caroline hung
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carolinehung.bsky.social
caroline hung
@carolinehung.bsky.social
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carolinehung.bsky.social
just please tell me you understand kiddo #Peacetober2025 Day 10: Pots
Pots! You’re going to need three. One over your head, worn like a helmet, of course. One over your back—a big pot, preferably, so you can do like a turtle and pull your limbs in to safety. That much should about cover your bases. Why the third pot, you ask? Well, there’s no easy way to say this, kid. Better if you never need a third pot, better if you never know what to use it for. But look, you have to catch the rainwater when it falls from the skies. Just think about the rain. Only the rain.
October 10, 2025 at 6:20 AM
carolinehung.bsky.social
Day 9: Black #Peacetober
I remember my puppy named Blackie. It was the largest of its siblings, with white fur and few brown spots on its face, shoulders, rump. One day, all the puppies in the litter started fighting each other. First, they ganged up on the youngest, littlest puppy. When they were all bloodied red, they turned on the eldest. I never petted Blackie’s soft head, not even once. The puppies laid on concrete, because it was too hot out in the tropics. I remember the smell of a rotting corpse. A mangled puppy, buried under rubble. The flies swarmed spotted, white fur.
October 9, 2025 at 11:20 AM
carolinehung.bsky.social
Day 7: Bee #Peacetober2025 🐝
Hi, little bee. Come in, come in. Don’t be afraid. What’s your name? There is room for you too, right here, in this tiny house of metal, filled with shrapnel instead of honeycomb walls. We are cousins, you and I. We like to sit and hide from danger. Out there, the world is too loud. We can hear them, still. This house is not forever, little bee, you’re brave enough to know. Perhaps one day, in another life, we’ll share sticky honey with a bear cub. Perhaps we will live in a proper house, warm and soft. Someday, we will.
October 7, 2025 at 5:16 AM
carolinehung.bsky.social
My drabble entry for #Peacetober Day 5: Fierce
Wake up, you children of the wilds. A thousand knives are falling from the sky, raining iron over earth. See, the mountains bleed, sliced apart. Cry if you must, but do not sleep to the shrieking lullaby, their songs of steel and booming voices. Lift your heads. Clench your teeth. You are beasts with ravenous mouths. In the dark, your eyes flash white and hot. You must not run. You must not hide. Catch a shooting star atop your back and wish for death upon the storm, whose hands wield bolts of lightning, sharp and pointed. Be strong, fearless, free.
October 5, 2025 at 12:55 PM
carolinehung.bsky.social
Two months ago a car nearly pancaked me to death. This is Day 25 of #1000DaysOfDrabble, so in each drabble I write about an unnamed narrator who escapes cruel and unusual and silly deaths, over and over.

I hate to clog your feed. I'll be moving them to my personal blog! keyboardcrumb.wordpress.com
This is Day 25. I got up from bed and went out through the front door. Still in my pajamas which, in the tropics, that means a thin shirt, short shorts. A group of people were sitting across the street, blaring the ugliest music in the world from huge stereo speakers. Every morning, like clockwork, splitting my head open. I almost couldn’t sew my skull together this morning. I grabbed my axe and smashed the stereo into pieces. The noise died into blissful silence… They watched me through eyeless sockets. Hollow, gaunt faces. Before they could get me, I ran back into my house and bolted the door.
September 14, 2025 at 8:29 AM
carolinehung.bsky.social
24 #1000DaysOfDrabble
24 It's grocery day! Happy shopping, happy living. I met a woman in the bakery section, and she was staring a bit too long at the discount items. I might have been staring too, which the store manager didn't like. The woman offered me one of the free bread samples. I tasted one and it was poison! She admitted to dipping it in detergent. I thought it was a glaze. I didn't think she would try to kill me. The store manager came by again and threw us both out of the building. The woman turned to leave, but not before giving me a coupon for the next promo special, buy-two-take-three of bottled detergent. She still wanted to kill me! I tore up the coupon and just went home.
June 27, 2025 at 1:14 PM
carolinehung.bsky.social
21, 22, 23 for #1000DaysOfDrabble
21 They threw me into a pit of lambs. The shepherds in wolfskin robes. I didn't even know what I did so wrong. But it must have been bad, because they pointed to the blood on my hands and deemed me, a murderer. I never asked for the job. I never dreamed, that I'd grow up to skin wolf pelts for three meals a day and a roof over my head. Now, I lie naked amongst the little lambs of this dark, damp pit. These lambs are a bit odd. Teeth too big, eyes too bright, all-knowing. Their hooves are stained with mud. The shepherds threw us here to starve, or cannibalize each other. But little lambs have a taste for something else. Something crueler. And lambs could jump really high, too, when we really feel like it. Real high. We won't be killed that easy, and we will have our meal as well. 22 I enter the mall at dusk, and inside, it's brighter than morning. I hear children's laughter but see no one across the wide, shining linoleum. From the ground floor, I take the long escalator straight to the fifth floor, to the cinemas. The laughter has turned into piercing screams, tortured. I approach the ticket booth, and a mannequin in a suit hands me a red ticket. Admit One. I just can't wait for the show. It smells like buttery popcorn. I stop outside Theater Three. The double doors look a bit different. The teeth shouldn't be there. Human molars, the size of pews. The carpet, a deep purple velvet, shouldn't be wet and sticky. I turn around and tear my ticket into two. Sad. I really wanted to see my show today. But they can't kill me like this... 23 "That's my sundae. You're eating my sundae." I said to the goblin in my chair. It was wearing fancy clothes, suit and tie with polished shoes, a cane that looks sharp enough to stab someone. "Scoot over!" I shoved my way in to the booth, the seats a plush red velvet. The chandelier flickers overhead. The wood walls smell faintly of varnish, or it could be cigar smoke. I wouldn't know. I've never smoked. I just want my ice cream. The goblin grabbed my hair and brandished a spoon to my face. It must have wanted to scoop my eyeballs out. I kicked its foot and slammed its head onto the table. My sundae scattered with the broken glass. When the waiter came over next, I asked for another sundae. Double the whipped cream, please.
June 6, 2025 at 1:50 AM
carolinehung.bsky.social
20 #1000DaysOfDrabble
20 "Am I strange?" The mermaid asked from their tank. Gurgled, more like, with their face half-submerged and spitting foam. Small bubbles bled over the water's surface. "No," I said, hands pressed against the glass. "No, of course not, why would you say that?" "But I am." The mermaid wailed, and dragged their sharp claws across pink, scaley arms. "Would it be, so wrong? That you would reject, even me?" "I'm sorry," I said. "I'm sorry, I don't know anything." And the mermaid closed their eyes, and hugged their tail fin close. And their body dissolved in the water, breaking down into fine sand, precious little stars unseen to the naked eye. I sank to the ground, crying, and begging for them not to leave, don't leave me here, all alone, please, I can't live without you, don't go. I cried to the empty tank. When the saltwater dried, years and years later, I stood to walk away, carrying a single star in my pocket.
May 9, 2025 at 8:11 AM
carolinehung.bsky.social
16-19 while I'm in the hospital caring for mother with lung cancer #1000DaysOfDrabble
16 I tripped and fell into a hole. It was a long way down. Long way. I landed on a soft, muddy pile, and I couldn't see anything, not even my own hands. The light could no longer reach me. Then a man started shoveling soil down into the hole. Slowly, slowly, blotting out my pinprick view of the sky. There was once an old story like this. Some kind of animal would shake the dirt off its back, until the earth grew under its feet. I was not an animal of ingenious wit, though I could not be killed from a simple burying. The man tired of the shovel. Tucked deep underground, I touched the ancient roots of a forest. And when they brought me up, a full, silvery moon was shining bright upon me. 17 I'd never held a sword before. What was so special about a tool for cutting skin, stabbing into organs, slashing flesh and sinew, and not even all that well? But the evil king had given me a sword, large and heavy and double-bladed and straight edges, a really boring sword, to defend myself from attackers. Did that make him a generous king instead? No, all kings carried a cruelty in their hearts. It's baked into the crown... But anyway, a sword. Is it supposed to grow spikes on the handle, piercing my hands and draining all the blood from my body? Well, well--nice try, evil king. This won't kill me, but I'll be sure to put your blood-sucking blade to good use when I come to strike you down from your throne. 18 "Ah! Bunny! It's a bunny! Cute widdol bun-bun, c'mere!" The rabbit ran into the bushes, frightened by my enthusiasm. I sat back on the forest floor and did my very best to hold back tears. There was a rustling in the bushes behind me, and the click of a gun, pointed straight to the back of my head. I knew even without looking. They'd always come to hunt me down. I turned to face them slowly, and stare down the barrel of their gun. I wasn't a little rabbit, though. A little rabbit wouldn't have smiled, all jagged teeth, crushing bullets then a hunter's skull. Another day. 19 A butterfly paid me a visit last night. A shining, beautiful thing with powdery wings and a subtle gaze. It watched me sleep, and waited as my mind wandered off to the land of dreams. It did not care for my heart. The butterfly hovered over my head, and perched delicately upon an eyelid. I could feel it all in my sleep. The butterfly wished to let me rest, and never rise again, even as the dawn broke over and over. My dream, warm and soft, turned into a nightmare suffering a thousand deaths. I woke up and crushed the butterfly in my palm.
May 9, 2025 at 8:09 AM
carolinehung.bsky.social
14 and 15 #1000DaysOfDrabble
14 I took a nap then woke up to a boot pressed on my face. I was angry, and kicked upwards in retaliation. My assailant leapt back, he tried to kill me with a buckshot, and I knew for certain his was a terrible grudge, and I hated him too for trying to kill me in my sleep. I was literally, a harmless little kitty. "Why do I deserve this?" I asked, bleeding all over. He simply shot at me again, and I ran fast into the woods. 15 The wings on my back, once strong, beautiful, iridescent--now crumbled and scattered in the wind. It happened while I was in the air, high in the sky. A sun beam pierced my thigh. Then another, my arm. And I was falling to my imminent death. Just my luck. I tore my stomach out and used it like a parachute. Barely worked, and I drifted over waiting dogs on the ground, hungry dogs, hoping to rip into my corpse. Too bad. They will starve for longer.
April 17, 2025 at 12:23 PM
carolinehung.bsky.social
got my contributor's copy in the mail 🎉 @fusionfragment.bsky.social the full color print for saros#2 is so beautiful to have on hand, I celebrated w a drink made of angels' tears but the stories and recipes in these pages are way more scrumptious 🍹

order copies here!! -> sarossf.com/issue-2/
photo featuring Saros Speculative Fiction #2, cover art photo featuring Saros Speculative Fiction #2, front matter photo featuring Saros Speculative Fiction #2, sample page photo featuring Saros Speculative Fiction #2, back matter illustration
April 11, 2025 at 12:42 PM
carolinehung.bsky.social
Days 10-13 for #1000DaysOfDrabble ! (I have been cross posting these from a private blog)
11 I'm in the basement parking level of a huge shopping mall chain. The air is stale, smells like oil and coolant, sort of stinging and fuzzy in the nose. Makes me dizzy and too-warm. Ten armed men surround me in all directions, prowling between the idling cars and the wide concrete pillars. I have three seconds to run before the open fire, so I run. They cannot kill me, for if they do, the bombs strapped to my chest will detonate and take this whole parking building down, and there are children inside these parked cars. Well, they are all asleep. Not even the sound of raining bullets wake them. I keep running, looking for the emergency stairwell. An elevator greets me instead. Three of the closest men drop their AKs and chase me, but they are too slow, the elevator doors slam shut in their faces. I go up, up, up. I hope the children stay asleep. 12 Dark. I smell flowers, sweet as honey. A buzzing in my right ear, then I feel the pin prick of a needle on my lower lip. It draws blood, saltier than seawater. A door opens far ahead of me, pouring white light. “Who is it?” I call out. No human sounds receive me; only the infernal voice of heavy machinery, roaring engines, sputtering pipes. I understand. I don’t belong out there. They would crush me to death, and there would be nothing left of me. I close the door. I was coughing like mad and my lungs were about ready to burst. With tears running down my face, I couldn't breathe, it hurt to even move, and I was suffocating. I thought of the stray dogs the city caught, put in a plastic bag and stuck over an idling truck's exhaust pipe. The poor dogs would be dead in a minute. I was not a dog. They could not put me down like a dog. I learned to skip breathing, and forgot how to laugh. You throw up your lunch at the first sight of me. I know right away how disgusted you were, seeing my face and hearing my voice, all wrong, my socks not matching, teeth too crooked, acne all over. You say wrong, ugly, bad. I'm just sitting at the corner booth, eating my chocolate cake milkshake (that's a slice of chocolate cake blended into a thick milkshake) and the stinkiest stinky fried tofu ever. Foul, you say, and wrong. You hate the smell, and the fat, too rich and cloying. I wasn't hurting anyone, was I? You go on to steal a knife from the kitchen and hurl it my way. The blade tip lands on my arm, my blood splattering on the laminate. You then lunge over the island counters and dirty your hands and knees trying desperately to kill me, strangle me, erase me from the world. I'm pinned to the floor, can't move. You want to kill me. You squeeze, and squeeze, and squeeze… Silly you, my head won't pop off so easily, like some cheap doll. You cannot kill me. Not like this. In the first place, I don't need air to breathe. You fail again. Poor you, poor you.
April 4, 2025 at 3:03 AM
carolinehung.bsky.social
8 and 9 for #1000DaysOfDrabble
The woman swung a nail bat at me, but missed when I ducked out of the way. The first time, she was only holding a wooden spatula, and it didn't even hurt when she'd struck my hand then. "You are useless, stupid, weak, and ugly," she said. The nail bat came down again. I rolled away, landing on my swollen palm. Okay, maybe it did hurt. "I never asked to be born," I said. "So did everyone else. You are not special." She aimed for my head again. I couldn't let her kill me. I crawled into a hole and cried until she left. Buried deep beneath the rubble, I cried desperately for help. My voice was muffled by layers of splintered wood, crumpled steel and shattered brick. And I could not move a single inch of my body. A ghost whispered into my ear, telling me it is time to die, magnitude 9.9 earthquake, the city is a burial ground now, and no one can hear you. "Shut up," I said, still pinned hopelessly in place. "If you have time to be a little bitch, why don't you do something useful for once? That or come back to life so I can kill you all over again." The ghost fell silent, then a sharp, whistling sound rang in the cramped space. My eardrums burst from the sheer volume, but it didn't kill me. The rubble began to shift above.
March 27, 2025 at 2:52 AM
carolinehung.bsky.social
I've been writing one drabble a day since March 10 for #1000DaysOfDrabble and started posting here on the 14th. I'll keep posting whenever I feel like it... 7/1000 to cap off the week
I rang the doorbell at exactly ten in the morning, as instructed by the kind lady who took my application. I wasn’t sure what to expect. Everything else in the city had been destroyed, turned to ash. But I needed a job or I’d starve. The lady answered on the third ring, and her voice crackled through the intercom. “Please enter.” The front door swung open on her command. A gust of warm air pulled me inwards. I stepped through the doorway, ready for my job interview. “Good afternoon! Sorry, I mean, good morning.” Flubbed my greeting. Then the sky broke outside. A fireball crashed through the ceiling, taking the whole house down. I buried my face in my hands, mortified. The flames burned fiercely, but the sheer embarrassment swallowed me up and I was safe as can be, tucked in a little pocket.
March 17, 2025 at 2:35 AM
carolinehung.bsky.social
6/1000 #1000DaysOfDrabble this one's my favorite that I've written so far
It grabbed my hair and held me high off the ground. The massive knight with white, shining armor. It blew a heavy sigh, its breath scalding my face through the thin slits of its helmet. I had to fight back somehow, but my kicking legs were too short, arms too weak. "Release me, foul creature." The knight raised its sword to my neck. The sharp point tickled my chin. I cracked a smile. The knight didn't like that. The knight howled and drove the sword through my torso. I took it to heart. But I wasn't afraid. I was more angry than anything. This white knight killed a dragon, once. Now the knight wished to kill me. The hair on my head grew long and wisping, razor-thin, sharp as wires. Longer still, into a flourishing garden that quickly covered the knight and everything around us. And only I remained with sword in hand, alive and well.
March 16, 2025 at 12:53 PM
carolinehung.bsky.social
5/1000 #1000DaysOfDrabble
The woman swung a nail bat at me, but missed when I ducked out of the way. The first time, she was only holding a wooden spatula, and it didn't even hurt when she'd struck my hand then. "You are useless, stupid, weak, and ugly," she said. The nail bat came down again. I rolled away, landing on my swollen palm. Okay, maybe it did hurt. "I never asked to be born," I said. "So did everyone else. You are not special." She aimed for my head again. I couldn't let her kill me. I crawled into a hole and cried until she left.
March 16, 2025 at 12:52 PM
carolinehung.bsky.social
4/1000 #1000DaysOfDrabble
The chair is cold, hard, metal. It burns my skin. I can't see anything through this blindfold either. How did they catch me? My hands aren't meant to be tied down for so long. I'm scared. I want to go home. "You shouldn't have come here," one man says, as a knife slashes at my cheek. That will scar. "What do you mean?" I ask. "You're not one of us. This place doesn't look kindly on visitors." "I see." They will kill me, but first, they wish to torture me. They want a mangled corpse to step on, so they may deny the smallness of their existence in the face of an infinite universe. But no matter what they do, men always will be small and unsightly. My chair bends. They cannot keep my hands tied much longer. Try as they might, they can't kill me.
March 15, 2025 at 1:21 AM
carolinehung.bsky.social
3/1000 #1000DaysOfDrabble
"Tada!" Chalk dust flies from my hands. "I drew a hopscotch! Just like the ones on TV, those American shows. Look, I'm wearing jumpers too. And the twin braids, little sneakers. Just like the shows, just like the shows." None of the kids in front of me make a move. They don't smile, they don't blink, they don't breathe, and they most certainly do not play with me. My heart sinks. "Is it not good enough? Did I draw it wrong? What should I do? I'm sorry I used up all the chalk. I can give it back. I'm sorry." The chalk dust sticks to my fingers. Before I can pull out each digit with my teeth, the kids all shriek and tackle me to the ground, piling high. This isn't how you play hopscotch. The chalk lines shift and pull me under. I slip into the dark asphalt before the kids can maul me to death then play hot potato with my gall bladder. Naughty children. Playground bullies. They can't kill me either.
March 14, 2025 at 1:50 PM
carolinehung.bsky.social
2/1000 #1000DaysOfDrabble
"That's a nice gun you have. Did you get it from the discount rack?" The cop doesn't answer my question. His mouth twists into a nasty snarl, and he fires five, six, seven rounds at me. Or tries to! It was only one question. I meant no offense. "You keep missing," I say, standing perfectly still on the sidewalk. I wave my arms around. "Some shit aim you got. Do you even use your eyeballs? What a waste of a good pair. Now that I think of it, I'm kinda hungry." More firing, more piss-poor aim. The bullets go to everywhere but its target. They can't kill me. And now I get a snack.
March 14, 2025 at 1:49 PM
carolinehung.bsky.social
#1000daysofdrabble 1/1000
"They won't kill me," I say, standing at the edge of the precipice, not really a cliff, but the top of skyscraper. All concrete. The light burns from above. "They won't kill me," I say, because they're afraid of the sun. Like burning hot wax, the light drips onto my head, and arms, and fingers... "Yes, they will." "Who said that?" I ask, then a hand presses on my back and shoves me right off the edge. A warm hand, five fingers. Long and bony. So, it wasn't a joke after all. They want me dead, and also, I'm not supposed to be standing over tall ledges. But this is my house. I built my nest up high in the clouds, out of sight and out of reach. The wind serves me, when the shell on my back bursts and glassine wings beat a million times per second. Flying higher, I look back down to the mound upon which I once stood. And there, I see them. Murderer, smiling. Out to get me. They cannot kill me. They will try again. Hot wax drips from the sky. The chase begins.
March 14, 2025 at 12:49 AM
carolinehung.bsky.social
only just now realized my short fiction and poetry have been reviewed on Locus Magazine. Thank you to Charles Payseur for saying this about my 虎姑婆 and Tiger Witch
locusmag.com/2024/12/cast...
"Caroline Hung’s “My Favorite Taiwanese Folktale” is another poetry release from August, exploring folklore and iterations of a story or the idea of a story. Readers are introduced to a series of characters, all women who are linked with tigers – shapeshifters or witches or just women trying to survive. And for the narrator, who doesn’t seem to be in a safe place, the stories are inspirations or warnings depending on the character. But they are all reminders that the world is full of predators and violence, and there are as many ways to die as there are to survive. It’s a piece that recognizes that the world is often a very grim place, but that there is power in stories, in people helping people, in the natural world, and that despite everything tragedy is not inevitable, or univer­sal. It’s a wonderful poem."
March 4, 2025 at 8:29 AM
carolinehung.bsky.social
soon !
author website screenshot featuring new horror story release coming soon in Strange Horizons
February 6, 2025 at 12:21 PM
carolinehung.bsky.social
on this breezy Friday in Manila I received my contributors copy from all the way in Chicago @frombeyondpress.bsky.social thank you for letting my Gargoyle Girlie be part of the Xanax Hamster club 🖤
photo of Xanax Hamster print magazine with bookmark and sticker sample page of horror flash Gargoyle My Love
January 17, 2025 at 2:43 AM
carolinehung.bsky.social
"GARGOYLE, MY LOVE" is one woman's ill-advised love affair with a sentient, homicidal gargoyle. Out now in @frombeyondpress.bsky.social 's latest horror zine.

The naming is coincidental! Don't worry about it :)

Get the whole issue here -> frombeyondpress.com/product/xana...
Book cover showing baby hamsters on a plate with garnish and dipping sauce.
December 15, 2024 at 9:08 AM