This Thing A Quiet Madness Made Novels & Stories

We don't retreat. We sharpen. And somewhere underneath all the sarcasm and fake escape plans, something inside me shifts anyway. The moon hangs pale outside my bedroom window. Tomorrow it'll be full. Tomorrow somebody will probably get bonded whether they like it or not. Tomorrow half the wolves in the territory will lose their minds. I close my eyes slowly. "Let the moon do its worst," I whisper. Because if there's going to be madness tomorrow— it won't just belong to the moon.

Slowly sitting up, she composed herself, adjusting her disheveled hair, a vain attempt to regain a semblance of control. Opening the text message, Maddy found solace in the distraction it provided. Her loosened false eyelashes obscured her view, prompting her to tear them off and place them temporarily on the coffee table. The message, however, brought an unexpected twist to her emotional state. A sender named "Annoying Genius" had crafted a peculiar poem that, in its eccentricity, managed to evoke a faint smile from Maddy.

,the bodyguards say pulling out their tazers guns and pointing at thus insane dumbass. "you know little bow beep I can make you weep",he is certifiably insane as he dances around and Alexis wants to cry I can hear it as she hugs me trembling and whimpering my name. My poor baby girl this lunatic is pissing me off and scaring her. "baby lets hurry inside and get back home",I hold her close as he screams louder at our backs. The screams are maniacal and unhinged making her cringe in my arms. "that dude has screws loose ",Steven looks back at Walton who keeps screaming incoherent shit.

RAVEN It was strange, really strange, how quiet everything felt. The air itself carried a kind of stillness that made me feel like even my own breathing was too loud. I stood there for a long while, listening, straining my ears for the slightest sign of movement, and finally I whispered to myself, “Why is it this quiet? It shouldn’t be this quiet.”

Quieten my brain to distract me from Bryan and keep my focus on Bella, seduce Bryan, destroy Bella. The background noise helped too, it played this African afro beats that I enjoy so much, “Calm Down by Rema” and other songs in a playlist. The hum of treadmills like a steady heartbeat, the metallic clink of weights colliding, the occasional grunt from someone trying to impress the mirrors. Even the playlist the staff put on loop became a strange kind of white noise, making it easier to think.

The silence came like a held breath, silver noticed it when she woke. She lay still beneath the furs, eyes open, waiting for the familiar brush of sound along the edges of her thoughts. The whispers had become a constant companion over the past weeks, unwelcome but predictable. They curled through her mind at odd hours, pressed into her insecurities, named her fractures with cruel intimacy. This morning, there was nothing, no murmur or presence. Her chest tightened. She sat up slowly, pressing two fingers to her temple as if she could coax the sound back. The quiet stretched, deep and unnatural, like a forest emptied of birds, it was too still.

They were actively leveraging their own survival against her mind. “Cease the madness. My boots will track to the Lawson line, understood?” Madison was entirely numbed by the relentless lunacy of their behavior. She had inhabited the Gillian shanty for less than two moon cycles, and her mental fortitude was already on the verge of a total collapse.

When the two left the room and the study was plunged into silence, the Sword Sisters urged Maddie to close her eyes. Maddie obeyed. The Sword Sisters began a soft humming, like the drone of bees. It was low and the Sisters didn't even stop to catch their breaths. Soon Maddie was entranced. All background noise, like the chirping of birds at the oak tree by the window and the creak of the desk faded. Only the humming of the Sisters persisted.

The silence was unnerving. Madison crouched, pressing a palm against the mirrored ground. Her shadows slipped downward, vanishing into the glass, then reappeared across the street, stretching into dark ribbons that bent entire buildings. “It’s listening,” she whispered. “Every move I make, it copies. No—it obeys.”

However, no matter how hard she mashed the buttons, the system was like it was in lockdown, not budging an inch. She could only watch, horrified, as her every action was broadcast for all to see, her look of bliss and madness blown up for the whole world to watch. The whispers in the crowd swelled. Snickers and murmurs filled the air, the thrill of gossip undeniable. "Is that Jocelyn?" "Didn't she just rip into Tessa?" "Oh, this just got juicy..." Jocelyn's composure shattered, and she shrieked. "It's Tessa! She's framing me! She's behind this!