Paper Lantern
Bio
Paper Lantern is a creative publishing house devoted to discovering and amplifying bold, original voices one story at a time.
Stories (34)
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Episode 15: A Deal
The sky was the color of old bruises, and the buildings were just teeth the earth forgot to swallow. Anya waited in the mouth of a collapsed parking garage, with one eye painted black and a necklace of vertebrae clinking like windchimes for ghosts.
By Paper Lantern6 months ago in Horror
Episode 14: The Meeting Beneath the Ash
They called it neutral ground, but there’s no such thing anymore. The city library had burned down in the third month—flames and screams and paperback confetti—but the basement was still standing. So that’s where we met. Between the cracked pillars and the sleeping mold, beneath a banner that used to say SUMMER READING IS LIT!
By Paper Lantern6 months ago in Fiction
Episode 13: A Pet In The Garden
The first time they called her “it,” Marla said nothing. They were laughing, silver-mouthed and bright-eyed, lounging in the gardens of the fallen Capitol, dressed like gods from old paintings—if the gods had cheekbones sharp enough to slice bread and no shame about hunger. One of them—the girl with a voice like broken glass—tilted her head, smiled without warmth, and said, “Ant’s pet looks sad. Did he forget to feed it?”
By Paper Lantern6 months ago in Fiction
Episode 12: John Doe
So there was screaming. That’s how it started. In the room — one of those white, blinking kinds that smells like bleach and static and something dying in the walls. Someone was strapped down. Someone else was talking too calmly. There were machines. Needles. Silver bags of blood hanging from hooks like ornaments from a Christmas no one would survive.
By Paper Lantern6 months ago in Fiction
The Fall From Innocence
The rain hadn’t let up since morning. It fell in cold, steady lines across the windshield, blurring the world beyond it. I gripped the steering wheel tighter, my knuckles bone-white, the wipers squeaking rhythmically like something crying out to be heard. We were late. Very late. And worse—we were the hosts.
By Paper Lantern6 months ago in Fiction
Episode 10: Reunion
When I woke up, the lights hummed like they’d forgotten how to sleep. They weren’t warm lights. Not the buttery kind you get in kitchens or the soft ones in motel bathrooms that make even broken people look romantic. These lights were silver. Hard. Surgical. The kind that show everything.
By Paper Lantern6 months ago in Fiction
Episode 8: Paper Dog Tags
So everyone was already gone when Unit Twelve reached the supermarket. The roof had caved in. The shelves were burned. The cold cases hummed with nothing. The only sound was the clink of broken jars rolling gently under Marla’s boots. Once upon a time this place sold ice cream and aspirin and checkout-line horoscopes. Now it sold death in six aisles and a parking lot full of empty shoes.
By Paper Lantern6 months ago in Fiction
Episode 7: Silver Like Mercy
So Ant woke up chained to a radiator in a room that didn't remember what heat felt like. That's how it started. The floor was concrete. The walls were insulted - by water damage. A single bulb hung like it had been sentenced to watch. His mouth tasted like copper and forgetting. His chest ached where someone had written pain in fists. And his arm - his arm had teeth in it. Two rows. Familiar ones.
By Paper Lantern6 months ago in Fiction
Episode 6: What Happens When You Don't Die
I didn’t scream when it bit me. That’s important. Screaming is the beginning of the end. A scream is the part of the ritual where the body decides to surrender. I didn’t. I just looked down at the half-circle of teeth still hooked in my forearm, and I thought: Oh. I guess this is how I find out what kind of story I’m in.
By Paper Lantern6 months ago in Fiction
