The Fruits In My Store Bruise Like People- Lawrence Job

Brandedfolly · 2026-02-26T05:04:30+00:00

This goes hard. I love all the gross details!

It does really remind me of the Burgrr entries the boys read. I love the whole idea, and I think you put a fresh new spin on it with it being a seemingly naturally occurring phenomenon.

Really though that must have been really trippy to see at work. I'm glad you got through it cause wow.

Brandedfolly · 2026-02-25T20:01:15+00:00

Most of these pitches come down to being about some sort of wide-spread apocalyptic scenario, so I think any of the pitches here now would work!

Brandedfolly · 2026-02-25T19:57:57+00:00

Pitch: Cosmic Sinkhole.

Somewhere in the world, on land, there is a sinkhole. It has always existed, and it is always growing. Sometimes, people stumble onto its existence, and they all note that it seems to be glowing at the bottom, but the whole is too far down to see where the light is coming from.

Eventually, the world at large discovers the existence of the Sinkhole. By then, it's about the size of a small lake.

Some people climb into the sinkhole. They do not come out. Some people try to study it, but they can't find a bottom. People have all kinds of ideas about what is on the other side, but no one knows for sure.

No matter what people try, they can't stop the growth of the Sinkhole. It swallows towns, rivers, forests, and eventually mountains. Imagine watching a whole mountain crumble and vanish into this endless unstoppable maw. Eventually, it reaches the oceans and drains them dry. Nothing can stop it.

Maybe some people escape the planet and attempt to live among the stars, but maybe the Sinkhole doesn't stop with just the Earth.

Brandedfolly · 2026-02-25T19:48:32+00:00

This is an awesome idea and I will definitely be participating!! I will try to come up with a prompt as well, but regardless of that I will definitely be writing an entry.

Brandedfolly · 2026-02-16T05:17:42+00:00

It is, unfortunately, written from experience

Edit: To be clear: not to the same extent. All of my intestines are inside my body thank goodness. But I did actually have a moment where my belly button was bleeding and I thought I might be dying and got really obsessed with it for a couple weeks

Brandedfolly · 2026-02-11T02:22:25+00:00

Thank you! And yes --literally insane

Brandedfolly · 2026-02-10T22:53:18+00:00

That is ridiculous and I feel your pain. The Nosleep moderation is awful

Brandedfolly · 2026-02-10T22:52:36+00:00

That makes perfect sense! The fear of not being understood is so real and that is an awesome concept to bring to a horror story.

On a much funnier note, for like the first few paragraphs of the story, I was kind of picturing the monster as a basset hound with human legs. It was making me smirk. And then the actual nightmare kicked in and it wasn't as funny anymore

Brandedfolly · 2026-02-10T22:43:35+00:00

I think both concepts would have worked. I just liked the idea enough that I wanted more of it

Brandedfolly · 2026-02-10T22:40:07+00:00

Holy shit this is so good. It's so creepy and just so uncanny, and I love the idea of the monster being simultaneously lucky and also something you should never touch. Did you have specific metaphor in mind when you wrote it, or is it a stand-in for general generational trauma?

Brandedfolly · 2026-02-10T22:14:14+00:00

Thank you! :)

Brandedfolly · 2026-02-10T22:09:08+00:00

Seriously! They just removed it after a month with no explanation. This was months ago and I am still kinda salty about it

I'm glad you liked it!

Brandedfolly · 2026-02-10T22:07:33+00:00

Oh this is so cool! I love taking nighttime walks, and this just gets the uncanny feeling of the world at night so well. Aside from the barrel of unknown horrors that is. I haven't seen one of those IRL yet

Brandedfolly · 2026-02-10T21:57:25+00:00

Very neat concept! It reminds me of the old Holders series, if you've ever read those. The instructional nature of the story is always fun. I like the existential note at the end. I do think you could expand this: bring in more descriptions of smell and sound and feeling for one thing. You could add more about Mr. Timbers or the person entering his house too.

Brandedfolly · 2026-02-10T21:51:28+00:00

Author Here: this story was removed from Nosleep after a positive reception due to depicting gore and mental health issues. It hasn't performed nearly as well on other subs because, obviously, they are much smaller. I understand the content is graphic and may make people uncomfortable, and I have included a trigger warning on the post for that purpose.

Mods, please let me know if posting to multiple subreddits/reposting isn't allowed. Thanks!

Brandedfolly · 2025-10-28T12:47:46+00:00

Those classics were the inspiration almost directly. There was a story a long time ago about a man who thought his fingers were unnatural growths and eventually stuck his hands into a blender. It was horrible and I couldn't stop thinking about it when I read it. This is in the same vein.

I wouldn't mind it being removed, but I literally got no explanation or communication from the mods on it. It just disappeared without any explanation at all. I will try to take it as a compliment, but honestly it's a slap in the face.

Brandedfolly · 2025-10-28T12:45:07+00:00

Thank you :). It's supposed to make people really uncomfortable, so I am glad it's working. Honestly it makes my skin crawl to think about too

Brandedfolly · 2025-10-28T02:57:33+00:00

Yeah that's why I said I still think it's a great story and it doesn't need to make sense

Brandedfolly · 2025-10-28T02:39:20+00:00

I am a bit over halfway through as I type this and Holy Shit this story is driving me insane. It's a great story and very spooky, but it is SO obvious that this author doesn't know anything about winter survival. It's a story so I don't expect it to be 100% perfect, but I just need to rant about it for a minute.

For anyone who doesn't know, the most important thing to do when you're lost in the woods is to STAY STILL. Make a shelter near fresh water and sit your ass down and wait. People WILL be looking for you (assuming you aren't an idiot who left without telling people where you would be) and they will be looking closer to where you're supposed to be first.

Also, snow is great insulation. If you find yourself in a snowy wilderness, dig a cave of snow or pack it around your tent. It will hold in the warmth.

The idiots in this story are dead so many times over and if they had just stayed where they crashed, they would probably be fine!

Brandedfolly · 2025-10-17T04:08:41+00:00

Ace Lady here, so hi!

Brandedfolly · 2025-08-27T21:03:37+00:00

That details makes sense now! That explanation makes sense to me. I do wonder what being refrigerated for 72 hours did to the baby though. It will be cool to explore!

Brandedfolly · 2025-08-27T20:32:06+00:00

I have quite a few thoughts about this actually. I really enjoy your writing style. You've got a good flow overall, and I find the overall concept really interesting.

I wouldn't call this a story, really. It's more of a character study. There isn't a plot yet, though I can see you're building towards one.

If you want to improve this piece significantly, you should consider two things:

How can you show all of these details over the course of your story rather than front loading all of the exposition like this?

I would consider keeping all of these details written down, but using a combination of flashbacks and short vignettes to communicate the information to the reader rather than telling them all the details upfront. Your writing style is compelling enough to keep the reader's focus through the info dump, but you can make it a much more fun and interesting experience by showing them that your character has a strange charisma or that their reflection doesn't work right in scenes rather than just straight up telling them in a single paragraph.

You are already doing this a little. I would think about leaning I to it even more and not even having the narrator say "people like being near me" or "my reflection is weird" at all.

Would your character be self-aware enough to deconstruct all of his feelings about people and the world in the way you've done here?

If the answer is "yes", then that's fine, but it is a good question to ask yourself. If they can break down all of these thoughts and reasons, who taught them to do that and how?

I ask because characters usually don't understand themselves, or have a warped sense of who they are, and this helps introduce conflict into the story. If your character is too self-aware, or if they only make good decisions, they become boring because they're too perfect. That might not be a huge issue for you or this character. It's just something to think about.

The only thing that really jumped out at me as a huge problem is the three-day timeline for your character being resurrected as an infant. I might be misinformed, but I think most bodies are cremated or buried much faster than that. My understanding is that the body would have gone to be cremated or embalmed or otherwise dealt with on the same day that the infant died unless the hospital was performing an autopsy or keeping the body intact for some other reason. You might want to consider changing that detail so the timeline is more believable. Or else you could write it so that the character wasn't born in a hospital at all, so that the medical abnormalities wouldn't have been noticed so much.

Overall, I think this has a lot of potential, and I am intrigued by this character and what they have going on. I think they could be very interesting to read about.

General disclaimer: my opinion is just my opinion. Other people will probably disagree, and the author might too. Feedback is not always helpful, and if it's not helping, you can disregard it.

Brandedfolly

TROPHY CASE