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Reaching Out
When a groundbreaking experiment rips open a portal to another dimension, a team of researchers steps into the unknown—expecting discovery. Instead, they find themselves trapped in a world governed not by physics, but by memory, grief, and the haunting consequences of love lost.
As reality fractures around them, each team member is forced to confront what they’ve buried—until the dimension begins to bury them in return.
Reaching Out is a slow-burn speculative horror story about the weight we carry, the ghosts we live with, and what happens when we try to move forward without letting go.
As reality fractures around them, each team member is forced to confront what they’ve buried—until the dimension begins to bury them in return.
Reaching Out is a slow-burn speculative horror story about the weight we carry, the ghosts we live with, and what happens when we try to move forward without letting go.
19 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 22, 2025
About the author
Natchai Stappers
2 books2 followersNatchai Stappers is the author of Lonely Nights on High Rooftops, a self-published novel that weaves vivid tales of longing, resilience, and connection against a cyberpunk backdrop. With a passion for storytelling and a drive to explore the human experience, Stappers crafts narratives that linger long after the last page is turned.
When not writing, Natchai applies his marketing and communications expertise in the video games industry. His career includes notable positions at PlayStation, Bungie, and Ubisoft.
Residing in Belgium, he shares his home with his wife, son, and two Labradors.
When not writing, Natchai applies his marketing and communications expertise in the video games industry. His career includes notable positions at PlayStation, Bungie, and Ubisoft.
Residing in Belgium, he shares his home with his wife, son, and two Labradors.
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 23, 2025
Thank you @natchais for the ebook 🙏
Reaching Out is a short story that merges the sci-fi and horror genres together. A speculative fiction of psychological dread.
In just 19 pages the author creates an interesting group of characters and a brand new twist on a traditional sci-fi concept.
A group of scientific explorers have achieved the impossible. They have opened a portal into a different dimension. Their journey will not take them elsewhere in time or space but elsewhen, a literal step sideways through a doorway into the unknown.
From a sense of wonder at the exploration and the untold possibilities comes a gradual sense of unease as our team move through an unsettling and bleak landscape devoid of life, taking it slowly, staying tethered to our reality, until they inexplicably come across a teenage girl who runs off, compelling them to give chase.
Who is she and why is there a nagging sense of familiarity?
The discomfort builds gradually into something more horrific in a dimension of psyche, built on memory and secrets, grief and personal demons.
The creeping terror is skillfully written as the horror in their minds starts to have devastating physical effects.
It's a short, sharp horror with a strong idea that I'd love to see expanded into a longer piece of fiction.
A recommended read.
✨✨✨✨⚡4.5 stars
Reaching Out is a short story that merges the sci-fi and horror genres together. A speculative fiction of psychological dread.
In just 19 pages the author creates an interesting group of characters and a brand new twist on a traditional sci-fi concept.
A group of scientific explorers have achieved the impossible. They have opened a portal into a different dimension. Their journey will not take them elsewhere in time or space but elsewhen, a literal step sideways through a doorway into the unknown.
From a sense of wonder at the exploration and the untold possibilities comes a gradual sense of unease as our team move through an unsettling and bleak landscape devoid of life, taking it slowly, staying tethered to our reality, until they inexplicably come across a teenage girl who runs off, compelling them to give chase.
Who is she and why is there a nagging sense of familiarity?
The discomfort builds gradually into something more horrific in a dimension of psyche, built on memory and secrets, grief and personal demons.
The creeping terror is skillfully written as the horror in their minds starts to have devastating physical effects.
It's a short, sharp horror with a strong idea that I'd love to see expanded into a longer piece of fiction.
A recommended read.
✨✨✨✨⚡4.5 stars
October 4, 2025
If you're looking for a sci-fi horror story that packs a punch in just a few pages, then you can't go wrong with Reaching Out.
A group of scientists become the first to finally open a portal to another dimension. However, upon stepping through the gateway the explorers are not confronted with a fantastical new world full of discoveries but are faced with feelings of deja vu and familiarity. And when a teenage girl comes crashing into their group, events begin to take a strange turn.
The slow build of tension in this short story is great and it is brimming with feelings and emotions. As the horror began to unfold, I found myself racing to the end to discover the fate of the explorers. This is not just a sci-fi horror story, it is a story about relationships, love and grief.
Not only do I highly recommend you go and read this short story, but you should definitely check out @natchais book Lonely Nights on High Rooftops as well, which is a gripping cyberpunk story you won't want to put down.
October 9, 2025
Astronauts step into another dimension, a barren, shifting nothingness that begins to bend itself around their thoughts, fears and ‘memories’. At first it feels like exploration. Then it feels like entrapment. And when the void starts speaking in familiar voices, showing what yet shouldn’t exist and twisting their most private truths against them, the horror sets in.
For such a compact story, Stappers builds great atmosphere. The prose is descriptive, the tension claustrophobic, and the dread builds throughout. What begins as an otherworldly mystery spirals into a brutal confrontation with grief, guilt and survival all at play.
It was exactly what I crave… another dimension, time and memory turned inside out, and that creeping question of what’s real versus what’s willed by something far beyond us. A great one-sitting read.
If you love stories that blur the line between reality and illusion, have creeping dread and psychological unravellings, pick up this short story.
For such a compact story, Stappers builds great atmosphere. The prose is descriptive, the tension claustrophobic, and the dread builds throughout. What begins as an otherworldly mystery spirals into a brutal confrontation with grief, guilt and survival all at play.
It was exactly what I crave… another dimension, time and memory turned inside out, and that creeping question of what’s real versus what’s willed by something far beyond us. A great one-sitting read.
If you love stories that blur the line between reality and illusion, have creeping dread and psychological unravellings, pick up this short story.
September 3, 2025
This was exactly my cup of tea. Cerebral horror with a healthy dose of sci-fi, pulled together with intriguing characters and a clever twist on alternate dimensions. I would not mind reading more of this. I say, bring it on.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews