propaganda machine

The Ghoul

Leave a Comment / Creative / AJB / February 6, 2025 / authoritarian regime, behind-the-scenes power, Dystopian fiction, dystopian horror, dystopian war crimes, history repeating, manipulation and fear, nationalism, Nazi Germany parallels, Orwellian nightmare, persecution and control, policy of cruelty, political thriller, propaganda machine, secret police, shadow government, the Chairman’s advisor, the Ghoul, totalitarian government

Reading Time: 5 minutesThe Ghoul was never meant to be seen, only felt. He did not command armies, nor did he bask in the adoration of the masses. He did not need to. His power was quieter, more insidious. He whispered in the Chairman’s ear, turning hatred into doctrine, fear into policy, cruelty into law. He crafted the justification for every purge, every detention center, every vanishing citizen.

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The Build-Up

Leave a Comment / Creative / AJB / February 6, 2025 / authoritarian rise, digital erasure, Dystopian fiction, economic control, freedom of speech, loss of democracy, online censorship, paranoia and truth, political thriller, pre-dystopia, propaganda machine, psychological thriller, resisting misinformation, slow descent into dystopia, social collapse, surveillance state, survival instincts, totalitarian control

Reading Time: 5 minutesAlex had always been the truth-seeker, the one who couldn’t help but dig deeper, who couldn’t look away. He started with debates at the dinner table, calling out the lies, pointing to the headlines. Then he started arguing online, challenging family members who had fallen into the Circle’s rhetoric, pushing back against their justifications for hate. The world wasn’t collapsing all at once, just crumbling, piece by piece.

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The Love That Has No Name – Chapter Four – The Touch That Burns
Reading Time: 12 minutesThe memory of it clung to her like the fog outside—heavy, damp, impossible to shake. Her body ached not with pain but with absence. The places he had touched in her dreams felt hollow now, abandoned. Beneath her collarbone, the faint spiral mark pulsed with a warmth that felt like a heartbeat not her own.
The Love That Has No Name – Chapter Three – The Chapel Beneath
Reading Time: 13 minutesThe dreams started again that night. They weren't sweet dreams like the ones Rowan used to have as a child. These were deep and vast, like looking up at a night sky that went on forever, except this sky was inside her head. Every night they came, thick and slow, filled with a feeling as old as time itself.
Spring-Loaded Carnage
Reading Time: 7 minutesEthan Miller had always scavenged the abandoned industrial stretch outside Willow Creek for “cool junk.” At thirteen, he was a wiry, grease-caked prodigy with a garage full of clanking dreams—busted radios, broken RC cars, a rust-pocked arcade cabinet that still flashed INSERT COIN in epileptic desperation. But nothing compared to the treasure he unearthed that gray November afternoon.
The Love That Has No Name – Chapter Two – The House on Wither’s Hill
Reading Time: 13 minutesThe world outside held its breath, wrapped in a thick fog that smothered the jagged cliffs and muffled the ocean's roar. For three long days, it refused to lift, holding the isolated house on Wither's Hill prisoner. But Rowan barely noticed the weather. Her mind was elsewhere, her body driven by a nervous energy that raced through her veins like lightning.
The Love That Has No Name – Chapter One – Back to Breakwater Bay
Reading Time: 6 minutesRowan Dane didn't cry when she found David kissing his assistant in the gallery office. Not when he said she was "too cold," that she loved paintings more than people. Not even when he packed his silk ties and cologne and left without a goodbye.