#dark fantasy flash fiction

[transcendragon]

Prompt Flash Fiction - Vessel

Prompt: When the eldest of the royal children was kidnapped and brought to the ritual table to be the new vessel for the cult’s god, they seem oddly fine with it. It was in the middle of the ritual that the eldest royal revealed… – Silence followed the echoing last words of the chant. Yet nothing happened. No one moved, or spoke, except for the Royal vessel. The one who had been oddly compliant…

[whereserpentswalk]

Your girlfriend came back from the dead "wrong", or at least that's what everyone says. She died quickly and slowly, far too young, and for a reason that would not have happened if the world was a better place. You were both going to the same college, she was majoring in film studies while you were majoring in necromancy, you lived in the same apartment together for so long. When you chose to bring her back you had to deal with faeries, and gods few people dare to pray to, but you got her back. Not because you deserved to have her but because she deserved to live.

She isn't what she used to be. Her face looks plasticish and embalmed, and because you didn't have that much skin to work with she's permanently sown into her clothing, that fancy outfit that was always her favorite. You didn't know it at the time but the spell gave her sharp teeth, and black eyes, and a desire for raw meat. It's not the body you would have given her if you had better ways of working. But your happy she's here. Your happy she's alive.

She's considered to have been revived wrong. You don't see it that way, the spells worked as well as they did. She's considered low functioning undead, creatures that are almost always thought of as entirely inhuman. She's considered a failure because she's not able to function like a human would, she doesn't move like a human, can't go out during daylight, acts erratically, is afraid a lot of the time. She's considered a failure because she can't work or go to school like she used to, even though she's alive that's not enough for most people. People are afraid she'll start going out at night and start attacking people on your block, she won't, even she's afraid of that but she doesn't need you to control her, she just has some very scary thoughts and abilities.

People sometimes say she's your experiment, or your pet, or like your daughter. She's not, she's still your girlfriend, you still love her and want to be with her. You comfort her when she's scared. You sing to her, and tell her about your day when you get home, and sit on the couch watching movies with her. You hold her to keep her warm because of how much having a cold body seems to upset her, and she'll push her face into your breasts, and touch you in ways someone touches their girlfriend.

Her parents act like she's fully gone. Calling her a mockery of her old self. Some higher functioning undead that you know have even called her an insult. And even a lot of people you know are so focused on the idea of her getting better. But you don't love her so that she can get better, you love her because it is a gift to love her, whatever form she may take.

[jack-of-crowns]

@flashfictionfridayofficial

'Like Silver Set Ablaze' by @jack-of-crowns

"Tell us, Cyclops, how to craft a theionic organ?"

A baleful glare and a dull rumbling roar, all the answer Okkules gives in reply to the panopticon's imagery before him. Flashes of pain from the buckling columns of the living forge fill his psyche as gryphenes from the Luminarian dreadnoughts simultaneously dissolve and regenerate them; the assault's impact is beyond comprehension, and yet he keeps careful count of what spacetime remains.

"Not that any such single-minded beings as angels could begin to grasp the complexities," he labours, managing to grit out the words between measured pumps from plasma bellows and the rhythmic tap-tapping of the autonomous gravity hammers.

The flame-shrouded Salamanders surrounding him vent hissfully back in response, black-carapaced hull armour crackling with all the rage inherent in the effort required to keep the constant operable pressures required for the atomized gold of their synth vultures. Orbits drift forward, the leashes ease back on the gryphenes, sensors reading Okkules' pain thresholds. "Transmission, Submission, Manumission," the droning chants on and on.

Okkules thinks of his ancestors, the Cyclopes who crafted the first living forges that kept his kind alive long after the death of the star that spawned them. There will be no giving away of their sacred knowledge to the ravagers of the red giant, no turning a blinded eye to their unyielding demands for power. Not on this day; this day it his turn to release those given up for dead so that all may live.

He closes his eye and begins the memories of the spell; even a tekton of his level must concentrate against the bright might of the Luminarian Empire, once allies from a companion star, now dread foes. 'As in most quantum communications systems, the periodicity of the intervals between signals is key.' There is the slightest of tremors beneath the forge. 'The whenwhere of the ionic plasma surges at every phase during the nova shock event is most critical.'

The Salamanders seem oblivious to the resonance overflow that Okkules can feel growing in the depths of his psyche as the corpse of the dead white dwarf begins to stir back to life outside the force walls of the forge, greyish wraiths of sulfur arise and whirl themselves into the accretion disc, swirling as the spell's densities start to set in. Hopefully, his count has been true, for the plancks seem to tick by slowly.

'Just before the moment of accumulation spark, pay exceeding care as to how the red giant bleeds, for their lifeblood is the fuel whereby the tarnished silver of this dwarf's corpse will be polished and lit.' The glamour has them all now, the moment closing. 'Every probability must be utilized to the fullest.'

The trinary conjunction of spellcraft and conjoined stars is creating uncertainty in the biocircuits of his tormentors; they hemorrhage with indecision. Okkules shapes the final contours of artifice; within the continuum's echoed folds, he hears his father's voice, thundering upon principles of soul forging.

- After all, of what use is it to divise theorems from which no practical devices can be constructed? -

Bursting light, crisscross currents of electromagnetism shredding shells of the quanta of spacetime as a mad sculptor deburring a statue, and Okkules passes through the wave front as the prow of a breaking ship; his count has been true. The very act of casting the forging spell hastens the thermonuclear explosion, catching the Salamander dreadnoughts with shields down. In the planck before the nova shock, he is one with the sulfuric filaments of plasma erupting from the white dwarf, a dandelion's skeleton dancing throughout alternity.

'Still, they ask mockingly;' this bit of scripture a presage of his tormentors' fate. Okkules wields his psyche as hammer and chisel, shaping the quanta on either side of the moment, forging the light into sound, plasma energy into solid pipes. He pauses before he breathes into his theionic organ, giving thanks for once and again being celebrant in this sacred space, where the instruments of The One Who Is All resound as loud as thunderclaps, a resonance to shake the stars of heaven to their very cores. Then he joins the joyous music; all around him are Cyclopes bursting forth from beneath the dark veils of spacetime, masterworks and master workers. They are a chorus of shining sparks, singing themselves into creation, singeing cold voids about them with living silver, like silver set ablaze.

[blackrosesandwhump]

A Punishment Most Vile

A Month of Whump: Impalement

March of Pain 2024: Miserable

BTHB: Slammed into a Wall

Fandom: Original work

Synopsis: The servant boy of an evil magician finds himself in deep trouble and suffers the painful consequences.

CW: torture, magic whump, punishment, impalement

The magician’s workshop smelled of stale magic, pungent and fermented-sweet and unsettling. The orphan boy held his breath as he straightened a stack of ancient books covered in thick blue dust. Given the kind of magic experiments the magician conducted, that dust could be anything. The powdered skin of some strange creature, or maybe the remnants of an experiment gone wrong. The orphan boy didn’t want to find out.

He shouldn’t have to find out, he thought, turning from the books to the puddle of murky, foul-smelling liquid pooled in the back corner. He was eighteen. He should be learning alongside the magician, helping him with his work rather than cleaning up his messes like some dumb servant. Helping him, rather than suffering the punishments brought on by his anger.

You are a servant, though, came the little annoying voice in his head. That’s all you are.

And as usual, he argued back.

No, no, I’m not!

You’ll never amount to anything, will you? You know that.

Just watch! I’ll prove you—

“Are you quite finished?” said the magician from the door. The orphan boy jumped and almost slipped in the murky pool.

“Almost, sir,” he mumbled. “There was a lot of mess to clean up.”

“Is that a criticism?” said the magician.

“No, sir.” The boy turned away, hiding his smirk.

But the magician saw it anyway. His gloved hand shot out and seized the boy’s throat, lifting him just barely off the ground, so that his toes dragged across the grimy stone. The boy choked and spluttered, scrabbling at the powerful hand around his neck.

“I would expect,” said the magician, in a voice dangerously low and cool, “that you would know your place by now. But I see you still need to learn.”

Calmly, as if tossing aside a piece of trash, the magician threw the boy across the room. He slammed into the stone wall and crumpled, whimpering, in a heap.

Just a servant. Nothing but a servant. Nothing but a—

“On your feet! Stand up!”

The boy stood, shaking, knowing what was about to happen. Another punishment. And all because of his stupid mouth and his stupid thoughts.

There was a flash of magic; something hit his chest hard, driving him up the wall with its force. He stuck there, feet dangling off the ground, unable to move. The magician muttered an unintelligible word. The pressure in the boy’s chest magnified to an intense pain, radiating through his pinioned body. He clenched his teeth against it, willing himself not to scream, not to betray his agony and satisfy the magician’s whim.

“You will remain there until you learn what I’ve tried to teach you,” the magician ordered, turning on his heel.

His back was turned.

The boy looked down.

A glowing shaft, oily black despite its underlying green hue, protruded from the left side of his chest. Tendrils of dark magic trailed from its end, smoky and foul.

The boy dropped his head back, squeezing his eyes shut against the shattering pain, against the pulse of his own failure in his impaled heart.

“Don’t worry. I won’t let you die. That would defeat the purpose of this lesson, after all.” With that, the magician left, and the boy hung alone in his punishment, with only his own tormented thoughts for company.

@marchofpain @amonthofwhump @badthingshappenbingo

[ruvastuon]

@flashfictionfridayofficial

Sorry, I'm a bit late with this one, but I think I got it in just before the deadline. I had just finished the picture when the internet went out, and I had to transfer the story over to my phone manually. Unfortunately, I may or may not have fallen asleep while doing so, and I have just woken up in a panic to get this posted.

Summary: If the story calls for a villain, then what choice does a character have but to follow? Alexia, a proud and just knight, finds herself victim of this unfortunate reality.

Content warning: reference to suicide attempts, violence, self hatred, loss of control, blackouts, and violence.

Her Angel

Noble Alexia, good and loyal. She had come from the gutter and reached the peak of excellence. Becoming a knight had been her dream, but becoming the commander of the knight's had been her honor. The tales of her deeds and bravery spread through the world, memorializing her even before the first wrinkles of age had etched into her face. Truly a hero of legends; a figure that would be spoken of in whispers to starry-eyed young ones before bed.

Three years into her role as the knight commander, Alexia woke up to find her hands covered in blood. It hadn't been right, she had just been having a meal with a trusted friend, just been talking about her future with someone dear, then she blinked and found her hands covered in the blood of innocents.

It was at that moment that her life was irreversibly changed. The blackouts increased in frequency and duration, but when she sought help, no one could understand her ravings. The isolation brought her to the edge of her sanity when one night as she fearfully lay down in her bed, Alexia found that her eyes would jot close, and her fingers would no longer obey her commands.

Standing from her bed, she dawned unfamiliar clothes and met unfamiliar people. Her body moved against her will, and her lips spoke words that never should have been uttered. Whatever demon had possessed her seemed to find sick enjoyment in watching her suffer, for even in her few sane moments of control, it would jot let her end the torment. That didn't stop her from trying. The hesitation only lasted for the first dozen attempts before her disgust at the blood-soaked monster in her mirror drowned out any remaining pity for herself.

…

Coming to her senses once more Alexia tried to make sence of the stabbing pain pulsing through her with every breath, but with her body frozen in place, Alexia could only use her eyes to scan the surroundings. That was right, she'd been in a fight? She could see that her body was twisted at odd angles where she lay among a pile of rubble, memories flooding back to her in a disoriented array. She had been defeated by some upstart who shouldn't have the strength to lift her finger and been left to rot like the dog she had become.

The knight commander, formerly the golden sun of the empire, now lay dying in a suit of blackened armor befitting her new title of Scourge.

“Oh you're still alive?”

Alexia should have been taken by surprise at how close a stranger had gotten, but in her state a bull could be charging and she'd likely fail to notice.

"From the looks of it, your story ended in death, so why do you still haunt the living?”

The gaudy angelic figure stooped nearly mumbling ti itself while grasping the air from alexia. She felt her jaw tighten instinctively as a thin blue tether materialized leading back to her heart. Gathering the cord in its hand, the creature before her frowned in concentration before suddenly brightening.

“So they forgot you couldn't be killed by demonic energy? How fortunate that it seems to at least weaken you beyond their ability to sense.”

The creature seemed amused by whatever magic it had used to know such a dark secret of hers. Had it truely come to take her to the other side? No, after what she had done there was no way that such a beautiful creature would have any business with her. It took another cord and inspected it growing somber once more.

“Stay still for a moment longer, I will not let them have you anymore.”

With simple words, and they weren't even meant for her really as the creature still seemed to be taking more to itself than anything. Still her heart jumped at the forgotten convictions that she had been forced to swallow back. The creature grabbed a red strand in front of her and with a thin blade, cut the cord.

…

Sitting across from the gaudy man whom she has come to value as a friend. Alexia couldn't help but smile at his concentration on the food before him. She had come to learn over the years that he was mostly as human as anyone, even with his lack of factual features. To this world, he was expendable, to many of its inhabitants he was a monster, but to Alexia and Alexia alone, he was the same thing that he had always been to her.

“My Angel."

She spoke the words softly and reached out a hand to gently caress his face, while a soft smile spread over her lips.

[my-forgotten-notepad]

Fiction list

This list will contain every piece of digital fiction I produce throughout the year of 2023. It will follow the same formatting and structure as the fiction list I posted last year in December. Providing a title and a hyperlink to the piece for ease of reading pleasure.

Divine Whalefall

The Pool

A Mage's Regret (This short no longer exists due to the blog UrbanFantasyInspiration being deleted)

An Amazonian Indignity

Professor's Basal Lecture On The Old Ones (This short no longer exists due to the blog UrbanFantasyInspiration being deleted)

Industrial Arcane Revolution

Victor's Proclamation

Dark Conviction

Adam of the New Flesh (prologue) WIP ABANDONED

Adam of the New Flesh (prologue continued) WIP ABANDONED

Adam of the New Flesh (First Dream) WIP ABANDONED

Valadriax Von Marelamont

Ordra Vitalitrix

The Phantom of Amity Park

Earthbound Spectres

A Paladin And His God (The OG post no longer exists and took mine with it)

The Stars Are Made Of Flesh

The Circle of Many Winds

A Cold Congregation (The OG post no longer exists and took mine with it)

The taint of Necromancy

Posting this early because I feel just so demotivated

a lot of what I made this year is gone or I just feel so... locked up and unhappy with.

there are things I am happy and in love with; so I am hoping to like them as to keep some kind of a papertrail of my work as Tumblr just seems to swallow my posts wholesale

[xarrixii]

MASTERLIST ---

Harlow "Urban" Collins spent his life in and out of a kinetic detention center frequented by the best, the good, the bad, and the worst, where the only thing in common between them all was they were society's scum—fire-wielding pyrokinetics.

Alph "Raiden" Roy managed to dodge the pyrokinetic rehabilitation clinics and built a trustworthy reputation for themself, their life's mission to become a police officer and fix injustices in the system that had wronged so many others. Their plan is thrown into the gutter when they have to take one too many favors from their mother and get wrapped up in the secret law-enforcers of the underworld—taking their best friend with them.

This story is about two best friends finding themselves on the same side, and then the opposite, of a moral dilemma caked in death, crime, and secrecy that one man wants to bring to life, forcing them to put their system-rocking plans on hold.

There's violence, bigotry, abuse, a generally queer cast, and—sometimes—there is hope.

spoiler: shit hits the fan.

WATCH OUT! a lot of my chapters contain sensitive content! these can include violence, abuse, mental health issues, attempted suicide, blood, and strong language. if you read one of my chapters and i miss a warning i should have—PLEASE INFORM ME.

ARC ONE ━━━━━━━━━━━━ ▼

01— Arcade Lights 02— Debt 03— Acquisition 04— Withdrawal 05— Going Home 06— Acid Rain 07— A Brief Reprieve 08— Dawn 09— Crack 10— Rerouting 11— Good Guy 12— Pyrokinetic Rehabilitation 13— Pancakes 14— Met You Again 15— Stitched 16— Awaken 17— Double K.O. 18— Life + Lemons 19— Trust Fall 20— Law of Electricity 21— Gravel 22— Anything and Everything

ARC TWO ━━━━━━━━━━━━ ▼

23— Conscious 24— Jackstalk 25— Ten Minutes 26— Home 27— Room of Liars 28— Benches 29— Strike 30— Lemonade 31— Insiders 32— Pickup 33— Raiden' 34— In the Nowhere 35— Flash Fire 36— The Setup 37— I Need a Favor 38— Long Drive 39— The Gray Area

ARC THREE ━━━━━━━━━━━━ ▼

40— New Friends 41— Family 42— Pull Over 43— One of the Good Ones 44— Attack Dog 45— Operative 46— Ty Roy 47— A Good Thing 48— Similarities 49— Illegal Adoption 50— Carpool 51— Training 52— Terraforming 53— Cop Sirens 54— Control 55— Local Legend 56— Infiltrators 57— Walking on Ceilings

flash/burn archive

dividers used:

[platosshadowpuppet]

Hunting the Fae is easiest in thick fog.

Counter intuitive, I know, but consider; the Fae can cloak themselves in such powerful glamours that, even with the help of a hagstone, they appear as little more than heat shimmer and shadows.

They can only appear to vanish, however. There will always be tell tale signs: a foot print, the movement of the air, a rain drop halted in its descent. All magnified in the fog. Watch where the fog parts and swirls, look for silhouettes in the mist, even for dew drops gathering on unseen porcelain skin.

I don't want to give the impression that such a hunt is easy. The Fae are fast, cunning, and unhindered by empathy. You may only one chance to catch the spectre in the mist with your iron chain. Mistakes will be met with talons and thorns, or, worst of all, beguiling eyes and sweet words to snare your heart in poison honey.

[innocentlymacabre]

Hello! I now offer flash fiction commissions!

I can work across genres and media, covering written fiction, gameplay cut scenes and narratives, screenplays, comic storylines - anything really!

I am also okay with any level of involvement, whether you merely want me to refine something you've come up with, write a story completely from scratch with an idea you have, or something else altogether.

The official price point for this is $70 and includes up to approximately 1000 words and 1-2 revisions, but I'd be happy to work with you to come to a mutually agreeable number if that seems a tad high. Shoot me a message or hop on over to Ko-fi and we can discuss how best to bring your vision to life!

I also offer the same commission in a ghostwriting capacity, which, of course, comes with an added premium.

[brightwitchbrews]

Beneath the shadows of a bone-grey tree there is a hollow where flowers hide. Amongst this bed of spines and wary petals sleeps a fox-shaped ghoul.

If coaxed and praised and bargained with, just so, he might agree to keep your most treasured memories safe within his den.

If the ghoul is feeling especially generous, he may even relinquish them upon your return… in this life, or the next.

[transcendragon]

Prompt Flash Fiction - King

Prompt: You were a beloved ruler of your country. When the evil king/ queen tried to conquer your country, you fought to the death to protect your country. Seeing how much your people loved you, the evil king/ queen proposes that you two marry to merge your countries. You accept for your country’s sake. – The Emperor, King of a Hundred Lands, smiles down at me at the altar. I look down…

[whereserpentswalk]

There's an orc attending your college. Your city is pretty diverse, there's a lot of human cultures represented there, and even harpies and dwarves are common. But an orc is still a really rare sight. And she's not assimilated at all, she wears the symbol of the dark lord around her neak, and the strange black cloths from the wastelands she came from, and she always seems to have a gun somewhere on her. It's strange just to see an orc in person, she's not like the green skinned monsters you see in movies, her eyes are pitch black, and her skin is so pale you can see veins, she's muscular and tell but also strangely skinny, and her teeth are sharp and spiked like a sharks, this one doesn't have tusks, just these rows of serrated teeth.

Everyone avoids her at first. There's something creepy about her. She doesn't move like a human. She emotes weirdly, being stoic during conversations, but sometimes smiling or laughing at odd times. In class it becomes clear that she lacks knowledge anyone growing up in your society has, but has extensive knowledge on things most humans will never know. She also very clearly supports the dark lord and the demons who serve him, and gets mad when his narrative of conquest and strict genetic hierarchy is challenged in class.

You end up paired with her for a class project. It's weirdly awkward. But you end up spending more time with her then most. It still takes awhile to get used to her mannerisms, and you have to convince her of evolution in a long debate (but eventually you do convince her). She seems strangely naive to a lot of things. Every time she does something that she considers a failure she goes into self loathing, and she gets really afraid she's going to be punished. You have to explain to her things are going to be ok sometimes.

You try to spend time with her. She supports the dark lord but out of a strange sense of fear more than the type of ideological support humans in nations not under his control have. When she does something that she thinks is heresy agaisnt him she becomes afraid. And while she's angry at people who follow gods other than him (which is basically everyone here) she's more afraid of them than everything. When a holy symbol you own touches her she's surprised it doesn't burn her, you have to tell her it's ok.

She has a lot more freedom here than she did back in the wastelands. You slowly help her realize she doesn't have to worry about being punished for sinning agasint the dark lord. She's able to go on the internet for the first time, you help her get everything set up. You also introduce her to your freinds, only some of whom feel safe around her, but those who do seem to like her.

It's weird just hanging out in her dorm. She can be weirdly laid back and introspective at times, at least when she's not nervous or paranoid. But when she's just relaxing she'll tell you about things, about the beauty of the desert sands, about what it was like to observe the rattlesnakes and condors and wyverns of her homeland. How she likes to observe the city, the way the diffrent people flow through it, she was scared of it at first but now she likes to explore it, and the way it lacks stars at night but the lights from the buildings replace it. She says she wishes she could stay here forever, that she wishes she could be an artist but that she was sent here to learn skills useful to the dark lord's empire.

There's something nice about showing her new things. You get to take her to a musical for the first time. Get to show her neighborhoods you like. Get to explain to her what public transport is (though she got scared feeling trapped in a subway car). You get to show her stuff she never got to experience because orcs are never really children, she loves getting to hold a plush for the first time, or watching cartoons for the first time, it's like she's finally getting to live an experience she never had. Even though she's a well armed adult she really likes plushies once she finds out about them, they weren't something she was allowed to have back home.

Over time she starts meeting people and learning things that go against her worldview. As she makes more friends, understands new things, slowly learns that she shouldn't be punished for mistakes, she slowly comes around to seeing how fucked up the world the was raised in is. She tells you she doesn't want to worship the dark lord anymore, she cries just from saying it. You hug her, and realize she's never been hugged before, she seems to really like that feeling. She bathes in the waters of a healing goddess, and she worships something out of love instead of fear for the first time.

Eventually the spawning warlock who spawned her and her siblings comes to visit her. You told her to be careful but she ended up spilling that she doesn't worship the dark lord, she ends up spilling all the things a warlock like that considers a sin. When he leaves she tells you she can't go home. Not ever. Never again will she see the shifting sands, or flying condor, or flowing serpents of her homelands. She's trapped where she is now.

You know it hurts her a lot. She says she feels like she's in a small pocket of safety. Back home she'd be hurt for being an apostate. In human lands outside of the city she'd be hurt for being an orc. But she's safe here. She stays in her apartment for awhile, while you try to make things work. She's finally changing her major to art, and despite everything she's finally free, free to watch the starless sky, free to not be punished when she makes a mistake...

[jack-of-crowns]

@flashfictionfridayofficial

'To Gather Paradise' by @jack-of-crowns

Their forms are silhouettes here in the Shadow beyond the farthest boundaries, three Jinn magi backlit by the bright incandescence of nascent stars, three vessels of dark energy bourne upon the mnemonic currents of spacetime who are come to unwind the warp and woof of an inevitable tapestry.

The eldest extends herself in somatic patterns, her consciousness splayed wide, upswept as the branches of the sharpened thorns of reality that hedge them in. Mistress and apprentices; each lesson pierces her more deeply than either of them, for she has tasted the bitter fruit of her past many timelines now; she knows that eventuality brings her only the comforts of having played that role again, but to the uncharted courses of the children...

"Lane, recite," Qeral commands, voice thundering as a breaking wave through the quantum foam as the incantation of intentionality begins to manifest.

"The One Whom is All effaces what He wills and establishes what He wills, and with Him is the Mother of the Book." Lane's shadow lengthens as her spoken syllables acquire resonance and echo.

Mile's essence contracts in a deep fana. "Forgive me, Yüce Büyücü, but does not the natural expansion of the multiverse already create new spacetime? Why do we seek to intervene?"

Qeral laughs harshly, cataphracts of standing anger dashing over jagged crescendos of what cannot be undone. "Was our exile by The Eleven natural, Mile? Perhaps our next field lesson takes us back to Sheol, and -" She composes herself, adding "- and your question is valid. Yes, the multiverse expands, but it expands under the unblinking gaze of our so-called illuminated kin in accordance with their unyielding will, who shape reality into predictable patterns, easy to control. We create...alternatives. Observe."

The sama begins, an ecstatic whirl of antiquarks and fermions, of dark matter and Shadow in an intricate weave. The motion and sound of collapsing probability fields reverberate; the tableau of reality beyond them shimmers, and all six dimensions of spacetime fold into a construct of ineffable beauty. "This," Qeral says softly, "is an Empty House."

"How...how does one even attempt to operate this," Lane muses, her Shadow-self flickering in consternation. "I thought pure Chaos was a theory."

"And, is this...thing even ethical?" Mile chimes in sternly. "Aren't we also guilty of superimposition?"

Qeral drifts motionless for several moments; casting spells of this magnitude unaided are taxing. "Remember that I was there." The apprentices are silent, knowing their place. "I was there when we fell. All that was beautiful to be found in the darkness, cast out from every probable future and consigned to be nothing more than the stuff of superstition and fear-mongering. No, children, this is not a sigil of superimposition. This is liberation."

"Come, feel the fibrations of true freedom."

Qeral draws the apprentices within the flows of her own essence, for their unprepared consciousnesses would otherwise be overwhelmed by sheer sonsuz. Even so, they can not help but be dizzied by the onrush of potential, the vertigo of unrestrained choice as the three explore the impossible geometries of the Empty House. Within its chambers lie the branes of every possible future, every road not taken, every choice yet to be made.

They are at once and at one with each other; their interconnectedness expressing itself in desire, desire manifesting as seeds bringing forth the fruits of what else and what if. Instead of the proto-nebula before them birthing hot suns destined to fuel the fiery judgments of the Luminarians, their mingled selves are stirring the elements of reality, weaving it into ever-branching filaments of a cosmic web.

- The Darkline? It must be! -

- The dark past of what never became, yes -

- And of all those unrealized yesterdays? -

- They are only realities as yet unchosen, -

- And the Darkline is a never-ending path, -

- From possible pasts to improbable futures. -

- Infinite lanes, and each an unchartable course!

- Infinite miles, and neither starting point nor stop! -

- And all shall be all; everywhen and nowhere. -

They are all as children now, imaginations playing in a garden of delights, rewriting the pages of history's hellscapes with their limitless volumes of hope. Where the architects of authoritarianism seek to build dead ends of self-fulfilling apocalypses, there an Empty House shall stand, creating intersections of refuge and salvation. Manifold gardens all along the Darkline will blossom in the cold of the cosmic voids, and the magi of the Nightshade Jinn will go forth to gather Paradise with shadowed hands.

[jacobblieu]

Body Horror

I don’t know how to tell her so I cover myself in layers and layers of clothing - trying desperately to hide my flesh away from her without raising suspicion. Luckily the winter has helped with my facade, claims of poor circulation explaining my gloves and the air’s chill providing context to my coats and sweaters. 

At the end of our dates she lingers a second on the doorstep with me, inviting me to kiss her with the glint in her eyes and the way her chest angles and head tilts. 

But I never do. 

I can’t risk it. Can’t risk her tugging at my coat. Revealing even an ounce of the me beneath my shirts.

If she did - those same eyes would widen in terror and disgust, that same body would recoil from me in flee against this nightmare. I know.

But I’m weakening. The sweetness of her perfume that keeps me floating in its wake is wearing down my defenses. The sound of her laughter filling my head until I can barely remember why I must hold myself back. The flush of her cheeks shining, a beacon of vitality in my world of drab and lifeless greys. 

Maybe just this once, maybe it could be different…

She could be different.

At the end of our walk she lingers again, fingers resting slightly on the handle of her door. Her eyes aren’t just glinting though, they practically glow in the reflection of my desire

Maybe just this once. 

I lean in and kiss her, tasting the life on her breath. She kisses me back. 

I wonder what she tastes?

At some point we had spilled inside, like liquors mixing into a single glass - intoxicated on our own fumes. There’s no going back, tonight she will see me. 

I can feel her hands on me and my eyes shut tight.

First my jacket falls to the floor, then my sweater. I stop her hands as her fingers reach for the hem of my final layer, but only for a moment before her lips crash back into mine and any sense I had left is pushed out of my body with incredible force. My shirt falls to the ground.

I want to look at her, but my eyes won’t open. The silence grows steadily until I just can’t take it and pricks of light and scene reenter my vision. 

And there she is. As beautiful as ever.

Even if her flush has been replaced by the paleness of death, her eyes gone from gleaming to bloodshot. Even if I had mistaken the sound shattering scream ripping her throat to shreds for silence. 

Just as I predicted, her head suddenly starts to whip around - searching for anything to save her from the monster manifested. My eyes lock on her as her’s lock on the scissors resting on a nearby table. 

I will miss her. 

[blackrosesandwhump]

Whumpril Day 25: Brace Yourself

A/N: Featuring my character Gathin Holloway, the MC in Sword of the Half-Human.

CW: bleeding, blood, vampirism, monster whumper

Each breath brought pain, burning in my chest with each inhale, but the creature had only fallen back, and I had seconds before it attacked again.

Brace yourself, master, came the sword’s warning in my head.

“Thanks,” I mumbled, adjusting my stance in the snow. I felt breathless, weakened, and her words only served to remind me how wounded I already was.

I would rather not have to bleed out for the sword to do her work.

The creature wheeled around and faced me again, eyes glowing in the darkness, claws digging wild grooves in the layer of white. My blade was ready; it caught the creature across its hideous neck as it leapt on me, cutting a deep swathe that immediately bleed black. With a horrible, screeching cry it reeled backward, blood arching through the air, to fall in its side, where it writhed and shuddered with the same horrific screeching.

Now I really did brace myself, panting and silently begging my body not to fail me. My own blood was seeping darkly from the jagged lacerations the creature’s claws had inflicted on my chest. The sword remained silent as together we watched the monster convulse itself to death, its blood spattered across the snow.

“It’s time,” I said aloud, my voice oddly muffled in the cold and ice. “You can drink now. But be quick, because I can’t stand up much longer.”

I’ll only be a moment.

The ravenous force I had come to know so well shimmered like heat against the blackness. The monster’s blood rose spiraling from the snow, pulled toward the blade and vanishing into it as she drank.

And then she stopped. For a moment, everything fell deathly silent.

Master, something…something is wrong.

I felt it: a quaking, shattering wrongness uncurling from deep inside me. From deep inside…her.

The creature’s blood…poison…changing me…please, master, you have to—

A wild cry, echoing the monster’s dying wail. The blade wrenched herself from my grip, throwing me off-balance. I dropped to my knees, stunned and speechless, still bleeding.

Then my own horror began to unfold.

@forthetaintedsorrow-whump @whumping-to-conclusions @whumping-out-of-time

[gwmusko]

The women and sons of the keep had grown familiar with horses returning home without their rider. Petty wars had taken away too many and sent back too many empty saddles for the sight to phase or shock anyone except those relatives who knew the lost. The same scene played out during times of conflict, the family sobbing on their knees, cursing the sky above and pounding the mud with their fist. The confused creature, often bloodied and dying, was led away by sympathetic looker-ons.

The war paint and blood were washed away, the saddle and bridle stripped off and burned, and a knife was put to the creature's throat. They would not eat a war horse; grief had poisoned the flesh, and its taste wrought death. The beast would be laid down in the catacomb labyrinth beneath the keep's foundations. In the stead of the warrior who had succumbed and now rested in the embrace of some peat marsh or whose bones had been overcome by moss. 

*

Today’s piece is just a short exercise in world-building and scene-setting. I’m also excited to say I’ve partnered up with my friend and very talented illustrator Gurp to work on a project which I’ll hopefully be able to share more news about soon.