In the mountains of the fair west there once lived a young girl named Katherine. She was a wonderful girl who loved everyone and was loved by everyone. One day she walked into town where she was met by an old man in the street. His eyes were sunken and dark like he had seen much grief and sadness in his time. He walked up to her and turned away as if he could not bear the happiness that radiated from her smile or the goodness that spewed from her heart. He walked away, and all the while Katherine stood staring, in awe and wonder, at the man who had no happiness in this world.

She returned home that night and fell deeply into the feathered down bed in the room at the end of the corridor. Deeply that night, she slept and dreamed of that man. He was standing in the doorway of a secret room. She walked down into the room out of curiosity and saw horrible things. Blades and whips, torture devices of all kinds, resided in the little secret room. She heard the doors close behind her, and just as a knife was raised to her throat she awoke in terror.

For days she refused to leave the house in anguish of her vision. She left the safety of her own room only to find food around the house to quench her unsatisfied hunger. Then, one day she decided that she should at least leave the house to find the fresh air that would rejuvenate her soul. Little did she know that there was a dark figure watching her in the distance, and was now making his way towards her in a still, serene silence.

She walked down the long spiral staircase towards the front doors. The stillness of the dark room only made the red mahogany doors even more intimidating to her. It was a burden off her soul to be able to walk outside without her fears keeping her down, and it made her happy and light-hearted. Outside the world moved all around her and the breeze filled her lungs with the fresh, clean mountain air. She felt alive for the first time in weeks, then...

She didn't know it at the time, but the old man attacked her from behind with a hickory log. She felt a sharp pain in the back of her neck, and then she was out cold. When she awoke she saw darkness everywhere, and her heart sunk. Then, a single lightbulb flickered near the wall on the far left side of the room and she saw metal glinting in the light. And something shining fresh on the walls. She knew immediately that it was the secret room from her vision. The glinting objects were steel blades and any shadows passed from something hanging from the wall was a whip or club, but the shining goup flowing down the walls was new to her. She had never seen blood before then.

A darkened man walked into the room, his hands were cracked and callused and his step was slightly limped, she almost recognized him. It was as if he were a ghost in her memory. As he walked closer the flickering light illuminated his face and it hit her. It was the man that she had met in town.

She was frightened now, and began to run from her captor, only to realize that she was chained to the floor, or more likely, the floor and wall together. As the man grew closer she grew more and more frightened and struggled until the shackles on her arm cut into her skin and made her blood trickle out slowly. She hoped that this was all just a dream and that she would wake up soon, but the danger only grew closer and she didn't wake up.

The man reached her and she writhed about on the floor. In his right hand he held a knife, and quickly then he grabbed her hair and began to cut with slow, careful precision. Not a single drop of blood protruded from her head as she sat completely still during the entire thing in fear of death by his dreadful hands.

For days she was there in the room, and everyday the man would walk down into the room and another digit would leave. One day a toe, another a foot or maybe and ear. She never got used to the pain, but nevertheless, during the operation she was completely still for fear of his hands.

Those hands frightened her for an unknown reason. She thought it was just because of the man himself and what he did with them, but truly it was a dark, mystic force within those hands that frightened her. Something unworldly and cruel. A soulless being of sadness, anger, and death.

Weeks, then months went by, and soon, death became a blessing to her. She longed for death, and so one day she received her wish. While the man was cutting off another of her fingers she twitched and the knife cut an artery in her hand. She bled out in minutes, and finally her salvation reached her.

However, she didn't know that a death in the darkness came with a single, solitary price. Instead, of resting in peace she has to stay on this Earth for the rest of eternity. She stays in the darkened places of the Earth unable to be seen or heard. She is forced to live in eternal anguish, never to see the light of day or be able to rest in peace for the rest of time.

Some of us think we see people in the shadows, but truly, you are only seeing a glimpse of Katherine, the shadow walker.

The world can be a wondrous place, full of happiness and cheer, but sometimes the darker side returns to play, and the miserable, sullen place we know comes out. However, just the right people can stop this from ever happening. The goodness of a teacher's heart, or a single act of pure kindness within the walls can ring to kill the beast, but kindness is undone much more easily than the darkness that lurks within the soul.

Some are thought to be cruel, but the beast is only manipulating the scrap of darkness that it had found within the soul, deeply hidden from the thoughts of the host. Covered by the goodness of the mind, but manipulated all the same by the powers that lie beneath the floor and in the pure darkness that resided down in the crevices that are left in this world.

Those crevices are growing into holes and will form caves to trap the unsuspecting visitors. The goodness will fall and the darkness will rise to domination over the world, unable to be stopped.

Schools tend to be hubs for negative emotion, and there are more crevices there than anywhere else. Those who embrace the darkness don't realize the severity of their mistakes, and don't understand that they are only minions to a higher power that controls them like a puppet on strings. They don't realize that they are only helping the beast to grow and create its dominion.

There are those who unknowingly fight back, but there are others who fight back willingly. There are some, very few, who actually know about the beast. The monster that resides beneath the crust of the Earth, the darkness that is constantly growing from the amount of negative emotion it is consuming.

There was once a school that was completely rid of the beast. There was no darkness or negativity anywhere near the school. It was always happy and wonderful. Then one fateful day, someone new moved to town. He was different, intelligent, strong, powerful. Everyone at the school was intimidated by him, so they exploited his weaknesses.

Everyday school was a burden that only weighed down on his shoulders with no single moment of relief. The school became more and more negative with every moment that the boy was there. And soon a crevice opened underneath the very heart of the school. The beast became more and more powerful. It began to feed on the darkness that resided within the souls of the children there.

Soon the boy became fed up with the hardened, blackened hearts of the children he had to deal with everyday. He left for school one day, but never returned home. His parents became slightly worried, so they called the school. The principal had told them that he had left after first period. They were very worried now, so they called the police who sent out a search for him. Eventually they found him hanging from an old oak tree, just barely hidden from sight behind the school. He had hung himself to relieve himself from the suffering he had to bear from the students all around him.

In more truth, the beast had found the darkness slowly arising from his soul and exploited it, manipulated it until it grew too much and caused the boy to kill himself to release the burden from his shoulders. The monster grew and grew from the pain and suffering of the boy's heart. His death only made the beast grow larger. It was almost ready to dominate.

Sadness plagued the entire town, and slowly the beast grew. The crevice grew into a hole, and the hole into a cave, until there was an enormous opening beneath the crust of the Earth. It only grew as sadness engulfed the town in an everlasting sorrow.

Finally the beast was strong enough to leave its dark prison. The bars that held it there broken, and the chains that bound its limbs destroyed, disintegrated to nothing but dust. It arose and engulfed the world, the universe in darkness. Now everything in and around the darkness is gone.

Hopefully the same fate does not befall your world, but if it so happens you can try to stop it. Use the tools that I have provided you. Follow the signs. Negativity is its power, but positivity is its weakness. Destroy it, before it's too late.

I didn't know what blood was. I didn't even know it existed until that fateful night.

I was walking home, and as I opened the door I noticed it was locked. I didn't remember locking the door, but I dismissed it as an error of the memory and looked for my spare keys. I found them, where they were supposed to be, laying underneath the welcome mat, but there was something odd about them. They seemed different, but I ignored it again.

As I entered the house I noticed a sort of presence. Almost like there was just a wisp of a memory actually taking up space in the room. I became apprehensive, but calmly walked towards the switch to turn on the lights.

After a few minutes I sat down on the couch in the livingroom to watch TV. I turned off the living room lights, and watched one of the many midnight horror shows that comes on. Like pretty much anyone I was scared, but then I became chilled.

Goosebumps ran down my spine, and my very bones chattered beneath my skin. My apprehension only grew at the feeling. I turned and looked into the kitchen, and the light flickered. The blue glow of the kitchen light dazed me, and soon I fell into a deep sleep.

I awoke in a dreamlike trance, but the images that surrounded me were far too realistic to be in a dream. Unable to move, I only lay in that trance, helplessly waiting for something to happen.

Fear began to completely engulf my mind and I began to panic. My mind was in scrambles and I saw an apparition coming towards me, slowly, precariously. As the pale, blurred image of a person came closer I began to regain feeling in my limbs, and as it reached my toes I could move almost perfectly, but my fear of the being paralyzed me, and I was frozen.

The paleness of the ghost-like figure sat in the exact position of my own body, and engulfed me as my fear already had. My body lurched and jumped. Immense pain shot through my nerves, and the sticky, wet feeling of blood ran down my chest.

A knife began to slowly appear where the blood was. The shiny, silver of the steel becoming more than just a ghostly character. Becoming a real knife protruding from my skin, slowly killing me. I could feel my soul beginning to leave my body as the ghostly figure possessed it.

I had heard the stories of the murder of a young girl here, in this house. She had been stabbed with a knife in the heart, and died slowly of blood loss. Some said that her spirit still haunted the house, but I was skeptical and bought the house anyways. Now I realized the severity of my mistake, and as I was possessed by the spirit I realized who the spirit was. The spirit was the little girl.

She was taking me so that she may live again, but miraculously I managed to move. I fought against her power, and prevailed enough to get to the phone in the kitchen. I managed to dial 911, and as the operator answered my call I screamed in such a high pitched scream that the glass windows shattered.

I blacked out, but as the world darkened I saw it change to an older version of itself. When I awoke I was the girl. I was laying on the floor, paralyzed from the pain of the knife in my heart, and as I lay dying there was a man standing over me laughing at his work. I could hear the police sirens as I died, then suddenly I woke up.

I was still sitting on my couch with the midnight horror show on the TV. The whole thing was just a dream, but the experience scarred me. I never had a good dream again. My emotions were always negative, and I fell into deep depression, so now I write my experiences so that everyone may know my pains before I die. I must relieve myself of the scarring that has been placed upon my soul, but now I bid this world goodbye, forevermore.

Death, death is what killed me. Death destroys lives, but I have died from death, from real death, from un-death.

I awoke in the guest room of my friend's house. The lights were dark, but there was something about the room that made me cringe. The curtains were, almost, torn. The windows were almost cracked, like there was a ghost, an apparition of something horrid. It was a feeling that one gets when they have a terrible accident, but wakes up at home, in a warm down bed.

I sat there, wondering how I had even gotten there, but I was beginning to get a cramp, so I walked out.

I left to the terrible darkness of the hallway when I slipped and fell on my head. My vision faded away as the world was distorted from my memory. I lay in complete darkness, unaware of the devilish rituals occurring around me. Unaware of the the satanic darkness that began to surround the very essence of my soul. Unaware of the dark cult that was destroying the very essence of my life.

They used me for a dark ritual to bring back the very darkness which they most feared. They used me as a tool, as a shell for a being that would destroy the world. I died that night. My soul was pushed aside by the essence of a darker and more powerful being of war. Now I live a life not living. By definition I am alive, but by mere thought I am more dead than those who live buried in caskets beneath the earth.

I was pushed out of the body so gifted to me by the almighty one who governs my life in solitude. So I have only existed in an astral form. I looked upon those who truly lived, and I only suffered with immense pain at the constant existence that I never wanted.

I lived in a world of nothing, and when I died it was my salvation. My death was a dream come true, but I had already died. In fact, if you think about it, I had just began to live.

I left this world to go to a new one far away, but in some ways death was even worse. I lived in a world with no surprises, no risk, no fun. It was a desolate, boring world. There was nothing there because I had always wanted nothingness in my true life, after my death I was given solitude, but in my rebirth I was given desolate aloneness.

I sat for who knows how long, waiting for something to happen. Nothing changed in the world. All there was was a blurred line of color to focus my attention upon. Life no longer mattered. All I could do was stare into the endless abyss of random, blurred color.

Slowly I went insane, and my world fell apart. I raged upon the world, and ran endlessly towards the blurred line. There was no stopping my uncontrollable anger and rage. Then the terrible darkness of the hallway returned, and I was once again in the house of my friend.

I jumped up, and all that was left of the events past was a single piece of red cloth with a gold lining. I held the secret of that occurrence the rest of my life, waiting for a curious one in order to share the story with. One who would believe my toils, one who would give me aid in keeping the terrible secret that I kept. One who would be my salvation...

Secrets are meant to be kept, so when more than one person knows a single secret, it's not a secret anymore and the scale of the world becomes unbalanced, and your life becomes a complete disaster. The supernatural comes to life, and odd things begin to happen. Darkness overtakes you, and you slowly begin to deteriorate. Your mind slowly becomes nothing but an endless loop of nothing, and you live a lifeless life.

That has been the case for multiple people, but none have been so severe as the life of Emerson Floy. He had kept his greatest secrets for years. Terrible, terrible secrets that no soul could ever handle alone. Secrets of such a gruesome nature that the very essence of life would be darkened by them.

He once thought of telling someone just one of the great secrets he was forced to keep, but decided against it. He would never be able to live with himself if he killed someone by telling them a secret like that. He never told a soul, except in his dreams. In his dreams he told everyone he came across the gruesome secrets he kept for years, and in this way he kept himself alive.

Once he came across this beautiful young lady. Her face was like nothing he had ever seen. Its beauty could compare to no other. He fell in love. For years more he searched for the woman in his dreams, but he could not find her. He gave up. Then one day she found him.

She had had a similar dream. She had seen him, and sought him out. She found him on the internet and found his home address. She snuck into his room at night and sat beside his bed, listening to him in his sleep. She heard everything that he had said. Everything he had said about her in any case, but then he returned to his normal state. He began to tell his secrets again in his sleep, and the girl heard every single one.

Her natural, happy self slowly dissipated into darkness and despair as she heard the darkness which he had held, and one night she fell into complete and total darkness from which she would never return. Emerson woke up to see her darkened expression in the room, and realized what he had done. He saw the suffering in her face, the blank expression of horror, and made up his mind to take her life so that she wouldn't have to bear the terrible truth behind his existence.

He carried her down into the kitchen, where he stabbed her with a kitchen knife three times in the heart. He severed the aorta, which killed her in moments. He was caught and convicted of murder, and he died in prison. Now he is nothing but a ghost, but he haunts that very cell, cell 42, and if you are unlucky enough to have to guard it you will suffer the same fate.

You see, he died in anguish, so now he lives in the shadows, much like Katherine, but he is different. He didn't die in shadows, so he has a voice. The wind carries the whisper that he can muster to the unsuspecting human ear. You will slowly fall asleep, and your dreams will darken as Emerson begins his story. He will tell you the terrible truth behind his existence and his demise, and you will live much like him for the rest of your life, or you will take the easier way out and kill yourself.

No matter which way, Emerson exacts his revenge, and you live or die in anguish, just like him, just like her...

As you know, this is a book of the dark and disturbed stories that I think of in my mind, but there are many of you who would absolutely love to know why my stories are so dark all the time. Why my mind protrudes with such darkness and despair, so I have decided to tell you the story. The story of my life.

I am still young, but I was born extremely intelligent. I loved to read, and I loved anything colorful. By the time I was five I had started school, then the curse that was my mind crashed down on me all at once.

I slowly realized that in school, where no one understands my mind, my brain was less a blessing and more a curse.

I got quiet and pretty much everything made my nerves crack. My eyes became dreary, and my entire imagination went dark. Demons and monsters from beyond even the imagination of the monsters themselves began to formulate in my mind, and so, to make myself feel better, I began to write more and more depressing things. Things about monsters and demons from beyond even the depths of hell. Ghosts and horror became my genre of writing, not fantasy and light and good-hearted fun.

My stories allowed me to vent my hatred of the world in a less violent way than I would like. I began to fuel my artistic mind with hatred and my stories became dark and violent like the mind that created them. With my inspiration coming from the great writers Stephen King and Edgar Allan Poe my stories only grew darker and it resulted in what you, dear reader, have already begun to read.

You have only seen the shallows of my imagination, but as you delve deeper into the dark waters of this book you will begin to recognize the error of your ways. Turn back, now, before it's too late.

"Something happened, no, it can't be true." The patient sat alone in the corner of the asylum, shaking in his chains, as the doctors spoke quietly just outside the door, "What can we do for him? It seems irreversible." "I know that Charles, but look at him! He's scared to death." "I just don't know", stated Charles, in clear disbelief of the condition of the young man. He had always suspected that the "inmates" were just pretending, but here he might just think something different.

Outside of the great building two people listened to the conversation. They had been with Christopher when it happened. When it had found them.

They listened intently, and decided to come clean about what had happened, for you see they had lied about their beliefs to keep from being in Christopher's position, but just so you can fully understand, allow me to recount to events to you.

Three children, including Christopher, had decided to break into the school one night, just to have the thrill of doing something fun and different in the conformity of a criminal, but on their first attempt of breaking in they were almost caught. This made them plan a little more, and so they tried again on the last day of school.

Rather than breaking in, as they had already tried, they hid in a custodian's closet until the school was empty. When even the cleaning crew had left, and they were alone in the vast corridors of the school, they were cautious not to leave a single clue of their presence.

With a flashlight in one hand, and a camera in another, the children walked down the long dark hallway. The only light to be seen the dim, mellow glow of the flashlight. The doors, each locked as you may presume, seemed to only be dark monsters just outside the reach of the glow.

They continued down the dark hallway, and with the full capacity of the school in the palm of their hands, they soon realized that they were free.were only devilish portals in the darkness, but to the three children all was but a peculiar adventure waiting to excite their souls.

Each twist and turn brought about a new excitement, but as they rounded one corner they hear a small noise. It was quiet, almost muffled. The barely audible whimper came from a door, but unlike all the others, this door stood slightly ajar in the darkness. The three children slowly edged towards the door, and as they grew closer the mahogany redness only frightened them more.

Christopher, being the most naive of the three, reached for the door handle, when the door moved. He flinched and jerked away, knocking his friends down. The three fell, and in mortal terror, froze. They watched as the door slowly opened, the expression on their faces one of complete and utter despair. Then, as the door fell open, an aura emerged.

It was a white light in the shape of a human, it floated just above the ground, and just as the children were gathering their wits, it raced towards them. They couldn't help but feel the chills run down their spine as their bones chattered beneath their skin as the apparition made contact and dissipated in the air above.

They ran, faster than they thought they could ever run before, and as the got to the doors to the school they were stopped, as if by some unknown force. They realized that they were stuck, at least until morning. The trio found themselves in the cafeteria, where they sat down to rest.

While Christopher went to find food, his friends sat at one the tables. Paul, the eldest of the two, was shaking in his seat. He looked up at Ryan, who was staring blankly into the distance. His eyes looked dazed, and all he could see was the milky whiteness of the eyes of the daydreaming boy.

The menacing darkness of the cafeteria wasn't helping the situation either. They were already scared out of their minds, and the shadows dancing on the ceiling were only making their apprehension grow. The moonlight in the windows was the only source of natural light, and having been stuck in the building, they decided to conserve the flashlight batteries.

Then out of the darkness, they heard a crash and a high pitched scream. There was no doubt that it was Christopher. Paul jumped from his seat, but Ryan only stared, like he saw something in the darkness, so as Paul ran to the kitchen Ryan only sat there.

Paul entered the bleak darkness of the kitchen to trip over the quivering body of his friend Christopher. He fell to the ground, and when he turned he only saw a great, shadow-like creature towering above him. The glowing red eyes only adding to the menacing prospect of the situation.

The great beast stood, and then dropped down on the two boys. Paul, was only lightly grazed by the passing of the great shadow through his body, but Christopher was hit full. The shadow had possessed Christopher, and as Paul could see, his body was shaking and his head was hot, and all was definitely not well.

Paul grabbed Christopher, and ran back to where Ryan was sitting, only that Ryan wasn't there anymore. Paul left Christopher lying on the cafeteria table, and he left to find Ryan. Of course he didn't try to leave the school, that is impossible at the moment, so he backtracked their steps before having reached the cafeteria.

The farther back he went the darker it became, and the whole world just slipped away. There was no light, because in the panic the flashlight had been knocked off the table. He walked far enough back to see the open door, but the body was gone. Immediately Paul was of the assumption that Ryan had to be there.

He began to turn the corner, and as he looked just beyond the door, he could see Ryan staring into the darkness again. He had seen something, but what?

He had seen a vision of pure darkness and despair. He had seen the creator of the dark shadows in the school, he had seen all the darkness in the world all in one place. He had seen what had created the terrible thing which had taken his vision and Christopher's mind. And now, as he stands blindly in the great shadow of the asylum where he has trapped Christopher forever, he chooses to incarcerate himself there as well.

Before I continue with the next story, I must tell you a secret about it. It is simply an origin story. A Youtuber who is called Zealous Creative created a very, odd, animation dubbed "The Maker"

The basic story line is there is a rabbit-like creature who doesn't know what he is doing in a workshop, but eventually he looks into a leather-bound book where he learns how to make another of himself in a slightly different fashion, then the whole cycle begins again.

Here is a link for the video:

There was once a Maker. He was an original Maker, and looked somewhat like a tall, lanky rabbit. He studied himself greatly. Writing and drawing every aspect of his body, and learning how to recreate it. He learned the magic of life.

He learned the small details of stitching every little thread and creating every block of clay to make another Maker. Carefully he crafted each glass eye and ivory tooth. Cautiously loomed each piece of cloth. Precariously wound each violin string as he composed the music of life.

As time passed he grew older and weaker. The paper on the wall yellowed with age, the Maker had to begin in the making.

Just as carefully as he had made the pieces, he put them together. Carefully he baked the mask in the brick oven just behind the workbench. As it baked he stitched and stuffed the body. He pulled the mask from the oven to set the ivory jewels he had created to be the teeth.

He carefully placed them in a crooked fashion and them placed the mask on the body. He placed the glass eyes underneath the mask, and waited.

Nothing happened, but then he remembered the song, he grabbed his violin and ferociously played. The beauty of the melodies was entrancing, and he watched as the body of his masterpiece twitched and shook in its seat. If flew up, it startled the maker enough to make him drop the precious violin.

The creature came to life, however, unknowingly the Maker had chipped the violin just slightly, and so his creations were forced to make. Within an hour it was their duty to create another of themselves, and at the end of that hour, if all was done, the stakes would reset, and the newest creation would continue the everlasting cycle.