Up and up the rough-hewn steps tramp the wormy feet of countless dark denizens. They move in silence through the earth’s bowels with a singular purpose. Stirred from restless sleep and unholy dreams. Stirred from aimless wriggling and horrid scavenging. Stirred by the voice of their beloved mother, vast and terrible. She bids them rise, and rise they do. None shall disobey their doting matriarch. And so, they rise the ancient steps and forgotten causeways. Passing through slimy tunnels filled with a fetid stew flowing from unseen waterways. Their steps faintly echo before being devoured by the yawning darkness of countless pits. Their hunched forms move through the dark with a seemingly awkward gait. Yet none of them stumble or…

The mountain was tall and malformed.  It jutted out of the earth as a singular monolith, unbothered and undisturbed in its growth from any other rock formations budding up against it and contorting its growth or shape.  For millions of years, it was left as a black sheep in the vastness, just barely far enough not to fall into the fold of the Appalachian Mountains that eclipsed its height and size.  Mount Ostium, as it was known to us outsiders who came to it for study, was a nexus of mystery and old urban legend all across southern Georgia, where it resided long before people had a name for where it lay.  In pre-colonial times, it had been the site…

Keira sits on her bed and stares vacantly at the opposing wall. She’s tired and she’d sell her soul to get a few winks in, if only for bad dreams. It’s Halloween night, but she’s not done much to mark the occasion. Just a drink and a chat with her mates. Non-costumed. Somewhere unbusy. Mature. Just a drink and a chat. Her phone buzzes. “Your Halloween memories”, it reads. A newish feature. She taps on the message and a selection of appropriately festive images of her life greet her. It’s typical fare. A selfie with mates. A spooky concert. An embarrassing picture of 9-year-old her trick-or-treating as a generic princess, sent to her by her mother. Thanks mum, she thinks.…

It was late at night, maybe 10:30 or so. I had gotten off work around ten, like always. I worked the evening shift at one of the libraries at my local college. It was a smaller one, maybe a few hundred square feet, but it was a popular place for students as it was meant for the medical school that brought many students to the university that made my home a college town. This meant it was open most of the day, including well into the night. My job was to watch the place, clean everything up, occasionally answer phone calls, and help students find books. It was about as dull as a job could get, but I was happy…

Ah, Ms. Smith, I presume! Welcome, welcome, please take a seat. You look stunning. What is that sweet aroma I smell, hmm? Lemon Glace? Vanilla Quartz? Oh…just soap, you say? Regardless, it suits you to a tee. We are overjoyed to have you here with us tonight. I believe we met over the, uh…job finders website, correct? Yes, yes, that site is a little…backstreet, compared to our establishment here, but alas, it is patrons without professions that we find we can cater to the most. I have what I understand to be your account here on the computer…KittenLover2004, correct? Wonderful. I see you are wearing the same shade of lipstick as in your profile picture! How exciting! Come now, there…

“You wanted to see us, Director Mason?” researcher Luna Valdez asked, her voice as composed as she could make it and her hands clasped politely behind her back, her seemingly ever-present security attaché Joseph Gromwell standing protectively at her side. Director Mason knew that if he ever put Luna in harm’s way, Joseph would be the one he’d be answering to. Oliver Mason had been running the Dreadfort Facility for as long as either Luna or Joseph could remember. He was supposedly over a hundred years old and served in World War Two, where he had allegedly killed a Nazi Warlock. Paranormal means of life extension were a well-known perk of the higher echelons of their organization, and Director Mason…

“I’m going blind,” I told my wife when we moved to our new gothic-style home in Griswold on a breezy day in early April. It was a wedding gift from my estranged father —a beautiful two-story structure with pointed arches, board-and-batten siding, large stained-glass windows, and a steep-pitched roof that gave the illusion of a medieval tower. Before my gradual onset of blindness, Samantha and I loved looking at homes from this era. Now, our beautiful new home was a blur, another milestone I couldn’t see. “I feel dizzy.” “You have contacts, silly,” Samantha said, lifting a small box from our SUV. “Of course you’re blind. You’d better sit down.  Hey…are you okay?” “You’re right. I need to sit down.”…

They were outcasts once, in the old days; The Silent Kings. That’s what all the old-timers heard from their old-timers, anyway. They were Sin Eaters. Mute Sin Eaters.  Mute from trauma, according to most. The three of them were brothers, orphaned together when they accidentally set their mother on fire. The legends don’t record the details of exactly how that went down, but the boys were so traumatized not just from witnessing their mother’s fiery demise, but also being the cause of it, that they never spoke again. No one spoke to them, either. They were pariahs after that. Accident or not, being responsible for the death of your own mother, especially in such a ghastly manner, will make people…

11:30 am. Dreary. Heartburn. Brain ache. Tired eyes giving way to a dull throbbing, but never drifting closed. We sat in silence around our monitors and typed, when suddenly, the office room silence was pierced by Lola’s break alarm. It blared its flat, electronic tone on repeat a few times until she stood up from her chair. “Which room would you like to visit today?” the hateable robot spoke, emerging from the ceiling. It was a black, spidery thing with a low-hanging body, capable of turning in any direction at will. With a short buzz, it flashed a kaleidoscope of Colour from its circular screen, brilliant blues mixing with vibrant greens and yellows. On and off they blinked, back and…

I – Summer On Vai I should have chosen speechlore, I thought as another gust of wind whipped snow under my hood. Folklore would have been an excellent choice as well. Perhaps mathematics, or meteorology. Only a few months ago, I had been more than content with my specialization. After several weeks in the frozen monotony of the Asundrian wilderness, however, even the history of Hishan arts struck me as far more appealing. My research intersected with a variety of disciplines, and Iluma Aator – the Serpentine Academy’s oldest and most prestigious house of learning – was renowned for its wealth of mentors in every field a scholar could ever want. I therefore found myself confronted with an almost impossible…