Brief Stories

Stories which are not explicitly serialized, even though they may be part of series. Unless otherwise noted it’s probably safe to read them in any order—but mind the tags!

Reincarnation Sickness

“Reincarnation Sickness”, as it’s known in popular culture, is actually two interrelated syndromes. From Lethe Toxicity comes the classic symptoms associated with difficulty forming new memories (forgetfulness, inability to form emotional bonds, difficulty learning new skills), while from the second and more controversial syndrome—so controversial, in fact, that its name is unsafe to write or speak—come symptoms related to the soul’s difficulties anchoring itself. Hallucinations, “wandering Ka” and “wandering Sa”, and the attraction of various metaphysical predators to the unprotected Sekhem.

Read on … ( ~1 Min.)

Vignettes from an End

The sun is dripping again, a cracked yolk running down the sky to pool along the crumbling horizon. Burning yellow mingles with chilly red clouds, and magenta steam bubbles up from the boiling ocean. It smells like burnt fish and salty rot, so I close my window and turn the air purifier up. Can’t risk getting vomit on the rug again.

I read on the news that this is normal. It’s part of a cycle. For the world to be renewed, first it must die, but only the parts that don’t matter. The unimportant parts. But the news said that I was in one of the important parts, a part that will become a seed to fill the new world with new life, so that’s probably okay.

Read on … ( ~5 Min.)

empire

Item 259

Warning: Under no condition may any warform be exposed to Item 259 or its byproducts. If deployed against Empire’s enemies, all measures must be taken to prevent their warforms from being exposed. Other contamination must be contained and excised per standard protocol.

Precautions: Remade, Veiled, and Burnt individuals appear immune to Item 259’s influence, as are all awoken bearers of Empire’s bloodline. All other individuals are susceptible. Exposure may be prevented by combined hazardous material and hazardous information precautions, and treated by immediate1 soulburn and sterilization.

Read on … ( ~2 Min.)

empire

empire

Empire’s shadows linger long after the last pyre has fallen to ash.

It is well known, to those of a certain disposition, that the ruins of the old watchtowers are attended still by the ghosts of the soldiers who gave their lives to the belief that a piece of land—a pile of rock—would protect their fellows from some distant enemy, uncaring of the internal foes that starved their supply lines and drained their spirits.

Read on … ( ~3 Min.)

Time Should Heal

Every night your restless dreams lead you back there again, and every night the wound is renewed. It’s been decades since your body walked in that hallowed place, the labyrinth carved and filled; decades since your skin felt the dripping heat and your stomach clenched at the smell of the dead saints and the stars wheeled above.

Time should heal wounds. The therapists certainly think so; they think you’re unhealthily obsessed, unwilling to let go, unwilling to let yourself grow beyond the memory. They blame you. They don’t understand. Each night the memory is made anew, each night you are once again the things which were done to you and the things which you did—the things you were made to do, they’d say. A small rephrasing. A lie.

Read on … ( ~2 Min.)

Dedicate Your Death To Me

“Dedicate your death to me,” the necromancer whispers. “Be mine to move and use, now and forever.”

She pauses to listen for an answer. Corpses don’t speak, of course, but she hears their answer in the slow flux of fungal rot and the chewing maggots, and so her army grows.

Thick, slimy marrow drips down from spongy calcium. The corpse is long past needing it, and the dirt is always hungry, and so it must be purged of life’s unnecessary remains.

Read on … ( ~2 Min.)