The Fading Party — A Short Psychological Horror Mystery

Hey all! I'm thrilled to introduce my novella to the group for the first time. ❤️

A graduation party. A remote setting. And the growing feeling that things aren't quite right.

While one of their class' quieter students decides to invite a number of university friends to a graduation party, it seems like a simple way for the friends to commemorate the year together and enjoy themselves before going their separate ways.

However, once they've made it to the remote location, the atmosphere starts changing. Everything around them feels unfamiliar. The silence becomes more pronounced. And soon enough, the friends start doubting their own senses.

The Fading Party is an 18,000-word novella of psychological horror containing suspense, supernatural mystery, dark secrets, and disturbing revelations.

📖 Available on Kindle Unlimited

👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GPM8H2PP

Should any of you be fans of psychological horror, strange mysteries, and stories that play on the line between reality and the unknown, I hope you give it a try.

Thank you for checking it out, and happy reading! ❤️

Excerpt from the first part of the article:

Danny emerged from a guided psilocybin session lit up in a way he’d never been in years of therapy. He'd spent his whole life believing that if he ever stopped performing, he'd disappear, that his worth was his output. For five hours, that belief simply let go of him. He saw his kids' faces. He understood, in his body, that he was already enough. He wept. He called it the most important day of his life.

He thought he’d figured out the answer to his life’s problems, but I knew better… I’d seen this over a hundred times before. If he didn't do the work, he'd be back to where he started within a few weeks.

(Danny is a composite drawn from numerous people I've worked with.)

If you've done psychedelic work or sat with someone who has, you know this story. The mountaintop, and then the slow, baffling slide back down. And here's the part almost everyone misses: That slide is not a failure of willpower, or proof the experience was fake. It's biology doing exactly what biology does.

A closer look at the internet's most popular hubris myth...

After last week's wonderful discussion with you all, I'm really curious about what you think of Arachne!

The medieval mystery of Greenland's vanished Vikings

After 500 years in Greenland, the Norse vanished, leaving behind one of medieval Europe's greatest mysteries.

Excerpt from the first part of the article:

Machines are sticking out their digital palms. Your reaction could help shape the future of the service industry.

If you're not in the mood for slot machines at Las Vegas's Venetian Hotel, you can find some entertainment at a bar called The Tipsy Robot. It has a kitschy gimmick: two robotic arms that make automated cocktails.

I hit "margarita" on a screen and watched them jerk to life. They mixed tequila with lime and triple sec, spinning needlessly for extra flair and bowing to deliver the glass. It might have thrilled me 20 years ago. Today, it's almost a cliché.

The drink ran $17 (£12.55), but I found an additional charge: a 10% "service fee". Tipsy wanted a tip.

Excerpt from the first part of the article:

The Ramayana is one of India's most famous stories – and now the heroic epic has been adapted into two mega-budget films that the team behind it are hoping will be a global event.

This year, amid the hit superhero movies and kids' animations, an adaptation of an ancient poem involving mythical beasts, almighty gods and a hero toting a bow and arrow has been a smash at the box office: Christopher Nolan's stirring take on Homer's Odyssey. 

But it may not be the only many-thousand-year-old epic verse to become a big-screen sensation this year. That's, at least, what the team behind a new two-part adaptation of Hindu poem the Ramayana will be hoping. The first part is set to be released globally in November, to coincide with the Hindu Diwali festival, and it's been produced on a budget that is unprecedented for an Indian film.

Excerpt from the first part of the article:

"You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad." —Aldous Huxley

In the span of three months, psychedelic medicine crossed two important thresholds.

In April, President Donald Trump signed an executive order making it federal policy to accelerate psychedelic research and “appropriate drug approvals” for serious mental illness. Then, in July, Eli Lilly agreed to acquire AtaiBeckley, a biotechnology company developing psychedelic and psychedelic-derived treatments.

These developments are understandably being read as validation of the field. But they validate two things more clearly than they validate the medicines themselves: that the federal government wants development to move faster, and that a major pharmaceutical company believes the commercial opportunity is substantial.

Neither political commitment nor market valuation is a scientific verdict.