and hear sobbing from one room. you walk down the hall the next month and hear sobbing from five. you walk down the hall on what would have been the last night of the semester and don’t pass a single room without hearing sobs. everyone is unraveling.

[cmweller]

Challenge #04785-M036: The Price of Paradise

A village was once plagued by constant storms, swarms of locusts, and bandits harrying the fringes. Now an idol in the heart of town wards away the old travails, bringing good harvests and peace. All it asks for is the heart of a child once a year… -- Deathshead419

They had taken to sheltering in the caves when the worst of the weather hit. Huddled close to each other with any animals that had also done so. What crops had survived the locusts, the drought, and the fire would be torn from their fields, but they would be alive.

Every time they prepared to leave for better lands, the storms destroyed their boats as well as everything else they had made.

All they had for faith was the belief that the storm had to end, and even that grew weaker as hours grew into days. One day. Two. Half of three, and the howling weather finally waned enough for the adults to scurry forth and find any surviving sustenance. There was something off about killing creatures you shared shelter with in order to survive.

[Check the source for the rest of the story]