Short Horror Stories

Crumbs

(This whole book is just a coping mechanism for me. None of these are true stories and none of them will have any graphic descriptions, and no pictures will be put in the book at all. Trigger warnings will be put at the top of each chapter. This first one is bittersweet but lowkey really fucked up so enjoy the things my mind creates)

TW: Implied child abus3/n3gl3ct, kidnapping (kind of), bruises, d3ath

People still think everything went wrong that day, but I know that nothing was right from the start. At least, not in the town I was cursed to call home.

Morker, named after an inaccurate version of the Swedish word for darkness, had always been an overcast and dreary place. People said sunshine seemed to avoid it like the plague. 

The same could be said about most of its residents as well, particularly Mr. and Mrs. Brumble. Ever since the birth of their unplanned daughter, Vera, the couple had gone from simply quiet people to cold shut-ins. Other than their financial stuff, the Brumbles had hoped to live their lives free from responsibility, but that wasn't an option anymore. The sudden arrival of something so impossibly big into their lives devastated them.

Knowing that the religious families around them would become hostile if they gave Vera up for adoption, the Brumbles' path in life became twisted. The day Vera came into the world, a news report of an unidentified and possibly dangerous species of lizard being sighted in the sewers swept over the town. A bad omen, Mr. Brumble claimed.

Vera had to grow metaphorical claws, because she grew up needing to seize any stability she could. Her parents didn't know what to do with her. Mrs. Brumble's mind warped until she couldn't even water a plant correctly, while Mr. Brumble rarely spoke a word. Never knowing when she'd be harmed for no reason but spite, Vera became caught in her parents' atmosphere of never doing anything meaningful. 

But there was one constant in her unpredictable world of pain. Every so often, a glimmer of humanity would somehow touch Mr. Brumble's soul. A ray that cut through the confusion, fear, frustration, and longing to go back to the times before the question of what to do with Vera consumed him, and on those days, he'd stop by the store on his way home from work and purchase a small bag of cookies. 

Those cookies became Vera's biggest comfort. Unhealthy as they were, they soothed her mind and she could never refuse one, no matter how full she was. Delicious, cinnamon-flavored baked circles with sparkly white icing and rainbow sprinkles on top, made lovingly by an ice-cold machine in some factory. 

The Brumbles' lack of parenting went unnoticed by the town. That is, until the day it destroyed the very idea of morality.