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Grand castles full of cities and heavy, luscious woods lined the horizon. Their mixtures of grays and greens flooded my sight with thick promise. It was Alvershiven’s Den; the long journey was finally over.

“Are you going to do it?” Ten-Men asked while he bent down on one knee beside me on the hill overlooking the magnificent scene. His pale yellow shoulders stood taller than my head.

“Yes,” I said, “this is what we have come for; I must.”

“Rest their souls.”

“Seize me, Ten-Men.” The star-child giant stood and positioned himself behind me. He wedged his knees heavily into the ground and then grabbed me by my arms, fastening me to the earth as surely as flesh bound by an iron stake. “Do not let go until I have returned and spoken the words of rekindling.”

And with that, I cast my eyes to the sun, capturing its rays and connecting them to my soul.

“Hivenitar,” I spoke.

A flagrant burst of light expounded from the sun and leapt through space and time into my being, filling me to the brim with astral, cosmic transmogrifying energy.  It burned through my insides and masked my shape and form immaculately, holding my physical presence within Ten-Men’s grip as a glowing shell while my true essence was released. I then shot across the valley before Alvershiven’s Den like an arrow at the speed of light.



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The chillanthon was waiting for me outside of my house, calling to me with its unsettling voice, tearing through my heart with its restlessness. I could hear its arms whip across its torso as they swiveled back and forth from shoulder sockets detested with freakish pivotal ability. It stood in the middle of the street, shrouded in an ink-drawn fog that swirled around the neighborhood as a cursed drape.

As it called my name, my family looked to me from beneath the dining room table with eyes that spoke of fear so deep that pus muddled their unblinking outlines. They could not speak, and might not have ever again. They did not understand what was occurring; I did. I had been thrust despairingly into an abominable fate. There was nothing left for me but to embrace the terror, pain, and incredible sadness quelling the last remnants of my life.

I took my wife’s face between my hands, followed by my children’s, drawing them close to me one by one. To each of them I left the grace of my departing love—all of the embers of goodness remaining within me to give. I left no words unspoken—no virtue unkindled. With a kiss, I sealed each of their spirits with my own, and then I walked out of my house to encounter the nightmare stalking my existence.



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On the dull road called Mayberry Lane, I stood at the turn of the evening. I had just flicked a cigarette at a passing vehicle, watching as its cinder flashed into the night. In front of me stood the Cursory—a name given to a house because no one ever gave the place a second glance. It was tucked a short ways off the road, but far enough away so that even the bluntest detail of its presence went unobserved; it was the home of my love.

As I began my walk to the house’s secluded porch, a succession of pricks began jabbing the back-ends of my eyes. In patterns of circles, the pricks drilled, pushing forth into my retinas. The burrowing continued once inside my eyes; when in the middle, the digging descended and came out through the bottom. There, the apparitions poured invisibly out into the open; it felt as if they were flowing forth like worms through a meat grinder, but there was nothing to see—no evidence of any such happening. The sensation then ceased.

I had just turned twenty years old.



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An army of ghastly forms waited listlessly at the gates of life. Each entity was unrestrained and raw—knowledge had yet to enter, conform, and orchestrate a platform of thought and personality for its cloudy mind. Step by step, they were pushed forward towards the slim opening in the gates. One by one they popped through the cavity, falling into the oblivion of consciousness that awaited them.

My father told me I had to be exceptionally fast and focused to catch an Alpha Spirit.

“You only have one try,” he told me. “If you don’t make it, then to hell you go to stay forever.”

I was confident I would succeed.

Hiding under the debris of multi-spectral galaxies, I waited at the crossroads of the physical and spiritual domains. I looked on as the Alpha Spirits showered down upon the Earth to seed the bodies of the living. I was seeking the perfect host—a spirit of exceptional promise. Once I had it in my sights, I would look nowhere else—not until the spirit had embraced me as its master and dragged me with it into life.

Shortly enough later, I scouted it, careening differently towards the Earth than the others amongst it; it stood out. I liked that. Without hesitation, I propelled my writhing haze towards it.



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I was handed a small, round cage; I curled two of my fingers around the s-hook fastened to its apex. The cage had a minute door fixed with a comparably insignificant latch. It did not—by sound and feel—seem to have anything within its grasp, although nothing could be seen within the tightly placed metal panels that formed the entrapment. These surfaces caught and reflected the inconsistent light of the corridor I stood in—which consisted of flickering bulbs overhead, pleading idly for the repair of the troubled circuits supplying them. At the end of the corridor before me, a mirror stood as the wall, reflecting back the entirety of the scene.

A woman stood behind me. Her hair was auburn and her skin was upon an age of older days. A strong musk emanated from her presence, encapsulating all of my senses. Even my eyes teared as the scent entered my nostrils. A green shawl draped across her shoulders over a pale blue dress.

In front of me stood a middle-aged man in tight jeans and a leather jacket. His nerves had the better of him; he twitched his arms and legs in anticipatory dread while his head swung from left to right, the long black hair on his head following in delayed pursuit. Slight mumblings left his lips periodically; whether prayers or words brought about by an encroaching insanity, there was no distinguishing.

Both the woman, the Elder, and the man, the Manic, had also been given cages identical to my own. At our sides, the cages were motionless, but in our reflections, the cages jolted back and forth.

Along the sides of our triptych ensemble, ten doors pressed. Each door was labeled with a Roman numeral; the first was given an “I” and the last an “X.” These labels were coated in thick, greasy oil. Their slick surfaces were magnets for the light and so were illumined vividly for all to see.



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“Just get inside!” my mom yelled.

“But please, let me—” I tried to explain.

“No! I don’t want to hear about it. Just go to your room. I’ll let you know when you can come out.”

I climbed out of the minivan and went into the house. My body trembled with a mixture of rage and adrenaline. I went to my room and closed the door.

It had been another day at school gone irrevocably bad.

I was sick, but that did not stop me from getting into trouble. Having sickle cell disease actually made things worse. As if a magnet, I attracted the most fiendish people—the bullies, the cheaters, the socially elite. My sickness was a beacon to the devoid of morals, and I did not like to concede to their ploys. It was that trait that proliferated my folly. Being weak and different in appearance was one thing, but the impulse for people to use me was more twisted than the disease itself. I had resolved to never give in without at least a half-hearted fight with my feeble arms. It was those same, very feeble arms that put me on the school’s list of irredeemable troublemakers.

I sat at my bedroom desk with my face between my hands, staring coldly into the tattered wood. When the sun set, I did not even turn on the lights. I stayed in the darkness, festering in thoughts of hatred and disgust.

What was wrong with me? I thought. I was imperfect physically, but I did not understand how that encouraged, or predestined, my daily demise. There was no justice; there was never a verdict to explain how I was so punishable. My wayward health was the splinter of my life, but it was not the source of the pain; the source of the pain was the unending rejection.



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A body fell from the opening above me. It fell so fast there was no way to tell if it was living or dead. It crashed upon the stone floor, bones cracking and flesh splitting. And then another fell. And another. And another. And another until thirteen bodies had splattered across the floor in front of me—children, women, and men.

The carcasses then slid together, connecting at their heads: a sick star of mutilation. It rose. The bodies dangled like raggedy ornaments, every limb swaying without provocation as if some invisible thing were playing with it. Then the limbs all at once began to swing, lashing upon each other in an unsynchronized display. One by one the limbs stuck together; they melded and warped with their neighbors—clothing, flesh, bone, and all—creating a thick tarp of malformed carnage. Once this floating blanket was completed, it started to spin. As it spun, it stretched its hanging mass until all sagging elements elevated and flattened; blood danced from the strained, splintering wounds.

The unnerving conglomeration of flesh became a disc and rotated perpendicular to the floor; it spiraled its contents, sending them back and forth, back and forth, instantaneously between this place and another, exchanging elements, bridging worlds. Blackness opened; color digressed. Then color reemerged, more vivid, more plaguing, reaching out with stories of untold damnation and unconquerable agony. Sinister visions flashed before me and explosions filled with screaming resounded behind the portal of spinning bodies.



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There are dismissed places—not forgotten or invisible—but ignored without refrain.  The devils of these domains are so vibrant that beings of any awareness trick their minds to see right through them, or around them—anything to succeed with avoidance. Nightmares are detrimental, but to gaze into these aces of sinister rule is to gaze at life tangled in the shards of splintering dread.

Odd might be the first word used to describe the terrains of such places. Different, bizarre, fantastical—these words work fine as well. But the topographies are only a warning—an alert to the unfortunate as to what comes if lingering turns to loitering. The Princes of Unnamed Horror are not for eyes to see, ears to hear, or mouths to taste. They are the overlooked, the repulsive, the shameful, and the blemishes of the most wicked existences. If only the act of their dismissal had the power to make them disappear. But such hope matters not—I stumbled upon them.



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The precious silver hovered over the menacingly heated embers. Its surfaces glimmered and sparkled with the reflection of flickering ash. Every curve and groove of this magnificent creation completed in shape to form the perfect fork—the Serpent’s Fork. A long slender handle fell downward, widening at the bottom into a wonder of embossed swirls. The head opened into four piercing tines, each with a precision of cut and detail to match the horn of a unicorn.

While the Serpent’s Fork suspended above the blazing embers, the heat began to influence the metal. The trueness of the Fork’s substance waned as it slowly unfolded with expansion. The head of the Fork bent forward and then the tines sagged to the sides—two tines to the left and two to the right. As they drooped downward they curled—the innermost tines twisting tremendously while the outer two only slightly.

Just as the molten Fork reached this moment of design, a gust of icy wind surged across it and the ledge that the burning embers laid upon, high within an almighty canyon.

“Splendid,” the Articraft said, before walking up to the circle of cooled ashes and grasping the Serpent’s Fork from the air. His voice lingered in the canyon’s hold. The Articraft’s hair was wild and gray, but his years were still youthful. He wore a dark blue vest, leather pants, and boots. The shadows in his eyes were deep, as were his longings for the unattainable.



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The dreams I had while I slept in the unsanctified darkness of the Slanterhorn Estate mansion’s attic were never pleasant. As I stared up into the ancient rafters, letting my body and mind be overcome by sleep’s oblivion, I sensed that the world of twisted things somehow pressed more mercilessly on such sites—places tucked so far away that light had lost its memory of them. If only a needle of day could have penetrated the dense capsule of my home, my heart would have been at ease.

There were no luxuries for me in the attic. There was a stiff, wooden stool, a wooden cabinet of clothes, a small table, a very uncomfortable bed, and two lanterns that were consistently replenished with oil. The rest of the attic was empty; nothing but darkness lived there. Not even the lanterns’ light could reach its far off distances.

My arrangement of items always remained by the iron door in the floor and I was not able to move them had I even wanted to. Each and every piece of furniture was bolted securely into the floorboards. The lanterns as well were bolted down—one upon the cabinet and one upon the table. Without being able to transport light, I never even dared to explore the full extent of the eerie loft.

I often made requests to have my quarters moved elsewhere in the Slanterhorn Estate, but Miss Donna always gave me a variation of these words: “It’s just not right for a boy of your stature to mix with the likes of our lords and ladies. Even Stickles sleeps with me out in the shed. You must simply accept your place.” But I could not accept my place, and I hated the attic.



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The infinite regions within divisibility were my home. I existed in the distances of space—space void of finite ends. In these unfathomable places there was only emptiness; it was all that I had ever known. No matter where I traveled, I could find nothing different—for something boundless could not be filled, and something that could not be filled could not be whole. Almost all things inhabited the emptiness. My residence itself was tucked away in the spaces between mass. Anything corporeal had form and anything that had form could not be whole—no matter how big, no matter how small. Universes themselves resided within the gaps between pieces of atoms.

Space was everywhere there was substance and so greatness was with the powers of the ethereal—the soul, the principalities, good, evil. Their designs were unbreakable because they were not restricted to any form; shells of uncertain growth and uncontrollable molecules did not inhibit them. These unhindered entities were the Formless. The elements of the Formless could be anywhere—around me, in me, between me. They had what I did not have, and I hated that. The Formless and their orchestras of undivided existence were my enemies.



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“Have you ever looked over the edge of the world?” asked the young girl sitting beside me on the train. At the time, we were passing by mountains strewn with large boulders, but my attention was on the features of the girl. Her hair was dark and her skin was light. Unusual rainbows graced her eyes, causing them to look like crystal prisms. When the train first departed, someone I assumed to be her mother had left her in the seat adjacent to mine; the train was rather full.

“No, I haven’t,” I responded. “I actually didn’t know that the world had an edge.” I did not confront the girl on the logic of her question because I was quite intrigued to learn more. “Have you?” I asked.

“Once,” she said, “but I can’t anymore.” She continued to look at me, head turned to the side, although she said nothing more. Her gaze was very stiff.



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When I was young, my grandfather often brought me to the burial grounds of the nethpa, and every time he led me over some barren hill, or down some hidden trail, or through some thick forest, he would share with me how I might find such a rare and extraordinary place.

“The resting grounds of the nethpa can be found all around—the middle of a prairie, the center of a deep cavern, the dunes of an unending desert—but most never know they are there,” he would tell me. “The site must be undisturbed. By first glance there should be nothing unusually noticed; but, after giving it a second look, and knowing what you are looking for, those of the cunning eye would be able to discern the speckled dust.” At this time, my grandfather would stick his hand deep into the soil, dirt, or whatever rested beneath him, grab some, and hold it up so I could see. While my curious eyes burned into the contents, he would slightly shuffle some free. He then continued speaking. “And there, almost as clear as white chalk against the pit of a blackboard, the ashes of the nethpa can be seen.”

There was only one rule my grandfather had while visiting the nethpa: no singing. “Never sing to the ashes,” he always said. “The nethpa have hollow hearts and the sound of music fills and enlivens them; it reminds them of their deaths and allows them to act against them. They are not of the violent kind, but they, like any, would choose life over death.”



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“Step right up. Come see what ya’ve been waiting for—things ya could never dream of!”

The man who spoke these words with such easy excitement was a haggard looking, traveling salesman. His brown, greasy hair was parted to the right and his pants sagged with a loosely fitted belt. His name was Mick Driggler, but the people in my town called him Mr. Wonder—not for his talented speaking or illustrious products, but because of the very mysterious entertainment value he had been endowed with. He traveled with and sold unusual merchandise—things never seen or heard of—but the generous length of his temporary stay in my town was rather strangely due to a token of theatrics.

Once a day, Mr. Wonder would halt his business ventures, set up a curtain in front of his truck and trailer, and enact a marionette show of grand humor and applaud-worthy satisfaction. For this show, people gathered over and over again, never growing bored of the odd man’s amusing endeavors. People loved it so much so that they gave money to the man, giving him the incentive he needed to remain.

It was three weeks after Mr. Wonder arrived before I became uncontrollably curious about him and his enterprise.



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There was a path that led to all places, but it grew weak. As a canyon of only slight width, spreading through the horizons of the universe, it fought to exist between the gargantuan pressures of surrounding landscapes. These landscapes, formed of all things malice and chaos, fought to bring about the end of division, while the canyon, the path—the journey of organized direction and linear decision—was the last component of perpetuality for the furnace of ongoing creation.

Through this path, the dead marched, uncountable, unending. Spirits imprisoned and appearances unrecognizable, these soldiers of the afterlife trekked to the reaches of all there was to know. Like mechanics, the dead acted as the gears to which things continued. They never slowed or stopped; they never spoke or resisted. It was they who carried the energies of life and connected all existence.

One moment the path was as it should have been, and the next, it was gone. The brutish landscapes pushed their way to victory, collapsing the canyon that had bred since the beginning of time. There were no more dead to be seen; there was no balance left to divide. All of the dead had been crushed, vanquished—all blended together.

And when this occurred, I came to life.



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I vividly remember those things I did on the day of the coming of the Purpose Giver. I was chopping wood in the back of my cabin, preparing ahead of time for the oncoming winter. My arms felt strong as they led the ax through the wood with single strokes. Perspiration beneath my thick clothing created pockets of moisture that irritated me but could not hinder me. And, all the while, thoughts of companionship led me through the heartache of miserable solitude.

When suppertime came around, I had chopped more than enough wood, so I stopped gladly, despite the grand rhythm of my toils.

I created a fire in the fireplace and, once its flames became worthy of heat, I began stripping out of my many layers. Winter had not yet come, but the bite of the cold had.

Preparations for supper were effortless and I quickly had a pot of stew cooking above the fire. Aromas of beef, carrots, and onions permeated the warm air of my cabin, teasing my hunger with unavoidable allure.

After I had devoured my food and grown content within my dwelling, I pulled a book from my small collection and started drifting into the words there contained. The Secret Apparatus by Arel Terriblar spoke to me with eons of restless, inhabitable imagery; I found myself crawling within the words rather than reading them.



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My greatest ally and most infernal enemy is time. It can change history and efface memories. It can create life and it can take it away. And to the immortal, time is the ultimate instrument of both plague—the uncanny curse of centuries of wisdom and knowledge and experience and pain—and revision—the gift of the possibility of perfection, relative, of course, to the individual who controls its direction. There are many rewards and follies of time, but it is these two that, existing as nemeses to each other, destroy any hope of blamelessness. Though I may strive for redemption, my guilt of acts past will always rest beside my heart. Each and every decision, whether selfless or selfish, shall hang above my head in a halo of eternal flames.

If I had lungs to scream beyond limitation, I would beg for the forgiveness of ages passed. If I had hands to number the devils of my years, I would sacrifice them to the lives I took and fiendishly displaced. My suffering can only end in death, but I cannot allow it to comfort me—I am undeserving; and if it came now, it would only be failure. I can only find redemption at the end of one path, and that is with the extinction of my race.

I will be victorious. I will finish what I have set out to accomplish. And though the odds of success have been unforgiving, I have marched forward effortlessly. There is something with me, something that has always been with me, and it is fighting for me, making my triumphs as easy as cleaning the blade-end of my whip. Perhaps this companion was that which changed me, or perhaps it has seen my mission and longed for nothing less than the very same outcome. And, perhaps I am its catalyst. If I am, I will be loyal unto the very end.



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Pieces here, pieces there—it was one sick, twisted mess. I had never before seen such an awful and visually tormenting way to die. It looked like some almighty hand of gargantuan size had grabbed the poor man along with the ground, the chair he was sitting on, and the desk he was sitting at, and mixed it all together in a contraption of Picasso-death. Nothing was as it should have been, and yet, the pieces of it all actually formed a cohesive thing: the chair protruded from the man’s lower torso; desk drawers were rammed through the man’s abs and chest; hands, arms, legs, and feet were flattened like scrapbook material and hastened to several floorboards that were fanned out like the feathers of a peacock from the man’s back; and the remnants of the desk were everywhere in between. The man’s head was equally as appalling. There was no trace of his face, and that, most unsettlingly, was because it had been completely removed from his skull. There were no fluids, muscle, tissue, blood, brain, or any other matter that should have been there on or in that head; there was only bone, only skull.

I lost the contents of my stomach when I first saw the poor soul. I did not know the man—I was absolutely relieved that I did not know the man—but that did not in any way lessen the perpetual rot beginning to erode within my mind, haunting each image and thought with the residue of coagulated perversion. Looking away was easy, but what remained could never be erased.



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The Dark Verse’s Halloween Sweepstakes:

When: Now until midnight (Pacific Time) on Monday, November 3rd
How to Enter: Send an email to sharkchild@thedarkverse.com including the name of your favorite episode and why

Sharkchild will then randomly select a winner from those who sent an email with the required content.

Prize: Choice of DVD ($20.00 or under) on Amazon.com

The winner will be announced on the next episode of The Dark Verse.



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I awoke in a strange place—a land of repulsive architecture and grim colors. All I had with me were the clothes on my back and my cracked, fragmented mind.

When I first opened my eyes, they rested upon a structure similar to that of a monument. The building towered above me with enormous pillars and high ceilings. Very detailed intricacies laced the surfaces of each wall, including sculptures of desperate creatures reaching outward, deep carvings of symbols and characters, and varying textures of stone ranging from smooth patches to jagged arrangements. Leading away from this building’s large entrance was a great descension of stairs. The stairs fanned out as they progressed lower and ended at a small plaza. In the middle of this plaza, a dull, gray-colored flag fell straight and motionless upon a pole erected in a ring of ashes surrounded by burnt coals.

Spreading out towards the horizon, away from the monument-like building, were other smaller structures with the same artistic augmentations, but without pillars. In between these other buildings were several paved roads. The roads spanned until I could see them no more in the distances. Blanketing over the landscape was a bland sky that held a consistent murky green throughout its expanse. There was no wind or movement, or sounds for that matter.

These things were the trivial items of the scene, but not all that there was to see.



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My hands were always true. I relied on their dexterity for manipulation, their sturdiness for strength, and their gentleness for care. With hands, I led myself forward through the galaxies of all things. Just as an insect’s wings are its salvation from danger and guide to survival, my hands were the guardians and practitioners of my life. They were simple tools, but they held the capacity for feats far greater than that what was seemingly possible.

I used to stare at my hands, as delicate and worn as they were, and wonder about the future’s brethren. Every line—every wrinkle—depicted a trail and experience that cut deeply into the meat on my bones. Ravines, ridges, hills, bruises, scratches—they formed the map of my past. For such a medieval being, I was burdened with a horrible novelty of self-reflection. Garnering understanding should never have been an attribute of my very trivial existence, let alone the curse of my accompanying emotional flaws. There was always a certain nostalgia that lingered with me, though I did nothing differently than I always had.

Mechanical clocks were my occupation and gears were my expertise, although I did not work on them so much as I lived within them. I was very small—small enough to slide through cracks—but I thought nothing of it; it was all I ever knew. When my energy was with me, I would clean and align. When I grew wearisome, I would rest and think. Of my kind, I found none other than the rare glimpses I caught of myself upon the freshly cleaned glass covering the elderly faces and bodies of ageless clocks. The sight of myself was not pleasing and it took several days for the wearing affect it had on me to fade. I was content with being the hidden repairman of time: the plain, tangible, ticking relic kind of time.



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The sound of a heartbeat is distinct. It is a ticking of time—a lifeline encroaching upon an end. Sometimes slow, sometimes fast, this ever-sustaining frequency pulsates towards the boundaries of the unknown. It represents knowledge—whether of reality or sleep it does not matter—but when it stops, the mystery begins. That mystery, which hinges on the brink of death, depicts the apex of existence. What I was, what I am, and what I will be are all erased by the ceasing of this simple cadence. But even now as I breathe, that mystery reveals itself from time to time. It suffocates the noises that surround me and blocks out the impacts and interactions of the world. It takes the beat of a heart, the sound of silence itself, and steals it away. And when silence is gone, something else has replaced it.

The warm crackling of the fire was enough to keep me content for a long while on the most still and cold of winter evenings. I had my wife in my arms and my two girls snuggled at my feet. My thoughts danced with the harpy-like flames while their sounds caressed my imagination. No one spoke, and no one wanted to. The tongues of light satisfied every gaze, licking upon the air with infinite delight and heat.

As I stared at the fire over time, my senses began to numb. Surrounding interferences drifted away from my attention, and even the sound of the flames themselves began to slowly evaporate from my ears. I looked at my wife and then at my two children—they were all in the same stupor. Eventually, that which was real became very surreal and faded into the sights of my thoughts.



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There were many sitting around the table in the dining room at Neverlaster’s Inn. All together, there was the blind man, the ruler, the temptress, the demon, the thief, the philosopher, the jester, the card man, the hunter, the seer, the warlord, the ghost, and the masked mute. They were all dressed at their finest and they all came with their deepest imaginings.

The temperature in the inn, which was perfectly stagnant, cradled a humidity that left a thick contingency of air. The breath of it was harsh and a slight perspiration was common among the gathering. A cryptic, black chandelier hung low over the table with dozens of wax-dripping candles. Affixed to the outer walls was a handful more of candles in their dark, antique holders. The lights’ entire opaque glow reflected upon the red of the room—the wallpaper and the carpet—creating a visual hum of red haze. The ceiling was unique; it was pure black ornamented in gold foliage that danced like flames in very unusual patterns. And to blend with all of those things visual, creaking rejoiced throughout the crevices of the place, whether under foot, touch, or some other means.

This was a meeting of the faces of iniquity. They had joined together to discuss the fate of evil, its direction and its movement, on a hallowed eve, at the strangest of locations, and bound within the dreariest of physical manifestations. Very rarely did these meetings occur, but even more rare were the amount of those who attended. It was truly a unique occasion.



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There were always so many people on the beaches those days of the summer’s heat. They came with umbrellas and coolers and inhabited small squares of sand for the duration of several hours. Together, their grids of spaces collaborated into a small metropolis of unacquainted population. I walked those beaches, but I never took part in the mass accumulation. I would put on shorts and a loose-fitting shirt that blew in the wind and set out upon the coast, letting the tide wash in and out atop my steps. I would watch the sand-bedded congregations as they slept, flew kites, and swam in the water. These days were my favorite of the year.

Occasionally, on those walks, I would come across lost things: a fin, a board, a pail, a shovel, or some other trinket of sand- and water-design. One day, at the setting of the sun, when most had packed up their things and left, I came across something far greater in craft. It was not so visible, but visible enough. Part of it stuck securely out of the sand during the bottom of a low tide. Though the waves still ran over it, it showed itself often. Normally, I would not bother with such things, as I never kept anything I had found. This time, however, I was compelled to behold the object abandoned in the shores.



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It came from the distance with patience and dedication. From a point of origin lost beyond the seas of matter, it traveled, setting out upon a path to reach the destination of which it chose—ages before knowledge was an aspect of existence. Once the path was formed, it did not stray—not for time or desire or any other manifestation of choice. It made but one decision in its life and no more. Perhaps it knew the stars, or perhaps it knew the art of divination, for its entrance into linear transfiguration was immaculate. If it left too soon or strayed too late, it would miss its goal and perish in shame. Like threads of fate, it knew the lengths of everything that lived, from birth to death.

Its character was benign, but its intentions were demented. When considering the borders and grooves of both things good and evil, this entity succeeded in being something that could be categorized as neither. Everything that encompassed its purpose was against the very grain of what was believed, in fashion of faith and the calibrations of spirituality; purely, it destroyed belief in all of its shapes, forms, and functions. It did not think ill upon anyone or anything, nor did it have affection; it did what it did for it was what it knew.

This thing of extraordinary life and unlimited boundaries was no inhabitant of realms most traveled, but, like the bees and the flowers, its catastrophic ways were a hidden element of nature. The event of its arrival was very rarely seen, but I did witness it, and that, unlike the rest of humans present and past, was how I learned so much about what I call, the skulker.



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I walked through the truculent sands for many days without end. Their color glistened and appeared to shine brighter with each new dawning of the sun—a sun that radiated and shown power beyond the means of natural, un-orchestrated things. I could feel the sun’s reach and be witness to its breadth. The sky was either a pearly hue of blue that mixed and submitted to the distant horizons in a lackluster surrender or a faded negativity of gray, humming illusions through the paleness of the moon. Of any movement other than my own, there was none.

While traveling, I tried to recall how my presence had come to reside in the cradle of desolation. I thought back upon those memories that marked the birth of my waywardness, but I could not find anything defining before that moment I first started out upon the truculent sands. It not only was my first memory of the desert; it was—as I searched desperately through my mind—the first crisp and clear memory of my life. Only jumbled glimpses and sensations of interaction meshed in-between the stored images of sand, sky, and sun; they were like indistinguishable residues. Besides these, there was only emptiness. Of my name, my acquaintances, and my experiences, there was nothing to be found. This frustrated me, and pushed me more fiercely through my steps.



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The creations of the artisan were always magnificent. Every detail, contour, and finish orchestrated a perfection of visual embrace. The way his completed works mesmerized the most critical of art and the most cynical of achievement proved his worthiness to all who might own—or if but see—a piece of his allotted mastery. Even in touch, his work marveled no less; a blind man would have been amazed. The work that came from his hands was embodied by nothing less than a craftsmanship inspired by the heavens. What a gift he had, and he did not spoil it.

There were many different mediums for the artisan’s work, but there was one he greatly preferred. He used wood, marble, and clay, but his favorite, and domineering preference, was bone. Its rigid, unique, and lifelike form allowed accomplishments unlike anything that could have been imagined. With grooves and notches, he connected them into powerful displays of entity, which he then manipulated into strange figures and beasts ranging from short heights to towering presences. It was as if the ability given to him was for something much greater than art. Yes, it was art, but it was also architecture and science and innate, unnatural understanding.



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By a very early age, I had learned the seriousness of sanctity—as far as it goes in relating to things unbound by the compass of the solvable. I knew, in other words, about the astringent potency of belief: what it was capable of and how it controlled and manipulated. There was one event in particular that stripped me forever from ignorance, and it began with nothing more than a prayer.

When I was but five years old, I took a liking to a rather precarious doll called St. Pebbles of the Sky. The doll was the priest of a concocted land—a mere childhood fairytale. He wore a tight black robe with a gray, pebble-beaded rope tied around his waist. Around his neck hung a wooden cloud, hung by the same gray, pebble-beads. Most distinct of all was his face. It stretched long, creating a moon of a chin that anchored large, round pebble eyes and a mouth that bent like a river. His head was bald and on it a map was tattooed in black ink, leading the way to a hidden empire in the sky.



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An amount of seasons befell me that I could not count before I became free. And surely it was an amount less than I would have thought, for time lingered awfully slow within the cool, decrepit cell of my prison holding. I did not mark the days and I did not note the moon when it could be seen. My thoughts and my pain were the only troubles I ever had dealings with, and I rather disliked both of them. I was not a complex man, especially during this time, and spent almost all of it in one of two disturbing states.

The first state: Hooded guards would take me once every seven days and bind me to a floor beneath the open sky while the sun singed the flesh of my back, arms, and legs. On each day thereafter, I would be strapped to a concrete table in the depths of where my holding lay. Indescribably, the hooded guards would pour hot water upon my burn wounds, inflicting a pain greater than anything that denied death as they plagued upon my essence with no apparent motive. And on the days following that, I would be flogged several times. They would have continued on beyond a handful of lashes, but my dead flesh freed much too generously and sickeningly under each strike. If I could have ended the butchery under any circumstances, I would have done so gladly.

The second state: During those moments of my pitiful refuge, I would lie quite still, tucked against the wall of my cell, playing imaginary music to the rhythm of splashing water made by my fingers slapping upon small puddles. The action calmed and distracted my thoughts, allowing me to soak in the sorry scrap of my life left to live. I would have rather done other activities, but any other movement would have horribly ravaged my wreckage of a body and caused excruciating pain.



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My sister and I happened upon the variable of existence by chance. It might have been the way we walked in ghostly indifference under the setting sun’s light, or perhaps it was the way we stared disjointedly across the endless horizon. Nevertheless, we arrived. Like a layer resting between all things, it rested in connection to all that was known, though it did not know it and nor did anything else in its contact. There were legends and cults in connection to such things, but they did not convey or understand the complexities of their childish assumptions. Full worlds were transparently placed upon one another, existing separately, yet silently interacting. One of those worlds was our own, and the other, the one we horribly wandered upon, was an incomprehensible place I called the variable of existence—the world where everything was the same except the beastly beings that inhabited it and sinisterly endowed upon our world a spiritual, yet unholy attribution of grace. Maybe the variable of existence was meant to be there as part of an unfathomable balance, or a rudder for a wayward vessel, but once I laid my eyes upon it, it was to me but a mysterious infection, incurable and eternal.



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On the softest of days, when the splinters of time bowed to uncanny sounds, I heard the ringing. It came from some region just closer than what could be called distant. As if drifting on a river of sustaining sound, the ringing reached my ears, tickling them like the elegant prose of a poem. When I heard it, and focused upon it, it seemed to never end. It was not until it was drowned by the power of some other noise, or until I was distracted by some other task, that the ringing conveniently vanished. Though I would lose its mysterious touch, it always came again.

What I heard was the ringing of a rotary dial telephone. In its essence, to me, that fact was quite strange. In a world of vast technological advancement, this ancient piece of equipment stood its ground, undaunted. But even more peculiarly, the phone was never answered. Its function was carried out—to ring—but no one was there to act in response. What vacant hole of distaste did the thing occupy? That was just what I desired to find out.



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One drop, three drops, twenty drops—then it was steady. The glass window facing the driveway fogged under my breathing as I watched the rain begin its exotic descension upon the glum spread of concrete and blood. My skin tingled while severe emotion shot through my body, invigorating my keenness during the very surreal moment.

The blood on the ground never fully diluted. Fresh crimson constantly flowed from the gaping and fatal wound upon my brother who lay outstretched upon the subtle gray of the pavement. Without restriction, it streamed from his neck, pooling into a harsh interaction with the rain. His breathing had surely stopped.

When the twisted indulgence had sufficed, I stared diligently at the blood coming from my brother’s neck. I stared until its motion slowed, stopped, and then reversed course. The rain began to ascend, coming off its place on the ground and shooting back up to the heavens. I walked slowly backwards, conscious of myself. I let the front door open on its own in perfect timing as I stepped backwards though it out into the moist air. I crouched next to my brother and picked up the ax lying adjacent to him. I waited until he rose from the ground clutching the side of his neck. Then, when his hands released from their sickening desperation, I reenacted in reverse that action which sent him to the ground. My brother’s wound vanished. I ran backwards to the garage and returned the ax to its place, then returned to my brother, allowing myself to alter the future of which I had just experienced.



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The movie man found me at an awards banquet. It was for my swim team, and it was the last place I expected to meet someone who would change my life. When his greeting occurred, all of the awards and speeches had been given and made, and things had just begun to wind down. Loose conversations were forming around the dining room and some people were already making their way out of the country club. I had been caught in an in-between moment of solitude, casually meandering through the patches of bodies, trying to look intent as to give my uniqueness purpose.

Of course, when the movie man first spoke, I did not notice, but by the third time he said my name, I had located him and noticed his need of my attention. He sat at a table with his chair positioned out. A group of people swelled on the side, talking and laughing very loudly. I had never seen him at any of my team’s swim meets or at any other team function. A large, brown beard covered his face and though he was dressed up, he looked untidy.

He stuck out his hand and I shook it.

“Mr. Masselton,” he said, “so glad to meet you. I am privileged to have caught your attention. I have an opportunity you might be interested in. Throughout the course of the next few months, I will be traveling to different oceans around the world to shoot some scenes for a movie that is currently in production. For these scenes, I will need someone of your swimming ability. You will be paid handsomely and you will not have to worry about any expenses, whether travel or trivial.”

I was about to interrupt him, but he stopped me.

“Please do not answer me now. Just think about it and then if you would like to join me, you can call me, but I must know your answer by the end of the month.” He handed me a worn business card that he pulled from an even more worn wallet. “Goodnight, Mr. Masselton, and congratulations on the great year.”



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There were certain shops that had no seizing affects outside of a planned visit, and then there were certain shops that quite brutally tortured if their magical, if not haunting, space was not investigated. Alluring displays, unorthodox merchandise, and toys—these were some of the things that made me curious, but the latter, the toys—those trinkets of deep imagining minds—had the greatest pull on me. I had my dates with ordinary toyshops, but it was the hole-in-the-wall, washed-out places that really got my heart yearning. I wondered how they even existed. They were the shops of the strange and unique; the ones that sold old card decks, antique dolls, foreign games, and much, much more. Things that did not even have the right to be made were somehow resting on the shelves of these hidden and cavernous places.

I was not much of a collector; the mere and occasional trifling of these objects was enough to satisfy my taste. I touched them and played with them, though I rarely purchased them. There were a number of shops I frequented, but I was always on the lookout for somewhere new.

There was one particular shop that gave me much more than satisfaction, something much greater, but also much worse. The shop’s name was Timeless Fortunes, and its entrance rested in the shadows of a hall, tucked away between two much larger stores on either side. The name, Timeless Fortunes, was labeled on the door, but nowhere else could it be found—not outside or inside of the place. The door chimed when opened and rattled as it closed. Inside, the hall continued on with old, worn posters covering the surfaces of the walls. Each poster was of a toy or contraption no one would have ever known about: laser guns with bulbous designs, masks made in the likeness of mice and rats, build-your-own fire block kits, centipede growth inducers, headache relief halos, Corpse: The Game of Fancy Graves, and human body part sculptor sets, to name a few. At the end of the hall was a short flight of stairs—this led into the shop.



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I awoke to the severe beating of my heart, which drove throbbing percussions through my temples. Beneath me, a sick, cold sweat lined the sheets. My hands were trembling and my throat was raw. I quickly rose from the bed in disgust and discomfort and stood as if leaving the compound of a putrid nest, where I lay to be the toy of playful and malicious ghosts.

Through the window, light beamed heavily from the overly lit moon hanging low on the horizon. Shadows were cast all about the room. They hung and sulked definably, forming characters in shape and personality that spoke out to me in the language of darkness.

Something did not settle right within me; in that moment, everything felt twisted and impure. There were thoughts trailing in my mind that I could not quite grasp but that left strange and potent emotional residues that lingered thickly and deeply. Like fog, they shrouded my mind and left me in weariness.

Feeling disgusting, I went to the bathroom and turned the water on in the shower, allowing it to heat before getting in. Once inside, I let the water refresh and renew my being. The water felt safe; it satisfied my resonating dissonance and brought me back to the equilibrium of my usual self. And as I regained myself, I knew that I needed to check on Sofia. I needed to peer into her crib and see her soundly sucking on her tiny thumb. I needed to touch her fragile skin and kiss her soft head.



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Was I the wish of a demented god? Or was I a god? Or was I the pinnacle abhorrer of malformation? My beginnings were not in my memories and my abilities were not in my mind as an aspect of learning—as I existed, so they existed. The only truths within my knowledge flew about like flies in the dark—their impacts meaningless and their presences disposable. I was both a witness and judge of the world, though for what matters, I could not grasp.

My earliest recollection of the time and place I inhabited was a lowly candlelit dining room where a gentleman quietly ate of soup with a young daughter. Sounds of serenity permeated the air as a record player sung off the somber notes of images unseen and places unknown. The man’s eyes wavered with doubt and distress, and as his daughter looked to him for the smallest sign of comfort, there was none. In the vacancy of such virtue, the girl began to reflect her father, her demeanor and movements falling even more pitiless in reflection.



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The cracking voice of the mild singer brought me back from the depths of a bizarre subconscious. I looked around at the rest of Dim Lit Coffeehouse. Spots of green hovered in my sight while my eyes got accustomed to the ambiance. Everyone else appeared to be awakened from the same archaic sleep. Eyes were being rubbed. Yawns were being subdued. For the entire song, the singer had been flawless and hypnotic with her execution until this moment when she unusually broke the perfection of her sound. Having felt quite drawn to the images in my mind, I recounted them while the song progressed on.

I was rowing a boat in a large pond while colorful fish swam coolly alongside me. The radiance from their scales flourished brightly amid the moon’s immense light. My direction was unannounced, but my desires were ravishing. There was a sweet hum melodically perusing the soundscape of beauty. It rang and rippled across the surface of the water, softly slapping against my slow moving boat.

The performer ended her song. In delayed response, I clapped along with the rest of the audience, losing my place within the recollection of my reverie.



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While others sleep, the feyth do not. While others dream beautiful and terrifying visions, the feyth always stir in the unrest of consciousness, never to experience the small pleasure of an escape or diluting respite. Memories, emotions, longings, regrets—they all linger in a swirling prison of chaos. All of them prance and prick endlessly, tirelessly. This is the mind of a feyth; this is my mind—every decision and every action remaining like bones in a grave.

Satisfaction is a curious element among the feyth. The significant damage of mental pain is always there. We may not scar, but we never heal, the open wounds scathing our insides. Each moment of breath is tinged with sadness or hatred or anger. This being one of the reasons why I chose to act and end the outrage of our plaguing existence. We are a disease among the living. I wish to be the cure.

I must be the blind dagger and efface myself to achieve the goal. My journey horrifyingly lives on.



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I would lie in the middle of Turnby Road on those days when the wind would explain the seasons and the cold and the feelings quickly lit and quickly dampened. The leaves from elderly oak trees would carve their sacred fates between the airs, arousing the nostalgic memories of imagined pasts. In this unsettled ocean of dryness and brittleness, I would rest and soak in the mystifying sounds and crackles. I did not fear that anything might come by, nor did I ever expect it—especially on such days of unrest. So, without disturbance, I laid amongst the turmoil of magical expectancy, involving myself in tales wrapped on the motives lingering behind the engines of nature.

All too many had spoken of the words heard amongst the wind, or at least behind it, but I had much different inclinations from the invisible transports. There was a system to it all, an uncalculated tempo and a mysterious strength. My intuitions conceived an ancientness beset within the heart of a god-like tapestry—a masterpiece sculpted and constructed, mechanically and technically, for purposes of life’s resolutions. I envisioned a magnificent machine built in spiritual dimensions that garnered the energy to exude such power. With organic muscle, it forced soul into the essence of menial happenstances, binding its thought with the world. My mind was lost on the exquisiteness of such hidden things—things I sought in the realms above and around, and even in the realms below.

On one particular instance of my reveling on Turnby Road, my own hidden longings came to exist in the most unthinkable of manners. A carriage came down the road at the twilight of the day, and without such sight as would be required to navigate opposite that of a dreaming boy, it ran across my chest, striking me into oblivion then and there. I recall feeling an unnerving spike of discomfort and the sudden splurge of liquid erupting within me. The pain of it only had a rare affect and was over quite instantly.



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I sat her in my study and attempted to decipher just what her problems were, but at first I had less than any luck. My only answers came when I showed her my principality index—a collection of detailed, artistic reproductions of all the spiritual creatures I had encountered.

When the image of the exipham came before her, she slipped abruptly into a violent panic, which I quickly subdued with the use of a relaxant I kept on hand. Once she recovered, she was much more able to communicate with me.

The exipham, first of all, is a being not unlike a pig in characteristic, though it holds many qualities similar to that of a goat. When it appears to someone, it always proposes an agreement or deal. It offers an item of material or societal wealth for something of great intrinsic value. During this bargain, the exipham uses psychological tactics—typically the recollection of a horrible wrongdoing or a great sin—to inhibit the victim from seeing the true value in the item it desires. It then convinces the victim of his or her need of its own item, and carries out the trade.

It was questions about such things that I asked the noble. She was brief in response and even firmer with delivery. As my questions engaged her, she realized I would learn not only how to free her, but how she came to be in bondage in the first place—what the sin was that the exipham utilized.

I ended the session by reprimanding her for any dealings she might have undergone with the exipham and that she must be firm from then on, but I later found out that it was already too late. She had poisoned herself by the afternoon of the next day. Around her neck was a glittering diamond necklace and her baby, which she had only recently had, had been taken in exchange.

To think that such personal evil can devour the sense of reason. I pitied the noble for whatever the exipham preyed upon, but I was content that there was nothing left to be done.



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I had heard the sound of a key many times—the way it clicked when it slid into place; the way it, whether softly or quickly, depending on the hand which guided it, crashed into the perfection of angle and craftsmanship of its make. It was the sound of power; it denoted the ability of authority and ownership over property. And it was also the sound of revelation. There was no other sound better than the prophetic vision and uncanny capability of success—a method, even in madness, to the inner kingdoms of divine thought and realization.

The key had never been linked to the construct of the lock. The key, in fact, and if of the right kind, created the locks and the boundaries thereafter. Treasures were to be made, not unlocked, and rare keys held the responsibility to make it so. It was this type of key that I longed to behold: the key that had a purpose of unlocking the universe. Only one place had this key ever been found, and that was in the mind—where it was formed by aspiration, devotion, and imagination, a collection of heterogeneous parts interlocking to summate a revolutionary relationship.

I had never been satisfied with the present and primitive delusions of advancement—scientific, technological, medical, explorative. I wanted the deluge of impeccability: a change so tremendous that it would devastate all normality of life. There were certain benefits to the ephemeral pleasures of living, but my view of the eternal had a pungent taste and so I could bear no speculation of lifestyle.



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It was through the woman dressed in violet that I was awakened to the evil behind my eyes—behind all eyes. It was in her that my faith was reborn stronger than the unseen presence of sound. If even time itself had ordered my transformation, it would not have had as unmatched potential. I knew of what this woman represented, but I did not know about her; I did not know of the violating weights that she carried and the burden she delivered.

This sight of twisted beauty was not a sight seen but once; it had come and gone through many generations, passing from father to son and so forth on. But there still can be no warning of what awaits. Glimpses of the eventual may be seen, but the exacting happening will tell the tale that requires no listening ear.



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My life started to deteriorate in the absence of sensible things. I was a child, and so to me such remedies against the imaginative should never have been necessary. But when the world crashed and became the inferno of death, it could not be associated, however so sadistically, with youthful reveries. Even under the attempted corrections, I never escaped in those ways expected—that was probably the one thing that ever did make sense after my first evening with the midnight apothecary.

If I could have been able to leave for but a second, I might have had the opportunity to depart myself from the frothing insanity. Yet, that incorporeal devil of existence’s undergrowth had crawled its way deep into the vestiges of my waking consciousness, where only very rarely such a thing came to play. I was manipulated and taunted with images upon my mind that opened and closed without approval or submission. I lost those very roots that built the foundations of my memory.

Some have said that it was possession—a word that I heard through those few fractions of life I experienced—and others said that it was a mental impediment, but only I knew its true derivative. There were reasons that most dreams were left to the nothingness of unremembered timelines, but there were even greater reasons why those entities that inhabited them should not overstep their boundaries. I, on the other hand, had the carnal fortune of trapping one such beast in the horrific folly of a simple awakening, and I never slept since. I called this incident—when something came to a place where it should not have been—falling between the corridors.



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The wars were on my mind at that time—how strange that might be—but not the wars of this world. Beyond the black curtain of what is, I have looked, and there is much more out there—much more than what “is.” There are things that are not that are just as real, just as significant—maybe even more so.

It glowed brightly too, that star, as if it was meant to be seen. I felt as if something was revealed to me and only me. The peculiarity of its pattern and sudden change of direction were foreign to me; could such a mass, or any moving body of the outer realms, navigate such a monstrosity of absurd flight? How preposterous was it? With my own eyes, I witnessed this cosmic incident.

I have hope that I will one day understand such occurrences more fully—perhaps when I am not as concerned with what is, I will be more open let those unseen, secret folds of space and time transcend upon me.

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Touch—I felt all ways of it. I felt light moving silk, soft fitting cotton, and elegant velvet; I knew the embrace of satin and the weave of polyester. Upon me danced the colors and shapes of the universe. Those hands that pressed and brushed against me told the tales of creation’s wisdom, and I collected of their ways. Dresses, vests, jackets, cloaks—I wore them all and aided them in their completing beauty. There was not a piece of clothing that I did not feel or know. My skin was the palette of the sure and tried and the steady thread.

From the moment of my creation, I had been destined to the art of tailoring, and I was no ordinary assistance to the noble industry. I was, as I believed from the successes associated with me, the only of my kind to have such an occupation. My essence, in its entirety, was bittleclay: an “inanimate” material with the capability to learn from the environment embodying it. Like a baby out of the womb absorbed the world around it, bittleclay did the same by those means given to it in its beginning, allowing for the growth of an aware, mobile, and fully cognitive entity.

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Your eyelashes, I rip them out.
Your eyelids, I pull them back.
White fury bulging forth, black beads expanding out—
No veins to carry what the heart cannot bear.
Stare back, oh eyes of murder;
Catch your last glimpse.
Strain for moisture and for the living water that left a desert:
Your soul.
With lips of sugar, sweet and poisonous,
I kiss your sight away.
Remember the pain, the curse left for you.
Remember the names, the ones darkened by you.
Stare back, oh eyes of murder;
Catch your last light!
There is nothing left for you;
What is left is theirs.

Forget us, our dreams lie elsewhere.

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If you happen to have any questions about this story, or for that matter, any of my stories, do not hesitate to contact me! I will be more than happy to respond to those inquiries of confusion or frustration.

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I have turned against my brethren and entered a fate that cannot be altered. All that I have been taught—all that I have been trained for—is now the vessel of my retribution. My existence has become a granule glowing amongst the blackness of a lost world, and the life I once knew is but a tragedy of my decomposition. In prayer, I must believe I am capable to begin the movement towards the deliverance that will set light to the throne.

By the enlightenment and approval of my soul, I now speak these words into the heart of traveling winds, begging them to take this message into the ears of who would listen. The demand on my life is high, so there can be no hesitation; even doubt shall not be spared by the vengeance of my cause. I do not regret those things I have begun to do; I do not pride myself on their brutality or art, but I am sure of their importance. Though the pain and sorrow will always remain, I will carry out my task until I can no longer do so, or until it is completed; this is my burden and my burning promise.

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Be wise with all endeavors of the heart. Stand firmly against the unyielding allure of the persuasive dawn. With the stone-written beliefs of your faith, you cannot fail. And if you have none, then you have not sought deep enough into the haunting core of your existence; for wisdom starts with faith—faith in something, anything. Do not mock the unknown, for it is what births each new death of what once was. Without it, meaning is but the forsaken ghoul’s curse.

In judgments, opinions, and all ceremonies of voice, begin first with understanding: the listening and the interpretation. Only then can insight be heir in the acts of tongue. Conjure respect as well, even though it is not given in return. Demeanor alone can change the fate of the ages and rule the armies of darkness.

If ever the battle of heart and mind ensues, then go with the first and be forever steadfast.

Forget us not, our dreams lie with you.

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As soon as I shouted into the vicinity of my home, the outlandish noises in the kitchen ceased. It was nothing more than the slight scuffle of feet, but it was disturbing beyond the sudden sinking of my heart. My breath became short and my hands trembled. I feared that whatever had made the sound had gone into hiding in the negative spaces of my home, and, in keeping that fear manageable, I hoped it would stay hidden; I had no desire to find it and only wished it to be intelligent enough to leave before I could ever arrive upon it with my investigating eyes.

When I made my way in silence toward the direction of the disturbance, I listened for even the faintest of sounds—the smallest of breaths—but there was nothing. And when I made the turn into the kitchen, I found no stranger or animal but a piece of fabric that looked like it was nothing more than the scrap of some abandoned craft. The material of intrusion lay on the floor about the size of a folded napkin. An earthly color of yellow defined its appearance while several small white threads protruded from all of its sides where it appeared to have once been joined to a larger entity.

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VERSE I

Give of your heart
To the solstice of your soul,
When the goblins dance
And sing in soothing seething.

Leave for the dead
All of withered wonders past
While you tread through the black
with wings of retribution.

CHORUS

Build a castle high
On rock and broken bones;
Shelter for the wise.

Train the restless soil
With faith and hallowed prayers;
Raise it from the grave.

VERSE II

One last romance
For the lonely of a world
Where fire rests in air
And burning is traditional

Wounds to the sky,
Do you ever wonder why
There are nightmare things
That have unholy power?

CHORUS

Build a castle high
On rock and broken bones;
Shelter for the wise.

Train the restless soil
With faith and hallowed prayers;
Raise it from the grave.

Forget us not, our dreams lie with you.

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The haunter behind space was there when I opened the back door and stepped out into the fading light of the sun’s decent. The air was shallow, almost brittle, and I felt its coarseness claw at my lungs in breath. Around me, paleness seized the atmosphere like a fever sacks the color of flesh. The pallor was so severe that it brought about a fatigued contrast between the sun and its surroundings, causing flickering beams of glare to stretch out with hands of keen deception.

On the soil just outside my farmhouse, I sensed it, beyond the bounds of the seen, watching me intently. It had worlds to devour with its attention, but it gave that attention—at this moment—only to me. Through my mind’s eye, I was given a perception of its face through an unwarranted form of communication. The medium of imagery was so fierce that its face was projected, most likely in some hallucinatory manner, in the sky before me. My actual eyes gazed beyond matter into its sinister demeanor.

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(My pumpkin this year)

Listen to the greeting for your chance at winning a horror DVD of your choice!

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Be generous with all endeavors of the heart. Though the transgressions of the damned extend beyond the reaches of remorse, its cavity of fruitful gestures erases all mortiferous debt. Ask and be given, even if the dense poltergeists of decay do not have the eyes to see the portal of escape behind the lone tomb’s stone.

If anything at all matters in the end—and it does—then make it known; make it scream; make it groan; make it battle the tormenting pains that never die. Give much instead of little and lose much instead of less. Be gentle in your time, forgetting not that all actions supersede the destructible fate. Mercy can change—even those embers unstill might eventually unlearn their heat.

Forget us not, our dreams lie with you.

Check out The Dark Verse on Wednesday evening for a Halloween greeting and small contest. Sometime Halloween night Sharkchild will either reveal a secret word or ask a question about a past episode and the first person to respond with the word or answer in an e-mail to sharkchild@thedarkverse.com will receive a horror DVD of their choice. Do not miss it!

Be brave with all endeavors of the heart. It is your guide into the unknown and your guardian amongst the eminent. Only but its voice of unceasing song can cradle the lurid dissonance of discord.

When the graves are emptied and the tombs evacuated, one resting place finds the miracle of death. Hold tight—hold desperately—to the blood within and all it witholds. It knows better than you, and has since before time, so let it now bring you tears of unabashed joy, not the wage of sequestering sin.

Forget us not, our dreams lie with you.

Here it is, the first Dark Verse episode! In this story I put a twist on the norm. We often get caught categorizing something as good or evil just by how it is described. But, if we look at life with various perspectives, then we might find out that we have been basing our beliefs on “the way it has always been,” not with the congruency of truth. Open your eyes—or close them—maybe there is not much of a difference.

The Dark Verse is a podcast of Sharkchild’s short stories with the sole purpose of sharing a unique world of horror and fantasty that will follow you to the realms of your sleep! Before it will be under way, there will be some site maintainance. Keep checking back!

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