Chapters
This is a list of all chapters on this site, using the Chapters page template. You can add content above the list, but you don’t have to. Note that the Works parent menu item also links to this page but is invisible in the mobile menu thanks to the not-in-mobile-menu CSS class.
-
The machine womb was dying. Elpida saw it when she turned away from the door and the row of lockers — and away from Pira, who was plunging on alone into the depths of what could only be a Silico hive out in the deep green, the kind of structure that the best alienists in Telokopolis had only guessed at. Pira had also taken the only weapon: the lockers did not contain a second stun-baton, only several more grey jumpsuits. Elpida wished Pira good luck; a Silico construct wouldn’t flinch from a cattle…-
39.9 K • Ongoing
-
-
My stamina gave out long before we caught the Demon. I’d never been very fit. Scrawny legs, no real strength. Hadn’t gotten any serious exercise since childhood. Raine had insisted we not run. Hurrying along Sharrowford’s canted, hilly streets for over an hour was more than enough to drain what little reserves I had. I gave in on the corner of Harries Road, slowed and stumbled to a stop and doubled over with my hands on my thighs, sucking air through a raw throat. The ache in my diaphragm…-
95.8 K • Ongoing
-
-
The mitten saved me. Raine helped. The Dark Hand gripped my wrist, but simple screaming terror wrapped around my heart. No need for paralysing supernatural force to immobilise me. Here was an unspoken fear from the darkest nights of my ruined childhood: Wonderland reaching out to snatch me away. Bone-freezing cold soaked through the mitten and into my flesh. The Dark Hand pulled. Raine already had me, arms hooked under my shoulders from behind. She’d reacted first, faster even than the…
-
95.8 K • Ongoing
-
-
Thirty minutes. That was Raine’s estimate. Thirty minutes stuck in a room with two very angry people who hated each other for reasons I didn’t understand, waiting for Raine to return before either of them felt well enough for attempted murder. Thankfully, neither seemed inclined to get up yet. Twil had hunched tighter around her imaginary stomach wound, while Evelyn brooded, her eyes barely open and fixed on Twil with dark intensity. I did as I’d promised, positioned myself behind one of the…
-
95.8 K • Ongoing
-
-
Raine didn’t say a word. She didn’t need to. She stood up, the change in attitude evident in every shift of muscle and posture, instant and electric. She flexed her right hand, the one in the modified glove, curling and uncurling a fist. From anybody else it would have seemed empty showboating. A ridiculous, playground gesture. Except I’d seen Raine beat a monster to death once before, grinning and flushed and loving the violence. My mouth went dry and my heart hammered all the faster. A tiny,…
-
95.8 K • Ongoing
-
-
Ten minutes later, behind the locked door of the Medieval Metaphysics room, Evelyn provided a practical answer to ‘what is magic?’ Magic, in this quick and dirty example, started when she noticed the smear of Twil’s blood on her walking stick. She was still shaking, but her lips curled into that sharp, devious smile. “Evee?” She grunted in reply. That’s all I got. I was too busy crashing out on adrenaline. Raine would get here any minute. She’d had to skip straight out of a…
-
95.8 K • Ongoing
-
-
Between her prosthetic leg and her walking stick, Evelyn put me to shame. Our route took us along Bluebell Road, a twisty humpbacked residential street on the edge of the student quarter, which led up to the university drive. The name was deceptive, not a single bluebell in sight. Defeated looking trees lined the pavement, a half-finished attempt at re-greening. The blustery day plucked at my hair and the hem of Evelyn’s skirt. This was the first time I’d seen her walk any real distance and I was…
-
95.8 K • Ongoing
-
-
Two weeks and a day after the night which altered my life forever, I did a new and brave thing: I answered my front door at eleven in the morning. Might not seem like much, unless you’re used to seeing monsters around every corner. A month ago, I wouldn’t even have acknowledged the knock. That would risk opening the door to a leering skeletal face, or six hundred pounds of fur and blubber covered in mouths, or inviting a nightmare to spend days gibbering and whispering in the corner of my…
-
95.8 K • Ongoing
-
-
“We—” I croaked. “We should leave before I pass out.” I was trying very hard not to look at the twitching skeletal shapes descending from the ridge, creeping toward us through the mist. “Leave?” Evelyn’s voice shook. She took a deep breath and used the stone pillar at her back to pull herself up. She was unsteady on her feet, all her weight on her right leg. “Yes, you can do that, can’t you? You—” Thunder interrupted us. A rolling crash shook the ground, so deep and so…
-
95.8 K • Ongoing
-
-
Slipping was never the same twice. Once, when I was twelve years old, it gripped me as I stepped into the shower. A jerk and a twist and another world bloomed around me; I crept naked for hours through a rotting jungle beneath a throbbing black sun. My parents found me curled up under my bed, drooling and insensible. When I was a little older I went missing in the middle of school. Everyone recalled I’d been in biology class, but I never arrived at maths. I’d rounded a corner behind my classmates…
-
95.8 K • Ongoing
-
- Previous 1 2 3 … 5 Next
