Jzt Stories

Ever since I was nine, my mother had us moving around from one hotel to another without any clear reason. During one of our moving sessions, I asked her mother why we had to move again. She replied calmly by saying “There’s always new places to see and new things to experience so never settle at one place” The back and forth relocating made me eager to see new places, so her response sounded reasonable to me. Over the years we’ve moved so many times that I’ve lost count but one thing was certain and constant the hotel or apartment we stayed previously before moving always ended up collapsing and burning down. It’s a strange occurrence but I didn’t    give in much thought. But everything changed the night I turned seventeen. We were living on the sixth floor of a quiet roadside hotel nothing special, nothing different. But that night, I woke to the faint smell of smoke. At first I thought it was coming from outside, maybe someone burning trash, but when I stepped into the hallw...

I’m not really a dog person but the first time I saw him, he looked so familiar like we’ve met before. Its bright welcoming hazel eyes complement its dark black fur perfectly. But that doesn’t give me the comfort to approach or follow it. It lurks close enough to observe but far away to acknowledge its other features.   Over the years, i begun to notice it got closer. And the closer it gets, the more flashbacks I get. The first flashback was the last moment my mother bathed me. It was weird yet suiting at the same time. Having to recall every detail of that moment felt overwhelming. After that, the flashbacks just keep coming and the need to get closer to the dog and embrace it, grew stronger. Years gone by but the dog remained the same size, age and practically the same as the first time I saw it. Then one day, during one of my night walks in the park I saw him clearly by my feet. Brown eyes,    black fur, adorable little ears and the cutest nose I’ve ever seen on a dog....

“3, 2, 1… let’s begin.” Said Erin, the host of The Ring. The Ring is a weekly session where anonymous people come wearing masks to confess the evil deeds weighing on their souls. The confessions range from petty mischiefs to life altering sins. Things whispered only in darkness, beneath the hum of the single overhead light. Tonight, the room felt colder than usual. Twelve masked participants sat in a perfect circle, each one staring into the hollow eyes of the next. Erin stood at the center, her black notebook pressed against her chest. “As always,” She said, “no judgement, no interruptions, no names. Step forward if you feel the weight tonight.” A man wearing a cracked porcelain mask rose slowly. His hands trembled as he stepped into the light. He began. “I haven’t slept in nine days, because every time I close my eyes, I hear… knocking.” The others shifted, a few nodding like they understood too well. “I live alone, yet someone knocks on my bedroom door at exactly 3:17 a.m. I never a...

When police found the old VHS tapes in the abandoned house, Officer Graham volunteered to catalog them. Each was labeled by year 2002, 2003, 2004 with a shaky hand. The footage was mostly mundane. A man sitting in a living room, talking to the camera as if it were a diary. “Day 12 — still waiting,” He’d say. “I think they’re close.” As Graham fast-forwarded through the tapes, he noticed the man never aged. The wallpaper, furniture, and lighting stayed the same across decades.  Then, in a 2019 tape, the man stared directly into the camera and said, “Hello, Officer Graham.” Graham froze. His name badge was visible in the reflection of the TV screen.  The man smiled. “I told you I was waiting.” The tape ended.  When Graham reported it, the department laughed it off  until they checked the house again. The furniture matched perfectly. And on the living room table, next to a dusty camera, sat a fresh VHS tape labeled 2025. Inside was grainy footage of Graham si...

  “Which one is yours?” I asked the lady as I watched my son play with the rest of the kids at the park. “My brother took him to the washroom. They’ll be back in a bit,” she replied with absolute certainty. Though she sounded familiar, I didn’t remember her face. We had had a couple of conversations about our children, a little politics, and how school services were going through the roof before her brother came along with her little boy. “There he is. Come and say hi to my new friend. Maybe he and your son can be friends,” She said as she fixed her boy’s shirt.  Her son looked alright, but her brother, on the other hand, seemed off. He was dressed casually. Too casual. Almost like it was picked to look normal, yet meant for a particular occasion. Throughout our chat, I noticed her gaze was fixed on the couple at the far end and so was her brother’s. At the same time, the elderly man behind us, holding an umbrella despite the cloudy season and no chance of rain, was ...

It was supposed to be the ultimate urban exploration challenge. The rules of "Séance" were simple, passed down through campus whispers: get into the abandoned Silver Creek Asylum after midnight, go to the old hydrotherapy room on the third floor, and say the words, We are here to play. We were five, armed with nothing but cheap beer courage and our phone flashlights. Me, Chloe, Ben, and the couple, Mark and Sarah. The air inside was thick with the smell of decay and forgotten things. "We don't have to do this," Sarah whispered, her hand clutching Mark's arm like a vise. "Don't be a baby," Mark scoffed, though his own bravado sounded thin. "It's just a stupid game. A psychology experiment gone wrong, or something. It's not real." We found the room. Rust-stained tiles, the ghostly outlines of where porcelain tubs had been ripped from the floor. A single, frayed leather restraint lay in the corner. The air was colder here, a deep...