I think there's no bleaker experience than reading a Harlan Ellison anthology. And I think there's no bleaker Harlan Ellison story than I Have No Mouth.

We read it for 8th Grade English.

Harlan Ellison is an expert in cruelty. The thing that marginalizes him is that, unlike most cruel writers, he makes no attempt to justify the cruelty and misanthropy in his works; there's a hint in Cask of Amontillado that Montresor exists in a world in which his vengeance is justified. The narrator in Pit and the Pendulum is theoretically suffering the injustice of the Spanish Inquisition. The computer in Mouth? Yeah, just crazy and mean.

What makes Ellison interesting is his fascination with fate and its consequences for individuals. Ellison stories are about lone souls at war with a hostile universe... and losing. Can't remember the name of the story but some radio show challenged him to write a story in 24 hours and read it the next day.

Ellison wrote about a radio show in a city where a serial killer was stalking victims by calling them first or something, and the killer called the radio show, and was literally Satan, and all the phones in the city started ringing at once.

It was both creepy as fuck and the utter essence of the man.