Are you brave enough to face your deepest fears? Bella Darkwood is back with Shivers volume 2, a bone-chilling collection of horror stories that will leave you breathless. From cosmic horror to body horror, from tales of deep sea terror to supernatu...
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Caroline stumbled through the front door of her apartment, her brain swirling in an intoxicating cocktail of whiskey and an unknown pill she’d naively swallowed at the party. The lights, once homely and comforting, now threw monstrous, distorting shadows onto the walls, making her feel as if the very fabric of reality was twisting and warping around her.
She first noticed the changes when she undressed for bed. Her fingers glided over something unfamiliar under her skin, a hard, ridged line running from her collarbone to her navel. It wasn't painful, but the sensation was sickeningly alien.
Her dreams that night were a jumbled pastiche of grotesque visions. She saw herself in her bathroom mirror, her hands, seemingly acting of their own volition, tearing away skin and flesh from her face, revealing something monstrous underneath. A dark, chitinous structure pulsed where her face once was, a creature from the depths of a Lovecraftian nightmare. She woke screaming into her pillow, her heart pounding like a wild drum.
When she walked into her living room the next morning, Malcolm was there. His head, detached and ghostly pale, was tucked neatly under his arm. His body, however, continued its mundane business, making a cup of coffee in her kitchen. “Morning, Caroline,” his decapitated head greeted her, his voice sounded like a rusted hinge.
Linda and Jane, the Siamese twins, were sprawled across her couch, their shared body entwined in a mass of limbs. They looked up from their joint knitting project, their four eyes synchronizing in a disturbing harmony, “Sleep well?” Linda asked, the words hanging in the air with an insidious chill.
She retreated into her bedroom, a wave of vertigo washing over her. Malcolm, Linda, Jane - none of them had been there when she’d fallen asleep. She pressed her hand against the alien ridgeline under her skin, realising for the first time, that her body was no longer hers alone. Something was living inside her, feeding off her, reshaping her.
Caroline couldn't recall the precise moment she started changing. Was it the moment she swallowed the mystery pill at the party, or had this foreign entity been biding its time, waiting for the perfect moment to reveal itself? Each tick of the clock felt like a countdown to an unknown, horrifying climax.
She saw her reflection in her bedroom mirror, but she was no longer sure it was hers. Her eyes seemed too large, too black, her skin pale and stretched too tight. The entity underneath pulsated and writhed, as if excited by her discovery.
Desperation filled her. She needed answers. She needed to confront her unwelcome guests.
Caroline walked back into the living room, her heart pounding. Malcolm sipped coffee from a cup held by his bodiless hand, while Linda and Jane continued their knitting, their four eyes unblinking.
"I don't know what you are or why you're here," she started, her voice shaking. "But I'm not just going to sit by and let you take over. This is my body. My life."
