This is a silly one, folks. We’ve done many serious, intense, or frightening stories, but this is resolutely not one of them. This is a low fantasy, low-stakes comedy. Because even in a world with a unique form of magic, there are still very human, day-to-day problems. Problems I’m sure a lot of us have had.
I screamed for longer than I thought I ever could. I screamed until I was sure I was about to die from suffocation if the bugs didn’t take me out.
Ever stared outside your window, thinking about all manner of things? What if that sky could invite you to stay for a while?
When I walked back into the room, I understood—in one horrible moment—what the bug symbol on The Phobia Box meant. Even almost a decade later, I still kick myself for not realizing it sooner.
Today, a very different story than we’ve had in a while. There are no monsters, no horrible revelations. And certainly nothing creeping out of the night. This is a story of two people on a date, one leading the other.
The next day, when I stepped outside my apartment to get my mail, a large box was sitting off to the side of my door. I stared at it for maybe an entire minute.
Nowadays, you can order most fandoms’ merchandise through a website. But back when Unspeakably Scary Things was being printed, it wasn’t uncommon to cut out a coupon in the back of a comic to get novelty items.
The ‘70s are far enough back in history that we don’t have as many recordings. Media can get lost. It’s not unfeasible for a niche horror comic to rise to enough prominence to sustain a brief but impactful run and then fade into the annals of history.
Allegedly, a magazine called Unspeakably Scary Things went into circulation back in the ’70s. It was a horror magazine with a lot of pulp-style writing, but no authors you’ve ever heard of.
This story is a trick. The happy title hides a much more terrifying narrative. If you embark on this, you must know what you’re getting into. This is not a tale of whimsey.
Have you ever had a coworker steal your lunch? Ever found that the meal you brought from home was no longer where you meant it to be? What if, in this hypothetical scenario, you also could make almost any piece of technology you wanted and had basically infinite resources?
If you could wish for anything, dear reader, what would it be? And, more importantly, how would you phrase that wish to avoid it backfiring?
