Relax, repress, repeat, and smile. And just do it until the muscles in your mouth give out. It’s the motto everyone in Richmonton lives by—the only thing that keeps the wheels on the machine turning. However, after a while, Emilia Greer grew tired of the performance. She is tired of the “Wellness Standard,” tired of the clinical perfection, and tired of the mask that is slowly suffocating her.
Looking for an escape, she finds herself in the presence of Donovan Black—a world-class neurosurgeon whose regard for the pristine is as sharp as his surgical blade. But in Richmonton, intimacy is rarely without observation. As their lives intertwine, Emilia begins to realize that the sanctuary comes with a weight she wasn't prepared to carry.
As the “dead pixels” of a dark family legacy begin to surface, Emilia must decide if she has the grit to break the rules—or if she will become the next “loose end” to be surgically removed.
Cher Aitch is a young nursing student and writer of psychological, gothic, and speculative horror. Her work explores the dark undercurrents of everyday life, taking mundane stressors and stretching them to their most terrifying extremes. As she likes to say, a story isn’t worth telling unless it makes you stop and go, “What the fuck?” Cher draws inspiration from the banal and ordinary, revealing how reality itself can be stranger and more unsettling than fiction. Her stories rarely offer comfort or happy endings—they dwell instead on the painful, unavoidable truths of existence.View all by RHEA KAY
