r/horrorwriters

April 12, 1999.

Adam was camping in the forest alone. Surrounded by darkness and shadows, his campfire being the only light that shows in the area's darkness. While sitting at his fire, boiling water, he saw something dash into the forest and then the dying squeak of a rabbit. Adam stood up to check it out, thinking it would be neat to see nature taking its course. However, when he walked over and looked into the forest where he had heard the noise, there was no animal eating, there was a short pale figure. Adam shined his light toward the figure, as the light landed onto the area where the figure was eating, it turned around and looked at Adam which caused him to quickly turn his light off and get into his tent. When the figure turned around, Adam could see its eyes, but they were just completely white. Nothing in them, just a deep empty white. He didn’t know how, but somehow Adam managed to fall asleep. Upon waking up in the morning, he immediately packed up his stuff and ran out of the forest to his car.

December 3, 2019.

Adam went camping with his best friend James, he had bought the forest when the long forgotten creature once was. He finished building his cabin, and to celebrate he decided to invite James to go camping with him. Adam and James sat by their fire, fire popping and crackling, crickets chirping, and water boiling on the fire. James checked his watch.

“2 am. Probably about time to call it a night huh-”

 Something flew by  them both, James screamed as he was dragged deep into the forest dragged along the ground. Adam grabbed his flashlight and ran into the direction James was dragged toward. James' screams stopped, but Adam had kept running until he started to hear the sound of flesh being ripped up and something snarling. Adam shined his light toward the sound, and there it was again. The figure from his past, the creature he had long forgotten. This time the creature didn’t just sit there and look. The creature lunged toward Adam. Adam moved from the attack and he started running back toward his cabin. The creatures snarling and sounds of running quickly faded, but Adam kept running. Adam saw his cabin in front of him, he stepped over broken glass as his key entered the lock, but then he froze. Broken glass, the creature didn’t catch him despite its speed, it should have caught him no problem. He heard snarling behind the cabin door which snapped him back to reality. The creature wasn’t chasing him, it was waiting for him.

I’ve always been a true horror fan. From the age of 11, I devoured every Stephen King novel I could get my hands on. From there, the obsession only grew, branching into every corner of horror I could find.

I’ve also been writing for as long as I can remember and loving every second of it. So it was inevitable that I’d end up writing horror myself.

Over time, I became drawn to something very specific: dark, beautiful, and often gruesome prose. Not exactly the easiest fit for binge-friendly Kindle Unlimited reading… but it’s what I love.

As a horror author, I’m genuinely grateful for every sale and every KU borrow. I know I’m writing in a small, strange corner of the market, far from mainstream gore and far from pulp.

My books might not reach everyone. But they’re mine, and they’re exactly what I set out to create.

And sure… if I’d known years ago how well mainstream romance sells on Amazon, maybe I would’ve gone that route.

…yeah, no chance 🤣

Does my first chapter grab you?

Full chapter below.

Chapter One

The meeting

Havenreach

Pop. 10,293 · August 23rd 2027

Sqector 17 · Runner Training District

Status Stable

Monitors Active

The hall was too quiet. Too polished.

A metallic clang echoed across the room. A spoon had fallen from the table of a nervous girl near the back.

Everyone froze. Hearts thumped. Soft beeps confirmed every spike, and the monitors on their chests glowed red.

Mara sat at the head of the table, hands folded, eyes sweeping over the room. No sweat. No tremor. A trainer's veil covered her face.

“Everyone breathe,” she said. Low, precise. “It’s just a spoon.”

The girl swallowed hard and reached for it with trembling fingers, her veil fluttering with each breath. Eyes darted above the fabric that covered nose to collarbone. Chests heaved beneath grey, shapeless clothing.

Incident Report // Fear Event — Sector 17 Hall

REF: S17-0823-001

Trigger

Metallic contact — spoon, floor surface. Accidental.

Response

Mass spike — estimated 14 monitors. All went red within 3 seconds.

Subject

Female, minor. Father: scavenging crew.

Contraband item — metal spoon recovered.

Emotion - Public display — laughter, embarrassment. Secondary violation.

Outcome

Subject removed for retraining. Parents: reprimand + potential isolation.

Contained by

Trainer Mara. Zero transformations. Meeting resumed.

The meeting had begun with routine. Reports. Minor disputes. Heart rates monitored. People sat in assigned pairs for mutual monitoring, mutual responsibility. No one worked alone. No one lived alone. Isolation bred fear, and fear bred death.

No one could speak about the last one who had activated too fast. The whispers had been enough for an enforcement response. Fear though illegal was always there, it lived in the margins; in the eyes visible above veils, the shaking of hands that weren’t meant to shake.

Someone in the back shifted, brushing another. The slightest contact.

• BEEP · RED

A hush fell. Even the older ones, survivors of the early outbreaks, paled.

Mara’s eyes flicked to the monitors. “Control,” she said. “Control is all you have. Lose it, and you lose everything.”

The room exhaled. Some quietly. Others barely. The fabric of their veils moved with each measured breath.

She knew what they didn’t.

Some of them would not make it to the next year. Some would wake in the middle of the night, hearts racing, and cross the threshold that no breathing exercise could reverse. They would transform, and the watchers on night shift would have to kill them before they killed others.

A loud bang from outside made half the room jump. A gate slammed in the wind. Monitors beeped red. Someone would be put into isolation for such a violation. Inciting fear, if bad enough, could lead to execution.

“Calm,” Mara repeated. Sharper now. People trusted her. Needed her.

“For the good of the community,” came from the hushed tones of those whose monitors had turned yellow. The mantra made to calm them and remind them what was at stake.

They had been taught since the world fell six years ago: faces lie, but monitors tell truth.

A soft sigh. A whisper of movement. And then Mara’s eyes tightened. She could feel it. The room had tilted. The balance had changed. The meeting continued, but she was no longer a mediator. She was a sentinel.

Because everyone in the room was one heartbeat away from disaster.

forthegood.community/chapter1.html