Darkness. Screaming. Screeching. Wailing. Dripping. Hissing… Silence.

Run.

That was the only thought that pulsated through Theo’s mind.

Run.

Dense forests flanked him as he sprinted down the unlit road. No moon shone in the starless expanse above his head. He couldn’t see… But he had to keep running. His heaving breaths and footsteps were the only sounds in the dead-quiet night. Not daring to slow down or glance behind him, Theo snatched his car keys from his pocket.

Like a beacon, two car headlights came to life not far ahead of him and dispelled for a moment the inky blackness that enveloped him. A prayer of gratitude escaped his sweat-drenched lips as he jumped into the driver’s seat, started the engine, and floored the gas pedal. He raced down in the direction he had been running in, though his increased speed made him feel not a bit safer.

Still breathing heavily, Theo’s eyes focused on the road and his knuckles were white as he gripped the steering wheel.

“How did this happen, Theo?”

A soft, gentle woman’s voice had called out to him. Confused, Theo tore his eyes from the road and noticed a woman sitting in the passenger seat. He studied her and didn’t recognize her, the blonde hair or the white dress she was wearing. Alas, she felt so familiar to him. Her soft blue eyes were filled with pity as she looked at him.

“How did this happen?” she asked again.

Theo barely felt like he was driving the car anymore. He could only stare at the woman, almost stupefied, before tears began to well up in his eyes. Why was he feeling this way? The woman parted her thin lips with sadness and she began to lift up her hand, drawing it closer to his face.

“I…” Theo’s voice trembled and cracked. “I don’t know…”

The woman’s hand came to touch his face, but he felt nothing. She continued to look at him, her lips moved, but no words came out.

“Please…” Theo begged her. “Help me.”

She hadn’t reacted to his plea. She just continued to move her lips, slowly but wordlessly, caressing his cheek. And then, the beautiful stranger began to fade away. Right before his eyes, her image became ever more transparent, though she didn't seem to notice.

“No! Don't leave me!” Theo suddenly remembered to focus on his driving and forced himself to turn his eyes back on the road, but it was gone. The trees, the night, all had faded away.

Instead he found ahead of him a vast desert. The sky was an endless dark blue, not a trace of a cloud in sight. The sand shifted endlessly, no form it assumed lasting no longer than a fleeting moment before a dry, desert gust swept it into another shape. The only thing that didn’t change were the few rocky plateaus that dotted the landscape randomly, but Theo knew even they would be weathered away to nothing with time.

He brought his car to a skidding stop and checked the passenger seat again frantically, but no one was sitting there. He waited for a few seconds to control his breathing. When it slowed and his sweat dried on his face, his thoughts began to become more clear as well. The wind rocked the car gently, singing a howling lullaby.

Theo thought to keep driving but his car was no longer on, and the keys in the ignition had all but vanished.

“Damn it.”

He opened his door, expecting a wave of stinging sand to blow in from the outside, but miraculously the wind had died down and the dust had settled. He stepped out onto the sand, feeling his feet sink beneath the surface a little. He felt wobbly but managed to keep walking without much trouble. He went on, slowly, effortfully, swinging his arms tiredly as he went but knowing he had to keep trudging on. It occured to him to glance behind himself. Impossibly, although somehow not surprisingly his car was gone. He was about to mutter a curse when suddenly a firm hand clamped over his left shoulder. With a small gasp, Theo glanced back in front of him and saw a tall, built man with a mop of messy brown hair down to his eyes smiling amicably back at Theo.

“Yikes, look at this place. It sure puts the ‘waste’ in wasteland, eh?”

The newcomer was wearing a pair of faded, torn jeans much too big for his hips but held in place by a thick leather belt. His shirt had taken on another purpose. The man must've torn it off and wrapped it around his head. Despite whatever cooling that could've offered, his torso was red in places with sunburn.

Theo stared back at him, not able to formulate a reply.

“Where are we, anyway?” The stranger wiped some sweat off his brow before shielding his eyes and scanning the stark terrain around them.

“I—” Theo eventually began to speak but the man cut him off.

“I think we’re in the desert.” The man paused and placed a hand on his chin before nodding, satisfied with this observation.

“Obviously!” Theo told him, now equal parts confused and exasperated. “But—”

“Theo.” The man’s tone suddenly became solemn as he stared intently into his eyes. “Let’s get out of here. You hate the desert. Come to think of it, so do I.” Theo glared at the man, again feeling an odd influx of unexpected emotions washing over him. Neither of them moved. They just stood there, in the middle of the endless dunes.

“Who… are you?” Theo asked.

“Ah… Shit.” The man sighed deeply and looked around nervously. “I knew… I mean, they said you could forget but…” His eyes settled at last on Theo’s feet. “Theo, you really don’t know who I am?” Theo couldn’t see his face well now, but could tell he was truly offended.

“No, sorry… But please, tell me. Tell me who you are.”

The shirtless stranger shook his head.

“No can do, T. It’s not my… Er, why are you staring at me?”

Theo quickly blinked the tears from his eyes.

“I’m afraid—” He laughed to himself, realizing how foolish this would sound out loud. “—that you’ll disappear if I look away.” A gust blew by the duo, kicking up a small cloud of dust.

“We need to get you out of here, Theo.”

A bright light filled Theo’s vision for but a moment. Theo didn’t think much of it, dismissing it as some kind of mirage, but the man suddenly looked alarmed. His eyes narrowed and he pulled a double take behind him.

“Uh oh. It’s close. I can feel it. Shouldn’t have stopped running.”

Theo shuddered. “What’s close? Please, come with me! You… You’re the only thing that makes sense to me right now.” The man shot Theo an odd look and a confused sneer.

“Who are you?”

Theo caught his breath. “What? It’s me, Theo!”

“No, no, no! You’re talking nonsense. You’re gonna—oh, shit!”

A roaring sound from off to Theo’s left forced him to look in that direction. A huge sandstorm at least a hundred feet tall was raging toward them at a breakneck speed.

“Oh boy, there’s no escaping that.” Theo heard the stranger speaking over the increasingly loud wind. “Might as well stand here and face it calmly. Might hurt less that way.”

Within mere seconds the storm was upon them and the dust covered them. Theo shouted and covered his face, but the wind stung at his eyes and filled his lungs. He coughed and stumbled, trying to find the man who had been there but could see or feel nothing in the swirling grit. The wind screeched deafeningly into his ear and lashed at his body like a whip. He fell to his knees and resorted to crawling blindly across the sand, but no surface seemed solid, tangible. He scrambled for a foundation, something solid, something to grab hold of. With his eyes shut, he was in the dark. He crawled and crawled, feeling the sand slipping away from his fingertips everywhere he went.

His hand touched something cold, solid. Stone.

His ears were ringing and his skin was numb but somehow the storm felt like an echo now. The ringing in his ears was the remnant of the screeching wind and the numbness of his skin, the stinging sand. He felt exhausted. He didn’t want to keep going, but he didn’t know what else there was for him to do.

He gradually lifted his head and willed his eyes to open. Some sand that still stuck to his eyelids fell to the rock floor beneath him silently. As his pupils adjusted to the dark, he noticed rather quickly that he was not in complete darkness. All over the walls, floor, and ceiling of the cavern-like rocks around him, crystals glowed softly. Some were pale pink, others a neon green color, one was a deep blood-red hue, and a few were sky blue. They dotted and illuminated the darkness like multicolored, geometric stars. Looking in front of him, Theo saw the lights appeared to go on indefinitely.

Before he attempted to stand himself up, something he couldn’t see right away approached him quickly from his side and brushed against his face. It was fuzzy. Then he heard a sniffing noise in his ear and a wet tongue began to lick his salty face eagerly. Theo recoiled in shock, but the black, ninety-pound shaggy dog took this as an opportunity to jump on top of him and lick his face even more earnestly.

“Stop!” Theo yelled, though he couldn’t help but laugh as he did.

“Boomer! What’s—hey!” An unfamiliar voice rang out echoing from the caverns. The dog seemed to come to attention, giving one more lick across Theo’s face before jumping off and bounding a few yards up the tunnel toward a figure coming nearer. Theo finally managed to get to his feet. He leaned against the wall, careful not to touch any of the crystals, and wiped the dripping canine saliva from his face.

The figure stopped not too far from Theo, and the dog was now sitting obediently at his side and panting with his tongue hanging well out from his mouth. It was a boy, probably a few years younger and visibly skinnier than Theo himself. It was rather dim, but the boy’s hair appeared to be sandy blond, but despite the lack of light, his strangely-colored silver eyes seemed to glow, like twin harvest moons. He reached up and pulled down the part of his cloak that covered his mouth and nose. It revealed a shiny black, oily paint-like substance smeared on his tanned face and cheeks.

“What’s going on here? Who’re you?” The boy’s voice made his younger age all the more evident. “Boomer’s usually a little more aggressive with strangers.”

“Where am I?” Theo wasn’t in the mood to answer questions at that moment.

“You’re… What? Okay, how do you not know where you are? You don’t just wander around and end up in a place like this.”

“I guess I just did.”

“That’s… weird. Why are you covered in sand?”

“I came from the desert.”

“The desert?” The boy looked puzzled and nuzzled the snout of his companion who was still staring at Theo. “What’s that?”

“Now you’re the one asking silly questions,” Theo muttered under his breath.

“Huh?”

“Never mind.” Theo walked into the center of the tunnel and glanced behind him, then in front of him. Indeed, there was no sign of him having come from the desert he was just in not but a minute earlier. “I’ll answer your question if you answer mine. A desert, it’s a place with a bunch of sand, wind and rocks. Nothing else.”

The boy shrugged. “We call that the ‘beach,’ stranger. This place is bigger than I thought. Maybe you did stumble in by accident. Damn God-forsaken labyrinth… But okay, I guess. You’re in the Bastua Caverns. Could’ve taken a hit to the noggin and fallen down some hole leading into here, I dunno.”

“Never heard of such caverns. What’s a kid like you doing down in here, anyway?”

The boy’s facial expression changed in such a way that Theo could see he hated being called a kid.

“What’s that matter to you, stranger? Maybe I’m a fan of crystals.”

Theo doubted that, but he only shrugged in response.

“I’m not a bad guy, you know,” Theo told him, as he sensed the obvious lack of trust. “I’m just lost, and I don’t know where I’m going.”

The dog, Boomer, couldn’t take it anymore and jumped from the boy’s side and bounded up to Theo, tail wagging. He sniffed at his legs and licked Theo’s hand when he reached down to pet him.

“Plus your friend here doesn’t seem to have a problem with me.”

The blond-haired boy sighed in acquiescence.

“Whatever. I’m Jeccadir. But uh… Call me Jec. And that’s Boomer.”

Theo thought that was a strange name, but it was nice for someone to finally give a name to him.

“I’m Theo. I’m from… Huh.” It occurred to him that he didn’t remember. It should have been a frightening realization to him, but somehow it did not faze him. “I’m not sure.”

Jec scoffed and walked up to him and without warning, reached up and ran his hands all over Theo’s scalp.

“Weird, no bump. You’re talking like a coconut split your head open. I’m surprised you’re even talking right.” With a sigh he stepped back and brushed his hands on his legs. “Sand’s even in your hair. Well since your head’s not right, I might as well tell you why I’m down in here, I guess.”

He leaned in closer again. “I’m looking for the treasure.”

“Treasure?”

“Uh-huh. No one knows what it is, though. I’m pretty sure it’s not these crystals though. They’re everywhere. I’ve been down here not too long now, but I’m starting to lose my way already. Good thing Boomer there’s sense of smell can help me escape if I need to.”

“Okay… I guess I can help you look for it. You can keep it all to yourself if we find it too. I’m in no need of any treasure.”

Jec’s eyes lit up. “Really? Wow, that’s… generous of you, stranger. I mean… Theo. Thanks.”

Jec beckoned for him to follow in the direction he had been walking before. Theo watched his step on the uneven rock floor, and Boomer bounded in front of them acting as a kind of lookout. Theo kept in the back of his mind the kinds of crystals he was seeing and there must have been one for every color he could think of as they continued their trek.

“Why are you looking for treasure, Jec?” Theo inquired. It was nice to not be running… and to actually talk to someone. It made him feel safe, sane… maybe even a little happy.

“Why does anyone look for treasure? The riches, the glory.”

“You want riches and glory so badly?”

“Only to get away. I want to see it all and I’m trapped here, Theo.” Jec’s voice took a melancholy tone. He was staring at this feet.

“I’ve seen too much,” Theo realized.

“That’s impossible,” argued Jec. “No one has seen it all, and you can never see too much.”

“Maybe…”

They walked on for a bit more, though Theo had no idea how much time had actually passed. Up ahead, the cavern widened up a bit and led into a gigantic atrium-like cave. At first, Theo thought there was sunlight, but then he realized it was the crystals. They lined the walls completely, not a single square inch of bare stone visible. Every color imaginable was shining off at least one crystal on that cavern wall. Their multicolored light illuminated everything—included a small grove of trees in the center. Each leaf was only a single color, but even a single bough had leaves of every color of the rainbow on it. Boomer stopped at the entrance and waited for Jec and Theo to catch up.

“I’ve never seen such a thing before in my life,” gasped Theo when he saw the brilliance that stood before him.

Jec chuckled. “See? No such thing as seeing too much. Wonder if the treasure’s in here, huh?”

From the entrance, they carefully climbed down a few feet to the bottom and the headed up toward the grove of strange trees. It smelled wet, but fresh in the large cave. It seemed to be humming with energy, and intensified as they drew closer to the center. They ducked underneath some of the lower-hanging branches of the trees.

“What do you think the treasure could be?” Theo looked at Jec.

“I thought it could be gold, but this place looks like no one has ever come here before, so I doubt someone could’ve stashed their fortune here. Maybe it’s more of a… um, natural treasure?”

They arrived at a clearing in the center of the grove where the stone floor was exposed in a circular shape without any crystals growing there. In fact, it was quite smooth and completely bare except for a series of cracks in the rock in a shape reminiscent of a square, or maybe a circle, right in the middle of the clearing. Boomer trotted up to the cracks and sniffed at them, walked around, and then proceeded to sniff at the air curiously.

“Nothing’s here,” Jec observed, a little disappointed.

“Strange,” Theo agreed.

Boomer returned to Jec who began to look around, observing the trees and the floor. Theo meanwhile approached the strange cracks. He crouched down and brushed his fingertips against them. They felt… warm? He stood up and took a ginger step inside of the shape the cracks made. His body suddenly tensed up, and the cracks glowed white-hot.

“What the… Jec!”

Jec spun around and gasped when he saw what was happening. Boomer let out a nervous bark.

“Theo, don’t move! I’m—” He was cut off when a light erupted from the cracks in a flash and Jec was forced to cover his eyes and withdraw a bit. The crystals all around the walls suddenly began to change colors, along with the trees’ leaves. They looked like they were almost twinkling. Theo could hardly move his body while he was forced to watch, terrified, what was unfolding around him.

“J-Jec!” It was even harder for him to speak now. His voice barely rang louder than a whisper though his throat strained like he was screaming. The light faded for a second and Theo saw Jec standing again, watching him. Boomer sat at his side calmly now. A sad look was painted on the young boy’s face, and Theo swore he saw a tear roll down into that oily paint on his cheeks.

“Looks like you get to escape after all,” he said with a bittersweet smile toward Theo. “I’m sorry it has to end like this.”

“What? What are you saying?” Theo’s mouth formed the words but no voice came out now. The light erupted again and he was surrounded by blinding white. In the light, Theo saw that blonde woman again, off in the distance. She was looking at him. Finally, Theo’s felt like he could move again. He tried to run toward her, but it felt like he was running through water. His steps were frustratingly slow despite his straining efforts. He grunted loudly trying to move faster, but the woman began to fade again, just like before.

“No!”

“I know we’ll see you again… Wait for us, Theo.” Her voice was so distant.

Theo kept trying to run. His face felt hot and countless tears were streaming down it. Now his body felt weightless and he began to rise. Finally, he felt defeated. He was tired of running. He let go and let his body rise up higher, rise into the light.

by @vesuvius00
Have you ever looked in the mirror on a slow day,
searching your bored face for signs of life,
and seen something on the other side
that just didn't seem right?

The room around you is clean- but in there it looks dirty,
and you know the window is open- but it looks to be closed?
The clock on the wall's reflection reads 13:30,
or there's a non-existent pair of eyes lurking in the shadows?

It's an alternate dimension,
where dark beings roam.
And now you can see it,
from any mirror in your home.

I talk to them sometimes.
I think, "They must be lonely."
I tell them about my life, my friends-
and now they've started to speak back to me.

We talk daily now, chatting about anything and everything.
I think I'm getting to know them very well.
There are 28 of them here in my house,
but there use to be less I think. Perhaps time will tell.

They talk so constantly,
no matter what I'm doing,
now it seems there's no end.
I can hear them calling to me.

I've broken all the mirrors,
smashed the glass to bits and pieces
and burned the frames to nothing.
Yet, I can't escape their voices.

I hear them screaming, constant wailing.
They keep screaming and screaming at me-
even though I've already ripped off my ears.
Their noise was just too much to bear.

And then they came for me here.
I tried to run, to hide- all in vain.
I'm captured now, they dragged me to their lair.
I'm forever held prisoner by the shadows in the mirror.

by @WiseDragonGirl
A man in simple clothes walked the streets of Arnheim, the traveling bard Mikhal once again visited the city of the king. He reached one of his favourite locations, close to a tavern frequented by the middle class, and started playing his lute.

It didn’t take long before the first people stopped to hear what this bard would do and Mikhal continued the jolly tune until the group of curious people was large enough.

“Today I have a story for you,” he told the gathered crowd with a clear voice. “It is a tale about two people whose journey doesn’t exist anymore.”

“How is that possible?” a man from the crowd asked.

Mikhal smiled as he looked at the man. “I will come to that. The story begins a month ago, although in hindsight the story began before that. It all began two years earlier, but I am getting ahead of myself.” He looked over the people, the introduction had them curious enough to hear the tale.

“There once was a powerful sorcerer who had developed a hatred towards humans,” he began with the strong voice a storyteller should have. “What exactly fuelled this, no-one knows. One day he announced he would punish every one of us and kill us until no human would walk the earth. And he did as he said.” The brown eyes of the bard showed grief, but none of the listeners seemed to notice. “He conjured up a magical rain that left animals and plants unscathed,” Mikhal continued, his voice softer now, “but when it touched the skin of a human it burnt and ate through the flesh. He summoned stone giants to destroy the villages and cities and trample the people living there. He summond vicious wolves to hunt down and kill humans. Cries of pain, agony, fear, sorrow and grief could be heard all over the country. People were dying everywhere, cities were destroyed. The sorcered did exactly as he said he would.”

He paused as he looked at the listening crowd, some showed curiosity as to how the story would progress, others seemed horrified or sad at the fate of the people in the story.

“The sorcerer took his time conjuring up his methods of punishment and death, he didn’t care for eradicating everyone in a single blow, he wanted humankind to suffer. Two people managed to escape the city of the king when it was overrun with Liador, all summoned by the sorcerer.” Mikhal saw some people shudder at the mention of the carnivorous and highly vicious monkey-like creatures. “A bard knew a song that put them to sleep, a warrior fought his way through them. The cries of pain and death haunted them as the fled the city. They met just outside the walls and tried to come up with a plan to stop the sorcerer.”

“They should just kill that bastard!” someone from the crowd shouted.

“If only it were that simple,” Mikhal replied. “The sorcerer knew how to protect himself. Many of the kings knights were send out to end his life, but none was able to reach him. No, the warrior and bard knew they would never be able to reach the sorcerer in time. Instead they decided to find the Lady of the Forgotten Songs.”

“Who is that?” a child in the front row asked.

Mikhal smiled at the child. “The Lady of the Forgotten Songs is the patron of the bards, she is said to be a nymph, but not one who lives in the water or in the trees. No,” he rose his hand to the sky, “she lives in the clouds.”
The people listening to his story all looked up at the clouds.

“I’ve heard that too,” another woman sighed. “Doesn’t she watch over us?”

“She cares for us,” Mikhal answered the woman, “but she sleeps a lot. I have a song about her which I will sing at the end of my tale.” He looked around to see if anyone wanted to add something or ask a question. He didn’t mind the interruption, on the contrary, he enjoyed interacting with his listeners.

“Their journey was long and treacherous,” he continued, “danger seemed to wait behind every corner, but they reached the place where the Lady of the Forgotten Songs could be summoned. And when they did a woman with a skin as blue as the sky and long, silver hair appeared.” Mikhal smiled as he described her, but it faded again as he went on with the story. “They begged her to deal with the sorcerer and save the people, but she explained the sorcerer couldn’t be stopped at his point, even though she wanted nothing more. It was simply beyond her powers to deal with his powerful magic. The warrior and bard lost hope, but she gave them a new one. She explained she could see the flow of time and she could send someone back to stop the sorcerer. The Lady of the Forgotten Songs lead them to a pond and when she touched the water it showed the sorcerer reading a book in a dusty library. The Lady explained this moment in time was two years earlier and just after the seed of hatred was planted in his heart. This was the moment he could be killed without disrupting time too much. She also told them that if the sorcerer would be killed at this moment, everything he did for the last two years wouldn’t exist. The world would change to accommodate the change of events and the people wouldn’t even know the world had changed.”

Mikhal paused and listened to the silence, the had probably expected a tale of a heroic knight who would slay the evil sorcerer. “The bard, apprehensive about ending somone’s life, asked if there was a way to avoid the seed of hatred being planted in his heart, but the Lady explained it would disrupt the flow of time too much to stop that from happening and one way or another someone in the past would have to die. So it was decided. It was the warrior who stepped through time and killed the sorcerer. And when he returned to the bard the Lady disappeared.”

“She just disappeared?” Someone in the back asked.

“She turned into mist and disappeared,” Mikhal explained. “Together they travelled back and much to their surprise all the villages and cities that had lain in ruins and had been filled with dead bodies were whole again. And full of life. When they asked about the burning rain, the wolves, the stone giant or the Liador no-one knew what they were talking about. It was as if it never happened. Up to this day it’s only the warrior and bard who still remember the dead bodies in the streets, the rubble, the crying children, the screams of pain, the smell of blood and fear. No-one remembers they left on the journey to stop the sorcerer, because the sorcerer died two years earlier. Murdered in his own library.”

“Wow…” someone muttered. “So no-one remembered anything of what had happened?”

“Not a soul,” Mikhal answered him.

“Did this really happen?” a young girl asked with wide open eyes.

The man next to her, presumably her father, rolled his eyes. “Only in the imagination of this bard, honey. You shouldn’t take any of their stories seriously.”

With a smile Mikhal turned to the girl. “It might have really happened, but at the same time, it never happened.” He winked at her, plucked on the strings of his lute and sang a song about the Lady of the Forgotten Songs, as he had promised.

At the end of the song he thought about what his next song could be when he saw someone he recognized. So instead of a new song he announced it was time for him to find a meal and a place to rest. Some people gave him a few coins and thanked him for the performance. Mikhal accepted every token and word of appreciation with a smile and a bow. As the crowd dispersed, Mikhal put the coins in his pocket and went to the nearby tavern.

There wasn’t much light in the tavern, the few windows it had didn’t let much light in, but it was enough to see. The sound of a lively chatter and mugs hitting wood filled the room, the people here shared a drink and didn’t seem to have any worries. Mikhal looked around until he saw a man sit alone at a table. He wasted no time and walked to him.

“Trevor,” Mikhal greeted him. “Mind if I join you?”

Trevor looked up and gestured to one of the empty chairs. “Be my guest. I see you’re back in town.”

“Indeed I am,” Mikhal said as he sat down. He watched Trevor take a sip from a cup which undoubtedly contained ale of some kind.

“You know,” Trevor sighed as he lowered the cup. “I miss the Terulian Ale.”

“Who would have thought the sorcerer was responsible for that recipe?” Mikhal answered with a small smile.

“It’s a small price to pay,” Trevor said as he lifted the cup for another sip, a remark Mikhal could only agree with.

I shatter the wall between us, author and reader become characters in the story.
Together we breach a literary wall which both was and never was.
For reality is an illusion dear reader, even the ones I create.
And perhaps in an alternate reality, the story does not end here.

No. The writer shook his head. His fingers standing idle at the keys. No, it would not do. Nothing so short would win great acclaim, nothing so simple and yet paradoxically complex. It was something his cheeky grin made within moments of seeing the prompt, raw and unrefined, a joking blank verse poem that regretful fingers had typed. The writer sat there, thinking, pondering, searching the soul for beauty and mind for wit. It had to be clever, something to impress his peers, and like a wee ant amongst the giants, he wracked his brain for thoughts. What cleverness could he have? Look deep into the mind, hoping to find the inspiration of his muses with ever breath.



No, no, a work left unfinished. The rest never came, but what a novel idea it would have been. The last line was the first he had written, after deleting the first failed attempt at greatness. And from there the story wrote itself, folding and unfolding at fast fingertips, exploding with letters and words as ideas flowed out like lightning. The thunderous pauses with every tap of the spacebar, and the flash of the blinking cursor which marks the head of the literary storm. Though like all storms it died out, for the way the story was to be structured, the way it was to be told, was to be read first from top to bottom by the reader, until the very last line. Yes, it was the last line which actually implied the story was to be read in reverse, from the bottom line to the paragraph above, and so forth until indeed the line at the beginning, the remnant of his silly poem, was to remain in the minds of the readers amazed and entertained at the ingenuity of a story which altered its meaning when read backwards or forwards depending on the perception the reader had. Alas, the story failed to take flight, and died out as a dark muse emerged from the mirror.

A terrible whisper, from the computer screen as the Writer stared at the abyssal grey. A smiling shadow, a ripple across the labyrinth of white words against the ebony shade. Yes, it was madness, a madness that was purely refreshing. Like the world was just a dream, and he was waking for the first time. Eyes wide opened, a clear twinkle in his eye. So began a new story, one word at a time.

---

She followed the nearly never-ending track, trudging through the snow with a trail of blood following loyally behind her. The young girl with moon-glow skin blended with the Wyoming winter, appearing frail and tiny beneath torn rags that provided scant warmth. Season’s wind lifted her long raven hair and battered her exposed flesh like the slaver master’s whip, but like the remembered whip she could not feel the cold. Neither her fingers nor her body trembled beneath the blizzard’s gusts.

She persisted.

A crimson stream seeped from an open hole where her left eye should be. The blood stained the front of her torn rags and whatever did not hit cloth showered the snow at her feet. Still, she toiled forward. Long hours passed by and the snowfall stacked high. After awhile, the girl clawed her way through the wintry sea just to find the railroad tracks before continuing forward again.

Night fell. There were shadowy silhouettes in the distant darkness. Lights. A town.

The girl’s endless march slowed. She staggered forward on unsteady legs, and fading awareness drifted into her single-eyed sight. Moments later, the girl crumpled beneath a sign:

Welcome to God’s Truth.

---

A womanly figure dressed in eternal darkness stood at the mouth of a small house.

The desert sun bore down on her hotter than the smoking revolver in her hand. Framed by light and cast in shadow, the raven-haired girl with the midnight black eye kicked open the previously locked door blocking her path. Her heel spurs clicked and rattled on the creaking floorboards as she vanished inside of the little house’s maw.

Much like her normal baby blue, there wasn’t much that her unnatural eye could see. The burning gold iris scanned over the nigh empty contents of the room. An unused fireplace; there wasn’t much need for it during the summer. She wandered over to the home’s recently slept in bed and placed her hand against the mattress. Her eye could see the colored heat still left over from the inhabitant’s nightly slumber fading away.

Can you see anything, Adrian?

“No.” Adrian answered the voice in her head. “There’s nothing here, Father.”

Keep looking. The Devil always lies, and what we see is not always what it seems.

Adrian moved away from the bed and turned her attention to scattered books along the wall. She picked one up that was titled ‘Of The Occult’, and then another ‘The Secrets of Demons and Devils’. She opened the book. There were shadows and voices whispering vile venom from the pages. Her iris glowed brighter, seeing tendrils of cloud-like darkness reaching out to her.

She slammed the book closed and tossed it away, stepping back from the hateful item.

Ahhh, did I not tell you?

“I’m sorry, Father. I thought he was a good man, a man of God. I was wrong. There’s nothing but hate here, the devil’s work just as you said.”

You are forgiven, child. I wanted you to see for yourself, and to see truth is never easy work. I am not happy for you to find such evil in a person you trusted.

“I will do what needs to be done.”

Do you wish for me to be here when it is done? For strength?

“That won’t be necessary. I need to see him for what he is, and I need to pull the trigger. Alone.”

And so shall ye see the truth, and may God’s light guide your hand.

“Thank you, Father.” She said and walked to one corner of the room where there was a rocking chair. Adrian dragged the seat to face the door she shot a hole in. A single dagger of light carved through, setting on her unnatural eye. She rocked steadily, her eye swaying back and forth in and out of the light’s touch.

When hooves clopped in the distance, Adrian popped open the cylinder of her six-shooter and emptied out the bullets. She slowly replaced them with new ones of glimmering silver, engraved with the holy cross. Adrian whispered a prayer and turned her revolver to the door when hooves had changed to footsteps.

Boots on wood, a slow creaking; the man stopped.

Adrian could make out his movements through the bullet hole, the feel of his gun’s barrel dragging against its leather holster, and an inevitable click of the cocked hammer. It was the conversation of guns, the conversation of killers. Adrian pulled back the hammer of her revolver in response. She waited, just like he waited. The air had gone quiet and there was nothing more than their slow and silent breathing.

Six holes burst through the wood in quick succession, six new daggers of light stabbing into Adrian’s body.

The man outside had reloaded quickly, then kicked open the door with violent force. He took aim for the fatal shot.

But, it was Adrian’s impossible swiftness that shot his gun free with a single pull of the trigger. The next ringing shot seared through the man’s kneecap, sending him to the ground crumpling in screaming pain. In a flash, the woman of eternal darkness moved like shadow and planted her boot to his chest. He grunted painfully down each wooden step from the force of impact, rolling in the dirt until he lied on his back with his badge glinting up at the woman’s face above him.

“Adrian?” He uttered with heavy, disbelieving breath.

“Marshall.” She stared down at him with contempt.

The Marshall lifted himself up on his elbows. “You should be dead. I shot you, I know I shot you.”

“You did. Six clean hits.” Adrian pulled at the buttons of her black coat, revealing the blood stained white undershirt. A crimson stain for each bullet marked the cloth. She continued and opened up the shirt, showing where her flesh healed itself, slowly pushing out the smoking bullets until they clattered to the ground.

The Marshall’s eyes widened.

Adrian re-buttoned herself, again shrouded in black.

“How?”

“The Devil cannot harm a child of God. I am his warrior, his agent of the earth sent to cleanse the darkness.”

The Marshall shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re doing, or what you’re thinking Adrian, but you’re shooting the wrong guy.”

“The Devil always lies.”

“What? Adrian, listen to me! It’s me. I saved you from the snow, remember? You almost died seven years ago, lying out there alone.”

“The cold cannot harm me. You did not save me, only God can do that.”

“Adrian, please. I got you a home, the Church took you in; we’re friends for fuck’s sake! There’s weird shit goin’ on around here, I’ve been looking into those two murders and it… It was you?”

“And at last, he sees.”

“Why?” He asked, trying to grasp for an answer that made sense.

“It is my mission from God.” She pointed the barrel down at him. “It is my mission to cleanse the land with the blood of evil. The blood of demons.”

The Marshall puzzled over her words. “Is that what… I’m not a demon. You remember everything I’ve done for you. Would a demon help you to live? Would a demon be your friend? You once trusted me, so trust me one more time.”

Adrian tickled the trigger, brushing it with hesitant thought. Then, her eye burned, and she could see what the Marshall was. She could see his form of hatred, fire, and blood. “The Devil always lies.” She said.

“Adrian, no!”

The Marshall’s blood quieted the desert, and his demonic blood returned to Hell.

Adrian knelt next to his corpse and pulled up her sleeve revealing a bracelet of stone and ancient runes. There were six runes, and two already pulsated with a white glow. She whispered a chant. A ghostly pale orb emerged from the Marshall’s parted lips, apparently still shocked about the bullet in his head. When Adrian finished her chant, the sphere joined with her bracelet and caused a third rune to glow.

A damned beast must not settle upon the earth, it must be condemned by fire.

Adrian dragged his body back into the home, and set it ablaze. She watched quietly outside, observing the dancing of the flames, the snapping crackle of the wood, the roar of end, and the burning away of God’s truth.

---

The woman in black returned to town.

The doors of The Holy Church of God’s Truth opened, and the dark lady walked down the center aisle dividing the pews. Adrian turned her head to see the Sister in her nun’s clothes glaring at her. “Sister.” Adrian nodded to her in acknowledgement before carrying on to the whitewood altar decorated with crimson cloth covering with gold trimming.

At the center of the altar, the Father stood in white robes. His back was to her so all Adrian could see was his graying hair.

“I don’t think the Sister will ever like me.”

“She’s just not used to you yet. Is it done?” The Father said, his voice soft and kind. It was tender as it always had been from the first day he took her in.

She snorted. The Sister had been here as long as Adrian could remember her. If she wasn’t accustomed to Adrian’s presence yet, then she never would be. “It is.”

“Good, good.” The Father turned around, facing her with his warm smile. His face was ragged from difficult years, but his eyes betrayed a man who had not truly reached the age of the elderly.

The bloody western frontier and the many souls it had claimed wore on him, and Adrian could see it.

He wrapped a hand around the dangling white cross at his neck and toyed with it. “You have done more for the Lord than I could ever hope to achieve. Come.” The Father held out his hand. Adrian took it, and he pulled her into an embrace. “I am deeply sorry about the Marshall.”

His memory bothered her, but she brushed it away. “Don’t be, Father. He was a deceiver and no more. The less said about him, the better.” She pulled herself out of the hug.

“Your will be done… The demon’s soul?”

“Harvested.”

“Excellent. The time when we can drive the Devil out of the west forever shall soon be upon us. In truth-“

“Father?”

“What is it, my daughter? Does something trouble you?”

Adrian could still feel the Sister’s gaze stabbing into her. “It’s just…”

“Ah, I do believe I understand.” The Father slipped his hand into his robe, and retrieved a bible. “This is about your past.”

“Yes.”

“What is it you wish to seek?”

“You said I came here, that I did not have an eye. I remember all of that. My eye was taken from me by some bandit on the road, I walked here and was brought here when I lost consciousness. You gave me this eye and told me I would see truth, and I have, I have seen the demon’s walk the earth.” Adrian pressed her hand to the eye and looked up at Jesus on the cross. “But, the eye has yet to show me where I’m from or who I am as you promised it would. Why does it not show me? Have I not proven myself to God?”

The Father placed a hand on her shoulder. “God does not answer in the ways we expect of him, for we can never understand a being of the infinite. He sees and he watches. He loves and he condemns and he forgives. When, or why, or how, or where, or who, or what… These questions are elusive, for only God can know the greatest of truths, only he can see what we cannot. We must simply have faith in the path he gives us.”

“But, if I don’t know who I am, or what I am, how can I know my path? Why is it that I am the only one who can wear this eye without dying?”

He laughed. “My sweet daughter, being chosen as a warrior of light is a gift. Not a curse. I know the burden of his divine sight must be heavy, and the answers so few, but you must trust. Trust in your faith. Do you believe you can do that?”

Adrian looked into his eyes, and his smile warmed her. “Yes, I believe I can.”

“Always remember to believe.” He opened his bible. “Think of James 1:6. ‘But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.’”

“I will not be like the wave.”

“That’s my girl. You are like the mountain, hard and sturdy, reaching to the heavens. And it is within your reach, for I believe the answers to your questions will come this very night. I know of the three final demons you must defeat.”

She felt new resolve and looked at him in expectation. “Who, Father? Who must I kill?”

“Listen close, this will be bloody work.”

---

Adrian of the black cloaked herself in night’s veil, watching quietly as a predator observes its prey. She knelt outside of the house’s rear lantern’s reach, remaining submerged in the shadows. Her hand idly played with her revolver in its holster, looking through the candle lit windows of the kitchen.

It was kitchen full of laughter. A mother and her two daughters played silly games, talking and giggling and smiling. The loving mother lost her husband one year ago amidst a lethal Wyoming winter, but she worked night and day to keep their house, working to retain a moment like this.

Death watched the mother and her daughters. There was evil behind those smiles. She knew it. Her faith guided her, and the darkness within them could not hide from Adrian’s divine sight.

Adrian pulled her revolver from the holster.

---

The smoke settled and only the woman in black remained standing. Her bracelet held six glowing runes. “It is over.” Adrian whispered.

Yes! Return home, my daughter. Return home at last, and the light shall be revealed to you!

Adrian held her gaze on the bodies below her. One was tall, and two were little. She saw them for what they were, but their pale, dead, and bloodied fragility stuck to her. It was the fourth time she’d rinsed her hands in the kitchen’s sink. She stared at herself reflected in the window. “I’m… I’m coming home, Father.”

There came a knock at the door.

Her gaze turned sharply. She waited. Another series of knocking came. Adrian lifted her gun and walked through the blood on the floor sticking to the dark underside of her boots, leaving a trail of red behind her. Before she opened it, Adrian peered out the side window to see who stood there.

It was an elderly man. White hair, white beard, standing with the help of a cane.

Adrian turned the handle and pulled.

---

Nothingness turned to white, blinding light. Adrian couldn’t make out anything except distant shadowy fragments. She reached out, and blinked.

“It will take a moment to see again.” It was a stranger’s voice.

Adrian whipped her hand towards her side, desperately searching for her gun.

“That’s in safe hands. I will return it to you when you’re ready.”

She lunged out around her, trying to attack the source of speaking, but Adrian only struck air amidst her blindness. “Where are you, demon?”

“Demon? I think you have the wrong person, Adrian.”

She froze.

“Yes, I know who you are. You’ve been rather busy. Impressive work, truly. I daresay there’s not a hand faster with a gun in the whole world.”

Again, Adrian flailed towards the sound but found nothing.

The old voice sighed. “We might get somewhere if you just sat quietly for a second or two and listened. How is your sight?”

The world around her became clearer. Adrian could see cacti and violet flowers resting atop beds of rock and gravel. Sagebrush dotted surreal white sand that formed a small coastline against a deep blue body of water.

“Now, if you would keep looking in your current direction, I need to-“

Adrian turned her head around and faced him; the old man.

The old man stroked his beard, but his eyes betrayed immense surprise. “Well, that’s unexpected.”

The woman in black charged him, but he dodged her reach. He weaved and ducked like he was formless, like water.

Adrian stopped, and gave up. “You don’t move like an old man.”

“That is because I’m not an old man. I am, however, old.” He chuckled. “And you, you are a strange one, Adrian, a strange one indeed.”

“Interesting choice of words, coming from you.”

The old man boomed with laughter. “Oh, so very true. I’m something of a puzzle, I must admit. Not, however, as much of a puzzle as you are.”

Adrian tilted her head curiously. “What do you mean?”

“For starters, you’re the first person to look at me straight on.”

“Is it unusual for people to look at you?”

“The ones who did burst into flame and died quite painfully.”

Adrian looked at her hands, her arms, her body.

“As you can see, you are not burning alive. Amazing, isn’t it? I’m astounded, and certainly confused.”

“You’re not the only one.”

“No, I suspected as much. I’d like to also add that your head hasn’t exploded from the sound of my voice.”

“Who are you?”

“Ahh, now that is the question, isn’t it?” The old man ambled over to the water with his walking stick. “You may call me, the Watcher.” He reached down to scoop up some water with his hand, and drank it. “From my title, I’m of no doubt that your superior intellect can grasp that I, well, I watch. I watch from up close, I watch from afar, I watch at medium distances and simply observe as things move and build and get destroyed. The more important question would be-“

“Why do you watch?”

He beamed happily. “I am fond of you, Adrian, I really am. There are few I can speak to like this. In fact, you are the only one.”

“Where is my gun?”

The Watcher frowned. “In a hurry to kill? I told you, Adrian. In time you will be given what is yours. When you are ready, that is.”

“And when will I be ready?”

“When you decide you are.”

“I’m ready.”

“Unfortunately, being ready does not work in such a fashion. You cannot make it happen, it just happens and thus it is so.”

Adrian took in her surroundings again. There was an odd sense of serenity and silence. No wind. Just stillness, like the waters the Watcher had drank from. “You talk funny.”

“For a straight shooter like you, I suppose I do. But, I have my own questions. Who are you, Adrian?”

“I’m… Adrian. I live in a church, and I-“

“No.” The Watcher said. “Who are you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Neither do I. You are not of me, and you are not of him of the darkness.”

“Sorry?”

“Excuse me, just the mad ramblings of an old man.”

“But you’re not a man.”

“Quite true. And neither are you, I believe. Not human.”

She looked at her reflection in the water. “If I’m not human, then how do you explain my appearance?”

“Similar to a demon, is it not?”

Adrian glared at the Watcher. “How do you know about the demons?”

“I know many things. Especially what you see with that eye of yours.”

She forgot about her eye. Normally, Adrian could feel its cold burn inside of her head. But here, in this strange place, she felt nothing. Adrian reached out to touch that side of her face.

“Doesn’t burn anymore, does it?”

“How did you do that?”

“I know a thing or two about objects such as that one. A truth-seeing eye as the old world mage’s called it, an eye of God. There aren’t many left. That’s indeed a rare gift you have. With it, you can detect magic, and a person’s presence of past, present, and future. You can even detect the true nature of a person. Like, for example, your demons.”

Adrian nodded. “It has helped me see the truth.”

“The truth? So I see, that’s what you believe you’ve been seeing.”

“It is what I have been seeing. The eye, unlike the Devil, does not lie.”

The Watcher wore a sad smile. “I can show you who you are.”

Adrian perked up.

“I can.”

She appeared hesitant, focusing on him intently.

“What does your eye tell you?”

Adrian studied him but found no swirling darkness, no whirlwind of hatred, no demonic appearance. There was warmth, but she explored it no further because she sensed the reservoir went deeper than she could fathom. “You are what you seem to be.”

“Because I am. I am. I am what I am.”

“Show me.”

The Watcher reached out with an open hand, and then guided it over the water. “You must walk in.”

She looked out at the impenetrable depths with trepidation.

“I cannot make you do it. It must be your own choice.”

Adrian waited no longer. She walked towards the deep dark pool and waded in. One step, and then the next; her dark cloak steadily became soaked. Forward into the still waters, she sank, and sank, and when her head submerged beneath the waters’ ceiling she found that she was completely dry.

She was walking through a nearby canyon, a road often travelled by the townspeople of God’s Truth. It was here that Adrian found she had no control of her body. The sensation of powerlessness overwhelmed her with fear.

A distant, unseen touch kept her warm. It shielded her from her own terror, and Adrian stayed true to the path. She recognized this day, this night. A cold sliver of moonlight shone on the trail, a trail where a loving husband and a loving wife walked each night in an act of marital bliss and ritual.

Adrian stepped in front of their path, and pulled out her gun. She couldn’t remember the Watcher having given it back, but this wasn’t the present, it was the past. Her heart knew what came next, knew what the training the Father had given her in preparation for this moment. Her first hunt, her first kill, her first demons.

She remembered what came next. The hideous roars of disgusting creatures of the Hell plain.

But, what she remembered, did not happen.

Husband and wife screamed in terror. They begged for mercy. They begged for their lives. She cried tears of genuine fear, and Adrian felt a shiver run through her spine. The husband comforted his wife. It was him that Adrian shot first, his blood splattering onto the moon-blanketed dirt. He gasped for breath, but his body soon went cold with death.

The wife shrieked. She tried to shake her husband back to life. She screamed out his name. She screamed at Adrian. Only silence, and the burning glow of her black eye responded.

Adrian made the screaming stop.

The woman in black felt herself trembling as her uncontrolled body moved to the rhythm of something not her own. She disappeared into the darkness, and re-appeared in the light of day by the home of the Marshall.

No, she tried to say but the words did not come. Instead, she relived the scene of investigating the Marshall’s home and the strange books he had been reading. The Marshall was following a lead, and that lead ended with a bullet to his head.

Before Adrian shot him, she remembered the Marshall’s caring face looking down at her with concern as he lifted her from the winter snow. He had braved the sharp winds for her, and delivered her to the church. The Marshall was always there, helping her, teaching her, and watching over her. He saved her from rough strangers, and saved her from herself one odd night where Adrian had overpowered two men and nearly killed them.

The Marshall always had been there, and his life was taken by the same gun he had gifted her.

No! The words would not come out still.

A mother’s voice, and children’s laughter burned her ears with shame. Laughter transformed into shrieks, and then changed into bloody silence and cold chill.

Adrian could still hear their innocent screams. The shrieking would not end, but soon she realized it wasn’t them; it was her. She had returned to the white sands, her fists slamming into the dirt with desperate fury. Sorrow consumed her heart and she could feel it ache everywhere on her body.

“And at last, you see.” The Watcher said.

She looked at him, tears fresh on her face. “I killed them.”

“Yes.”

“They weren’t demons.”

“No, they were not.”

She wanted to believe the Watcher had shown her a lie, but Adrian sensed no deception. Adrian wished he were full of lies, for the truth stabbed into her like a shard of ice. And with one shard, came another. Wrath seeped into her vision, but it was her wrath just like the new feelings of regret had been her own. “The Father.” Adrian said.

“It would seem that your eye has been tampered with. Changed fundamentally by dark magic.”

Adrian stood up. She looked down at the pool, at her reflection. The woman in black grabbed her black eye and ripped it from the socket, sending a spray of blood out into the waters. She did not scream from pain, but Adrian did crush the eye inside of her unusually strong grip. Adrian scattered the black and gold dust of its remnants to the sand, watching the faint wisp of shadow fade from existence.

She walked past the Watcher, and kept on walking.

“Where are you going?”

Adrian found her revolver on a rock bed and picked it up. She continued forward.

The Watcher smiled. “You are ready.”

---

Adrian returned, traveling upon a starlit road with a trail of blood following willfully behind her. Despite the summer season, an unusual formation of clouds began to darken the sky, and snow fell. The familiar cold of home whipped against her flesh, but she welcomed the bite.

She wandered the path on which she killed the husband and wife, remembering, watching, and listening to past death returning on the wind to haunt her; a haunting tune of ghosts in the breeze.

She visited the Marshall’s burnt home, his ashy grave. “Forgive me, Marshall.” Adrian whispered, standing witness to the destruction she wrought with her own hands. Her hand found a piece of charred wood, and she rubbed it lightly with her fingers. Adrian tossed the wood back to the rubble.

Three graves Adrian dug. Dug out behind the home of innocence. She sobbed quietly when she scrubbed the blood from the floorboards, and then dutifully placed the mother and her two daughters beneath the earth. She hummed and then sang a song of prayer, lifting their spirits from her bracelet, guiding their glowing souls to heaven just as she had done for the others murdered by her hand.

The bracelet was dead and gray, unstained by cruelty. She destroyed the evil thing and scattered its remnants to the fallen snow. Her finger brushed the grip of her revolver, idly pondering the truths of evil, the truths of God, the truths of redemption and decisions. A bullet could kill, a bullet could torture, and a bullet could solve violent discussion with a single shot. She used the gun for her answers, but Adrian never wondered whether unseen strings could manipulate her hand.

Adrian splintered the church doors open with tremendous force, sending wood fragments scattering against the floor. The darkness of the holy place greeted her with a lack of feeling. She was careful, stepping into the shadows, her eyes looking for any movements.

The Sister roared out from nowhere, and charged Adrian with a knife. She was quick. Adrian proved to be swifter, sending the nun’s brains splattering against the pews. Her body steamed where the silver bullet entered, and then caught fire. The flames ate away at the Sister until she was reduced to nothing more than blackened dust.

“Now, was that necessary?” The Father’s voice.

He sounded different to her now. The warmth of the church had vanished, and there was just nothingness, the void, and the absence of all feeling except hatred.

“Come out, you fucking coward.” Adrian growled.

“You think I’m hiding? How insulting.” From somewhere, he snapped his fingers. Candles burned with black fire, and the interior of the church glowed dully. The Father’s figure in black robes became apparent, silhouetted on the altar. “I would never fear you, Adrian. You are no more than a puppet. A puppet that has outlived its usefulness, unfortunately.”

“You’re a demon.”

“Yes, I’m happy you’ve finally figured it out. Brilliant of you, truly. It only took six deaths for you to figure that out.”

“I’ve destroyed-“

“The bracelet, I know. The eye as well, I assume. It is no matter, I will start over with six new souls” He sighed. “I really wish you would have worked out better. You were so good at listening, too!”

Adrian raised her revolver.

“Come now, do you really think that will work? Perhaps on a lesser beast like her.” The Father nodded to the Sister. “Human weapons are useless against me.”

“I’m not human.”

“I’ve decided that you are. Probably mage-borne, that’s how you could survive that trek in the snow with your eye cut out. Silly girl, you thought you were special all these years with what I’ve told you. Magic has guarded you, I have guarded you, but it and I will no longer.”

Adrian emptied the rest of her bullets in successive flashes. Each found their mark.

The Father theatrically staggered backwards. “You’ve shot me. You have killed me, Adrian. Why? Why? Why?” He laughed manically, showing his hideous teeth. Bright white, his charming smile turned demented with murderous intent. They turned gray with death, and his gums were infested with worms and snakes. His human flesh shed off him like a serpent, revealing a four-legged horror with a blood-dripping, skinless face. Broken fangs gnashed hungrily, starving for the taste of a human’s blood.

Frozen with terror, Adrian took a slow step backwards.

The Father let out a blood-curdling cry. “Too late to run!” And he cackled, charging at her with inhuman speed.

Adrian attempted to re-load her revolver, but he was on her too quickly. An overwhelming kick lifted her from the ground and sent her smashing into several rows of pews. The wood broke from her fall, and splinters gashed deeply into her skin. She suspected one of her ribs was broken, but already felt the healing process mend her bone. Adrian gasped for breath, and stood up. Her moment of reprieve was short lived. Demonic claws choked her neck, and lifted her several feet off the ground. The Father hurled her across the church, and her back hammered into the altar.

A normal person would have died from the severing of their spine caused by the force of impact. Adrian did not. She frantically searched for her revolver and saw it lying on the floor near the shattered pews. The Father came for her, and she reacted with a quick roll across the floor, going through his legs where he could not reach. Adrian bolted from the floor and dived towards her gun, retrieving it.

But, just as she snatched the grip, the Father crushed her stomach with another devastating blow that sent her sprawling and vomiting on the ground. She retched dryly when there was nothing left.

The Father laughed his inhuman laugh. “You’ve lasted longer than I thought. A powerful mage’s blood resides in your veins.” He sounded pleased, enjoying the fact he had someone he could toy with, that he had food to play with.

Adrian re-filled the cylinder with bullets, and turned to fire. She was too late. The Father grabbed her, and rammed her through the row of pews until he slammed her against the wall near the altar. Her revolver remained gripped between her fingers, but Adrian wasn’t able to take a shot.

The Father leaned his face close to hers. He hissed with laughter, and his serpentine tongue lapped over her face. “You taste delicious. I can smell your fear, can sense the blood inside of you.” It was almost like he was moaning with pleasure as he spoke. Maggots fell from his maw, landing on her neck. “This is the end, Adrian. You will see truth, at last.” He changed his voice to the gentle priestly tone she’d always remember. “The truth is end, the truth is Hell shall come to the earth, and you will be nothing more than food never knowing who you are, or where you came from. But my favorite is, I will truly enjoy your final screams.”

Adrian glared back at the Father. “There are only six things I trust.” She squirmed in his grasp, and in final desperation, dove her face to his arm and bit down into the deathly flesh. Blackened blood sprayed where Adrian tore away skin, and the Father relinquished his hold just enough. She reached out with her revolver and clubbed the side of his head. There was enough room to fire, and she emptied six shots into his face.

He roared in pain, feeling the burn of silver scalding inside of him. His claws released her, and Adrian rolled away from him to create distance.

The taste of his blood was intriguing to her tongue. She felt something inside of her, something that was always there. Adrian didn't know what it was, but the thing that was her did not ask her to know the answers.

The beast unleashed his fury. “Mercy is over!”

“Come and get me, you ugly cunt.”

The Father charged, and he stretched out the razor-like claws from his hand for a death blow.

Adrian raised her hand and caught the blade-like claws into her flesh. She did not flinch. The woman in black’s eyes glazed dark as midnight, and crushed the demon’s bones with her sudden grip.

The Father howled in stunned pain. “What are you?”

She laughed with an inhuman rage. The black fire of the candles blazed higher, catching curtains and wood, spreading flame throughout the church.

Their silhouetted shadows painted the wall of the church, and Adrian’s form changed. Her altered tone rose to a bestial growl. Adrian's bones snapped and her flesh broke.

Outside of the chapel, the Watcher watched. And, in this case, the Watcher listened. He listened to the Father’s harrowing shrieks and the splattering of blood.

Adrian tore the Father apart.

She did not know what she was, but she would find out. Not of darkness, not of light, but she would find out. Despite the begging screams, she didn’t answer with mercy; only blood. There was a time where she believed she knew what truth was. She would have to discover her own, and Adrian did not know whether the gun provided truth, or the one that carries it. But, the first reality she discovered was that of pain.

The Father’s screams were true.

First Scene

The plains were glorious, filled with heather and wildflowers. A storm broke off the northern range of mountains and huge clouds spread out like a multitude of balls of cotton floating through the blue-grey sky. Sunlight fell from the white speck that peered over the cotton clouds, and in a single moment, the plains were enshadowed in a bleak grey light. The loch glimmered darkly and whitecaps began to form with a stiff breeze throwing aloft a mix o’ petals and loose grass and leaves. The plains were glorious and in their glory lay a wicked cruelty that touched everything that lived there.

On the hill above the loch stood a tiny shack made of thatch and water-worn logs. The shack had seen better days, with its long-shorn door and aged cobbles scattered thoughtlessly. The tiny trail, once flowered and weeded, and kept clean with care and patience, had long since fallen into disrepair, as Lachlan walked along it. Lachlan, boy that he was, took pride in his ability to explore and discover new places. This was an old place, and the path was not only rugged from time, but also from the regular passing of a set of smaller than normal feet. With eyes like sunbursts and a shock o’ black hair, Lachlan typified the average Scottish youth in more ways than one. He had bruised knuckles, and a set of scars that made your average sailor’s brows jump in approval. Lachlan, small though he was, had beaten a fair score o’ boys, all bigger than himself. Well, all except for Danny, but Danny had had it coming.

The dirt crunched under his soles, and Lachlan sniffed at the air. A scent of summer wafted through the garden path and filled his lungs with joy. Scrambling up the final few steps, Lachlan came upon the shack itself. Creaking like a mother’s bones, Lachlan giggled. His thoughts would get him whipped sure as shite if he spoke them aloud, but despite his predisposition for a scrap or two, the boy’d been whipped naught but once or twice. The boards were mouldy, and a heavier tread might’ve broken the planks clean in half. As it were, Lachlan’s steps only slightly bent the boards and he passed through the empty archway of the door quick as can be. He entered a gray space, full of dust and cobs, but the better spread of the room was filled with old furniture rotten and ruinous. Here, a table half collapsed with stains of brown and black on the legs, there, a garderobe covered in long scratches and full of dents in odd places. The only clean thing in the room was a sort of box that seemed to Lachlan to be the centrepiece of the whole affair.

‘Twas a box made o’ finest silver, and corrugated gold inlaid in swirled patterns all along the edges. The thing spoke o’ a time when this fine little shack might’ve been a lord’s castle, or even some kind of dragon’s lair. Lachlan knew not how the box came to be there, only that he loved it with the curiosity o’ a boy whose main pastime involved shovelling cow pies. A terrible business that, full of piss, and shat! Lachlan giggled again, and shook himself. He’d ought to pay attention. Maybe this would be the time that worked. He squared himself in the usual manner, took a fair deep breath, and tried to open the box. Lachlan scrunched up his eyes, twisted his arms this way and that, and stamped his foot something fierce. The box was about the boy’s size, and it weren’t for lack of trying that the boy strained his little heart out. To no avail, the box had as in all the many moons since passed, failed to yield any fruit. Lachlan turned and started out of the room, deciding to take a shortcut home. The rabbits might be out, and he could–

Click.

Lachlan turned round in a flash, and saw that the tiniest little space had opened where the seams along the box could be seen. Tripping over himself, the boy ran to the box and threw it open in a flash. The box seemed terrible deep, and inside its yawning depths, lay something. It was a long way down, and the room was dark enough already, but Lachlan figured that it might be worth his trouble to cast around and–

Aha! A ladder, not as rotten as some o’ the other articles in the shack. The boy hefted the thing and twisted around, knocking a few holes in the wall in the process. He angled the ladder true, and it slid smoothly down to the bottom o’ the box. The top o’ the ladder just barely stuck out and the top rung of it was a half a metre down below the lip of the box. Lachlan put to task an old footstool and climbed atop the box. He got down the ladder in no time, and saw that the box was far deeper than it had initially appeared. The ladder had, by a stroke of luck perhaps, landed on the edge o’ a ledge that held the object he had spotted. The object in question, which, upon closer inspection was quite alien indeed. Lachlan turned the thing over in his hands, shaped vaguely like a silver pound. No face o’ any damnable King marred this silvery lump however, and Lachlan saw in fact rather that a kind of word was embossed on the thing. Lachlan had heard about readin’ and writin’ but he’d never done any. Even if he had, he wouldn’t have been able to decipher this embossed word o’ sorts. The best I can do is describe it to you, like so, S-A-M-S-U-N-G. Careful as a fox, Lachlan took the thing in both hands and opened it up gingerly. Just as he were starting to get a good look inside the box however, there was an ear-splittingly loud ringing. It filled his ears, and made his jaw shake, and it certainly scared the devil outta him. He near dropped the damn thing, and then it rang again! Lachlan scrambled to control hisself afore he did something stupid.

O’course, the boy did something terribly stupid. In a fit of panic and desire not to fall into the yawning abyss, Lachlan stepped back on the ledge, and for those o’ you who know what ladders are like… Well, suffice it to say that this was a fair small ledge. The boy pressed the ladder up against the wall and the thing toppled over in a hurry. Lachlan squealed a tad too girlishly for his own good, and hadn’t even the slightest thought of making a grab for it, which is lucky for him. If he had, he might’ve died. The whole situation might even have been resolved fairly easily, had the boy not decided it fair clever to use the box to prop up the lid o’ this shiny silver and gold box.

Thoom.

The lid o’ the box came shut with a vast loud noise, and darkness plunged in around Lachlan. He was alone, terrified, and scared afierce. There weren’t no way of fighting out of this mess, he thought to hisself. And the cavernous space before him seemed to yawn forth, swallowing him up.

Second Scene

Imagine a canvas painted black, and then put out on a cloudy night, stuck in a coffin, buried six feet under, in a valley ‘neath a volcano eruptin’, spewin’ ash and darkness into the sky. The inside o’ this box was darker than that. Lachlan shook and near wet himself afore his senses gripped him proper. The boy had a sense, and though that sense was shook, it took him all o’ two minutes to figure out that the lump of bendin’ ringin’ silver in his hands had some sort o’ light in it. He shone the thing round and got a look at the walls, smooth and sleek. The only thing Lachlan had seen that were smoother than these walls was his own bare ass. To put it simply, there was no way this poor boy was gettin’ out by way o’ climbin’.

The ringin’ had stopped, and with it came the vast silence. Lachlan thought he could see things in the shadows, like Danny’s face weepin’ and bawlin’ cut up all bloody and bruised. Maybe, just maybe, Danny hadn’t had it comin’, Lachlan thought quietly. Maybe I’ve got it comin’, and this is where I’ve gotten to be because o’ it. He sat down on the ledge and held his arms close to himself, lump o’ silver clutched in betwixt his legs. Try as he might, Lachlan felt his eyes growin’ wet. He shuddered and let loose a river o’ tears fit to flood the loch. Unbearable afeared Lachlan was, and he cried his eyes out. There weren’t any echoes in the box, and it seemed that the looming depths snatched his weak cries from the air and snuffed them out cleanly.

Only when the lump o’ silver started its ringin’ again did Lachlan stop his cryin’ fit and he reexamined the lump with newfound interest. He held up the lump and saw that in a little square on the underside, a green branch or plant or some kind of hook were shakin’ and bouncin’. On the bottom end o’ the lump were a plethora of ridged bumps. Each bump had its own little embossed design, and Lachlan thought they all looked fairly interesting. Most of all was a bump that were colored green and lit up a faint little green light of its own. Some alien force drew him to that bump in particular and he pressed his thumb down on it, with a satisfying click. The ringin’ stopped. There was silence and Lachlan blinked, as the green branch on the underside had disappeared. In its place was some other strange writing he couldn’t hope to decipher. Although Lachlan had a good hard grip on the silver now, he near jumped off the ledge again at what happened next.

“Hello, is anybody there? It’s me, Lisa,” a voice spoke uncertainly, and Lachlan couldn’t help but reply.

“Are you inside this silver? You’ve gotta help me! I’m trapped inside this box, and I can’t get out!”

“Trapped? In the cellphone? What are you talking about?”

“I mean, I made my way up to the old shack by Loch Rannoch, and I found this box. It’s all silver an’ gold like, and so I tried to open it, but nothin’ happened. Until it did! And I climbed down, lost my ladder, and now I’m stuck!”

“Well sounds to me like you’ve gotten high on shrooms again Derek, so I guess I’ll have to call you back later. Goodb–”

“NO WAIT! I DESPERATELY NEED YOUR HELP!” Lachlan screamed, his voice bleedin’ desperation thicker and wetter than a slain cockerel. A long silence fell, and Lachlan clutched at the silver with hope rapidly fading into the distance. He heard a muffled voice, different sounding from the first, who had called herself Lisa. There was a commotion, some shouting, and Lachlan felt a shiver go down his spine, as he recalled stories he’d heard about spirits haunting places, or maybe he’d just gone loopy like old Mactavish had so long ago. His mam and da had always said Old Mactavish liked to wander too much, and Lachlan had laughed at them, dismissing their worries out of hand.

“Lachlan, it’s your aunt Ailith. I’ve been waiting for you to answer the call a long bloody time,” an old voice spoke, and Lachlan could only listen with the fear of God rooted deeply in his soul. His aunt Ailith had, after all, died just a few months past.

“Lachlan, listen to yer aunt, and listen ye well. Yer in what’s called an In-Between-Box, or what might rightly be called a Portal by our folk. There’s only one way yer gonna be able to escape that cold dark hell, and that’s…”

“What Aunt Ailith? What do I have to do?” Lachlan exclaimed, vision blurred from the tears.

“Yer gonna have to jump into the space below, yer gonna have to jump... into time itself.”

To Be Continued...

New crew of @darkwolf687, @JDolan, @Kangaroo, @shylarah, and @The Grey Dust. Major thanks to @mdk for spearheading RPGC for so long.

I think the single word sentence structure is overdone to an extent. That's not your fault, that's the fault of Young Adult novels for constantly doing this in a pseudo-dramatic attempt to heighten our senses of the dramatic. Unfairly to you, I've grown to hate this. For now, anyway, lol. I've used it in the past.

However, it does actually fit for this. I'm getting the sense that something horrible happened, and then, bam, we're dropped right into the world. In Medias Res is a lovely thing. No build-up, no boring world-revealing through nothing but blocks of exposition. Just, whooossshh and we're transported into this environment where all we have is questions.

Definitely got this limbo-vibe. Theo is stuck in the in-between. The bridge between the worldly and the heavenly. The characters all seemed to speak differently, with different attitudes/emotions. That's a plus. It's hard for writers to differentiate there characters so their conversations are interesting.

I think the singular problem with the story here is, what's Theo's motivation? We know he's lost and wants to find out what the hell is going on. That's cool. Thematically, however, it's difficult to figure out what's important here. He's lost. We're lost. Theo has this philosophical discussion with Jec about seeing it all but that doesn't feel like it pushes the narrative anywhere important, especially when it's close to the end!

I'm assuming the first two people were in a way, perhaps somewhat representational of people he knows outside of this limbo. The last voice hinted that Theo has been in some sort of accident on the outside. Coma, I'm guessing.

I dig the ending. Did he die? Did he not die? Who knows, but we do know this. You hit on the contest topic for sure. I love adventure, and you provided it in spades. This is a story I'd consider voting for because it kept my attention. My big beef is the direction. What did we gain, what did we lose? The stakes of the story didn't feel clearly set, so I found it difficult to find foothold within its arc.

Despite there being no rhythm or beat, I love a good story attached to a free verse poem. Did I also say I love the idea of the other side? The demonic, possession, the whispers from the other side. I adored how this started off so subtly and simply. Oh, just some crazy person talking to other things from the mirror. Oh hey, there's 28 of them. There's always this subtle essence of unease within this work and it builds itself up to a crescendo.

I'm not sure if I'd quite call it Lovecraftian, but there's an unseen horror element to it. Also, subtext. Shadows of the mirror. What do we see when we look into it? What do others see? Do we care about what others see, do we care what we see? There's an element of self-destruction and self-mutilation due to the constant seeking of the mirror. That may or may not have been what you intended, but I like to think that you did. Nevertheless, it's there.

Personally I feel there could have been some more imaginative language used. However, I could be wrong with regards to that because the air of simplicity shines so strongly. The terse language of it makes the unease feel even more real. Describing the voices too much may actually hinder our horror experience.

Good, even very good exploration of the dark side of our conscience. Also, I shouldn't say there's no rhythm, there's just enough rhyming notes that it keeps a smooth pace.

I've probably said your stories are cute, frequently. This was goddamned cute.

Seeing as I'm a gigantic fan of fantasy, and having played and read The Witcher: anything bards is extremely fun for me. And, this is no exception. The storyline is intriguing and original. You managed to keep it within the topic theme and maintained the fantasy flair.

So what we have here is a fun story with some excellent details. I like the telling of tales and the interaction of the bard with the listeners. Sometimes the dialogue felt a bit stunted or slanted. I feel, perhaps, the Liador should have been something that they didn't know about, and Mikhal should have described them within his story. The impact would have been stronger felt because as you had it, the description lacked in details, pacing, and the element of fear. Kinda just a quick piece of exposition, you know?

Loved the idea that Mikhal and Trevor share the memories, but no one else does. Hard to be an unsung hero.

The other flaw here is, perhaps the moral of the story. A small price to pay, as Trevor says. I wish we would have been able to explore the moral decision of killing a sorcerer whose heart is not fully corrupt yet, who hasn't committed a crime yet. That's a serious decision we're talking about here. Is one life worth the same as millions? Is there a greater good decision to be made, or can murder truly be justified in that way? I feel like we overly simplified it and moved on.

Alas, a fun tale it was. Good work.

Well, shit. That was some gross, disgusting, twisted stuff man. Damn.

First, the slow development from poetry to prose. Deftly handled, that's not easy to do. Two, the interaction between audience and author is intelligently written and a blast to read.

And then, we fall into the Morpheus project. All hell just broke loose. This I can certainly describe as Lovecraftian horror. Poe-like as well. Shattered Realities turns out to be an excellent title because what the hell are we supposed to wonder. Just a man writing a story at his computer? Just a figment of his mind? Is this an insane as hell dude who is still writing his story at his desk, or is he truly dead and chopped up into pieces to be sold off on the black market.

Maddening. Truly maddening. This was an excellent take, sharp and brimming with commentary on narrative and fiction. It's weird to imagine the numerous fantasy worlds, the masters of their worlds with the pen in their hands or the keyboard at their fingertips. Mitchell could just be some dude whose life is controlled by another writer.

You and me, could just be a person on a screen, coded by an Unseen One, ruling our lives.

This is dope. End my commentary.

You suck bro. Cool story, bro. Next time don't be a snooze fest and bring some tostitos and salsa to this fiesta. What's with these people shooting each other, man? Not cool, not cool. Peace and love, brother, we don't need any of this violence. Drop down a beat and let's wiggle wiggle wiggle like a twerk-down jiggle. I like turtles.

Okay, so since this is unfinished it's hard to really judge. However, this is the beginning of a really cool adventure story. Turn this into a novel one day and I might be tempted to buy it simply because the concept sounds rather enjoyable. You successfully got me interested to see where Danny goes on his journey to the other side of the in-between-box.

The bridge between scene one and two is handled well. That's what I would like to call everyone's attention to. If you're writin a novel, your goal is to get people to turn the page and turn from one chapter to the next. Chapter one ended with Danny falling into the box. Boom. We want to know more, so we have to check out chapter two. I can't repeat this or hammer this point more often -- that's how it is done.

Hard to get a read on Lachlan as a character. Obviously he's an adventurer, but we've spent a bare amount of time with him so the length is a flaw for the story at its current stage. You are onto something here, however. Continue writing. Even incomplete, I've considered this for a vote.

YOU STINK, LOSER.

I normally suck at commenting on poetry, but I'll try here. You know what the most unsettling part about this poem is, for me? It starts with "Have you ever..." It makes a connection to like you would understand, and then slowly, horrifyingly, everything falls apart and you are delved into madness and screams. Instead of just watching the horror from a distance, the poem reaches forward, grabs you, and delves the reading into it too.

You know, I've come to love reading your stories. They're all very original, often with lore, and lovingly crafted and, as Dark Wind said, cute. This story was no different. As for fitting in with the theme of the contest, this story definitely fits. The idea of going back in time to stop a calamity from happening and has interesting implications. Some stories, as you may have heard of before, often have the time travelers "disappear" as some paradox-correcting rule. But keeping the heroes alive was even more interesting. Only Mikhal and Trevor know the true ...reality? It happened,
though at the same time, for everyone else, never happened at all. And of course, no one would believe them. Still a very interesting and delightful story to read.

I am an idiot. I thought I had read your entry, and then I saw Dark Wind's review, and I was like... Morpheus project? Horror? What? And then I realized I hadn't seen the final hider. Whoops. So I re-read the entire thing.

Definitely... chilling. Weird, but in a good way. An original idea, and just... all around... unorthodox? It's written in a form that I've never encountered before, to start. The repetitions and progression are powerful. Hmm. Well done. There are a few typos and the writing was a little hard to follow at times (perhaps for my lack of scientific knowledge), but the overarching truths and themes remain. This reminded me, at least at first, of the Pendragon series, book four I think with the virtual reality simulator Lifelight. I read it a long time ago and I think there was a nightmarish element in the book, but you took a whole different sick approach. Bravo.

Well, I don't know about you, but Supernatural Western is not a genre I've ever seen before. You definitely wrote an interesting story within an already interesting genre. To me though, the only "Western" parts about it were Adrian's boots and spurs, some dialect, and the American Southwest paradoxical desert-next-to-snowy-mountains terrain you described, so I honestly think this could have been set in any small town. But okay, that was a huge nitpick and just a thought of mine. The story itself is spun nicely and well-organized and of course, with latent themes woven within. As for the "reality" bit, for me, Adrian's true nature is what I think is called into question. Destiny wasn't as big as a factor for me. I don't know why, I mean, you know me. Why bother commenting or arguing on something which we cannot prove or disprove? Alas, I really liked your story. You're certainly getting good at this whole storytelling thing.

My favorite part about this was the dialect, and the fact that the narration was written in that dialect as well. It gave everything a singsongy Scottish charm. While unfinished,
I see some interesting potential with the story, especially with interlocking realities and intersecting timelines. If this is a book/novel you're working on aside, I say keep going! So far it seems quite intriguing.

Good narrative all around. Certainly a limbo-esque feel to things which fits the theme to an extent. However, I feel there is something lacking. Perhaps it is the style here where we are just as lost as Theo is, but I think there's something more than that. There is no emotional connection per say to the character here for me as a reader, that is to say, I find myself like Jec, suddenly meeting Theo for the first time. As such, for being the central character in the story, The lack of emotional investment makes the ending to this piece flat.

I feel if the writer had given me more about Theo, perhaps something in the scenery to trigger some reaction from the character outside of "I'm lost, where am I, can you help me?" might reveal a more rounded character. There is a feeling that we are supposed to get that from the three entities he encountered, but perhaps it isn't deep enough. There nothing gained from it, because there was no reason for us to connect to it. In short, while there are beautiful crystals all around, describing the settings vividly to pull the readers into the fantasy world, The story doesn't seem to provide a treasure to take away for the reader at the end of it all.

And from one writer to another, that is my critique.

Now I may be a stickler for poetry, but I had to read this poem five times to make sure I can review it proper. Now as for thematically appropriate, yes it works, it does fit the theme of Reality by exploring the fabled "mirror world." The narrative works in a way, slowly progressing towards the insanity, step by step until the end. We are invited by the narrator to consider something, but not until the end is the narrator actually revealed to be truly deeply mad. Of which is a nice technique to build the layers of the narrative. Its good, and foreseeable, but leaves you with a satisfaction of knowing that the little voice in the back of your head saying this narrator is crazy was right.

Now for the technical aspects of the poem, where I must dock a few points here, is that some of the lines feel forced and arrhythmic. Yes, it is a free verse poem, and yet you added inconsistent rhyme to your meterless stanzas. I'd say that's bit of a sin. If the rhymes were intended to exist, then it does lend a pseudo-beat to your verses, naturally wanting to make those end lines rhyme with the nearest slant/true rhyme. However, that structure fails in the second half of the poem and gets lost, which ether is a brilliant move on your part as a writer to imply the poem itself unravels like the narrator's mind, only to be picked back up on the other side of mirror to an extent. Or alternatively, a writer giving up on the rhyming idea all together and making incidental rhymes.

My one qualm is saying the mirror read 13:30. Now, I may be wrong here, but it certainly feels like a "forced" rhyme here, with 'dirty'. Why? well because if you think about it, there are 2 sorts of clocks you can have to cast a reflection on a mirror. There's an analog clock, with hands that would be positioned at hour 1 and minute 30, unmistakably so. Or, since you wrote out 13:30 numerically, I thought of a digital clock. So 13:30 in the mirror would actually read OE:EI or something of that nature. There is a sense to me at least that the immersion is broken here, see it pulls us in to consider the opposites in the mirror, yet the one constant is the Time which just seems to break that beautiful duality within the very same stanza. If you had reversed it, I think it would have been much more powerful in lieu of using 13:30 as a part of a rhyme for dirty.

And from one writer to another, that is my critique.

A good story within a story. Fits the theme of reality, by rewriting it. But glossed over in a sense which left me wanting as a reader. You've done a great job at setting things up, and it feels as though there is a lore outside this one little bit the reader either ought to know, or is implied should know, or is revealed by the interactions. So the bard is both character and narrator to it all, guiding both the audience in the story, as well as the actual audience of readers with the world the bard has created.

Although admitted, I saw that ending coming about a mile away. There is a bit of a deus ex with time travel, which is required to make it work, however this will open up another can of worms in arguing the linearity of time, grandfather paradoxes, alternate timelines and all sorts of metaphysics and theory. My main question is since the it was the warrior who went, and not the bard, why would both remember what happened? It suggests the same time line is continued within a given radius to allow two and only two people in all the world to remember their adventure, yet is one of them the same person, would they have ever met each other? Time travel is weird like that.

Anyways all in all a good story, but what I felt was lacking honesty the bard's performance. Yes, on one hand it is great he is recounting his personal tale as a fable. But on the other hand, shouldn't a bard be more descriptive? Shouldn't the amaze and wow his audience? Just saying flatly They ventured for X and found Y then did Z seems a bit off for a bard to do. Crucial points perhaps I would have like to seen expanded, what happened between X and Y. Or how did Z happen? "And Beowulf reigned as king for 20 years" sort of a jarring page turner, like we are investing ourselves into your story, but then suddenly we get an abridge version of how the Warrior and Bard adventured, it must have not been a very memorable adventure then.

And from one writer to another, that is my critique.

Well this was an awkward piece. Does it fit the theme of reality ? I'd say so. Stories within stories within possible stories within possible stories. The first parts seemed to be a rather interesting introduction to the main story first. However given what happened in the Morpheus project, it may very well be that the first few paragraphs are actually being written by the man who may or may not be dead.

There are multiple ways of interpreting the collection and that is left up to the reader to decide on what is exactly going on. And I can't quite say anything on this ambiguity. I did enjoy the commentary on the nature of reality, fiction, and story, but when it comes down to it, I have to create the story myself. Which gives this story a bit of bias in my opinion since it is as the author may have intended, a story which invites the reader to work with the writer in a story that breaks the 4th wall.

And from one writer to another, that is my critique.

A supernatural western told in six parts. One bullet for every chapter. The ending here I saw coming, but enjoyed it all the same. You've structured the foreshadowing very well it means. That or I'm really good at understanding plot devices. Either way, you've told me a tale of twisted fantasy which fits the theme of a warped reality. It works, there's closure, there's a poetic sense of justice and injustice. You've written the cult-vibe very well to portray the supernatural. I appreciate the allegory running through, I'm a sucker for thematics, imagery and allegory.

So I can offer very little in terms of commentary myself. Perhaps some formatting but it is dialogue heavy, but I did notice you weren't above compacting some of the spoken lines into a block of text, so perhaps I'd like to feel more than just a one-liner-one-liner call and response dialogue to ease the eyes from what otherwise was a good dip into a character's warped perception. My one remaining question is of course, why didn't Adrian look in a mirror?

And from one writer to another, that is my critique.

Well, let's get the mention of this piece being unfinished out of the way. Yes it is unfinished, but my point don't really count for anything anyways, at least not currently so why not give some impressions of what is written so far?

Well done on understanding emotional investment to a character. While it is hard to get a clear understand who or what or why Lachlan is Lachlan, but the charm of the written accents, a bit more about his history even the mention of his family and Danny, leave me wanting to know more. And perhaps because it is an unfinished piece, there is a promise to know more, although it doesn't come in what is presented thus far. Descriptively executed very well, although admittedly I did tire of the accent half-way through, but I got lazy with reading in an accent so that is on me rather than the writer.

A good start to something, but overall I'm not sure if I can consider a piece that is clearly unfinished to be equal to a piece that is finished. There is an unfairness about treating an unfinished piece as such, because there is a potential for more to be written, a promise of things to come, which we can look forward to one day in time. However, I have to draw the parallel between this piece and Latum which tells a similar narrative about a boy who finds himself in a strange place. And since I find there is a parallel between the stories, I'd say its unfair for me to consider an unfinished piece to be judged against finished pieces when including Latum. I hope you understand my rationale, but then again my points don't count for anything anyways so not much harm should be done here.

And from one writer to another, that is my critique.

There is not much for me to comment on here in terms of grammar or structure. What is present could have been easily overlooked as no spell check could have picked it up and even have been missed upon multiple rereadings, but for lack of anything else to focus on it shall be presented. That said: Excellent work. This entry is very nearly technically perfect.

Instead he found ahead of him a vast desert. The sky was an endless dark blue, not a trace of a cloud in sight. The sand shifted endlessly, no form it assumed lasting nolonger than a fleeting moment before a dry, desert gust swept it into another shape. The only thing that didn’t change were the few rocky plateaus that dotted the landscape randomly, but Theo knew even they would be weathered away to nothing with time.

Grammatically awkward due to repetition of a superfluous word. Easily fixed either by inserting the word 'for' before the second no, or else by replacing the word before after the second no with a comma.

There is also a continuity error in the beginning. Theo is described as running towards a pair of headlights as they came on ahead of him, but he then immediately drives in the same direction as he had been running without performing a turn. An eldritch feat of maneuvering.

Overall, while there is enough substance here to qualify as a story, and while there is a narrative that can be interpreted, it starts, leads, and goes exactly nowhere. There is a conflict, a mystery - what is Theo running from? Who is the woman? How come Theo does not remember things? Why does he keep transitioning from place to place whenever he seems to die? Who even is Theo? The narrative is good for setting up questions, and while it is not a bad thing for a narrative to leave a reader without answers yours expressly leaves us without even the possibility of answers for even the most basic of questions. For all the clear care and attention to detail you put into the story, there is a complete absence of anything meaningful at any juncture. The story is pretty on the surface, but ultimately one-dimensional and boring.

@vesuvius00 Since you were one of the only two posters who had the courage to include their name with their entry, I would like to give you the option of seeing my critique via private PM as opposed to be posted here publicly. Do let me know.

@WiseDragonGirl Since you were one of the only two posters who had the courage to include their name with their entry, I would like to give you the option of seeing my critique via private PM as opposed to be posted here publicly. Do let me know.

I see what you did there.

The most common error is a repetitive failure to capitalize letters at the beginning of sentences, which is curious given how clean the remainder of the text is. It cannot have been on purpose even when read in reverse, since even the the capitalization remains inconsistent. I am at a loss to think of how the rest of the entry can be so finely hewn despite the profundity of such an error.

The reversed order of reading seen herein is a well-performed classic, done neatly and tastefully enough so as not to be trite. The First and final line is, as was intended, of some faintly - if unimpressive - profound quality. However, as a continuity error, it is noted that the author deleted the first cheeky poem in its entirety, and so the only impetus to read the story in the order presented is because that happened to be the order you presented it in, requiring a direction of attention in the form of battering the reader about the head rather than trying to inspire a more natural, curious form of discovery.

Had the entry been one that invited a reversed reading on implication alone, that would have been profound - and markedly more so than the artificial kind of brilliance you have nailed in your glass case here like some kind of dead insect, with its tidy little label. I would recommend a better selection of muses - the fingers are surely spry enough, though they might develop a better familiarity with yonder shift key or mayhaps capslock.

Once again, a nearly pristine entry. I had to comb for these crumbs.

Adrian whispered a prayer and turned her revolver to the door when hooves had changed to footsteps.

Technically correct. Grammatically awkward. The arrangement here should be reversed, "When the hoovebeats had turned to footsteps Adrian turned her revolver to the door and whispered a prayer."

He grunted painfully down each wooden step from the force of impact, rolling in the dirt until he lied on his back with his badge glinting up at the woman’s face above him.

Lie here is improper since it implies an active verb, which it is not since it was not volitional. Proper usage would have been lay.

“The bracelet, I know. The eye as well, I assume. It is no matter, I will start over with six new souls==> <==” He sighed. “I really wish you would have worked out better. You were so good at listening, too!”

Forgot a period.

Like other entries in this contest, you have presented the readers with questions that have no answers. However, in this specific context, the answers not being part of the story either emphatically do not matter or else enhance the overall narrative. Why did The Father need six souls? Who knows, not (necessarily) important with him dead and the souls in Heaven. Who is the Watcher really and why did he intervene? We can make guesses, but given the events of the story there is a good chance we will be seeing more of him in a future segue of questionable ontological potential, and the same goes as to the truth of what precisely Adrian is.

If I have any criticism for this story, it would be that Adrian discovering the truth is entirely too straightforward, and is a discovery made alone. The reader themselves already has plenty of reason to strongly suspect the truth even without the benefit of hindsight, which is telling of the greatest lack in the story. We are not shown Adrian's life up until her first kills. We are not told the surely convincing manipulative efforts of The Father as he raised her. We are not shown how what she saw with the black eye was so convincing. The manner in which Adrian is glamoured, compelled to kill for The Father is one-dimensional. It gets the point of cross but has no deep nuance to it - which is to say, it cannot fool the attentive reader. If you intended for readers to know from the outset that is one thing, but if you had really wanted to go the extra mile and added a layer of extra shine to the story, perhaps what you could have done was write the narrative both so the readers could fully comprehend Adrian's warped point of view and think it reasonable, while littering it with subtle hints only properly revealed explicitly upon review.

If you had done that, I would have been impressed. As the story is, it is merely adequate.

I could not find anything.

I know who you are.

I must say though that, for all the build-up and the mystery of the In-Between-Box, I was actually more enticed by the story towards the beginning when it was all still describing the Loch and Lachlan to us. Your visual prose is stunningly, lovingly descriptive. Your portrayal of a young Scottish boy having a grand o' time exploring the Loch had both a profound charm to it while also investing us in the nature and character of the figure. Then you throw him into a featureless dark black room with a Samsung and a literal metaphysical cliffhanger out of nowhere to polarize the detail and quite frankly astonishing quality that proceeded it. I get that is part of the point of the present contest's theme, but it is nonetheless both disappointing and disheartening.