Collaborative Writing Challenge | June
Four Stories Become One: Urban Horror
Welcome back, Night Owls.
If you're new to this particular type of writing challenge, you can find more info [HERE].
Each month, we vote on story elements. On the first, I announce the chosen details. By the 14th or 15th, I post the winning submissions and unveil our group story—where I weave the winners’ concepts into one cohesive narrative.
Last month, the winners became canon. This month, they introduce a new—to you—narrator.
Below are the winning submissions, each with a short blurb for context. I highly recommend reading, appreciating, and sharing the original work from each creator.
These collaborative projects are a way for us to stretch creatively, break from our norms, or flex in our favorite genres. My extensions of their work aren’t “improvements”—just exercises in adaptation. I'm challenging myself to think quickly and build something meaningful from the ingredients I’m given.
The originals absolutely stand even better on their own.
For the best experience, I suggest reading the full pieces first—then diving into my final product. So, let’s hear it for this months winners in the comments!
Monica leaned a hand against the ancient gas pump for balance and rested for a while. She was even more ancient than the gas pump and normally used a sturdy walker for her sturdy body when she walked. She had left the walker behind when it kept getting stuck in the cracks of broken asphalt surrounding Jake’s Gas.
Jake was a scumbag and his failing business was a reflection of himself. Dirty, poorly maintained and repulsive to look at. Only someone desperate for gas would stop here. A month ago, Monica’s granddaughter Justine had reluctantly stopped here with her gas gauge showing empty.
…
“What are you doing here? You come alone?”
“I’m alone. I’ve been alone since my granddaughter committed suicide.”
“That’s got nothing to do with me you old bitch. It ain’t my fault she’s sick in the head.”
“She committed suicide because you raped her right here in this garage. You and your son.”
“That’s a lie. You can’t prove anything. That case was dismissed because I’m an innocent man.”
Jake was pointing his piece of shit gun at Monica with a shaking hand. Getting shot wasn’t much of a concern for a seventy five year old woman with stage four cancer but she hoped he didn’t shoot her all the same. She didn’t want to miss what was coming.
Monica heard the groan of shifting earth from the sewage pipes under the garage and she smiled. “Well now, we’ll find out how innocent you are in just a minute.”
They entered the ruinous colosseum of bygones through a shattered window. I watched them between the shadows. They crept on top of broken glass, crinkling it back down into sand. I entered behind them – phasing, stepping. Listening, plotting.
Roof panels rotted inside and out, spilling bundles of old wires like falling intestines. Dead and dusty. The group carefully stepped around the puddles formed from the rainwater. It seeped into everything, everywhere.
…
It was here with me, with us, for eternity.
Now they can explore the wreckage of their own deaths forever.
The sound of the rain hitting the remains of this place lulled me back into death. The void’s job was done.
“You’re listening to WTFM, eastern Georgia’s classic rock station.” At this time of the night, the DJ would be Maya’s only outlet to the rest of the world. Maya didn’t mind the boredom and isolation, it was the only way for her to get some peace and quiet to finish her assignments. The cashier’s counter spread with paperwork, she was hard at work trying to finish her art assignment. “Only two more years, and these working long nights will pay off. I’ll have my degree and I’ll be free of this bullshit town.”
…
Her mother's voice echoed in her memory: "Don't let anger consume you, baby. That's not what Tommy would want."
Maya's grip on the bat loosened slightly. Was this really happening? Or had grief finally broken her completely? The line between memory, hallucination, and supernatural revenge blurred until she couldn't tell which was real anymore.
The man on the floor whimpered, and Maya snapped back to the present moment. The store was empty. There was no injured man, no dead girlfriend, and the gas pumps are in perfect condition. The drawing was finished, a perfect rendering of that dreadful night five years ago. The radio continues to blast I Thank You by ZZ Top. Maya then looked at her phone, three missed calls from her mother. Maya quickly calls her back, “mom, I love you, more than anything in this world.”
The world is not like it used to be. Streets on the surface have become forests. Buildings rise from extensive high-speed subways called the Trams pretzeled on top of each other like a twisted carnival ride. Most everyone is beyond the motion sickness, but it's the necessary tradeoff for high speed travel. You can cross the city on a whim — minutes for what used to take hours. What's built underground stretching for miles is rivaled by vertical architecture.
Skyscrapers aren't alone as the modern marvel. Atmoscrapers have been popping up in rapid order due to the advent of the SpaceTether and the rampant, but now legal, labor abuse. They say there's plans to hit the Kármán Line within 5 years. Most people live underground nowadays. If you generate six zeroes a month on your income, you can rent a floor higher than 120.
…
Upon arrival, the two approached the gathered crowd. Pushing through, they came to what everyone was standing in front of. Larynx, a local techie, was connected up and going about his usual duties when the chaos must have started. His body wasn't given the freedom to flail chaotically like they witnessed at the juice-up in E438.
The screen in front of him was blood splatter, his arms had deep scarring and burns that spread like lightning and charred over. His face was a grotesque misrepresentation of human features, but what he experienced before his demise showed through.
Terror, agony, brimstone. Larynx's right hand was fused to an analog stick and his eyes were hollowed out burnt craters. He looked as if he would break apart like charcoal if anyone touched him and the smell was verifiably foul.
Lichen backed away and walked to the far end of the Nest and Helo followed.
"Lichen, we did this... the timing's too convenient."
"I know, I know..."
"Hey — let's go. Time to pay a visit to Gingko."
Honorable Mention
Ariadne honestly wrote one of my favorite submissions that I genuinely felt was so well written that it deserved to stand alone.
Now, I bet you’re all wondering:
“What about the random number we chose?”
Let’s revisit the options, shall we?
Dialogue: I will change any and all spoken lines in the submissions I select—and nothing else. The story stays intact. The meaning won’t change.
Theme or Genre: The fully assembled narrative will undergo a complete theme or genre shift.
And you all chose #3: Theme change.
Original Theme: Revenge
New Theme: Perception as Your Prison
This story continues from where each left off.
Revenge Is A Cycle
The Void is… a curious place, to say the least. Some areas of the Void may look familiar, and that’s by design—false comfort, manipulation.
In a forgotten ruin, inside the Void, the flooded mall had stolen the last breaths of the souls inside. Their grief was a dark song felt far beyond their demise. It pulled others, hungry for release or vengeance, into its endless fold.
A faint, pulsing glow came from the center of pitch black.
From a distance, it’s glow had attracted The Watcher.
The Watcher is not prone to curiosity. That’s more my sin. But the glow was new. And new things in the Void are… rare. Rare things are worth watching.
They arrived without sound, as always. The survivors.
The Watcher peered into the Void. He recognized the scent of old revenge, burned down to its barest bones. Something is beginning again. Again. And—
“Are you narrating for me, dear Narrator?” The voice was unexpected, but not unpleasant. The Watcher.
“Oh—uh…” I feigned anxious, as if narrating were outside of my scope of practice.
“I’m honored. But I believe these Voidlings could benefit from a proper introduction. Allow me.”
I am the Watcher. I do not interfere. I do not console. I do not save. I observe.
I’ve watched planets crumble. Lovers eat each other alive. One woman screamed so long her echo began narrating her own death.
But this place—the petty mall, the whispering gas station, these meat-wrapped time bombs of grief and fire—they intrigue me.
The Narrator tells stories. Weaves meaning. She cares. That’s her singular flaw.
I prefer finality.
You may think this makes me cruel. Perhaps it does. That doesn’t concern me. You’re in my narrative, now.
Try to keep up.
Timelines, universes, memories ripped open.
Helo. Still holding her tools, expression unreadable. The Sphere’s hum still in her ears.
Radio static pulsed in Maya’s skull. Tommy’s voice is screaming her name, somewhere in the distance—a fun little illusion, courtesy of yours truly.
Monica, breathing heavy. A touch of blood on her hands. Sweet Marie? Gone. Or perhaps…
Joshua stood there at the center, eyes wide. Confused. He wasn't seeking revenge—but he was forged in it.
And then there was me, Watcher, whose voice slithered through their ears, and snaked around their subconscious.
"You’ve all done very well.”
Silence. Then my voice broke through their thoughts once again.
“The Void has brought you together because revenge never ends. It consumes.”
Grief is slow to trust the voices of strangers; no one spoke, not yet.
The first to break the silence was the small one with the burn scars and the clever fingers. Helo, the mechanic. She gripped her wrench like it was the only thing keeping her anchored to what was left of her reality.
“Is this some kind of psy-ops run?” she said, voice laced with suspicion. “'Cause I don’t have the clearance or the patience for hallucination therapy.”
Ah. The anger of someone who’s learned not to hope, and the wit of someone forged in darkness.
The girl with the static in her skull—Maya—jerked towards silence.
“…Tommy?” Her voice cracked like thin glass. “What the hell is this?”
A reasonable question—it’s quite humorous, actually. They always ask. Never listen.
The boy—Joshua—backed away as though distance had ever saved anyone here. His eyes were wide; recognition. He’d been here before, or close enough.
“Am I dead? Is this hell? That would make sense.”
How earnest. I liked that.
Then came the old woman, Monica. Her presence simmered with something fouler than fury. Purpose.
She dabbed blood off her cheek and regarded me as if she were sizing up the final boss in a fight she didn’t care if she survived.
“Oh, this is Hell,” she said. “No question. And you’re the Devil’s front desk clerk.”
Charming. I bowed. “You flatter me,” I said.
Their eyes were adjusting now. Not to the dark—but to the rules. Some part of them already knew this wasn’t a hallucination.
“The Void is satisfied—for now. But it has one question.”
A beat.
“Will you let revenge consume you?”
A low rumble seemed to echo through the non-existence floor. Hungry.
The space around them shifted. The mall materialized, concept by concept. Escalators that led nowhere. Storefronts that hadn’t existed since 1998. Blood smeared across a “Closing Sale” sign that had no owner.
A gas pump jutted from the tile in the middle of a food court. A woman’s shoe sat beside it, muddied and covered in blood.
“You are not being punished,” I said, and that was true.
“You are not being rewarded,” I added, and that was truer.
They turned towards one another in slow circles. No one wanted to speak. Not yet.
Somewhere in the distance, something hummed.
I watched, as I do. After all, the feast had already begun.
One by one, their vision began to distort—each survivor now appearing as the fuel behind other survivors revenge.
Joshua, to Monica, appeared as Jake.
Helo looked exactly like the guy that killed Tommy.
Helo saw Maya as Gingko.
But Josh saw…nothing. He blinked, confused.
Joshua had no revenge in his soul.
Interesting.
I couldn’t help but wonder if this would help or hinder the group.
It happened quickly, as it does when grief gains hands before sense.
Monica's breath hitched when she looked at Joshua. Her body stiffened in recognition. Her mind tried to argue, tried to logic its way out of what her eyes saw.
But her eyes won.
She moved.
Joshua barely had time to react. She was on him with a feral snarl. Her hands clawed at his throat as if she could carve the past out of his flesh.
“You think I forgot that face?” she said, voice low and trembling. “You think I forgot what you did to her?”
Maya’s gaze shifted to Helo, her spine stiffened.
“You—You were there that night. You smiled.” Maya breathed.
That jacket. That posture. The tension snapped like a tendon under Maya’s voice.
“The hell are you talking about?” Helo snapped.
But when she looked back at Maya, her eyes narrowed. Too smooth. Too calm. Too familiar.
“Of course it’s you. You think I wouldn’t recognize your smug little voice?”
And then it all unraveled.
Maya swung at Helo.
Helo slammed Maya against a cracked glass wall, wrench raised like a blade.
No one was right.
Every one of them convinced they were.
So convinced, none of them noticed when water began to coat the floors—or the whispers the followed.
The Void didn’t correct them. Why would it?
It needed to be fed.
Monica clawed at Joshua. Maya screamed Tommy’s name until her voice cracked, each cry a blow against Helo’s defenses.
Helo swung her wrench with practiced precision—each strike less about hurting and more about survival.
None of them saw each other.
They saw only their ghosts.
The Void drank it all in, patient as ever.
Maya’s scream shattered and faded as Monica’s fists pummeled at the shapes in the air—at what should have been Joshua, but wasn’t.
Monica’s fists crashed into Joshua’s ribs, thinking he was Jake. That bastard. That coward. The man who had taken and taken until her world cracked.
“You killed her,” she snarled, teeth bared like something feral. “You killed my granddaughter!”
Joshua stumbled over his own feet trying to flee, breath knocked from his lungs. He didn’t cry out. He just shook his head over and over like that could erase the face she thought she saw.
He felt as though he’d somehow earned this.
“I didn’t do it,” he tried to cry out, voice useless and quiet.
Monica didn’t hear him. Grief doesn’t listen.
And then Maya screamed.
She turned on Helo, eyes blazing with memory.
“You were there!” she cried, pointing a trembling finger. “You’re the one who smiled while Tommy bled out!”
Helo staggered backward, startled. Helo didn’t see a grieving girl.
She saw Gingko. Smiling. Manipulating. Lying.
“You sent me into that Sphere,” Helo spat, driving her wrench up like a blade. “You used me.”
Maya was already swinging. She crashed into Helo, fists flying, elbows wild, fury untrained but fueled by unbearable pain.
The two of them crumpled into a bloody tangle—neither warrior, neither villain. Just hallucinations wearing old pain.
It was brutal. Clumsy.
And the Void ate it all.
Joshua tried to crawl away from Monica, blood dripping from his mouth. He coughed, tried again.
“Stop—please—I didn’t do anything—I didn’t hurt her!”
Sweet Marie simply…appeared. She looked at Joshua—tilted her head.
She saw him.
More than that, she served Monica—and this was not the Monica she knew.
The Monica she knew wanted Joshua protected from his fathers fate.
“This one,” she said—a verdict. “He is not mine.”
Joshua blinked, tears carving down his cheeks.
Monica’s body locked up, grief freezing into shame. Her shoulders trembled. She dropped to her knees, eyes fixed on Joshua.
“No,” she whispered. “But he—he—”
She raised her arm—and never finished that sentence.
The room changed temperature.
The water rose, liquid hands emerging from beneath. Desperation swallowed her gently.
It does that sometimes.
The others—Maya, Helo—they were already gone. They’d fought each other, even as they were being pulled under; gulping thick, viscous liquid that pretended to be water.
Sweet Marie melted in the Void, as though she’d always been a part of it.
Joshua, bruised and broken, still breathing, was all that was left. He stared into the black where the others had been. No monsters. No explanations. Just silence.
Mercy, from the Watcher, is non-existent—in most cases.
This one happened to be non-standard.
“So, my dear Narrator—how did I do?” I, the Watcher, was anxious—for the first time in a millennium.
“You didn’t have to kill them all.” She laughed—a sound that was transported straight from the heavens.
“I left one alive for you.” I offered, gently.
“You shouldn’t have.” She smiled.
And that was the whole damn point.
I hope you enjoyed June’s collaborative writing project!
Now it’s time to vote for July (my birthday month, woo!)
Until the next story,
—The Narrator.
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Coming back to write a new comment now that I have read everyone's contributions. What a stellar batch of stories and to all culminate for the Void. Watcher and Narrator do be hungry.
Nikki, your compound finale was a lot of fun! The indifference of the Watcher reminds me of how I think about nature. Indifference is terrifyingly powerful. A force unbeholden to compromise/barter.
Absolutely fucking fuego. I loved this mosh pit of chaotic illusions fueled by hate and grief. Amazing work Narrator! Thank you so much for including me in the process and creating something totally unique. All of these stories are a FANTASTIC.