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The Fear That Grips
An unreleased short story from the book:
The Price of Emotions: How Artificial Feelings Can Destroy Us
Maggie had always been terrified. From childhood, fear had been her constant companion. At first, it had been the usual things—a dark room, a monster under the bed, shadows that seemed to move when no one was watching. But as she grew older, her anxieties shifted, became more abstract, more inescapable. Every moment was clouded with dread. What if something happened to her parents? What if her friends left her? What if the world she had so carefully built came crashing down, leaving her completely exposed, helpless, broken?
Her thoughts spun in endless cycles, each one feeding off the last, spiraling further into a dark abyss. Panic attacks had come and gone, each time a little more debilitating than the last. She had tried therapy. She had tried medication. But nothing seemed to work. The fear, the constant gnawing terror, refused to leave.
That was when she found the app.
It promised understanding, a way to confront the fear that had ruled her life. She could buy the very essence of fear itself. The description was simple: “Buy Fear: Experience your deepest anxieties. Understand your terror. Control it, and take back your life.”
For years, Maggie had felt that fear was a prison—her own mind an endless cage of shadows. She wanted to understand it, dissect it, make it hers, not the other way around. Could the app really help? Could it finally give her the power to confront her demons?
Maggie hesitated only for a moment before clicking the link. The vial arrived within days—simple, sleek, glass. A small label: “One drop. Feel the full weight of your fears.”
She had no idea what she was getting herself into.
The first drop was gentle. There was no immediate surge, no shock to her system. It slipped down her throat like water, barely noticeable. For a while, nothing happened. Then, slowly, the fear crept in. At first, it was a subtle unease, a fluttering in her chest, like the beginning of a panic attack, but just as quickly it passed. She thought she felt a slight shift inside her—a sense of awareness, a flicker of something new. It was almost like relief.
And then it came.
A creeping, cold sensation that started in her fingertips and spread, gradually engulfing her. It wasn’t just anxiety anymore. It was terror. Deep, visceral, gnawing terror. Her pulse quickened, and her breath became shallow. Was it supposed to feel like this?
Her mind whirled. Visions flooded her senses. A car swerving off the road and crashing into her, her parents’ house burning down, her friends abandoning her one by one. Horrible scenarios played out in endless, horrific loops. She tried to focus, to calm herself, but the more she tried to think, the more the images came—sharp, terrifying, each more vivid than the last. Her heart raced, and her body shook as she imagined every possible disaster happening to her.
For the first time, she truly understood her fear—not as something abstract or theoretical, but as something alive, consuming, suffocating. Her own mind was now the prison. She was trapped inside it, unable to escape the unrelenting barrage of terror that came from within her.
The next day, Maggie’s hands were still trembling. She hadn’t slept. Her eyes burned from the exhaustion. The visions hadn’t stopped. The fear had only grown, like a seed planted in the darkest corner of her mind, its roots twisting and spreading into every part of her. Every sound, every flicker of movement around her set her on edge. She couldn’t trust her own thoughts anymore.
She didn’t want to feel this way. She didn’t want to be this person. But the fear was a living, breathing thing now, and it wasn’t going to let go.
She tried calling her friend Claire, but when she heard Claire’s voice on the other end, all Maggie could hear was a warning. What if something happened to her friend? What if Claire suddenly stopped loving her, stopped caring about her? She had to hang up. She couldn’t risk it.
The fear had taken her completely. Her body was no longer her own—she couldn’t control the shaking, the gasping breaths, the rising tide of terror. It wasn’t just her mind that was affected; her body was beginning to betray her. She couldn’t eat, couldn’t drink without the overwhelming dread that something, anything, could happen to her. It was as though she was constantly on the edge of some horrific reality that she couldn’t outrun.
Days passed. Each one felt like an eternity. She couldn’t leave the apartment. She couldn’t even look out the window without imagining an accident on the street below, or a robbery happening right outside her door. Her apartment was no longer a home—it was a tomb, a small, claustrophobic space that reflected the prison inside her own mind.
The app had promised that she would understand her fear. But what if that was the point? What if fear wasn’t something that could be understood or controlled? What if it was something that consumed you until you couldn’t tell where the terror ended and you began?
By the time Maggie realized the truth—she couldn’t escape her own mind—it was too late. She was already lost.
Her physical appearance began to wither. Her face had become gaunt, pale. Her eyes were wide, wild with panic. She hadn’t eaten in days. Her skin felt tight, drawn over her bones, as though the very fear that had taken hold of her was sucking the life out of her.
She stopped answering calls. She stopped leaving her apartment. Her phone lay beside her, abandoned, as the fear consumed everything. Her relationships, once important to her, faded to distant memories. The more she tried to hold on, the more she was pulled into the abyss of her own mind. There was no escaping it. The terror was constant, always just a heartbeat away. The world outside no longer mattered; it was the nightmare inside her that she had to survive.
And then, one night, the fear reached its peak.
She stood in front of the mirror, her reflection twisted by the sheer panic in her eyes. She could hear the pounding of her heart in her ears. The air in the room felt too thick, too oppressive. She wanted to scream, to run, but she was trapped in her own body, in her own thoughts. There was no way out.
The terror had become her life. It was inside her. It was her.
The fear had consumed her entirely.
And the worst part? It would never, ever stop.
If you enjoyed this short story you will probably like our latest release available now:
The Price of Emotions: How Artificial Feelings Can Destroy Us
$3.99
In a world where emotions are bought and sold, the price of feeling has never been higher.
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