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It’s like walking on skeletonsevery morning I wake upin Novembermy clock is ringingit’s time for me to gogetting on my maskit’s full of warmth and dutymarching in line.As I walk down the roadHigh Street’s war theatreno sound, no noisesomeone’s breaking my stepscrowds of ghosts and corpsevery morninggo on.A little me is singing in my headabout yesterdays and love and guiltI’m walkingstilltowards the undergroundthe corridors of deathwaiting for mewaiting for usin its lovely cozy throat. Caged in the passageyour soul is waiting for me toothe clock is ringingmy little me is screamingCRASHsilenceghosts-

ONE SILENT MORNINGby Susann Offenmüller

As the time of year comes upon us when death in its most Romantic and beautiful form is falling from the trees in all sorts of pretty colours, I’ve been think-

ing that it’s high time I retreated to some old, isolat-ed castle or mansion somewhere and finally composed my Shelleyan masterpiece... In other words, dear readers, my challenge to you this issue is to take your own turn of the screw and write me a ghost story.

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In the darkest, dampest depths of an uninhabited cave, a creature doesn’t exist. The ruthless cold plagues the darkness; penetrates through every layer, through your

skin, through your every nerve and sinew, through your soul. The air drowns in the wretch-ed stench of neglect, dense with danger. There are no clouds to be edged with a silver lining. No damp grass to glisten. The light of the moon casts a macabre shadow that creeps along the uneven waters and slithers through the night into the underworld. The merciless waters cry into the night as the weight of the world grows heavier.

You stumble deeper and deeper into your crumbling reality until eventually you are at the heart of the cave. Never before has a heart been so cruel. You breathe in; your icy breath swirls around in your lungs, chilling you all the way through, before creeping out and dancing into a tangle of smoke that clings to your skin. A sticky web of fear weighs heavy on your shoulders as you stumble further and further into your abyss.

You ask yourself what that was.If you could understand it, nothing else would make sense.You scream.You realize there is no sound. Your voice doesn’t exist here. Nothing does. You are falling. Your body gnarled by speed and twisting – spinning – flaying.

Something is shining in the void below you. It’s getting bigger. Bigger. BIGGER. It pierces through the skin on your back, then your backbone, then your heart, through your breast tissue and out. Now a tangled vision of shining silver and vibrant red adorns your limp frame. You breathe again. Your last breath snakes out into the black and paints it with translucent grey spirals. The spirals gather and form.

Now you exist.

YOUR GHOST STORYby Lauren Lindsey