ZCH

Joined November 2020

20 stories

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Hello and thank you for stopping by my profile! I am a writer, educator, and friend from Missouri. My debut novel, Open Mind, is now available right here on Vocal!

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Email -- [email protected]

Instagram -- zhunn09

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Open Mind: Chapter 20 . Content Warning.
That night, I dreamt that Annie and I were at one of the old rickety traveling carnivals that our town used to host every summer. Every year, my parents and I would pack up half a dozen of our cousins from the neighboring towns, pile us all in the back of the truck, and we’d head to the fairgrounds. This time, Annie was among the crowd of cousins in the trunk -- I don’t know what it says that the girl that just kissed me last night was now taking the place of a cousin, but I am not about to let some Freudian questioning ruin one of the only pleasant dreams I’d had in months.
By ZCH2 years ago in Fiction
Open Mind: Chapter Nineteen
This may come as a bit of a shock, but after the aftermath of Heather Sampson’s ill-fated slumber party, I didn’t exactly get asked to many other sleepovers after that. Being at Annie’s was the first time since that night that I was allowed to spend any amount of time at the home of another person my age. I hadn’t really thought about it before, but there was a deep embarrassment and shame that I felt in being ostracized. I tried to convince myself that it didn’t matter -- that they weren’t having any fun anyways and there was no reason for me to be jealous of such a stupid, insignificant thing. But once I was there, in Annie’s living room, eating garlic knots and watching her administer pain to the dreaded K-Slayer in Shinigami Shinobi, I wondered if this was what I had been missing the whole time.
By ZCH3 years ago in Fiction
Open Mind: Chapter Eighteen
After a few more mind-numbing days of routine and group therapies and family-friendly movie nights, the weekend had finally arrived. These days were always a big ordeal in the facility each week. Not every child was permitted to go home -- no children in the facility, even for just a weekend, meant no funding for the days that the facility was empty -- so there were always a few residents left behind. I was always left behind each weekend, and during these times, I usually just holed up in my room and waited for the commotion to be over and an unusual calm to settle over the place.
By ZCH3 years ago in Fiction
Open Mind: Chapter Seventeen
“That is incredible progress, Skylar. I hope that you are aware of that.” I could hear the droning of Dr. Lau’s clinical praise buzzing through the fog of my mind. In the days since Adrianna’s near-death experience, nothing was in focus. Every sight, sound, and sensation felt dulled and distant, as if some part of my body and mind were experiencing some portion of them in the next room.
By ZCH4 years ago in Fiction
Open Mind: Chapter Sixteen
Chapter 16 There was one weekend when I was in kindergarten when my mother was out of town for the entire weekend for some sort of nursing conference, and it was just me and my dad. Try as he always might, my father was never entirely the responsible parent. While my mother always tried to make sure our dinners together met the food pyramid’s high standards, my dad argued on our weekends alone that pizza “has pretty much the whole triangle” in every slice. I looked forward to those weekends the most – pizza and Cheers re-runs. My mother was not amused after her trip to find that I'd memorized the entire theme song, and she absolutely was not amused with my impromptu performance of it outside of my Uncle Wilmer’s funeral the following weekend.
By ZCH4 years ago in Fiction
Open Mind: Chapter Fifteen
Chapter 15 As my consciousness returned, I felt panic wash over me. I could feel nothing – no warmth or cold, no pain, no hunger, not even the clothes on my skin. I could hear nothing, and for several moments, I could see nothing. I opened my mouth to scream, but no sounds came out. I had no sense of my body parts and organs, so I couldn’t muster the strength in my throat and lungs to make my voice louder. It all felt like floating in an endless pool of flavorless Jell-O.
By ZCH4 years ago in Fiction
Open Mind: Chapter Fourteen
My eyes darted back and forth anxiously between Annie, stifling tears from the floor, and the doctor, arms folded and stiletto heels tapping. The doctor permitted a few moments for me to process all of the information that had been dumped on my before pressing on like a steamroller.
By ZCH4 years ago in Fiction
Open Mind: Chapter Thirteen
The next morning, I was surprised to find myself counting down the hours until my tutoring session with Annie. As I watched the rising of the sun intensify through the slits of light that danced across my white concrete walls, I listened to the tape of my father’s singing until the battery ran out. I panicked as I considered the very real possibility that the battery that the Walkman used may no longer be in production, but as I popped the back off of the device, I was relieved to find a relatively new pair of AA batteries in the slot.
By ZCH5 years ago in Horror
Open Mind: Chapter Twelve
“That sounds made up,” Adrianna scoffed. It was the first thing she had said to me all week, and it wasn’t even a conversation that she had been included in. I was speaking to Lily -- one of the girls who had taken a fondness to me since I landed myself in the Comfort Room. “I’ve known a lot of girls here, and not one of them said anything about no Open Mind treatment.”
By ZCH5 years ago in Horror
Open Mind: Chapter Eleven
Chapter 11 I did not look forward to reading from Emily Dickinson’s exhaustive collection of poetry, but I felt honor-bound to do so. At every opportunity I had, I would carry the book around with me. While the rest of the kids were sitting in the living room each night in front of the television, slack-jawed and drooling, I flipped through page after page of poems. Each short poem washed over me, nothing more than numbing waves of letters and dashes. None of it meant anything to me, and I couldn’t make heads or tails of what Dickinson was on about, but if it’s what Annie wanted me to do, I was determined to barrel through it.
By ZCH5 years ago in Horror
Open Mind: Chapter Ten
The following morning was my first day adjusting to the new Dogwood routine. Or at least, my first day of being aware of the Dogwood routine. Since I had remained so lucid throughout the previous day, I was no longer afforded the luxury of sleeping in. Mister Greg turned on the lights to my bedroom at 6am to summon me to the nurse’s office.
By ZCH5 years ago in Horror
Open Mind: Chapter Nine
Word had gotten around before I even arrived at dinner that I would have a tutor. It wasn’t even the fact that I was getting a tutor -- that was already uncommon for the residents of Dogwood. Most residents weren’t considered worth the effort, or were considered too much of a physical risk to the potential tutors. This Annie girl had developed quite the reputation around the facility with the girls who had been there longer. I found out all about her from Adrianna at dinner that night.
By ZCH5 years ago in Horror

ZCH

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Open Mind: Chapter 20 . Content Warning.

Open Mind: Chapter Nineteen

Open Mind: Chapter Eighteen

Open Mind: Chapter Seventeen

Open Mind: Chapter Sixteen

Open Mind: Chapter Fifteen

Open Mind: Chapter Fourteen

Open Mind: Chapter Thirteen

Open Mind: Chapter Twelve

Open Mind: Chapter Eleven

Open Mind: Chapter Ten

Open Mind: Chapter Nine

Stories (20)