New stories every 1st and 3rd Friday
No one remembers when the booths first appeared.
No one who pays the toll ever comes back the same.
What will you pay for your heart’s deepest desire?
Welcome to the Toll Booth Universe
The Drowned One
The water set his lungs on fire.
Cold, merciless waves crashed over him again and again, the inky blackness of a starless sky seeking to devour him. Joshua fought to keep his bearings as the sea rolled him, every breath a losing battle against salt and cold.
The sailor had gone overboard thirty minutes earlier. No beacon. No strobe. Just a shouted warning, a splash swallowed by wind, and then nothing. Joshua entered the water knowing the odds—knowing that by the time someone called man overboard, the sea had already begun its work.
He went in because someone hadn’t come back up.
Later—much later—Joshua would realize that the island had not saved him.
It had only received him.
The Neon Vein
The trading floor roared like a battlefield—phones screaming, tickers bleeding, men moving like storm fronts. Yet around Serrat there was silence, a bubble of calm cut from marble and shadow. His eyes flickered neon green, digits racing across them like a living ticker.
“Money burns,” he said softly. “Reputation doesn’t. Control a man’s appetite and you control the man. That’s the real market.”
Dane swallowed, the black pen heavy in his hand. On the parchment before him, one line remained clear:
I affirm my obedience.
He thought he had brought nothing to the table. Serrat smiled. “Then how about what’s left?”
Welcome to the Toll Booth Universe
How far would you go to claim your heart’s desire? Enter a universe where you can go everywhere you want, and every when. Welcome, to the Toll Booth Universe.