Stories

And More Stories

[valkyrie-cy]

Stories from the Sentinel: 1859

From the Hollow, he came, and to the Hollow, he returned.

From the Hollow, he came, and to the Hollow, he returned. He called himself Choctaw, and whether he was of that tribe or the entirety of that tribe’s essence condensed into a single man, I’ll never know. He came out of the Hollow in the middle of a thunderstorm. Lightning tore furrows in the earth and set the world ablaze. Thunder shook the buildings, and the rain smashed in roofs. But Choc…

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[valkyrie-cy]

Stories from the Sentinel: 1856

She was patient, quiet, and a hell of a fighter.

She was patient, quiet, and a hell of a fighter. None of it did her any good. Samantha Rudnick was a woman who could write, shoot, ride and fight better than most men I knew, and in the middle of the 19th century, that was saying a hell of a lot. She took to the Cross Sentinel when she was twenty-one, shortly after something from the Hollow came out and ate her husband and their two-year-old…

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[valkyrie-cy]

Stories from the Sentinel: 1844

Most of them died well, if badly.

Most of them died well, if badly. Marcus Forthright was a man I had known since his mother gave birth to him in our stable. His parents had taken shelter with us in 1796, and a hell of a storm kicked up. The dead were active in the main house, so my father had me keep them company in the stable. Mr. and Mrs. Forthright didn’t care so long as they were out of the elements. Well, long before…

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[valkyrie-cy]

Flashback!

He was an interruption.

He was an interruption. The man stood, air rushing in and out of the wreckage of his face. Beyond him lay the path home, and I was ill-tempered at being delayed. As I came to a stop before him, he reached behind his back and retrieved a long, bone-handle skinning knife. When he spoke, his words were low and long, the syllables slipping away from him but clear enough to understand. “You can’t…

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[valkyrie-cy]

Room Six

They sat on a bench and waited.

They sat on a bench and waited. I entered the room in blood-soaked clothes and with my knife in hand. The three men wore rough spun robes and held canes of a curious fashion. As my eyes traveled down the length of the canes, I saw they were embedded in the floor. The robes, too, melded seamlessly with the stone bench upon which they sat, and the men watched me with silent, patient eyes. For…

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[valkyrie-cy]

Room Five

I used the Colts.

I used the Colts. When I stepped into the fifth room, I found myself in an operating theater, looking down onto the surgical floor. The men gathered around the patient may have been doctors. They might have been professors. They were not of my time, and I doubt they were of my world. Their clothes had gone out of fashion around the turn of the century, and the men appeared to be stiff and…

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[valkyrie-cy]

Hello!

The newest collection of Duncan’s journals is available on Amazon! Just follow the link to see what’s there. Thanks again for reading!

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[valkyrie-cy]

Room Four

The heat weighed down upon me.

The heat weighed down upon me. I entered a hothouse and heard soft voices speaking somewhere among the plants. I heard someone begging as well. Around me, stacked high on raised platforms, plants of various species stretched out toward the sunlight funneled down to them. The hot air was thick with moisture, and I wondered how anyone could bear to be in the room. I made my way toward the…

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[valkyrie-cy]

New Ebook and Paperback Coming!

They were fools.

Here’s a sample of Duncan’s newest journal to be released. They were fools. Mankind likes killing too much to ever end war. We excel at it. We attempt, with each passing year, to perfect the art of war while knowing full well that someone else is doing the same thing. Does this deter us from fighting? No. Will it ever? I doubt it. Some prefer peace to war, negotiation to violence. In my…

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[valkyrie-cy]

Room Four

It was a room filled with whispers.

It was a room filled with whispers. I entered the room with my knife in hand, the blade clean and ready to work. Despite the whispering, there was no one to see. I closed the door behind me and took stock of what was laid out. Skeletons and bits of bones, objects encased behind glass and lining the walls. I moved forward and glanced at the legends written beneath each item. “Removed from…

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[valkyrie-cy]

9:43 AM January 1, 1931

Higgins Barrow was a miserable bastard.

Higgins Barrow was a miserable bastard. He delighted in the torment of others. Higgins developed a technique designed to inflict emotional injury to others, and he taught this to select students at the university using wards of the state. Two months ago, I learned of this, and it took me less than a day to confirm it. Doctor Allen Rigby made a profit on the side by renting out the…

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[valkyrie-cy]

Room Three

I entered a classroom and met a man who needed to die.

I entered a classroom and met a man who needed to die. I’d seen medical rooms, and I’d been in field hospitals. I’ve watched men bleed out while others tried to reattach their own arms. I’ve held friends who lay dying and others who went mad from the carnage they’d witnessed. None had enjoyed the butchery. None had been flush with excitement at the sight of it. Not so for this man. This man,…

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[valkyrie-cy]

Room Two

They made poor decisions.

They made poor decisions. The second room was worse than the first. I stepped into a stink reminiscent of Flanders and Verdun, where the corpses of tens of thousands of men lay rotting in the charnel house of No-Man’s-Land. A woman, perhaps in her mid-thirties, looked at me in surprise. In one hand, she held an infant by its ankles. The infant was, without any doubt, dead. She stood by a…

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[valkyrie-cy]

Room One

The knob turned easily and silently, the door’s hinges mute as well.

The knob turned easily and silently, the door’s hinges mute as well. The door opened into a long, narrow room, the center of which was occupied by a long counter resting atop cabinets and populated by beakers and their stands. The far end of the room held a wall of chemicals. Against the near wall, and directly to my left, was a table. A creature the likes of which I have never seen was…

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[valkyrie-cy]

Rutherford Hall

I found Rutherford Hall.

I found Rutherford Hall. The building was a massive structure less than a hundred yards from the building which housed the library. A fact for which I was truly grateful, as well as the lack of any other people on the short trip to the Hall. I stepped into a grand entryway and spotted a flight of steps going up through massive columns. Moving in cautiously, I paused at a corkboard with numerous…

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[valkyrie-cy]

The Keys

I found a locked door and let myself in.

I found a locked door and let myself in. At first, I was pleased the keys I’d taken from the professor worked. Then, as I closed and locked the door behind me, I discovered I was alone. Initially, this didn’t please me. In fact, it brought me fairly close to rage. There is, after all, a child to locate and rescue. I’d spent too much time traveling and most of the day hunting down someone,…

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[valkyrie-cy]

I had to wait.

I sat with the corpse of the swordsman.

I sat with the corpse of the swordsman. It wasn’t by choice but rather through necessity. His wasn’t the first sword to be buried in my chest, but it takes a bit of time to heal from such an injury. I’d learned in the past that pushing myself after such an injury would result in additional pain and lengthen the healing process, neither of which I could afford in the hunt for the boy. So, I…

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