Sworded Tales

Shuffling feet were sanded smooth by the hot asphalt.  A windpipe whistled in the salt air, and caked teeth clacked against the insatiable hunger.  Movement again flashed ahead, hot and taunting.  A groan of need and the hunter turned, arm outstretched and drifting forward.

Then the prey was gone, vanished in a cataract world of barren wastes.  Gray everywhere, surrounding and smothering.  The flesh statue waited.  Snaking winds through the trees and a vague whisper thump pulled the grim visage around.  Murmurs in the distance, faint and far, cycled up.  Rotten feet plodded forward. Continue reading

We all have them.  Some perish with youth.  Others flourish lifelong.  Most are personal arch demons that wield no power over others we know.  For each of us though, these psychic scars carry the weight of the world.  Sometimes of other worlds too.

The basement of my youth was furnished but unfinished.  Poured cement walls and floor encased a cavernous space supported by three steel posts.  I spent a great deal of time within that stone lair, and each return to the house proper was a race for my life.

Twelve steps, finished with a railing.  Not even the kind you could see (or reach!) through.  I took them three and four at a time as I aged.  I would often hit them running and flip the light switches off mid-stride.  Then I would smack the stair switch off as I snaked through and closed the door with swift assuredness.  I attribute some of my athletic ability to the training on those stairs.  Whatever emerged into the darkness behind me helped to forge me into who I am.

I like the darkness today.  I have come to terms with it, on my terms.

The same cannot be said for shower drains.  I do not like standing on them.  I do not like touching them.  I can.  My adult self rationally destroys whatever menace lurks in the drain, waiting to burrow into my foot.  But the emotional attachment remains.  The outdoor shower we installed sits atop pervious concrete with a french drain beneath.  No actual drain.  Is it any wonder?

Fear is a potent organism that can carve out personalities along the paths of song or shadow.  Know your fears.  Understand them.  Even learn from them as you may.  The important bit is, don’t let them control you.  The path you choose is always yours.

So, what little fears still walk the corridors of your mind?

The dead rose and feasted on the living, but not until the spring.

Winter was a hell of a time for armageddon to come knocking in North America.  If the living dead planned their invasion this way, someone among their ranks needed to be released without severance.

There were a bundle of isolated incidents  in morgues and mortuaries, at accidents and funerals, but the uprising of the walking dead was quelled without much ado.  Modern culture had saturated the populace against zombie apocalypse so well, that no serious outbreaks occurred.  Hard to believe with a shit ton of imbeciles walking around, but one thing that everyone could seem to agree on was the best way to stop a zombie. Continue reading

I recently edited a scene from an old PBEM game in which I participated, Black Moon Rising, and I enjoyed the rereading of it so much, that I wanted to include it here.  My character, Rillo, you may recall from an earlier post.  The character of Dunrik and the scene itself were crafted by another player and the GM for the game, so the imagining is not all mine.  Enjoy the collaborative effort!

Shining Horror

Rillo and Dunrik are stationed outside the wooden door, one eye each upon the closed solid portals, the other upon the approaches to their quiet and shadowy enclave.  Silence has descended upon the pair of sentinels as they await their companion’s return. Continue reading

Life can change in an instant.  No one grasped that better than Lydia and Saul on New Year’s Eve.

The year had been filled with concussive waves of deliciousness.  One moment of karmic perfection after another had them dabbling in their dream realms.  There was that undercurrent of disbelief, true, of breath holding against the other shoe dropping, but they respected it.  When it came though — because it always does, doesn’t it? — it was the briefest of moments, the tiniest of actions, the most inconsequential of thoughts.  An instant that changed everything. Continue reading

The black trailer was a tomb.

We had walked by it hundreds of times.  Him on four legs, me on two.  Had passed by the matte black finish and the decaying tires, the spider crack windows and the rusted siege engine of a hitch, had drifted on by without sensing the hollow heart of it, without ever offering it a second glance.  Until today.

Today, in the crisp loins of winter, the tomb whispered to us. Continue reading

Disney World has officially jumped the shark.

I know, I know.  But it’s the most magical place on Earth!  Well, there are two sides to the arcane, and Disney has definitely started the spiraling descent into the dark side of magic.  What started as one man’s dream has turned into a nightmare for millions.

Pardon me while I rant. Continue reading

People are fucking animals.  Biologically.  Never forget that.

Civilized as many believe they are, the tenets of Maslow’s hierarchy run deep in the psyche.  Challenge the basic needs for survival, and the degeneration into savagery is often rapid and blinding. Continue reading

Throne

Seat of power, regal throne
How many have claimed you as their own?
Many have come, more have gone
Claiming to be kings, when in fact just pawns.

Can you show me the present fool
That treats you as little more than a tool
Not granting the honor you rightly deserve
Nor the legacy of heritage you preserve?

Show me where to find him, that I may plan
On how to provide you a true king of a man
To lead you to glory as in days of past
To relight the balefire and rebuild your kingdom at last. Continue reading

Day has come to the valley at last
Where darkness reigned long into the past.

The time has come for the chyldren to leave
To pay tribute to Sir Ross and allow time to grieve.

If we head for home with the sword in hand
What will become of this changing land?

Will the light remain to protect the village
Or will the roc fly again to devour and pillage? Continue reading