I was still rubbing sleep out of my eyes when I felt my cat, Stella, brushing her fury body around my shin, a small mouth of sharp teeth nipping at my skin. She never does that, I thought as I look to her cat bed and notice Stella is curled up asleep in it still.

Hello, friends! I hope you are all having a great October so far and a good week! It has been crazy busy here so I’m afraid just the one story this week. I had a moment of writer’s block when I almost posted a truly horrific piece of writing (it would only scare me to post that mess for the world to see) and had to let myself sit on it and wait until something better came to mind.

This morning, I had to wrangle my cat to the vet for a teeth cleaning, which you would think wouldn’t be so awful since she’s not actually sick but when you can’t feed your darling fur baby their usual brekkie (breakfast), they get so stressed that apparently they throw up…and I’m called dramatic? No, I get it; her routine was disrupted which WOULD stress me out, but it was 6AM, y’all.

Anyway, every morning I make my way downstairs and have to awkwardly claw the wall for the light switch. Sometimes I see my kitty cat, Dahlia, in the dark, a small dark mass jumping and rushing at my feet. Sometimes, my stupid brain thinks, “huh, what if that’s NOT Dahlia? Wouldn’t that be so scary?”

Yes, brain, thank you. Because being afraid of the dark (or what’s in the dark) at night isn’t bad enough, you have to do it during predawn hours, too?

Anyway, we are only a few weeks away from Halloween! I’m super excited to continue writing short stories each week and have a night where I dress up and read them all over video. I did this last year on Facebook Live, which…well, the audio did something weird, so I’m going to prerecord so I can make sure it’s better quality this time.

In the meantime, please let me know of any themes or scary items that you would like to see a short story about. Tell me: what is your biggest fear? What awful things do you hate suddenly thinking about when you’re alone at night or in the dark?

You know, for kicks and giggles.

Much love,

A. Rose