I welcome you to my hole in the wall, where I publish and share various problematic writings with adult themes, including kink. While there will be some one-shots, the bulk of these stories are set in an original world I began developing within and adjacent to Empty Spaces on Twitter circa 2022. If you traveled within those circles, you will either recognize a lot of my initial posts here or the themes within.
While I don't closely associate much with that circle anymore due to personal reasons and the passage of time, it was a grounding, healing time for me to reforge my connection to my creative spirit, and I hope to continue doing that here.
Below, you'll find disclaimers, taglists, and content warnings for this page. Thank you for reading.
DISCLAIMERS
1) I reserve the right to edit/add to this list whenever, so don't be afraid to check for new tags, especially as I write new material.
2) My stories are works of fantasy and many of them feature reprehensible individuals, acts, or political views that would be unethical in real life, and their presence here does not constitute support or approval. Remember, depiction is not endorsement.
GENERAL CONTENT THEMES AND WARNINGS
[puts on my best "Ask your doctor if eidolon is right for you" voice]
Identity and memory loss, sexual trauma, objectification, betrayal, cuckoldry and infidelity, relationship manipulation, desecration of religious ephemera, iconoclasm and blasphemy, mind control, corruption, identity alteration, personal abuse, parental abuse, body transformation, dubcon, abuse of authority, revenge, racism, revolutionary themes, violence against the marginalized, and cognitohazards okay I think that covers everything
META TAGS
#space is empty: meta tag for dolls/witches/angels/moths/etc. and other such Empty Spaces archetypes
#stare into the abyss: my art/writing/music tag (may separate these later)
#abyss looking back: personal thoughts tag
#from beyond the stars: reblog tag
#speaking in tongues: asks, submissions, and answers
STORY TAGS
#HYPERSIGIL: stories starring or featuring characters from HYPERSIGIL, including Dollface, The Grief Unit, and others
#from beyond the pale: stories starring or featuring my 'sona, eidolon
#one shot: stories without connection to any greater narrative
#beta release: unedited stories from prior to 2025
CHARACTER TAGS [will be updated frequently]
From Beyond The Pale
#eidolon
HYPERSIGIL - The Grief Unit
#Dollface
#Scold's Bridle
#Iron Maiden
#Ducking Stool
#Breaking Wheel
#Breast Ripper
#Shrew's Fiddle
That's what they told me when they cut off my wings. It's what they said as the knife and bone saw separated me from flight forever. They told me I had been tricked, that I had been a victim, that I had never been an angel. It hurt—there was no medication, no sedation, no mercies. They said it had to hurt because I had to learn: I am not an angel.
She's not an angel either. She's got long dark hair tied back and tucked away under her wide brimmed hat. The glow of her rosy cheeks is perfectly captured by the lens, transmitted through the radio waves and projected as a warm haze on the CRT TV in the corner of the room. She holds up an orange to the camera and smiles. "There's a reason the angels love it."
I'm transfixed. I shouldn't be—I'm not an angel. Orange juice shouldn't have the same power over me that it does over them. It shouldn't, but I know I'd do anything that she asked of me for just one sip of orange juice. It shouldn't because I'm not an angel and because she is just an actor playing a farmer in an advert.
"Hey. Miss." The customer's sharp voice breaks me out of my reverie. I'm not an angel, I work at a post office. No, I don't deliver messages, divine or mundane. I just work behind a cashier's desk.
"I'm sorry." I focus on reality. I look down at the package, the address is inside the province so that means local rates. When I look up to tell her I see that her eyes are focused slightly above my face.
I hate it when people see the halo. That was part of the deception they hadn't been able to get rid of, seeing as it was made all of light, so it stayed there, above my head, glowing. I hate it. I hate it for the same reason I don't drink orange juice anymore, for the same reason I choose not to notice the white egrets' migration or why I never read the news about the war—I am surrounded by constant reminders of what I am not.
It isn't even reminders of what I lost, because I can not have lost what I never really had. I am not an angel and I never was an angel. I was lied to. Neither my wings nor my halo were ever holy.
I tell her the price, she hands me the money, and then I stamp the package and put it into the sack beside my desk. It's a normal job for a normal person.
On the way home from work that evening I make a stop for groceries. It's another thing that normal people do and I do intend to buy normal things. The shop is on a quiet little street lined with bushes that, at this time of year, are covered in little white flowers. I only live a few doors down so the old man who runs it knows me well. He calls out a greeting as I walk in.
First thing I put in my basket is a jar of fermented vegetables: the kind that are just a little spicy and have that great savoury flavour, I mostly eat them over rice. Then two scoops of buckwheat into a paper bag. I keep things very routine when I'm shopping because otherwise I might be distracted by—
I'm staring into the transparent door of the refrigerator. Rows and rows of cartons of juice. There's an image on the front of this southern farmgirl with long black hair and rosy cheeks. She's holding an orange up to the light, looking at it with a satisfied smile. It's been the same painting for years, That actor in the advert—this is who she was trying to be.
I shouldn't buy orange juice. I definitely shouldn't be finding myself staring, open mouthed and transfixed, at it. It must have been the advert putting thoughts in my head. Angels feel compelled to drink orange juice, everyone knows this, it's how things work in the war, how we got them to fight on our side.
I'm not an angel though. I'm not staring because of a deep need that was written into my bones. I'm staring because I was convinced that I had a deep need written into my bones. I don't. I was never an angel, my heart was never pure, my halo was always an imitation.
"You good back there?" The shopkeeper's voice pulls me out of it and I turn to him. I want to ask him about orange juice. I want to ask for a glass. I want to get on my knees and beg for just one sip of that liquid meaning. I want the absolution, the certainty, I want everything that I had once believed was mine. I want him to make my life make sense again.
It hurt when they cut off my wings. That pain is what I think of as I bury those desires. I dig my nails into my palm. If I am not hurt I will not learn. "All good, thanks!"
I walk away from those fridges full of temptation and head towards the fruit. Even back when I believed I was an angel, peaches had always been my favourite fruit. Maybe that should have been a clue that I was being lied to. I pick three fruits from this crate of beautiful fresh Sichuanese peaches. I let myself lick my lips. I let my mind linger on the anticipation of eating one of them later. This is a fruit I am allowed to obsess over.
I hand the old man my basket and he goes through the items: two scoops of buckwheat, three peaches, a jar of fermented vegetables. As I'm paying he says "Are you sure you didn't want that orange juice?"
Why did he say that? Why did he have to say that? I think of the pain again. I let it burn in my mind. It takes all the effort in the world to say no but I manage it.
Outside, the warm summer air greets me. A mountain laughingthrush is singing. I'm shaking. Shopping isn't usually that difficult. I want to turn back. I want to go back inside to where that liquid treasure is waiting. My heart feels like it is going to explode under all the contradictions. I am not an angel. I need to get out of here.
I run home. The laughingthrushes watch me from the bushes. Their songs seem to ask me if I am alright.
Even after I make it home the day is not over. I live alone in a small two-room arrangement just down the street. It's very cramped, even just for the one of me, but out of my window I can see the Yan mountains silhouetted against the sky and I can hear the sounds of birdsong in the mornings. It's nice enough. It makes me happy.
After making myself a small meal and reading a chapter of this excruciating paperback my friend lent me, I start picking out what I'm going to wear for the evening. You see, it's Tuesday. For this one night a week, in this tiny town in the corner of Hebei, a guy from out west plays the most absurd underground disco trance fresh out of Turkestan and the only people who come—the only people willing to brave such raw and potent sounds—are the trannies: us, our people. It's the one night a week when we get to be who we are. It's the one night a week where the party is ours, when we're in control, where we can dance and the world and the war just don't exist.
I pick out this blue-grey skirt. It's wool but it's light enough for summer and for dancing. To go with that: a blouse, also in blue, but a much more vibrant hue. This one has short sleeves, not something I'd normally wear anywhere else but this is a place where we can be ourselves, a place where we don't have to hide anything.
Well, maybe there are some things I want to hide. As well as a scarf and a pair of shoes, I pick out my favourite stupid hat. It has floppy ears meant to look like those of a sheep. It's silly but I like it and maybe it distracts people from the halo. I can't hide the halo. I want it to just vanish. I don't want to be reminded of how I used to feel like my life had meaning and I don't want other people mistaking me for an angel.
Even as the sun is setting over the mountains, it hasn't really got cold. A few months from now all this will be snow, a few years from now we might all be dead, but tonight it is summer and tonight we will dance.
I get there at around nine. There's a few people I know. We chat about normal stuff: the weather, what our doctors told us, how much we hate our jobs, that sort of stuff. We don't talk about the war though, that's one of the rules. It's a good rule—not talking about the war means not talking about angels. It isn't long and the music begins and then so does the dancing. It's those raw and potent sounds we love. It's the good stuff.
I don't speak Kirgiz or Tajik or Russian or whatever this is, but it's during this song that sounds like a love song, that sounds like the singer is holding up her heart to the world, that I see her. I think the first thing that I noticed was her hair. It's long and black flows like a river down below her shoulders. If she tied it back I think she'd look a lot like that farm girl from the orange juice cartons. I think that's why I noticed her. She's wearing a top and matching long skirt in a deep purple and perched on her head is a cat ear headband. With my sheep ear hat I guess that makes us somewhat alike.
At first the whole thing is unspoken, it's just glances across the dance floor—the sounds of steppe and mountain are loud enough that talking wouldn't be all that productive at the moment—she looks at me and I look at her and like two heavenly bodies acting under each other's gravity we start to enter an orbit. She's got the right kind of hopping motion that the rest of us have adopted but you can tell that this isn't her normal scene: she hasn't quite mastered the step. Still though, she does it with such confidence you could imagine she's creating the next new dance craze for the transgender underground. I can't help but grin as I watch her. I can't help but fall into that orbit. She smiles back.
It doesn't take long before it is the two of us dancing together. There's little cues you can adopt that communicate the togetherness. It feels almost like an animalistic mating ritual saying this one's mine. It's the two of us. The whole world reduced down to that. I lead and she follows, that quickly becomes the ruling dynamic for the first song. It makes sense, for all her bluster I am the one with the experience, I've been here every Tuesday.
In the second song she unseats me. It's a brutal and decisive coup punctuated by her grabbing onto my arm and pulling me into her world. Skin touches skin for the first time and as she pulls me close she looks into my eyes and I see the words written into them: you're mine. She's good, she leads well. I let myself be caught up in it even as I'm planning my own regime change for the next song. She's beautiful and she dances well and she likes me and fuck, what else do you need? The night is already magical.
My putsch doesn't even get a chance though as when the song ends she gives a gesture in the direction of the bar and we're walking off the dance floor. She puts her arm around mine as we walk. It feels good. It all feels so goods. I feel like nothing could go wrong.
Something can go wrong though, and as soon as we step up to the bar and we're far enough from the dancefloor to hear each other, it does go wrong. "So, will you let me get you a glass of orange juice?"
I see it in my mind's eye—I see myself wrapped up in her arms, I see her holding the glass, I see the beautiful orange-yellow of the liquid inside and I see her raise it to my lips. I feel the cold of the glass. I feel her tip it to bring me a sip. I know how it would feel, I know exactly how it would feel and there is no thing in the fucking world that feels as good as that. I remember it, even if it was a lie, I remember how wonderful it felt. Those memories are still beautiful. The taste of orange juice is still sublime, even if it was a lie.
Lies can be beautiful. Lies can hold all the goodness and truth necessary to pull one through life right up until the moment they are revealed. In moments like this I don't hate that I was lied to, I hate that I ever learned it was a lie.
I shake my head. The memory of the pain sits next to the memory of the joy. "I'm not an angel. I'll have a beer though."
She doesn't seem to realise what I'm saying. She laughs. It isn't a pretty laugh despite how pretty her face is as she delivers it. "I can see your halo, silly. I know what angels are, I work with them in the— Down south." She doesn't mention the war, at least someone told her that rule.
"You've got it wrong." I try to show through my tone of voice that pushing here would upset me. She seems to notice this time. "A beer though? Or maybe you could let me buy you a beer—southern girl like you, flown far away from home."
She liked that. She blushed maybe? She's cute with her long dark hair and rosy cheeks. Reminds me of that girl from the TV advert, from the juice cartons. "Alright then. Some northern hospitality." Different accent to the actor though, both southern, but this girl's voice drips with Guizhou. That's not something you can hide, a bit like a halo.
We're not drunk. We've both had a couple of drinks but we did more dancing than we did drinking. She's really interesting. Doesn't talk much about her job but I get that—it's the war and it's angels. As we walk down to the lake I point out the owl calls that I recognise. She's into that. She tells me about the different birds they get down south.
When we get to the shore we spend some time skipping stones on the mirror surface of the water. The ripples send shockwaves that turn the perfect disk of the moon to wobbling white worms. We laugh and we hold hands and we look up at the stars. She doesn't see much of the stars down south, all the light pollution I guess.
"You ever go swimming in the lake?" she asks me.
I point to a place on the other side where a waterfall is perched on the steep bank. "We used to, over there at the waterfall when we were little. Water was probably a lot cleaner back then, back when everything was forever and we hadn't learned to worry yet."
"We should go there later." She talks like the world is still young. "Even if not to swim, I'd see a waterfall."
The two of us sit on the pebble beach. She leans back against me, nestles her head against my chest. I want to wrap my wings around her: she's in the perfect place for it. Even though they're long since gone, I can still feel them reaching out to envelop her. I wish they hadn't had to take them from me. I know I'm not meant to wish these things but...
And she'd know all of this, wouldn't she? She works with angels in the war. She put herself in this position because she knows that this is where you sit for an angel to wrap her wings around you. She wants me to think of this. I put an arm around her. I can do that at least.
She turns her head and looks into my eyes. Her face is lit by my halo's soft glow—that cat ear headband, those rosy cheeks. She smiles like the farm girl on the carton, like the actor in the advert. I can smell the Sichuan summer, the peaches and the heat.
I smile back. I imagine myself radiant. I imagine my kindly countenance and holy glow. I can see it in her eyes. I can see that she sees me as an angel.
She basks there for a moment before raising a hand to my face and pulling me closer. We kiss. I don't really like kissing, it's my least favourite part, but it's making her happy. After a little eternity of tongues and lips and faces on faces we break apart and then again and then apart once more. It's the elliptical orbit of a comet made into flesh as human intimacy—coming together and then apart all while under a gravity that will always pull you back.
Her hand runs down my back. There haven't been many words since the kissing started. Her touch eventually reaches that monstrous place where my wings had been cut off. It happens every time, I can't pretend they didn't exist. Most girls have the good sense not to say anything. The cat eared girl isn't like most girls. "What did they do to you?" She asks. Her voice is heavy with compassion and sorrow.
I shake my head and respond, "I was lied to."
"You are an angel."
We're moving apart again. The pendulum swing of gravity just widens the gap. Soon we are both standing. "I told you already that I'm not."
"You are! I know! I work with angels in the war, it's my job." She swings closer "You could come with me, you could fly south. It will be beautiful and you will be loved and there will be meaning to your life again."
I push her away. It's a light push but it very deliberate, very physical. "Please stop."
"Don't do this to yourself. Don't deny who you are." She's pleading now. She's seen people like me before, I can hear it in her voice. "You are an angel. You know you are."
"I'm not an angel! I wish I was. I wish I was more than anything I could ever wish for but I'm not. It's all lies and it always was—I am not holy, I am not made of light, I was never pure—it means nothing." I point to my halo as I shout the last two words. But of course it does mean something. It means I was lied to, I was wronged and I believed it. It means all the shame that is bundled up in all those things. It means that I know how beautiful the light is and it means that I know I will never see it again.
I dreamed last night I was an angel. I was pure and I was holy and I spread my wings and flew south in the great migration. I was beautiful and I was loved and my life had meaning again. The southern girl with the cat ear headband sat by me and rested her head on my chest. I put my arms and wings around her and wrapped her in a blanket of feathers.
Unholy, horrible and blasphemous thoughts. I hate having dreams like those, I hate that my own brain seems to want to remind me of what I am not. I hate the pain that I know must follow.
If I am not hurt I will not learn, that's what they said as they tore off my wings, that's what they told me when they pulled the lies out of my head. They taught me what I have to do next. I could try and claim that it's not my fault—I could blame the TVs and their advertising, the orange juice companies, the southern girl with the cat ear headband—but they're my thoughts. I am the one that has to take responsibility for them.
I pull myself out of bed and slouch into the kitchen area. For a few seconds I just stare at the gas burner. I need those thoughts to go away. I never want to think of angels again. I light the flame and roll up my sleeve.
She looks so normal I might not even have noticed her, but it is definitely her. I pull down my sleeve a bit—not that it hides the bandage, not that she'd know why it was there anyway. She looks almost iridescent in her normality. The woman of last night, the creature of dreams and desires and dance who had sat with me by the lake, it's all gone. All that's left is a miserable mundaneness that feels even more intimate than a kiss. I'm seeing her without her cat-ear headband. I'm seeing her in her everyday clothes. Not a dream, not a fantasy, just another girl in the post office.
I wonder if that is how I look to her. I wonder if she sees me as similarly mundane, as less than what I should be. I think though she maybe saw me like that already. I think that when I refused to let her buy me orange juice that... It doesn't matter. I'm not an angel.
She hands me the parcel and recognition flashes across her eyes. They're looking slightly above my face—I hate it when people see the halo.
I look down at the parcel. It's heading to Fengjie County. I tell her the price. It's transactional, it's boring. I ask her a couple of questions and then sign off on the slip of paper attached to the parcel. I do it all as if she were any other southern girl sending a parcel.
As she hands me the money I realise that this is going to be it. It's going to be the end and maybe the last time I ever see her. I don't want the last thing I say to be something I said as a worker. I don't want her to leave my world without me saying something meaningful. As I look at that long dark hair and those rosy cheeks I realise that I don't want her to leave my world at all.
"I'm sorry about last night." I hurriedly say.
She sounds sad when she responds, sad and beautiful and like she holds all the sorrow of the moon. "No, don't. I'm sorry." There's a pause, a total eclipse, a moment where the only things that exist in the universe are me and her. "Just look after yourself, okay?"
"Okay." I say numbly. I watch her walk away. I am not an angel, I know I am not. She walks out of the post office. She walks out of my life.
In the days after I can't shake the thought of her. I can't stop thinking of how normal she had looked. On the dance floor she had burned like a crackling, jumping woodfire, at the lake she had sparkled like a reflection of the stars, but in the post office she had been just like me.
It feels like my life should have changed, but it hasn't. Northing interesting happened in those following days, it was all the same tedium that I'm used to. I don't hate my life, or at least I try not to.
The thought is nestled in the back of my head though. It constantly insists on it's own presence, lurking like a spider in the corner of a room. I could have changed my life, I could have escaped the mundane and run away with her. It had all been within my grasp. All I had needed to do was admit the lie. All I had needed to do was pretend that I am an angel.
But I'm not. A lie is a lie even when it is a beautiful one.
It is Tuesday again. I'll pick up groceries on the way home and then maybe tonight I'll bump into someone else at the dancehall. Maybe my life doesn't have to be like this—that's what it sounds like the laughingthrushes are telling me from the bushes as I reach the shop. I smile at them before I push the door open.
I'm not an angel. I know I am not. I am not holy. I am not made of light. I was tricked. They made me think I was an angel but they were lying. I'm just another girl, just another girl buying her groceries. I am not an angel.
I keep telling myself that, insisting upon it, as I load my basket. I'm not an angel.
I hand the old man my basket: two scoops of buckwheat, three peaches, a jar of fermented vegetables, and a carton of juice with a picture of a long haired, rosy cheeked, southern girl holding an orange up to the light.
I just wanted to taste it again. I didn't do it because I'm an angel. I just... It doesn't mean anything. I promise it doesn't mean anything.
Prepare yourself for a very long and rambling post.
After ending last month with my thoughts on all of the Mechsplo writing jam entries I thought it would be fun to write about some of the things that I have enjoyed reading this month. I want to feature a range of writers from the BNOCs to the people making the debuts and I've picked out the ones that I read this month that stand out to me the most.
If you ever have any suggestions of stories in the scene that you think I'd like, that might fit my vibe, then please do recommend them to me. I mostly find stuff through the tumblr tag and through the self-promo channel of the single related discord server I am in. I'm not always the best at discovering new things and would appreciate recommendations!
Archon
By @kallidora-rho (link)
There was new Warhound this month and so it must be talked about. I really liked it.
This is a two part story with an epilogue that focuses on Kione and radio girl. I really liked the return to Kione as a focus. Given that Rescue Hound was the longest part of the series and that it had Kione as a POV character, she has, to me at least, felt like the main character of the series. Perhaps even the protagonist. I understand that this is maybe not a popular view but it is how I view things and it is therefore wonderful to see her back as the driving force in a story. She is spectacular, just as you would expect. She's petty and she's arrogant and I just felt so very sorry for her by the end of part two.
The first part features a really wonderful fight scene. The mech battles are some of my favourite parts of Kallie's writing in recent Warhound. I loved the fight between Ancyor and Kosterion but this one managed to top even that. The writing as radio girl keeps getting more and more desperate just sings out and her deeply felt need for violence and revenge is so wonderful and it is all so almost cathartic. It's not though, the catharsis does not arrive: Kione is who Kione is. I love her. She is, by far, my favourite Warhound character.
The one thing that I didn't really mesh with was the final epilogue in the piece. All the conversation I had seen around Archon had me thinking it was going to be this huge emotional gut punch but, for me, it lacked the weight found in either of the previous two chapters' twists. I do think it works really well as an epilogue but it's just maybe not the emotional sledgehammer that the community had me expecting. I don't know, maybe I'm heartless, but I didn't feel it. No tears for radio girl or her Kione.
All said, this is probably my favourite entry in the Warhound series. I really think that this is a new height. The fight scene is brilliant. Kione is as good as ever. I don't need to tell you to read this because you probably read it months ago.
Beast Beset
by @meli-writes (AO3 link)
There's something about Mel's writing that sparkles. As you pour a part of yourself into the text the meaning refracts through implication and spreads out a universe in front of you. With just a few words the she can capture ideas that fill out whole worlds in the imagination.
Within this space, I think Mel is probably my favourite writer. I've tried in the past to imitate her style, that sparse prose laden with implication and characterisation, but I feel like I've never quite got there. My recent stories Crystal Glass and Orange Juice were both in some part inspired by the way that Mel writes and the things she chooses to write about: it's the little parts of relationships and the struggles and the humanity and the mundane that is made transcendent. In a creative community that is filled with characters that often feel more archetype than human I find that Mel writes some of the most human and most believable characters.
In her recent mechsplo story Beast Beset this strength is really clearly in view. Pell's awkwardness is really wonderful and the way that the two of them navigate this new and complicated relationship is compelling and sweet and emotional. I instantly fell in love with both of them. The setting is great, it's like a space feudalism govern by ancient laws and customs (and also has mechs). There's never any need for tiresome exposition: the ideas of what this setting represents, especially the patriarchy of it, are explored through the characters' relations to each other and the world they inhabit.
It's a short read, coming in at only 3.7k words on AO3 but in those words it captures more story than some works with tens of thousands. It's short enough that I feel safe telling you, the person reading this, to just go and read it now. It won't take you that long. I read it as it was coming out of tumblr and it made it a joy to check this website every day to see the latest part. If you enjoy it and want to read more then check out Long Time, No Shear. That's my favourite Mel story.
The Blissful Dead
by @archangel-roxy (link)
The other week Roxy pointed out to me that both our works lean towards the morbid. It's true. There is a difference though, I think. The death that I write about is the nightmarish void, the thing that necessitated gods. It's Mackenzie staring into the Atlantic, unable to close the curtains. When Roxy write a death it feels different. It's the quiet at the end of the struggle. It's a reassuring voice coming to greet you at the ending of the day. It is something that, in the midst of horrors beyond anything I could imagine, can be welcomed. It is a nightmare ending and it can also be beautiful. It's the same thing but they are different things at the same time. I find that compelling.
So, during the last month one of the major Mechsplo series of the last year finally drew to a close. The last chapter of AotKH was great. I loved the ending. I loved the taxidermy. I didn't love it as much as I loved the previous chapter but that's just because I'm Imeshan's biggest fan. Even more so than both of these though I loved the short story that followed.
I originally had a whole three paragraphs in this review comparing this story to the Herbert Howells/GK Chesteron post-WW1 Christmas anthem Here is the Little Door. But I cut that because I was starting to sound way too pretentious and I don't want to turn this into an analysis of mechsplo through the lens of liturgical music. The important point is that the aesthetics of the Great War often paint it as a meaningless struggle. The deaths achieved nothing, they were just numbers, but when it was over everyone had to try and make meaning out of the meaninglessness. That same line of thought is baked in to the Great War aesthetic of AotKH but this story really elevates those ideas even further.
In The Blissful Dead, death was never going to achieve anything. It was, from the outset and inevitably, doomed to mean nothing. That feeling lingers throughout the piece with the frequent mention of the point of view characters previous work in stables. Hesha craves to be useful, craves to give her inevitable death meaning, but we know it won't mean anything, at least not in the way she wants... There will be meaning though. The story's twist gives her purpose. It is nightmarish and horrible and I love it.
The scene of the death itself is also just wonderful. Barbed wires that grab and tighten and pull Hesha closer and closer to the end until she is just wishing for that sleep that warmly greets her. Sublime, great, delicious. If you haven't already read this one then you should. It is good.
Functional Compensation
by MonaBunny (link)
Here we have a story about a hound in a fairly standard mechsplo setting in which the rebels have won. The imperial base is captured and the rebels find the forgotten hound starving in the kennels. They then do something to try and make her better, to try and recover the person inside.
This short description is a factual accounting of what happens in this story but it isn't why you should read it. I want to say why you should read it but it's a twist and it's a twist I really liked. If you've read my mechsplo series then you know I find changes in narration and tense to be compelling and this does something with that which I really liked. It's short enough, being just under 2k words, that I think you should check it out just to see!
Now I saw this story because it popped up in the self-promo channel of the one mechsplo discord sever that I kind of check sometimes and you know, at the time I didn't think I had read any of Mona's other work, but as I was pulling up the link to write this review I noticed that I had! One of her other stories, Hagiography, was one of my favourites from the September Mechsplo writing jam last year (oh it always comes back to you, my old nemesis: the September writing jam). I had looked for it before in the past and hadn't been able to find it, I had thought that it had been deleted/lost, so imagine my surprise upon seeing it again! I guess it had to be reuploaded for some reason. I was really happy to see it wasn't gone and so I also recommend that story if you enjoyed this one and want more.
Catechism
by EleanorThorn (link)
I think about this story when I walk past the optics labs at work. I think about the ways in which scientific progress is an idea which can be used to exploit people just as much as religion can. I think about how the majority of people doing scientific research at universities are paid less than minimum wage and are discarded by their institutions as soon as the money runs out. I think about the ways that scientific research makes people disposable. I think of how people are willing to put up with that to be part of something bigger, how they are willing to sacrifice their minds and bodies at the altar of science. I think about all the ways I have been exploited, about the free labour that I have done in the name of scientific progress. I think about how that left me burned out and about how it has affected my immigration status and how, now that I have been disposed of, I feel even less human.
That's all just me though. Let's talk about this story!
It's about nuns that work as lab technicians and like I feel that's all I need to say. If you like the idea of nuns that work as lab technicians then you're going to love this. If you, like me, have thoughts about the way institutions exploit these kinds of workers then you're going to like it even more. If you just want to see powerful lasers doing powerful things then just go and read it right now.
As with The Blissful Dead I'm going to resist my impulse to make this entire thing an analysis of liturgical music in mechsplo but given the centrality of the piece of music I feel like I have to talk about it. Aesthetically I think of Be Thou My Vision as a very protestant song. I feel like I have encountered it in the contexts of the Calvinist Church of Scotland or maybe Methodism. Which, to me, initially made it feel very at odds with the more catholic imagery of holy orders. The more I dwelled on it though the more I did come to find something interesting in that idea. It made me think about the way that disconnect is manifesting in USian Christianity today: the adopting of Roman Catholic imagery and aesthetics by right wing nationalism, in what remains a very protestant structure. I don't know, just some thoughts. The choice is great in the sense that the initial line is be thou my vision and someone's about to have their vision taken away by a laser.
What About Me?
It's been an interesting month for my participation in the mechsplo community. When I began writing Orange Juice at the start of March it was intended to be the last thing I wrote in this space. It was going to be a goodbye piece, one last beautiful swan song of a story about queerness and damage and the ways we can rebuild ourselves. I made this decision after finishing Burn With Me. I'm fairly happy with how Burn With Me turned out but in the last couple of weeks when I was trying to edit and proof read it I found myself become increasingly miserable. Nobody read part 2 of Surusm Corda, why would anyone want to read this? I think the final chapter especially suffered from this misery. Nobody was going to read it so why should I care to make it perfect? That was why I decided that I was going to make my exit from Mechsplo.
I don't know what twist of fate put a six month old story with around 30 hits on AO3 in front of the biggest name in the mechsplo community mid-March. That changed things though, it changed things in ways that I'm still trying to come to grips with. I'm still a nobody in this community, I'm still on the periphery, but there are people who really enjoy the stories I write. There are people who have told me they find my writing inspiring, especially Orange Juice seems to have really touched people. It does terrify me slightly that the people who seemed to initially latch on to my writing all had thousands more followers than I can imagine myself ever having, people who seem completely unapproachable to me, but I have managed to find some community, some people who I can talk to about writing.
I'm hugely grateful to everyone who has read my works and especially those who have commented and let me know how much they enjoyed it. Thank you all! It has been humbling and brilliant and heart-warming to see people reading and enjoying the things I wrote and given that I did end up writing two more stories (Crystal Glass and Song of the Mud Crab) I think it's clear I'm going to be sticking around somewhat.
So what's next for me? I've got some work related writing that I need to be focusing on in the next couple of weeks: preparing some articles for publication (no, I'm not getting paid for any of that grumble grumble), so it might be a bit before I work on any major projects. That said I'm planning on doing some microfics as part of an arrangement so keep your eyes open for that. Once I've got more writing time though I do want my next project to be either revisiting the setting of To the Slaughter with another VN or working on Gasworks Girls, the next part of Sursum Corda. I've already put a bunch of work into both of these so it's just going to be deciding which I want to focus on finishing first.
---
Thanks for reading through this! I hope you enjoyed it or found a story that you might want to check out. If you do have any recomendations for me please do shoot them my way! I hope to make another post like this at the end of next month. It's fun to talk about the things you liked, it's fun to write about them. Even without my desire to recomend things and shine spotlights on things, there is value to just writing about the things you enjoy. It's part of what makes this feel like an artistic community as opposed to just an internet aesthetic. I want to talk about things. I want to read things. I want to get better as a writer.
I picked these five stories because I loved them, because I had things to say about them. I'd encourage other people to try and do similar things. My post about the March Mechsplo Writing Jam inspired several other people to do thier own read throughs and reviews and I hope maybe this one too will inspire people to think and to write so that we can come together as artists and write good stuff.
its good to acknoweldge the hollowness of revenge but sometimes you really do just need a story about someone who gets hurt and then kills and kills and kills and kills their enemies. its cathartic, babey.
In the far future, a woman kills herself, hoping that through death she will be free of her misery. Instead, her entire life is taken, sold to the highest bidder, and transformed into a weapon of capital and imperial oppression. Surrounded by those who look like her, yet alienated all the same, she has to figure out how to cope with this new reality.
HYPERSIGIL Chapter 1 is now LIVE
Many thanks to @ars–synthetica, mechofthenorthstar on bluesky and @arachnixe for beta reading so I could clear out the more egregious errors, as well as @kallidora-rho for writing WARHOUND, which was a major inspiration for me and altered my brain chemistry so strongly my ADHD finally let me write again after years of sitting on my hands.
Alongside the chapters, I’m also going to be sharing the songs I was listening to when writing them so you can get a stronger sense of the vibe I’m trying to hit.
The song for Chapter 1 is: NY State of Mind by Nas
In the far future, a woman kills herself, hoping that through death she will be free of her misery. Instead, her entire life is taken, sold to the highest bidder, and transformed into a weapon of capital and imperial oppression. Surrounded by those who look like her, yet alienated all the same, she has to figure out how to cope with this new reality.
HYPERSIGIL Chapter 1 is now LIVE
Many thanks to @ars–synthetica, mechofthenorthstar on bluesky and @arachnixe for beta reading so I could clear out the more egregious errors, as well as @kallidora-rho for writing WARHOUND, which was a major inspiration for me and altered my brain chemistry so strongly my ADHD finally let me write again after years of sitting on my hands.
Alongside the chapters, I’m also going to be sharing the songs I was listening to when writing them so you can get a stronger sense of the vibe I’m trying to hit.
The song for Chapter 1 is: NY State of Mind by Nas
In the far future, a woman kills herself, hoping that through death she will be free of her misery. Instead, her entire life is taken, sold to the highest bidder, and transformed into a weapon of capital and imperial oppression. Surrounded by those who look like her, yet alienated all the same, she has to figure out how to cope with this new reality.
HYPERSIGIL Chapter 1 is now LIVE
Many thanks to @ars–synthetica, mechofthenorthstar on bluesky and @arachnixe for beta reading so I could clear out the more egregious errors, as well as @kallidora-rho for writing WARHOUND, which was a major inspiration for me and altered my brain chemistry so strongly my ADHD finally let me write again after years of sitting on my hands.
Alongside the chapters, I’m also going to be sharing the songs I was listening to when writing them so you can get a stronger sense of the vibe I’m trying to hit.
The song for Chapter 1 is: NY State of Mind by Nas
In the far future, a woman kills herself, hoping that through death she will be free of her misery. Instead, her entire life is taken, sold to the highest bidder, and transformed into a weapon of capital and imperial oppression. Surrounded by those who look like her, yet alienated all the same, she has to figure out how to cope with this new reality.
HYPERSIGIL Chapter 1 is now LIVE
Many thanks to @ars–synthetica, mechofthenorthstar on bluesky and @arachnixe for beta reading so I could clear out the more egregious errors, as well as @kallidora-rho for writing WARHOUND, which was a major inspiration for me and altered my brain chemistry so strongly my ADHD finally let me write again after years of sitting on my hands.
Alongside the chapters, I’m also going to be sharing the songs I was listening to when writing them so you can get a stronger sense of the vibe I’m trying to hit.
The song for Chapter 1 is: NY State of Mind by Nas
In the far future, a woman kills herself, hoping that through death she will be free of her misery. Instead, her entire life is taken, sold to the highest bidder, and transformed into a weapon of capital and imperial oppression. Surrounded by those who look like her, yet alienated all the same, she has to figure out how to cope with this new reality.
HYPERSIGIL Chapter 1 is now LIVE
Many thanks to @ars–synthetica, mechofthenorthstar on bluesky and @arachnixe for beta reading so I could clear out the more egregious errors, as well as @kallidora-rho for writing WARHOUND, which was a major inspiration for me and altered my brain chemistry so strongly my ADHD finally let me write again after years of sitting on my hands.
Alongside the chapters, I’m also going to be sharing the songs I was listening to when writing them so you can get a stronger sense of the vibe I’m trying to hit.
The song for Chapter 1 is: NY State of Mind by Nas
This story was originally written for the ill-fated second Empty Spaces anthology. This version has been significantly edited from that draft.
It contains themes of memory loss, paranoia, and disability.
Sleep’s departure rakes its claws across my mind, drawing forth a groan of dismay and dumping me, disoriented, into another rough morning. Of course, with curtains drawn, it’s easy enough to ignore the sun’s opinion of what time of day it might actually be—the two of us haven’t been on speaking terms since I got sick.
I sit up, scrubbing at my face with hands still heavy with sleep. But something about it feels off. Wrong. Fingers trace unfamiliar lumps and angles, run through hair just a little too wavy to be right. A groan of complaint escapes me. With joints popping, I heave myself upright.
First the nightstand: ring and amulet atop it, staff leaning against. It would be foolish to leave behind my armaments, even on a trip across a hallway to the bathroom.
The door creaks open with a sound like a sharp-toothed smile, expressing amusement at some joke I’m not supposed to be privy to. Still, I’m not so blind as my enemies would have me believe, and I don’t need to read the omens splattered in water stains around the sink to feel that something nasty is coming. Someone’s attention pours through the window’s unblinking stare, but I brandish the ring on my hand to ward it away so I may inspect myself in the mirror.
Whoever that is across the glass—staring at me with haggard face, eyes blinking and bleary—is a complete stranger to me, recognizable only by the presence of my amulet dangling below the neck. With a sigh, I mentally lower my expectations for the day down a notch.
Alright. Straighten my spine, heft my staff with one hand toward the ceiling. Splay the fingers of the other wide and curl them gently to grip magic’s weave. Right hand above my head, left in front of my chest. A quarter rotation back into alignment: that’s all I need. It’s all I can afford to need.
I strain with the effort, moving my arms by slow increments to haul the great mass of the Real back into synchrony as though turning a ship’s wheel. There, the familiar burn bursts into wakefulness, coursing through my chest and down my arms. Annihilation wracks my nerves, bleeding through quivering fingertips, pinpricks of darkness blooming by degrees, ink the color of my affliction spreading its stain across tissue paper skin.
I bite my tongue to keep from howling in pain. A lens refocuses. A measure of familiarity graces the shape of my eyes and mouth. I sweat with effort, slipping, slipping, eyes watering, vision wavering, muscles trembling. Then my stomach revolts, a dizzy spell overtaking me. I falter and fail before I manage the quarter turn. My staff falls from my hands, and doubling over, it’s all I can do to catch myself against the counter and narrowly avoid a fall. This will suffice. It has to.
Deep breaths, girl. Don’t use your own magic. You can squelch the vomit without.
The voice might be my own thoughts—the other me, the me-that-was, a silhouette I no longer fit—offering advice so easy to think and so hard to do. Nevertheless I manage to keep myself from retching until the nausea passes. One breath. Two breaths. Three. I can’t stifle the sob that breaks through my clenched throat, but at least I don’t make a mess on the floor.
I’ve been doing this too long. I’m supposed to be done. I can barely find my way back to myself. Yet slowly, breath by breath, I regain stability in my legs and lift my head off the counter. Carefully, I bend over to retrieve my staff.
Did I call myself “girl” just then? Is that normal for me? Is it old or new?
Let’s get some food for now. It might help clear your mind.
Right. Still need to feed what’s left of me. My apartment grows increasingly labyrinthine with each passing day, but I’m accustomed to the process of navigating it. I need no spell more complex than keeping my right hand against the wall while I trace a path from room to room.
Floorboards creek. A thump replies from above. A distant siren underscores the message. I’m either too lucid or not lucid enough to translate the collective threat into plain language, but it’s clear someone is trying to communicate ill-intent through a deluge of signs and portents. My fist clenches around my ring, drawing from the protective circle of the talisman in lieu of conjuring my own wards.
This is the place. Count the doors.
So many of them. I lose track before counting even a fraction of the doors looming throughout this room. A dizzying array of possibilities stretches before me. Too many portals by far for any room but my destination. This must be the room that calls itself “kitchen.”
A systematic search is best. I start with the closest doors and methodically open each of them, foraging for anything edible. Canned goods, tiny treasures requiring their specialized key, might as well be locked away in a bank vault, but—oh!—this door opens to reveal the inside of the fridge, and one plastic container I find within looks promising. Inside I discover a downright edible brown sludge. Glancing around, there are no utensils in reach. The confounding proliferation of remaining doors feels far too daunting to attack, so I swallow my pride and begin to shovel cold slop into my mouth by hand.
Before long, I’m interrupted by the change in the air and the sound of a door opening. In alarm, my meal slips from my hands to clatter noisily on the tiles, spilling across the floor while I hurriedly scan the area for possible angles of attack.
An intrusion. An enemy, arriving to make good on its threat? This is not an ideal battleground, but then, it so rarely is. Whatever approaches, I can’t let it sneak up behind me.
Heavy footsteps grow louder as they approach, and before I can settle on an appropriately defensible position, a figure appears in one of the countless doorways leading here. Its gaze falls on me like a hammer. It’s blocking the only exit. With nowhere to run, I brace myself for attack.
“Aw, hell, Robin.” The figure speaks with unexpected gentleness, casting an eye across the scene. “Bad day?”
The name has a familiar lilt, and by the touch of its magic I feel another small piece of myself settle into place again. An inkling, only, but a feeling that I should grant this person a measure of honesty.
She’s not a threat. We can trust her. Do not let fear keep you from the support of an ally.
I manage a silent nod. For all the danger looming over today, for all I feel the need to be on guard deep in my bones, I can recognize when I need help. At least this person seems to know who I am.
Good. Remember all the battles you never could have faced down without your friends at your side?
I don’t, actually. I grasp for recollection and pull back handfuls of tar, grazing just enough of the past to imagine a scene of light and shadow, voices shouting indistinctly, faces smudged and faded. Whatever scrap of memory I’m trying to haul from the depths remains stubbornly out of reach.
“Don’t worry, your wife is here now. I’ve got you.”
I’m married? The information slots into place, nestling in a corner of my mind made to fit it. Like my name, this must also be true. I brush the ring—my wedding ring—with my thumb, taking comfort in the promise it represents. I have a wife. I’m not alone in this! Distrust evaporates; a relieved, if embarrassed, smile spreads across my face, my mood buoyed as I’m led to wash my hands at the sink.
As the anxiety recedes, speaking aloud comes a bit more easily. “Thank you, yeah. Hard morning.”
“It’s evening. Have you been in bed all day again?” Worry furrows her brow. “Are you still feeling up for going out? If it’s a bad day, we can cancel.”
No, no, no, don’t worry her. She deserves better.
“It’s fine!” I put on my most reassuring tone of voice. “I was a little confused earlier, I admit. Waking up tends to be disorienting, you know. But I always do so much better with you around, don’t I?”
“You’re sure?”
“Of course! Besides, it’s been a while since we’ve seen everyone,” I guess. In response to her doubtful look, I give her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “I really think an evening out will help get me out of this funk.”
And maybe our friends can help us stand against the coming threat.
She visibly relaxes. Another small victory. “Okay. If you’re sure. Let me help you pick out something decent to wear.”
Every little task becomes much more tractable, familiar even, with my wife’s help. Before long I’m dressed and in the car, watching a blur of almost-recognized streets and buildings streak by.
The whole city’s haunted.
That’s a truth I can never forget, however moth-eaten my mind becomes. Dread seeps from every lengthening shadow. Streetlights wink on in patterns written just for me to read. I reflexively parse the conspiracy written in secret sequences of illuminated bulbs. I don’t say anything aloud, of course. My wife doesn’t need to know about what lurks beneath the surface. Even if I’m too far gone to protect the world, I can still protect her.
“Hey, Robin. We’re here.”
She leads me into a restaurant, pausing to scan the crowd once we’re inside. Looks like a popular place on a… well, whatever day it is. A corkboard near the entrance shows an events calendar for the month of March. Tuesday’s trivia night. Someone in the neighborhood is offering piano lessons. The soup of the day is clam chowder. It’s all so mundane and normal, and perusing all the thumbtacked notices makes me feel a little more grounded in Reality.
“Oh look, Sam and Faye did get here first! Right over there, you see? They grabbed a booth in the corner.” My wife points, and I catch sight of someone waving us over from across the room. “Hey, Sam!” She waves back, then leads me by the hand.
Leaning on my staff, I make a show of not needing my wife’s support as we work our way through the crowd. Once we’re seated, I direct a warm smile at the both of them. “Hey, you two! It’s so good to see you again! Wow, how long has it been?”
“March, wasn’t it?” The reply comes from the one my wife hadn’t addressed—Faye, by process of elimination—and I don’t miss the scowl my wife directs to her.
I respond before my wife can scold her for testing me. “That’s this month, Faye. Come on, even I know that.”
“Sorry! Sorry!” A sheepish shrug accompanies a pleased grin. “I’m just glad to see you’re doing alright today.”
“Some days are better than others,” my wife says, but the relief in her voice suggests that she’s also comforted by me passing the pop quiz. “And today I think we’re both happy to be out and about like normal.”
Normal. No, what’s “normal” slips further away with each passing day. From palm to fingertips, my hand still tingles, nerves buzzing as though made of ants—the lingering aftereffects of this morning’s half-finished spellcasting—and each time I allow myself to touch magic I drift a little more from the world my loved ones occupy. It barely resembles itself. I barely resemble me.
Annihilation will take it all, one day.
It’s funny how I still remember the term for my affliction, even if I’ve lost both the name and face of the person who warned me about overdosing on Unreality. The Real possesses no treatment for severe magic poisoning, and the Unreal’s touch can only exacerbate the condition. My mind has gone wrong, and with every spell, every cherished technique, the undertow carries me deeper under the waves.
A knock startles me from my rumination. I glance over Sam’s shoulder to a painting hanging on the wall. No, not a painting, a portal. A malicious grin hides in the curve of some pastoral hillside, and the thing behind the picture whispers to me in a voice only I can hear.
“You’re dead,” it tells me, its words congealing within the murmur of the restaurant crowd in patterns for my ears alone. “Tonight. My sweet revenge. I saved you for last.”
Don’t. No more magic, remember?
I hesitate before completing the banishing gesture under the table, and fortunately the presence withdraws itself on its own anyway.
“…yeah, Ana Heafton. You remember? Robin’s friend?” A snippet of conversation from Sam catches my attention. “Supposedly she was more or less fine the day before.”
Faye glances at me, as if to assess whether I react appropriately. Another little test.
My wife puts her hand on my leg, giving me a small squeeze of comfort as she comes to my rescue. “You always told me that you, Bun, and Ana were inseparable in high school, didn’t you, love?”
“Right,” I reply mechanically. The implicit lie tastes like ash in my mouth. These names spark no specific recollection, but the feeling of dread crawling up my spine intensifies. “Has Bun heard the news yet?”
The looks of concern, disappointment, and pity I get in response to that question tell me I failed the social interaction. Somehow, that was the wrong thing to ask.
Sam speaks first. “She, ah…” Hesitation, groping for words gentle enough to coddle my apparent fragility. “Back in November—”
“She’s fine,” Faye interrupts. My wife shoots her a nasty look, but she blusters onward. “C’mon, if Robin’s going to keep forgetting, you don’t want to make her relive the same loss over and over again, do you? Just let her believe her fucking high school friends are still alive!”
“Don’t infantilize her! She has a hard enough time without you pushing her deeper into a fantasy world!”
Even without memories of any specific instance, their argument has the texture of a familiar path, well trod.
They’re doing it again. Talking about you like you’re not even here.
“Hey.” All it takes is one word from me, and everyone remembers I’m still there, still listening. They go quiet. “You know what would be nice? If you could talk about them. Reminders help. I want to remember.”
This, at least, Faye is happy to oblige. I learn she went to the same school as us, and even if she and I weren’t close back then, she has plenty to say about me and the other two and what we got up to in our school days.
The details slip through my fingers almost as soon as I hear them, but I do my best to follow along. Apparently the three of us were somewhat notorious, as most stories involve us getting in trouble of some kind or another, skipping out on school in the middle of the day, confessing responsibility for inexplicable acts of destruction of school property, even one time going missing for a whole week.
In the Netherian Oubliette, remember?
The name pokes its head above the tar for a moment, accompanied by the sinister laughter of a Countess. We had to—
No. Gone again.
Sam’s laughter at these tales of our audacity draws a smile on my face. “Robin, I swear, if Faye isn’t exaggerating, I’m surprised any of you managed to graduate. You were real troublemakers, huh?”
“It’s the honest truth!” Faye insists. “But you can’t really blame them. They never talked about it, but I’m pretty sure they all had a bad life at home. Always coming to school with, y’know, bruises and scrapes.” She takes a sip of iced tea and another glance at me, her mouth twisting in pity again. “Probably why they were so close. They were always covering for each other.”
Robin’s confusion is evident on her face. This is not a story she’s heard before. She looks to me as if to ask something, then shakes her head to dismiss the impulse and orders another margarita.
Faye continues on, pity slipping toward bitterness. “It’s not right for a kid to need the support of a fucking cane when she comes to school. I kinda can’t believe that old thing is still holding up.” She nods to where I’ve propped my staff next to me. “Maybe her parents got her an especially nice one out of guilt or some shit.”
“Maybe the world outside school is just a dangerous place,” I counter, uncomfortable with these implications.
Sam nods thoughtfully. “Could be urban exploring. Especially if Robin never talked about any kind of, uh, home problems or anything. Who knows what kind of places they got into? Hey, Robin, does that ring any bells?”
“I think so,” I lie. “I’m pretty sure we visited a lot of places that kids probably shouldn’t…”
Unless they had to.
“Alright, I guess.” Faye shrugs. “And maybe you all got exposed to toxic waste or, or… I dunno, nuclear radiation or something while playing hooky together. It might explain how all three—” Faye suddenly stops herself. Then quietly, sadly, she finishes. “I mean, none of this really makes sense, does it?”
She means my condition. My friends dead. Were they also riddled with Annihilation, or is this all part of a larger plot against us? “I saved you for last” is what the monster behind the painting told me. Everything in this conversation. Every omen at home, every hint I read in the streetlights, every clue I parse from the snippets of chatter drifting from the crowd—it’s all connected. If I can just hold enough pieces of this riddle in my mind at once, I might be able to trace the shape of the threat.
Do I even know for sure this restaurant isn’t part of the plot against me? Could be the food here is poisoned. I don’t know how deep their schemes go anymore. Is the waiter in on it? Could Sam and Faye be? How would I even know if they were replaced by impostors? That’s a sobering thought. I should be wary, but I shouldn’t say anything to tip my hand before my enemies make their move.
Don’t say anything. She’ll think you’re paranoid.
I touch my ring under the table, drawing strength from it. Hiding my worries, I smile and nod and play my role as best I can through the rest of the awkward dinner. No attacks yet.
-----
Before long I’m back in the car and driving us home. It strikes me as unwise for me to be the one behind the wheel, but my wife had a few too many drinks, and I find I can mostly get by on muscle memory as long as I have someone by my side to remind me of our route.
Soon we’re back in the apartment, with my wife getting handsy. Instinct covers the gaps in my mind as her mouth devours mine and my knee presses between her legs. Her hot breath on my neck and the cool touch of her fingers gliding over my chest help me forget that there’s anything wrong in my life. For a moment, I even forget the danger we’re in.
A mistake. There’s a tremble in the air. A low hum beneath ordinary perception builds in strength until my feet and back feel the tremors reverberating through the floor and the walls. Lights flicker. An unnatural wind blows down the hall.
Get her out of here. Protect her. Without magic.
My wife would surely notice the ominous presence if she were sober. A small mercy that she doesn’t while I coax her into leading me to the bathroom. I close the door behind me and grip my staff with determination.
“Let’s get this over with.”
I issue my challenge to the dark, steeling myself for a confrontation with a new Blightsoul for the first time in longer than I can remember, as laughably short as that duration may be. A touch of forgotten confidence graces my posture, inspiring me to stand up a little straighter. My friends and I were putting monsters like this down long before I learned how to drive, and that muscle memory assures me I’m not quite helpless yet.
“I don’t know who you are, but I hate to keep my wife waiting, so come on already.”
The night laughs, darkness congealing into invisible presence, its throaty cackle a rusty scrape in my ears. “No matter how many years have passed, you know me. Do not pretend otherwise. Did you really think that cage could hold forever?”
Staff to amulet. “Let the light be rejoined!” My weapon, Silver’s Grace, awaits only the touch of my soul through the gateway in my heart. “By the will of—”
The world lurches around me. The walls seethe and warp, corners multiply, paths obscure themselves, and tar floods the channel from soul to staff. Fingers loose their grip, dropping my weapon before it even materializes. As my knees buckle, I barely catch myself on the bathroom counter once again.
“Too soft to fight?” My enemy’s voice taunts me. “Even you? Has a life of peace truly sapped my jailers so thoroughly? Almost a pity to end it like this.”
Shit. The voice projects a terrifying amount of power, and my options are limited. My friends aren’t here to back me up, and I have no doubt this thing will kill my wife when it’s done with me.
I clench my fist around the ring. It is, after all, a symbol of protection. For her. My vow. Whatever the cost, I will not allow her to come to harm.
Don’t do it.
I’m not the person I once was. I can’t play this the way I might once have.
That much magic…
But this thing doesn’t actually know what’s wrong with me, does it?
…will end you.
And if you can’t win a straight fight, you cheat.
Hands to my chest, I dig my fingers in at the sternum and pull. Through magic’s weave, through the skin, through the fibers of muscle and hope and ribs and deeper, deeper, into the oozing tar within the essence of self, the filth that congeals where divinity meets mortality, where soul meets heart.
My enemy lunges, too hasty to care, too ravenous to notice the danger as I rend the barrier between Real and Unreal in time to catch my assailant in a burst of raw, directed magic. Arms open wide, I embrace the Blightsoul with the maelstrom of my own Annihilation-plagued soul.
Soul Vortex: a technique orders of magnitude more demanding than the one I performed this morning. It’s the last spell I’ll ever cast.
Annihilation no longer crawls through me, it floods me, gushing from every pore in my skin, tears of pitch spilling from my eyes, inky bile cascading out my mouth. For once, I don’t fight the affliction; I make a weapon out of it. No matter how my mind instinctively recoils at the intrusion of my enemy, I force myself to swallow it whole in order to drown it in my own doom.
With all the strength of my soul, I cling to my enemy and dive, hauling us both into the abyss of corrosion inside me. It screams—but its terror amounts to no more than a speck next to the howling storm wracking me through and through.
As the monster and I dissolve together, I strain my voice to tell my wife, one last time, that I love her.
-----
Silence. There is nothing but the dark. A hand moves of its own accord. Weak and shaking, it collides with a lever. Numb fingers struggle to push, pull, and twist, until at last the door relents, opening to unleash an agonizing blast of light.
A figure takes advantage of the momentary blindness to spring an ambush. Wrist grabbed, quailing with fear, the witless target of this assault is hauled through dimensionless passageways and then flung onto soft bedding. Clothes are stripped and discarded so that the stranger may take what it wants.
