One Star

Short horror stories

"One-Star"

By Corvina Sweeney

Milo Grieves fancied himself a literary god—judge, jury, and executioner of the written word. He stalked the review columns of obscure horror zines like a vulture circling a wounded animal, gleefully tearing into debut authors with acidic wit and venomous adjectives. “Derivative,” he’d hiss. “An affront to syntax.” The truth? Milo hadn’t finished a book in five years. He skimmed, judged, and scorched reputations with a flick of his greasy fingers.

He particularly loved to target self-published writers. They were the softest prey—desperate, wide-eyed things who bled praise and panicked at criticism.

Then it arrived.

A slim, unmarked envelope with a black wax seal pressed into the shape of an open eye.

Inside: a book.

No author name. No publisher. Just a title embossed in crumbling gold leaf: “I See You, Milo.”

He snorted. A gimmick. Probably some deluded writer trying to scare him into a good review. But the pages called to him—yellowed, musty things that almost felt warm to the touch. Against his better judgment, he read.

The first chapter detailed a man named Milo, bitter and alone. He lived in a mildew-caked apartment stacked with books he never read and mirrors he kept covered in old newspaper. Every line bled contempt—Milo’s habits, Milo’s secrets. Even the half-rotted chicken in his fridge was described in exact, stomach-turning detail.

By chapter three, the Milo in the book found a black envelope on his windowsill.

By chapter five, Milo Grieves stopped reading.

But the book didn’t stop writing.

Each time he returned to his desk, a new page appeared—typed in crimson ink that hadn’t been there before. It described things he hadn’t done yet. Like pulling the teeth from the cat next door. Like the late-night shriek from the hallway that only he had heard.

He tried to throw the book away.

It was back on his desk the next morning.

He burned it.

It was waiting on his pillow that night, opened to a passage that made his bladder fail. It described his death: kneeling before a broken mirror, pen in hand, carving a review onto his own chest, line by line, star by star.

That day, Milo wrote a review.

"Unreadable. Cursed. Authored by the void. One star."

But it wasn’t enough.

That night, the mirrors in his apartment uncovered themselves.

They didn’t reflect Milo. They reflected the thing behind him. The one with too many fingers and a smile like paper tearing.

Milo’s final review was found scrawled in blood on the bathroom tiles: “I was wrong.”

His body was never recovered.

But the book?

It still arrives in unmarked envelopes—always to the critics who forget they’re not above the stories.

Sometimes, the story is waiting for them to finish it.