Stories in which the transformation or immobilization has a horrific element.
Aurore is dead from the moment she walks into my shop.
Her entrance is accompanied by a soundtrack of clicking heels and an equally entitled whistle, the shrill notes of “Oh, my darling Clementine” ringing proudly in their dissonance. Continue Reading
The air shifted, with a chill brushing away the warm October night. The scent of snow surrounded Kera, crisp and icy. No, not quite snow, but something harder, less forgiving. Stone, maybe. The air felt unnaturally still, like an invisible dome had encircled the pair and was magnifying yet isolating every sound. Continue Reading
As long as you stroke ‘em right, the scales’re smooth. I could grab ‘em by the fistful, feel ‘em sidewind, solid muscle in my palm. But I ain’t handsy. I like watchin’ ‘em. Continue Reading
Every night’s the same. The lights turn off, one by one, until there is nothing but a single spotlight above my cage. They use the light to stop me from ripping their heads off. Continue Reading
I approach quickly, thinking I’ve left my phone on the mantlepiece. I bump into the couch as I rush forward and at my yelp a whisper comes from the light. Continue Reading
Oxygen puffs through the perforation in my throat, piped in by the ventilator. A tube whisks my piss away; IVs and snaking drains proliferate like bacteria. Continue Reading
She delicately dips her toes in the darkening pool before her, and sheds her skin once more. The cool waters rush up to meet her, taking the last of her breath away. Continue Reading
In the gloaming of the year, when trees’ bark shrinks and holds fast to the mighty trunk; when the life-filled woods are stripped of those merry, clamorous sounds which bespeak a nature of anything but gloom; when all the shade-giving leaves are robbed from the canopy and replaced instead with an ever-present atmosphere of shade-ridden air, oppressive and dank… Continue Reading
The silence is absolute, as if time never began here and never will. How can I describe it? As if a wall of glass has been placed by the great hand of a God in the midst of the forest, and no living thing may pass. Continue Reading
Jiala made eye contact, and Barclay flinched. All sensation fell away but discomfort: stomach clench of a malevolent gaze, bone chill of a too-wide smile. More visceral than a person with insides of glass should feel, and that bothered him most of all. Continue Reading