Tag Archives: Fiction

The Introduction

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You know that moment, late at night, when you wake up suddenly and you aren’t sure why? Some tiny noise or shift in the light startles your mind awake. Maybe a dream has you falling or running and you instinctively flee the sleeping world for the day time realm of consciousness. This wasn’t that.

The resounding crash had me on my feet and my heart racing before I knew what I was doing. I looked around, startled but nothing seemed out of place. A second scream of shattering glass and falling debris assailed my ears. It sounded like it was right on top of me.

I rushed out of my room and looked around frantically for the source of the sound. Nothing. The house was still and quiet as the grave.
With that disconcerting comparison going through my head I carried on through to the front of the house. I could still hear shifting and creaking, though much more distant now. I stopped at a window to glance outside but there was no sign of disaster. No neighbors rushing out of their homes to find the source of the sound.

I could still feel my heart in my throat. What the hell just happened? Could it have been just a dream?
But no, I was well awake for the second crash. What was going on?

I walked into the kitchen, clean and organized as it always was. Which was to say not terribly. But the roof hadn’t caved in so I couldn’t say the sound came from here.
I walked quickly into my work room. Nothing seemed out of place.

I ran my hands over my face and sighed. Maybe it was just a bad dream…

“No, not quite just a dream. Sorry to tell ya”

I whipped around fast enough that I almost fell over. Standing behind me was a tall man, middle aged. He wore a bright colored suit and had piercing green eyes. His voice was almost sing-songy as he laughed at the fear that must have been clearly stamped on my face.

“Oh, dear boy don’t look so terrified. It’s not as though you didn’t know I was here”

He laughed again, and the sound of it made my blood run cold.

“Who the hell are you? What are you doing in my house?”

He looked down his nose at me and clucked his tongue “Such boring questions. Come on, you’re suppose to be smart. You tell me who I am. Come on, we both know you can”

I just stared at this lunatic, wondering what I had near by that I could use as a weapon.

“Now, don’t go doing anything we would both regret. Hitting me will only hurt you after all” He laughed again and sauntered over to my desk to sit down. “Fine, I’ll give you a hint. If you really want to get to know me, you just have to look in a mirror”
He kicked his feet up onto my desk and grinned an impossibly big grin as I edged away

I swallowed to find my voice then said “What, you think you’re me?”

“No, no no. Nothing like that. Well, actually, that’s pretty close. I’m part of you. A fun little part you’ve had buried deep, deep down for a long time” He spread his arms and threw his back to look at the ceiling “And here I am! In the flesh, so to speak”

I shook my head and kept slowly making my way backwards toward the door. I had to get away from this madman before he hurt me.

I turned to dart out the door and he was suddenly standing in front of me “You can’t run away from you self you know HaHa”

I gasped and fell backwards onto the ground. “Dear sweet god what are you?”

He frowned at me and touched the bridge of his nose “We’ve been over this. You know you don’t like to repeat myself. We are us. You and me, same person, different faces. You run around during the day doing…whatever the hell it is you do. And I’m your subconscious. The part you don’t talk to much. Awake and alive in that boney noggin. Just quiet before now” he crouched in front of me and smiled “Don’t believe me. Then try this on for size”

His form warped and in a flash he no longer had the same pale complexion and bright smile. He was a tall, young women. My ex-girlfriend.

“Is this more pleasant to look at” she said softly in a voice I hadn’t heard in years.

His….her….its form warped again and my mother loomed over me, stern and angry.

“Or this one? Come on, answer me damnit. I’m not here to be stared at!”

I closed my eyes and tried in vain to calm myself. This can’t be real. This can’t be happening. It was the vodka from the night before. I was still drunk and it finally caught up to me.

His melodic voice sounded in my ear “Sorry, but no. Your drinking couldn’t cause anything as clever as me HaHa” I opened my eyes and he was sitting right next to me.

I lurched away made for the door again. He sighed but didn’t get in my way this time.

I ran down the hall and back towards my room. Slamming the door shut I collapsed against  dresser and counted to ten. This can’t be real. It’s all a bad dream. You can wake up, you are in control here.

“Wrong again” I looked up with a start to see him sitting on my bed smiling at me.

“Come over here and sit down before you hurt ourselves” he patted the bed gently to indicate i should sit next to him. And lost to the confusion and terror that I must be losing my mind, I did.

“There we go! This is much better isn’t it?” He draped his arm across my shoulders and he felt real. Solid.

“Just you and me and all night to catch up. Oh, that earlier ruckus. That was me. I needed you up and alert for our little chat HaHaHa. Don’t worry, I didn’t actually break anything. Just made a lot of noise. I do love a good start”

I took a shaking breath and looked into his eyes. The bright green was almost unnerving to stare at, but I wasn’t going to be deterred.

“So, you’re me. Or, rather part of me then?”

“Now you’re getting it! Yes, I am you. Ish. I mean clearly you aren’t in control of me but we are one and the same. Different sides, same very sick coin”

“Ok, so you’re a hallucination. A manifestation of an illness?”

He scowled at me sourly, as though I had offended him “An illness? No, no, no. I am part of you. Don’t make me sound like a bad thing. This is great! You and me…you never have to be alone again. I can be here for you, every single moment from here on out”

I put my face in my hands and tried to think. Have I seriously gone off the deep en-…

“Hey, I can tell a lot about you because I am you HaHa, but I can’t read minds. You gotta talk to me. Tell me whats going on in that thick skull”

I looked at him again. He looked so familiar. So real. “I shouldn’t talk to you. That only enforces that you’re really here and you aren’t. I need to get help.”

“You got ‘help’, remember. They gave you those beautiful pills. Do you think that’s why I can talk to you now? How you can hear me? Maybe the pills actually work and they finally started cutting through the noise. Maybe that help is why you can hear me now, instead of just all that screaming and crying all the time”

I glanced over to my night stand where my medication sat. Could this be a side effect? Some times schizophrenics reported worsening symptoms on certain medications. Could I be schizophrenic?

“Let me guess, you’re asking if you’re crazier than you thought? No, again. I’m you. You aren’t crazy, you’re just getting adjusted to your new reality! It’ll be fun, you’ll see”

I looked at him again, his form becoming clearer as I spoke to him.

“If you’re part of me then I guess I can’t just get rid of you. But who are you? What do I call you?”

His bright red smile widened again and his bright, white teeth shone in the half light of the room.

“We are the same person, remember? But for now, you can just call me….Joker”

The Rapax

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The world around us is made up of more than what we can see. Most interestingly is the different planes of existence that occupy the multiverse. A person could spend their entire lives searching and studying and documenting everything they came across and they would only touch on the tiniest percentage of what actually exists.

I’ve had the pleasure of seeing a large portion of what the multiverse has to offer. But one of the more interesting things I have encountered is a small plane of energy that doesn’t have a name to us at this time. It is occupied by two main species that, until recently, had lived out their lives with a unique balance. The beings here do not posses physical bodies in any sense that we can understand. They are concentrated thoughts given self awareness.

The first species we will call the Lumos. The Lumos are small, bright, fairly simple thought forms. They heavily populate this plane, their numbers appearing to grow suddenly from the growth of consciousness on other planes.
They are communal and are mostly harmless unless their stream of thought is interrupted in mass.

The other species appear to, at least among themselves, be referred to as the Grasus. They are a quasi-predatory species, feeding on the concentrated psychic energy of the Lumos. This doesn’t directly harm the Lumos, but they do find the presence of the Grasus disturbing because the Grasus prefer the darker, quiet of solitude to communal gathering and extinguish light as they absorb the ambient psychic energy.

Recently, the Grasus have faced a threat to their source of psychic food from an aggressive new species we will call the Rapax. This new species came to this plane from the greater Astral. They appear almost parasitic, drinking a place dry of psychic energy before moving on. However their method of harvesting the energy is far more direct than that of the Grasus.

While the Grasus feed off the ambient energy cast off by the gathered Lumos, the Rapax feed directly from them which is ultimately lethal to the Lumos.
Stranger still is the fact that the Lumos have embraced the necrotic feeding of the Rapax, because their influence makes the Lumos toxic to the Grasus, who the Lumos have feared for longer than they can remember.

I’ve begun to see an almost cult like worship from the Lumos, building structures of energy to house the Rapax in so the Lumos can visit them regularly and offer energy in exchange for what they seem to see as protection.

The Grasus have started to fight the Rapax for control of the various Lumos communities to prevent the poisoning from eating away their entire food source. The Lumos see the sudden increase of Grasus attention as an attack on them, leading to greater worship of the toxin that is killing them, but which also deters the Grasus.

The Lumos have also begun to spread the toxic influence of the Rapax by themselves, some Lumos communities even seeking out Rapax influence to ward off the Grasus.

Ultimately, I believe this will be the end of this plane. The Rapax no longer have to fight to stay since the Lumos work so hard to embrace them. And the Grasus are seen as so cruel due to their darker nature that they have to trap and farm the Lumos to isolate them from the harmful effects of the Rapax.

Eventually the Rapax will drain the life from this plane and the Grasus will be forced to leave or die.

This provides a lesson for us. Often, we will go with what appears safer and more comfortable than what is good for us. Often we shun things we do not understand even though they do not harm us at all, and embrace what we see as safety which harms or limits us.

We have to learn to question everything. To never let the lure of comfort restrict our ability to see reality for what it is.

Hopefully, the Lumos learn to do so. Otherwise their entire place will die.

Marked (Fiction)

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The sigil burned into the flesh of my left hand, eliciting a shout and dance of pain and shocked dissatisfaction.
That was not exactly what was suppose to happen.

I’d just been messing around, thought ‘Hey, what harm could drawing this random group of images on my hand while I’m bored’. Turns out the harm could include seared flesh and the rush of magic binding to me.

As the pain started to die down, my head began to swim. I could feel my energy warping to accommodate the new addition to my being.
Sudden fear ran through me. This simple doodle should not be altering my energy without my permission!

I rubbed my right hand vigorously over my left, hoping to remove the invading symbol, and immediately regretted that as the singed skin screamed.

Now slightly more irritated than afraid, I glared at my hand. Ok, slow down and think. Why would this symbol etch itself onto me without any power being put into it? That’s not how this is suppose to work.

I extended my mind to feel around the now cooling scar to see if there was some unusual innate power to it. And I nearly collapsed. Well…that’s special.
I tried moving energy up my arm to push against the sigil. My hand throbbed and a pressure built at the tips of my fingers.

Ok then. I looked closer at the various symbols involved, trying to remember why they came into my head and why I decided to draw them on myself. They were fairly simple. Nordic rune of binding, a rune for banishing, the rune for Mercurial intelligence. Two circles with lines crossing between the runs. All of it from different sources.

I got bored re-hashing the same old material time and again so I began randomly drawing on the only available material. My hand.

Next thing I know WHOOSH…..magic tat.

The pain and disorientation was mostly faded and a cursory examination of my personal energy didn’t show anything horribly wrong, apart from the new swirl of focus on my hand.

I could almost hear a soft, feminine laugh in the back of my head. Damn…

The Right Thing (Fiction)

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I’m tired.

That’s nothing new, seeing as don’t really ever sleep. But this is different. This weariness seems to have settled back into my shriveled little heart. Every breath just seems like more work than it’s worth.
Don’t misunderstand my exhaustion for depression or any dis-interest in life. That’s not it at all. I’ve finally gotten back to appreciating life and what it can offer. It’s just that as soon as I found that again new little problems creep up.

For instance, the homicidal spirit of a deranged sorcerer who I might have had a partial hand in killing stalking through the dreamscape, terrorizing my friends and associates while looking for me.

Or how a new god has suddenly called me and decided that, apart from the devotion I am already offering the last divine overlord that collared me, I should be a part of his fun games.

Or how my fae-born ex-wife is unconsciously assaulting me with pixies.  You know, mostly small stuff. After a while it just wears at you.

Add to that the seer who keeps telling me I have death at my shoulder and the flocks of random strangers deciding I can fix their lives…I just don’t know how much I can give a shit some moments. I’ve spent a lot of years being a selfish bastard, and I’ve tried to work on that. But you can’t quit something like that cold turkey. It has to come in steps. 12 Step. For sociopaths.

And damnit I need an ‘I’m a selfish dick’ day. But sadly pissed off megalomaniacs don’t give you sick days, gods don’t just callback, and the needs of the many damn well let you know how little you matter. And even if I sleep, I have a dead bastard stalking the dreamscape for me. Guess I should get to dreaming. I could kick some ass.

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(The above image is here courtesy of google….meaning I don’t own it)

Rebirth (Fictional Piece)

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“Dark Mother…”

It hurt.

I’m no stranger to pain, but there is something extra special about six bullets to the chest. Somehow, I had managed to be grazed by all but two. But those two…damn, they got me good.

The sharp, shooting pain (haha) pulsed in my chest with every heart beat. Every breath drew new agony, and a brief split second pause of relief as the pain ebbed. It was like nothing I had ever experienced. To bad I was dying and couldn’t appreciate the moment.

And kneeling over me were the only two people who were ever there for me. God, they are beautiful. Even with the tears running down their cheeks. I can feel their hands, soft and warm, squeezing my calloused, freezing fingers. I can barely hear them though. Come to think of it, I can barely hear the shouting of terrified people, or the continuing gun fire in the background. It would almost be peaceful if not for the bullet wounds.

I think they are saying my name. I should be ashamed to admit I still get a thrill when I hear them call to me. But I’m dying, so who gives a damn.

I try to smile and answer back, but the blood in my throat makes me cough. Sexy. I just wish I could say something…

Then, from the haze of running people and glaring over head lights, another woman appears. It’s her. I don’t know why she would be here for me. I mean, I failed. I didn’t do anything of the things she asked me. In fact I tossed her aside when my life went to hell. Why would she be here?

My thoughts shatter as she smiles down at me, as though there were pity and not anger in her heart as she saw me sprawled out in a pool of my own blood. Her hair falls like liquid amber over her shoulder as she kneels to cradle my head in her lap. Her pale lips twist in a small smile. Her eyes look gently into my soul.

This is my goddess. My Dark Mother.

“This doesn’t seem to be what you set out to achieve my little one”. Her soft voice slides through my mind like a caress. I can’t even feel indignation at the situation.

“Yeah, well it turns out I might have taken a couple of bad steps in there. You win some, you lose some”.

I should probably not be a smart ass to a goddess. But she just shakes her head.

“Why are you here Mother? I can’t imagine that anything I have done would make me worthy of your comfort now”.

She stroked my head gently as she sighed “You are mine. I chose you from among hundreds of millions. And when you called to me, I could not refuse you”. Her face became almost sad then and I could hear the cries of my friends, still kneeling over me. I looked at them and realized they couldn’t see anything but me. They must think I was out of my mind. Hell, maybe I was…

“I am real child. As real as anything you could ever know. And I am here for you so tell me, what is it that you want?”

“I don’t deserve any boon from you. I abandoned you and everything I believed in. I don’t deserve anything from you”

I coughed again. More blood. I noticed a distinct lack of pain in my torso. I was almost done. Strange how I just didn’t seem to care.

The goddess touched my cheek and laughed “And what would you ask for, if you had the right to ask? For heaven? For your life, or that of your friends? You called to me, my precious one. Tell me why you did”.

There was no more command in that statement than in any she had spoken. Yet I felt my heart break to tell her everything. But what did I want?

“Not to die would be really nice” I said, without thinking.

She tilted her head and considered me “You put your self here, far from where I would have had you otherwise. You said yourself that you abandoned me. So why call to me here?” She leaned down and kissed my forehead, my blood staining her lips. “Would you ask me to save you?”

I shook my head without thinking “No. I couldn’t ask for that. I would ask that you save them” and I looked at the two women crying over my no longer breathing body.

“They are not mine” she said, looking at the young women.

I nodded “But I am. And they are here because of me…”

My goddess stood up then and looked down at me, her face a sudden mask “What would you ask me of wizard?”

“Give me life. Give me strength. And let me put down the bastard that are doing this.”

Her lips twitched in what might have been a bemused smile.

“You’re return to life will not be pleasant. And once you’re back, everything will change. They will know you are mine. And they will try to kill you for it. You will no longer be able to hide from them” she leaned down and touched my face. “This will hurt more than all the fires of hell. As if every demon you have was given life to tear at you. It will hurt”.

If I could have moved my rapidly cooling shoulders, I would have shrugged. “Pain means life, right?”

She shook her head again as she straddled my chest “No my dearest love. Life means pain” her eyes began to glow with the power that was her very being as she leaned in putting her face just inches from mine and kissed me saying “This will hurt”.

And it did.