Tragedies change people. That being said, it shouldn't come as a surprise that the accident changed Gemma. Anger problems seem like the only issue to her, but her father and evil step-mother see a lot more than that lying underneath. Unable to help her, they go to their last resort; they send her to Safe Haven, a summer camp for troubled teens. Haven is a place where misunderstood teenagers can realize their problems and work through them in a safe environment. At least, that's what Gemma thought. The first things that come are the notes. Each one is written with a specific message on it, targeting the accident that killed her best friend and blaming her. The next are the secrets; everyone has one. But does everyone have one about her? The threads start unraveling as Gemma searches for the person who's hurting her; the person who is trying to drive her insane. But the closer she comes to uncovering the secret, the closer she comes to realizing that not everyone is who they seem. Mystery #3 October 3rd, 2012 Watty Awards Mystery Finalist 2012 Cover by @captainmarvel165

Sleep is for the weak. Unless you are awake because you are weak. (So weak that you can’t even find a way to fight with your thoughts so you write them.)

After her father is mysteriously killed, Emma Newman is forced to leave her old life to start anew but it's not long before she's thrust into quite a situation. Introduced to familiar faces from the papers by her old friend, Molly Hooper, she knows nothing will ever be easy again. With one look, Sherlock has stripped her of her secrets. For him, Emma Newman is just another easy deduction and strangely a mystery worth solving beneath short skirts and high heels. As she keeps turning up in his life, he soon takes on her case especially as her presence begins to shake things up, leaving him and John on a trail of a murder most foul. After all, there are only so many scars you can hide before they start to show again.

Clara’s summer plans of getting her driver’s license and lounging by the pool are instantly shattered when her mother and father are offered the opportunity to study a rare butterfly in the Amazon Rainforest. When Clara and her younger brother Liam are unceremoniously dropped off at their grandparent’s technology-free farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, things quickly go from bad to worse. In addition to coming down with a terrible case of the flu, Clara begins to hear strange unexplained sounds at night, she is locked into her bedroom every night, and her brother is given strict rules about where he can explore on his grandparent’s expansive property. Clara’s concern turns to pure terror when she and Liam find their grandfather reading the morning paper at the dining room table, covered in blood with a long kitchen knife in one hand. Petrified, Clara and Liam burst past their grandfather and race into the forbidden woods surrounding the farmhouse. Are things as they appear? Is their grandfather a murderer? Will Clara and Liam find their way to safety?

For months Summer is trapped in a cellar with the man who took her - and three other girls: Rose, Poppy, and Violet. His perfect, pure flowers. His family. But flowers can't survive long cut off from the sun, and time is running out...

Under the big top of Jensen Three Ring Circus, magical performances abound and tantalize the senses, but when the glitz and glory closes for the night, even the circus world cannot escape madness. Acrobat Kate the Great lives and breathes for the tightropes, the trapeze, the aerial hoops. In the air she is a free spirit with boundless joy, but on the ground, she’s a prisoner of unspeakable brutality. As her life spins out of control, a one night dance with the devil lands Kate in Rosenton Home for the Criminally Insane. It is here she is determined to make amends with her sins and to find a cure for her insanity. Her ward mates – a charming farm boy from Texas with a bewitching power to calm Kate, an older Mexican woman obsessed with beauty, a fourteen-year old girl who refuses to eat, a bizarrely upbeat young woman with her eyes on the farm boy, a giant with striking green eyes who lets no one in, and a sixteen-year old young man who shows no emotions beyond pure coldness – are the thin threads between her and becoming engulfed by unseen demons.

Meghan's best friend, Stacey, dares her to prove that ghosts don't exist. Meghan agrees, knowing that she is right. The Stanley Hotel is known to be haunted, but Meghan is determined. There, she meets Derek, a very handsome guy... who's also a ghost. Please vote and share. Thanks! :D Highest ranking: #226 in short stories ^-^

This story is about a girl named Tess who realises that something strange is happening with her best friend Pete. He told her he went to his lake house with his family, but why does Tess get the feeling that he was lying to her? She figures out what's going on, along with two of her closest girl friends, Megan and Hayley. Will they figure out what's happened to Pete before it's too late?

What if the person you trusted the most suddenly became a stranger, who desperately wanted you dead? And if an hour later, they were back to normal? Detective Jack Arnette was a respected cop, before a hostage situation went horribly wrong. Victor Slade is a meditating, hedonistic cop-killer. When Victor makes a pickup at the Seattle docks, Jack sees a chance for redemption. A simple arrest. Respect regained. But events spin out of control when Jack and Victor are quarantined with the dock workers and a virus that can make anyone go temporarily homicidal. Trapped by a SWAT team with orders to shoot anyone who leaves the building, Jack must deal with a cop-killer who has little to lose, and a group of innocents who could become just as dangerous. Who would you trust when anyone could become a killer?

It's an endless search for something that even the sharpest eyes cannot see. [Beautiful cover made by rigor_samsa.]