19 Results with the "Cosmic Horror" genre (Horror)
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Recommendation
Katalepsis
Nightmares and hallucinations have plagued Heather Morell all her life, relics of schizophrenia and childhood bereavement. Until she meets Raine and Evelyn, that is — self-proclaimed bodyguard and bad-tempered magician — and learns she’s not insane at all. The spirits and monsters she sees are all too real, the god-thing in her nightmares is teaching her how to surpass human limits, and her twin… -
Chapter
1.1 – mind; correlating
On the day I met Raine, the first thing I did was jerk awake in bed and vomit nightmares into my lap. That’s not quite accurate. If I could purge the nightmares like a bad meal then life would be a lot easier. No, I brought up bile and what little I’d managed to keep down over the last couple of days, then dry-heaved through the aftershocks, shaking and coated in cold sweat. The nightmares had lashed at me for two weeks; last night set a new record of unbroken pain. For a long moment I screwed my…-
95.8 K • Ongoing
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2.12 – providence or atoms
First, we retraced our steps. More accurately, Raine retraced our steps and led me in her wake. She left no question as to who was going first, back through the double-doors to the corridor of Not-Willow-House. A familiar transformation came over her – watchful, alert, tense. My hand felt clammy in hers, my heart in my throat. In the fake corridors she eased each set of doors open with the tip of her boot, waited for any nasty surprises to jump out at us before proceeding. The Medieval…-
95.8 K • Ongoing
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2.11 – providence or atoms
For the first couple of years after Wonderland, after my trip down the rabbit-hole, after losing my twin, after the doctors and the hospitals and the drugs and the dislocation, I did speak to spirits. Mostly I screamed at them to go away. Twelve-foot figures of dripping neon had stalked the nighttime hallways of Cygnet Children’s Hospital. Often they’d wander into my room, ghosting through the door and crawling up the walls and watching me in bed, too terrified to sleep. I’d scream and rave and…-
95.8 K • Ongoing
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2.10 – providence or atoms
If a team of expert psychologists drew up a list of the worst people from whom to seek stable emotional support, then after the obvious abusers and narcissists and sociopaths, I would rank pretty high on that list. Evelyn did not have anybody else in that study with her. She had me. I did what I could. My first instinct – were I capable of such courage – was to throw myself at her, hug her, tell her it was okay, whatever it was; Evelyn was my friend and she was in pain, and I felt it too. But I…-
95.8 K • Ongoing
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Chapter
2.9 – providence or atoms
Anticlimax is often far more challenging to accept than the release of action. All the best stories build up and up, then explode from sheer pressure. We expect our lives to work that way. For years I believed in my own special susceptibility to that lure, the temptation to see one’s life as a story, with myself cast in the role of the hounded, persecuted protagonist; paranoid schizophrenics slide down that slippery slope with such ease. But we all do it, contort ourselves into narratives, each of us…-
95.8 K • Ongoing
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2.8 – providence or atoms
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
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Chapter
2.7 – providence or atoms
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
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2.6 – providence or atoms
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
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Chapter
2.5 – providence or atoms
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
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