Search

Darkly Dreaming Demographic.

Where weird shit hits bizarre fans.

Open Search
Tag

Novel

Cur 2 Chapter 16 ‘There can only be one’

“I HAVE COME FOR THE LIFE OF ONE!” a strange warbling displaced voiced seemed to screech not from the head but from the hip of the rider. -“BUT I WILL TAKE ALL IF YOU DO NOT SEND OUT THE CREATOR!” The figure was tall and seemed abnormally proportioned under a set of tuathan mail. His head and neck were stiff and motionless as if carved from wood and wax to look like that of the former king of the Tuatha; Nuada Airgetlám. The waxen face glinting ominously in the light of the magical flame sword and the torches around him.

The imposter had taken Bres’s thrown and what was left of his army. Now he marched on the last living souls that knew he was not truly Nuada. Not the Nuada that had taken this isle and renamed it so but a crude copy that nevertheless shared his flesh and would seize it by force.

“YOU HAVE ONE HOUR BEFORE I BURN THIS KEEP TO ASHES!” The hideous guttural displaced voice screeched.

–

Bres walked for what felt like hours towards the cyclopean spire. In a trance it seemed his march in time to some tune that no human ears could hear. A steady heartbeat exuded from the tower. Before he could fully process his surroundings he was in a throng of strange creatures some not unlike those from the ship. But others far more hideous and monstrous in aspect. So much so he didn’t care to look at them at all and just pushed forward through them to the base of the spire.

As he approached it he could make out faintly, what sounded like blades clashes. Or perhaps teeth gnashing and inhuman warbling of a crowd made up of the denizens of this eldritch keep of unknown aeons.

The base of the spire consisted of a gaping oval maw that seemed much too large an entrance for the squat toad like creatures he had encountered so far. Were they perhaps not the original inhabitants he mused to himself dreamily as he approached the sounds of combat in a daze. Drawn to the dreaming spire as if the waves themselves propelled him.

He was slowly swallowed by the grand maw, inside the keep it was large and cavernous, sounds billowing off every unevenly cragged wall. The inside was half castle half cave but also seemed almost living like it was part of a reef of coral. Or perhaps the inside of some strange prehistoric beast all bones and cartilage fossilized for a thousand years or more.

Inside there were more of those toad like creatures but from then on the mass was more inconsistent. There seemed not to be one race down here but a collection of malformed denizens that seemed to ooze from the very walls. Some on two legs, some on just one, some even crawled on their bellies like vipers or eels. Every one of them was a vile experiment not of nature but of some twisted intellect beyond man’s comprehension.

Their attention was drawn to a crude yet well adorned arena. Constructed from what looked like bones and skin of some never before seen sea creature.

Inside the arena an amorphous mass of grey shapeless flesh bubbled like porridge in a pot. Something vaguely humanoid sinking into the mass as it gurgled and belched. The crowd gibbering louder as whatever it was sunk deeper into the mass until it was completely devoured.

Immediately after that the crowd swelled once more and suddenly the former king felt a sinister energy amassing around him. As if a million bulbous eyes were focused on him alone. Instantly he could feel their slimy appendages gripping him. Forcing him closer to the hideous bubbling mass of unnameable horror.

He struggled against the horde but their collective force was as crushing as the tide itself, immovable and irresistible. Before he could cry out in protest he was himself in the arena face to indescribable mass congealing in front of him.

Panicked the former king cried out “I am Bres, King of the Tuatha, I come to seek an audience with my father!” He rose his hand into the air to display the ring his mother had given him, the ring that he was meant to present to his father so he would know him. But the ring was gone. Undoubtedly snatched up by one of the many slimy sticky appendages that thrust him into the uncertain doom he now faced.

He had turned his back to the creature to display his now empty hand, he could hear it; it’s vile belching, as it shifted and changed. Bres turned, his body stiff with fear, standing before him was an exact duplicate of himself.

–

0

Cur 2 Chapter 14 ‘She’s still suffering’

Outside Ethniu’s window in her tower on the dreaded Tory isle, a storm brew over the horizon. But her body was too weak for her to lift her head.

A cool white hand touched the Fomorian princess’s forehead above her one beautiful eye as she lay in her bed.

“You’re temperature” Birog said. Her hand slowly and gently snaked under the princess’ silken bed linen and came to rest under them on her mounded belly. Soft it was to the touch, but also firm with child. The belly hummed with an energy Birog had felt only in her dreams. She drew her hand away and said nothing. She turned to a small basin next to the princess’s bed where a sea sponge rested, soaking up the pure luke warm water in the bowel.

Birog wrung the sponge out and began to gently dab the princess’ forehead.

“The quickening draws near” She whispered.

“But my father” The girl gasped “When he finds out-!”

“Your father will never know until it is too late, I have seen it” Birog said coldly, certainly, as she dabbed the the girl’s worried brow. “He cannot see that hiding you in this tower also hides you from his sight. He believes you are ill as I have lead him to do so and thus I can care for you and hide the child of prophecy from him, my part in all this.”

The girl had been slightly prone and tense and now with some disagreeableness she lay down. Still awkwardly staring out the window at the churning clouds, feeling them as if they were in her belly not in the sky at all. “What will become of me seer? What is my part after the prophecy? Will I be free?”

“Your destiny is not written my dear, no one can say, not even I”

https://www.inkitt.com/stories/action/300249/chapters/14

0

Cur Part 2 Chapter 12 ‘Unearthed’

Hemlo humans.

Not much to report really just been writing and thinking, more poems and prose from your boy. But yeah been feeling really good, like better than I’ve ever felt.

Not just because I’m in love but I feel like I have some direction, a real sense of purpose. I dunno, it’s hard to process, I think if I tried to to lay it all out and really think about it I’d lose my mind.

I feel a pull from something or someone that I can’t explain and it’s so real and good and wonderful, I just don’t ever want it to end. And part of me doesn’t even want it to start because it’s so big and so powerful I feel like it might swallow me, like I might lose myself but then I think maybe that isn’t such a bad thing. Maybe that’s how it was always meant to be, to be one with someone and become something greater isn’t that how it’s supposed to go?

I dunno, I don’t wanna jinx it but I prayed for this, literally. I dreamt about this. I never thought this feeling could be real, maybe I’m still dreaming.

Anyway that aside, we have the time skip here as you can see, so things are about to get real, the birth of the ‘chosen one’. As far as my reading, I finally got around to reading that Parker book they made into a shitty Jason Statham movie and it wasn’t that much better, I mean it was better but not by much. It was both more action packed and cool and also more boring and anti-climactic. The ending was a total wash, I expected a tense tactical fight and it just fizzled out, it was sort of pathetic, totally lost me. But I see why they made a movie out of it, probably the only Parker book where there was a character J-lo could play haha. I mean this is the most lines a woman has ever had in a Parker book, probably why it was so boring and shitty haha.

It was ok, it just wasn’t that special, I didn’t feel a real tension or mystery at all despite Parker being in a weakened state should’ve heightened things and it just didn’t. I dunno, it just wasn’t very gripping, not as engaging as the other books.

But I finished it and I’m back to reading Elric which is always pretty good. I mean it’s better than the witcher haha. Watching paint dry is better than the witcher haha.

It’ll never be as cool or as gripping as the first Conan story, that was bad ass, I wish the witcher books and Elric and even the rest of Conan was as cool as that haha.

Anyway.

See you…

–

Six months later.

“Mother, mother?” A small pale boy called in vain alone on the dingy streets of the once shining city of Murias.

“You are alone child, no one wants you, your own mother died at the sight of you” A fowl hissing voice said.

“Filthy halfbreed”

“Look at his skin, how it shines.”

“Like a fish!”

“Disgusting”

“Fomorian dog!”

“We should cook him up!”

“Your mother was a whore who laid with a fish!” A voice laughed.

“No mother, mother, where are you?” The boy called, his voice ringing through the empty streets of the shining city, the one of four that flew above the heavens in the lap of Dannuu herself.

“She is dead child, you are alone now… and forever”

Suddenly a stirring in the darkness as one falling off a log stirs in terror, the only sound the flicking and cracking of the dim dying fire. A figure stiffly shifting in the darkness groaned. The man rose from his seated position of waking and walked slowly over to a grand fireplace taking up a poker. The lithe man stabbed and prodded at the fire hatefully as if it had wounded him in some way. The pit spitting back at him sparks and flashes of vicious bubbling light. Illuminating the potmarked scarred face of Bres the once beautiful, king of the tuatha. His face at once was talked about throughout Inish Veil. Now cursed by the bard Coirpre, the treacherous half-blood king hides in darkness for fear of losing everything. For only a perfect king can rule the people of Danu.

He stood solemnly over the fire, the light glinting and lighting up his face in a hanging mirror over the pit. He sighed and touched his disfigured face and cursed under his breath. “Coirpre, how I wish I’d seen you die, I wish I had been there when the Fomor stripped the flesh from your bones. For the fomor care not for poetry.” Bres hissed to himself in the dark. The mirror shone strangely for a moment and a ghostly figure appeared there for a passing second.

“My son”

Bres turned in fright but there was nothing in the dark waiting for him.

“Who goes there? Babd? I told you not to disturb me witch!” Bres cursed.

“It is me my boy, my beautiful boy” The soothing ghostly voice said.

“Mother?” Bres gasped “How can this be?”

“I call to you from beyond death to deliver a warning and give new hope”

“A warning?”

“One comes that would take all this that I bequeathed you.”

“Who? Who would dare?”

“Nuada Airgetlám”

“Impossible!”

“It is true, he returns to take your rightful throne. But do not fear, you must away to your father’s kingdom, he will aid you.”

“My-my father?”

“High king of the Fomor, Elatha.” The specter held out it’s hand “Take this ring, so he may know you and go quickly.”

Bres reached out his to the specter and it’s ghostly hand slipped the ring onto his finger and it fit perfectly. But the moment the ring was on his finger there was a loud ruckus from outside of the keep of Dun Bresse. The sound of something akin to a battle but then just silence and then shouting, jubilant shouting.

Bres rushed to his tower so he could see what was going on outside by the stars and fire light of the many sconces and braziers lighting the keep.

Amassed was a great gaggle of peasants. A veritable army carrying farming tools and torches as weapons and shouting foul slogans. Some Bres was sure were reciting the poem of Coirpre himself, loudly and more vulgar than was intended by the dead poet.

Bres tightened his jaw as he watched this procession “Guards!” He shouted from the tower, almost immediately a group of armed guards rushed to meet the horde with spear in hand. But something stopped them. A name and a white horse and the man on that horse slowly trotting into the brazier’s fire light. The torches of the peasants parted to allow this grand figure to pass to the front of their grim procession.

A shining tall slim figure in white and gold riding. In his hand he raised the flaming sword of Nuada. The Claíomh Solais, shining brighter than a star, the light from it so bright Bres swore he could feel it’s glow on his marked face.

“Nuada!” Bres whispered to himself. And as he himself acknowledged who it was before the keep at Dun Bresse. So too did the guards, all in turn dropping to their knees at the sight of the once and dead king in his divine perfection.

–

Read the rest of the chapter on inkitt https://www.inkitt.com/stories/action/300249/chapters/12

0

Kur part 2 Chapter 9 ‘Ghost boy’

Henlo, me again, still not dead haha.

Feeling a lot better actually, was in a dark place for a bit but I decided to see it as a wake up call and I was gonna change my whole life. But then a global pandemic hits and every country I want to go to is locked down and I can’t leave my house.

So yeah that’s on hold but I still feel ok, despite possible looming death haha. I feel hopeful that as long as I can survive this bullshit I’ll come out on the other end healthier and happier. I feel fit, I look good and I’m ready to fuck life up, after all the toilet paper comes back haha.

So yeah, some light fantasy reading to hopefully get you through these trying times, best of luck.

–

Tuan was frozen for a moment and then the voice became all too familiar to him and he turned his head slightly to see.

“Birog?” He smirked. “You wouldn’t kill me”.

“I have killed three hundred this night and maybe ten thousand more when the prophecy is fulfilled, what’s one more death?” The seer said coldly.

“You and your prophecies” He laughed “There’s a new one every week.”

The seer smiled “See for yourself.” She said as she pushed Tuan through the door.

Inside the bed chamber there was little light but Tuan’s eyes quickly adjusted, a beam of moonlight cast across tussled bed linens. Only the vaguest of shapes took form

“So you’ve come to rescue me”. A mocking voice said from the darkness, followed by a mocking laughter as feral eyes stared at the shapeshifter from the corner of the room.

Cur rose from a chair at the side of the bed clad in only a loin cloth. Pitilessly he tore the elegant silken linens from the grand bed. Revealing underneath a slight and strangely beautiful girl with only one giant eye where there should be two. The girl looked roughly manhandled but otherwise alive.

The barbarian tore the fine sheets and wrapped them around himself to form a crude tunic.

The barbarians keen eyes saw the hooded girl follow Tuan out of the darkness of the doorway. His wicked grin growing larger and toothier. He laughed again, his laugh punctuating the sounds of the waves down below and the silence like a crack of thunder. His laughter was like an attack all of its own.

The girl almost winced at the sound of it and tried to hide her face from his scrutiny. She looked down at the girl on the bed with pity and shame “The prophecy has begun, she is with child.”

“What is this nonsense?” Tuan gasped.

“She will give birth to the one that will slay Balor and free this land of the Femorians for good.” Birog spoke softly and from rote as if reading in a trance. “It’s why I brought you here.” She steadied herself letting the knife fall down by her side. “The child of three bloods will be the one to save this land and stop the stone of destiny falling into his grasp.”

“Him who? What are you talking about girl?”

“Elatha, the first born son, high king of the Fomorians. If he takes the stone, if Danu’s power over it weakens and the god of chaos has it under her wing, the world will fall into a blackness it will never wake from. I have seen it.”

Cur snorted. “I care not for this world.” He croaked.

Birog opened her cloak and revealed a strangely shaped object rapped in a lambskin. She carefully unraveled it, the moonlight dancing on the silver arm balanced in her hand. She tossed it as gently as she could at the Firbolg who caught it effortlessly in his one good hand. “It is your world too, Firbolg.”

Cur grinned as if he stared at the back of his enemy while they were taking a piss as he reattached the arm to his burnt misshapen stump. The pain he had quickly forgotten rushing back to him, the arm burned with foul magic. The castle was but a dull glow of the rot but the arm was like a lightning rod for it. And it sent a searing pain through his scars and there was a part of him that even missed it. The pain reminded him that he could feel, it reminded him of his hate.

“Now you die” He cackled.

“The child will surely die without me.”

“I care not for my bastard” He laughed.

“Then what of your own life?”

Suddenly as if through some magic there were noises outside of the door, heavy footfalls and shouting and gibbering in a strange tongue.

Birog smiled and sighed “Our time is short Firbolg, would you waste it on killing me when I am your only means of escape from this place?”

Cur laughed wickedly as he approached. “I will kill you quickly woman.” He croaked raising his sinister silver hand to her throat.

There was a thud and cracking at the door. The Firbolg turned his head and in an instant the seer seemed to dissolve into the crystalline brick of the castle wall.

The Barbarian lunged for her apparition but clutched only air as the witch vanished from sight.

“They’re coming through, prepare yourself!” Tuan shouted.

Cur chuckled at the fear in his voice.

The attackers at the door were little more than beasts in the crudest shape of men. Foul slithery things with misshapen and uneven bodies, some with bulbous blubbering lips and glassy bulging eyes.

They threw their flaccid foul bulk against the door. In an instant it exploded and splintered out and a silver streak reached out and flew like an arrow across a moonless sky.

The barbarian was vicious and brutal beyond measure without a weapon even more so. He was fast and wicked and spared no mercy in savagery. He took the first one so fast it could barely gargle in response it’s doom. The Firbolg took the creature by it’s jaws and tore it almost completely in half as if it were a boneless fish. It’s hot entrails spilled out on onto the crystalline staircase, steaming with its viscious bile. The sound it made was enough to stop any mortal advance.

The other creatures stood frozen not understanding the desolation that leered down at them from the doorway,

Cur could smell their fear, he could hear it in their silence. Taste it in their hesitation, they were but mortal afterall, they feared him and he delighted in it. A wicked grin stretching across his scarred face.

A sword swung by webbed vaguely humanoid hands stuck out of the gloomy darkness and was caught in a silver hand. The barbarian snarled and snapped the crude sword in half. In one fluid motion embedding the uneven shard into a glistening yellow eye that spewed a black vile puss as the creature shrieked in agony.

Cur ripped the sword from the creatures gibbous wretched clawed fingers. With a slow dull pawing he wrenched the crooked snapped blade ripping the creature open from groin to sternum. Without stopping his attack he threw the barely living misshapen thing. Writhing and bloody with a clear blood onto the wide squamous eyes of the onlookers in the darkness.

Without fear or hesitation he threw himself upon them. Spears and teeth and claw pierced his body but naught stopped him. He overcame them like a grave digger gouging through loose earth and muck in his way. Hacking and chopping with a maddening indifference.

The remaining few unbrutalized fled. They ran into the dining hall that was now a mausoleum to the three hundred maidens that watched over the princess. But they didn’t get very far.

Without warning they stopped in their tracks as if they were caught in a net, frozen not from fear but an unseen hand gripping them. Their bodies crumpling and shrinking due to some invisible crushing force. It seemed almost like they were rotting right before the Barbarians eyes. They popped with some exuberant force. Their putrid entrails slapping against the cold walls of the dining hall and it seemed almost turning to dust as they fell.

“You’re not allowed in here” A sickly slight voice said.

The barbarian scanned the room looking for the source of the voice. He smirked broadly as he saw the child standing in the doorway, the child that called himself Balor.

–

Read the rest on inkitt for free. https://www.inkitt.com/stories/action/300249/chapters/9

0

Cur 2 Chapter 8 ‘Harsh Realm’

I’m back, kind of, not really, I died, I’m a ghost haha.

Yeah well I feel like one anyway. Been a pretty rough couple of months for me sort, not really I guess. I dunno, just not been in a good place mentally and it doesn’t seem to be getting better. I’ve been struggling for along time dealing with I don’t want to say depression because that’s gay af haha but I kinda don’t want to live anymore like every day haha.

It got really bad christmas time because of all the shitty christmas shifts and the rain and not my ex not letting me see my kid for over a year now, not a skype, not an email or picture, not on christmas or my birthday. Nothing. I’ve given up trying to appeal to her better nature, she doesn’t have one. I know you’re probably thinking I did something to deserve it and I kind of did, I tried getting over her and dating someone else and she didn’t like that one bit and I’ve been cut off ever since and on top of that the new relationship also pancaked, so not a great start to a pretty shitty year and I’m pleased to say 2020 is starting no differently.

Writers block mainly this chapter took me weeks crunch out and it’s just ok I guess. I was mainly trying to find a new job in another town and just start fresh and try to forget. But I was inspired to start writing again because I fell in love with someone new and it was magical for about a week before she just started ignoring for no reason and it fell apart. I don’t understand any of it but I can’t get more than two words out of her, it’s really unsatisfying. And pathetic because I deserve this, I deserve misery, I’ve done nothing to deserve happiness. But I’m not evil, I try to be good, I didn’t choose to be this way.
Don’t worry this is not a suicide note haha, imagine that a suicide note at the top of chapter about cyclops rape haha. I’d never do that, I’d never deprive my child of eventually knowing who her father is. I never knew who my father was, he died when I was a baby, I can’t describe to you what that pain feels like. Like not knowing a part of yourself, missing something you never had. Knowing your life would be totally different if he’d lived and been there to guide me. Make me into a man like him instead of the shadow of him that I fear I am.

Yeah so happy fucking wednesday anyway haha.

–

The barbarians heart pounded with vicious glee. Keeping in time with the cold wet slap of his own bare footfalls as he ascended the spiral staircase.
Nothing but dim darkness stalked his steps as he heard no sound other than that of his own breath burning in his lungs daring to be free.
It occurred to the barbarian this must be some kind of passage, that was never lit as it was not meant to be traversed often. The girl must’ve carried some sort of lamp to light her way, or if not the creatures of this castle had no need of light. Cur with his only hand balanced himself along the wall as he ascended, attuning his eyes to the murky blackness. He stopped to listen but heard no other breath, no clinking of armour or heavy clad footfalls. Only a slight whistling sound like the last breath escaping a corpse.
He pressed against the wall from which the noises came. The wall relented without much force and slid away. Still it revealed only darkness, but in the distance he could hear the cracklingof a fire and the glimpses of dancing shadows.
A tight dead end lead down a grand hallway dimly lit by distant firelight. The barbarian strained to listen for voices but heard naught but the dying fire.
At once he saw it as if a black sheet had been lifted from his eyes; a grand and grotesque fire pit. It gently smouldering in the centre of a huge high ceilinged dining hall.
The barbarians eyes adjusted to the dim light enough to see that the dining hall was not empty. But instead lining the floor were the limp bodies of what could’ve been hundreds of young women.
The Firbolg eyed them coldly, noting their garb, they were young fair women. Some full tables of women with just red hair and another with blonde and another were brown and raven haired. They wore black robes and appeared as Tuatha or even human. Their skin took on a white bluish glow like the scales of a fish and Cur knew they were Fomorian or some mix thereafter.
But more pressingly, they were most certainly dead.
Each their lips wetted with some drink that had been the murderer. The last of the Firbolg did not dwell on this good fortune, Cur merely let out a low mirthless chuckle as he waded through this newly made mausoleum. The door at the far end of the dining hall beckoned him. Cast as it was in the finest bronze and gold leaf with crystalline reliefs in the surface, making it shimmer like that of an undersea gem on a reef.
He placed his hand on it and felt it relent as the wall of the passage has before. He grinned and laughed as he forced it open, chuckling wickedly as he stalked the crystalline staircase. The walls too of the tower were made of an almost translucent stone which no doubt was forged by some form of magic.
The barbarian climbed the tower tirelessly, grinning like the devil ascending from the pit on a crystal ladder. Looking out he swore he could see the black abyss of the night’s through the crystalline stone. The moon full and wide and beaming at him and then suddenly ducking behind a thick cloud bank to hide from the Firbolg’s gaze.
At the top of the tower the barbarian came to a door. A small door which rested ajar but only a crack allowing but a sliver of silver moon light to bleed into the crystalline stair case.
The Firbolg grinned with anticipation. His blood rising and falling with the tide and the moon at his back watching sheepishly, a vile satire he slowly pushed the door open.
The moon shone through a large oval window shaped as if it were a silvery mirror of the sky. The cloaked moonlight hung suspended by a light myst before it fell on a bed fit for a queen, or a princess.
Upholstered in a rich sea green silk, silks of the deepest blues and emerald made up the bedding, they seemed to shine in the moonlight like scale. Each pinprick of light dancing on the material as if it were the bed of a sea covered in precious gems. And the most precious gem a giant emerald that was an eye of a girl.
It was not a trick or an illusion, her hair cleared from her face the maiden was beautiful. Hair as soft and as pale as milkweed but as full and as bodied as the head of a dandelion or a sea anemone. Tustled as it was as she stared dough eyed with her one giant beautiful eye at the barbarian heaving in her doorway. She raised herself on her forearms in her thin white silken night gown. Blinking with her one green eye in the middle of her forehead above a pert upturned nose and pricked ruby lips. Her skin so soft and white it was almost blue, and when the moonlight hit it it seemed to become as translucent as the stone that made up her tower.
“What are you doing here?” The familiar whispered voice said.
But the Firbolg had no sympathies nor words for the girl. For he could hear nought over his own heart beat pounding in his ears and the rushing swelling tide hitting the rocks below. The moon light filling him with purpose as he lurched towards the bed. A sardonic low cackle in the back of his throat rising and a grin spreading across his wicked demon face.
–

Read the rest of this chapter over on inkitt https://www.inkitt.com/stories/action/300249/chapters/8

0

Cur Chapter 8 ‘Thick as thieves’

Bit of a chill one today, its raining outside and I’m feeling gently melancholic – but in a good way haha.

I really do love the rain, sometimes I can’t sleep without hearing it. Don’t know what I’d do if I left the country to some hotter climb. I think I’ll only truly be happy when I move somewhere where it rains all the time haha.

It really doesn’t rain in England as much as people think.

I dunno, I don’t like going out in it but I could spend hours just watching it. Something about knowing that someone else is doing the exact same thing somewhere. Or that outside the world is bare of people, just all huddled around inside watching as it comes down. The steady rhythmic metronome of the rain hitting the ground and trees. Something about that really gets me.

I don’t have much to say other than that, not been up to much except proofreading. I think I really need to go over Cur a couple of times because it’s just too big of a project not to. It only worked out around 50k words but when I say big I’, referring to the scope. I tried to make a little fantasy story but the source material is unrestrainably epic.

I did borrow my brothers ps4 to try out the new spiderman game, I think the last spiderman game I played might have been spiderman 2 haha. It’s pretty good but it has some serious flaws, I might write a review when I finish it.

Down to this latest chapter of Cur, probably the most pivotal chapter up to now in terms of the lore and the backstory for the characters as well as the main themes for the story overall. No action unfortunately but *in Bain voice* ‘That comes later’.

This is sort of where the main story really takes off in terms of an actual quest and some epic duels will follow on from this. This is basically the end of this part and the next will all be about the actual task that Birog is to be given. The main story is of course about Cur but Birog is the character that carries the driving force of the plot.

Ok so enough rambling about that haha. I’ve been too knackered to finish Plunder Squad recently, that’s the name of the Parker book I’m reading, please don’t judge them by the titles haha. Thankfully kept away from the witcher. Not sure I’ll return to that honestly, just a chore to read.

That’s all for now, hope you like this excerpt and if you do, head on over to inkitt to read the rest and my other stories.

See you…

–

Hear- could hear nothing but the sound of the lapping sea and the gulls circling overhead with their monotonous chatter. The sea roared at his feet, the sky swirling with black and grey clouds. His mouth was open and dry and he could feel the sand under him but nothing else and he couldn’t move, couldn’t think.

 

He stared up at the clouds unable to move his head or close his eyes or feel any of his extremities whatsoever. Not the cold of the wind, nor the spray of the sea, only the sand below him shifting and the little things crawling beneath it.

 

There was no pain, or pleasure, or sense at all, just the sea’s endless roar.

 

Underneath him and he could feel his hair knotting in the sand, damp and being pulled by something. His feet too were being tugged by something out of his line of sight.

 

“We want the dead one’s boots” A little guttural voice said.

 

“We wants his eyes” The harsh voice tugging at his hair said. “Whats you need boots for under the waters anyways?”

 

“To trade” The affronted one said.

 

“You already have your trophy for the king of the deep, begone with you!”

 

“No you!”

 

The two figures continued to bicker and pull at the dead man lying on the beach.

 

“What’s that?” One of them said.

 

“Leg it!” The other said accompanied by the sound of skittering little feet.

 

And then by his feet a splashing sploshing noise as the waves swallowed one of the little things pulling at him and the other darted into a bush.

 

“What do we have here?” A new voice said, one that sounded like a bear and a bird talking at once. “There is life left in this one yet”

 

Time passed as the dead man watched the sky roll over him without care. The sun seen through the clouds turning orange as he felt himself being dragged on what sounded like wooden plank along the ground.

 

The sounds of the waves then replaced with the sound of a campfire and the blanket of clouds replaced by the blanket of night. The stars like pin pricks in the roof of the sky beaming down on his lifeless inert form. Only remnants of his consciousness left to stare out of a blank face for eternity as the rest fell away.

 

Cur awoke from his dream, his neck feeling stiff after being trampled by the black mare. He hushed himself as he heard quiet conversation and the melodious playing of a harp and the light of another fire.

 

“It’s quite alright, I’d probably rob me too if I met me” The druidess laughed.

 

“Our time on the road has hardened us, I beg forgiveness my lady” Tuan tittered like a bard.

 

“And the other one?”

 

“He fell out of his mother hard as a rock” Tuan chuckled.

 

The druidess giggled “However did you meet him?”

 

“It’s a long and very embarrassing story.” Tuan said.

 

“Well? Do tell shapeshifter” She fawned

 

“You see I was caught short, let’s say, a mating ritual -interrupted.” He smiled and waited for a response.

 

“I see”

 

“I was, how do you say, conducting myself in an indecent manor when some loutish fishermen caught me with my trousers around my ankles should we say. They bound me before I could change into something more formidable. There was nothing I could do, I was at a loss” Tuan said with a waiffish arrogance.

 

“Fisherman, in their nets, I’m sorry I’m not following.” The druidess balked as she talked into her cup.

 “Forgive me, I forgot to mention I was transformed into a salmon at the time.” Tuan said absentmindedly staring off into space.

 

“Oh I see, Oh I see” She giggled.

 

“Yes, so these idiots were planning on cooking and eating me, I tried to talk to them but they wouldn’t have any of it. I tried to tell them I wasn’t a fish but that just made it worse. You see they were convinced for some damned reason that eating me would give them all the knowledge in the world. I have no idea why.” He said as he took a sip from his cup.

 

“Why didn’t you change into a Wyvern or a crocodile?” Birog said wide eyed, listening intently.

 

“I was already confined in the pot, and I couldn’t think of anything, I get terrible stage fright, all animals fall out of my head when pressed.”

 

“So what happened then?” She said shaking her as if the drink was getting to her a little bit.

 

“Well all the noise of me shouting and arguing with the fishermen drew out the ogre. Who I suspect was trying to take a shit in the woods at the time and he came out and scared them off.”

 

The druidess burst into laughter spilling her wine over her shoulder.

 

“I only suggest that as his trousers were around his ankles as he chased them.”

 

She tried to catch her breath and sputtered “What happened after that?”

 “Well I pledged my life to him as he inadvertently saved it. But of course sour one as he is, he didn’t take kindly to it at first but I was sure to follow him to one day return the favor. But as you might have guessed saving the life of a dead man is quite impossible.”

 

“What an interesting story, I don’t think I’ve heard anything like it in all my life.” Birog gaped. “But can I ask- why is he so-?”

 

“Cruel?”

 

“I’m not sure that’s the right word for it, I’m not sure a word exists to describe what he is. He’s cold but inside burns something truly- monstrous, something I couldn’t envision even in my dreams”.

 

“I know little of him but of his people, I have seen much.”

“What have you seen?” She said intently as bit from a leg of succulent roast pork which turned on a spit over the fire.

 

“I have seen Connacht in ruins as a crow sees it.”

–

Check out the rest of the chapter on inkitt.

Thick as thieves

 

 

0

Diana After Dark Chapter 2 ‘Do you see what I see?’

Yeah more of these lazy stalling tactics haha. Well is it laziness or do I just want to take my time and make sure the proofreading of Cur is perfect before I put out another chapter, no you’re right it’s laziness.

But I felt like I’ve been putting off proofreading this pitch stuff, which is arguably more important. And I was for a good reason, I think it’s good to let something sit for awhile and then come back to it with fresh eyes. You find a lot more of the mistakes that way.

Still happily can say I’ve read no witcher in a couple of days and my polish friend who got me into the witcher told me the next book is the most boring of all so I can’t wait to slog through this to get to that… yay.

I dunno, I just feel like I have to do something to escape inevitable depression, I have to keep moving forward, to stop or slow is death.

I’m still rocking Cur, I’m about over the hump now working my way into the home stretch and into the real meat of the story, which I think is fucking epic but I’m biased haha.

Because up to this point it’s been pretty apocryphal, building my own story around a character that was meant to die in the original literature that I revived sort of creating an alternate timeline. So this is when we’re about to start getting into my dramatisation or interpretation of the actual mythology and it’s pretty awesome. I actually already started writing it awhile ago because I was gonna slot it in right at the start.

But then my buddy said I should move it to the end as like a reveal and a part of me thought it would be better at the part because it’s a little bit of an obvious twist in my opinion and I thought it might be cheesier than it would be epic. But now as I’ve built up to it in the story I think it will be really cool. If readers feel half as pumped as I did writing it it’ll hit the mark.

Yeah so here’s the next edited and double proof read chapter of Diana after dark, this should be what professional agents will read so if there are still mistakes I’m pretty much fucked. But I’m being a lot more patient and conscientious this time around. The last couple of times I jumped the gun a little bit and my content really wasn’t as good as this so I have high hopes for it. I mean fuck me it’s better than twilight.

Anyway gotta do something actually productive today, I’m back on facebook so I’m gonna do some spamming with this lovely little chapter people can’t complain about being unedited. Despite the fact people will just to be dicks haha.

Yeah so here’s that, now I have to get to proofreading and spamming and all that good stuff.

See you…

 

–

Paul drove his dad’s car when he was out in some Middle-Eastern hell hole doing what I could only dream about, literally. But in an altogether less neat and ritualistic way at the behest of his Uncle Sam.

That’s a level of trust you can’t kill for. His dad was obviously very confident in the offspring he’d carefully chiseled out of clay. That, or he was indelibly dim-witted, allowing his only child to drive around in his top-of-the-line vehicle. Having only met him a handful of times, I couldn’t say which was the case.

It was an older model olive drab Hummer, with leather interiors that smelled like discipline and spearmint gum. The thing ran like it was brand new, the old man kept it in peak condition, and his son took it just as seriously.

I opened a bag of chips in her once on the way to an Ariana Grande concert and he made me get out and finish them on the side of the freeway. That was fun.

Another thing I loved about Paul Alan Junior was, he rarely talked. There’s the strong silent types. Then there’s this type, the type that’s conditioned to ‘being seen and not heard,’ on levels that teeter on ‘culty’, if that’s a word. His father taught him well; sometimes I wondered if he wasn’t as damaged as I was. Instead of breaking the mold, he’d been hammered perfectly into it. A living Ken doll with no visible cracks or creases.

Thankfully, unlike a Ken Doll, they’d seen fit to leave the important places ‘unsmoothed,’—not that that really mattered to me.

Unlike most people, I’m a big fan of comfortable silence; sadly in Orange County, near the coast, it’s in short supply. Inside the sealed air conditioned mobile command center that was Paul’s dad’s car, it was preserved. Like some kind of orchid, hermetically sealed for freshness. I could almost taste it as I watched the anemic palm trees and midafternoon roller-skaters go by. Baking and cracking in the sun while I felt like a lizard on a cool dry rock; bliss.

With a full stomach, it was even better. He took me to this little taco place we like near the beach because it’s quiet and he knows that’s why I like it.

I had the vegan taco; not vegan but I like their food and for some strange reason I like animals. Not really people or kids. Of course, people are kids but there needed to be a distinction. Although, I don’t hate them.

I just have a callous indifference for everything that doesn’t walk on four legs. There’s something about them I like, their raw natures, their lack of pretense, lack of a filter. Their natural instincts just accepted, not sanded away by school or television.

Sadly, the feeling is not mutual. Every cat or dog my aunt ever brought back would rather jump under a semi than let me pet them. I won a gold fish at a fair once, got it a bowl and a little castle, the whole bit. As soon as we put it in the bowl, it climbed those castle steps and was never seen again. It chose a life of solitude like some hunchback. It starved to death rather than see me for all of the five seconds it took for me to sprinkle food on the surface of the water.

Paul paid for the tacos, of course, perfect gentleman.

Feminism, what’s that?

“Are you mad at me?” he asked, as he kept his eyes straight, hands at ten and two.

I looked at him and sighed, and smiled with the corners of my mouth like a snake. “No.” suggesting it could’ve gone either way.

He looked good in profile, a strong chin, long straight nose, light dusting of designer stubble. The aviator sunglasses were probably also his dad’s. His hair was tight at the sides with a bit of gel assisted lift at the front.

“Is that a real ‘no’ or a woman’s ‘no’?” he asked, without taking his eyes off the road, just smiled out at nothing.

“No as in no.” I just couldn’t get those dreams out of my head. Picturing the city under the blanket of night and me stalking its street like some carrion bird picking off the weak and strong alike. It was a mix of horror and sheer splendor mixing in my chest. A feeling so unexplainable, to try seemed like blasphemy.

“You just seem—” The leather squeaked under him; his eyes remained forward, he poked his tongue into his cheek, as if looking for the right word. “Different”.

Should I tell him about my dream, maybe just to shut him up? I don’t have to tell him about the good bits, I can keep those to myself, locked away in Dear Diana’s vault of diabolical deeds.

I make a bit of a show of it, lick my lips so he can hear, maybe not over the air-conditioning. “I had this weird dream.” I shrugged and smiled again.

Paul readjusted the rearview mirror, still he wore that dumb smile. “What kind of dream?”

Two questions in one day. Aren’t we the inquisitive type today?

“I was walking…walking, at night.” I tapped my front teeth together anxiously. A creeping odd feeling of cold hit me and I rubbed my bare pale arms to warm them but my hands were just as cold.

“Like a vampire?”

I scoffed.

“You really shouldn’t be walking alone at night Di—even in your dreams.” He made a hawing laugh sound in his throat, and turned that smile directly on me.

“Cute.”

Paul unwrapped a stick of gum and popped it into his mouth, somehow without taking his hands off the wheel. “You haven’t heard?” He poked the gum packet in my general direction.

“Apparently not,” I said, losing a sliver of patience, as I politely batted away the offer of gum.

He lifted his aviators and looked into the rearview mirror, as he chewed loudly. “You haven’t been watching the news?”

“Not if I don’t have to, boring show.” There goes another one.

Paul took in a deep breath and continued to chew. “They found a couple’ a bodies washed up on Huntington Beach.” He said.

“Bodies?” Happens every other day here. Some fat tourist from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania goes belly up in a rubber dingy and we have to pretend to care.

“Headless bodies.” He made a chopping motion at his neck, like I didn’t know what headless meant. “They think it’s a serial killer or something.”

Or something, something like a chip of ice broken off, a cold laughter in the dark, a tinny voice spoke a language only I could understand. Those words set my teeth on edge, my skin to a cool burn.

“Really?” I tried to sound like I wasn’t chomping at the bit to Google this on my phone right in front of him. I swallowed, trying to pretend it didn’t faze me at all; like it wasn’t the most rapturous news I’d heard in my life.

Like there weren’t alarm bells ringing all through Diana’s dark deep depths. Like a light didn’t go off in my head, telling me somewhere, somehow, this is what I’d been waiting for.

But what else? Of course I need to feign some sort of fear, some kind of concern, for the victims for their family’s maybe.

I realized suddenly, a whole minute had passed since I last spoke. I just threw out a stock, “That’s horrible, those poor people.” For effect. No tears, no screams? Too much.

“Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.” Paul smiled.

“Did they find them?”

“Did they find what?” he asked, tipping his sunglasses down.

“The heads.” I asked quietly, as I tried to restrain myself from biting my lip.

He started chewing out of the other side of his mouth. “Now that you mention it, I don’t think they said.”

“Oh, terrible, I’m so scared!” I muttered almost shaking with excitement. What could it mean, why take the heads? Was it just a gang thing? Maybe the cartel. They love murdering random people and scattering them all over the place. Maybe some kind of Santeria voodoo hoodoo thing. But what happened to the heads?

Maybe they washed away and became a house for a family of California Dungeness crabs.

But not to find one, that stood out to me. It could’ve just been Paul forgot, but it seemed to strike a chord with Diana’s Dark Double. A shrill laughter, a tingle, a shiver up my spine, electricity on my fingertips. Every hair on the back of my neck stood up to salute the day, I had to check my lip to make sure I wasn’t drooling. Something seemed so right about it, something I had no idea I was waiting for.

I had to find out.

The moment he stopped the car, I bound out of the door like a dog seeing another passing car full of burning cats. I tossed back a feeble kissing noise and something like “Bye, babe, see you tomorrow!”

He said something equally as vapid back and swung a wide U-turn around the tiny roundabout at the end of the cul-de-sac I lived in, and drove off in a cloud of diesel smoke. The maneuver was something akin to the Titanic trying to do a Mexican Hat Dance around the iceberg.

Paul almost always just drove over it, leaving muddy tire tracks and crushed flowers in his wake, which seemed to really piss off my neighbors for some reason.

Oh well.

I quickstepped to the door of our ‘reasonably’ priced Orange County bungalow that looked like a little beach hut. Complete with beach towels drying on a spinner in the tiny front yard.

I was trying not to break into a full-scale sprint. I managed to keep my hand loose enough so I didn’t break the key off in the lock. Just to avoid any unnecessary time wasting conversations with my aunt. I wanted to be free to sit down at my computer as quick as humanly possible.

The keys on my chain rattled and it took me too long to find the right one and keep it still long enough to get it to go in the lock.

I turned the key, flinging the door open, closed it behind me and strode through the hall. I passed the living room, which I followed with my eyes.

The TV was on, the news, something about the killings. What a coincidence, but something in me told me this had to be a private moment, shared with no one.

Not even my own flesh and blood, and I also didn’t want any spoilers, no fluff, or padding. Just raw stark reality, no artist’s impression for Diana of the Dark.

I hurried past, slurring my words. “Hey, I’m home, had a great day, not hungry, kinda tired, going to my room, kthanksbye!”

Bustled past what felt like a crowd in a train station, but was just a bunch of squash equipment occupying the hall for some reason. I got in my room, pulled the door shut and had a fight with a wooden hat rack I’d thought was cute on Amazon, but had yet to buy a hat for.

My room was a hovel. Clothes, clean and dirty in piles throughout the room and on my bed. Posters of bands I didn’t listen to anymore, if I ever did in the first place, peeled off the walls and ceiling. Containers of soft drinks and burgers—I’m not a vegetarian. I like animals, big difference. They could have been vegie burgers, I don’t remember.

The curtains were drawn and the room was dark and humid. I put on the fan, and it started to cough and move warm air around my small room.

My laptop sat atop a throne of dirty clothes on my bed, half open like a clamshell.

I snatched it up and almost tossed it onto my dresser/desk/landfill. I turned it on and found a swivel chair with a sock wrapped tightly around one of the wheels. Its swiveling days were over, as the sock had lodged itself deep in one of the wheels. I parked my butt down and waited for my laptop to boot up, which seemed to be taking much longer than usual.

Punching it wouldn’t make it go any faster. So I didn’t do that.

Patience Diana.

It finally booted up, and I quickly logged in. My fingers almost tripped over themselves to type in my password, Dahmer7.

I opened a browser and typed, “Headless bodies, Huntington beach.”

There were a lot of results, but the top results seemed to be the most recent.

The Beachcomber had the juiciest title. The bodies had been found on the beach after all. So it seemed fitting.

 ‘Is there a head-hunter in Orange County?’ Jess Wode of The Beachcomber asked

I hope so Jess, I do hope so.

 It was apparent from the outset, this person had no idea what was actually going on. They were reading a police report, and adding their own ‘unique spin’. Or more likely, recycling a headline from another newspaper that also knew nothing.

Nothing more than headless bodies were found on the beach. That sells newspapers.

I was grinding my teeth, considering the prospects of a journalism degree. How much easier it would be to get access to all the morbid tripe I could get my hands on, if only I were a cop or a forensic tech or something.

The article was trite speculation and useless filler and what’s more, no pictures. What a waste of time.

I went through a few more sites. before I realized the police must be keeping a really tight lid on this one. No leaks, no cracks, no crevices, not even a video on someone’s phone, a selfie of a morbid dog walker, nothing.

Well that was disappointing. Even more so realizing that I would have to do the exact same thing as in my blog.

I opened another window and clicked on the bookmark tab for my blog. It wasn’t very fancy, I’m okay with computers, what kid born post y2k isn’t?

A super script kiddy hacker, I am not, but I’m getting there. The blog was just a standard WordPress blog dolled up with emo fonts and cheesy blood spatter effects as a background.

Mostly a serial killer fansite, where I documented murders and weird goings-on in the world at large. I ran it anonymously, obviously for the same reason I didn’t collect knives or listen to death metal.

Not that there’s anything right with that, but the connotations are the problem. People’s impressions really are everything.

If I do go on a killing spree out of the blue, I’d make it way too easy on them. They could blame reality TV, or Marilyn Manson or videogames instead of the harsh reality they’re hiding from.

Which is, Diana of the Dark Descent?

A shiver up my spine and that mocking chortle; the word I’m looking for is banal at best. ‘Evil’ doesn’t really cover it.

When I think evil, it’s more twirling moustaches and girls tied to train tracks. Some brawny hero coming to the rescue. This wasn’t so simple, it was never truly that simple.

Besides, how selfish would I have to be to let my ‘appetites’ harm the good name of videogames and death metal?

I logged in and tried to compose something, anything.

No pictures, maybe I should’ve just Googled ‘headless bodies’ in images. What kind of ‘leet’ hacker would I be if I didn’t figure out how to turn off my aunt’s safe search—in the fourth grade no less?

I felt dumb and dithering, as I looked at that blank text box I was about to fill with smoke, definitively from my ass. This must be what it feels like to be a real journalist.

My eyes wandered from the blank text box to my notifications. There was one. I clicked it, pretending I wasn’t mildly excited. Almost an addiction, checking notifications, expecting some great revelation. Some invisible backslap from a stranger or shit slung from some obtuse basement dweller, or maybe even a picture of a dick.

Other women complain about this constantly, I don’t get the fuss. It’s just a dick. I get the distinct feeling they’d be more miserable if the conveyer belt of phallic imagery would ebb. Maybe around their mid to late thirties.

It was a comment from one of the handfuls of subs to this small corner of the internet I call my own.

Spoopyshadowguy666 writes, ‘Check your inbox’.

This guy again, he subbed to me maybe a month or two ago, and he’s always sending me these weird cryptic emails. Like puzzles or riddles, games, and no pictures of his penis, woe is me.

Okay, I’ll bite.

I opened my inbox and it was empty, funny, my room looked like a homeless shelter, but I like to keep a tidy inbox.

I check the spam folder and waded through all the phishing emails and things trying to sell me Viagra and dildos and wart remover. A combination I can’t recommend.

His emails in the past didn’t really seem all that interesting. Mostly pictures of people, their names and addresses. Odd things, like their habits and work schedules, where they like to hang out.

It was weird but it didn’t cross the boundaries of being really strange. Seemed like the random fixations of a professional stalker. The standard fare for any fan of a serial killer page.

None of the people in the pictures seemed to be connected in anyway, different races, ages, jobs, sexes. If there was a pattern I didn’t pick it up, so into the spam folder it went. 

Today I was feeling ready for a distraction. Anything that would save me from the blank text box, and raking the bottom of my own skull for inane bullshit.

There it was, the subject of the email read ‘Do you see what I see?’ There were some attachments.

Here we go, finally the validation of seeing a nice hard cock of a stranger, can’t wait.

Clicking on the email revealed that it was pretty much the same as before. Pictures of seemingly random people, with little to no correlation in the way they looked.

I scrolled through them aimlessly, feeling silly for wasting my time. Then I saw a face that sent a little sliver of ice into the dark well.  I felt it stir.

A small flap of leathery wings, a tail uncoiling.

The face seemed oddly familiar. It was a Hispanic guy, maybe in his late twenties-early thirties, curly brown hair, small almond eyes, a flat nose and wide lips. The name on the image was Antoine Ruiz.

Ruiz, that name also seems familiar but it’s a Hispanic name and I go to a school that has a sizeable population. I think I sat behind a Ruiz in calculus.

I decided I was being silly, it was meaningless. I was making a big deal over nothing. I could have seen this guy while I was eating tacos an hour ago. He could have been staring right at me while he was grating vegan cheese and I wouldn’t have noticed.

There was something odd about these photos, though. They seemed different. The ones before were almost stock images pulled straight from Facebook or Twitter. Selfies, pictures taken by friends of them standing with surf board or in front of lobster dinners or on vacation.

These pictures seemed more intrusive, and increasingly so, as I cycled through them. Pictures from a distance, with their faces turned away from the camera, as if they had no idea they were being taken.

There were no smirks of the impending picture taking, no glib grins of people trying to show themselves at their bests. Instead it was the harsh glare of the camera’s eye revealing them in their natural state, completely unaware.

The first pictures of this Ruiz character made it obvious he was some kind of small time drug pusher or pimp. At night, with girls. Clandestine exchanges with people in cars with tinted windows. Moving his gun around the waistband of his Jordans.

Quite a character. Another small tingle was conjured as the next image was that of a small single story house, not mine. That would have been really ‘spoopy’.

No, it was a lot more ‘low-key’. Wider but with an unkempt, dried out lawn, and some desert plants in front. He’s really going to be hearing from the homeowners’ society.

The pictures got closer, looking through the windows at Ruiz. There was some kind of party going on, armed bouncers at the doors, people going in and out at all hours. The time stamps said as much.

Girls of the paid variety hanging around.

Quite the operation he has going on there.

Then more, after the party was over and people were leaving. It could have been just my imagination, but on a headcount it seemed like they were one girl short.

Then the next morning. Ruiz appeared, pulling heavy duty black trash bags to the boot of his car.

I clicked back and forth through the pictures like I was watching a video. Trying to separate reality from some daytime TV show with a cheesy title. ‘Appointment for murder’. Waiting for the other shoe to truly drop.

Was this a joke? A prank? Was someone playing a trick on poor delusional Diana? A trap? It didn’t seem to want to go in my brain, make the jump from pictures on a screen to actual things happening in real living color.

Something inside told me it was very real, hyper real, and right in front of my eyes. My teeth clenched, wishing there were some pictures inside the trash bags but that’s where the pictures ended.

What a tease.

I didn’t get it, who was this guy? A cop? Was it some kind of message? A warning? Was I being investigated? It looked like surveillance footage, and it looked like Antoine Ruiz was the type that needed to be ‘surveilled’.

Why send these pictures to Dainty Diana? Was it a mistake? It made no sense, and the more sense I tried to make out of it, I realized there was no sense to be made.

There was a puzzle piece missing, deliberately so and there was no way I was going to find it here.

The email itself was blank, but I scrolled down to the bottom.

If I sent a response, what do I say?

‘Do you see what I see?’ I see it, I think I do.

If ‘it’ was what I thought it was. I see it like no one else can see it.

There was something more than that, something deeper. Something that spoke directly to that part no one else should know about. What was it saying?

What would I want to say? What would I want?

To feel in control, to feel a step ahead of the person getting the email. To let them know I know them and they know nothing about me and I’m watching and waiting for what, for me?

To do what? Who am I? I’m no one, less than no one.

A high school senior with a tiny blog and a love for comfortable silences and Mexican food and occasionally living vicariously through famous serial killers.

Now I’m rolling my eyes back in my skull, looking into that pure clear darkness. The blackboard where truth is written by my dark professor.

It laughed, a cold mirthless laughter that shakes flecks of cool sea water off its irreverent scales.

What was it teaching me? What does he want from me? What does he want me to do with Antoine Ruiz?

What would I want it to say, not just, ‘Do you see what I see?’ But; ‘I see you.’

He sees me.

0

GS2 Chaper 21 ‘Some girls are bigger than others’

Hey there,

Not much to say today, mostly been working and being boring haha. Not much writing or wackiness happening right and I haven’t really had time to be bored by the witcher. I watched avengers infinity war yesterday and it was ok I guess. I have no strong feelings about it.

Getting to the end of this Parker book, it’s pretty short but I’m taking my time haha. I dunno I’m not rushing to finish it, as I said before it’s just sort of smaller with less in depth characters than the other books so I’m not like dying to read the next chapters like I usually am. 
It’s pathetic, I look forward to bus journeys and waiting for stuff just so I can read but this one is just a little meh. It’s just not as big in scope, it’s all set in one place and although its an interesting place it just sort of kills the pacing. I kinda thought this one would be like home alone but really bloody but it sort of let me down. His traps were kind of short lived and didn’t do much.

I was hoping the story would actually follow the main villain who I thought Stark had built up quite well and then you’d get to experience the fear of running into Parker’s traps from his perspective a little like the fourth book and how terrified the villain in that book is of Parker *spoilers* so much so he chews a cyanide capsule just seeing his face again.

But they killed off that cool villain character like in the first encounter and then bring in this sort of generic mob boss character who hasn’t been built up at all really and he’s not really doing anything except riding around in a golf cart barking orders at people. I mean yeah it’s realistic that he got killed just by fate but it’s just so anti-climactic because I’d actually grown to like that guy and I wanted to see him and Parker go at in the ring of intelligence and to have him go down at the first hurdle made all that time spent with him seem pointless.

I mean it’s sort of that divide you get between subverted expectations and actually being good. I don’t care if a story is predictable as long as it’s good. I don’t care if my expectations are subverted if I’m disappointed. It’s like last jedi all over again, they spent too much time trying to subvert expectations and do something unexpected than they did actually crafting a decent narrative that made sense and good characters people could identify with.

It’s not a bad book, it’s just not great. Parker, you’re getting soft my old pal, you need to get back in shape, oh yeah also one of my favourite characters gets arrested right at the start so that sucked. Probably never see him again now.

Anyway enough bitching about that, time is getting away from me and it’s too damn hot today, need to attempt some real work today and maybe some spamming since I’m back on facebook, but for how long who knows? I seem to have report snowflakes on my friends list who like to flag me and get me banned for saying only the least edgy things haha.

So we’ll see how that goes.

See you… 

–

TJ froze making a stupid face. Trying to flip through ten seconds of footage of his pathetic life flashing before his eyes. Lots of him just sitting in his underpants watching anime and jacking it to anime porn. His mom’s smile, and a man he thought he recognised but couldn’t place. A skinny guy with short dark hair in a buttoned shirt with a pocket protector. ‘Who is that guy?’ He said to himself as he stood dumbstruck. Staring into the those glowing spider eyes rolling towards him through the threshing blades.

“TJ!” A faraway voice called out to him and he turned in a dreamy haze before getting knocked hard on his ass. The eyes following him in slow motion as the buzzing of blades moved like a cloud of wasps shredding up the top ice as they passed.

Sunday knocked TJ out of the way. She pushed her bat out in front of her. The force of the movement of this thing wrenching it twisting out of her hands and sending it into the air. It landed with a thudding clink. Lodging a heavy circular saw blade into the ice like it was put there by the lady in the lake herself.

The rolled to a stop and started to come together. A picture was forming as the rounded gauging blades slowed, white hot. Cooling and steaming on the ice. The frame of the thing heaving with unnatural laboured breathing. Which moved mechanically like bellows making a harsh wheezing noise.

It was big, atleast seven foot tall but hunched like it was on all fours. Twelve foot long with a whipping barbed metallic tail. No backlegs, just the tail and the front pronged metallic claws like a birds. It’s head was a squat thing with no neck, some kind of helmet covered in sharp barbed spikes. The entire length of it’s body was covered in these holes with gauged rounded blades like a “Fucking cheesegrater cyborg?” TJ said as he peeled himself over his fat gut to get a good look at that thing. “Seriously?!” He spat as he got to his knee.

–

For the rest of the chapter head on over to inkitt.

Some girls are bigger than others

0

Gage chapter 11 ‘Heel on the shovel

Good morrow fine folks,

You know I actually got up and started writing this morning haha. Forgetting it’s a blogging day. See I cycle between the two to try and keep them both in regularity, so I do tues/wed/thur blogging and then the other four days writing. Because before I would just write everyday and I would sort of get burnt out and depressed because I felt insular, I felt like it was all for nothing because no one was reading it. But then blogging and spamming and promoting made me feel hollow because I wasn’t creating.

So I thought this system would balance the two, nice regular creation with sometime to check my head space and see if anyone was picking up what I was putting down to mixed reviews haha.

But it was a happy accident because the last few days I’ve felt like I’m getting back in the swing of things, the first two days weren’t so good, second two were stellar. I think a lot due to the heat abating haha. Also part of me wasn’t feeling that part of the story, not that it was bad it was just a lull from the pulse pounding action haha. Now I’m safely back in that and feeling good. I was feeling like it was getting away from me a bit now I feel like I have a handle on it again. It’s coming into shape a little better, I don’t feel like it’s perfect or I’m putting enough world building in.
One thing I actually like about the witcher series is it has a lot of nice ‘fluff’ like stuff that’s irrelevant to the story but adds just a little something. But obviously in my estimation the whole series so far is nothing but fluff.

And not it’s time for another rant about the witcher, I just got done listening to the audiobook for time of contempt and I don’t if I just wasn’t interested enough to hold my attention. Because I listen to audiobooks all the time and do other stuff and I can still be fully absorbed and never miss anything but I feel like it was just a convoluted mess. As apposed to the other books where nothing happens that’s all this book is, a bunch of stuff happening. It’s not really a story.

The story can be summed up as an evil mage sides with the baddies and then they take over and everyone fights. That’s the plot, just add in a metric tonne of pointless dialogue and some mediocre fights in this one actually. And the book just sort of ends after a cringey lesbian sex scene between a fourteen year old girl and an elf.

I know what this author looks like, he’s a fat old polish guy and just imagining him writing this scene makes my skin crawl haha. It was bad, this elf girl like saves her from being raped by a boy only to rape her ‘nicely’???
It was disturbing to say the least, is it as disturbing as child gang bangs in the sewer a la Stephen King? Not really but I’m not in a hurry to read it again.

Short and sweet that rant, I kind of feel obligated to listen to the other books just so I can moan about them now so I might have to subject myself to that. I mean it’s good just for the writing style, I really think as a writer you should read everyday in some way. I usually listen to those books in breaks and then read before bed and when I get up. Almost finished the Parker novels, I’m not getting the stories crossed with the witcher because both their stories are very simple.

A little behind today so I’m gonna do some proofreading and hopefully get another damn chapter of Cur out because I’m running out of shit to post haha.

See you…

–

I figured Gage wouldn’t travel too far if he was with that old man and all, I mean where could he go? There wasn’t anything for miles, it was just open untamed country. He couldn’t go back to McCrory. If he didn’t just die of thirst or hunger and get covered over by the sand or get carried away by carrion. He would have stopped at this brothel and someone would remember him, how could they forget such a face?

We left the old man barely alive but he was certainly breathing when went on our way. There was no use in killing him I gathered, if he didn’t indeed die of his injuries he was of no great threat to our operation. I wondered as we left him in that state if it would have been more humane to just end his suffering.

The thought troubled me all the way to the brothel. The sun was just coming down by the time we got there but there wasn’t a single lamp lit in the building which seemed unusual.

The edifice was cold and dark but we could hear an odd rummaging sound. And see a little light bobbing in the darkness like an angler fish’s light in the deep darkness. We approached with caution and I called out like a fool before thinking.

“Hello, is anyone there?”

Ryan and the others shushed me angrily as they got off their vehicles and got low and still in the twilight and I saw the spark of a knife leaving it’s sheathe.

There was a long pause, a moment of unbearable silence. The rummaging noise stopped and the lamplight went out and I swallowed standing in the open. Just like in front of the barn awaiting another flash and a roll of thunder but instead I heard a small stuttering voice.

“HHh-hello? Who’s there?”

“Erm, I’m just looking for some service – A place to sleep and some food perhaps”

There was another deathly silence where nothing moved.

“O-ok” The man’s voice said as the lamp came back on. A few moments later a portly middle aged man wearing a smock came out to greet us in the dusk. “Hh-how you are ya?” The man asked.

“Erm we’re just looking for a place to bed down.”

“Ww-we? There’s more of you?”

Ryan and the others rose out of the falling darkness and stood in front of the porch at my back.

“I see” The man said as he moved the lamp around trying to get a good look at the strangers. “Well I hope you like beans, s’all I could find.” He said.

We sat around a table in the dimly lit brothel over meagre plates of luke warm beans not talking a great deal. I looked over in disgust watching Stein sop up bean juice with stale bread, not so much at the sight of it, but the sound. The slurping sopping suckling noise as he bit into the wet bread.

The man who greeted us came over with his lantern and said “How are you folks finding it?”

A few grunts were sent back in answer.

“Fine I said, I was wondering if you mind if I asked you a few questions?”

“Questions?”

“Yes, I was wondering how you came upon this place, how long have you owned it?”

“Oh I don’t own it” The man said shaking the loose skin on his neck. “I stumbled on it just like you did, the place was empty when I got here so I thought there was no harm in camping out here til I move on.”

“I see” I paused feeling a bit of unease creep in but I went on. “Do you know what happened to the people who ran it?”

“I have no idea mister. I used to run the bank over in town until the other day now I’m a wanderer now, trying to find a way out of the valley and this god forsaken nightmare.”

“You said something about a bank?

“You haven’t heard about it? The whole town is going up in smoke!” He sputtered.

“You’re the first person we’ve talked to”

“You mean” He stopped and put his hand on his head and looked shocked and then swallowed. “I was the only one that got out.” He said in a horrifying realisation.

“What in god’s name are you talking about man?”

He swallowed and he said almost like he was reading from an old folk tale. “A great evil has come to Tupelo, the devil himself has come to town with a red right hand and driven the people from their homes. Swept up in a murderous rage. They chased down all the sane people and killed them and maybe more got away but I ran.” He swallowed, his throat sounded dry and sore. “But I looked back and I saw him, the man with the scarred face, he looked at me and I felt the evil in his heart and I knew the end was upon us.”

“The end?”

–

Read the rest of the chapter here.

Heel on the shovel

0

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑