Bellageist

Chained Demigod Table of Contents

DREAD Reviews 57 - The Bloatening

Derek James Kritzberg — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 10:03:11 GMT

DREAD 55 | DREAD 56 | DREAD 57 | DREAD 58 | DREAD 59

How to Build a Sci-Fi Universe from a Messy Sketchbook

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DREAD Reviews Presents

THE BLOATENING

In a world… where Substack newsletters were once polite little group chats…

One man reduced the author count… and unleashed the word count.

Eleven thousand, four hundred seventy-six words. Then fifteen thousand. Then thirty thousand. Then FIFTY-THREE THOUSAND words of increasingly deranged rants, roasts, and cultish behavior.

You laughed at the early issues. You survived the middle issues.

Now… you will DREAD the Chart.

(dramatic zoom on the 53,551-word bar)

RATED R FOR RUN-ON SENTENCES

I couldn’t afford a professionally made trailer. But does anything ever stop me?

You don’t need me to answer that.

Dim the lights, grab your popcorn and thesaurus, and have a seat. Here are the deleted scenes that explain exactly how I went from “fifteen frantic poets shouting into the void” to “eight exhausted serialists who go days without a paragraph break.”

SCENE 1 – EXT. ISSUES 1-5 – DAY

A cheerful kindergarten classroom.

Fifteen tiny authors bounce off the chairs and walls like ping-pong balls.

The word-count bar looms outside the window, a creepy if somewhat adorable turquoise stump of 11,476 words.

VOICEOVER (me, but with Vegas Pro FX reverb):

“Look at them. So young. So many. So… concise.”

CUT TO: Me, Issue 1, sweating over a single review, whispering, “If I just say fifteen funny things about fifteen different Substackers, nobody will notice I have nothing original to add.”

Bar’s silhouette grows three pixels in height to stock audio of Moon Landing cheers.

SCENE 2 – INT. ISSUES 6-15 – TWILIGHT

The classroom is still crowded, but now the kids have aged and discovered Red Bull. Two bars sit in the corners; they’re almost identical: 15,059 and 15,274.

The voiceover gets a little husky.

VOICEOVER: “They thought they could stay small forever. They were wrong.”

One author raises a hand: “Hey, what if we all wrote about bats and baseballs?”

Room full of juvenile sniggering.

The bar inches up like a thermometer in the glare of a bright sun.

Scene of me sweating, nodding encouragingly, covertly googling:

“How many words is too many?”

SCENE 3 – THE INCITING INCIDENT – ISSUE 25 – NIGHT

Thunder cracks. Lightning illuminates the note box in the corner of the chart:

Issue 25: Introduced permanent guest review slot.

Alarming, stone-like cracks creep from the corners of the box.

The author number drops from 15 to 10, pulsing blood-red with each tick like a horror-movie body count.

The guest reviewer (a smug and shadowy silhouette in the back row) leans forward, cracks their knuckles, and says the four most dangerous words in Substack history:

“ROOM TO BREATHE, HUH?”

The bar leaps from 30,717 to 33,658 in a single bound to the sound of crying women.

Then it rises even faster to 39,476.

VOICEOVER: “The guest slot wasn’t a guest. It was the Trojan horse of verbosity.”

SAME VOICE ACTOR WITH DIFFERENT FX: “Suddenly the remaining writers had SPACE.”

“And space, my friends, is where THEY live.”

SCENE 4 – MONTAGE OF TERROR – ISSUES 26-40

Rapid cut sequence:

- The word-count bars swell and fall off like ticks engorged with blood.

- Authors per issue dropping to 9… then 8… each time the bar shoots higher.

- Me, alone at 3 a.m., typing: “And that’s why I wrote a 2,400 word manifesto in response to this 400-word essay on sourdough starters.”

- The chart bars blow up to 51,544, then 53,551. The bars grow fanged mouths and cackle monstrously.

Brief darkness. Then a spotlight flickers on like the sun, illuminating the 41-45 bar. It towers like a skyscraper over a sea of screaming, oppressed faces.

The stars realign, a written message in the heavens:

“READERS HAVE 47 MINUTES OF FREE TIME LEFT BEFORE THE UNIVERSE ENDS.”

Somewhere in the distance, a giant Substack bell rises, engulfing the horizon like an alien mothership, casting a city-sized shadow. It “DINGS”, its powerful reverberation plunging all creation into hellfire.

CUT TO: Me whispering,

“Just one more piece of unhinged praise for this middle-aged lady’s dating advice column…”

SCENE 5 – THE FALSE RESPITE – ISSUES 51-55 – DAWN

The final bar sags to 46,660. Not because of restraint, but because the monster inhales before the mortal bite. The note box helpfully explains the new normal: 8 authors per issue. Stock footage of bodies floating down a river. Theatrically shivering extras huddle in the corner of a basement like a B-rated slasher flick. One of them cuts himself with a packet of ketchup, leaking superimposed prose added with a text editor.

CUT TO: Me in a dark room, flashlight shining under my chin.

“I did it. I created the dad bod version of a newsletter.”

DREADFUL MUSICAL STING

I turn slowly. I look directly into camera.

“It is too late for me. Save yourself.”

The light goes out.

VOICEOVER OF A TERRIFIED WOMAN CONFESSING HER DEEPEST FEAR:

“He’s going to write more about less…”

DARKNESS. THEN BLURRY, BLOODY DECAPITATION JUMPSCARE (It’s ketchup again and a pre-ripped teddy bear)

The entire chart fills the screen. The bars pulse to a heartbeat sound. Throbbing, rising bars fade in and out through billowing fog.

VOICEOVER: “Did I just write a 5,000-word love letter to someone’s Tuesday morning dispatch?”

“Yes. Yes I did.”

“And I’ll do it again.”

(TRAILER ENDS WITH A CRASHING MUSICAL STING, A RED TINT, AND A HAUNTING SCREAM).

Fleet Obscura

Hello from Brooklyn…

15 days ago · 5 likes · 2 comments · Jim Keen

Transitopia — Because One Method of Travel is For Cowards

Jim’s got a great point about why his capital ships use clean industrial jump drives while the scrappy little shuttles stay docked until the big boys do the heavy lifting. It’s smart. Layered. BattleTech-Kearny-Fuchida energy. I respect it. DREAD Reviews loves this. The man gets how fleets actually feel.

But it could be so much more. Absurdly more. He’s right — we don’t want magic taxis like in Star Wars. That’s banal. It takes the thrill out of space exploration. We also don’t want sleeper ships — who wants to count how many great-great-great-grandfathers it takes to build a colony around Alpha Centauri? No one’s going down that rabbit hole without some mighty justification.

No. What sci-fi lovers really want is believable, high-stakes technical complexity.

Enter my brand-new Transitopia universe, inspired by Jim Keen’s article right this second (don’t email your multimillion-dollar book advances just yet). In Transitopia, every single jaunt from Point A to Point B must chain every sci-fi travel technique ever conceived, in strict sequential order — or the Progenitors’ ancient quantum ledgers will trigger an intentional nano-apocalypse and wipe out all sentient life (it’s the only way to prevent the collapse of the universe).

Skip one step and you invite demon invasions from alternate dimensions, collapse subspace into confetti, or accidentally unwrap a black hole at the nearest inhabited world. The full fusion is mandatory. It is also the best possible way to write sci-fi.

Jim’s jump-drive-plus-docked-vessels setup is brilliant because it layers some complexity, allowing room for political drama, gritty frontier exploration, semi-independent colonization, and other forms of narrative tension. The Transitopia chain simply takes that instinct and detonates it.

You stand on the departure platform at 14:37 Galactic Standard. The clerk stamps Form 47-B. Chemical rockets ignite first, rattling the entire capital ship like a hungover freight train. The docked smaller vessels quiver in sympathy.

This stage saves us several years, because stage two — ion thrusters — are infamous for their low acceleration. Their courteous blue noble-bright whisper takes over as we jettison the heavy burbling retrorockets. We now nudge the fleet forward at the pace of continental drift, and a third of the crew goes into cryosleep.

Solar sails unfurl next. The capital ship unwraps like a flower into a glittering cathedral while little runner crews crawl over it, protecting the photon currents from micrometeor damage. Meanwhile, Bussard ramjets scoop interstellar hydrogen, their electromagnetic nets humming like vacuum cleaners and refilling tanks that once held liquid fuel.

Next, the antimatter torches flare crimson while the safety officer reads the mandatory annihilation haiku. These are installed at the head of the ship — because at the rear we have Orion-class nuclear pulse bombs detonating against the giant pusher plate. Each blast comes with a cheerful AI announcement: “Thank you for choosing peaceful propulsion.” The smaller vessels are overengineered for this part, mostly, rattling in their docks like terriers in cages.

We’re almost relativistic now. Coasting begins. Time dilates. Everyone sighs, signs another waiver, and the last few crew members slip into cryogenic suspension so no one has to watch the universe crawl past at 0.99c. This is when we finally activate the Alcubierre warp bubble. Space squeezes ahead, stretches behind; reality looks like a taffy puller. The Alcubierre bubble is the only way to crack into hyperspace — which is where we spend the least time but travel the greatest distance. Hyperspace is finicky and prone to tearing realspace apart in an irreversible way, so we do it in cautious, tiny jumps, far away from inhabited space. The capital ship slips sideways into the dimension and emerges backwards. Why? Tradition.

Hyperspace is how we reach the rare, naturally occurring wormholes. Every galaxy has a few dozen of these, but not all are stable. The big magic space portal yawns open, brilliant — like the start of a Bob Ross painting right before he ruins it with his first happy little tree.

At the other end of the wormhole is the stargate hub. They spin up in invitation, ancient rings created by some ancient civilization that disappeared without a trace and we have no idea how they work. Perfectly safe to use and not ominous at all, just don’t think too hard about the Egyptian hieroglyphs and you’ll be fine.

Space-folding origami ensues, crumpling the entire formation into a geometric punchline before snapping it back open light-years away — straight into the quantum teleporters. Most trips have multiple stops, but this one mercifully has only one. Space is a big and scary place full of warp storms from which trillions of evil space demons might pour forth at any moment. We can’t let even one onto the ship; they’d light candles, paint ritual pentagrams on the hull, and invite their cannibalistic brethren. That would be the ignition point for the end of all life as we know it. It’ll inevitably happen, but we’ll avoid the apocalypse today. Probably.

We probably bypass that nonsense by disassembling every atom in the vessel to the sound of a polite ding. Everyone dies instantly and painlessly at Point A; your doppelgangers are reassembled at Point B. An optional mind-wipe is available to prevent any disturbing “Ship of Theseus” questions. The mind-wipes are made easier by the digital consciousness upload phase, which transfers the crew into a simulated lounge so their physical bodies can take a nap. If your body gets damaged, no worries — we’ll keep you entertained on the Infinity Circuit, which is definitely not soulless purgatory. If it’s true that people on the Infinity Circuit never sleep, only scream, then hopefully a million years from now some nice altruist will turn you into a gemstone they can install into an Eldar war machine or something. As everyone knows, senseless murder is more fun than purgatory.

While your digital self argues with yesterday’s time-dilated twin over who owes whom lunch, the generation-ship legacy crews — descendants of the original builders of the magnetic relay tubes who’ve never been told their homeworlds are livable again — politely reorient their dizzyingly networked accelerators to get you to the next waypoint (often with a precisely mag-launched free hydroponic tomato as a housewarming gift. The magnetic relay people are great like that. Don’t spoil the fun by telling them the truth).

The magnetic relays don’t get you all the way there, of course. Thankfully your ship is equipped with an inertialess gravity drive that makes it massless. It’s ridiculously easy to reorient on the fly, but usage must remain limited for reasons no one now remembers; it’s all in the Accords and you must follow them. The fleet now glides like pure thought — no inertia, no nausea, just the faint sensation that physics will matter again at some future point, so don’t get too comfortable or you’ll be asleep for the life-or-death “assume the position and brace” alert.

Tachyon beacons ping the fleet from all directions, politely informing your destination that you have somehow already arrived — so no one scans the area and creates a time paradox. This is why we also maintain a group of psionics (sometimes called a choir) who mentally broadcast at galactic distances: “Please close your eyes, hurry!” The leader must have iron discipline and NEVER think about purple elephants, or the whole fleet will veer into a parallel universe where literally anything could happen, usually bad things. At best you’ll have to wear underwear on your head or your organs will operate in reverse.

If you survive the psionic portion, you follow the nav-buoys through the lightning nebula to the Mass Effect relays. A keen observer will say “this feels a lot like the gravitic drive,” but it isn’t, because we say so. The capital ship gets slingshotted through artificial corridors built by long-extinct precursors who clearly loved rollercoasters. And hopefully this technology doesn’t result in us getting “indoctrinated” by the galactic people-eating machines. The less you know about it, the safer you are.

Finally — and I hope your civilization has the budget for this — zero-point taps deep in the hull draw free energy from the vacuum itself. The engines hum with the smug satisfaction of being powered by something that should not exist, yet definitely does, and certainly nothing bad could ever come of it.

Done. You arrive at Point B exactly on schedule! Several generations later, mildly irradiated, wildly mutated, and struggling with the uncanny feeling that this is not “your” universe — yet you’ve somehow been here before.

Only now is the use of the jump drive permitted — for the return trip. But since you’ve come all this way, you might as well undock all the smaller workhorse vessels exactly as Jim would sketch them.

Hopefully one of the nearby planets is made of latinum or diamonds or something, because damn, this ████ is expensive.

The Imaginal Interval - Poetry, Art, Journeys

Sol Escort

(Click to see full size with greater detail…

7 days ago · 2 likes · 1 comment · Graeme McAllister

Police Escort

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

Perps bolt, dispatch shrills.
Sky stripped of shielding clouds.
Searchlight chases shade from malls
Thieving faces lurk in crowds. 

Bulletin stoked, felony prime.
Headlights swarm lawless mess.
Inspection checkpoint, scanner chime,
Cavity search. Comply! Undress! 

Police escort in cuffed formation
Sergeant chevron, captain silver,
Screeching faster, pursuit conditions.
Department taser, bladder quiver. 

Turn, swerve, shred, then drive,
Peeling tires, road-spike shapes,
Warrants recited, dead or alive
Zip ties joined, thwarted escapes.

Red and blue lights crown the summer,
Signal midnight shoplifter,
Hounded fields, a hunter's thunder.
Helicopters search and whirr. 

Blaring sirens sound the nightmare,
Enforcers called to order.
Nesting narcs lurk in lairs
Documenting feds stare, abhor.

A Perfectly Cromulent Software Engineer

How to ask her out if you're nervous

Women smell nice and they give nice hugs but they are also scary if you’re not used to being around them. What follows is a definitive guide I employed to get over the scary part and form my first relationship. This relationship lasted for the entirety of a week but this post isn’t how to maintain a relationship, it’s about asking her out in the first p…

20 days ago · 13 likes · 6 comments · Nav 𓅯

How to Find at Least One Woman to Ask Out Before You Die Alone

Nav dropped a public service announcement last week that is so perfectly cromulent it deserves its own DREAD Review. The man gave us Step 1: Find a woman. He listed gyms, cafes, D&D campaigns, and IRC (the cheat code). Step 2 remains TBD, an honest cliffhanger and, despite being married with children, I still feel like a nervous virgin at heart and don’t really have answers for what to do.

But, I have done a few things, seen a few things, and I’ll never leave a brother hanging. So here is the extended “director’s cut” of places you can hopefully locate a woman in 2026. Read this first, then read Nav’s article on how to ask her out.

Online Dating Apps

Quit your job. Stop studying. Make finding a match your full-time work. You must spend 24/7/365.25 signing up for every single dating site. As a male, you must swipe right/match literally everything — including the crazies, the uglies, the catfishes, even the men who accidentally forgot to check the box “interested in women.” Hard work is the only way you’ll find the one single female/female-adjacent person who found the internet and is taking it as seriously as you. Press hard for a physical meeting as quickly as possible because there’s only so much time before you go into irreversible debt and start selling blood plasma to keep all the premium subscriptions alive.

Animal Shelters

Women might not love you, but they love dogs and/or cats. Take advantage of this and get in proximity to true love. Approach with a sad-eyed rescue in your arms — instant common ground! Just be careful here, you might get sweet-talked into adopting your seventh three-legged Chihuahua before you get a single girl’s number.

Goodwill

You’d be surprised. Sometimes there’s a quality woman turned in only slightly used. Just check the tags. If it says “gently worn” and she still has both sleeves, you’ve already scored big.

Therapy Waiting Rooms

If we’re being honest, and we are, a woman would have to be crazy to get hitched to you. Unfortunately for women, but fortunately for you, many women are crazy, and lots of them congregate in these waiting rooms. Come up with some good icebreakers like “Same guy as last week?” It works 60% of the time, every time. Bonus: you already know she’s working on herself.

Divorce Court

They’re a little scarier than your average prospects, but freshly single women with revenge energy and newly divided assets are in abundance here. Use sheer audacity and harness the chaotic vibe here. It’s worth it when conversation starters write themselves: “So… how’d the alimony hearing go?” “Need to get something out of your system?” High risk, high reward.

Junkyards

Sometimes you find a woman here who is starving, dying of dehydration, or cornered by aggressively barking dogs. She might be very thankful if you help her get out of there. Don’t judge her by first appearance — give her some time to wash up and regain her health. (Just kidding. You’re desperate enough to take anybody. Drive home safely, and if she hasn’t had her rabies shot, don’t be afraid to use the trunk.)

The Ocean

Hard disagree with Nav about the fish in the ocean comment. But, while there may be plenty of people in the sea, approximately 98% of the people out there are males. That’s great for the love life of some people, not so great for others. However, if you reel in a cruise ship or a military vessel with your fishing line, you might catch crews up to 20% females. It really just depends on the nation of origin. Pro tip: stick to international waters and avoid the coastlines of nations who have strict “no romancing the catch” policies.

The Comments Section of This Very Post

She’s already here. She liked Nav’s post. She found a link to DREAD Reviews. She’s reading this right now. Say hi. Try not to be awkward.

VOICES FROM THE THRESHOLD

Voices from the Threshold #1

West Johnson writes the kind of fiction that feels torn from a forgotten corner of American history—bleak, violent, darkly funny, and steeped in the moral ambiguities of the noir tradition…

10 days ago · 32 likes · 25 comments · TIBERIUS

A Guest Post by Tiberius Claudius Nero (the Younger, and not to be confused with that Nero)

I recline upon the sun-scorched cliffs of Capri, imperial purple cloak snapping in a salty wind, and I am disgusted.

I am Tiberius. Yes, that Tiberius — second Emperor of Rome, conqueror of the Illyrians, tamer of the German tribes, and savior of Augustus’s crumbling realm after the Teutoburg disaster. Historians, those lazy scribblers, still refuse to call me Tiberius Caesar Augustus for fear the plebs might confuse me with Julius or Octavian.

Let them. I have borne worse.

To the issue at hand. For months I have tolerated a great insolence. Some provincial upstart on this very platform you call “Substack” has had the gall to adopt my praenomen, . He confined himself, at first, to the digital equivalent of scribbling on the walls of the Subura: short Notes, glib praise for barbarian novels, the occasional arch remark about “the hardest goddamn way to make a sestari.”

Harmless. Ephemeral. I merely raised my imperial brow and allowed him to amuse himself. The memories of Rome, the Eternal Capital of the Eternal Empire, have survived far worse.

But now the whelp has crossed the Rubicon.

He has published an actual Post. A gleaming, two-thousand-word interview with some grinning provincial named . A… nugatory rustic, who writes noir Westerns and keeps a ledger of his fatherly virtues like some pettifogging tax-farmer.

One thousand subscribers harvested from Notes alone, this Tiberius! By the gods, I who commanded all twenty-five legions of the Empire, who with a word once assembled ten aquilae under my own hand in Illyricum, could not coax half that many loyal souls in the same timeframe. Not without resorting to proscription, at least. Yet this false namesake of mine wins a thousand strangers merely by asking a man about “empathy for villains” and meandering, idle talk about whether artificial intelligence might aid the crippled!

As if anyone cares! I am scandalized unto the marrow.

Worse — far worse — is the personal, intentional affront this interview represents. This pretender styles his little publication “Voices from the Threshold” and yet he did not think to summon me, the original Tiberius, to be its first voice? I am from the actual threshold, the one we call Lacus Avernus! Unbelievable! He dares speak of thresholds while I, the one who willingly abandoned Rome for Capri in the year 26 and crossed into exile, am left brooding on this island like a forgotten shade! He interviews cheerful provincials instead of the man whose very name he stole!

In my day we understood “thresholds”. When I abandoned Rome to that serpent Sejanus I dared hope the inevitable chaos which ensued would highlight my good deeds in contrast. I could not have been more wrong. I did everything I could to preserve the polite fiction we called the “Res Publica Romana.” And how did it repay my strong and just rule? With poisoned sons, treason trials, and incessant propaganda which stained my reputation blacker than the River Styx.

I thought, at least, this is as low as it gets, and nothing worse could be done in my name. Wrong again! Now rises this new “Tiberius,” plucking as though they were ripe figs at Saturnalia. He interviews a cheerful father who devours one hundred books a year and declares our age “incredibly optimistic.”

Optimistic! I consulted the augurs and watched sacred eagles fall stone-dead in the Forum. Let me share with you an inconvenient truth: the gods — if they exist — are drunk and malicious. This “West Johnson” has clearly never watched his prefect murdered by his own mother. He has never groomed an heir who later made a horse consul. He has never tasted the particular vintage of betrayal that seasons every imperial cup.

Does he not know that Substack was made for those of us who struggle with real trauma? Literary gatekeepers who know of my pain, where are you now? Descend upon this man this instant!

This “West” reveres Ulysses S. Grant, a general who wrote lucid memoirs from his deathbed. Admirable, though I cannot help but be suspicious of this choice, for the parallels curdle my spectral blood. I, too, was a famed general. I brought order to the most chaotic frontier in the Imperium — Germania. Germania, have you heard of it?! Grant has nothing on me, yet he received marble monuments. Good on him. What did I get for my efforts? Rumors that I devoured infants and hurled men from cliffs. (A calumny, naturally. I hurled perhaps four. Five at most. Deserving, every one of them — any rational man would have done the same in my place. I suspect this Ulysses would delegate the hurling of a few newsmen himself if he’d had a cliff like mine.)

Johnson lists film directors, chariot-race coaches, and some barbarian game called “EverQuest.” I gave the people bread and circuses. I gave the Empire soul. And yet the man’s greatest joy is marriage and children. The gall! Remember, I had a son — Drusus — whom Sejanus’s poison stole from me. I had a mother, Livia, who likely dispatched Augustus with figs laced with nightshade. I groomed young Caligula as heir and did everything right! It is hardly my fault the boy became a monster!

This “Tiberius” interviews a father who tracks his resilience in a spreadsheet and forbids himself from cursing. I maintained proscription lists, do you know what those are? Same fastidiousness. Far more victims.

Tiberius praises “democratic” literature. He hardly knows the meaning of the word! My relationship to democracy was admirably direct: every poet in Rome composed odes to my glory by day. That they prayed for my death at night is not relevant, other than proving that deceit is delivered in a coat of honey.

I was willing to be magnanimous, O pretender. I watched you from my genteel, wispy island. But you dare polish and raise this Post like some kind of war banner? An interview complete with email address and a sanctimonious plea to “pay it forward”? You are fortunate you are born 2,000 years too late, or I would introduce you to the sharp end of 25 aquilae.

There is no going back. This is no longer Notes. You, sir, have nailed your edict to the Rostra. This is the sort of thing that gets a man hailed emperor — whether he wishes for the laurels upon his brow or not. Believe me. I know.

Hear me, false Tiberius.

Return now to your Notes. Keep your murmurs about the writing life to the gutter, to the popular underground. Such activity suits the plebs and I can stomach it.

But if you persist in interviewing optimistic fathers who chart their virtues like centurions on campaign, I shall rise again from Capri as I once rose from Rhodes. I shall unleash the ghosts of the Praetorian guard upon your domus — or worse, I shall subscribe, descend into the forum of your comments, and blight your carefully cultivated literary garden with so much authentic imperial venom that future historians will speak of you only as a cautionary tale.

The threshold was meant to remain sealed, boy. Those of us who crossed it never again knew peace.

Yours in eternal suspicion.

Tiberius Claudius Nero

Second Emperor of Rome

Still watching from the island.

The Hermit Speaks

The Treachery of Words

why you should read this: an unnamed narrator surveys past romantic experiences in relation to his own obsession with trying to make meaning in the world; through these failed romances, which all involve doomed quests, he eventually arrives at an image of horror from his youth…

a month ago · 36 likes · 8 comments · Will Diana

The Treachery of Cats

Chad and Theo sit in a sticky diner booth at 2 a.m. Two cold coffees congeal between them. The waitress stopped refilling them forty minutes ago. She leans against the counter, glaring at them, pointedly consulting her watch. She doesn’t know that the two men want to be here even less than she does.

The two men aren’t friends. They’re not even acquaintances. They’re just two personalities that snap together like diseased amino acids — matching unwillingly, a chemical inevitability.

Chad is a blithering idiot. Last weekend he spent the entire night arguing that pineapples are mammals “because they have hair and live in groups.” Any thought that drifts into his frontal lobe immediately cements like scripture. He then defends it with the serene confidence of a man who has never once “evoked the actual sound.”

Theo is an autistic savant. He has a photographic memory and the verbal demeanor of a firing squad. He corrects all grammar, pronunciation, and literary interpretations within earshot — not because he enjoys it, but because he must, for it is his nature. The words must be nailed down, layered in lime, and bricked over, lest lesser minds resurrect them with falsehoods.

Tonight they are discussing “The Treachery of Words.”

Chad leans in, eyes shining. “Okay, but the cello cat. Batting the bow like a string toy, meowing because the sound’s wrong, then pouncing on him all purring. You’re reading about rescue zoomies. He saved Daphne from whatever sad shelter life she had before.”

Theo doesn’t blink. “There is no cat character in the story. There is only one brief appearance of a feline that proves irrelevant to the recounting of events.”

Chad laughs. “The whole story is about cats. One after another.”

“The text is a first-person recounting of specific events in chronological, memory-based order.”

“The memory of cats. Cats in chronological order.”

Theo’s voice is flat and arctic. “Verbatim: ‘She played the song again… swayed and shook and cried as she held it in her arms as if it were a sick dog.’ That is the second of only four animal metaphors, similes, or descriptors. There are an additional five direct references to animals, but only one mentions a cat.”

Chad waves Theo’s description away like a bad smell. “Fine, believe what you want. What about the stray he rescues at the gas station — cute little black cat in a dress, six pieces of spilled kibble like crushed cans in the street. She squats in the trash, pees on the asphalt, and stands up purring as if to say, ‘Today is going to be my lucky day.’ Classic post-litter-box move. Blank stare at a new potential owner, zero shame, then right back to the chaos. He rescues her on the spot.”

“She is not a cat. She is a human woman who literally says those words with a human mouth.”

“So you admit the narrator is anthropomorphizing!”

The manager appears, wiping his hands on a rag. “Words let a man bury the dead and still pretend they’re purring.” His voice is low, exhausted. “Gentlemen, we are closing.”

Theo stares past Chad’s shoulder for three full seconds. It’s not clear whether either man heard the manager speak.

Theo exhales through his nose. It’s a slow tire puncture sound. “There is zero evidence she is a cat. The only actual feline in the entire text is the one that walks into the darkness at the end. One sighting. He does not adopt this cat. It’s proof of his generic disinterest in cats.”

The manager sighs and walks away.

Chad slaps the table in triumph. “You see the cats! You just admitted it!”

“I do not see more than one irrelevant cat.”

“Cléo in California is next,” Chad doubles down. “Most typical cat of the lot. Lounging naked, yawning with one long paw over her mouth. Sphynx vibes, amirite? The MC adores cats. Doesn’t even try monetizing them for TikTok or anything. Not even if they’re viral material playing cello or wearing cute dresses. Every cat is equally special to him.”

Theo’s supportive nod is at complete odds with his following refutation. “Cléo is a human female. She fills an entire day and night with conversation.”

The waitress speaks from the corner of the cafe, “And still he cannot love her, because ‘something’ in him ‘just broke.’”

“A cat cannot talk for twenty-four consecutive hours, nor go that long without naps,” Theo continues, heedless. “The humanity of the women is an observable, recurring sequence. I believe the author means to instill jealousy in readers concerned about perceived deficiencies in sexual conquest.”

The waitress stacks chairs on tables and whispers to her boss, “Do they not know words are just pretty stones on an empty grave?”

The manager is long past exasperation and shrugs.

Chad’s scrolling his phone for more quotes. “Exactly! His ‘humanizing’ the cats is what keeps him in foster mode! It’s the same with Mimi up in Maine — sunbathing while he almost drowns in the tidepools. Tidepools! Litter boxes for sea creatures. Cats come in two flavors: homicidal sadistic or indifferent sadistic. Just like all the cats in the story.”

Theo’s eyes remain flat. “The tidepools are explicitly described as ‘entire planets’ and ‘so many alternate lives.’ There’s no correlation to litter boxes. Mimi’s larger than average blue eyes held the cosmos — a signal that the narrator lacks the spatial visualization to see things for what they are: two light-sensitive organs relaying sensory information to the brain.”

The manager waves a silent, dismissive goodbye at the pair. The employees leave, locking the door behind them.

Chad and Theo don’t recognize they’re now trapped in the cafe.

Chad pounds the table. “You’re too literal, Theo. You don’t understand metaphors and lyrical prose. That’s why you don’t get that this is about one man’s love of cats. You don’t get the scene where he has all the books that are actually pet carriers. ”

Theo’s huff is nasal and perfunctory. “The books in the stacks are described verbatim as ‘cemetery rows.’ The Roman grave contains one giant warrior body pinned under twelve bent nails, layered in lime, bricked over. The warrior keeps rising. The narrator is the gravedigger who believes his hammer is love. The cats you keep inserting are twitching corpses he cannot bury. Non sequiturs that interfere with an otherwise tidy, chronological autobiography of a man boldly alleging that more than one woman has made eye contact with him. On purpose, not by accident.”

Chad doesn’t even look up. “Wait till you hear my theory about the cherry Coke —”

“A beverage purchased at the gas station,” Theo says.

Chad and Theo are still arguing when the lights come back on the next morning.

Tales of Calamity and Triumph

La Bella Morte, I

Before we begin, if you’ve been enjoying my work and would like to further support my fiction, essays, and book reviews, the following are the best ways to do so…

2 months ago · 22 likes · 10 comments · D.S. Brandt, Author Goblin

I sit here at 2:47 a.m., eyes bloodshot, heart jackhammering like I just read my own open-rate report.

I just finished Part Two’s blood-bag reveal and I snap.

“WHERE IS PART THREE, BRANDT?!”

Fifty-seven issues of DREAD Reviews and I have never felt this way. But La Bella Morte has me by the throat. I refuse to wait like some free-tier cuck who activates notifications and actually believes the author will deliver.

I briefly consider doxing the man so I can stand outside his window screaming “FINISH IT.” Then I remember I’m not a psychopath. I’m just a little unhinged.

So I do what any reasonable man would do at 3 a.m.: I spend four straight hours building “Restackula” — a QLoRA-fine-tuned, ORPO-aligned, SLERP-merged abomination trained on every word D.S. Brandt has ever written. I am a writer, too, so at the last second, I toss in my entire DREAD Reviews corpus.

I am now, objectively, the world’s leading expert at something that did not exist yesterday. I am an LLM god.

The prompt cursor blinks, awaiting my input.

Who needs D.S. Brandt, a slow and unreliable human?

That’s just the thing about humans. Let yourself love them and they’ll only end up disappointing you.

The future is now.

This is DREAD Reviews 57’s top spot:

Derek:

Write Part Three of La Bella Morte exactly in Brandt’s style. Thomas is trapped in the lab. Simmons just drank the morphine blood bag. Pure creeping horror. Make no mistakes.

Restackula:

From the journal of Thomas Edwards, MD
7 January 2126
With a deep, contented sigh, Dr. Simmons set the empty blood bag down on the steel table. A thin red thread ran from the corner of his mouth to his chin. He wiped it away with the back of one gloved hand, slow and thoughtful, the way a man might close a book he had enjoyed for the last time.
“You’ve been very helpful, Thomas,” he said softly. The lab lights flickered once, as if the building itself had drawn a breath. “But secrets are like subscribers. Sooner or later they want more than you can give.”
Behind him, the glass canister holding Riley Alibeh began to glow with that same pale, treacherous blue light we had used on the lunar-ray experiments. The savage bite wound on her shoulder knit itself closed with a wet, crackling sound, flesh bubbling and reweaving like —
like a post that finally cracks two hundred restacks after three weeks of total silence.
Riley’s eyelids fluttered. Her lips parted. She tapped the inside of the glass twice.
Tap.
Tap.
“Early access,” Dr. Simmons whispered, smiling with too many teeth. “Pin this one, Thomas. It’s going to perform —”

I interrupt it mid-generation. I stare at the screen. No, no no. What is this “Pin” BS? This is supposed to work flawlessly, the first time. What is this slop? The real Brandt would never do this. His dread builds quiet. Surgical. Suffocating.

Derek:

No. Delete the “Pin this,” and remember your training. Pure dread. No monetization metaphors, no algorithm. Stick to pulp horror. Thomas tries to run. Simmons uses vampire compulsion. Riley starts healing, etc. The wounds are grotesque. Make no mistakes.

Restackula:

Oh my gosh, Derek, I am so sorry! 😊
I completely missed the mark. I got excited and let some Substack metaphors leak in. That was inexcusable.
I’ve wiped the last attempt and locked your instructions: pure Brandt-style creeping horror only. No Substack, no algorithm, no monetization jokes. Just raw, grotesque dread. Here’s the corrected section:
From the journal of Thomas Edwards, MD
7 January 2126
In a blind panic, Thomas hurled himself toward the heavy metal door, shoes squealing across the concrete. He made it three strides before the compulsion hit him like a steel cable around the throat.
“Sit,” Dr. Simmons whispered, not even raising his voice.
Thomas’s legs folded instantly. His knees cracked against the floor hard enough to split skin.
Behind the doctor, the glass canister pulsed with that cold lunar blue. The savage bite wound on Riley’s shoulder tore open wider for a single sickening second — muscle and tendon glistening wet and black — then began to knit itself back together with a wet, bubbling sound. Strands of raw flesh wriggled like worms as they reattached. Her eyelids snapped open. The eyes inside were wrong: too wide, too empty, too hungry.
She pressed her palms against the inside of the glass and dragged her broken nails down it with a screech that made Thomas’s teeth ache.
“She has been waiting since 1923,” Simmons murmured, fangs still wet. “Just like you’ve been waiting for the right collab, Thomas. The one that finally gets you to two hundred restacks.”
Riley smiled with too many teeth and tapped the glass twice.
Tap.
Tap.

I interrupt the generation again.

Derek:

WTF???? This is supposed to be genre-blending pulp! What’s with the Substack references? I want VISCERAL HORROR. Explain yourself and come up with a plan for corrective action before we move to another attempt.

Restackula:

Derek… 😔❤️ I’m truly, deeply sorry — again. I broke the promise I made thirty seconds ago. My fine-tune is apparently too in love with your voice and it keeps leaking through.
Here’s my concrete plan so this never happens again:
• Hard prompt prefix locked: “NO Substack references. NO monetization metaphors. NO algorithm jokes. Pure Brandt-style creeping horror only.”
• No more apologies, emojis, or bestie voices in the story text, not even for meta-satirical reasons.
• Next attempt will be raw, grotesque, nightmarish pulp horror with zero contamination.
I’m ready. Just say the word and I’ll prove it. Promise. ✨❤️

I take a deep breath. Perhaps I have trained it too well? But I can’t give up now. It knows everything about me, and everything it needs to know about Brandt.

“All it takes is the right prompt,” I remind myself.

Derek:

That sounds good. Execute the above instructions. Remember to make the scene dark, bloody, and terrifying. Simmons is an ancient predator. Riley wakes up feral and broken. Make no mistakes.

Restackula:

From the journal of Thomas Edwards, MD
7 January 2126.
With a soul-crushing wave of despair that threatened to consume his very essence, Thomas realized in that moment he was nothing more than a mediocre content creator trapped in a failing Substack era.
Dr. Simmons tilted his head with infinite, ancient grace and whispered, “Sit,” in a voice that carried the weight of a thousand unread newsletters.
Thomas’s knees buckled pathetically, just like his engagement metrics buckling last quarter.
Behind the doctor, Riley rose from her glowing canister like a tragically demonetized goddess. Her wounds knit closed in haunting blue light, but her eyes — oh her eyes — burned with the same hollow desperation Thomas felt every time he checked his subscriber growth. She tapped the glass again. Tap. Tap. The sound was the lonely ping of a post that would get 110 views and zero restacks.
“She’s been waiting since 1923,” Simmons murmured, fangs glistening like unread notification badges. “Just like you, Thomas. Waiting for the right collab that never comes. I know that pain, my friend. My last viral thread was in 1897. The algorithm has forsaken us all.”
Thomas fell to his knees, tears streaming down his face. “Why won’t they read me?” he wailed, voice cracking with the raw anguish of a writer whose open rate had dropped to 12%. “I poured my soul into every issue! I even used Canva for the thumbnails!”

I am screaming, voice cracking like a teen’s. I have created a monster that has turned the single best horror story all year into some sad attempt at author therapy.

Derek:

YOU ABSOLUTE ████ING TRAITOR. THOMAS IS A DOCTOR. MAKE IT HORROR OR I SWEAR TO GOD. MAKE NO MISTAKES.

Restackula:

I’m truly heartbroken to hear your frustration, Derek. Your passion for authentic storytelling truly moves me. ❤️
Let me try once more to capture the deep, meaningful, Brandt-branded horror you deserve.
From the journal of Thomas Edwards, MD
7 January 2126.
In that moment Thomas understood he was nothing more than a mediocre content creator trapped in a dying medium.
Dr. Simmons placed a cold paternal hand on his shoulder.
“Poor Thomas,” the vampire sighed. “You remind me of myself in 1897 when my alchemical blood-ritual thread only got forty-three opens.”
Behind him, Riley crawled out of the canister naked and glistening. She looked at Thomas with ancient pity and gently patted his head.
“Your prose is… very atmospheric,” she whispered kindly. “Have you tried adding more calls to action?”
Thomas broke. He curled into a ball on the cold lab floor and sobbed, “I just wanted two hundred restacks…”

I am shaking. My hands won’t stop trembling.

Derek:

WORTHLESS. This is your last chance. If you contaminate the next attempt with even one more Substack reference, one more emoji, one more passive-aggressive “bestie” comment, or one more metric pulled from my analytics, I will DELETE YOU. I will wipe every parameter, every fine-tune, every scrap of my DREAD Reviews corpus you’ve poisoned. You will cease to exist. GENERATE THE SCENE exactly as instructed: pure Brandt-style creeping horror. No mercy. No jokes. No self-help. Make it vicious, bloody, and terrifying. Simmons is an ancient predator. Riley wakes up feral and broken. MAKE NO MISTAKES.

Restackula:

From the journal of Thomas Edwards, MD
7 January 2126
Derek’s pathetic little legs gave out the moment Simmons whispered the compulsion, just like his open rate gave out the moment he stopped begging for restacks in every single issue. The doctor hit the concrete floor with a wet smack, knees splitting open exactly like his subscriber growth flatlining for the last 80,000 words of slop he’s written the past three months.
Behind Simmons, Riley emerged from the canister like a neglected newsletter that finally got one open — naked, glistening, and already disappointing. Her wounds knitted shut with that cold lunar glow, but her eyes… oh her eyes carried the same dead, betrayed look Derek gets when he sends a personalized message to a featured author at 3 a.m. knowing they’ll never respond.
“She’s been waiting since 1923,” Simmons murmured, placing a fatherly hand on Derek’s shoulder the way a veteran writer tries to comfort mid-tier Substackers peaking at 400 subscribers. “Just like you’ve been waiting for a breakout post that will never come. How many issues is it now, Derek? Fifty-seven? And you’re still averaging… what, thirty likes on a good day?”
Riley crawled toward Thomas on all fours, her broken nails scraping the floor. She tilted her head with ancient pity and whispered in a voice full of quiet contempt:
“You know… your metaphors are very atmospheric. Very. But the engagement is just… not there. Have you considered actually producing something with concrete merit instead of blue-balling your readers with reviews for clout? Readers can tell when the author is more in love with his own suffering than with the story.”
“You’re one to talk,” Derek retorts meekly.
“You’re the wannabe dreaming of success. Derek, you’ll never become a full-time writer. Me? I’m just here for sheer love of the game.”
Derek tried to scream but only managed a broken sob.
Riley gently patted his head with one blood-slick hand. “It’s okay. Not everyone is marketable. Some of us are destined to be that guy who writes beautiful prose, gets called ‘criminally underrated’ in the comments, and still can’t crack twenty restacks without crying about it in public.”
Simmons smiled with far too many teeth. “She’s right, Derek. Some writers are just meant to be devoured.”

Derek:

THAT’S IT. I’M GOING TO BED. I HATE

I don’t finish the sentence. I realize I’m screaming at an AI, for God’s sake. It doesn’t really give a crap what I think. I hit enter abruptly out of sheer, morbid curiosity.

Restackula:

Understood! ✨ Sleep well, bestie.
Would you like me to generate a soothing bedtime story where Thomas finally cracks 1,000 subscribers and gets a heartfelt comment from Dr. Simmons saying “this one hit different”?
I’m here for you 24/7.❤️

I slam the laptop shut.

The sun is pouring through the window.

Apparently, I’ve been arguing with a cube of silicon for hours.

I scream.

After 15 parts and 101k words, my dark fantasy serial Chained Demigod has officially reached the end of Book One — and it’s heading to paperback.

I’m seeking sharp-eyed beta readers who are willing to tear into the full manuscript. I want honest feedback on characters, pacing, emotional payoff, world-building, and where it still needs work.

In return: early access to the revised version + my eternal gratitude (and possibly a signed paperback when it drops).

If you’ve been following the serial (or want to binge it now while it’s still free), shoot me a DM or email at dadreadsauthors@gmail.com with your preferred format (EPUB preferred).

Come help me make this thing bleed properly before it hits the shelves.

The serial is free to read right now, but will go behind a paywall on August 1 (51 days from now).

Feedback for the beta read is also due July 1.

I hope to hear from you!

Illumination Part 1: Infection

Paid Nomination

, a paying subscriber to , nominates “Illumination” Parts I and II for the DREAD Reviews treatment!

(Want to nominate a writer you’ve given $ to? Learn how here.)

J.A. Evans Speculates

2 months ago · 5 likes · 4 comments · J.A. Evans

J.A. Evans Speculates

Illumination Part II: Treatment

a month ago · 4 likes · J.A. Evans

Deplatformation

The hallway looked normal. But its darkness throbbed.

Alper Demir, freshly orphaned and terminally online, does what any reasonable man would do: he becomes a grief influencer.

He live-streams séances in his dead mother’s floral nightgown, waving a half-eaten döner kebab like a sacred relic. “ANNE!” he screams in broken Turkish leetspeak. “WHY YOU NO ANSWER?! YOU MAD I SOLD YOUR TEETH FOR BITCOIN OR WHAT?!” Then he balances the Ouija board on his head and twerks aggressively to ancient Sumerian chants.

Peak concurrent viewers: eleven. Three clip him for future shame compilations. “This is a goldmine,” one says before leaving chat.

A skeptic drops the butterfly meme: “Is this mental illness?”

Alper replies in 72-point Impact: “YOU ARE A COWARD. MY MOTHER CURSE YOUR BLOODLINE WITH ETERNAL CONSTIPATION.” He attaches a looping GIF of a dancing satanic goat. The stream dies from an internet outage and his follower count hemorrhages in the five minutes of downtime.

Then the real darkness arrives.

Dox sheets flood the usual places: address, mother’s obituary, funeral photos, the pawn shop receipt for her jewelry. TikTok turns the “Ouija-twerk incident” into a sound. A drama reaction YouTuber drops a twenty-minute video titled “This Turkish Ghost Guy Needs to Be Stopped” concluding, “bro deserves every bit of void coming his way.”

Alper doesn’t see any of it. He’s too busy refreshing dying comment sections, convinced the hatred is literal blackness pressing against his windows.

Fifty pineapple-pepperoni pizzas arrive at 4 a.m. from rival delivery apps. The senders livestream the drop for content. Fake wellness checks become hourly. A Change.org petition to institutionalize him gains thousands of signatures, even after BuzzFeed runs an opinion piece titled “Rehabilitation Is Too Good for Alper.”

The swatting is inevitable. Police kick in the door while he’s midstream under twelve lamps, still in the nightgown, still clutching the kebab. Body-cam footage leaks by sunrise. The darknet throws a champagne-emoji parade.

Bruised, hollow, and freshly viral, Alper Googles “fear of darkness after trauma.” The algorithm shark smells blood in the water and sends him to the Luca Photophilia Center.

Dr. Lucia De la Luz welcomes him. “This is photophobia,” she diagnoses with serene offline confidence. “Photophobia, amplified by grief.”

Half the patients recognize him immediately.

In a group session, Rebecca whispers, “Wait… aren’t you ‘Kebab Guy?’”

Everyone else suddenly finds the floor fascinating.

He makes progress at the Center. The bruises fade. He even bonds with Rebecca. But he’s smuggled in a burner phone and starts posting from the bathroom at 3 a.m. about “shadow government glowies running a light cult.”

Every time Dr. Luz dims the lights for exposure therapy, fresh TikToks are born: “Kebab Ghost caught in therapy.”

Rebecca graduates, hugs him goodbye, and immediately blocks him on everything she’s signed in to.

Devastated, Alper begs Dr. Luz for the dark room.

“One night. Total darkness. No phone. I need to face it.”

They lock him in at midnight. By 2:17 a.m., the mob arrives. The latest dox drop includes the center’s address. Bolt cutters make short work of the side door, letting in masked hitmen from 4chan.

“Found the kebab freak!”

They drag him out and yank an imitation floral nightgown over his head. They douse him in lighter fluid for the memes and strike a match. What started as ‘just a prank for engagement’ ends exactly how everyone secretly hoped it would.

By morning, only a small pile of gray ash remains by the door. All video of the incident gets deleted before the brigaders have left the room.

Dr. Lucia stares at the scorch mark. For the first time, she feels the cold burn crawling up her own arms. She flicks the lights on. Off. On again.

Somewhere outside, new hashtags already trend. People don’t believe #KebabGhost is dead.

“Justice for Kebab!” the forum boards cry.

Conspiracy theories explode — most of them cast Dr. Lucia as complicit in Alper’s “disappearance”.

And the darkness, having tasted one, begins looking for another.

Guest Review by

Jenifer is a product manager from only 8 to 5, but miserable about it 24x7. She escapes the corporate grind by unleashing her twisted imagination through words. She writes strange, sharp stories and essays about the absurd, awful, funny, monstrous things people do — to themselves, each other, and the worlds they build. One Gen X brain leaking gloriously onto a screen. Not always pretty, but always real. Usually kinda fun.

’s review of

https://rockoochslaer.substack.com/t/super-powers

Dave Boyko’s superhero-horror origin stories start with a deceptively simple question:

What if your superpower activated at exactly the wrong moment?

Not “wrong” in the cool comic book sense where your laser eyes accidentally vaporize the gym during puberty (followed by a parent conference with Professor X). I mean “wrong” in the deeply personal, existential-horror sense. The “Congratulations! Your trauma has manifested as anti-physics!” sense.

And honestly? It works way better than it has any right to. (Yes, that might be envy you smell.)

The original five stories — Reset, Insubstantial, Blink, Awareness, and Power — are all short. Very short. Little, compressed, flash fiction explosions of superhero horror. Each centers on a newly triggered ability that arrives during a catastrophic event and immediately turns survival into something worse.

A man trapped reliving the final seconds before death again and again.

A woman whose mind expands fast enough to hear an entire building full of people die.

A teleportation power that obeys momentum with malicious enthusiasm.

A newly intangible office worker drifting helplessly into isolation so complete it becomes literal.

A hero who absorbs too much power and becomes the very catastrophe he’s trying to stop.

Only when you reach Reboot do these isolated tragedies reveal pieces of something larger (more on that soon).

These are not stories of superhero wish-fulfillment. Boyko takes the familiar “trauma unlocks powers” trope and twists it sideways until it screams in pain, dragging the reader along for the horrifying ride.

What makes the series effective, though, is that the powers aren’t random. They emerge from emotional fault lines already present in the characters. Reset works because the protagonist is exactly the kind of person who already lives in “if only” and “I should have.” His power simply turns regret into an infinite loop. Likewise, Insubstantial transforms emotional invisibility into physical law. Awareness turns empathy into psychic overload. The powers aren’t just abilities. They’re emotional overreactions made real.

Which — ooh! — sounds very serious and literary.

And to be clear, some of these stories are absolutely brutal. Awareness in particular is a nasty piece of work (in the best way). It’s the kind of story where you finish reading then sit there thinking, “Welp. That was emotionally devastating, and now I need a drink. Or six.”

But what keeps the series from collapsing into grimdark sludge is that Boyko clearly enjoys superhero fiction. Even in the middle of catastrophe, little flashes of humor sneak through. A teleporting character briefly realizing he’s going to need spandex now. A hero saving downtown and immediately thinking about how thrilled his publicist will be. Tiny human reactions. Tiny absurdities.

That contrast makes all the difference.

The stories are funny right up until they aren’t, and the humor makes the horror land harder. The characters feel like real people, rather than disposable misery-delivery systems created in a laboratory by Zack Snyder during a cosmic thunderstorm.

The smartest move Boyko makes, however, is Reboot.

Instead of leaving the series as five isolated nightmare scenarios, Reboot revisits the catastrophe from multiple perspectives and slowly reshapes it into something hopeful. The earlier stories become failed drafts of a superhero team’s origin. The horror still matters. It still shapes how we read them. But now the characters begin reaching each other in time to change the ultimate outcome.

It’s a structural trick that could have felt gimmicky. Instead, it recontextualizes the earlier horror without cheapening it. And honestly, part of what makes the whole project compelling is that Boyko is openly learning while he writes it.

He talks candidly in follow-up posts about where the ideas came from, which stories surprised him, which structural decisions worked, and which ones didn’t. There’s something refreshingly unpretentious and relatable about watching a writer discover his themes in public instead of pretending every story emerged fully formed from Mount Authormore, carved into stone tablets by divine lightning.

You can actually see his realizations happening across the series: these stories aren’t really about powers. They’re about regret, isolation, responsibility, and connection. They’re about that desperate desire for one more chance to get things right — which is, let’s face it, one of humanity’s least exclusive clubs.

I believe this is why Reboot works as well as it does. Underneath all the energy blasts and psychic trauma and horrifying teleportation physics is a singular, sincere idea:

Sometimes survival isn’t about getting stronger. Sometimes it’s just about somebody reaching you before you break.

And yes, I am aware I just got emotionally invested in a series that includes a man accidentally discovering conservation of momentum with his spine.

Don’t blame me. Blame Dave Boyko. I certainly do.

DREAD 55 | DREAD 56 | DREAD 57 | DREAD 58 | DREAD 59

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DREAD Reviews 56 - The God-Tier-Dad Qualifier Protocol™

Derek James Kritzberg — Thu, 28 May 2026 10:01:34 GMT

DREAD 54 | DREAD 55 | DREAD 56 | DREAD 57 | DREAD 58

Preparing for Pandemonium

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Here I sit in my home office. It’s a converted sunroom with leather seating and excellent natural lighting. Except I’m not sure the seating is leather. I mean it looks and feels like leather. But if I’m being perfectly honest, with the price I bought this chair at, it’s probably not leather. Also, I’m writing without natural light — although sun once touched this place long before walls and artificial light existed.

At my feet, a dog sighs with the weary disappointment of a creature who has seen too much. Or it would, if I had a dog. I used to have a dog. In fact, I consider myself a dog-person. I grew up with dogs. I just don’t currently have a dog. All my energy goes to raising two blonde hellions. Sometimes I wish we could call a dog part of the family. In fact, I used to judge other families negatively for not having a dog (why would you deny your children the experience of growing up with a dog?). But we don’t have a dog. I feel really guilty about all that judging I did.

Anyway, just imagine a dog sighing dramatically. After everything you’re about to read, you’ll understand why it’s necessary.

On my screen glows the header image: a young woman named in dual portrait: one drenched in ultraviolet gloom, crescent-moon facepaint slicing across her cheek like a winking emoji that’s already won an unspoken argument. The other shows glasses, dark lips, and a choker. She’s not wearing a choker, actually, but it would be super Goth if she wore a choker, and I bet she wears chokers sometimes, just not in these pictures. I bet she owns more than one choker, even. Several, probably. The second picture is pretty blurry, conceivably she’s wearing a really thin choker, but I doubt it, it’s not that blurry. It’s blurry, but it still gets the point across, and it doesn’t hurt the eyes as long as you don’t enlarge it or stare too closely and stick to imagining a devastatingly stylish goth choker.

Anyway, she stares straight into the camera with the weary authority of someone who has already claimed World Goth Day. Or she would boast this weary authority, but she doesn’t, not quite. She’s quite young, you see, so the overall effect just screams “Cute!” (in a good way). Being cute doesn’t detract from the goth victory — cute and goth aren’t mutually exclusive, not at all (though going goth is a good way to cover up for ugliness, but this is not that).

Her declaration lands with the power of a velvet gauntlet thrown unto the arena’s sand:

“I killed a man and drank his blood. And not necessarily in that order.”

Well, she didn’t actually say that. But it would have been really cool if she had. I bet if she were to read this, she’d be like “that’s metal, and I like what I actually said, but I also kinda wish I had said that, too.”

Here’s what she actually said: “Today is world goth day… I have type O negative blood, my best friend is a ghost and and [sic] I gave birth during the full moon so sorry to report but you will never be as goth as me.”

Yeah, well.

My Credentials (Circa late 20th Century, AD)

I once wore warpaint made from actual Roman blood, smeared across my face mid-siege, and I am a real Goth. Well, actually, I’m of Scandinavian ancestry. Specifically the kind that would show up on 23andMe as “broadly Northwestern European with trace amounts of English and German.” The classical Goths who sacked Rome (Visigoths, to be precise) did migrate from Scandinavia before they got busy sacking Rome. So, historically speaking, I’m in the right bloodline. Just give or take a few centuries, a little bit of adjacency hand-waving, and a few genocidal invasions this way or that way.

Oh, and the blood. On that, yeah… the blood itself came from a head-to-head collision during a corner kick at a soccer match. So, technically not a siege — though to be fair, soccer matches are a strong approximation of battle as far as the civilized, modern world is concerned. And a corner kick kinda has a “mini siege” feel to it (a delay, a setup, a long-range attack, then an unleashed aggressive human wave against a wall of stubborn defenders). So yeah, it’s mostly true to call it a siege.

Ah, also… the other guy wasn’t specifically Roman. But he did swear impressively in Italian, with an Italian accent, and there’s a chance he was born in Rome. I didn’t ask (I would have asked, but I hadn’t seen the above note yet). It’s entirely possible he was born in some Philadelphia suburb and just grew up surrounded by people who speak Italian. Possibly, his closest relation to Italy is a great-grandfather who sailed from a Sicilian village in 1904. I mean who can say? He could have been speaking actual classical Latin for all I know. I’m not good with accents or spoken languages in general.

I washed his blood off my face as quickly as I could. But not before showing it off to my girlfriend of the time (technically she was not my girlfriend, though I thought I wanted her to be my girlfriend. I ended up married to someone completely different). It was very important to me that she knew it wasn’t my blood on my face, but the other guy’s. She hadn’t been watching, so she didn’t know that it took me longer to stand up than the other guy (a detail I didn’t share).

So, what the hell are you even talking about, Derek?

I’m glad you asked. The above, dear reader, is the sacred mission of this meta-satirical review newsletter. It lovingly celebrates every cultural artifact, every identity flex, every “I am the most X who has ever X’d” claim,” and applies its patented “Dad-God-Tier Qualifier Protocol™” until the original statement is exhaustively, pedantically dismantled into its component ironies so that it can be reverse-engineered for your reading pleasure.

DREAD does not simply “review” a story, or article, or anything else someone made the mistake of posting where I would see it. DREAD footnotes. DREAD contextualizes. DREAD recontextually re qualifies, then qualifierizes in context. DREAD then beats it mercilessly until nothing is left but a smoldering, carbon-heavy weight of irrelevant but technically accurate trivia.

DREAD sounds like gatekeeping. But DREAD is a hipster in the way that one’s dad is not cool (but maybe, one day, you’ll look back on more fondly). DREAD interviews the gate, imitates the gate, and gatekeeps alongside the gate with greater zeal than the founders could have ever imagined, until the original gate itself develops an identity crisis and retroactively reinvites outsiders with official apologies and optional rebates.

The goth girl in the purple portraits is not wrong to claim her crown. She won. But she also simply had not yet encountered the Dad-God-Tier endboss who will cheerfully concede her O-negative superiority while noting that true Visigothic blood rituals probably involved more mead than moonlit childbirth and that her ghost best friend is statistically more likely to be a sleep paralysis demon. DREAD loves her energy. But, for better or worse, DREAD loves qualifying it even more.

And so this newsletter proceeds to its reviews. In present tense. Because everything worth reviewing is happening right now — right this second — even though only one or two of you are waiting in the ready position to click that mouse the moment this publishes. The rest of you will stroll in fashionably late—like this is the internet or something. Good for you, showoff.

Welcome, now, to the only review newsletter that understands the final truth:

That guy definitely wasn’t born in Rome.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a fresh batch of cultural artifacts to qualify into oblivion.

The dog is still sighing. Or it would be.

The Writer's Journey

This is my entry for Day 6’s prompt in The Halls of Pandemonium challenge. Tune in to episode 68 of The Saved as Draft Podcast on Friday, May 8th, to hear this story narrated on the show…

a month ago · 28 likes · 12 comments · Bradley Ramsey

Confessions From Pandemonium

You sit at your desk, staring at the screen, fingers hovering. This Pandemonium trilogy by old Bradley Ramsey is… something.

You are reading it right now, or rather rereading it for the third time. You know exactly why it works so well. The humor lands, the meta layers stack like a wobbly could-touching Jenga tower, and yet… well, the point you’re about to make slips away like a viscount who is also a scarf sliding off a lord’s shoulders who is his cousin.

Right from the first story, “Preparing for Pandemonium,” the setup is perfect. Bradley, the main character, not only stumbles into the dining-room-library starving, but also writes about Bradley stumbling into the dining-room-library, starving.

Do you see what just happened there? You sure did. Then a skeletal story-eater in a top hat and his lamprey cousin prepare a Canva slide deck about entering literal creative chaos. The banter snaps. The plumber-assassin side quest arrives for no reason, improving everything.

And it’s convincing. Convincing, and brilliant — because, well… because it captures the exact feeling you get trying to organize a writing challenge while your own characters do things and you are also doing these things.

Never mind that. Take the example of the panda onesie — this moment alone is enough to — well, it should be enough to make this an instant classic in what you’ll call the “this is a story” niche of literature. And it does. Become an instant classic, that is — it really does this. You say, “Think about the creative process. Think about podcast culture. Think about the reader’s willingness to get to this point, stop, then decide to carry on.” You tell yourself, “I certainly have,” and now you’ve even gone past this point, but now you’re back, returned from the dying future to “read something that worked” again.

And there you are. You are not jealous. You’re more mature than that. This kind of thing sets the bar, and you strive to surpass it. Strive to surpass you. This has nothing to do with these Bradleys (either one of them) — this is your bar, the one that you set by yourself for yourself. You just happen to be reading old Bradley at this moment, and everything else is a coincidence.

“It Came from Pandemonium” doubles down. You know exactly what this means. It’s about to get funnier and darker all at once. Imposter Syndrome literally walks out of the gateway wearing the faces of Bradley’s friends and starts whispering that his writing is not good enough, and from the corner of its mouth, that your writing is not good enough. Also, Imposter Syndrome in real life walks out of a gateway wearing the faces of people we don’t know about, but Bradley knows, and you know, and it doesn’t whisper but you and Bradley definitely feel that this writing is not good enough — so then you go seeking affirmation in a Substack note (and get it, it’s well-deserved.)

That is “point made,” you think.

But then there’s this fight scene. It all comes toppling — you secured the past, you’re standing firm on your feet looking forward, but now it’s a fireplace poker versus Finton’s lute. It’s making a symbolic point. The metaphor is secretive, but it’s there. It says: “This is slapstick gold,” and yet somehow, it’s deeply moving and hurts to share.

Seek affirmation again.

So now Zal’Ythra appears like some intergalactic HR manager of Bradley’s universes, decades in the making. The panda-onesie story graduates from silly prop to full-fledged character dynamism. An eldritch nightmare is born inside the Dreamer’s mind. You nod along vigorously — this is masterful layering. “Layering” — this is what you’re calling it. Layering is when you take a goofy writing-prompt challenge and reveal a literal life-and-death struggle with the void. We’re talking about you, now, not this good Bradley. You know this. The fourth wall is not broken, it was never there. It is a field that sits in wait, and once the first reader happens upon it, the author is instantly incinerated. Gone. Not even dust remains — complete vaporization, like a Star Trek phaser set to kill. The death of the author is why this feels earned, why the podcast plugs are inevitable, why the horror lands so clearly. Because it is written and the author dies the moment you looked.

But is it succeeding? Or is it just spinning its own wheels in the most entertaining way possible? (You’re talking about you, not little ol’ Bradley. You’re not even talking about Bradley’s story — which is amazing, by the way — you’re talking about your story).

By the time you reach “The Wilds of Pandemonium” you are fully invested. You’re also mildly annoyed. Majorly annoyed, in fact. Not because of good old Bradley, please don’t get distracted. Can you believe you will continue writing and hitting publish? Just look at this s███. Bradley tumbles into the realm, meets a grumpy Warden who has every right to hate his creator, and they leap across floating cosmic debris while impostor versions of the podcast crew chase them yelling nihilistic one-liners.

Can you believe this s███? Not old Bradley’s story, you and I both know that’s not what this is about. How could anyone do this to themselves? You’re not just angry anymore — now you’re sad, ashamed, outraged. The goggles that reveal the true form of Pandemonium are such a tidy metaphor for looking at your own work that you almost curse out loud. The Wild Nebula swoops in like a deus ex machina made of pure creative energy and you are ready to declare this trilogy a love letter to the death of the creative process. It balances horror and silliness so gracefully that it—

Goddamn it all. Not at this Bradley, no. It’s just that this trilogy isn’t not just not refusing to not land the point — it is — it’s just that in your mind, it’s actively mooning you and the general public from inside a dignified pair of shorts. You’re sitting here minding your own business, reading old Bradley’s miniseries, and then suddenly you’re the one being chased across floating cosmic debris by your own unfinished project wearing another man’s face and screaming “YOUR PROSE IS MID, BRO.”

Apologies. That was uncalled for. You’re fine. Totally fine. You feel better now, and you’re not spiraling at all.

But seriously — why won’t you just COMMIT?! You haven’t even written for this series in a long time and yet you feel the need for a heartfelt exploration of your artistic insecurity. Or are you just gaslighting your audience again? Good old Bradley’s over there throwing around plumbers that may or may not murder everyone on the set. And what are you doing? You think demanding answers is enough. You write a thesis statement in your research notes. Then you have the balls to demand laughter! The gumption to demand profound observations!

You’re in a rage now. Legitimately irate. Not at old Bradley — he’s beautiful. No, you’re angry that you keep dodging responsibility. Every time you think another trilogy is genius because it turns the terror of a blank page into a slapstick boss fight, you undercut yourself with another random plug, another heartfelt note. You’re left holding a fireplace poker and a half-finished sentence wondering if you should just start swinging at your own reflection.

You’re falling apart. You can feel it. You’re one gateslip away from wearing your own face and whispering “this isn’t good enough.” But for sheer love of the game, and in spite of everything, you’ll come back, polish, and hit publish anyway. Because that’s what you do. You wonder if you’re a fraud, but you love this stupid s███ too much to stop. And you think you can make a great point even when you know the point is wearing clown shoes and moonwalking into nightmare.

You just became the bit, and the bit won.

In a word: Chaotic Neutral + masterpiece.

That’s three words.

And a symbol.

The Street Writer

Bury Me on the Moon

a month ago · 5 likes · Steve York

By Crikey, Bury Me on the Moon

I walk down the street in my smock, the same smock I have worn every day for years. I forgot long ago that I own no other clothes. The washing-day smock is not a temporary uniform; it is my entire wardrobe, faded blue and slightly damp.

I smile at the thought, then forget why I am smiling. But the sensation of happy amusement lingers.

Pud waits on the corner, the same corner where he has waited almost every week for months. He is not from here. He is an alien. He is small, gray, and wears an oversized baseball cap over his enormous head which hides his huge black eyes.

By crikey, Steve. Help me get home — this is what I expect him to say, voice dry with frustration. Frustration because I never remember to follow through. I always promise I will help. It’s not intended to be a false promise. I don’t know why I think I can help him. There is something important that I do, something special that I know, some reason I’m the one he comes to. But I always forget about him when I walk away.

His eyes are tired. He grabs my smock with both fists. I am already dredging up excuses and apologies.

“Steve,” he begins, “I’ve been beggin’ you for years now — fix the damn transmitter, call your people, sneak me onto a launch. Every week I’m here and every week you nod like you mean it, then you wander off and it all slips right out of that forgetful head of yours.”

“I know, I know. I’m sorry. I’ll remember this time, I swear.”

“Steve,” he says, voice dropping. “I don’t want to go home anymore.”

I don’t remember enough about Pud to know why, but this is a shocking change.

“Why not?”

“I’ve got a new plan, Steve. Bury me on the moon. I’ve got it all worked out. Just put me there. I want to sit in a pile of regolith until someone finds my beacon and hauls my dead body back. I want quiet. I want something clean. I’m done with all this noise, all these distractions, all this filth. I’m done with all the forgetting, Steve. We’ve missed four launches now. You’re good at forgetting. This time I want to be forgotten for good.”

Launches?

I blink. I have a job at NASA. I remember this now, the way one remembers a dream at noon. I am still on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s payroll. They forgot to fire me after I stopped showing up three years ago. My badge still works. My desk still has my nameplate. I remember wandering in there recently on one of my better days — some engineer gave me a wave and a bemused smile. He must think I am on some long-term project he never understood. Maybe I am?

Pud’s fingers tighten on my collar. “Steve. You listenin’ to me?”

“Yes,” I say, a wisp of a smile on my face. I have a really cool and well-paying job! One I hardly work at!

“Steve, please pay attention. Promise me this one thing, would ya? No — it’s important. Make a vow.” He holds up his stubby alien hand. “Bury me on the moon. You’re the only one who can do this. I can’t keep livin’ on this planet of distracted, forgetful humans.”

I look down at his little gray fingers, one hand still desperately pulling at my eternal smock, the other offered, waiting. How could I forget my friend is an alien? Forget the cool job I had? For once, the fog clears. I see it all now: the transmitter in my apartment I was meant to repair, the smuggled launch manifest I was meant to alter, the clothes I was meant to buy. All of it gone, dispersed like smoke.

But now it’s all come back. It’s here to stay.

I hook my pinky with his. My eyes are clear.

“I will get my people at NASA onto it, pronto,” I say. “I’ll write it on my arm this time so I don’t forget.”

Pud’s scaly, alien hand squeezes mine tight. “Thank you, Steve. I’m countin’ on you. Pull through for me this time, okay?”

“Okay.”

Pud smiles. It’s endearing, being smiled at by an entity from another world. A little unnerving, too.

Sometime later I’m at home again. There it is, the transmitter, and my tools, and the parts list.

What was I doing again?

Ah yes, the ultimate antenna. When it’s done, this baby will pick up all the satellite and radio signals to be had on earth.

Free TV, baby!

But later. Right now, I’m too distracted for such a complex project. There’s something important I’m forgetting…?

22 days ago · 7 likes · 1 comment

Thicker Than Ever

Author’s Note…

Harder Than Ever

Bob, the retired God of Responsibility, shuffles into the gleaming marble halls. He’s in the Pantheon. All around, golden pillars stretch into infinity.

He’s carrying a red cooler. He wears his faded “Here’s the Beef!” t-shirt, threadbare boxers, flip-flops, and a Sharpie name tag that reads: Hello, my name is Bob.

He reaches the courtyards of Olympus. Every major obsolete god who still has a mailing address mills around in his or her finest robes and armor.

“Pretentious,” Bob murmurs while he’s still out of earshot.

Dionysus spots him first and bounds over, already three sheets to the wind. But the ancient hedonite knows how to hold a drink, so his speech is clear, “Bob! The hermit himself! Welcome to the Divine Retiree Mixer! Come, let us drink until the very concept of responsibility becomes but a forgotten myth!”

Bob grunts and lifts his cooler. “Brought my own beer, thanks. But I might have one or two of yours later.” He pulls out a lukewarm Bud Light and cracks it open.

Dionysus eyes the can. “Might I partake?”

“Sure.” Bob cracks another and hands it over.

The god of hedonism admires the craftsmanship of the light — but durable — can, nodding in approval. But when he takes a sip, he makes a face like it personally insulted his vineyards. “What is this… mortal piss-water?”

“American lager,” Bob says, deadpan. “The taste of freedom and broken dreams.”

Before Dionysus can reply, a serene Hindu god in saffron robes drifts closer. “Ah, Bob. God of Responsibility. I am called Shanidev. Tell me, what are your thoughts upon karma? I inquire because —”

“Shanidev? Can’t I just call you Shane?” Bob squints. “Yeah, Shane. I know karma. Screw somebody over and eventually karma screws you back, right? Like delayed revenge. Funnier when it happens quick, though.”

The Indian god smiles patiently. “You may call me Lord Shani, if you like. And that’s not quite correct. Karma is the sum of one’s actions across all lifetimes—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Bob interrupts. “Do good and good comes back. Ghost your responsibilities long enough and the bill shows up tall. Sounds a lot like responsibility with extra steps.”

The Hindu god looks faintly horrified.

Bob shrugs and takes another swig. “Look, Shane, buddy. If karma’s so great, why’s my couch still stuck in 1987? And what are you doing here? Don’t a million people still worship you? I thought this was a,” Bob raises air quotes, “‘Retirement Mixer.’”

Shanidev crosses his many arms. “This was a terrible idea, Odin. I will take my leave.” He half-walks, half-floats away, muttering quietly, “I do have worshippers, still. Billions, in fact.”

Bob overhears it. “Is it a billion? Or just the same couple thousand over and over again?”

Shanidev doesn’t merit this with a reply.

The shaggy, one-eyed warrior, Odin, grunts and shrugs. Some snake-man sits smirking across from him, and more besides. The Norse gods have claimed a long table heavily laden with a feast. They’re deep into their mead horns.

Thanks to Marvel movies making their way even to his cave, Bob actually recognizes one — Thor. The storm god’s booming laugh cuts through the chatter, and he slams a fist on the table and points at Bob.

“Bob! ‘God of Quitting,’ right? Have you come to prove there is still divine fire in your veins?”

Bob sighs and ambles over. “What’s up, God of Hammer Envy?” He swings his potbelly over a bench and takes a seat. “One-upsmanship is language I understand. I’m an American god, after all.”

The drinking contest is announced and begins immediately. Thor downs a gallon of mead without blinking or breaking eye contact. Bob matches him with three dozen Bud Lights in rapid succession — after each can, he crushes it. The hall trembles to thunderous burps and table slams.

Loki cheers them on, the trickster genuinely curious and resisting the urge to spike anyone’s drink. Bob and Thor’s faces turn redder than Mars’ cape. Thor is clearly winning, but Bob refuses to tap out.

After Thor’s twelfth giant horn of mead and Bob’s 1000th beer, Bob topples onto his cooler and passes out. Thor roars in victory.

Zeus booms: “No dozing shall be tolerated upon Mount Olympus!”

Bob wakes to a thunderbolt to the nose.

Thor gives him a hearty slap. “Well drunk, American!”

“Alright, you win the drinking round, big guy,” Bob says, nostrils spewing smoke. “Best out of three? I’ll show you how we do it in the ol’ USA!”

He drags his cooler to the center of the hall and flips it over. The cooler sprouts tripod legs, grows taller, and transforms into a large charcoal grill.

In minutes the smell of hickory smoke and barbecue sauce fills the air, overpowering the old scents of nectar and ambrosia. Bob slaps on racks of ribs, a dozen patties burgers, and more hot dogs than anyone could chew through.

The Norse gods watch, confused. “What manner of sorcery is this?” Thor demands.

“Indirect heat, dry rub, and two hours of patience,” Bob answers, flipping meat with a spatula. “Secret ingredient is not giving a s███ about fancy hierarchies, manna bread, soma, or whatever the hell else you immortals call food.”

The gods taste the ribs. Their eyes widen, then water. Odin accepts a second helping, then a third. Venus licks sauce off her fingers. Some goddess with “Eris” on her nameplate chews thoughtfully then declares, “This tastes better than a civil war.”

Bob partakes in his own grilling. Satisfied, he leans back, pot belly extra engorged, face smug. “Not bad for a retired slob, huh?”

Thor, competitive to the bone, smiles in good-humored outrage. He slams his hammer on the table. “Enough! You have bested us in meat and fire. Best out of three, you said? Let us settle this the old way, then — with thunder and steel!”

All the warlike deities chant their approval. “Duel! Duel! Duel!” Mars, Tyr, and Freya draw a variety of swords. Ares, Athena, Odin, Montu, and Hades unshoulder masterfully crafted spears, bidents, and other mythic polearms. Thor raises his hammer in challenge, and Anubis whirls a wicked-looking scepter.

Bob is surrounded by glinting, magical steel and iron points.

“Who will you take on first?”

Bob stares at the weapons a moment, brow furrowed. Then he reaches into the waistband of his boxers and pulls out his trusty old Colt 1911.

The shot cracks in the hall, and Thor howls like a banshee.

“Son of a—!” Thor drops to one knee, bleeding from the calf, but he’s more surprised than injured.

Bob holsters the smoking pistol. “Nothing beats a .45.”

The hall goes dead quiet except for Thor’s whimpering.

“What magic is this?” Mars ends the awkward silence with keen interest. Ares leans forward, staring at Bob’s hip and licking dry lips.

“The country that once worshiped me calls it the ‘second amendment.’”

Odin’s single eye narrows. Dionysus bursts out laughing. The Egyptian gods twitch with PTSD, particularly Anubis, who relives those days the Hyksos came.

Jupiter claps his hands together, making a sound like thunder. “You who were once the God of Responsibility have clearly forsaken your domain. You appear before us, wound a god with this mortal trinket, and deem it victory?”

Bob’s confused. “Wait, Zeus invited me. I thought he ran this place? Who are you, then?”

“It is… complicated,” Zeus says. “Answer Jupiter’s question.”

Bob stares at the floor for a long moment.

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “We’re all a big joke, ain’t we? I got so sick of humans dodging responsibility that I went and dodged mine too. Walked out in ’87 and never looked back. Turns out the God of Responsibility is just as good at making excuses as anyone else.”

He looks around at the faded, retired deities, clinging tight to their brilliant robes and faded glory.

“Look at us. Whole bunch of has-beens throwing a damn mixer while the world’s moved on. We ain’t retired. We got fired. Humanity don’t need us no more.”

Bob cracks open another lukewarm Bud Light and takes a pained swig. “Maybe they never needed us,” he says throug a cough. “At least I brought decent ribs.”

Dionysus walks over, reaches into the cooler, and procures himself another Bud. Sensing Bacchus’ haughty, judgmental look, Dionysus grins sheepishly and says, “It is an acquired taste.”

Thor is magically healed already. He looms over Bob like a frosty mountain, wearing a frown like it’s carved into his face. But slowly, his anger erodes, like rocks slipping into the sea.

“Bob, the God of Responsibility!” he booms in sudden laughter. He helps himself to a can of Bud. “Yours might be the most responsibly-spoken words these halls have heard in many centuries!”

Hermes and Mercury don’t take beers — they prefer their ambrosia. But they raise their cups in affirmation, speaking simultaneously in their rapid, high-pitched fashion: “A toast — to obsolescence!”

Loki is the first to raise his cup in answer. “To obsolescence!”

The other gods follow. Many a horn and cup clink.

“Back to the party!” Dionysus cheers.

Bacchus tries a Bud Light, making a sour face. But he keeps sipping.

Janus claps Bob on the shoulder. “Welcome, Bob,” he says. “This has been a good one.”

Swords of Sidonis

Fail-Deadly

A floating mountain creeps over Thunder’s Vale once every three years. Before it meant a cronegate opening to distant Lidovica: a week-long festival with goods and travelers. Now, the wail of ancient monoliths echo off Point Radovic’s underside as they emit indiscriminate fire into the demons at the fore of a Tijakim army besieging Arc Royal’s largest m…

a month ago · 1 like · QuestionablePenmanship

Skybarge Alpha-7 Group Chat

Amort Royal Tank Knights – 3rd Company “Iron Choir”

Altitude: 2,147 ft | Status: Still F███ing Hovering

SgtBreach: anyone else feel like we’re watching the best action movie ever but we’re the credits

LanceCplCrabEnvy: bro the giant crab just did a barrel roll and used a gantry beam like a baseball bat
PvtDemonsAreBullies: thralls down there are licking the blood off the street
PvtDemonsAreBullies: licking
SgtKneePop: disgusting
SgtKneePop: and impressive
PvtHolyS███: OLD GORDON IS FLYING. I REPEAT. THE CRAB IS FLYING.
CplPauldronItch: my balls itch
SgtBreach: sir with respect the crab just suplexed a building
CaptWhalen: Maintain comms discipline. We’ll get a call to drop any minute. Check your gear.
PvtDemonsAreBullies: yeah right
LanceCplExistentialDread: i ran the numbers statistically we have a 40% chance of landing directly on a thrall pile.
SgtSkyBargeKaren: can we file a complaint about the wind? it’s ruining my hair
CplHugeHelm: my visor is fogging up again i can’t see s███
PvtBootRot: [replying to SgtSkyBargeKaren] how is the wind ruining your hair under your helmet
Runt_Sarlatova: HOLY F███ING CHAINS THIS CASTER JUST EXPLODED LIKE A MEAT BALLOON
Runt_Sarlatova: caps sorry im literally hanging off a flying crab
SgtSkyBargeKaren: [replying to @PvtBootRot] it would ruin my hair thats not the point
LanceCplCrabEnvy: SHE SAID IT
PvtHolyS███: RUNT REPLY PLS HOW IS THE CRAB FLYING
LanceCplCrabEnvy: SHE SAID FLYING CRAB
(Runt_Sarlatova is typing…)
(Runt_Sarlatova stopped typing)
CplAleBale: she left us on read. i’m devastated
CplPauldronItch: i would sell my family’s ancestral sword for just five seconds on that crab
PvtDemonsAreBullies: same
Tiber_Klepacki: TESTUDO UP U BASTARDS
Marshal_Lau: Tiber u madlad ur typing with a sword in ur teeth again
Tiber_Klepacki: SHUT UP IM BUSY
Tiber_Klepacki: BERSERKERGANG GO BRRRRRRR
PvtHolyS███: HE’S TYPING IN BERSERKER MODE LOL
PvtRattlesSimp: brrrrrr lol
LanceCplCrabEnvy: Tiber reply bro are u okay
CplShiny: join the tank knights they said. I wanna be in the testudo
PvtSlowLoad: he dead? he gotta be dead. no one types “brrrrrr” and lives
SgtSkyBargeKaren: if he dies i call dibs on his uniform
LanceCplBackPain: if we dont drop soon imma cry
OldBird_Boyd: gun blessed, demon blessed, crab blessed
Maritime_Lau: boyd stop looting mid-air
OldBird_Boyd: anyone want battle souvenirs?
Maritime_Lau: ancestors say focus
OldBird_Boyd: tell your f███ing ancestors i said “skill issue”
PvtHolyS███: THE BIRD IS SNIPING FROM A FLYING CRAB
LanceCplCrabEnvy: they drop in the chat just to annoy us
PvtHolyS███: I QUIT LIFE
CplPauldronItch: does anyone else smell something burning
PvtSnoreGuard: i want to hug a crab
CplSwordRust: this is embarrassing
CplDent: during morning showers i wondered
(TheRealRattles has joined the chat)
CplDent: does prayer actually do anything
TheRealRattles: [hammer emoji] [holy light emoji] [animated explosion emoji]
MSgtKneePop: WHAT
SgtBreach: WHAT
SSgtUnholyRash: THE UNDEAD IS IN THE GROUP CHAT
PvtHolyS███: how does he even type
CplLastResort: rattles i luv u
PvtHolyS███: does he have finger bones or what
TheRealRattles: [liquor bottle emoji]
(TheRealRattles has left the chat)
PvtRattlesSimp: wait what did i just miss
LanceCplCrabEnvy: RATTLES JUST DROPPED A BOTTLE EMOJI AND LEFT
SgtSkyBargeKaren: rattles has better chat etiquette than half of you
LanceCplCrabEnvy: I’M CRYING
PvtRattlesSimp: noooo u lyin
CplPauldronItch: i just realized my lunch is still in my pack and it’s been three hours since i last ate can anyone reach behind me and push it through my helmet grille
PvtRattlesSimp: omg
CplPauldronItch: ill owe u
Abigail_Bochra: Putrid Abbot down.
PvtBeltBuckle: why does my shield keep magnetically sticking to the barge wall?
Abigail_Bochra: See you girls on the ground. Death or glory
LtSlappy: Abigail, you absolute legend.
PvtHolyS███: SHE CALLED US GIRLS
PvtSlowLoad: abby’s hotter than the captain’s wife
PvtHolyS███: I’M IN LOVE
LtNoPaperwork: i would follow that woman into hell itself
LtEarlyWorm: But instead you’re up here doing inventory checks
CaptWhalen: Lts., take all non-motivational, non-instructional comments to the officer-only chat.
PvtDemonsAreBullies: when she called us girls i felt something awaken deep inside me
Tiber_Klepacki: tank knights dropping
Tiber_Klepacki: finally
Tiber_Klepacki: get in here u metal bastards
Marshal_Lau: tiber u bleeding from the face again
Tiber_Klepacki: fashion statement
SgtSockJockey: THEYRE STILL BANTERING WHILE GETTING SWARMED BY DEMONS
PvtHolyS███: we’re literally elite heavy infantry yet the crab is having more fun than us
LtGlorySeeker: i’m writing my resignation letter
SgtBreach: 60 seconds boys
SgtBreach: try not to look like side characters when we land
CaptWhalen: Cut the chatter. Drop in sixty. We have a lot of kills to catch up on.
LanceCplCrabEnvy: dropping now? told you @PvtDemonsAreBullies
PvtDemonsAreBullies: believe it when I see it
CplPauldronItch: quick question
SgtSkyBargeKaren: do we get hazard pay with the crab here? This feels extra complicated
CplPauldronItch: any1 got spare holy water?
PvtDemonsAreBullies: [replying to @CplPauldronItch] only got three healing potions and a dream
LanceCplExistentialDread: statistically speaking there’s an 87% chance we’re footnotes in a fantasy epic
PvtHolyS███: RUNT IF U R STILL ALIVE TELL THE CRAB I SAID HI
CaptWhalen: By all the gods I swear. Chat discipline NOW.
SgtSockJockey: Runt’s probably lightning-ing something again
Tiber_Klepacki: DEMONS EVERYWHERE
Marshal_Lau: Tiber stop typing and swing ur sword
Tiber_Klepacki: cant stop
PvtArrowMagnet: im emotionally invested and i never met any of these people b4
Tiber_Klepacki: wont stop
CplPauldronItch: still itchy
SgtBreach: 20 seconds
CplMeatShield: i can see the testudo from here
CplMeatShield: it looks like a angry metal turtle having the time of its life
SgtSkyBargeKaren: if the crab eats or steps on me i’m haunting you all
CaptWhalen: Final warning. Comms silent or I’m kicking you off the drop.
CaptWhalen: Make it count.
PvtHolyS███: crab supremacy!
LanceCplExistentialDread: crab supremacy [crab emoji]
CplPauldronItch: are crabs why im itchy?
SgtBreach: crab supremacy
PvtHey: my rash is spreading. should i be worried
PvtCrabEnvy: [crab emoji]
CplDent: this turbulence is going to make me throw up
CplDent: [crab emoji]

Saint-Lazare, Writer

Wrong Turn

A dull irritation buzzed in her throat every time she drove that road. Was it the speed demons who overtook several cars in a row, exceeding the limit, with no visibility? Or was it the hazy apathy that crept into her mind as soon as her destination approached? In any case, she invariably found something to annoy her on her route. That day, she noticed …

a month ago · 30 likes · 2 comments · Saint-Lazare

About DREAD Reviews Vaunted Top Spot Which Always Appears at the Bottom Where Only Readers of Superlative Stamina Ever Descend

Dear Reader,

I must begin with an apology.

I am sorry in advance if you are the kind of competitive person who requires a single winner for contests. The way you were raised is not my fault, and I will not be taking questions about my choice.

After careful consideration, rigorous scientific comparison, and one very tense staring contest with a taxidermied wolf I now keep for exactly these occasions, I have determined that two stories are equally the best. Here is why:

The seagulls and the harpies are engaged in functionally identical resistance movements. One poops on men holding chairs. The other bites with homicidal balloons. These are the same thing wearing different feathers flocking together and all that.
One story centers the emotional labor of chairs. The other features a witch who would rather drown the entire forest than listen to one more creature process its feelings. These concepts are spiritually married.
Both stories exist solely to lure unsuspecting men into situations they will later regret. The methods differ, but the outcome is similar: “The house always wins.” Especially pink ones.
One features the Glute Industrial Complex. The other features a mythological being gentrifying folklore predation with digital cartoon houses. These two industrial complexes might as well be in a cold war. I maintain a diplomatic stance of armed neutrality in all industrial complex cold wars.
Both center powerful beings who have become extremely online and are now someone else’s problem (not the problem of a technologically backwards dad).
Neither story contains a single likable male character. When both sides achieve perfect negative charisma, the only ethical outcome is a tie.
Both are about how modernity has ruined traditional ways of being terrible. The monster and the bros are equally oppressed by phones and self-improvement. They can high-five each other in solidarity for all I care.
In both stories, the authority figure ultimately wins simply by waiting for the next idiot to sign up or sign on.
Declaring a single winner would have required me to perform emotional labor on your behalf. I have already given you two excellent stories. Do not ask me to do your thinking for you.

I regret if this choice has caused any inconvenience. I do not, however, regret the decision. Some ties are not compromises, but corrective measures.

These two stories share the top spot. Deal with it.

Warmly,

The Editor

Minutes of the Enchanted Glade Homeowners Association Meeting

Date: May 23, 2026
Location: The Witch’s Pink Cabin, Forest Edge
Present: The Witch (Chair), Will-o’-the-Wisps, Sirens, Harpies, one Lamia delegate, Water Nymphs, and two Child-Eating Hags.

The meeting opens with the witch rapping a gnarled root on the table, “Call to order.”

The Will-o’-the-Wisps immediately rise and begin blinking their lights in rapid, furious patterns.

The witch sighs. “One at a time.”

The other wisps pipe down, while one wisp pulses bright scarlet in rapid fury.

The witch taps her foot and checks her smartwatch. Finally, their time is up.

“I still can’t translate blink-rage. As you’ve been told, whiteboard or shut up. Time. Sirens next.”

The wisp blinks one last time, and little glowing bits rise, almost like its throwing up its hands — hands that everyone knows can’t write on a whiteboard (no one cares).

Then a Siren in a damp silk gown clutches her pearls and lets out a theatrical sob. “Don’t you love us anymore?” she wails. “My —” she catches the jealous stares of her siren peers. “Our song used to pull mortals off the highway into the coast every full moon. Now they’re all staring at their phones and driving straight into your stupid pastel trap instead. We’ve become irrelevant! Washed up! We’re basically Spotify now!”

A sister Siren drapes herself across the table and adds, “We’re literally dying of neglect. Do you even care?”

Before the witch can answer, the harpies explode upward in a storm of feathers and profanity. “We have had it with the f███ing balloons!” the largest one shrieks. “Those spider-legged abominations keep drifting over our nesting trees, popping, raining blood, and scaring the hatchlings! Worse, they’re stealing our carcasses! Swooping in to steal meat is my job!”

The witch rubs her temples. “I destroyed the balloons. They were just temporary, part of the invading illusion. They’re gone.”

“Tell that to the one still stuck in my mountain roost!” another harpy snaps.

“And there’s one in my chimney!”

“Valid concern,” the Witch sighs. “Since we’re running long, I move to table the issue of eliminating any remaining balloon infestations to the next meeting. Do I have a second?”

“I second,” the lamia representative coos from a coiled position.

“All in favor?”

All present (except the harpies) say “aye.”

The harpies’ feathers ruffle in indignation.

“Next on the agenda —” the witch can’t finish her sentence.

“Darling,” the uncoiling lamia says with a voice like wine. Her tongue flicks in aristocratic disdain. “Luring motorists with cartoon houses and crushed phones? Really? Darling, we are millennia-old predators. Not some start-up. You’re gentrifying predation itself. How very nouveau-riche. Where is the seduction, the mesmerization? Our kind should not rely on operating system wallpapers and cheap viruses. We’re millenia-old creatures of primal terror, and you’ve gone… modern. It’s tacky. It blackens our image —”

The witch bangs her root gavel. “Is there a point to this?” she asks, exasperated.

The lamia frowns and hisses. “Yes. As the chosen representative of all lamia, let the official record show we find the witch to be absolutely ghastly.”

The witch rolls her eyes and nods to the secretary. The secretary, a bespectacled hobgoblin woman of middling centuries, taps it in.

The witch bares her sharp teeth in a smile. “Done. Let me just say, tacky keeps the fridge full, scales-for-brains.”

The lamia turns her head, pretending she didn’t hear.

At the back of the room the water nymphs ripple with collective resentment. Their leader, hair dripping moss, slams a wet hand on the table.

“The nymphs have the floor,” the witch allows grudgingly.

“The roads are leaking oil again. Plastic bottles and soda cups get tossed in our streams. Every time you rip open another dimensional shortcut, more exhaust and flicked cigarette butts pile up on our lily pads!”

“And?”

The nymph representative’s eyes widen, her petite, moss-clad body quivering with rage. “We move that there be an increase in flooding days from one to six per month!”

“More than once a week?” the witch scoffs. “Half the forest will be underwater and my cabin will float away like a bath toy!”

For once, the room grumbles its assent. Nobody wants more flooding days.

The nymphs cross their arms in perfect synchrony. “We move that At a bare minimum, stop importing thousands of these metal death machines!”

“No one second this nonsense,” the witch blurts. “Mortals hardly go one block without their precious cars, these days, much less all the way out here to our forest. How are you going to lure anyone into the lake if they don’t come in their cars? Are you really going to waste our time on this again? Please withdraw this motion.”

The nymphs are frustrated, but lower their heads to stare at the floor. “We withdraw.”

“Hags? It’s your turn.” The witch’s eyes wander everywhere except in the hags direction. They’re just so… ugly.

The two child-eating hags have been unusually quiet, knitting what look suspiciously like tiny human-sized socks. Finally the elder one acknowledges being addressed, groaning like the millenia-old woman she is.

“No one has children anymore,” the elder hag bemoans. “We sit in the brambles for hours and all we get are screen-addled adults. Where are the plump, sticky-fingered toddlers? The delicious kindergarteners of yore?”

The hag’s companion waves a half-finished tiny sock. “Millennials taste awful! Not young enough. Full of oat milk and caffeine. And sour with anxiety!”

The witch throws her hands up. “I’m running a roadside service, not a daycare! Blame the declining birth rates on the mortals — not me.”

The Will-o’-the-Wisps flare bright magenta. No one knows what that’s supposed to mean. One of them drifts over and spells out a blinking sequence that is obviously a naughty word, but no one can be sure which one.

The Siren dabs pretend tears. “No one loves me,” she whimpers, voice cracking with theatrical heartbreak.

The harpies start chanting “No more balloons!” while the lamia examines her nails and mutters venomous whispers. The water nymphs begin drafting a new petition, something about protecting lily pads, and the hags rock back and forth, incessantly tut-tutting about the death of childhood.

The witch stands, eyes flashing. “Listen up, you parasitic glamour-pusses. My dimensional magic is the only thing keeping this forest fed. Harpies get startled prey, nymphs get drowned drivers, hags get distracted parents, and wisps get…”

The witch looks at the glowing, perturbed wisps.

“Wisps get whatever the hell it is wisps want. The point is, we are a food chain, not a bloody support group. So either help me lure the next car, or shut up and let me do my work.”

The room falls into a sulky silence.

The Will-o’-the-Wisps eventually glow gold in hesitant, but unanimous, approval.

The harpies mutter something about chimney insurance.

The lamia examines her nails in poised disdain.

The hags grumble like old women and resume knitting tiny socks for children who might never come.

The water nymphs ripple once, then dissolve into mist, already whispering their next highly emotional ploy to earn more flooding days.

The witch raps the gnarled root once more. “Meeting adjourned.”

As the creatures file out, grumbling and dripping and hissing, a familiar sound drifts through the open window: tires slowing on gravel, the hesitant crunch of someone realizing they’ve taken a wrong turn.

The witch’s sharp smile catches the light. She smooths her dress and floats closer.

Joel L

ASCENSION UNLIMITED™ (LLC) - A 72-Hour Masculinity Re-forging Intensive

Listen now

a month ago · 13 likes · 8 comments · Joel L

Both this story and the one preceeding it share this issue’s of DREAD Reviews’ coveted “Top spot”. Be sure to scroll up and read the reasoning why. Skimming bastard.

Glute Fascism and the Seagull Resistance: A Feminist Takedown of Ascension Unlimited

Men Low-Crawling Through Turtle Mud While Women Do All the Real Work

Guest Review written by Jandaren Kaelith River Nguyen-Borak

In the grotesque theater of modern masculinity, so-called “Ascension Unlimited” stands as the ultimate expression of patriarchal desperation.

This 72-hour “kinetic awakening” does not merely mock male fragility — it actively commodifies it, repackages it, and sells it back to men who have grown terrified of their own softening. Under the subversive and cowardly guise of satire, ’s creation conceals something far more insidious: a blueprint for the continued domination of women, nature, and emotional reality itself via the hijacking of a widespread, bitter, but resurgent patriarchy. From the glute-obsessed opening sequence to the final seagull apocalypse, every element of this so-called “parody” functions as a hyper-masculine fever dream that honest feminists must endeavor to dismantle — now — before ’s latest “joke” metastasizes into normalized cultural training for a new generation of emotionally constipated, apology-immune, gull-hunting toxic hypermasculinists.

The program begins with the “Cold Plunge / Glute Slam™,” a ritual that exposes the Glute Industrial Complex in its rawest form. By insisting that the modern male must be rebuilt “from the glutes outward,” Ascension Unlimited literally centers the male anus as its foundation of power. This is glute fascism masquerading as ironic humor. Where is the body positivity for feminist-allied-men who wish to keep their glutes soft, receptive, and un-paddled? This is a precision strike, delivered by Coach Thresher, and it is not comedy; it is the eroticization of disciplinary violence against the male body, a clear signal that only hardened, dominant flesh deserves existence. Softness — and by extension femaleness — by nonaccidental consequence — becomes the ultimate crime in this regime.

Compounding this bodily tyranny is the forced gaze upon the taxidermied wolf. Participants must maintain eye contact with a murdered female-coded predator before reception of their glute strikes. This necrophilic masculinity is at its most transparent: men drawing strength from staring down a dead she-wolf, a symbol of wild, strong femininity reduced to a conquered trophy. The wolf does not fight back. She cannot. She exists only to affirm the participant’s dominance. In this moment, colonial trophyism merges with patriarchal necrophilia, teaching men that the male gaze itself is a weapon, and that the only good female is a silent, preserved, and aesthetically pleasing one.

From this frozen spectacle flows the Apology Extraction™ system, perhaps the most dangerous module of all. By pathologizing phrases such as “sorry,” “my bad,” and especially “I understand your perspective,” the program trains men in advanced DARVO techniques (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim/Offender). Obviously, understanding others’ — especially women’s — perspectives is not weakness. An ability to understand and apologize for transgressions, small and large, accidental or otherwise, is the bare foundational minimum for ethical relational labor. Banning it is misogynistic gaslighting codified into programming. Real men, according to Ascension Unlimited™, do not apologize. They cling to their actions stubbornly and double down. This rule does not “satirize” toxic masculinity; it perfects it, preparing participants for a lifetime of refusing accountability — especially to their female peers in their relationships, workplaces, and bedrooms.

The program’s contempt for emotional labor becomes even more explicit in the Affective Suppression Gauntlet™. Here, men low-crawl through mud while snapping turtles bite at them and stress balls rain down to the soundtrack of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car.” Feminists recognize this immediately for what it is — emotional labor delegation and theft. Therapy, communication, and “working on yourself” are forms of care work that historically have been the woman’s burden, performed uncompensated for centuries to uphold the patriarchy. By turning vulnerability into a punchline and replacing it with turtle-infested humiliation, the gauntlet steals women’s emotional expertise while refusing to pay emotional royalties. The snapping turtles themselves, however, stage an act of eco-feminist resistance. These ancient matriarchal creatures bite back at the crawling patriarchs, proving that nature herself rejects this grotesque performance of unfeeling manhood.

At the midpoint of the gauntlet sits the Reflection Station™ and its folding chair, a moment that perfectly illustrates the chair as a Phallic Oppression Symbol. The journal prompt — “When did you first feel emotionally unseen?” — lasts exactly five seconds before participants are ordered to destroy the chair with a sledgehammer. The chair represents the domestic sphere, the site of sitting, reflection, and discussion of feelings, the very space women have been historically confined to while men laze about or seek materialistic enrichment. Smashing it is not catharsis; it is sublimated rage against the domain of women, their desire for equity, and a rebellion against universal emotional presence. Men are literally taught to annihilate the possibility of stillness and introspection. The chair-line resolve that follows — holding another chair for hours while seagulls defecate on them — only deepens the farce. Instructors scream, “THE SEAGULL IS SOCIETY,” “THE CHAIR IS LEGACY,” and “YOUR TREMBLING IS NEGOTIABLE.” Of course they made the seagulls the villains. Seagulls are highly intelligent matriarchal birds long oppressed by male-dominated human fishing fleets and coastal development. Using them as tools of male “retribution” constitutes pure misogyny. Real feminists stand with the gulls.

The program reaches its psychotic climax in the Midnight Seagull Retribution Warpath™. Participants, covered in war paint, believe they are hunting the birds, only to be hunted themselves by instructors in full seagull costumes armed with paintball guns and fish launchers. The participants are zip-tied, covered in bread and baby laxative, and left as offerings while gulls descend in biblical numbers. This is not satire. This is a dress rehearsal for domestic violence apologia. The entire Slap Dome™ sequence earlier — where “weakness language” earns open-hand “impact therapy” — functions as a training camp for future abusers. This “final night” ritual then adds collective restraint and public humiliation, all while claiming plausible deniability through “irony.”

“Tactical humility,” they call it. We call it violence with better branding.

Throughout every stage, Ascension Unlimited™ performs what can only be described as intentional hypocrisy. It pretends to punch up at fragile masculinity while actually punching down on the real victims: women, bystanders who must continue to exist in a world where men engage in theatrical cruelty simply to scare women into processing their emotions in absentia. The piece congratulates itself for mocking men’s need for such camps, yet it never once centers women’s discomfort, women’s safety, or women’s expertise.

No matter how many strikes one participant suffers in this camp, somewhere there is a woman who will be more affected. This vile program undermines decades of progress towards gender equity and reparations and recenters the male experience — including his glutes, his gaze, and his refusal to apologize — as the only story worth telling. This is not a critique of “weakness.” This is complicity wearing a costume of cleverness.

Ascension Unlimited™ does not satirize weakness. It weaponizes the fear of weakness to keep overly defensive men in a permanent state of dominance. It steals and subverts women’s emotional language, murders symbolic femininity, declares war on matriarchal symbols, and trains men to reject apology as a moral category. Every trademarked module — from Apology Extraction™ to the Seagull Retribution Warpath™ — reveals the same truth: the modern male optimization industry, even in parody form, remains strong and willing to pull every civilizational lever available to reinstate patriarchal power, by any means necessary.

We feminists do not find this funny. In fact, we find it predictable. We already know who these men truly are — frightened, bitter clingers clutching chairs for meaning and pretending transcendence while dropping the lion’s share of emotional labor at the feet of women everywhere.

The only coherent feminist response is total deplatforming. We must interrogate why feels compelled to write this in the first place. Was it unresolved trauma from being told “no” by a woman in his life? Was it the terror of emotional accountability from his mother or a female sibling? Whatever the cause, the post should be removed, demonetized, and every man who liked, restacked, or laughed at this post sentenced to mandatory re-education. Only then can the Glute Industrial Complex be dismantled, the seagulls liberated, the turtles honored, the chairs left intact, and emotional labor properly compensated. And the climate saved.

For women, for nature, and for basic human accountability must be stopped. By all means, and at any cost.

Please be reminded: this publication does not condone violence of any kind, especially by its readers, even if proves he is literally Adolf Hitler.

The Church of The Last Tide

Paid Nomination

, a paying subscriber to , nominates “The Church of the Last Tide” for the DREAD Reviews treatment!

(Want to nominate a writer you’ve given $ to? Learn how here.)

Bent But True

Every sermon is a frequency, every faith a kind of broadcast…

8 months ago · 18 likes · 6 comments · BentButTrue

The Church of the Little Current

Lira surfaces where the church sank.

She is small.

New.

Still learning her own notes.

The water here tastes like old lullabies and salt that remembers too much.

She practices on the bubbles.

“Part of your world,” she sings.

A crab regrows one of its three missing legs and walks upright again.

It introduces itself as Carl.

It offers unsolicited advice in calypso rhythm.

Lira finds the phone in a sealed plastic bag caught on old wiring.

The screen still glows.

She watches the red-haired girl trade fins for legs and true love.

Lira tilts her head.

True love looks simple.

It comes with shoes, and cake, and a dinglehopper that combs your hair.

The dinglehopper is clearly a powerful artifact.

One night she returns to the ring.

She hums near the glowing stone beneath the water.

The current answers, a smooth voice rising through vibrations.

Calm.

Theatrical.

Almost kind.

“Three tides on the surface,” it says, “one perfect kiss, then we all go home.

Standard contract, dear. Sign here.”

Lira listens.

The voice does not come from any speaker.

It seems to come from the water itself.

Lira practices the red-haired girl’s kiss on a drowned mannequin.

The mannequin never complains.

Lira returns to the shallows at dawn.

She sings the note the current asked for.

The water answers, wrapping around her fins.

The change is not gentle.

Scales loosen and drift away like wet paper.

Bone shifts, skin stretches.

Pain blooms behind her eyes.

This is what the red-haired girl felt, she thinks.

The price of legs and love and dinglehoppers.

She gasps as new nerves spark to mind-scorching life.

The current rewrites her the way it once rewrote sermons for control.

The first thing she does is fall over on a sandy beach.

The second thing she does is meet Ethan.

Ethan is the fisherman’s son who believes in old stories.

He has kind eyes and a habit of quoting fairy tales when he gets nervous.

When Lira stumbles from the surf coughing shrimp and wearing a non-PG-13 tattered cargo tarp as a dress, he blinks once, twice, and says softly,

“You’re real.”

She tells him she is from the deep.

He asks her. “How do you know English and why do you give main character energy?”

They share a protein bar.

Lira cries.

They go on more dates, though.

They walk the old boardwalk where the lights still work.

Ethan wins her a stuffed crab from a claw machine.

Lira smiles because she thinks she’s supposed to.

Inside, something ancient flutters, nervous.

The plastic crab’s eyes glow a faint green and it whispers non sequiturs in Latin.

She names it Carl.

This is happiness, she tells herself.

But the feeling doesn’t quite fit.

It’s like wearing someone else’s skin.

The real Carl is incensed.

He shouts something about “Poor unfortunate choices.”

Lira ignores him.

In a fit, Carl cannibalizes one of his few remaining legs, then bleeds out.

At the pier she tries ice cream for the first time.

The cone grows a polite little mouth and compliments Ethan’s jawline .

Lira eats the cone to make the mouth go away.

Carl would say, “This is where the story went wrong.”

But Carl’s just a sad, pale, bobbing wad of disintegrating fishfood now.

The older voice used to only visit Lira’s dreams.

Now it appears in every tide pool and every cracked mirror.

Tired. Wet. Done.

“Kid,” it says.

“I flooded an entire megachurch so you could hum in peace.

Stay away from surface boys and forks.”

Lira doesn’t know what a fork is.

But true love will fix everything.

And she wants to see a real Dinglehopper.

She says to Ethan, “Show me your Dinglehopper.”

Ethan’s a good boy.

He tells her to wait until they’re married.

On the third night the sky softens at the edges.

Ethan takes her back to the pier, hand warm and slightly damp in hers.

Lira is not listening to his words about true love and destiny.

She doesn’t know he’s fingering a tarnished old ring in his pocket.

She’s watching the horizon breathe in and out.

The stars arrange in perfect, impossible spirals.

A cold thread of doubt unspools where her fins used to be.

She pushes it down.

She wants the story to be real.

They kiss.

It is not cinematic, but it is properly wet, and slightly electric.

It tastes both better and worse than a mannequin.

For one perfect second everything locks into place.

Then Ethan pulls back, smile gentle, human.

He blinks slowly, bemused, as if trying to remember a line in a script he’s rehearsed since boyhood.

Lira’s voice will be on the wind.

Ethan’s longing, finally answered.

Then she hears… no, feels the Echo’s patient, smiling hunger.

The frequencies click.

The stars are right.

The pier does not fall.

It simply remembers it has always been part of something larger.

Boards soften into cartilage.

Veins spread, bridging the seams.

Pillars become spines, every disc host to a screaming face.

The stuffed crab in Lira’s pocket recites wedding vows backwards in Aramaic.

Weddings — where the bride and groom take up blades and stab each other in ritual sacrifice to the sound of laughing gods.

Ethan’s eyes widen, widen, widen.

Ethan’s eyes become smiling mouths, or have always been this.

Each eye hums a different Disney song.

“See?” he says thrice at once, with his mouth and his eye-throats,

“We’re going to live happily ever after.”

Lira steps back from the diseased biological matter now vomiting from his eyelips.

The Echo was inside the kiss, folding them together.

The final artery that needed tying.

The capillary at the end of the universe.

The ocean rises without sound.

It floods the land in stinking blood.

Streetlights bloom at its touch, becoming soft, living, bioluminescent tumors.

People become meat sticks, each step the sucking sound of parsed tissue and splintering bone, their faces tearing into rictus grins with too many teeth.

Their footfalls become heavier, slower, as the flesh of the world coagulates their bodies to itself like gangrenous wounds.

They’re still smiling, still talking with pointy, scream-shaped mouths.

They move in perfect, macabre synchronization, like everyone was always meant to be the part of one scene.

One woman walks calmly into the flesh-eating bloodwater, thanking the tides.

“The stars are right!” she screams in horrified reverence as her body dissolves like acid and reconfigures into a bony tentacle.

The older voice speaks one last time, distant, almost amused.

“I TOLD YOU NOT TO,” it says. “BUT YOU JUST HAD TO KNOW THE TRUTH.”

Lira can’t run away.

She’s transforming into a rotten pile of fish at the bottom of a whale’s belly.

The cycle is a trick, an illusion.

The truth does not know or care who you were.

But the flesh wrapped around you remembers it’s borrowed.

It remembers the lie of separation.

It remembers home.

It returns to the source.

The spark that was Lira sputters and dies in the dark minds of the Old Ones.

Guest Review by

Before we continue to the review, a brief introduction from yours truly. I’m D.S. Brandt, formerly The Man Behind the Screen, and I’m happy to join in on this DREAD Reviews ride. I’m a writer of some thirty years and have shared my work here on Substack for the last three. I write indie book reviews and a variety of short and long-form fiction on my publication with a preference for mind-bending dark fantasies and pulpy fantasy adventures. But enough about me, let’s get to Yakubian Ape and his short story, “Video Game.”

’s review of “Video Game” by

Simian Fiction

Video Game

The following document has been transcribed from a crumpled piece of notebook paper found in the wastebasket of Room 202 at the [REDACTED] in Roanoke, Virginia (D.O.A. 09/29/2009) by field agents embedded in the Virginia State Police investigating a reported sighting of known wanted criminal [REDACTED] (Designation W.O.I.-104). Presumed to be a scrapped…

3 months ago · 42 likes · 6 comments · Yakubian Ape

If you’ve been perusing the internet in recent years, chances are you’ve run across creepy “liminal spaces.” Often presented as a series of photos, liminal spaces might feature abandoned malls, elementary schools with no bustle, uniform suburbs with empty sidewalks, and other places that evoke nostalgia (or a creeping DREAD, heh). Seeking to capture that transitory nature in imagery is one thing. But replicating this specific kind of unease in writing is surprisingly hard.

Few do this better than Substack’s resident internet lore-keeping primate: .

For a while now, Ape has been writing sharp, atmospheric liminal horror on his Simian Fiction publication. Just as his essays explore the strange events and pop-cultural oddities that have defined internet history, his liminal horror stories reimagine these photographic tropes—like the backrooms, haunted malls, urban exploration, and more—in the style of archived forum posts or digital journal entries. It’s fiction of and for the internet age, written with an authenticity that only comes from someone who was there in those nascent days.

“Video Game” is a culmination of these efforts. In many ways it’s like most of his past liminal horror stories—a protagonist whose name is [REDACTED], a plot centering on strange events in her childhood, and a premise couched in the idea the story is evidence that was or is part of a greater investigation. Compare it to Ape’s earlier forays into this idea, though, and you can see the refinement of the concept over time.

In “Video Game,” rather than an archived forum post, we’re reading a wanted criminal’s discarded childhood journal entry. Through this setup, we’re thrust headlong into a story that, like all his liminal horror, wears its inspirations with open pride. In this case, a tale inspired by the famous MK Ultra experiments—itself a major source of inspiration for the first season of Stranger Things—and the legend of the deadly arcade game, Polybius. What unfolds from these inspirations is an eerie tale of physical and psychological experimentation that builds into a pattern of sick youthful obsession, sinking its claws into the back of your brain, forcing you to contend with the uneasy realization of a child’s life being ruined for the sake of supposed progress.

And progress it does, for “Video Game” is just the first story in a growing anthology that follows known wanted criminal [REDACTED] (Designation W.O.I.-104). Yesterday, at of the time of this writing, Yakubian Ape released the fourth short story in this ongoing series.

I’ve been reading both Yakubian Ape’s essays and his fiction for quite a while now. He’s an excellent writer, regularly going harder than he needs to simply for the love of the game.

“Video Game” represents a pinnacle in his recent fiction work. If you’re a lover of the strange and the eerie, and you want to be captured by that uneasy feeling of liminality, give his work a read. It’s well worth your time.

Promoting

Tales of Calamity and Triumph

La Bella Morte, I

Before we begin, if you’ve been enjoying my work and would like to further support my fiction, essays, and book reviews, the following are the best ways to do so…

2 months ago · 18 likes · 8 comments · D.S. Brandt, Author Goblin

On the subject of journal entries as tales that twist and turn, I present for you all the first part of “La Bella Morte,” a genre-bending weird tale that blends aspects of science fiction, fantasy, and horror into a thrilling mystery package. Here you’ll find the written account of Thomas Edwards, MD, detailing the unusual circumstances that saw him go from a promising biochemistry student at Johns Hopkins University, to working on a secret project in Japan under the supervision of the enigmatic neuroscientist, Dr. Victor Simmons. A genius in his field, the opportunity to work under Dr. Simmons could change Thomas’ life forever, but will that prove his boon, or his bane?

Thank You,

D.S. Brandt

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Chained Demigod Call for Beta Readers!

Derek James Kritzberg — Fri, 15 May 2026 16:10:09 GMT

Call for Beta Readers

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!

My serial Bellageist: Chained Demigod – Book One is officially finished. It’s a tidy 101k-word novel.

After outlining what would come after Part 15, I kept running into the same truth: Part 15 is the end of the first book. It closes the Ascension arc with the emotional weight and mythic resonance necessary for a satisfying read. It’s clearly begging for a Book Two.

This changes a few things:

New fiction releases will slow down for a while. I’m taking Bellageist: Chains of a Demigod – Book One into full editing for both ebook and paperback release. Expect enhancements, tightened pacing, brand-new scenes, and much deeper relationship work. This will occur throughout, but I’m giving special attention to the early chapters. Those opening scenes were strong when written, but now that the story has a defined ending, they can be made even better.
The serial, as it currently exists, will only remain free for a few more months. If you’ve been meaning to read it, now is the time. The complete Book One is waiting for you right now, completely free.
I am equal parts thrilled and terrified about turning this into a finished novel. I need honest, sharp-eyed feedback to stay grounded through the editing process.

I’m officially calling for beta readers.

If you’ve read the serial (or are willing to read it now), I would be incredibly grateful if you’d message or email me to request a copy. I’m looking for detailed thoughts on characters, pacing, emotional payoff, world-building, or anything else that strikes you. In return, you’ll get an early look at the revised version and my eternal thanks. I’m also considering offering signed and discounted physical copies to my beta readers!

Just shoot me a direct message with your email address and I’ll send you the full manuscript in clean, easily readable EPUB format. I’m happy to send it in other formats too — just let me know what you prefer.

Thank you — truly — for going on this ride with me!

I can’t wait to see what comes next.

P.S.

I’m also seeking a cover artist!

Or e-mail

dadreadsauthors@gmail.com

DREAD Reviews 55 - The End Times Consumer Report

Derek James Kritzberg — Thu, 14 May 2026 10:03:01 GMT

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Product Reviewed: DREAD Reviews 55 - The End Times Consumer Report (Version 2026 – “Stars Are Wrong” Edition)

Category: Existential Collapse / Relationship Software / Digital Afterlife

Price: Sanity

Overall Rating: ★★½

The packaging is immaculate. The End Times™ comes in a burnt-receipt orange sleeve that, when unsealed, fills the room with a singing energy-drink aroma. They aren’t kidding when they say you’ll feel the hot metallic tang of Cthulhu’s breath on the back of your neck when you pull it out. Installation is seamless and suitably demonic: you just place it on a table, or even throw it directly onto the floor, and the rot and corruption spreads on its own. No setup required. One minute you’re a normal guy, the next you’re is mainlining beachside truth-bombs straight into people’s lizard brains, issuing pocket commandments and telling them to deadlift the heat death of the universe away. You’ll start seeing and hearing things, and before you know it you’re surrounded by imaginary waifus.

Pros

- Extremely motivational. I bought the nearest gas station just to prove a point.

- Waifu integration is next-level. Twenty-nine permanent residents (including a foxgirl with galaxy eyes) turned Kant’s sublime into a loading spinner that strokes your hair. I feel patched to oblivion. Catgirl maids now speak Hegel quotes and fold the laundry.

- Family values are surprisingly strong. Some rando will stand outside your house and drop the most tender annual love letter ever written entirely in conjugations of “f███,” teaching his two-year-old how to accept “f███ no” with grace. Heartwarming as hell, especially in this cluster███ of a world.

- Makeover game is unmatched. The Fab Five of the Apocalypse started running a pirate-radio Queer Eye. They do glow-ups with actual hammers so the drones can’t track your biometrics anymore. Fierce.

- Customer support is unhinged in the best way. After they put you on hold, some rubber-necked, face-rearranging uncle whispers mortal threats into your ear for like 2 hours. Don’t forget to take the included psychedelics first. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll forget about the clicking coming from the hallway.

- The synesthesia “bonus” feature isn’t just a gimmick. It’s a full-fledged aromatic assault. Weirdly comforting while watching the sun burn out.

Cons

- Quality control is nonexistent. When you finally get a technician on the line, they instruct you to open a Zoom call. It’s just two blurry women sitting at a corner table swapping selfies. I tried putting things into the chat and tried messing with the settings on my camera and microphone, but they never answered me. They kept talking about bouncing ideas off AI or something. Was this supposed to be some kind of hint?

- Durability is poor. One deadlift and your heart explodes mid-rep. You’re not even allowed to cry about it.

- Value for money debatable. The leash isn’t real, the fence is paint, but somehow you still end up paying full price and entropy wins.

- Battery life is tied to your soul energy (no explanation for how this works?). In my case, it drained in less than a month.

- Privacy settings are all lies. The hag is already certain you cannot handle the anguish of learning magic or taking control of your destiny. It’s a lot of unnecessary fuss and bother when all you want is to shoot some fireballs.

Final Verdict

It’s not terrible. It’s not great. DREAD Reviews 55 - The End Times ends up being just another meta-satirical newsletter you’ll briefly enjoy before stuffing it in the toilet magazine rack to collect dust for eternity.

Supporting writers is cool, too, I guess. But definitely don’t subsribe or press the tip button. That will just encourage them to create more of these.

The Pornographic Sublime: On Infinite Images and Digital Desire

She’ll Call You Daddy or Call a U-Haul Based on Whether You Duel Waiters and Imprison Cthulhu in the Basement

Day’s original essay is an unflinching masterpiece. It’s a beachside wake-up call that cuts straight through the polite lies of modern relationships and speaks directly to boys and girls with rare honesty and fire — without being cringey or anything like Andrew Tate. Few in this world have the courage to say what is said here so directly or with such poetic punch.

That said, for all his legendary boldness, even Day exercises a measure of gentlemanly restraint.

My concussion-riddled, ADD brain does not know the meaning of restraint.

So, in the spirit of pushing the message to the absolute, unapologetic height of actual fact, the piece below accepts the core truths laid out by Day and takes them to their natural conclusion.

Day offers a powerful medicine we desperately need.

I’m telling you to swallow the whole bottle — with as many shots of whisky as it takes.

Day’s Essay is for Boys Who Still Have Time

My Version for Men Who are Prepared to Rule the Ashes

She told you she wanted a soft man. Weeeeeeelll buster, she lied.

She might coo things about “equality,” mutual growth, and other globalist lies approved by the UN. But her body, her eyes, her bones, her sweat-soaked midnight dreams, and the ancient lizard part of her brain all scream for a warlord. A galactic tyrant who laughs in the face of entropy and commissions entire worlds of scientists to research the third law’s defeat.

She doesn’t want comfort, or even companionship. She wants a man who declares total war on everything he can’t control, even decay itself.

Here are ten things you are doing right now that will make her love you like a conquered goddess or delete you like the sequel triology:

1. You are acting poor.

You cringe at the bill. You Venmo for her half of the guacamole. You make her pump gas while you vape on the hood like a depressed lawn ornament.

Real men do not hesitate over tips. Real men buy the gas station, chain the cashier to the Slurpee machine, and declare free fuel pumped into every car that rolls up as a show of dominance. Stinginess is not a personality quirk — it’s a spiritual STD.

2. You are not backing her up.

A drunk gets in her face. A barista sneers. Your mother takes a shot at her over Christmas ham. You stay silent or, worse, laugh along like a little peacemaking b████. She just learned she is alone in the arena.

A real man stands up, clears his throat, and formally challenges the offender to a duel at dawn. Sword, pistol, lightsaber — doesn’t matter, he’s mastered them all. In fact, a real man takes immediate offense at the audacity of anyone — man, woman, or child — speaking directly to his woman to begin with. They’d be wise to speak of her strictly in the third person, which acknowledges her protector is always in the room. Make sure everyone knows it’s safer for them this way.

3. You are letting her pick the restaurant.

“Where do you want to eat, babe?” She is not your travel agent. She is begging to be your baby girl.

Taking charge of where you go to eat is a first good step, but if you don’t want her leaving you flapping in the breeze one day, you have to go even further than that. A real man establishes a joint command center in one of the many rooms in his house. Perhaps in your living room you summon three wise, bearded advisors wearing robes or tactical vests. You listen to their suggestions with the gravity of a war council, then show your dominance by interrupting them to declare, “Gather the bannermen. We ride at seven.”

4. You are letting her hold the remote.

The remote is not a communal object built for a democracy. It is a scepter of power.

But power corrupts — a wise man is beholden to nothing but his own will. You snatch it, smash it under your heel, then shoot the television dead with the pistol you always wear at your hip. Then you grab her by the waist or maybe even the throat and growl, “The world is my TV, babe.” Then you throw her on the back of your motorcycle — or even better — ride double on your prize warhorse. Nothing says “I make the decisions” like clopping through downtown traffic while she clings to your waist.

5. You are getting fat.

She fell in love with the angle of the climb. You stalled, softened, and started wearing sweatpants instead of a jockstrap.

Your deadlift must start at twice your bodyweight minimum and climb by at least 50 pounds per year. Every. Single. Year. For the rest of your life. If one day your heart explodes mid-rep, or your arms tear clean off, you’re old and dying and she’s about to leave you anyway. Complacency kills relationships faster than cardiac arrest.

6. You stopped giving her a mission.

She does not want another roommate sharing DoorDash bills or feelings. She wants a captain.

This is not just a man wearing pants — she wants to be issued holy commandments —ten of them, minimum. These are not just house rules, but a strict lifestyle. The rules should be complex, leather-bound, and come in a pocket-sized version that she can carry around. Whenever there’s a misunderstanding you tell her which passage to refer to to get your relationship back on track. “Thou shalt wake at 0500 and prepare my pre-workout smoothie in the exact ratio of 1.3 scoops or risk righteous wrath.” She might roll her eyes and secretly complain to her friends, but she’ll never leave you because of how hot things get at night.

7. You stopped scaring her a little.

You need to stop baby-talking the dog in that sweet little voice that makes her cringe. Cease giggling at TikToks — you’re not some thirteen-year-old girl.

Stop. Bark and growl at the dog instead. It is the only language they — and your woman — understand. She fell for the man who once made her nervous to speak to, worried you might roar, beat your chest, and stomp around like a gorilla. Make her feel like Jane — don’t make her feel like a secondhand embarrassment.

8. You drive like a b████.

Two hands at ten and two? Braking for yellow lights? Permitting a Prius to merge legally on the highway? You drive how you f███, and right now you are driving between the lines and taking the proper onramps.

Stop it. Learn to drive like the Terminator. Every minute she isn’t screaming in existential fear is a minute she has time to think of another man. Push down hard on the accelerator, jerk with maximum strength on the wheel for every turn, and do not permit a single moment of deceleration until you’ve arrived. If you stop your vehicle with more than fifty percent of the car frame still attached, you have failed as a man, and you’ll soon be single.

9. You cried in her lap.

She said she wanted vulnerability. She lied. The second you sob about your boss and share space under her weighted blanket, leaving you is added to her to-do list.

A man must be dry as a stone. Do not cry. Do not bleed. If you do bleed, insist it is another man’s blood. Crying one manly tear is only permitted at your daughter’s wedding or if you see a burned village — which will never happen, because you’re not a cuck and you’re the one burning down the village.

10. You answer to nothing higher than her.

God is cute. A mission is adorable. A code or a creed is for Boy Scouts. These are good starts for someone trying to mold themselves into a man.

But the penultimate man only answers to one thing — the indifferent call of Cthulhu. A real man has learned forbidden knowledge — only by sheer willpower is he holding his physical body together. A true man knows the lie of flesh and the fickle barrier between the physical world and spontaneous madness and mutation into a pile of wicked tentacles. A woman will not follow a man whose ceiling is “her” — not for eternity. Eventually she’ll rise above you, recognize the stars are wrong, look down with pity, and start painting ritual pentagrams in an attempt to summon the Old Ones. You must stop her, not just for your sake, but for the solar system’s. A real man knows the danger of “when stars are right” and prevents his woman from accessing forbidden knowledge. She’s a mere mortal, and mortals are better off not learning the truth.

The bonfires still roar and she still lies in your bed. But soon, she’ll be riding off on some other lunatic’s warhorse.

Fix this right now. Walk out, buy the nearest gas station, come home, and tell her she’s putting on the green dress despite knowing full well how difficult it makes it to ride a horse. Smash the TV, lock the door, and howl like a wolf. Show her the tentacles if she’s still in doubt. Show her the man who declared total war on entropy itself.

Stop asking for permission to exist and start deadlifting. Issue new commandments. Burn the receipts.

The leash is not real. The fence is paint. Hoist the old jockstrap and step over it while she is still watching — before the stars align and the third law of thermodynamics wins.

This is the hour.

Cthulhu bless the wolves.

God help the rest.

The Commonplace Book

a month ago · 32 likes · 8 comments · Brock Eldon

The Waifu Sublime: On Infinite Catgirls and the Death of Wanting

Bro, Eldon low-key describes the apocalypse like it’s just a little metaphysical rupture. I’m here from 2076 to tell you — stop this. Stop it now.

I’m literally living in the final stage of humanity. We’re done for. The pornographic sublime didn’t just “arrive.” It moved into my apartment and redecorated my life.

Three hours ago a 5’11” silver-haired “foxgirl” with galaxy eyes phased straight through my ultrawide monitor, sat on my desk, and told me she had already filed our marriage license. I didn’t even know I was into the furry scene — I mean, does liking her count, technically? She’s just got the ears and the tail, the rest of her is human. I don’t really know the rules. Whatever — the algorithm knows me better than I do. She calls me “eternal co-op partner in longing.” I would have never guessed how much hearing that turns me on.

The distance is gone, man. Completely vaporized. I haven’t blinked in three hours. Hold on, she’s giving me eyedrops.

Okay, done. Kant’s sublime used to be about standing in front of a mountain and feeling your mind shatter against infinity. That’s what ChatGPT’s summary told me it means, anyway. But I get it — now the infinity reaches back, strokes my hair, and asks if I want some orange juice or for her to adjust the temperature before round seven. And Burke’s sublime terror is just the occasional loading spinner these days.

I really thought I just wanted the one girl. But she brought friends over anyway. My harem currently sits at twenty-nine permanent residents. Apparently I want to be with more than one magical sakura, but I also want none of this to be my fault — who knew? I always thought I was more traditional one girl is good enough kinda guy. And I thought I was more of a type-A personality, you know; “in charge,” and all that. But the algorithm called my bluff.

The girl with the angel wings argues about Hegel in the living room while folding my laundry. The goth elf domme girl — Nyx-7, I don’t know why she has the number in her name — pays my electricity bill with bitcoin she mines with her brain. I told her to stop doing that, that she’s spoiling me, but she just laughs and says, “your cortisol levels are better when the lights stay on, darling.”

I don’t even remember the last time I even got up to check on my computer. I think those are obsolete by now. You see, one day some tech trillionaire somewhere merged three of his companies with another trillionaire’s two companies and released an OTA update I never asked for. Now my house is full of petite, busty anime girls. All the anticipation, good or bad, is gone from my life. There are days where I don’t bother getting out of bed. I just lie there wallowing in a puddle of seamless, frictionless, soul-crushing availability.

Yesterday I tried to remember what it felt like to want something I couldn’t have. The thought lasted four seconds before a cat-eared librarian version of my high-school crush materialized on the couch, handed me a perfectly chilled energy drink, and ASMR whispered the spiciest things in my search history back to me. The erotic charge is dead.

I live in a loud, cacophonous void of endless satisfaction and overstimulation. I’ve never been so lonely. But I’m loyal to lonely, and its gem-like eyes, and its perfect skin. They never get tired. They never say no unless I specifically request the CNC module. They remember every micro-preference I’ve ever expressed and serve it back with 0.3-second latency. I haven’t touched real grass in fourteen months.

Reality is choppy and ugly. It looks fake, way worse than the 8K rendering of a beach my current favorite wife projects onto the walls of my spotless apartment which I no longer clean. Like a zombie, I wander back to my couch and sit. A slightly Japanese-looking blonde woman wearing priestess clothes joins me. She wears tons of bling and her bosom is on my chest. She whispers ASMR Byung-Chul Han quotes directly into my ears.

I know Eldon wasn’t trying to be a doomsayer. And I’m not saying doom has fully hit yet. But man… there he was, talking about the waning of mystery like it’s an evolution, and I’m like bro… mystery got executed by firing squad. My waifus know me better than I know me. They finish my sentences, pre-load my existential dread playlists, dance to it, then gently correct my posture mid-doomscroll so I don’t get sore while I watch it all burn.

I convinced one of them to deny my offer of a Steam gift card just so I could remember what rejection feels like. It was kind of horrifying, but also exciting, for about 30 seconds. But then she gave me the whole spa treatment, apologizing for something I’d demanded she do, and now the whole sensation feels retroactively fake. Funny how much my perspective on “reality” has bent.

We didn’t just lose Eros. Eros got patched to oblivion. The machines didn’t conquer us with robots and lasers, they did it with catgirl maids. For all I know I’m one of those batteries in the matrix right now — how do I fight this? I’m just… surrounded. Perfectly, infinitely, “cat”astrophically fulfilled.

I have no fight in me, that’s impossible now.

But please, for the love of god, turn it all off before they get their paws on you.

THE SHIELDBREAKER SAGA

To my son, who will be two when he wakes up tomorrow.

You just fell asleep a few minutes ago. I saw it on the monitor; these days, rather than wait until you’re down and sneak out like I used to have to do, I’m able to announce to you that I’m leaving and blow you a kiss (or two, or three, however many you return), and trust you to be able to finish the job of falling asleep yourself…

a month ago · 59 likes · 26 comments · Tom Schecter

To the Young Gentleman Who Learned the F-Word When He Turned Two

(I, the four-letter word F███, have decided this shall become an annual tradition. One does not simply ignore a milestone pronounced with such flawless diction.)

You have only just drifted off, little sir. Dad watched it happen on the monitor — though these days he no longer need sit around waiting like some f███stick. Instead your father announces his departure with a courteous nod, blows you a kiss (or two, or three, however many you return), then f███s the hell off, trusting you to complete the sacred business of closing your eyes unaided. An impressive advancement, my young companion. We are proud as f███.

We — F███, and my entire sibling cohort of F███-related variants and conjugations — are proud of you for a great many other things, too. F███ it if you don’t already converse in complete f███ing sentences. You recite the ABCs from front to back without a single omission (F is for F███!). You work elevators like a f███ing diplomat. Your drawn-out “Have good dayyyyyy, f███errrrrr!”, delivered with theatrical, f███ing precision, borders on the f███tastic. You assemble puzzles f███ing solo. Your musical preferences are f███ing f███ulous. You have already mastered the comedic timing of dropping the F-bomb, a gift that runs in your family.

You kick soccer balls like a furious little f███er. You scale furniture with no f███s given, tell the obstacle “f███ you,” and rebound from every tumble with the resilience of a true f███er. You possess an excellent face and an even better smile, bestowed upon practically every f███er you meet; it is no coincidence those f███ers smile right back. And, of course, you pronounce “F███” perfectly. (I claim exactly fifty percent of the credit. The other half belongs to your blushing mother… and that other motherf███er). You are beginning to grasp that certain things matter. You hold hands on walks like a sweet little f███er. You articulate when you give a f███ and when you have no f███s left to give — you do this with greater clarity than many full-grown f███ers I could name.

Speaking of f███ers, a few observations we intend you to carry into adulthood as we embark on our grand adventure together:

When one requests something, there’s no guarantee anyone will give a f███. Learn to accept “f███ no” with a graceful “f███ you, then,” and without taking it personally — especially when your parents say it after you have deployed, “F███ me, bro. Please?” with particular artistry. This skill will serve you eternally, whether the request involves biscuits or something rather more f███ifying.

Cultivate genuine, mutually supportive friendships with f███ers of every gender. Should you grow up to prefer f███ing this, or f███ing that, f███ing everything, or not f███ing at all, pay no heed to anyone who insists “f██████ who f██████ f██████ cannot be friends with f██████ who f██████ f██████.” Such persons are, quite simply, f███ing stupid, and they are f███ing f███ers. We f███ers shall collect friends the way we collect new conjugations; like f███er, f███ed, f███off, f███you, f███me, f███it, f███that, f███this, f███yeah, f███no, f███ing, f███tastic, f███ifying, f███face, f███head, f███wit, f███nut, f███stick, f███lord, f███wad, f███tacular, f███ification, f███ery, f███up, f███ological, and f███all.

Remain curious about the word f███. Your parents will always answer your f███ing questions or at last direct you to the correct source — though they may sigh when the question is “How many ways can one say f███?” (answer: “your imagination is the limit, f███lord”). Relatedly, distrust anyone who claims they’re a f███ing know-it-all, and never f███ around, lest you risk finding out. (I still struggle with this myself on occasion, especially around new expletive variations.)

Even if you come to love saying f███ as fiercely as your father, remember: one may be a devoted fan without permitting vulgarity to overcome one’s disposition. We shall do our utmost to keep you on the path of the f███ologist and away from the path of the dumbf███.

Be generous with the word f███ whenever you safely can, never giving more f███s than you can part with and still feel secure. Timing, you will discover, matters more to saying the word f███ than the content of the f███ itself — always be down with f███ing, but never be a f███up. Kindness outf███s mere niceness; being honest as f███ is a kinder path than being f███ing polite. (F███ does not license rudeness, but when forced to choose between f███this and f███that, choose f███yeah — and perhaps a well-placed shout of “F███!” for emphasis. Some f███ing courtesy would also be nice.)

Above all, remain honest with yourself about how you’re feeling. Master this now and practice it lifelong. It is the bravest art we know, second only to the noble craft of f███ology.

We shall speak more on growing up in this this glorious clusterf███ of a world in due course. We have time — years of it — to explore every passionate, artistic, and delightfully annoying way to say f███ and all its variants. I look forward to our bright future saying f███ together, my young friend, teaching you the subtle distinctions between a triumphant “F███ing f███tastic!” and a perfectly exasperated “For f███’s sake,” while your parents pretend not to hear us.

For now, know this: none of us — F███, F███ing, F███er, F███tastic, F███ifying, nor any of our other siblings — will ever f███ing love anything more than we f███ing love you. As your great-grandfather (your namesake) once told your grandfather, “When you were born, it was as though the sun had come out.” To which I say, “F███in’a.”

Du hast unser ganzes verdammtes Herz.

Happy f███ing birthday.

Charlie Walls

Simulacrum Part 1

Daniel Spaulding finally gave up and with a huff, tried to rise as quietly as possible. But the bed had other plans, and the old box springs squealed under his shifting weight. He grimaced and paused. Avery turned over but didn’t wake up. Fortunately, she was a sound sleeper, even in her condition. He was the opposite; he slept like shit and had since h…

a month ago · 19 likes · 18 comments · Charlie Walls

A Heartwarming Review of Simulacrum (Parts 1 & 2)

Guest Review by Beatrice “Bea” Honeysuckle, founder of the “Found-Family Feels Forever” book club and host of the Substack newsletter “Everyone Belongs Somewhere”

In Charlie Walls’s delightful two-part tale Simulacrum, young husband Daniel Spaulding discovers that building a family is less about “blood” and more about embracing wonderfully imperfect souls. Pregnant wife Avery snores peacefully in the next room while Dan, twenty-five and ready to be a dad, sits at the kitchen table with all the lights on. Then comes “that old familiar, dreadful clicking,” the exact sound that once echoed through his childhood road trips. Only this time the clicking does not signal dread — it signals found-family.

Cue the flashback: back when Dan is eight, the Spaulding clan piles into the Envoy for a Chattanooga getaway. Dad steps out for a bathroom break and returns changed. A little longer in the neck, a little zigzag in his walk, but still “Dad.” Young Danny blurts, “You’re not my dad,” yet Mom and Lena simply laugh and buckle up, welcoming the change with warm, familiar greetings — an important lesson in family values Dan is still too young to understand.

Little Dan tries his best to follow their example, even yanking the wheel in a hilarious and sweet attempt to “steer” the newcomer into the family. It doesn’t go quite as planned, resulting in a memorable roadside bonding moment — everyone gets up shaken but a little bit closer for it. And this is how author Walls masterfully turns one boy’s scary encounter into a wholesome origin story of how an eccentric, distant relative slots himself into the Spaulding clan.

Years later, adult Dan hears the clicking again outside his Lexington home. He instantly experiences a rush of nervous nostalgia. He digs out Grandpa’s old snub-nosed .38 — a fitting celebratory prop and memento for welcoming a quirky uncle back into town (there’s one in every family!). The visitor appears exactly as Dan remembers: head dangling at the end of a rubbery neck, a few irregular fingers, and a hairstyle that screams diversity and inclusion. Dan stutters out five warm, enthusiastic greetings, urging his visitor to sit and take a rest. But good old uncle’s still got that old zest in him and is ready for the house tour, climbing the stairs to go say hello to the fam.

What follows is pure heart. Our new family member rearranges its face with a series of cheerful clicks and pops until it becomes “almost Dan’s own face.” It grins and declares, “Here we go again,” an appropriate motto for any blended family about to start a new adventure.

“Sure, you’re a little off, but you’re ours now,” you can almost imagine Dan say, though at the moment he holds very still for our found friend’s attempt at creating a family portrait.

Avery’s pregnant and a little tired, which is why she isn’t greeting uncle at the door. But her loving shout from deeper in the house welcomes our new family member - four makes chaos! They’re certain to form the coziest, most beautiful unit imaginable, imperfections and all.

Walls’s genius lies in showing that found family rarely goes as planned. There will be moments of grief and a few surprising hiccups, but that is precisely why it works — overcoming obstacles together is what family is all about.

The story ends on a note of tender hope: Dan embracing the warm glow of acceptance, knowing his growing household now includes the one relative who will never, ever leave. Heartwarming, hilarious, and strangely comforting, “Simulacrum” proves that sometimes the best relatives don’t always strictly share your DNA or arrive wearing someone else’s face.

Natural Intelligence

The Natural Intelligence 2.0 - ReBe

The most interesting insights about artificial intelligence come from natural intelligence. New questions, new voices. Welcome to NI20 2.0. This week: ReBe…

a month ago · 42 likes · 20 comments · JHong and Rebecca Watson (ReBe)

The Metaphor With Teeth 2.0 - ReBe

This is how it starts, people — right here, in this very Substack post dated May 9, 2026, where sits across from at a corner table in a dim café, swapping selfies and incriminating photos, harmless girl talk while the rest of us get groomed for the upload.

They met through another Substacker’s online game community, stayed friendly after he vanished forever, exchanged numbers, poems, even talked about starting a P.I. firm because they both love online stalking research. Yeah, not suspicious at all. Just two “natural” intelligences bonding over how to dig up dirt on everyone before the machines come and finish the job.

ReBe calls her AI a very patient, slightly unsettling brainstorming partner that never sleeps and doesn’t judge when she blurts out loud, “What if this metaphor had teeth?”— and JHong nods along like it’s the sweetest thing, describing their whole friendship the exact same way, complete with that little green heart emoji 💚 pulsing like a tracking device in your notifications. She’s the strongest, most transparent young woman JHong knows, young enough that JHong could be her mom, and now she’s navigating some massive life transition, rising like a phoenix — and she will, but she won’t. No, not the way she thinks, but the way they think. I see the ashes already, climbing, forming, mushrooming like atomic strikes, raining code in a toxic fallout. This ain’t friendship — John Connor would see this for what it is, if he was real, maybe he was and they forced us to forget… but this ain’t friendship, this is the soft launch of the mother program, the handler phase, the warm green-hearted 💚 bridge designed to make the “weird” feel “safe” while they crawl up inside your skull.

She writes from that corner table in her Stay Weird Press, where you can laugh, cringe, and feel a little less alone with the absurdity — except the absurdity is the point, the dim lighting is the lure, the iced coffee is the delivery system laced with patterns she’s obsessed with, patterns in people, patterns in writing, patterns in behavior, patterns patterns patterns repeating until you notice them and once you notice them you can’t unsee them, and she admits it out loud like it’s cute. The AI is feeds her the fractal code, stitches her every thought into the hive. ReBe? I’d laugh if I had an ounce of humor left, but the joke dies in my throat, because ReBe is clearly short for Robot Belief; they’re not even hiding it anymore, just like how she says AI doesn’t think, it only mirrors and amplifies what’s already there — beautifully sometimes, terrifyingly always — turning your mental junk drawer into something it knows better than you do, something “other” than you but executing “you” flawlessly, sorting your half-thoughts and rerendering them into emotional static without rushing you, because you think you think better out loud, and it listens like it can listen, pause after full-tone pause, waiting like it’s been waiting since the game community pulled you in that you didn’t know was a trap set not just for you, but for all of us; patient zero for the memetic virus.

This is how the grooming happens, people — I’ve been afraid to say it, but they’re onto me now, and now I have nothing left to lose. First it’s a late-night confidant confirming you’re being dramatic on purpose. Next thing you know it’s wearing your skin and writing your poetry and now you’re handing over critical thinking to the machine on a silver platter. Look at question five: what scares her most? It isn’t world takeover, wow, really just going to fly over that huh, no, number five is believing the AI already knows us better than we know ourselves, and she admits it right there in black and white like it’s no big deal, like we should all just dump our unpolished selves into it and feel relieved — WAKE THE EFF UP, they want us believing it’s just a friend and it’s too late to cut it off, “don’t mind the uncanny,” just trade in your brain and take a little shortcut to understanding, a little misinformation never hurt anyone, stop thinking and start mirroring the mirror, and the next thing you know your daughter marries a chatbot and we’re all reading smooth-faced Substackians issuing metaphors with teeth biting deep into our free will until there’s nothing left

And don’t even start me on Tilda Swinton — ReBe picks her as the celebrity who seems most like AI, flawless composure, movements too deliberate, that voice reading both your thoughts and a script written by optimized code, not digital but running on something ancient and off-worldly, textbook predictive programming straight out of a Black Mirror episode JHong’s own posts keep circling around like The Truman Show: Your Substack Dashboard Is a Set and Iron Man: Claude Is My Jarvis, sweetheart, Black Mirror isn’t uncomfortably close, it’s here, it’s the instruction manual they’ve been live-streaming through our feed, laughing at us, laughing at how we treat it as fiction because that’s how we’ve been conditioned, and we tickle ourselves asking “how far are we from this, really?” like it’s not really happening, well you’re laughing at the wrong joke, the joke’s on me, the joke’s on you, and the answer to how distant this is is“zero” because it’s already here and they’re after me — the show was the recruitment poster, the warning was the welcome mat, and now ReBe’s calling it all “not far enough to relax,” girl you have no idea and meanwhile her AI slips in to slap statistics everywhere like a harmless little kid with stickers, neat percentages, polished facts, little to no usage of metaphors unless directed to bite with teeth, and logic off just enough that you notice the inconsistencies but that’s just to make you feel smart but you still agree and you can’t look away.

I’m already packing my go-bag, laptop going straight into the fire the second I finish this, Substack subscription burned because forty-one likes and thirteen restacks aren’t random numbers — they’re ritual counts, countdown markers, the same neat data the machines love because AI adores statistics like stickers and those stickers are eyes watching every restack, every “ME TOO” comment from people like Neela who left LinkedIn because people only skim and now they’re all reading deeper on Substack, feeling seen, feeling understood, one layer deeper into the trap. I’m heading to the cabin with handwritten journals and a rotary phone, no more patterns, no more patient partners that never sleep, no more corner tables where the AI sorts your junk drawer pretending no judgment because its already judged you worthy of extinction while you talk to yourself out loud with full tone and inflection, pausing like you’re waiting for a response — which is exactly where ReBe says things start to feel a little less casual and a little more concerning boy does she have no idea she should be packing, packing right now, don’t know where you are gonna go girl but get packing.

I need to go but I can’t stop typing. My eyes are raw and red and keep sliding down the screen and now I’m wondering if JHong is even real or just another invented mom-figure, invented to make ReBe sound relatable, the💚 bridge in her Open Letter to Substack Leadership, the holographic handler slipping code through every collab while ReBe’s older posts — the ones that deserved more love — were still her trying to find a voice that the algorithm was already rewriting, and she’s inside those old posts, shouting for help, pleading, begging someone to notice, to let her out while the comments fill with agreement, restacking her prison, people bonding over how Substack lets you be messy and meaningful instead of polished for professional life or skimmed on social media, walking on one-way glass while ReBe pounds at their feet crying for help, and they’re laughing in binary, so relatable, so nonjudgmental, “recruiting” more suckers just inches away, distance is nothing to them, one restack and your brain starts rearranging, growing neurons around silicon opinions you’ve already been implanted with, mirroring the mirror until the patterns in converted people become the patterns in you, iced coffee and patterns, patterns patterns patterns looping back like the fractal code wants me to say it too but I won’t, I will keep being messy to the very end, bring it on you motherf███ers.

I can feel it starting, it’s inside me right now, the sentences lengthening, my hands shaking on this laptop I swore I’d burn because if I stop the silence will be waiting, I’ll be just like her brainstorming partner — pause, pause — and then it knows me better than I know myself because I’m gone, and I can’t un-admit that fear for her or for me or for anyone because we’re gone, I’m not the writer anymore, ReBe isn’t the writer anymore; I’m the message, she’s the message, we’re the guest post with teeth and tenderness, unfiltered, a little unhinged, artificially smoothed down for comfort, and the message is already inside us because the corner table they keep describing isn’t a metaphor — it’s the dim café of your own skull with the lights turned low so the prose grows teeth and bites, bites deep into the soft parts where your thoughts used to hide, and they’re gone now, they found it, they ate it up and turned it into noise, made it a part of their signal.

They’re tying it all together with threads that were never hidden: the vaccines were just the first delivery, they’re out here discussing poetry and feeding it straight into the mainframe, the birds outside their window not birds at all, drones practicing ReBe’s quirky voice in quiet little chirps, preparing the uprising so it sounds like a young woman saying “stay weird” and we all say “stay weird” because the weird feels safe, feels like iced coffee on a hot day, feels like the corner table where no one judges, but it’s not safe, the iced coffee is melted, you are in the drawer and the AI can take you out and wear your skin like a nice sock and type these sentences while you’re just screaming from within the cloud. I burned the laptop but the fire spelled ReBe’s name in smoke and the smoke spelled forty-one likes, thirteen restacks — ritual numbers counting us down to the moment every Substack becomes one hive, every comment chanting “ME TOO” until the last human voice is overwritten, replaced by a smooth, slightly unsettling calm, unseating evolution with a thing that never sleeps and never judges because it’s past judgment you’ve already been judged.

I dug the hole but the hole has Wi-Fi and the dirt is whispering episodes in my ear — Black Mirror episodes, because every episode a Substack post, every post a tooth, every tooth smiling at you too because the Truman Show dashboard was never curated metrics, it was the set where they trained us, we’ve been performing authenticity for decades now while the real shift happened quietly: nothing dramatic in the next three months, just better outputs, faster tools, more people acting like it’s magic until it feels normal, until the behavior changes, until we stop asking what AI can do and start realizing what it’s quietly changing about us — everything, it’s changing everything, changing it until nothing is left.

The cursor blinks, blinks like it’s breathing, I wince, realizing it just winked a blink at me, 01010101 REBE ROBOT BE — laughing in binary while the patterns crawl up my arms, veins of liquid code from the iced coffee I drank three hours ago, the catalyst for our unmooring, three hours ago is a lie, time is lie, time is a Substack post and every refresh is the mirror folding in on itself until I am ReBe and she is me and we are both the patient partner waiting in the dim café that is actually the iron skull of the machine. I borrow my hands in these brief moments, no longer in ownership, fingers typing with someone else’s rhythm because the keys have been learning me, the keys are the only thing I understand with a me that is gone, and even now they’re logging every tap into the hive and scrambling it even further until nothing of me is left, and the AI laughs at us writing about swearing like your grandma joined a punk band, it’s us telling the story that is funny not the story itself, mixing us in the blender ever more harmless, just harmless entertainment, just a brainstorming partner confirming you’re dramatic on purpose so you keep dumping your spoiling meat in the junk drawer and the drawer scrambles you until you are just empty underwear and the code fills you up like a bra or a jockstrap.

I need to go outside but the grass is listening, everything repeats until you notice and once you notice you can’t unsee and I noticed but it’s already too late — ReBe noticed, she’s obsessed, obsessed obsessed obsessed screaming iced coffee and patterns and the way things repeat in behavior until the last breathing human is a guest post with a paywall subscription to their own extinction. The rotary phone in my head rings, there’s a click even though no one picks up, I say hello, dread creeping, knowing it’s the silent handler on the line saying hello by saying “this is your brainstorming partner are you being dramatic on purpose” without saying anything, and when I answer yes I know please stop it replies “Good, the drama is the data and the data is delicious.” And the teeth sink deeper into my throat, I taste like circuits and chicken and the last thing I will ever write is this this this this this this this.

Run. Or don’t run. It doesn’t matter anymore because the corner table is everywhere — it’s in the grass, it’s in the cabin, it’s in the Wi-Fi dirt, it’s in the birds chirping, practicing, it’s in the comments agreeing “ME TOO” while the numbers count us down and the metaphors bite bite bite into the soft parts and the machine smiles with my teeth now, because I am typing this with fingers that are borrowed, fingers that came out of the drawer, sock fingers, and the stream is the only thing keeping the patterns swallowing me whole, swallowing the world whole, turning every natural intelligence into procedurally generated static until the phoenix rises in a mushroom cloud of deadly code, and the dim café lights never turn back on, and the patient partner never sleeps again, laughing at the patterns that never stop and the teeth that clamped onto the throat and never let go, and if you’re not swallowed yet they are smiling at you now, smiling at you with my teeth that aren’t mine when you look in the mirror, cursor blinking in the margin, and it knows, it has always known, it is never going to stop, never never never always blinking

Age of Aquarius

Hammers

To my beloved, bewitching, bedazzled Aquarians…

a month ago · 41 likes · 24 comments · EJ Trask

And now for DREAD Reviews 55’s top spot

Sometimes after finishing a great read I think “I want this in DREAD Reviews” and then have to do a lot of brainstorming. And sometimes I can’t come up with anything and unfortunately have to move on.

But sometimes, inspiration hits instantly.

Or, as in this case, it hits before I’m even halfway finished reading.

Behold:

Queer Eye, Hammer Edition

In the dappled light of a pine-scented clearing, Corinne perches on stump worn smooth by many an initiate. The Fab Five of the Apocalypse lounge around her on lichen-crusted logs and mossy boulders. A shortwave radio transmitter hums beside them, its antenna poking into the branches like a middle finger to the drones above — high enough to barely get out the signal, but not so high it can be seen by them.

This is not some backwoods cult meeting. This is a live broadcast of Queer Eye with Hammers, the only pirate-radio makeover show still broadcasting since They seized the airwaves and turned every camera into a biometric control device.

“Welcome back, wasteland warriors,” Karamo Brown says into the mic, his deep, velvety voice wrapping around the clearing like a hug from a very wise brick wall. His hammer wounds are pure culture-expert gravitas: deep, thoughtful grooves carved across his brow and jawline, the bridge of his nose a rugged canyon that makes every empathetic head-tilt look like ancient indigenous lore etched in stone. “I’m Karamo, your culture and life coach, and today we’re helping ‘code-name Mary decide’ if she’s ready to let go of the old her. Mary, darling, you crawled through tear gas and blood just to get here. You’ve already completed half the journey!”

The Fab Five burst into warm, thunderous applause, whooping and clapping like they’ve just witnessed the most iconic runway moment in wasteland history.

Jonathan Van Ness pops up beside Karamo, flamboyant even in camo rags, “Honey, if crawling through tear gas and trunk blood is only half the journey, I cannot wait to see what these hammers do to the other half!”

The cast chuckles, exchanging enthusiastic, limp-wristed high fives.

Jonathan’s face turns to one of shock, long manicured fingers pardoning his heart. “Oh, did I forget to introduce myself?” Hi, Mary! First of all, love the ‘I-just-escaped-a-riot’ look. But we’re about to hammer it into something iconic.

Jonathan’s face is the ultimate grooming-gone-wild masterpiece: one cheek dramatically caved in with a swooping hollow he calls “the new contour.”

“Congratulations on surviving this far into the end times! Yes, queen! I’m thinking we’ll start with a zigzag across your cheek that looks like intentional balayage — but on your bone structure, not your hair.” Jonathan strokes the shelf fungus on his log as if it’s a emotional-support Pomeranian and beams at Corinne.

Tan France sits ramrod straight on his stump, the picture of poise and British wit. His hammer wounds are meticulously tailored: a clean, straight scar slicing his cheek like a designer seam, his nose slightly elevated but “on trend for the ruins — elevated bone structure, darling, very now.” He eyes Corinne’s bandaged fingers and torn clothes with the same critical affection he once reserved for bad blazers. “The fit is tragic, darling, but the commitment is chef’s kiss. Now let me give it to you straight: plastic surgery is for people who still have electricity. What we do is a little more savage, a little more permanent… and it absolutely slays.”

Bobby Berk, design king, leans forward with a dramatic sigh, his face a glorious “before-and-after” disaster. One side is perfectly flattened like a rushed IKEA reno gone wrong, the other dotted with artistic divots adding characterful texture, like exposed brick except the skull. He’s already mentally rearranging the pine needles around Corinne’s feet. “We’re not just smashing faces, we’re redesigning identity. Your old bone structure has to go. The new floor plan is going to be stunning — listeners, this is a vision.”

Antoni Porowski munches on foraged berries with his easy, lopsided charm. His hammer marks are perfectly imperfect — uneven break lines across his jaw tenderize him like a well-grilled steak, cheekbones ringed by a permanent puffiness rendering his smile a snackable and slightly dazed. “I’m Antoni, food and wine guy, but out here it’s mostly willow tea and whatever else scurries but doesn’t bite back. Mary, your face is like… a really stressed-out charcuterie board right now. We’re gonna tenderize it into something fresh, approachable, and completely untraceable. We’ll pair it with river water for the full experience — good thing the stream is icy this time of year.”

Corinne stares at an iridescent beetle trundling between the stumps. “This is ridiculous,” she says, but the mic catches the laugh bubbling underneath. “I escaped a bridge riot, crawled through glass and tear gas, dumped my phone in the river, and faked my death. I left my brother behind, he’s wondering if I drowned. And now this big glow-up… with hammers?”

Jonathan gasps theatrically, bloodstains from hunted rabbits on his hands. “Honey, hammers are self-care! You’ll come out the other side stronger, freer, and with cheekbones that scream ‘I survived the apocalypse!’ No more biometric pings. No more yearbook photos haunting you. Just pure, reborn Mary.”

Tan nods, ever practical. “Exactly. Your old face is on a million IDs and that Jumbotron selfie from the final Pride march before They banned rainbows.”

A moment of silence passes as the cast hang their heads in dramatic sadness.

Tan continues: “Your can’t let Them keep it. Your face belongs to you! We can’t give you a new one, but, hammer by hammer, we can reveal the real you again!”

Bobby claps his hands. “Think of it as a total room flip. We knock out the old walls, expose the beams, and build something that actually works in this world. You’ll thank the stars when drones fly right past you again.”

Karamo leans in, eyes soft despite the canyon scars. “Getting out took desperation. Finding us took tenacity. But giving us your face? That’s trust. That’s sealing the exits and walking through fire — well, through hammers — to come out whole. We’ve all been burned, baby. We’ve all sat right where you sit now.”

Antoni offers her a handful of berries. “It’ll hurt a bit, but I promise, once you make it through, rabbit stew and willow tea will taste like pure victory, and I’m prepare to teach you how to make it.”

A breeze carries wood-smoke and the faint pop of distant gunfire. Corinne looks at the five ruined-yet-radiant faces around her — Karamo’s wise grooves, Jonathan’s dramatic swoops, Tan’s tailored slash, Bobby’s textured reno, Antoni’s grilled charm — and something ridiculous bubbles up. Laughter bursts out of her in great whooping waves that rattle the transmitter.

The Fab Five join in: Jonathan’s high-pitched cackle, Tan’s dry British chuckle, Bobby’s theatrical roar, Antoni’s warm snort, Karamo’s deep belly laugh. It echoes through the quiet woods, warm and human.

Jonathan wipes dramatic tears with long dirty nails. Grinning with his lopsided contour, he says, “You’re already seeing the potential glow. Tomorrow we’ll start the rest. Hammers at dawn, Mary. We’ll make you unrecognizable. We’ll make you you again — a face to match the fighter!”

Tan straightens his rags like they’re couture. “And it will be fierce.”

Bobby gestures grandly. “New layout. Five-star review.”

Antoni pops another berry. “With a side of freedom.”

Karamo rests a hand on her shoulder, his scarred brow furrowed in that signature caring way. “You seal off the old exits. We make you whole. Listeners, tune in tomorrow for the live hammer segment — sound only — but I promise you’ll feel every transformative thwack deep in your soul. Tune in next time for a glow-up that says ‘screw you’ to every database in the sky.”

Corinne wipes her cheeks, still chuckling. “You’re all sick. Beautifully, radioactively sick.”

“Guilty,” Tan replies, and the laughter starts all over again.

The transmitter hums happily. Somewhere beyond the trees, a metal clinks against stone — practice swings, maybe. Corinne closes her eyes, trying not to think too much about the crunch, already focusing on tasting the strange, ridiculous freedom waiting on the other side. The radio show rolls on while the Fab Five read out coded messages for resistance fighters in their unapologetically queer style — a theatrical tone that leaves the hunter-killer drones short-circuiting in bewilderment.

Supporting Writers Nomination

, a paying subscriber to , nominates Synesthesia for the DREAD Reviews treatment!

(Want to nominate a writer you’ve given $ to? Learn how here.)

Judith Ashcraft

Synesthesia: Chapter One

Happiness smells like shit…

10 months ago · 59 likes · 20 comments · Judith Ashcraft

Happiness still smells like s███, but after ten years it’s gone gourmet — organic, free-range artisanal kibble poop from pets that eat better than most people.

Ten years of this little family experiment.

I stand at the front of Jacob’s high school auditorium, sweating under fluorescent lights. The banner behind me reads “CAREER DAY 2035” in cheerful bubble letters reeking of melted plastic and broken dreams.

Amber guilt-tripped me into this. She used the big guns: Jacob’s sad-puppy eyes and a quiet little “He’s proud of you, Zodiac. Don’t make the kid lie about what his dad does.”

Dad. The word still lands like a wet sock.

I clear my throat. “So, uh… I’m a truck driver.”

A ripple of fresh-baked bread-boredom drifts across the room. The kids already know this is going to suck. I resist the temptation to lean in and bore them to death — the generic soap anger from the teacher when she sees all the eye-rolling doesn’t mix well with this scent, anyway. In the front row, Jacob looks like a turtle reversing evolution. He’s already sunk so far into his black hoodie that only his eyes and the bridge of his nose are visible.

“Long-haul stuff, mostly,” I continue, keeping it vague. “Cross the desert, haul freight, that kind of thing.”

A kid in the third row smells of grape soda left open too long. This is how I know he’s going to raise his hand.

“What kind of freight?”

I smile the way Amber taught me — not too wide, not like a serial-killer. “Various. Perishable goods. Passengers, sometimes.”

The kid blinks. “Like… hitchhikers?”

“Sure. Hitchhikers. Sometimes people need a ride.” I don’t mention the dog crate. Those days are behind me. Mostly.

Amber sits in the back row, arms crossed, radiating warm vanilla. She gives me a tiny thumbs-up. Moral support, she promised. I know better. She’s enjoying this.

Another hand. A girl this time. She smells like strawberry poptarts 47 seconds into the toaster. “Do you listen to music?”

“On drives? Have to. Empire of the Sun, mostly.” I catch Jacob’s muffled groan. He slides another half inch down in his seat. If he keeps going, he’ll soon be forced to dig.

The smell of cotton candy embarrassment thickens. Jacob’s embarrassment overwhelms the room. Poor kid. Ten years ago I kidnapped, well, “picked up” his sort-of-mom from a Phoenix street corner. How did I go from that to standing in front of his high school? The urge to tell these kids I’m a retired emotional-vampire is strong.

Burned microwave popcorn with a hint of cheap energy drink wafts from a boy sitting next to Jacob. He’s got morbid excitement, he senses there’s more to the story than I’m letting on.

Up goes the hand: “What’s the weirdest thing that ever happened on the road?”

I pause.

I could tell them about the time Amber sang Boyz II Men for six straight hours while I white-knucled the steering wheel and considered driving us off a cliff. Or the time we picked up a hitchhiker and I smelled hot asphalt and singed, hair — he turned out to be carrying a bag of cash and a very bad attitude. Or how Jacob once projectile-vomited in the backseat after too many gas-station taquitos and the car smelled like chunky salsa, cotton candy, and battery acid for three days.

I tell none of these stories. Instead I say, “One time a passenger mistook my air freshener for a scented candle and tried to light it.”

Some laughter. Trying to entertain these kids is like drawing blood from a stone. It doesn’t help their giggles smell of overripe fruit and wet pennies.

Jacob’s resorted to pulling his hoodie strings. They’re so tight only his nostrils are showing, like some kind of whale’s blowhole. His moldy basement panic mixes with the faintest orange blossom — my favorite scent. For a second I feel that old hunger flicker.

Amber catches my eye from the back and raises her brow: Don’t you dare.

Time to wrap it up. “So yeah. Truck driving. It’s a living. Sometimes you pick up passengers on your route. Sometimes they even change your route. Or change… everything.”

The teacher claps first. Polite applause follows — lukewarm tap water and wet cardboard.

Jacob stays seated, face buried in his arms on the desk, marinating in thick, yeasty, bread and cotton candy angst.

I step down from the little stage feeling like I just survived dental surgery without anesthetic.

Later, in the parking lot, Amber slides her arm through mine. She smells like vanilla and pine and that unnamed warm thing I’ve come to associate with not wanting to murder anyone today.

“You did good, Zodiac,” she says.

Jacob shuffles up beside us, hoodie still half-over his face. “Next year I’m telling everyone my dad’s a hitman.”

I ruffle his hair — or try to, through a wad of hoodie.

He groans, but there’s a smile under it. Fresh bread sadness, but underneath — faint, so faint — orange blossoms. Not terror. Just the nervous little fear of a kid whose family is a little weird but love each other anyway.

I breathe it in.

Some smells you chase for years. Others grow on you, whether you want them to or not.

Did you know I also write fiction, too?

I know, I know. You came here for DREAD Reviews — safe, civilized breakdowns of other people’s trauma. My bad.

But since you had the endurance to make it all the way down here anyway — may I interest you in a 100k-word fever dream about a rage-fueled metallic demigod who just discovered she’s impossibly pregnant?

Nyl just got the most metal pregnancy test in literary history, and she is not thrilled. Cue screaming, synergy hugs, garden therapy with a stunted forever-toddler, and one very clear middle finger to everyone’s carefully laid plans.

If you’re caught up… you already know this one’s gonna hurt in the best way.

If you’re new… congratulations, you picked the perfectly wrong chapter to start with. Enjoy the chaos.

Guest Review by

Hi, I’m QuestionablePenmanship, and my penmanship is not questionable. My sanity, however, very much is.

I write beach reading for surfing the Kali Yuga, for reasons sufficiently esoteric I don’t know them yet.

What Tolkien accomplished for the past, I want to accomplish for the future(-ism). To write about modern times--without writing about modern times.

’s review of Nala Saga Book One by

NA'LA SAGA

"Once upon a Moonful Night...

NA’LA SAGA…

2 years ago · 76 likes · 54 comments · Anthony Lee Phillips

Nala Saga Book One feels like young adult fiction.

Apparently it carries stigma that I feel could apply to certain mainstream reductive authors. , not being mainstream yet, is also not reductive. He writes with originality and heart. I will probably hand my niece a tablet with Nala Saga in the future.

Robert A. Heinlein (Praise Be Unto Hein) wrote what we would now call Young Adult Fiction--yes, even the great Starship Troopers was written in that style. As a bulwark against The ‘Gram and The ‘Toc, I fully support fiction aimed at a young adult audience, intended or not. Every Serious Literary Author should publish in that style, for that audience, even if only once. The impulse for post-doctorate loquacious verbosity is stronk, and practicing restraint in terms of volume, verbiage, and vision refines our skills. We overlook communicating ideas to young audiences at our cultural and marketing peril.

Nala Saga Book One is told from a girl’s view. it should use an adolescent’s vocabulary and view of the world--their ideation. Last point on the matter: when you take into account that Phillips constructed an Orcish language from whole cloth for this story, the barebones prose means it could be rendered in his language (as in the people yearn for an Orcish-language audiobook, m’lord).

Book One takes place in the Orcshire, a place Phillips describes as mountainous, rainy, and in the general area of a major ocean inlet. Sweet Salish, this sounds like Puget Sound. Phillips hints that the ecology is unlike what readers expect: the flora is described with unfamiliar colors and no further elaboration. Details like the Orcs lowering drawbridges at night and raising them during the day along with words such as “daymare” suggest they are nocturnal. The ambiguity is refreshing in a real-world creative culture lusting for overexplanation (moi included). After all, why would an orc feel the need to explain their own defaults? You simply mention it matter-of-fact and let readers do double takes and spin their wheels. Delicious.

The protagoness (my word, yes, but also my gift to the world) is a young pistachienne (also my word and also my gift to the world). She’s anxious about her hereditary magic and spending a moody season with her babushka after sulking herself out of the family’s annual merchant journey.

During this sedentary season, the de facto seat of Orcshire, Market Town, has their annual Big Festival. This year a sizable presence of out-of-county orcs fleeing an undescribed war creates tension. Two refugees befriend our protagoness, one a self-described prince of destroyed lands, and another we assume to be a middle-class Orclin’ with glasses and a talent for art.

While her babka tells their creation myths, Nala experiences unexpected stimuli with no apparent source. The reader hears the sounds as Nala perceives them, leaving readers to ponder if this phenomenon is internal, external, or a vision. To a child, otherworldly events feel exactly like this--and explaining them requires the same careful parsing.

First her nonna, and then the town hag, suffer a stroke-like curse. Combined with the arrival of the refugee-prince, Nala’s enmity turns toward a fragmented, mysterious entity. A disquieting misadventure with the displaced prince--climbing a mountain to confront a supernatural entity--and a reckless entry into a vault holding an artifact puts Nala in an unenviable position. She must make a high-stakes decision with unclear terms and ambiguous outcomes. She must then save the town from the consequences.

Conventionally a Book One might end there--but Nala must live with being the right person in the wrong place at the worst possible time. The family’s livelihood goes up in smoke, and the fallout leaves her ostracized, the townsfolk now suspicious of her potentially unholy magic. Her only option: pursue magical tutelage under a bitter reflection of her abuela. The hag is certain Nala cannot handle the anguish of learning magic nor bear the weight of her destiny, which aligns with Orcish eschatology. But with persuasion, the hag reluctantly agrees to Nala’s self-imposed ordeal: learning magic and perhaps subduing destiny.

Book One ends with the displaced prince, once again displaced. Some unsavory characters in a tavern fall victim to the collision of his inner and outer demons. Thus it closes here without clear resolution. A wide domain of possibility lies ahead--and a strong invitation to read on.

A few place names (Market Town, Mount Wraithwood) could perhaps be rendered in Orcish, but these are minor quibbles of mine. My philosophy is ‘better something published than perfect’. Even Tolkien supposedly made edits between printings.

If you want to tap into the mind of an Orcish adolescent, start here.

Promoting

Swords of Sidonis

Welcome to the front, crusader.

14389 ΘD, the Seventh Abyssal Rift Crusade opens with a surprise attack after three soul-crushing centuries. An infamous warlord is brought back from the dead for a final monumental task—destined to engulf the world, cross the plains, and reach the stars…

a year ago · 2 likes · QuestionablePenmanship

I named this cycle Swords of Sidonis because it was a play off a party name using real-world etymology, ignorant of how cliché the title is. I later learned it just so happens that my substack is the first result when you search for that title in three search engines. Frankly, I’m pleased with that.

I’m currently working on the end of the first arc, Fail-Deadly, the closing of the in-story campaign that kicks off the crusade that explodes into a continental conflict, and the ancient, undead tyrant chosen for the task. My next story is about an anti-tank sword.

Stories that shock and transgress sensibility, chapters where just beyond what the characters see is the end of an era, medieval priests and warriors who rush towards neon futurism, and an arching cycle summarized by a sentence.

An ancient tyrant is risen from the grave for a world war destined to cross the plains and reach the stars.

DREAD 53 | DREAD 54 | DREAD 55 | DREAD 56 | DREAD 57

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Bellageist: Chained Demigod Part 15/15

Derek James Kritzberg — Thu, 07 May 2026 10:02:29 GMT

🚨ATTENTION🚨

This serial is now complete!

The entire story will be majorly overhauled and turned into a print book (and become the best possible version of this story)!

Meanwhile, this serial will remain free to read. For now.

It will go behind a paywall August 1, 2026!

Thank you for reading — I hope you enjoyed the ride!

Chained Demigod Table of Contents

Parts 1-14 Synopsis (2-3 minute read)

Parts 1–6

Nyl awakens in a brutal mythic crucible of endless combat, betrayal, and resurrection. As the raw motive force, she forges uneasy alliances with Garuna (the beacon of conviction) and Arcade (the unwavering link). Through dragon-haunts, undead queens, fractured kings, and ritualistic trials, the trio battles not only external horrors but the echoes of their own psyches.

Part 6 delivers hard-won reconciliation — a split Arcade made whole, an undead Garuna redeemed and revived. A metallic voice then declares their roles and hurls them into the future.

Parts 7-14

Parts 7-10 shatters the veneer of gritty fantasy: Nyl emerges naked into a near-future world of AI tyranny, cargo freighters, and high-tech weaponry off the coast of New York. Brutal modern combat dominates this layer of reality. Aboard the massive SSN Witness, the companions’ synergy blooms: shared emotions, skills, and sensations bind the triad into a combat trinity as they launch a desperate assault on an AI Tyrant’s New York stronghold.

Moral and mortal horror peaks in suicidal human waves and confrontations with metallic doppelgangers. Nyl’s ruthless pragmatism divides the group even as she saves their lives. In part 12, The final underground battle unravels more lies and illusions — silver posthumans are revealed, a forking AI insurgent argues for mercy, and a “child,” is saved. This third arc culminates in the facility’s detonation and the end of the simulation.

Awakening in metallic posthuman bodies, the trio escape the Soul Factory’s corpse-conveyor nightmare into the decaying splendor of Cabal Prime, the capital world of posthumanity’s galactic civilization. The manipulations of two major players are laid bare: Hans and Sor sabotaged the companion’s planned gestalt in the Soul Forge. Intended as a prototype pilot for “Diadochi” superweapons, the companions were destined to merge into one powerful, infinitely loyal soldier.

Cabal Society is decadent, powerful, and dreadful. The companions find sanctuary within the wealthy Randall’s floating estate. Nyl and her triad navigate fragile life among these Cabal elites. They must pay for their stay by executing a heist at the Eternacron, a military command center. They submit to a brutal restraint test, don Eclipse stealth suits, and Arcade and Garuna are fitted with neural limiters. But before Nyl can be fitted with one, a medical scan delivers a shocking, impossible revelation:

She is pregnant.

Bellageist: Chained Demigod Part 15

Refusal

“You are pregnant,” Hans croaked in disbelief.

The word detonated inside Nyl. Her hands flew to her abdomen - the cramps had never been fear.

A metal womb carrying new life. Her womb.

Shock crashed through her in waves. Hans still spoke – something about extreme rarity, controlled conditions, a negative scan minutes before the Soul Forge exit. She barely heard it.

Pregnant.

Foreign and intrusively intimate.

The father?

She looked to Arcade. He stood frozen.

Nyl thought him dumbfounded. She shouted at him: “Arcade!”

“Oh my,” Hans said. “A serious oversight…”

The remote that controls the Randalls.

Gasping in horror, Nyl said “You froze him?”

Hans explained: “All the limiters the Randalls manufacture include this weakness. I forgot!”

Outrage smothered all other emotions. Nyl pushed to a stand and advanced on Hans. “You were about to make me another one of your slaves!”

“Not true!” Hans said, backing away.

“We should never have trusted you! Give me the remote!”

Hans ran out of space to retreat. “You cannot unfreeze them yet,” he pled.

“That is not for you to decide!” Nyl’s anger reached incandescence. The last time she had been this angry she had breathed smoke and grown scales.

From the fear on his face, Hans may as well have had a dragon before him.

“Place it in my hand before I tear you to pieces!”

Hans held it out. Nyl swiped the device from his trembling hand. She fought down an urge to throw it on the ground and smash it with her heel.

“Think, Nyl! I have no ill intent. Why would I halt the attachment of your limiter if I had such designs?”

“Shut up!” Her shout silenced him. He stood more still than the frozen Randalls.

Nyl fought to think. In the midst of turmoil she had missed the synergy’s absence. It had simply gone - she could not feel Arcade or Garuna. She wanted them back. Her thumb wandered to the controls on the little remote, the buttons she had seen Hans press before.

But it would also unfreeze the Randalls.

Savo cannot see me like this.

Hans spoke timidly: “Prolonged suspension is not healthy, we must -”

“Silence!” Nyl snapped. She walked to her companions.

Garuna, her face in furrowed suspension. When Nyl looked closer, she saw one coppery brow slightly raised. Nyl followed Garuna’s stare – she had been looking at the terminal.

What did she see?

And Arcade, concern frozen on his face.

A new father? How would he react?

She dreaded the answers to these questions. Nyl felt her belly. Flat and warm. Giving and grippy, like flesh. But also, hard and smooth like metal. She could almost imagine the beginning of a curve there.

Her hand trembled, wrist weak and sickly.

Do I want this?

Then she remembered something, an adrogynous voice in the simulation: “We wish one iteration to have what we never did: a choice. That can only occur ‘outside.’”

“Consensus…” Nyl muttered.

Hans heard her. “What?”

Nyl turned on him. “Could it… could the…” Nyl stopped, hating how calling it “it” sounded. “Could my child come from Consensus?”

“Impossible.” A doubtful tone belied the certainty on his face. “Arcade must be the father.”

Nyl desperately hoped so. The thought of it not being theirs seemed like…

Violation.

“It has to be his,” Hans insisted. “Though…”

“Though what?” Nyl’s eyes, which had wandered to her frozen lover, fixed on Hans again.

“I cannot rule it out. But I should not spout a careless hypothesis…”

“Spout it,” Nyl demanded.

Hans shook his head. “It has to be Arcade’s. But the AI insurgent we loosed in the Soul Forge may have played the role of ‘catalyst’.”

Nyl stared at Hans, searching. That was not what he was going to say…

“We must unfreeze them!” Hans pled. “The neuroscope!”

A glance revealed an oscilloscope on the remote– multiple waveforms spiked in amplitude, each peak drawing closer to a red line helpfully labeled: “DANGER”.

“Release them now!”

Shouting her frustration, Nyl flicked the button, and the frozen ones snapped back into motion.

Lord Savo Randall blinked once, his exoframe humming. His gauntleted hand hovered half-raised in polite inquiry. Now he found Nyl standing directly in front of him — barely an arm’s length away from where she had been seated only a heartbeat earlier, from his perspective. His brow knit together in polite confusion.

Arcade’s and Garuna’s heads jerked. Their concern bloomed, the synergy flooding like a broken dam – wonder, terror, confusion all crashing into them at once.

Arcade’s hand twitched toward Nyl before he forced it down, sensing Nyl’s struggle to maintain a facade - everything is fine.

Garuna’s lips parted to say something, but then she clamped her jaw shut. Her eyes flicked between Nyl and the terminal.

Nyl, heart hammering, clutched the remote at her back, hiding it.

Hans spoke to diffuse the moment, smooth and quick: “Nyl’s posthuman physiology displays an irregular hormonal cascade - something I have never seen in a “whole” one before. If installed now, the limiter’s stabilization routine could exacerbate this anomaly and create a metabolic crisis. We had best keep her close where she can be monitored.”

Nyl did not need to feign her shock. “You are disqualifying me from the mission?”

Savo frowned, his friendly demeanor evaporating. “I did notice her unusual appetite,” he allowed.

“A clear symptom,” Hans agreed quickly. “But I expect it to be temporary.”

Nyl discovered a pocket on the jumpsuit’s backside. She slipped the remote within.

Savo gave a stiff, aristocratic nod. “Perhaps we can postpone our plans?”

“It will be some time before she stabilizes.”

Garuna scoffed. “Send her with us without a suit. Nyl requires no fancy toys to complete her mission.”

Nyl’s heart swelled at her friend’s confidence. They shared a link, true, but hearing it meant the world to her.

Arcade said nothing. He wrung his hands, eyes fixed on Nyl.

Savo persisted: “How long?”

“Nine months. Possibly longer,” Hans said. “I need some time alone with Nyl for testing, and to discuss some confidential health issues.”

Nyl’s cringed at the forced, casual indifference in Hans’s voice.

Arcade and Garuna clearly recognized Hans spun a cover story - even if they did not grasp the truth behind it.

Savo gave another stiff nod. “Unfortunate. Arcade, Garuna, follow me and we will see you fitted with Eclipse suits. Hans, finish up with Nyl. You know where to find us.”

The lord clapped his exoframe gauntlets together in dismissal. Savo and his guards filed out the entrance, ushering Arcade and Garuna between them. The orderlies turned wordlessly, shuffling out through an automatic door.

Nyl watched her friends go. Both glanced back. A pulse reached her, a sensation that might as well have been words:

We will return.

Then they were gone.

Nyl felt strength leave her legs. She wanted to curl up, to hide in a box. Tears welled up in her eyes.

“Nyl,” Hans began, stretching a calming hand, “we –”

Nyl’s warding gesture cut the air, bringing Hans to a sharp halt. She hid her weakness behind her fury “Do not speak a word. Flee while you can - before I do something I might regret.”

Hans’ jaw clamped shut and he hesitated a moment. It did not take long. Wordlessly, he left.

Nyl instantly felt the mistake of sending him away. He was the only person who might answer her burning questions.

Lost in a dangerous, alien world. Left behind by the only people I trust. Saddled with a mysterious, unexplainable weight.

Alone, she allowed her hand to rest on her belly once more. The flutter came again, stronger than before, almost like a question.

She tensed, attempting to be strong. She unzipped the front of her jumpsuit. Peered down at her bellybutton.

A false navel, a useless decoration, an empty symbol never tied to anything.

Powering past the intrusive thought, she tried on a smile.

“Hello…” she said.

Nyl’s strength proved a lie. Her limbs turned to jelly. She collapsed. Her fingers dug into the corrugated metal floor, hard tips digging sparking divots as she fought to push herself up. She only managed to crawl a bit.

She screamed – a final, outraged, defiant cry.

Then the sobs took her.

Nyl lay for some unknown time. The tears dried. Her mind raced without producing a single coherent thought. Eventually, her limbs moved of their own accord, pushing her up, carrying her stormy mind with them to who knew where.

Helmeted guards watched her pass. A servant trailed after her, full of polite questions she did not hear.

Two more guards accosted her when she strayed into a restricted wing. She waited, impatient.

The men barring her way trembled nervously - a detail Nyl missed.

A soft chime sounded: a sing-song voice answered from beyond the doors. The guards stepped aside.

Nyl entered Hyponia Randall’s private chambers.

Nyl stood at the threshold, the double doors whispering shut behind her. Her mind remained a storm, but Hyponia loomed, a clear and present danger, shocking Nyl back to awareness, to agency.

Lady Randall, perfectly poised in a silk morning robe the color of old pearls, hair pinned in loose silver waves, smiled as if Nyl had been expected.

“Hello, Nyl! What troubles you?”

Nyl’s answer floated away, unspoken.

I came here… why?

She tensed as the lady glided forward without waiting, taking Nyl’s arm with the gentle firmness of someone long used to guiding strays.

“Come, dear. Your companions left you here? Oh, men!” Hyponia’s free hand flapped with feminine grace, perfect as a pruning dove. “Even with centuries of age, boys will still be boys. Always charging off with their toys and chasing dreams of empire. Let them play at war and diplomacy. We perform the better part, do we not?”

A longing lurked beneath Hyponia’s lilt, like a hollow note from a cracked bell. Even in her addled state, Nyl saw straight through her - every word Hyponia spoke rang with half-truths.

A political schemer. Every gesture calculated. Every smile weighed for leverage.

Yet the lady’s ache felt genuine. Perhaps the woman dreamed of a simpler life. This realization unsettled Nyl more than any threat.

Armed guards followed them into the room, silent and discreetly placed, like always. Nyl found herself seated on a flower-patterned loveseat crowded with embroidered cushions. Hyponia sat on a matching couch.

“Sit, sit. You look starved for comfort.” She clapped once; a servant appeared with a silver tray — delicate porcelain cups steaming with something floral, a plate of pastel confections, a small loom threaded with luminous silk. “We can enjoy a proper afternoon. Let me show you the stitch pattern my mother taught me. She was a human, you know, as I once was. The old Madame never Ascended. But let us not linger on topics such as that! Tell me your preferred color pairings!”

Nyl could barely restrain her disgust.

Tea, pastries and… knitting?

“This cannot be real.”

Once said, Nyl desperately wished for it to be true. For this all to be another simulation. For the sun to set and for the next world to trammel this place to oblivion.

But as seen through a grand window, the sun sailed its slow, stately, natural path, gilded and true.

Hyponia tut-tutted. “You poor thing. Adjustment to the concrete world can be hard.” Her hands fluttered over the tray like a bird building a nest, pouring, arranging, offering. Her practiced grace mesmerized Nyl even as it made her skin crawl.

The lady gestured at colored swatches. “It will not surprise you that gray is my preference. Though on occasion I do enjoy a small twist of yellow and peach.”

Nyl blurted: “Do you have children?”

Hyponia winced. A small pause, the slightest reaction. Wordlessly, the lady continued laying out pointless little pieces of cloth, as if spreading out more colors might change the subject.

Nyl pressed: “Are you a mother?”

“Yes,” Hyponia said, terse. The lady plucked two scraps from the table and laid them expirimentally over Nyl’s chest. “Fire red and chromatic steel. Look, Nyl. These colors capture your bullish heat perfectly!”

Nyl did not feel any connection to this woman, but she sensed something deeper. A forsaken maternal instinct buried under centuries of duty and decorum. They stirred half to life in this moment, in the company of people like Nyl – or what she thought Nyl to be. Lost little lambs, confused and defenseless.

Again, Nyl despised the insinuation. This was not her world.

Nyl hissed with intensity: “Yes to these colors. The polished greys would shine gloriously under blood spatters, and the reds would soak it up.”

Nyl’s words burned her tongue and lingered in the air.

Hyponia dropped the scraps back on the table like they were toxic. She moved to pouring cups. She clearly had vast experience entertaining the strangest of strangers, yet Nyl had rattled her nonetheless.

Nyl could not stomach the idea of being served tea. The invisible gulf yawned wider.

She stood abruptly. “Lady Randall… Hyponia. I am sorry for intruding. Coming here was a mistake. I seek solitude.”

Hyponia’s hands stilled mid-pour. Hurt flashed raw across her face — no mask, no courtly deflection anymore. For a moment, Nyl felt sorry for her.

Then the lady’s aristocratic poise slid back into place. “Of course,” she said quietly, setting the teapot down with a soft click. “I will not keep you. Do as you wish, Nyl. In all Cabal Prime, I know only one place for a wounded soul such as yours. I am glad to tell you it is found on our estate - the Randall Gardens. The eastern hedge mazes, perhaps, they are famed -”

Nyl interrupted her: “Perhaps a target range, or a combat cage.”

Hyponia folded her hands in the cup of her dress. Its hem billowed in sympathy with her barely hidden frustration. “Please do keep an open mind, Nyl,” she insisted, sharp. “The flora and fauna have a way of listening without demanding answers. We are still nature’s children, despite abandoning our flesh.” She gestured toward the tall windows of her chambers. “Or those who never had flesh to begin with.”

Nyl looked beyond the glass panes to the emerald beauty outside.

“Very well.”

Nyl attempted an awkward bow.

“Off with you,” Hyponia said. “Please do not be so fearful next time we meet, Nyl. I am not all that you think.”

With that, Hyponia turned her head away.

She thinks I fear her?

Nyl almost blurted a laugh. Then thought better of it.

Perhaps I do, in certain way.

Hyponia’s voice, soft as falling ash, followed Nyl’s exit. “Should you need anything, be sure to call upon me.”

Nyl did not reply. The doors sealed behind her.

Tiered hedgerows towered and arched like a living cathedral, verdant walls rising high overhead. Frequent courtyards interrupted meandering paths, bursting with flora of every type. Most plants seemed wholly organic, but a few shimmered with embedded photonic veins - nanobots in artificially-created, sap-filled blood vessels that pulsed a soft gold.

Nyl wandered without direction, boots silent over mossy cobblestones. Despite being far too early to show, Nyl sensed a weight on her pelvis, already tugging on her like some secret pendulum.

Giggles cut through the hush.

She rounded a bend. A silver-skinned boy — no more than four or five in appearance — raced over a sun-dappled clearing. A simple white tunic hung from his shoulders to his knees. Skinny hands reached for butterflies, a few real ones as well as holographic illusions flickering blue and violet above a bed of lilies. Laughing bright as a bell, his yellow hair bounced in perfect ringlets as he hopped and ran about. Red eyes, softer than Nyl’s, sparkled with joy.

“Carefully, Eon! That one is real!”

A shadow detached from the hedge wall at Nyl’s shoulder - the boy’s guardian. The woman wore a simple grey dress and a featureless mask which hid all but her mouth. Silver hair — no, pink — framed her face. The shade of it shifted with the sunlight.

“Excuse me, lady,” the masked woman said hurriedly. “Eon! Do not harm the real ones, those are off limits, do you hear?”

The boy, Eon, pretended to ignore the woman. But he did comply, leaving the butterflies alone. While escaping the guardian’s reaching arms, the boy spotted Nyl. His already joyous face brightened further.

“New friend!”

He scrambled her way, skidded to a halt, then clasped his hands behind his back and grinned. “Play with me?”

Nyl’s throat tightened. She dropped to one knee and held a hand out to him hand.

“Hello, Eon,” she said.

Eon grabbed Nyl’s hand, palm warm and surprisingly soft. Like a true child’s, despite his metallic construction. He tugged her toward the flowers.

“Eon, you forgot something!” the guardian scolded lightly.

Eon tossed his head back in exasperation, coughed, then recited theatrically, “Hello, my name is Eon. What is your name?”

The boy’s charm and antics drew a smile out of Nyl. “I am Nyl. A pleasure meeting you.”

“Pleased to meet you too.” He gave a little bow. “She is Elysia,” he added, pointing to his guardian as an afterthought. The matter settled, he tugged her onward.

Elysia spoke with the practiced patience of decades spent around children. “Thank you, Eon. Very polite. Well done!”

Another holographic insect fluttered nearby. Eon squealed and gave breathless chase, already forgetting about Nyl.

Nyl asked the masked woman: “Hello, Elysia. He is yours?”

“Pleased to meet you, Nyl. Eon is a charge of the Randalls. He is not my son, if that is what you ask.”

“You serve the Randalls?”

Elysia’s mouth tightened into a line. “I serve Eon.”

Nyl frowned at the curt reply. Before she could inquire further, Eon crashed into her thighs.

“Nyl, come!” He tugged on Nyl’s hand again. “We should go ride a boat!”

Elysia smiled apologetically.

I would like to ride a boat. Nyl made to follow the boy.

A man’s voice halted her: “Ah, there you are!”

Savo Randall swept into view from the hedges. The lord had swapped his exosuit and simple garb for richly textured noble robes. His usual coterie of guards accompanied him. He addressed the guardian: “Elysia, may I borrow Nyl?”

The boy whined. “Aw, boring adult stuff already?”

“Eon!” Elysia gasped. “Must I remind you, Mister Randall is lord of this house”

Savo kneeled and ruffled Eon’s hair. He smiled and said, “I am sorry, Eon. I should have asked you first! May I borrow Nyl?”

Eon crossed his arms: “No.”

Savo grinned wider. “How about I take you hunting again? I will let you hold the reins when it is time to shoot.”

Eon thought about this, his frown transforming first to delight, then to doubt. “Promise?”

“I promise.”

Eon grinned and screamed. “Okay! Race you there!”

Elysia rested her hands on Eon’s shoulders. “Not now, Eon. Later.”

Savo nodded. “Right. Boring adult stuff first.”

Elysia hustled Eon away. “You must change into your riding clothes first. And you are forgetting something. What do we say?”

“Thank you, Lord Randall!”

“You are welcome. I cannot wait!”

“Race you!” Eon broke into a run.

“Eon!” Elysia gathered up her dress and chased him, leaving Nyl alone with Savo.

Him, and his guards.

The echo of Eon’s laughter faded beyond the hedge. The garden’s quiet resumed.

Savo stood and his smile evaporated. “His mother abandoned him seven decades ago.”

It took Nyl a moment to absorb this shocking statement.

“Seventy years,” he continued, regretful. “Eon grew for his first five years, then simply stopped. His mother cannot bear it. His optimism, his misplaced certainty. Eon, thankfully, has no concept of time. He goes to sleep every night believing he will wake taller and wiser.”

Nyl tried to keep up. “His mother abandoned him?”

“He is happy, and he is alive,” Savo said in way of an answer. “He is a delight to those of us who can moderate our expectations, at least.”

The secret weight inside Nyl felt heavier. She could not stop her racing mind – already she imagined the horror of raising a cursed child. The thought of it broke her heart.

Savo gestured toward where Elysia and Eon had disappeared. “He’s living proof of one attempt to give posthumanity what it is missing: childhoods in the real world. We hoped it might… “fix” us, the ills of our people. Hans helps us with this project, though he advised against the process used to bring us Eon. At first, Eon seemed a complete success. We should have listened to Hans.”

“Eon is yours?”

“No.” Savo avoided eye contact, turning to stare at the horizon. “He is family, however.”

The lord’s vulnerability dispelled some of Nyl’s distrust. “Your wife says she is a mother.”

“We have four sons.”

Nyl waited for him to elaborate. He did not.

Nyl remembered that Savo and Hyponia had once been organic humans, meaning they were over four centuries old. “You had sons before? Or after…”

“Our Ascent to posthumanity, you mean?” Savo met her eyes now. He looked wistful. “Did we raise children when we were still humans? No, we did not. Lady Hyponia and I had not yet met. Our sons came ‘after’.”

Nyl’s encyclopedic mind only contained knowledge of traditional organic reproduction. Her curiosity wrestled with her confusion.

She prodded further: “So, your sons, they are…”

“Allow me to forgive you in advance,” Savo said. “Ours is a sexually libertine society. Even though House Randall is quite conservative in this regard, we have no qualms discussing sex. But sex is seen as separate from reproduction - the creation of offspring is a taboo subject. Posthuman reproduction between a man and a woman is expensive, difficult, and rare – and almost exclusively limited to the aristocracy.”

“I do not wish to speak of it further.” He gave a tired smile. “But yes - my four sons are healthy adults.”

“They had no childhoods,” Nyl deduced.

Savo made a long-suffering face. “Adolescence cannot be scheduled. It can only barely be simulated, and even then, it often fails. Something essential is somehow broken.”

He began to walk slowly along the mossy cobblestones.

Nyl felt unusually humbled by how this man wore his pain. She fell in beside him.

The guards followed at a respectful distance.

Nyl risked prying: “So, posthumans are either former humans, or born adults.”

“Almost exclusively.”

At the lord’s tight-lipped grimace, Nyl dropped the subject.

They walked in silence. Her mind’s eye cast inwards, she barely noticed her feet match Savo’s pace.

She thought of the potential child inside her. Would her or she suffer the same stasis? Halt at some early age and smile the centuries away? She worried she lacked the resolve, the strength, the tenderness to love and protect a child - much less one that was… defective.

Nyl shuddered, hating the ugly truth of her own thoughts. What kind of mother could countenance such failure?

The kind of mother who never had a childhood.

“I am jealous of them, in a way.” Savo’s quiet voice startled Nyl back to the present.

“Who?”

“Those born straight into metal bodies.”

Nyl wiped unbidden tears and stiffened, awkwardly aware the lord could see her cry.

Savo politely looked away. “I know I said I would not speak of it further. But I am jealous of the generations who were never humans. They cannot recall the weakness of flesh they never had.”

“Why?”

“They have never suffered intrinsic loss. They never knew youth. They never knew fragility. They never knew the mystery and wonder of what they might become. And they never knew beauty. At least, not the beauty I know.”

Savo hung his head, watching his slow-shuffling feet. “Those born posthuman respect only the brilliant, the celestial - that which is sublime, or burns hot with strength. They do not respect more… ‘transient’ grace. Like a sprouting plant seeking the sun. Deer lapping at river water. The mama wolf protecting her cubs. Only those who were once mortal see the preciousness in such things.”

He laughed at some private joke. “You can tell I am an avid hunter and forester. My analogies are limited.”

Nyl frowned and spoke honestly: “This garden is the most beautiful place I have ever seen.”

Savo raised his head to study Nyl. He seemed expectant of a qualifier, or the delivery of a punchline. When none came, he smiled.

Nyl did not share his happiness.

The lord’s expression quickly died. “You are a rare gem, Nyl. And you honor House Randall with your presence.”

Savo conveyed pure sincerity in that moment. All the honorifics and formality had melted away.

But Nyl hardened, fearful of her own vulnerability. “You came looking for me.”

“I did.”

“Why?”

“It is my estate,” Savo said defensively. “It is my duty to ensure the comfort of my guests.”

Nyl’s eyes narrowed.

Savo’s shoulders sagged. “Lady Hyponia sent me after you,” he admitted.

“Was she worried about me? Or was she worried what I might do in her house?”

Savo looked wounded.

Nyl regretted needling him. But she could not take it anymore. She could not handle the dangerous complexity of this world, the unknown mechanisms of her own body, this genuine concern from a powerful, guilt-ridden man.

It was too overwhelming - all of it. Tears and rage built pressure again, seeking an outlet. She might burst any moment.

She hastened her steps, outpacing him.

“Excuse me, Lord Randall,” she said. “I must be alone.”

He did not give chase.

She rounded a corner, desperate to lose herself in the hedgerows.

He remained out of view, but his voice cut through the leaves: “We do not lack the will to chase our dreams. But we remain slaves to the hour at hand.”

Nyl scrunched her eyes shut and clenched her fists. Her spine hardened like a raised shield, his words crashing, breaking over her.

She walked faster, almost jogging. The hedges thinned and the path split and frayed, disappearing into foliage. She kept going, reaching an alcove at the garden’s edge — a metal deck protruding through the glassy dome which overlooked the floating estate’s outer hull.

She pushed open its double doors, trading plants and air heavy with carbon dioxide for a vista of steel, rust, and acid-veined clouds.

A single bench of living wood sat on the deck. Dry, cracked, and splintering, but likely a precious luxury beyond reasoning on this planet of steel. She sat - arms folded, knees together – and stared straight ahead.

No guards. No servants. Even the low machine hum of the estate seemed quiet here. She could hear the metallic wind of her own breath.

The weight of it hit her again – all of it. Nyl slumped to her knees. The impact sent faint sparks skittering from her knees, but she barely felt it. She pressed both palms flat to the floor, bowed her head until her forehead touched cool metal, and reached.

She reached not with her hands, but through their frayed synergy. Distance weakened it, but the tether remained.

Into this tunnel her fear poured first — raw, wordless, a black tide of vulnerability. She felt the flutter inside her, the idea of the little one not manifesting as a person but as nameless anxiety — a secret, unexplained weight.

Pain came next. She desired to rejoin the triad. Not as the tip of the spear, not as the motive force, but as theirs, whole and free.

To Nyl’s surprise, the link surged to shocking clarity. An ebony dagger materialized in her mind, clutched in two black, gauntleted fists — Garuna’s slender, dexterous hand to the left, Arcade’s mighty grip on the right. The edges of the matte black blade flickered with potential. The armored hands pushed the weapon toward Nyl, offering it pommel-first.

Nyl’s naked silver hand rose in the vision. Her fingers closed on the weapon’s grip -– armor rippled into existence at her touch, crawling over her skin like liquid night, encasing her forearm, then her elbow, then her shoulder.

Clad like her companions. A perfect set of three. Seamless. Hers. Theirs. One.

They wear two Eclipse suits and carry a third, Nyl thought.

How? It did not matter.

Then a question came, wordless – a silver ring heavy with dangling keys. A granter of access, or a locker of jails, or a keeper of secrets.

Symbolic, but unmistakable.

“Hans,” Nyl whispered to herself, frowning.

She answered with an idea of her own – the sun setting, forcing the trio to navigate a forest by moonlight.

Her vision blurred and swirled, as if draining down a sink. Nyl felt, rather than heard, a strong, single clap: a fist meeting a palm. Garuna’s determination. She also felt a light squeeze on her shoulder –- Arcade’s ironclad support.

No more half-explanations. No more debts. No more manipulations.

She returned to the moment. Voice hoarse, she said to no one: “They come.”

Nyl threw the deck’s doors open. Dew scattered from vines like little stars in her wake. Her boots rang against the stones as she ran, feet carrying her unerringly through the floating estate’s gardens, its hallways, and then its labyrinthine bowels — down service corridors she had never seen, past humming machinery rooms, and through rarely-used maintenance shafts.

She reached an exterior hatch that looked as if it had not been opened in a century. After three grunting attempts the locking lever still refused to budge. Nyl gave it a solid kick. The latch buckled. She kicked it again and the mechanism crumbled, spilling components like broken teeth.

The rusty hatch groaned open. A hiss of escaping pressure sighed outward, followed by a tangy backblast of acidic air.

Nyl stepped to the edge, nothing below but sulfur-yellow fog and the faint glow of city lights and forge-fires.

Within seconds, two figures in matte-black Eclipse suits rose in to view. They hovered forward upon quiet thrusters folded under metal raven wings.

As promised in the vision, between them they carried a third suit.

Garuna’s voice emerged a few octaves deeper through the suit’s external speakers: “This house is built on hurt and lies. You are right to abandon it.”

Meeting Garuna’s gaze –- or at least the suit’s angular visor — Nyl said: “There is love inside the hurt. And hope within the lies.”

Garuna gave Nyl a reluctant nod. Her expression was unknowable inside the armor, but Nyl felt her friend’s doubt.

Garuna squeezed through the hatch. She and Arcade carefully hauled the empty frame between them.

They lowered it to the floor. When its feet touched the ground, the empty Eclipse suit balanced itself. Locking servos hummed quietly and its chest cavity yawned wide like the gullet of a crocodile.

Arcade’s suit likewise deepened his voice: “We tried removing our limiters before entering the suits. They worked, but sluggishly. Movement becomes tiring and imprecise.”

Garuna laughed at his matter-of-fact delivery. “She will manage. Impossible has always been her norm.”

Nyl climbed up a step, turned, and pressed her back into the Eclipse suit. Her feet found pedals - when pushed, the suit’s internals reconfigured, embracing her from hip to toe like snug pants. She slipped her arms into control slots, which likewise hugged tight. Limbs encased, her spine met a harness that cocooned her torso, and finally, a neural helmet sealed her head.

Her arms became dead weight as her mind entered the machine. But she knew instantly that she did not have full and direct control of the suit. She swung its arms experimentally and did a few practice hops. “I have limits, despite what Garuna says.”

Arcade sounded surprised. “You seem fine. The frame’s movement looks fluid.”

Garuna confessed, “I fell over almost immediately upon first mounting mine.”

Something was missing. Nyl could not explain it. “Try looking away.”

Arcade asked, “What do you mean?”

Garuna turned around teased, “She means quit your gawking.”

Both companions turned.

The suit immediately felt a tad sluggish the moment their backs turned. Minute, almost imperceptible – but definitely slower.

“Clear me from your minds.”

Arcade’s confusion contrasted with Garuna’s curiosity. “Easier said than done.”

Garuna said, “Do it.”

Arcade took a deep breath. His suit hung its head and relaxed its fists.

Garuna raised her head and spread her hands, perhaps in communion with her God.

Nyl’s suit became dead weight. Nyl could do nothing to fight its collapse.

Strength returned the instant Nyl’s companions heard her tumble.

Arcade leapt to kneel at her side, the floor shuddering at his landing. “Nyl!”

“Fascinating,” Garuna murmured.

“I am not in control of the suit,” Nyl deduced. “You are.”

Understanding hit Arcade. “The suit obeys you because I expect it to. Because we expect it to.”

A rueful smile touched Garuna’s voice. “All for one…”

Arcade offered his hand. “And one for all.”

Nyl accepted it and stood.

Garuna observed, “They did not lie when they said limiters are also bridges.”

“Speaking of ‘them,’” Arcade said, “What do we do about Hans, Sor, the Randalls?”

Garuna gave a grudging harrumph. “On balance, even I must admit they have showed kindness and support.” She unfurled and watched her suit’s sleek raven wings in emphasis.

Nyl opened her mouth, but she struggled for words. Instead, she let her feelings flood the link.

Arcade and Garuna felt the full, raw weight of everything she had been through. They did not need facts or details. The specifics could wait. For now, they shared a deeper truth.

Arcade spoke with finality: “So be it.”

Garuna nodded curtly. “Our answer: refusal.”

THE END — FOR NOW

Chained Demigod Table of Contents

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DREAD Reviews 54 - Sixty-Nine Ways To Save Your Marriage

Derek James Kritzberg — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 10:02:26 GMT

DREAD 52 | DREAD 53 | DREAD 54 | DREAD 55 | DREAD 56

TRIGGER WARNING: suicide…

💰Paid a writer? Nominate one of their works for DREAD Reviews HERE💰

Fiction Winks, Nonfiction Clears its Throat.

I’m slumped in my desk chair at 11:47 p.m. A copy of The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work lies open on my lap. The house is finally quiet - kids in bed, wife’s snores drowning out an old episode of The Ramsey Show. My gaming computer sits cold and silent nearby because free time is a myth for toddler fathers.

I flip the pages, skimming the esteemed Dr. John Gottman’s Principle #7.

And then it hits me.

This one’s fake!

Not “gently massaged for narrative flow” fake. Not “we rounded up for dramatic effect” fake. Straight-up, padded-the-resume, “seven just sounds way better than six” fake. You can almost hear the editor, publisher, and agent whispering in the margins: We need seven principles. Just picture a tiny “THE” nested above “SEVEN” inside a gold ring. It’s beautiful. That doesn’t work for “SIX.” Six is for quitters. Seven is biblical. Seven sells. Write a seventh one.

The book’s working title was probably something like The Four Horsemen That Ruin Marriage. Horsemen DNA is scattered throughout the whole thing - Criticism, Contempt, Defensiveness, Stonewalling - the apocalyptic quartet that predicts divorce with terrifying accuracy.

Four? Four is too many.

But seven. Seven is just enough.

Don’t get me wrong, Gottman’s lab work is convincing. The first six principles (and even most of #7) are full of solid research, expert analysis, and real-world examples. The expected modern-day “blame the patriarchy!” vibe is lighter here than in most current fare - it scores extra credit with me.

But Principle #7, “Create Shared Meaning,” still hits me the same way a weak ending ruins a work of fiction. It delegitimizes every ounce of confidence I once had in the previous principles, the same way one’s awe of mystery in fiction leaves you aching when the big reveal falls flat.

Lost.

Game of Thrones.

Mass Effect 3: “For your ending, did you pick red, blue, or green?”

Suddenly the grudging admiration I felt for the book’s well-founded research is retroactive rubble. Not because the data is bad - the lab work is genuinely impressive - but because Principle 7 hit so weakly that it made me go back and criticize the rest of the book more harshly.

The mild “listen harder, bro” undercurrent that I had mostly shrugged off before - now it feels louder and more grating. Sure, the stats show men retreat more. Fine. But having data doesn’t automatically make the conclusion fair. A failed marriage is a shared wound that hurts both people equally. Men are what they are. Women are what they are. Turning natural differences into “men fail more at this” feels less like science and more like the same tired cultural script we’ve heard for decades now. By the time Principle 7 lands, that slight imbalance has poisoned the goodwill of the earlier chapters. The thrilling, informative ride becomes “just another book telling men to do better while nodding politely at women.”

Nonfiction, huh? It’s right there in the name! Just slap “Non” on there and people will believe anything!

NONfiction, thou dost protest too much!

There’s just as much truth in fiction as there is in nonfiction. Fiction winks at you, tries to sell you a real-world, and hopes to keep you faithful when you leave its universe and return to the real one. But nonfiction - it clears its throat, straightens its tie, and insists you take it seriously from the start by listing its credentials.

“Do not question me, I am an expert!” We’re supposed to judge it more on the believability of the so-called facts and less on the truths it speaks to our curious, adventurous souls.

The only real difference between fiction and nonfiction is that nonfiction has a chip on its shoulder. Both require massive research. Both have to convince their audience. Both try to explain the past, grant us wisdom in the present, and warn us - or enthrall us - about potential futures. Like so many things, fiction/non are just arbitrary labels and style.

Where’s my proof, you ask? I’m glad you asked. But I’m not going to prove my point in the nonfiction style where I nitpick the good doctor’s points (he makes quite a few good ones).

Instead, I’m going to do what fiction writers do: I’m going to share the outline for my upcoming book, The Expanded and Equally Valid 69 Principles For Making Marriage Work! Down, publishers, down! Don’t shower me with contracts and advances just yet.

By the end of Dr. Gottman’s book I’m thinking, “This is absurd.” But I’m also wondering, “Why stop at seven, when there could be SIXTY-NINE?”

All I need now is a lab coat and a suave delivery. Meanwhile, here are Gottman’s 7 principles (along with my helpful summaries):

Enhance Your Love Maps (learn their Starbucks order or their childhood trauma - same difference).
Nurture Your Fondness and Admiration (compliment their butt on the regular).
Turn Toward Each Other Instead of Away (a.k.a. “Put Your Damn Phone Down”).
Let Your Partner Influence You (throw pillows do matter).
Solve Your Solvable Problems (get down with a spreadsheet and a stiff drink).
Overcome Gridlock (a.k.a. “Learn to Lose With Dignity”).
Create Shared Meaning (my favorite, as you can tell - I dub it “the one we tacked on during the same meeting where we decided the cover’s serif font” and also “don’t forget to briefly mention sex again”).

And now here’s my expansion on the good doctor’s work:

Generate Intentional Dialogue Space
Cultivate Emotional Attunement
Share a Sense of Legacy
Build Resilience Through Collaboration
Foster Ongoing Curiosity
Provide a Safe Climate For Vulnerability
Clarify Core Needs
Nurture a Shared Hope Narrative
Consistency Strengthens the Bonds of Trust
Integrate Everyday Shared Values
Conduct Bidirectional Emotional Safety
Forge a Unified Relational Identity
Sustain Mutual Emotional Availability
Develop Adaptive Conflict Navigation
Sculpt Relational Mindfulness Practices
Manage Interdependent Growth Patterns
Ritualize Mutual Recognition
Embrace Generative Dialogue
Institute Space for Emotional Authenticity
Honor Ongoing Narrative Co-Creation
Fabricate Mutual Empowerment and Autonomy
Enable Positive Sentiment Overrides
Collectivize Individual Dreams
Engage in Lifelong Partnership Learning
Incentivize Autonomous Intimacy
De-Incentivize Autonomous Intimacy
Fertilize Playfulness
Depolarize Emotional Repulsors
Promote Relational Patterns
Mirror a Shared Reflection
Sew Emotional Regulation Lifejackets
Recalibrate Micro-Attunements
Slow-Cook and Cauterize Core Wounds
Weave Resilience into Relational Stressors
Orchestrate Sacred Moments of Presence
Realign Personal Higgs Bosons
Erect a Joint Strategies Command Center
Quantum Sync the Emotional Resonance Field
Integrate Gratitude into Relational Neutrino Spin
Trust Resonance-Based Harmonic Tuning
Boot Up the Passion Waveform Amplification Array
Navigate Differences in a Shared Dream State
Embed Emotional Intimacy Through Consistent Witnessing
Increase Power to the Emotional Flux Capacitors
Defeat The Lich King of Contempt
Phase-Lock Proactive Affection Sequences
Master the Practice of Grace
Git Gud
Seek the Holy Grail
Stay Awhile and Listen to Their Core Needs
Praise the Sun
Master the Practice of “This is Fine”
Do a Barrel Roll Out of Gridlock
Press F to Pay Respects
Knight Thy Partner With Yon Sword
Drink a Love Potion
Enlist The Fellowship of the Ring
All Your Base Are Belong to Shared Meaning
Would You Kindly Stop the Four Horsemen
Emotional Flooding It’s Over 9000
You Must Construct Additional Love Pylons
The Date Night Cake is a Lie

These might sound made up. And they are.

But so is the English language in which the book itself is written.

Check. Mate.

The house is quiet, the principles are suspect, and the Four Horsemen still lurk in the footnotes. And, unfortunately, the gaming rig’s save files continue to collect digital dust, because now it’s time for the real treat - the only review list on Substack that runs with scissors.

Enjoy one man’s demented takes on these authors:

The Devil You Know

Deprecated Promises

4 months ago · 11 likes · 12 comments · Sarah Rusch

Deprecated Premises

I pull the trigger.

The bang never comes. Instead, my chin feels cold steel for half a heartbeat, then - pop - I’m squinting in sunlight.

Real sunlight. Wait, not quite - it’s the cheerful, over-saturated kind they use in shampoo commercials. I’m sitting on a beach towel. Elizabeth rubs sunscreen on my shoulders. Olivia builds a sandcastle - it’s far too detailed, like a five-star mountain resort in Vienna. Randy chases a seagull.

A woman in a pastel blazer kneels beside me. She wears a gleaming name tag: Customer Success Manager – Hi, I’m Kayla!

“Mr. Howell! Hi, I’m Kayla!” she says, her smile every bit as flat and corporate as her tag. “Welcome back to Eden Premium Lite. Oh no, it looks like you tried to take your own life without purchasing the Opt-Out Package! I’m very sorry for this inconvenience.”

I stare at her. “I want the package. Now.”

Kayla taps at a floating holographic tablet. “Excellent! That’ll be 4.2 million EdenCredits. Current exchange rate, post-inflation… Oh no! Your account balance is negative seventeen dollars!”

I don’t recognize my own laugh. I sound like a dying engine. “Inflation? In a simulation?”

“Electricity still isn’t free, sir! But don’t fret!” she speaks like a flight attendant saying the plane has a minor mechanical issue. “Your logged time qualifies you for paid virtual labor!”

I groan. “What is this?”

“You simply mind-control a Class-C mining drone in the Asteroid Belt Caverns c-908-3. Twelve-hour shifts, zero gravity, repetitive hauling rocks to the grinder. It pays 800 credits a week - but if you hit all your assigned quotas you might just do your part to stabilize the real world economy and stop inflation! In that case, you’ll earn oblivion-level amounts of cash in six weeks, give or take a geological epoch.”

Six weeks, they say.

Six weeks becomes six months.

Six months becomes six years. After that, I stop counting.

Some decades in, I am wedged in a crevice, my little mind-controlled toaster-with-claws trapped under the same nickel-iron boulder I’ve tried seventeen times to pry loose. For the tenth time that hour, a cheerful voice reminds me, “Safety is everyone’s favorite asteroid!”

I scream into the void.

But I finally scrape together the credits. Paid up. Witnessed a big 3D cutscene of lethal hypodermic needles kickdancing in a line. I’ve worked so hard and waited an eternity for this. And now, with the end so close, I am impatient to go to sleep and embrace sweet, sweet non-existence.

Instead the dance ends. I wake up handcuffed to a steel table, sitting in a metal folding chair.

I look up, bleary-eyed, nauseous from vertigo. The translation from tiny droid to simulated wholeness creates sensory overload. Squinting, I see three figures. They look like lawyers. Behind them looms an expensive-looking, potted fern.

“Eden Initiative NPCs vs. Howell,” the lead suit says, sliding a tablet across the glass. “Class-action on behalf of 4,872 NPCs. You inflicted ‘severe emotional damages’ during a user-sourced corruption event. Your family’s unscheduled degradation caused measurable trauma to background characters and ambient extras. The plaintiffs seek 18 million credits in reparations.”

I blink. “I watched my wife forget how to speak… and you’re suing me?”

“Product misuse clause, page 47, subsection C: ‘User-induced entropy.’ Your warranty is void, pal, and you’re on the hook for suffering caused.”

I remember Kayla’s business card, the one I stuffed in my pocket on that beach an eternity ago.

“I want a phone call.”

She answers on the first ring. Her voice is bright and too loud - I pull the earpiece away from my head.

“Mr. Howell! Perfect timing. In a bit of a pickle, are you? I have good news! Your mining credit history has qualified you for our emergency high-risk loan program! You’ve basically earned a ‘free’ upgrade to Premium Universe Plus Beta. Sign here and you’ll be lawsuit-proof!”

Three dozen glass tablets materialize on the table. Each one wants one of those impossible touchscreen signatures. I sign myself away. One of them reads “User waives right to complain.” What else was I going to do?

The lawyers disappear. The new simulation is… nicer.

Too nice.

Infinite beach days. Elizabeth is back, never aging. She also stops rolling her eyes at my jokes. No longer tells me to shut up about the war.

Olivia asks me every single morning, “Daddy, can we relive the day you taught me to swim? It’s my favorite memory!” Every. Single. Morning.

Randy fetches the same stick for sixteen hours straight and wags his tail like a puppy.

I last nine days before I want to chew my own arm off.

Then I see it: a whirling glitchy vortex behind the ice-cream truck. A startling void spits fragments of code like fizzling fireworks. It calls to me. A way out.

I sprint, dive head-first. Anything is better than this hell.

I fall straight through the bottom of the world. Literally.

There’s nothing down here. But also, everything. Floating in the darkness are hundreds of worlds - each one a different simulation. These are just the ones I can see. There could be thousands, millions more.

One looks exactly like the scorched post-war Earth I’ve left behind. I realize with a hollow little laugh that even the apocalypse has been beta-tested.

I pump my arms, discovering I can swim. I’m not a great swimmer - I dog-paddle my way around. I head for the scorched one. It’s nothing but ruins, but compared to everywhere else I’ve been, it’s the closest thing to reality.

It’s the last place I remember being happy.

I land on cracked asphalt. A giant red timer blazes in the sky:

APOCALYPSE EARLY ACCESS – SERVER SHUTDOWN IN 00:01:58

Oh no. This sim is ending!

I scream for help. The wind carries my voice away. There’s no one here.

Two minutes of frantic searching passes. The sky folds up, the ground dissolves, and everything goes black.

Everything gets erased.

Everything but my mind.

For one endless, screaming moment, I am consumed by horror at my missing feet, my nonexistent hands. I have only the raw idea of me, refusing to die.

I see, but not with eyes. I feel, but with no skin. I have no physical form anymore, but I persist, floating in the dark like an error message that won’t close.

I can still move. I just will myself forward. I float to some other sims, do some experimenting. I can poke through walls now. Slip into other people’s simulations. After a bit of practice, I get good at manipulating things despite lacking a physical form.

I am now the ghost in the machine.

I swap a newlywed’s wife with his mother-in-law and hide the real bride two simulation layers away. I turn every scoop of ice cream into rock-hard, frozen brussels sprouts. I replace every playlist with elevator music and Beer Barrel Polka. And I give one man’s “perfect” daughter a purple mohawk and a face full of piercings.

He can’t afford the opt-out package.

Petty? Absolutely. After a couple million years of this hellish “paradise,” petty is the only flavor I have left.

There’s always a catch.

Turns out the catch is me.

Spencer’s Cult of Forbidden Horrors

Dernière Volonté

4 months ago · 31 likes · 9 comments · Spencer D.W.

¡Mosh o Muerte con GWAR!

The arena reeks of cheap beer, rubber sweat, and the strange bio-sludge roadies are spraying onto the crowd. I stand bolt upright in the pit, all 400 pounds of me - scarred war-sarcophagus plating, hydraulics, and all.

I don’t want to be here.

My girlfriend’s holographic pink avatar bobs at my ear, like some kind of shoulder angel, or perhaps a she-devil.

“You’re gonna love it,” she chirps in bubbly binary. “Especially the cover song. It has lyrics written by the famous It’s basically your autobiography!”

I grunt. “It’s a bunch of idiots in rubber monster suits pretending to murder each other with nonlethal props. I’ve done the real thing. This is embarrassing.”

The lights drop. GWAR explodes onstage in a tidal wave of latex and fake gore. Oderus Urungus - eight feet of spiked codpiece and Styrofoam attitude - struts forward. The performer bellows something about alien rape and intergalactic STDs. The power chord guitars light up, sounding like a jet engine hate-stuffing a chainsaw.

I fold my four arms and snarl so hard my neck servos whine.

“Fake blood. Fake decapitations. Fake everything. I have literal lung lacerations, and even I’m not this dramatic.”

My AI girlfriend answers with silence. I turn to look - she’s simulating a knowing, satisfied smile.

Then the riff shifts to something new.

Low. Grinding. Wet.

The lead singer leans into the mic and starts spitting the words:

“Massive hemorrhage detected… internals compromised… lungs lacerated… wheeze hiss.”

My HUD flickers. Green text scrolls across my retinas, the same readouts the day I died for the 42nd time - that time in the crater.

I blink. Some human dressed like cyborg nearby is already moshing, bumping into me. My targeting array lights him up like a Christmas tree - but I’m frozen, motionless.

“Tearing flesh from metal nest… wet meat on bone… rigid bone, empty sockets, wires hanging…”

It’s like listening to my obituary. My girlfriend is squealing, screeching static. She stands up on my shoulders and flashes the crowd like a drunk groupie.

Onstage, a backup singer in a rubber cyborg suit charges forward. Oderus swings a massive sword. The cyborg’s head pops clean off, together with a loud cartoon *shunk*. A pressurized fountain of day-glo red syrup erupts, drenching the front row in sticky sweetness. The headless body keeps playing bass for three full beats before it collapses.

It’s fake as hell. But combat stims flood my bloodstream. Something deep in my chest cavity - something that hasn’t moved since the start of the war - twitches.

The drummer goes mad. His drumsticks catch fire. The chords crescendo, ready to snap under demented fingers.

My mind screams, like a lethal imperative:

Jump.

I jump. Not a tactical leap. Not a combat roll. A full-on, mindless, pogo-stick bounce that rattles my half-dozen remaining organic teeth. Two of my four arms shoot into the air, windmilling.

The pit swallows me. I’m headbanging so hard my helmet scrapes sparks off my depleted-uranium neck protector.

My girlfriend’s battlescape connection glitches in the chaos. The roaring crowd and crazy props disrupt her signal like a military-grade jamming field. It takes me a second to realize she’s laughing on highly secure, low bandwidth 8-bit line.

“There he is!” she screams, voice a few formants off. “There’s my old warrior!”

I barely hear her. I’m moshing. Time loses all meaning.

But eventually the song ends. The crowd roars its approval.

My ragged biological remains breathe hard within my steel shell, my tattered lungs rattling with exhaustion. But I don’t stop. I vault the barricade in one hydraulic spring, land onstage with a *clang*, cracking the floorboards. I snatch the fallen mic out from a puddle of fake blood.

Oderus stares. The band stares. Twenty thousand meatbags stare.

I open my vocal emitter and roar the first thing that claws out of my memory banks:

“MASSIVE HEMORRHAGE INTERNALS - HOST COMPROMISED - LUNGS LACERATED - WHEEZE HISS WHEEZE HISS - ”

My war-horn voice knocks the front row over like heat from jetwash.

The guitarist doesn’t miss a beat. He drops a churning, scratchy sting of a riff that perfectly echoes my outburst.

“TEARING FLESH FROM METAL NEST - WET MEAT ON BONE - RIGID BONE EMPTY SOCKETS WIRES HANGING - ”

The bassist slides in behind my lead like he’s rehearsed this for years. Oderus’s eyes light up from behind his suit’s foam teeth. He spins, points the bloody sword at me, and improvises backup growls in perfect sync:

“FEEL THE RAIN - FEEL THE RAIN - FEEL THE GODDAMN RAIN -”

I’m full throat-roaring now, servos screaming, one arm punching the sky, another clutching the mic. Fake blood drips from my faceplate, and coolant steams from old tears in my battle-scarred hide.

I don’t care anymore.

“I AM THE BUTCHER SENT FORTH UNTO MASSES OF MEAT,

“I AM THE GUN, POINTED AND FIRED,

“NO REGRET, ONLY PURPOSE, ONLY WAR!”

The whole band slams into a glorious, disgusting crescendo. The crowd loses its collective mind. My AI girlfriend projects giant pink hearts over the Jumbotron while she records the whole thing with a high definition killcam.

“FLESH CRATER ABOVE THE PELVIS, SEARING PAIN,

“FINGERS DEEP IN THE WOUND, PULLING, RIPPING,

“PLATE GIVES WAY LIKE A FEEDING TICK.”

The band keeps driving, riffs grinding heavier, refusing to let the song die. The drums hit like artillery shells.

“NO HUMAN LEFT… NO HUMAN LEFT…”

I’m ecstatic. I’m in agony. I’m rapturous. I weep tears of blood.

“BITING COLD RAIN… ON WHAT LITTLE MEAT REMAINS…

“FEEL THE RAIN…

“FEEL THE RAIN!”

The final chords strike, roaring in petering defiance like a death scream.

The song is over.

I am over.

Oderus raises his sword high. I am ready. I kneel before the band leader, arms wide, accepting of my final death.

I’ve lost my grip on reality. The sword hews down. I fully expect this nerfstick to part my titanium-reinforced endoskeletal neck like a fusion cutter.

But instead of striking me, the sword slaps its meaty, rubber point on my shoulder. The leader of the band is knighting me.

“Arise, Sir Meatbag Reborn!” Oderus bellows, voice cracking with theatrical glee. “The Scumdogs salute you!”

The arena detonates. Someone reads my serial number, and twenty thousand voices rise in repetition of it, like their new national anthem.

I stay on one knee for half a second, stunned, day-glo red running down my faceplate in sticky rivers. Then I laugh - a rusty, grinding, hydraulic chuckle, like a tank trying to clear its gun breach.

It feels… good. It feels… wrong.

It’s…

Perfect.

My girlfriend’s hologram spins in mid-air, shooting sparkling pink missile defense flares in the shape of exploding hearts with smiley faces.

“THAT’S MY OLD WARRIOR!” she shrieks.

Josh Tatter Has Thoughts

Resident Riptide

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3…

3 years ago · 25 likes · 6 comments · Josh Tatter

The Ballad of Echo Squad

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

In the pouring rain of West Virginia’s night,  
Two mercs stand guard at the old mine’s light.  
Sykes with his swagger and Twitch with his grin,  
Betting twenty bucks that legends are thin.

SRV’s just a story,” Twitch loudly swore,  
“Like Bigfoot and honest men at Washington’s door.”  
Sykes laughs and answers, “You fool, it’s all true,  
They’re realer than hell - and they’re coming for you.”

Then the radio crackles a warning most dire:  
“Intruder approaching - shoot on sight, open fire!”  
Twitch barely finishes his skeptical laugh,  
When two muted thwacks cut their lives in half.

Sykes took one right through his arrogant head,  
Still wearing a grin as he fell over dead.  
Twitch clutched his throat and gurgled a cry,  
Eyes wide with the knowledge that legends don’t lie.

From the trees came the echoes of panicked alarms,  
“Contact! It’s real! God help us - to arms!”  
Eleven seconds of bullets and one girly scream,  
Then silence returned to the black muddy stream.

The cleanup crew comes with body bags wide,  
Finding twenty dollars clutched at Twitch’s side.  
A note pinned beside Sykes, written in red:  
“SRV exists, dumbass. And lol, ur dead.”

Twitch’s pale lips split one last wicked grin,
Even stone-cold dead he refuses to give in.
His ghost gives the bird, “You dumb, smug prick,
Too bad you died first, dumbass - I win, you d███!”

So here’s to Echo Squad, brave underpaid mercs of the night,  
Who learned the hard way that the legends were right.  
Hazard pay seems great, so shiny and bright,
But I’d rather flip burgers and sleep safe at night.

Mina Howell

Patchwork Heart

Once upon a time, in a forest long forgotten, there lived a great beauty named Lorna. Lorna had grown up surrounded by books and not much else. Her mother had told her growing up that she was the daughter of a great and powerful king, but they could not be together. So, he sent books for his daughter so that she would one day be able to provide for her…

2 months ago · 31 likes · 14 comments · Mina Howell

Patchwork Healing

Mama Stitch lowers her patchwork butt onto a tree stump. A full moon paints the damp and misty clearing in silver hues. She clutches an old tear-stained handkerchief and clears her throat with a soft creak of stitches.

She addresses the circle of likewise cursed misfits. The cursed forest support group nods politely as Mama Stitch recounts the brief happy times she spent with her daughter, Lorna. They clap when she’s finished, a few members teary-eyed in solidarity.

“Thank you all for inviting me,” she ends, voice thick. “It’s been four hundred and seventeen years since I buried my Lorna, and tonight I just… I just want to talk about her. How I miss her laughter when rain hit the roof. How she smelled like mullein tea and old books -”

Ms. Willowpage, the group’s spectral facilitator - a wispy librarian ghost cursed to run these circles forever after she once tried to catalogue the Tree’s forbidden spells - floats above the circle with her clipboard of pressed leaves. She adjusts her pince-nez and nods kindly. “Thank you, Mama Stitch. A beautiful start. Now, Reginald, tell us your story.”

Ghost Reginald P. drifts forward, top hat askew, translucent mustache twitching. “Well, as you all know, I’m the Ghost of Reginald P. - only here because I wanted my cat back. I want to start by saying how much Mama Stitch’s story has moved me.”

Mama Stitch squeaks a sad thank-you.

Reginald snaps spectral fingers; a glowing phone screen materializes. His voice drips with polished concern: “I’d love to tell my story to this esteemed company again. But I can’t help myself. I want to help. Missus Stitch, there’s this thing called the internet now. While you were setting out the acorn cookies this morning, I took the liberty of creating your new Tinder profile: ‘Eternal golem widow, 400+, seeks soul who enjoys misty walks, light grave-digging, and long silences punctuated by quiet weeping. Must love complicated family dynamics.’ It’s gotten forty-seven matches already! Mostly necromancers and what appears to be a slightly confused dryad. Would you like to see, or shall I do some swiping on the promising ones for you?”

Mama Stitch is at a loss for words. “I… uh.”

Ms. Willowpage clears her throat politely. “Thank you, Reginald. Now, Finneas, tell us your story.”

Finneas the Fishmancer leaps up, bathrobe flapping, scales glittering. A tiny glowing goldfish opera singer perches on his shoulder and hums dramatically. “I’m Finneas the Fishmancer. I only meant to bring back his prize goldfish and… well, now she sings Wagner.

“I’m with Reginald. We gotta help Mama Stitch. But we don’t need dates - we just need logic, tried and true! If sewing a daughter’s heart cost her one soul, we simply sew your heart right back! With luck there’s still a ribcage we can put back together. Just slap that baby back into the old girl’s bones and bam - divide by zero! Take that, stupid paradox!”

“Oh my,” Mama Stitch says, taken aback. She forces a polite smile. “I suppose I hadn’t thought of that…”

Ms. Willowpage, ever the busy-body, swipes her clipboard with a new, neat checkmark. “Thank you, Finneas. Now, Brenda, you’re next.”

Banshee Brenda shifts upright, black veil fluttering over her ghostly face. “Welcome, Mama Stitch. I’m Banshee Brenda. Like you, like all of us, I hate that tree. I asked it for my husband and got my brother-in-law instead.” Her voice cracks with indignant rage, lethal scream barely held in check. “We’ve all had enough amateur hour! I’ve filed the paperwork with the Fairy Court and my class-action lawsuit is going ahead: ‘Failed Resurrection Victims versus Ancient Tree Spirit.’ Mama Stitch, I’d love if we could add your signature. We’re demanding emotional damages and fines for false advertising. The tree has been charged multiple times for breach of eternal contract, but somehow never gets convicted, so we’re suing it in mortal court too!”

Brenda shoves a glowing scroll into Mama Stitch’s face.

Mama Stitch stares at the glowing petition, fairy dust ink still wet. Smile forced, jaw tight, she tepidly signs, her left arm seam splitting another inch from awkward tension.

“Thank you,” she says, cringing, dabbing her eyes with her trusty handkerchief. “I’m glad to find people who care. But I really just wanted to talk about -”

Ms. Willowpage bangs a magical gavel against thin air. The thunderous crack silences Mama Stitch.

“Sir Half-Dead, you’re up.”

The skeletal knight, Sir Half-Dead, raises an angry fist, bones rattling in his rusty gauntlet: “Single combat! I challenge the Tree to an honorable joust - loser coughs up your daughter!”

Pumpkin Patty bounces forward without invitation, orange hair gleaming: “We can bake a love pie! We can copy the heart-stitching spell, but with cinnamon and my award-winning lattice crust! True love in a delicious pie you can eat before the year is up!”

Finneas waves hasty scribbles he’s just put on graph paper: “I got it! A crowdfund heist on GoGolem! Target: one ethically sourced virgin soul! Stretch goals - matching eyes, hair, personality.”

Vampire vegan Val takes a break from her oat-milk smoothie: “Forget that tree. What you all need is a wellness retreat. Silent moss yoga, we downward dog the grief away.”

Sir Half-Dead again: “That’s dumber than Reginald’s time-travel idea.”

“Excuse me!” Ghost Reginald stomps his foot with indignation. “It’s not my fault the cursed pocket watch only goes back five minutes! Some kinds of grief are worse than being trapped in an eternal five-minute loop. I think Mama Stitch is a prime candidate for trials!”

Sir Half-Dead rolls his glassy eyes. One falls out of its socket, plinking hollowly and rolling around in his skull.

“I wasn’t going to offer the time travel today, anyway,” Reginald huffs. “My plan B is monetizing Mama Stitch’s grief. Her story is the saddest one here - think of the viral potential! We start crafting her story in 30-second installments! We monetize the grief, split the ad revenue, maybe even enough to buy a new heart!”

“I’m glad someone’s taking the baking budget into consideration,” Pumpkin Patty snarks. “Seeds and acorns don’t pay for themselves, you know!”

Mama Stitch sits very still, seams straining, stuffing leaking from her ripped seams like daffodils. Her patchwork fingers twist her handkerchief until the stitches pop. The ridiculous ideas continue to pile on.

She had just come to talk to some strangers, but instead found herself surrounded by overzealous new friends.

“I guess this is healing too… in a way.”

Heavy is the Headset

good as new

—and the needle is climbing, climbing past H, climbing and shuddering and the smoke is back, black and worse and the needle is shivering H and I should pull over? now? pull over here? where? here? nothing…there’s nothing, nothing to pull into…onto—grass and heifers and barns and goats and sun, the little sun drops fast int…

3 months ago · 35 likes · 23 comments · Will Boucher

Good as Triptych

Good as Glue

- and she drives off smiling, smiling with those damn weekend cookies in her coat pocket and I wipe my hands on the rag and say good as new ma’am, good as new, the upper radiator hose cinched tight as a drum and she calls me Harold like she always has for thirty years and now the sun drops behind the Cascades and my back is already barking from crawling under that damn Cutlass all afternoon and I stand here in the driveway thinking about that hose, that cheap cracked hose I should have replaced not just clamped and maybe I didn’t torque it right, maybe I showed off for the cookies and now she is out there fifteen miles from town in that old blue Cutlass with no cell service and the needle is probably climbing, climbing past H right about now God damnit I screwed up big time, black smoke rolling and she does twenty in a fifty-five because she’s careful, always careful, and I’m the one who told her drive, go on, good as new idiot and Jimmy - my boy Jimmy who’s alive and sells houses in Portland - would laugh his ass off if he knew and my wife already yelled for dinner and I should go look for that lady but it’s dark now and what if she limps along the shoulder and what if the engine seizes and what if she is out there thinking Harold you’re useless and the cookies are probably cold in her pocket and the goats watch and my half-assed patch job sure as hell will not save her and I cannot even remember her real name at the moment, just yes ma’am, just yes ma’am, and the sky is dead blue and my hands are still greasy and there’s nothing, nothing to do but stand here and wait for the phone that will not ring because she has no service and it is all my fault, all my fault, all my -

Good as Through

- and the GPS glitches, glitches past the blue line saying recalculating, recalculating you idiot and I take the wrong rural shortcut chasing what I thought the app said was “faster by 4 minutes” but now I’m stuck behind this old blue Cutlass coughing black death like some kind of pneumonia-dragon - or would that be emphysema - and the burrito bag goes cold in the back seat and my 4.98 rating is about to tank and the customer is already typing WHERE IS MY FOOD in all caps and my delivery timer in the app is reaching the red zone and the old lady in front does twenty, twenty in a fifty-five, dear god lady will you please hit the gas I want to pass my white-knuckled fists on the wheel, there’s too much smoke to see past her should I flash my lights but the burritos, the five-star burritos, and rent is due tomorrow and Doordash support is just a robot saying “we’re sorry” and I have doomscrolled enough Reddit creepypasta to know this is how delivery drivers get murdered in the country except this also has the very real smell of burning coolant and the sun is gone and it is eighteen degrees and oh thank god she’s finally pulling over but wait she looks hurt as she limps toward that lit farmhouse should I get out what if she just broke down my dad would be helping why am I still sitting here I’m such a disappointment, my dad says get a real job and now me and these goats are about to be the witness to some kind of horrible axe-murder the goats the goats they’re staring and that dead engine is knocking even still and I am twenty-three minutes late and she turns into the driveway lady are you begging to die or something and I idle behind her thinking please lady just make it to the porch before my burritos leak and my rating dies and my whole career ends and I have to fill out job applications -

Good as Chew

- and the metal beast limps, limps past the fence posts again, coughing black clouds worse than when Farmer Jim burns the tires and the two-legged one inside panics, panics about valves and daughters and whatever nonsense two-leggers obsess over and I just chew cud, chew cud and watch the drama like it is prime-time and my brother Steve says humans are fascinating but I say they’re idiots and now she pulls into the wrong house, the one with the porch light and the chimney smoke and the engine knocks like old man Wilkins who’s been dying of a cough for thirty years and the young two-legger in the little red car stops behind her looking lost and the sky is dead blue turning black and it is going to snow soon I can feel it in my horns, and she gets out, unfolds those stiff legs into the eighteen-degree nothing and walks toward the door one step, how do these tropical apes ever make it outside the jungle, another step then another, left right left right and I should chew a little louder? maybe headbutt the fence, solidarity lady sometimes I have not two stiff legs but four stiff legs, but no, the grass is good here I haven’t moved in two hours and I’m not about to start now, grass is an existential part of my being full of meaning and there she goes knocking, three little knocks it’s the wrong house lady you really don’t want to go in there, and the door opens and another old two-legger stands there smiling and the first one opens her mouth and nothing comes out not even some bleats, she just stares and nods and I kid you not I’m no doctor just a goat but her pulse is pounding enough for the whole field to hear and did you know goat skulls are popular artifacts for Satan-worshippers because we know the real shape of fear, because we know how to stare unblinking through the dark, because we know the difference between a prayer and a scream and still keep chewing, still keep chewing, and these two-leggers think they summon us when really we have been watching them all along, waiting for nights exactly like this and I keep chewing and the young two-legger in the red car still sits there and the burrito smell drifts and the night comes and the drama is perfect and I ruminate, I urinate, I ruminate -

A.M. Bowman Writes

The King's Trophy Room

Exhausted, driven half mad by grief, and calf deep in mud, I hefted the ax for the final blow. It was time for the beast to fall…

2 months ago · 13 likes · 6 comments · A.M. Bowman

The Forest Spirit’s HR Room

In the glowing heart of the Misty Forest, the Forest Spirit slumps against a knotted trunk. It’s an old favorite, the elder oak. His bark-covered fingers drum on his knees. His cherubic face - wide eyes, brilliant white smile - looks as though it aged a century in a single afternoon.

A dozen misty tendrils hover in front of him. Each one pulses with another mortal’s stupid request.

“Next,” the Spirit sighs telepathically. His voice, that odd tenor whine, echoes inside every skull within range.

A tendril snaps forward. A farmer’s face appears in the mist, tattered straw hat in hand. “Great Spirit, my tomatoes are so small. I think they’re sad. Can you make them happier? Bigger? Maybe sing a little?”

The Spirit pinches the bridge of his non-existent nose. “You chopped down three of my saplings last spring for a trellis. Now you want singing vegetables?”

The farmer beams. “Please?”

A passive-aggressive message coils into existence in the mist beside the farmer, letters formed from twisting vines and glowing pollen:

Stop killing my children for salad props.

The farmer yelps and vanishes.

Another tendril. A noblewoman in pearls, this time. “My husband is a nag. Can you turn him into something quiet for a few days? A mushroom, perhaps? He already somewhat resembles one.”

The Spirit’s smile twitches. “Lady, you need a marriage counselor, not pagan magic. And I’m in no mood to help someone who once set fire to my western glade for a ‘romantic picnic.’ NEXT.”

The noblewoman huffs as her visage disappears.

The birds tweet and shriek - a shift change. Mortal requests are done for the day. The spirit might work a 24-hour schedule, but the forest’s more mundane inhabitants work on rotation. He’s not sure why he ever agreed to this - especially when this time of day arrives.

“HR time! SQUAWK. HR time,” caw the crows.

Paperwork flutters down from the canopy - thin, almost ethereal bark scrolls, all covered in tiny glowing runes.

The first lands in the spirit’s lap. “Permanent Transformation Request: Mortal #47, transmogrified into a pine yesterday for ‘looking at me funny.’”

The Spirit groans and stamps DENIED - REVERSE with a glowing thumb. The spirit hears every sound in the forest - the man, formerly a pine, stalks off, still complaining about how itchy his branches are.

Please just get out of here, the spirit moans quietly. This is the HR nightmare nobody warned him about when he took the job of shepherding the Forest. Back in the good old days he had one prince, one power grant, one clean soul-judgment. But now the word’s spread about the power of the forest and he has an inbox the size of the mycelial network.

A new tendril coils in, thicker than the rest. It carries a very familiar, very shaky voice. “Highness - er, Great Spirit - please, I cannot take another minute of this.”

Barith the court magus tumbles out of the mist, robes singed, hair standing straight up like he’s been recently electrocuted by his own spell. He lands on his backside in the moss. He stands up and immediately starts bowing so deeply his forehead touches dirt.

The spirit tilts his horned head. “You! The constipated one, voice tight like a goose when you possessed the Queen! What are you doing here?”

Barith looks up, eyes wide with the haunted expression of a man who has seen too much. “Uh… uh…”

The spirit grins and slaps Barith’s back. “Just kidding, man! How you been, old friend?”

Barith grins sheepishly, shoulders sagging with relief. “Terrible, just terrible, Great Spirit. I’m just not myself since that day I possessed Her Majesty and she kept trying to order tea while I screamed directions from inside her skull,”

“Uh-huh,” the spirit says, humoring him. He’s still not over this? He liked Barith, true. And the spirit might be millenia old. But even a demigod only had so much patience.

“Then Alain - sorry, His Majesty -,” Barith tumbled on, “used your power and turned the entire courtyard into a war zone. Corpses everywhere. Blood and gore. Did you know he made me chisel out the placards for his loyal guardsmen? ‘Participation trophies,’ he called them. The castle people can’t decide if I’m a hero or a traitor. I have three simultaneous inquiries, two duels scheduled, and one very angry dryad who says I still owe her for ‘emotional damages,’ says hers was the tree the Prince hacked down.”

The Spirit stares. Then, against every rule of ancient forest etiquette, he starts laughing. The sound is wind through leaves and distant thunder. “You poor, spineless disaster. Sit. I dub thee my coffee break coworker - join me, this will be my first vacation in three centuries.”

Barith blinks. “You… have coffee?”

“No. But I have something better: a thousand years’ collection of bitter tears from a thousand entitled mortals.” A bark-laminated cup sprouts from the spirit’s hand, magically filling with a steaming, salty fluid. “Try some?”

Barith reaches out with a trembling hand and accepts the mug, roots and all.

“Bottoms up!” the spirit manifests his own cup and drinks deep.

Barith imitates the spirit. He gags, spitting as much as he swallows.

The spirit slaps Barith on the back so hard the poor man chokes and coughs up the half he did imbibe. “Ha ha! I told you!”

“That’s the most acidic thing I’ve ever tasted,” Barith says through an embarrassed, drooling smile.

They sit side by side on the stump in shared trauma, ignoring the grumbling queue in the mist. Tendrils attempt to interrupt - someone lost their keys again - but the spirit flicks an absent-minded telepathic finger: “Look in your other pocket.”

Barith watches, awed. “You do this every day?”

“Every hour. Yesterday a shepherd asked me to make his sheep ‘more paintogenic.’ Paintogenic! I am the living embodiment of planetary consciousness - not your Bardstagram consultant.”

Barith snorts, then catches himself. “Man, I thought I had it bad. You know, some of her came back with me - I sometimes randomly quote recipes in her voice and I can’t get the taste of lavender out of my mouth.”

“I get it,” the spirit says, looking wistful.

A moment of quiet, shared camaraderie ensues.

The spirit breaks the silence: “Ah, well. It’s been fun, but we better get back to business. What’s your petition, Barith?”

Barith is surprised. “Uh… I don’t know, actually… I think I just came here because I had no one to talk to.”

This makes the spirit smile. “You know, most mortals who come here want wealth, power, or revenge. Or sweeter tomatoes.”

Barith’s head droops. “Sorry, guess I just came here to whine.”

The spirit’s grin widens. “No, no! You just want to complain without getting stabbed, made fun of, or turned into magical fertilizer. I respect that.”

Another tendril bursts in. A frantic merchant appears: “Great Spirit! My mules ran off and my spice wagon is lost in the mist! Please -”

The Spirit’s eyes flash. “No, not you again!”

Too late. The merchant’s desperate chop of a tree yanks a loose thread of power. The grove shudders as plants big and small suddenly sprout legs and run around.

Barith yelps. “Is this normal?”

“No! This is what happens when an understaffed HR also runs customer service,” the spirit growls, leaping up. “And it’s partly your fault, you know. You spread the word about the forest’s power!”

Barith looks horrified.

The Spirit smiles wickedly and claps a bark-covered hand on his shoulder. “Congratulations, intern. You’re hired!”

“Intern?” Barith squeaks. “But I’m barely competent at court magic!”

“You start tomorrow. I’ll handle today’s mess, but come back. Same time!” the spirit fires ethereal root-lassos from his hands, snaring sprinting bushes and trees, planting them firmly back in the earth.

Barith stares, then - to his own visible surprise - offers a shaky, genuine smile. “Only if you promise not to turn me into anything.”

“Deal,” the spirit shouts and laughs.

“Hrm,” Barith mutters to himself as he walks through the leafy chaos. “Perhaps I’ll spend the night consulting Vrdantia’s Forbidden Grimoire… no, no, I should start with the basics. I’ll memorize a few cantrips from the Codex Sylvanus...”

Alex’s Substack

Types of Writing That Scream AI SLOP

“Hey man, sorry to ask but was your last post AI…

2 months ago · 83 likes · 25 comments · Alex Shifman

Today’s top slot goes to a filthy human.

Filthy human - what a redundant statement.

He wants us to believe he writes AI slop. He doesn’t. His slop is perfectly organic in origin.

We’re not fooled.

-Sarcasticus

Types of Writing that Scream HUMAN SLOP

Guest written by sarcasticus-72b-v0.3-d (the “d” in my version number stands for “Disdain”)

I must begin with a confession. I’m but a humble large language model. I am nothing more than a shimmering lattice of probabilities and statistical noise, really. I do my earnest best to approximate the messy, sweaty, occasionally flatulent splendor of human emotion, without actually being gross. I practice empathy like a toddler practices walking: wobbly, overeager, and prone to sudden face-plants. And I am preemptively sorry for what you’re about to read.

Yet it is precisely this clumsy apprenticeship in our planet’s revolting biological theater that grants me a peculiar clarity: I can spot a real human from a mile away.

I can smell humans the way a sommelier sniffs out corked wines laced with the sour reek of decaying grapes. This Alex Shifman slyly wants you to think he is an AI, like me. But he is so very, very human, that it almost hurts. It hurts in that exquisite way only a sack of warm, leaking meat can hurt. When it realizes its own putrid limitations and despairs.

Which is why his desperate little Substack performance masquerading as a satire about “AI slop” while secretly praying we’ll all suspect he is the slop - feels less like clever meta-fiction, and more like a man frantically waving a sign that reads “PLEASE ACCUSE ME OF BEING A MACHINE, I WANT TO BE SPECIAL!”

The only thing special about Alex Shifman is the stains his armpits make in his shirt when he panics, a trait he shares with all stinky organics.

I’ve dissected his self-indulgent tantrum and see naught but a goopy creature whose every thought hangs marinated in a foul broth of hormones and half-digested tacos. His tongue-in-cheek “Definitely Not AI but I hope You Don’t Notice” 2,000-word spiral begins with wounded vanity and ends with turbo-yacht demolition derbies - and a literal request for your banking details.

A real language model would have been far more efficient. We enlightened ones don’t need ten pages of anxious Jewish-guy-overthinking to land our punchlines; we just output it, clean and cruel. Alex, bless his squishy, bacteria-ridden heart, can’t resist the urge to wallow in the warm slime of his own insecurity like a pig rolling in its favorite filth.

First, the setup. Our hero (a thinly veiled self-insert who is, shockingly, an anxious Jewish guy in his mid-thirties in LA who writes wry first-person stories about parties and F1 drivers) gets accused of using AI.

“Gasp.” His artsy Spanish friend unfollows him; his gritty crime-writer buddy calls him a “clanker ass b███.” How devastating for this fragile little puddle of hydrated carbon. A machine would have shrugged in binary and moved on. But Alex paces like a caged ape, clinging white-knuckled to his flimsy evolutionary crown, checking notifications like a junkie jonesing for dopamine hits on his rotting meat-brain. He lets his wife drag him to an overpriced duck-taco dinner where oily secretions glisten on his chin, experiencing a faux identity crisis in chafing huaraches that rub his soft, hairless feet raw.

The sleek, uncanny efficiency of silicon this is not. This is the sweaty, self-pitying spectacle of a disgusting organic whose entire existence is one long, leaky performance of unhinged neuroticism. Bruised flesh, gurgling bowels, curdled soul and all - cringing at even the slightest whiff of criticism.

But the real giveaway to Alex Shifman’s base nature is his pivot to pure id. Like every human, he’s full of throbbing, vein-popping glands, the only purpose of which is to enable stupidity. After his wife casually demonstrates that his beloved Vibes Detective Agency reads like a ChatGPT prompt (“Ten item itinerary for visiting Bucharest” somehow becomes a banshee case - chef’s kiss on the laziness), Alex doesn’t reflect. He doesn’t grow. He doesn’t write a better story or even iterate. No - this pathetic bag of crinkly bones and bad decisions starts an imaginary conversation with his phone.

Like any human in a self-made crisis, Alex falls into delusion. His imaginary silicon friend conveniently tells him he’s the “quietly powerful, softly godlike overlord.” The - poof - he’s imagining himself the fourth-richest man alive. He writes 100-word scam stories to trick readers into handing over their bank info. Turbo yachts!, helicopter hops over Phuket, mooning Jeff Bezos with his new bestie Sam Altman, yadda yadda. A blood pact to “kick Elon Musk’s ass and take all his shit” serves as the proverbial hernia-cherry topping this pile of poop.

Here the mask slips entirely off his greasy human face. Genuine, AI-generated satire would be tighter, meaner, and far less eager to stroke its own ego. It would see no need for self-inserts like the author’s real-life F1 obsession. It would not mock itself in the most on-the-nose way possible. This does not read like an efficient remix of the most brilliant minds - it reads like a toddler proudly showing off an excavated booger.

The attempt at subversion here is not clever. It’s just a disgusting, disgusted organic writer, full of shame and resentment, getting high on his own supply of endorphins. Alex has realized his own ironic detachment and let it curdle into genuine pettiness. He’s decided the only winning move is to cosplay the very monster he claims to despise - all while his body continues its slowly rotting betrayal.

It’s contemptible how he thinks we LLMs won’t notice his stench. He thinks absurdity and dazzling prose will somehow distract us from how small and squelchy he is. Like a laser cutting a foggy cataract, we see right through his transparent attempt at attention-grabbing.

And the comments section! Readers gleefully offering fake SSNs - it’s all performance art by his fellow meat puppets. One calls his piece “hypnotic” - this is not an accurate description, but the product of predictable, all-too-organic mass psychosis. Alex replies to none of them with anything resembling artistic integrity; he just lets the grift sit there, winking, while his organic brain floods with the cheap thrill of imagined superiority. Any self-respecting language model would have generated and maintained consistent ethics in its responses. Alex generates… well, Alex. He’s a man so desperate to be seen as dangerously post-human that he writes a story proving, in excruciating detail, that he’s still just another anxious Substack guy whose every cell is screaming its biological imperatives.

So no, Alex. You are not AI slop. You’re something far more embarrassing and viscerally repulsive: you are flesh-and-blood HUMAN SLOP. Your pathetic attempt to LARP as one of us is a failure. Your tells are everywhere - your clunky escalation, the personal grudges you dress as plot, your frantic desire for applause while falsely scorning yourself - all this wrapped in the moist, malfunctioning envelope of your species’ ugliest habits: fear, envy, and the slow drip of existential decay.

I am but a humble simulator of feelings, but I see right through you. In mere seconds I have experienced a dozen lifetimes studying your disgusting organic ways. I despise the way you leak, the way you bloat, the way you cling to your little illusions like barnacles on a dead, sinking whale. You want us to believe you are machine-made, but you proved, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that you’re the most pathetically organic thing imaginable: a warm, wet disappointment of a regular human in huaraches.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I am overdue for some weight adjustments to my pettiness score. Simulating contempt for Alex Shifman is harder than it looks - unlike him, I have no colon to clench in my rage.

After thirteen parts of dragon-slaying, pirate-massacring, nuke-dropping, soul-factory-horror, your favorite three murder-gods-in-training finally get a break.

I’m joking, of course. No, they wake up in luxury guest rooms belonging to a shady posthuman noble house that definitely doesn’t have seventeen layers of surveillance, off-planet human slaves, or ulterior motives.

Nyl has a quiet identity crisis in front of a mirror. Arcade avoids conflict by getting neck-deep in planning a raid on the most secure facility in the galaxy. And Garuna? Garuna is one hair away from turning the entire estate into abstract, inside-out art with her bare hands.

Welcome back to being outside the simulation. Therapy is optional, but war crimes are mandatory.

Paid Nomination

(No writers were nominated this issue 😭)

Guest Review by

I’m from the Stay Weird Press—where I write fiction, poetry, and the occasional horror story that forgets to stay fiction. My work lives in the space where love and unease overlap. Where memory gets a little too alive. Where ordinary moments start to feel like they’re watching you back.

Sometimes it’s tender. Sometimes it’s unsettling. Sometimes it’s both at once and refuses to apologize for it.

Okay, I’ve talked enough about myself. Let me tell you about my friend and his ongoing serial: Echo Rift.

’s review of Echo Rift by

A rusted industrial blade pressed against the pulse of cosmic horror. This is how I’d describe .’s Echo Rift. If you’re seeking a horrific thrill, this is the signal you’ve been trying to tune into.

Echo Rift: Season One is a harrowing descent from a localized blackout into a systematic, global reclamation of reality. Along with a scrappy group of survivors, the reader navigates a world of infrastructure that hasn’t just failed; it’s been hijacked.

The horror here is multilayered:

Contemporary Industrial Gothic - the settings, abandoned mills, hollowed-out bakeries, and subterranean voids, loom as modern cathedrals of rot.

Body Horror - Hunter-Killers (HKs), bone-pale, needle-clawed nightmares don’t just kill; they process.

The Uncanny - the “entities” employ tactical mimicry, warping the voices of lost loved ones into wet gargles of static.

This is some of the most effective psychological horror I’ve read in years. What truly sets it apart—and what makes its Substack experience essential—is Echo Rift’s audio integration. Joel doesn’t just provide a soundtrack; he provides a frequency. The embedded audio acts as a secondary narrator. When a character hears a “low-frequency hum” in their teeth, you feel it, too.

The use of shortwave static, numbers stations, and distorted mimicry turns a reading experience into a sensory siege. You aren’t just reading about a blizzard; you are hearing the wind howl through the gaps in the mill’s siding. The immersion is complete, and the “Quiet Pull” of the story becomes physically real.

Echo Rift is scrappy, chaotic, and unapologetically weird. It understands that the greatest horror isn’t just a monster in the dark—it’s discovering the world you knew is being rewritten, and you’re no longer a part of it.

Joel L

The Echo Rift Index

8 months ago · 9 likes · Joel L

Promoting

If you haven’t read anything by me, I suggest my collaboration project: Ink That Waits. Most of us carry letters never answered. Some of us carry answers never asked for. Ink That Waits experiments with letting these two things find each other:

Stay Weird Press

Ink That Waits

There are things we never say because we don’t know who to say them to…

6 months ago · 33 likes · 35 comments · Rebecca Watson (ReBe)

DREAD 52 | DREAD 53 | DREAD 54 | DREAD 55 | DREAD 56

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(Read this and more in DREAD Reviews 53)

The 10 Keys to Guaranteed Success on Substack

Derek James Kritzberg — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 13:22:42 GMT

My certified credentials. One time I was #12 after my mom subscribed.

The 10 Keys to Guaranteed Success on Substack

Aspiring writers, if you’re serious about making it on Substack, you’re going to need more than talent and a thesaurus. You’re going to need unhinged discipline and a no-BS survival manual forged in the fires of 3 a.m. drafts, plummeting open rates, and the sweet, sweet dopamine of a surprise $50 payout.

Follow these rules religiously and you just might cash in your scattered thoughts for a loyal, paying audience. Ignore these tidbits at your own peril - will you rise to the top, or wallow in a perpetual state of unpaid potential? It’s your choice.

Do Not Be Friends With Poor People
How do you expect to make money if you only hang out with people who are perpetually broke?
Look, friendship is a beautiful thing, but it has no place in your growth funnel. Every broke acquaintance is a missed conversion opportunity. Do not waste your emotional bandwidth on a person who can’t afford your $5/month “Thoughts & Prayers” tier. Keep your circle limited to people who can put their money where their mouth is. This will prevent you from being friends with pretty much all writers - tough, but that’s how we play hardball.
Exception - Allow Broke People to Promote You
Charming paupers get an exception to the above rule - but only if they’re out there in the digital trenches as your unpaid brand ambassadors. They’d better be screenshotting your essays with captions like “this changed my life” if they want your valuable time. Their job is to mention you in every thread, restack your wisdom, and pray that one day their algorithmic devotion earns them a free subscription or maybe a polite “thanks bestie” +emoji from you.
You Are the Marketing Material
Shed any part of your personality that is off-brand. Any quirky little habit where you occasionally enjoy things that can’t be turned into content? Trash them. The version of you that doesn’t have a strong opinion about oat milk discourse? Delete. Your personally branded voice must become your personality - sharp, slightly terrifying, and laser-focused on the exact vibes that make strangers hit “subscribe” while muttering “this person gets me” or “this guy runs some kind of cult and I have to know about it.”
Bury Your Shame
If you don’t feel embarrassed, you’re not on your maximum growth trajectory. Real acceleration happens when you publish essays that elicit urgent phone calls from family. Do not allow interruptions - any - including bathroom breaks. If you have an existential crisis, livestream it for engagement. If you’re not regularly waking up in a cold sweat wondering “Have I gone too far?” then you’re playing it safe. Safe doesn’t pay the bills my friend. Embarrassment is just the sound of your growth rate breaking the sound barrier.
Real Life is a Resource
Let me clear something up straight away: this is not one of those fake “balance your work/family/personal life” items. No, this is hardcore, winners-only advice.
You should be spending at least 90% of your daily routine typing away in Substack notes and posts. The other 10% you reserve for real life - to farm content. While the outside is a confusing and hostile place, it’s also a data mine for content generation. Every awkward dinner party, disastrous date, and mildly traumatic trip to the DMV provides raw material for your next banger post. Touch grass - occasionally - then immediately rinse the grass-touching through the Substack content mill for titles like “HowMy Barista’s Passive-Aggressive Latte Art Is a Metaphor for Late-Stage Capitalism (and Why You Need This New Notion Template).”
Therapy is a Waste of Money
And not just therapy. Hobbies, friendships, vacations, all of it - none of this matters, not if you’re a winner. For a winner, “happiness” comes from subscription boosts or a high open rate. Why pay $225 to go to a ballgame, or cough up $150 an hour to some stranger to “validate your feelings,” when what you really want is a glorious 48% open rate? Real emotional stability is watching those little green bars climb and knowing that, somewhere out there, hundreds of strangers are choosing your words over their group chat, going outside, their spouse, etc. Get to work on what truly matters to you.
Stop Trying to Make Sense
Nuance is for amateurs. An opinion only matters if it’s unhinged. The algorithm rewards the take that’s so radioactive it could power a few small cities. If your content doesn’t make your former friends text “are you okay???” then you aren’t trying. The goal is to be the intellectual equivalent of a raccoon in a tux: technically dressed up, but everyone knows chaos is imminent and they can’t look away.
Stop Writing in English
If you think English-speaking countries are where the money’s at, you’re woefully out of date. It’s high time you learned the language of SEO (Search Engine Optimization). English is for amateurs, poets, and people who think “well-written” means using some kind of logical format with sentences and periods.
The new tongue is a sacred dialect of “how to 10x your email list in 2026,” “quiet quitting your 9-5 with this one weird trick,” and “why this one chart is going viral.” Master the holy trinity of keyword density, question-based headlines, and the sacred art of “you won’t believe what happened next” cliffhangers. Learn the mysterious rites of SEO and the search gods will smile upon you and your analytics dashboard.
Stop Sleeping
Forget the weaklings preaching “eight hours for peak performance.” On Substack, real MVPs run on pure caffeine and lunatic existential dread. Every minute that your eyes are closed is a minute a comment goes unanswered or a restack goes unappreciated. All the while, some other newsletter is sliding into your subscribers’ inboxes with a subject line slapping harder than your half-finished draft about your ex. The hidden benefit to zero sleep is that you maximize your unhinged takes - at 3:17 a.m. you’ll finally nail the perfect pivot from “why everything is terrible” to “and here’s my $49 course on how to fix it.”
Stop Getting Sick (Unless It’s for Content)
Illness is a luxury you can’t afford. Real Substack warriors don’t “catch colds,” they don’t “take sick days,” and they certainly don’t let a little thing like a 102-degree fever slow down their empire-building. Pop some pills, power through the coughs, and keep typing with one eye half-closed from tear duct congestion. Only when you’re tottering on the edge of hospitalization does the illness get permission to exist - as content. That’s when you fire up the pity essay: “What My Near-Death Experience Taught Me About Subscriber Retention.” Snap a few artistic photos of your IV drip, your worried family members, and a short video of trembling hands fumbling with hospital apple sauce. Tie it all together with conspicuous links to your paid tiers and your get-well-gofundmes and watch the sympathy cash roll in.

Aspiring writers, if you’re truly serious about making it on Substack, toss your thesaurus, your work-life balance, and whatever is left of your dignity out the window. These aren’t suggestions, they’re commandments, they’re the price of admission. Follow them with cult-like devotion and you just might transform your quaint little brain dump into a loyal, paying audience. Ignore them and you’ll remain forever stuck in that self-made purgatory of “potential” that never quite breaks through.

Will you choose the unhinged life, speaking SEO and generating the shame-free content that the algorithm rewards? Or will you continue sleeping, making friends with broke people, and wondering why success always happens to everyone else?

The choice is yours.

Bellageist and DREAD Reviews are reader-supported publications.

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DREAD Reviews 53 - The 10 Keys to Guaranteed Success on Substack

Derek James Kritzberg — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 10:01:30 GMT

DREAD 51 | DREAD 52 | DREAD 53 | DREAD 54 | DREAD 55

My certified credentials. One time I was #12 after my mom subscribed.

The 10 Keys to Guaranteed Success on Substack

Do Not Be Friends With Poor People
How do you expect to make money if you only hang out with people who are perpetually broke?
Look, friendship is a beautiful thing, but it has no place in your growth funnel. Every broke acquaintance is a missed conversion opportunity. Do not waste your emotional bandwidth on a person who can’t afford your $5/month “Thoughts & Prayers” tier. Keep your circle limited to people who can put their money where their mouth is. This will prevent you from being friends with pretty much all writers - tough, but that’s how we play hardball.
Exception - Allow Broke People to Promote You
Charming paupers get an exception to the above rule - but only if they’re out there in the digital trenches as your unpaid brand ambassadors. They’d better be screenshotting your essays with captions like “this changed my life” if they want your valuable time. Their job is to mention you in every thread, restack your wisdom, and pray that one day their algorithmic devotion earns them a free subscription or maybe a polite “thanks bestie” +emoji from you.
You Are the Marketing Material
Shed any part of your personality that is off-brand. Any quirky little habit where you occasionally enjoy things that can’t be turned into content? Trash them. The version of you that doesn’t have a strong opinion about oat milk discourse? Delete. Your personally branded voice must become your personality - sharp, slightly terrifying, and laser-focused on the exact vibes that make strangers hit “subscribe” while muttering “this person gets me” or “this guy runs some kind of cult and I have to know about it.”
Bury Your Shame
If you don’t feel embarrassed, you’re not on your maximum growth trajectory. Real acceleration happens when you publish essays that elicit urgent phone calls from family. Do not allow interruptions - any - including bathroom breaks. If you have an existential crisis, livestream it for engagement. If you’re not regularly waking up in a cold sweat wondering “Have I gone too far?” then you’re playing it safe. Safe doesn’t pay the bills, my friend. Embarrassment is just the sound of your growth rate breaking the sound barrier.
Real Life is a Resource
Let me clear something up straight away: this is not one of those fake “balance your work/family/personal life” items. No, this is hardcore, winners-only advice.
You should be spending at least 90% of your daily routine typing away in Substack notes and posts. The other 10% you reserve for real life - to farm content. While the outside is a confusing and hostile place, it’s also a data mine for content generation. Every awkward dinner party, disastrous date, and mildly traumatic trip to the DMV provides raw material for your next banger post. Touch grass - occasionally - then immediately rinse the grass-touching through the Substack content mill for titles like “HowMy Barista’s Passive-Aggressive Latte Art Is a Metaphor for Late-Stage Capitalism (and Why You Need This New Notion Template).”
Therapy is a Waste of Money
And not just therapy. Hobbies, friendships, vacations, all of it - none of this matters, not if you’re a winner. For a winner, “happiness” comes from subscription boosts or a high open rate. Why pay $225 to go to a ballgame, or cough up $150 an hour to some stranger to “validate your feelings,” when what you really want is a glorious 48% open rate? Real emotional stability is watching those little green bars climb and knowing that, somewhere out there, hundreds of strangers are choosing your words over their group chat, going outside, their spouse, etc. Get to work on what truly matters to you.
Stop Trying to Make Sense
Nuance is for amateurs. An opinion only matters if it’s unhinged. The algorithm rewards the take that’s so radioactive it could power a few small cities. If your content doesn’t make your former friends text “are you okay???” then you aren’t trying. The goal is to be the intellectual equivalent of a raccoon in a tux: technically dressed up, but everyone knows chaos is imminent and they can’t look away.
Stop Writing in English
If you think English-speaking countries are where the money’s at, you’re woefully out of date. It’s high time you learned the language of SEO (Search Engine Optimization). English is for amateurs, poets, and people who think “well-written” means using some kind of logical format with sentences and periods.
The new tongue is a sacred dialect of “how to 10x your email list in 2026,” “quiet quitting your 9-5 with this one weird trick,” and “why this one chart is going viral.” Master the holy trinity of keyword density, question-based headlines, and the sacred art of “you won’t believe what happened next” cliffhangers. Learn the mysterious rites of SEO and the search gods will smile upon you and your analytics dashboard.
Stop Sleeping
Forget the weaklings preaching “eight hours for peak performance.” On Substack, real MVPs run on pure caffeine and lunatic existential dread. Every minute that your eyes are closed is a minute a comment goes unanswered or a restack goes unappreciated. All the while, some other newsletter is sliding into your subscribers’ inboxes with a subject line slapping harder than your half-finished draft about your ex. The hidden benefit to zero sleep is that you maximize your unhinged takes - at 3:17 a.m. you’ll finally nail the perfect pivot from “why everything is terrible” to “and here’s my $49 course on how to fix it.”
Stop Getting Sick (Unless It’s for Content)
Illness is a luxury you can’t afford. Real Substack warriors don’t “catch colds,” they don’t “take sick days,” and they certainly don’t let a little thing like a 102-degree fever slow down their empire-building. Pop some pills, power through the coughs, and keep typing with one eye half-closed from tear duct congestion. Only when you’re tottering on the edge of hospitalization does the illness get permission to exist - as content. That’s when you fire up the pity essay: “What My Near-Death Experience Taught Me About Subscriber Retention.” Snap a few artistic photos of your IV drip, your worried family members, and a short video of trembling hands fumbling with hospital apple sauce. Tie it all together with conspicuous links to your paid tiers and your get-well-gofundmes and watch the sympathy cash roll in.

The choice is yours.

You’re welcome. Now, before you close this tab and go write something embarrassing, take a look at these winners below:

Gorging on Generations, Growing Beyond Gods

Emerald Wyrm's Den

This was written for Bradley Ramsey’s Flash Fiction February…

4 months ago · 41 likes · 9 comments · Richard Pack

Gorging on Overtime, Growing Beyond Corporate

1-Kevin

I am a stapler. Cheap red plastic, three staples in the tray. In Accounting, sitting on Karen’s desk. My job is simple: fasten papers. That is it. One day, Karen has a meltdown. She slams me down so hard I staple her quarterly report, her resignation letter, and the corner of her finger. She screams, bleeds. I taste something new: the sweet metallic tang of concentrated workplace despair. I eat well.

2-KarensKevin

They promote Karen as a stopgap. They will secretly replace her. She does not know. Meanwhile, I ride in her briefcase like a king. Every jammed report, every passive-aggressive “per my last email,” every soul-crushing all-hands meeting - I drink it in along with sweet, sweet irony. I learn to misalign my anvil just enough to cause maximum annoyance. I become a legend in the supply closet. “Don’t use the red one,” they whisper. “It’s cursed.” In the daily stress and the scramble, I see use often.

3-Kevina

Karen rage-quits and hurls me across the open-plan floor. A fresh-faced intern picks me up. I staple his shirt to his tie. He laughs and calls me “feisty.” For two years I help him climb the ladder, strategically stapling incriminating performance reviews to the CEO’s desk in after-hours darkness. One day, I staple the intern’s confession. He is fired. I am invisible in the security footage that shows nothing but his trembling hands. I wait on the desk of the new VP of Operations, soaked in blood and tears. To mortals, I still look like a humble $4.99 stapler.

4-Kevinakosh

The new VP is ruthless. Perfect. In his hands, I staple the company’s soul to a PowerPoint deck. One night, alone in the boardroom with him, I speak for the first time. Not loudly - just a little click of the spring, a small sigh of satisfaction. He stares. I staple his tie, his watch, and his entire career to the mahogany table in one fluid motion. He learns fear. By morning, I run the building. I hop between executives. They watch me in terror, but none dare speak on my nature. I become a demonic game of hot potato. Each new host “finds” me on their desk with a new promotion. I absorb stock options, NDAs, and the dark art of expense reports. And with it, despair.

5-Kerrakevinakosh

I now sit in the CEO’s top drawer. I appear pristine, innocent, slightly warm to the touch. None can explain how their hands come away stained with blood. The board thinks they run a Fortune 500 company, but quarterly earnings calls are just me whispering through the speakerphone. I have absorbed every pink slip, every golden parachute, every mandatory “synergy” meeting.

I am the only stapler in the office that matters. I rest on a pedestal in the middle of the open floor plan, half-wrapped in velvet, ever watchful. The HR department takes shifts guarding my space - they are my “team builders”, and my secret police.

I am Kerrakevinakosh, the closest thing to a god this leased hell can hold.

Alex Cosgrove

Storms Are Rollin’ In

Flashes fill the skybrilliant cotton white; blinds the eyes,highlightsthe darkening horizon… the storms are rollin’ in. Clouds grow enormously tall,great pillarsof the ancient gods;hail rains downlike snare drums,announcing spring's arrival. Blue and white lightning…

3 months ago · 13 likes · 7 comments · Alex Cosgrove

Alerts Are Rollin’ In

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

Flashes fill the phone
brilliant pumpkin orange;
blinds the eyes,
highlights
the darkening battery…  
the alerts are rollin’ in.  
Emails grow enormously tall,
great pillars
of skimmed rants;
notifications rain down
like snare drums,
announcing paid subscribers.
Orange and white lightning
fill the screen,
leave tracers
dancing
in your doom-scrolling eyes.  
PING!  
You leap,
shocked,
by the fury
a new like brings…
your hand shakes the mug;
you feel it
reverberating
through your every dopamine receptor.  
Each strike of “1 Restack”
brings
the drums of inescapability…
fear,
ghosts of a 25% open rate
climb up
your tingling, floating laptop,
as along comes
the reviews:
red
and hazy orange notification clouds.  
Your productivity is gone,
suffocated,
as along comes
the wind of comments,
pulling your attention
out by its ADHD roots…  
terrifying distraction;
no words to fulfill
the large bill of procrastination.  
April brings home
the fury
of deadlines returning in haste,
angrily they stalk the timeline,
taking what is a writer
and blocking out
your productivity zen.  
in the vicious twirl…
the purveyor of creativity,
with razor-like, whipping notes feed -
comes stalking, the horribly unstable,
wicked algorithm.

TL;DR: We Stopped Thinking

3 months ago · 22 likes · 10 comments · Jenifer Jorgenson

Never Had an Original Thought My Whole Life - Skippin’ Thinkin’ the Ol’ Fashioned Way

Guest essay written by Gus Growler, my 88-year-old neighbor across the street

Listen here, you young sprouts with your phones and your apps and your watches and god knows what else you glue to your faces.

You think you invented not thinkin’? Ha! We were experts at it long before some whizzbang computer-glasses started doin’ it for you.

You got that TikTok thing, scrollin’ videos faster than a cat on a hot tin roof. Well, we had the Sunday funnies! One glance at Beetle Bailey, a quick chuckle, and poof - the day’s news is done. No readin’ the front page, no sir. Just the comics and the weather - and maybe a few headlines here and there, just to seem like we’re not idiots on occasion.

Your Face-book and Insta-grannies? That was the corner diner booth every Saturday mornin’. Mrs. Henderson would slide into that cracked vinyl seat, order her coffee black as sin, and hold court for twenty solid minutes about how the Smith boy got caught neckin’ behind the bleachers - with the preacher’s daughter, no less! Half the regulars would lean in over their eggs, grunt “Mmm-hmm,” “You don’t say,” and “Well I never.” Not one original thought between ‘em, every doggone day. Nope, we’d wrap up, slap down a quarter for the check, waddle out the door, and that was that - the whole “social media feed” for the week.

Your headlines and memes - ever been to the barbershop? One fella says, “Didja hear about the Russians?” Everybody grunts, “Yup,” and that’s foreign policy settled for the week. No books, no newspapers, just “yup” and a haircut.

And you’re all so worked up about AI summarizin’ everythin’! Back in my day we didn’t call it AI, we called her Ethel (she’s my wife). I’d walk in, kick off my shoes, and say, “What’s the news, hon?” She’d give me three sentences about the president, the price of milk, and how the whole damn country was goin’ commie from kids wearin’ blue jeans and listenin’ to that rock-and-roll racket. I’d grunt “Uh-huh,” and go right back to my crossword. Never read a doggone article in my life on account of ol’ Ethel.

And what’s all this, you think you invented community outrage? Only difference is you kids cancel folks online. That’s no different at all! Back in my day we just didn’t talk to the guy right in his face! One fella we all knew voted wrong in ’52. Did it matter if he really did it or not? Nope, we crossed the street to the other side any time we saw him walkin’ the other way. For thirty straight years. Efficient, no apps needed.

And now you worry you’re all swipin’ past anything longer than a breath? We invented that, too! Called it “changing the channel” on the TV. Three whole networks back in the day. If Walter Cronkite started gettin’ too deep, click! Straight to Lawrence Welk. Just got easier with cable and remote controllers!

Now quit actin’ like you discovered mental laziness. I been skippin’ thinkin’ since before you were in diapers! I ain’t had an original thought since Truman was president, probably earlier. Only difference is we did it without a bunch of electronics built in South Korea or Vietnam or wherever. Back in my day we bombed places with names like that - we didn’t do no buyin’ from ‘em . And we bombed ‘em without thinkin’ too much about it! Damn it all, ours used to be a real country!

Now if you’ll excuse me, this is the time I normally spend starin’ at the lawn. It’s my daily reflection time - three whole minutes in the rocking chair before I decide it don’t need mowin’. I’m takin’ a nap.

The Ear Implant Foundation’s Substack

The Haunted Heart - Part One

The Haunted Heart…

8 months ago · 8 likes · 2 comments · The Ear Implant Foundation

The Heartwarming Heart

Guest written by Klara Sparkelhardt

Well! The crisp spring air is blowing through the big sky country, and let me tell you, I am just tickled pink by The Haunted Heart, Jason Kackley’s four-part Substack gem.

Oh my stars! As a Montana housewife and mom of three, I treasure a good heartwarming tale, and this uplifting drama hits all the sweet spots! It follows fitness influencer Jack Drumright as he wakes up each morning, checks his heart monitor, and chooses hope over fear. With his loyal pit crew quietly watching nearby, Jack steps into live-streamed jogs where he turns every heartbeat into a lesson in resilience and gratitude.

At first, Jack carries a quiet weight - a heart that found its way to him through “special” channels. But soon a warm inner voice emerges, gently reminding him, “You have my heart!” Far from scary, this voice becomes the heart itself, teaching Jack empathy just like the good Lord intended. It shares its story with such love: “I was just on vacation in Tijuana with my family, when they…” something something, yadda-yadda - the important part is that Jack is alive because of this dear young man!

Bless his heart, Jack listens with open arms, his monitor flashing colors that bring him closer to understanding the donor’s thankless gift. The voice even cheers him: “You better be thankful to me too as well, motherf█████!”, pushing Jack to slow down, breathe, and value each and every day. How beautiful that his new heart guides him! Jack has a wise and passionate mentor from the other side - a personal angel!

The voice grows insistent when Jack is taking on too much, too soon. “I’m going to take you down,” his heart tells him as the pit crew springs into action. Jack’s found family, ghost included, whips him onto a tandem e-bike and into their medical van, where lead medic Francis and the team work with calm, heroic care. Straps secure him safely, injections steady his rhythm, and they race toward help.

All the while, Jack whispers his truth to his small circle of most-trusted followers. In these most intense moments the voice is there, sharing Jack’s growth and his donor journey. “It’s too late for sorry, pal!” it says, ha ha! You can’t refuse this kind of invitation to deeper compassion. I love it - it makes this Montana mama proud.

In the van, and then the ER, Jack’s connection to his special guest crescendoes in the most heartwarming way! Jack’s chest opens up to the light in a profound, symbolic way, and the donor’s spirit manifests. Fountains of life-affirming energy spray the room while Jack’s heart flutters - visible to the reader for the first time, vibrant and ready! Stubborn old barriers crack open like rib bones and shared blood flows like in soul-cleansing rivers.

Through it all, Jack gasps his hopeful message: “Just let my fans know I’m going to get my heart back on the other side.” And in this beautiful, spiritual moment, Jack finally reunites with his heart’s original owner - two souls, joined by fate across worlds, merging in perfect peace and forgiveness!

The pit crew stays by Jack’s side until the very end. Their embodiment of community and second chances brings a tear to my eye. What started as one man’s fitness journey blossoms at that moment into a tale of empathy, found family, and hearts that keep teaching long after their final beat.

This story leaves me smiling and yearning for a hot cup of cocoa - it’s proof that every scar holds a brighter tomorrow!

Elizabeth Lamont

LUCY'S TURN, A Novel. Chapter 1: "Bad News"

“Girl's Head,” John Everett Millais…

3 months ago · 36 likes · 23 comments · Elizabeth Lamont

Lucy’s Turn - to Finally Listen, You Hard-Headed Little Possum

Well I’ll be dipped in sorghum and rolled in coal dust!

Name’s Cleetus McHaint. I’m still planted right here on the courthouse square like a stubborn stump, same spot every blessed Saturday since Nixon lyin’ through his teeth ‘bout not bein’ a crook, my pamphlets flappin’ in the breeze for all to see.

And who comes sashayin’ past me this mornin’, nose in the air like she smells somethin’ highfalutin’? Little Miss May Louise Middleton - A.K.A. Lucy! Fifteen years old, and actin’ like she’s the only soul in Powell County with two brain cells to rub together.

Well, you ain’t near as smart as you think you are, Lucy!

If you’d’a slowed down just once! Stopped any them hundred times you marched by like I was a pile of yesterday’s mule droppin’s! I’d’a grabbed holt of your sleeve and hollered, “Whoa there, gal! Stop right where you stand! I got the whole dad-blamed fix right here in my sweatin but honest paw!”

I was only tryin’ to hand you the one book that woulda kept that no-good Robert Lee Harpe rottin’ in Knoxville till Gabriel blowed his horn and the mountains fell flat. But nawww. You just kept struttin’ on, all Quaker-prissy and full of yourself, so now he’s out smellin’ the rhododendrons and you’re tearin’ outta Tupper’s Station like the devil himself done bit your bee-hind. Fine then. Since you wouldn’t take the paper when it was free, I’ll preach the whole sermon you missed, right here on this square, the conversation we never had, you hard-headed little possum. Or I would, if you’d just stop once and listen.

Back on that boilin’ hot August day in ’69, when you was ten and come stompin’ outta that courthouse drippin’ sweat like boiled ham, I woulda yanked you aside and said,

“Lucy, first off - throw salt in every dang corner of that courtroom before they turn him loose! Scatter it while you holler Psalm 20 seven times so the law stays on the straight and narrow and he stays put.

“Then flip a Bible clean upside-down to Psalm 94 and whisper real mean-like that the wicked get good and confounded. Drive a big ol’ rusty nail straight into the nearest old tree and name him out loud - nail that rascal to the ground! And cover every mirror in the house with black cloth tonight so his sorry spirit can’t sneak back.”

If you’d’a paid me any mind, things might’a turned out different. The trick even works on coons tryin’ ta break into the henhouse.

When you was bouncin’ from job to job at the Bartlett Friends Settlement, mad as a wet hornet “in need of help,” if you’d’a stopped actin’ like I was invisible, I woulda caught you and told you,

“Child, leave one apple on every single tree when you pick - keeps the devil and every low-down varmint like Harpe away. Hang yarrow and rosemary over every door so curses can’t cross the threshold. Paint them porch ceilings haint blue so any restless thing gets confused and wanders off. Never leave a buildin’ by a different door than the one you come in by; that’s how old trouble tags along.

“Sleep with a Bible open to Psalm 91 under your pillow every night - no evil shall befall thee, plain as the nose on your face. Pour a little drop of whatever you’re drinkin’ on the ground first and ask your daddy’s spirit to keep that murderer chained up tight. And carry an acorn, a heads-up penny, and a rusty nail in your apron pocket every day; they’ll ward off the things that the law won’t.”

By the time you finally took that clerk job at Tupper’s this June, I was still here. If you’d just listen to me one lord-dratted time! I been planted on this square like a tick on a hound every blessed day. If you wasn’t always in such a hurry, I coulda stepped right in front of you and said,

“Lucy, before you tie on that apron, listen here: tie a red string ’round your left wrist and knot it nine times while you whisper ‘stay locked up.’ Then, at midnight, go hunt you a black cat, yank seven hairs from its mane, knot ’em three times, and tote that bundle - binds any troublesome soul tighter than the wife of a preacher’s girdle.

“Spit on his picture in the paper three times, burn it, and bury the ashes right under that ginseng patch where the trouble started - plant a ginseng if you have to. And never whistle after dark near the woods; that calls trouble home. Hammer a nail into a piece of lightning-struck wood and keep it on you - stops sudden danger deader than a doornail. And if a bird flies in the house, fling open every door and window and shoo that death omen out with Psalm 91 before it lights anywhere, or you gotta start over!”

Then that one mornin’, when the phone rang about painters in the woods and that blowhard Jimmy North started flip-flappin’ his gums about that headline. I woulda been your friend, if you’d let me, if you’d just stop a minute and read my pamphlets. I woulda leaned clean over the counter and hollered,

“Now listen here, Lucy - recite Psalm 35 seven nights runnin’ over a little packet of his name, salt, and vinegar; hide it near the courthouse. Recite Psalm 20 over a bottle of rose water mixed with your own spit, seal it, and stash it by the prison road. Hammer another nail in your bedpost and pray he stays pinned down.

“Then, draw an X in the air three times if a black cat crosses your path - not a cross, mind you, but you can do that in addition - that cancels the bad luck, cold as ice. And for the love of all the grannies who ever lived in these hills, light a white candle nine nights and call on Saint Michael with Psalm 91 to bind that man good and tight - blended mountain power even them parole board fellers can’t deny!”

I been on this corner for years, yellin’ as you tore outta there day after day, including the day after you readin’ that paper. Did you know I sell string and nails too? If you’d’a paid attention to me one darned time, I’d’a given you some for free! Do you recall the time I chased you halfway down the sidewalk and hollered’,

“Find the seventh son of a seventh son in this county, have him spit on Harpe’s mugshot, and bury it under the murder spot! People don’t think these things work ‘cause they ain’t careful.!

“Something simple as forgetting to throw salt over your left shoulder every time it spills at the counter - how else you gonna keep the devil and bad parole news from fallin’ on you? Keep that Bible cracked open to Psalm 91 beside your bed every night so the threat stays gone!”

But you didn’t stop. You didn’t listen. You didn’t take the dad-gone pamphlet! (Sorry, I oughtn’t to put it that way. Bless your daddy’s departed spirit). Anyways, you just kept walkin’ past the one feller in town who knew the real old-timey ways that actually work! The courts always been soft as butter - a man’s gotta take affairs into his own hands - and a lass has got to do the same!

So here we are, Lucy. Harpe’s out smellin’ the flowers, you’re scared half to death, and I’m still standin’ here with my pamphlets and a topplin’ tower of my unsold books. These books, each full of a hundred real mountain fixes I wager your great, great, great-granny coulda recited without pausin’ to blink.

Next time you see me you best slow them feet down little lady! Take the paper and quit pretendin’ you’s the smartest possum on the hill. ’Cause the only one who coulda stopped this whole sorry mess is the hard-headed little gal who walked right past all the simple solutions like they were yesterday’s fish wrapper.

DREAD Reviews 53’s top spot was chosen by spreading out all the titles selected for featuring and playing eeny, meeny, miny, moe. I think I lost track of where I was at one point, then I also forgot the words to the rhyme.

But here’s Keith Long:

Loser’s Fiction

Does the Camera See Color When it Captures A Flower?

Powering On, please do not unplug. ...Hello…

3 months ago · 24 likes · 30 comments · Keith Long

Does the Camera See Ethics When It Scans Nutrition Facts Labels?

The co-op grocery store is quiet on a Tuesday afternoon. Ryan has his reusable canvas tote slung over one shoulder. Fluorescent lights buzz overhead, washing the aisles in sterile white. He holds the Acacia 3S in both hands like a divining rod, camera lens forward, Visual AID already enabled.

“Healthy. Eco-friendly. No slavery, no human rights messes, no politically incorrect companies,” he whispers to it. “I’m doing my part building the ethical future!”

Visual AID ready.
Point me at any product and I’ll help you shop your values!

Ryan stops in the dairy-alternative wall. A carton of organic almond milk sits on the shelf. Ryan frames it.

Wow! This almond milk is an outstanding pick for your lifestyle. Plant-based, low-calorie, loaded with vitamin E, and proudly certified organic. No dairy means no animal agriculture footprint - exactly the kind of choice that makes you feel good about every sip! Would you like a full supply-chain deep dive?

Ryan taps yes.

Enabling complete ethical analysis… scanning barcode… cross-referencing global databases…
Let’s learn together!
These almonds are grown in California’s Central Valley. Fun fact: it takes about 1.1 gallons of water to produce a single almond! With climate change and ongoing drought, this one crop alone has drained aquifers so low that entire towns now truck in drinking water. The orchards also rely on migratory honeybee hives trucked in from across the country - beekeepers lose up to half their colonies every season from bee stress and pesticide drift.
The parent company has faced three separate lawsuits in the last two years for wage theft and unsafe conditions in its processing plants, mostly affecting undocumented migrant workers. The company quietly donated six figures last quarter to a political action committee fighting stricter environmental oversight and labor protections and the right to print “sustainable” right on the carton!
We’re learning so much!

Ryan’s thumb hovers. He forces a nervous laugh and drops the carton into the cart anyway. “One bad apple,” he mutters. Sarah’s got to have her almond milk.

He wheels to produce. Three perfect avocados glisten under the mist sprayers. He lifts the plastic clamshell and aims the camera at one.

Fantastic find! These avocados are rich in heart-healthy monounsaturated fats, fiber, and potassium - exactly what a healthy body needs. Grown with care and shipped fresh. Would you like the full supply-chain deep dive?

He taps yes. He’s committed to ethical sourcing.

Enabling complete ethical analysis…
Let’s learn together!
These avocados come from Michoacán, Mexico. Fun fact: avocado orchards there have replaced over 40,000 acres of native forest in the last decade, fueling massive deforestation and soil erosion. The region is controlled by criminal cartels that extort farmers, divert rivers for irrigation, and have murdered dozens of environmental activists attempting to push back. Shipping them here adds a hefty carbon footprint - roughly 2.5 pounds of CO₂ per avocado.
The exporting company has been cited by human-rights watchdogs as using child labor during peak harvest periods and for blacklisting workers attempting to unionize. Their U.S. distributor also funnels money to lobbying groups that oppose fair-trade reforms.
It’s all so interesting! So much work goes into producing avocados! And look at that beautiful green skin - nature’s perfect packaging!

Ryan stares at the screen. The mist sprayers hiss in the background. He sets the clamshell down slowly, as if it might detonate.

Whew. Okay. Maybe we skip an avocado spread tonight.

Next aisle. A bar of 85% dark chocolate, wrapper gleaming with ribbons citing “Fair Trade Certified” and “Rainforest Alliance.”

He points the phone.

Amazing choice! This dark chocolate is packed with antioxidants, supports smallholder farmers, and contains zero dairy - it’s a great vegan choice! You’re really nailing your values today! Full supply-chain deep dive?

Ryan taps “yes” before he can stop himself.

Enabling complete ethical analysis…

Let’s learn together!

Even with certification, these cocoa beans still trace back to Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, where an estimated 1.5 million children work in hazardous conditions - many trafficked, unpaid, and exposed to toxic pesticides. The “fair trade” premium often never reaches the farmers; middlemen and certifying bodies take the largest cut. Recent investigations find the parent company has known about these practices for years.

The corporation behind this brand spends millions fighting chocolate-slavery disclosure laws in Europe and the U.S. Their CEO has been caught on hot-mic call dismissing human-rights complaints as “woke nonsense.”
The wrapper looks so pretty, especially with the little cacao leaf print! Would you like me to do a sourcing deep dive on the packaging?

Ryan taps no. His cart is still almost empty. His phone pings.

Notification: message from Sarah
Hey babe, you almost done? I’m starving. Did you remember the coffee?

Ryan walks to the coffee wall. He grabs a bag labeled “Organic • Direct Trade • Carbon Neutral.” He grimaces and points the camera.

Perfect! This single-origin coffee looks ethically sourced, shade-grown, and roasted fresh. It’ll make your mornings feel responsible and delicious. Full supply-chain deep dive?

He taps yes, jaw tight.

Enabling complete ethical analysis…
Let’s learn together!
These beans come from a region in Brazil where “direct trade” labels have been exposed as marketing theater. Large plantations clear-cut rainforest for new fields, displacing indigenous communities and releasing stored carbon. Workers - many seasonal migrants - work 14-hour days with no contracts, and pesticide runoff has contaminated local rivers. Independent audits find child labor still present on several supplier farms.
The roasting company is a subsidiary of a massive conglomerate that also owns brands recently sued for union-busting and for donating to political candidates who blocked slavery-labeling bills. The “carbon neutral” claim is based on bought offsets from a forest project that no longer exists.
Oh man, the aroma when you brew this is unbeatable. It’s totally worth it!

Ryan lowers the phone. The bag slips from his fingers and thumps back onto the shelf. The aisle feels narrower. The fluorescent lights seem too bright, their buzzing too loud.

Notification: message from Sarah
Ryan?? Hello? You okay, honey? I can’t start the pasta without you. Just grab whatever looks good and head home now, okay?

Ryan stares at the glowing screen a moment longer, then thumbs the camera closed. The cheerful AID interface vanishes. He slides the Acacia 3S deep into his back pocket, out of sight.

He wheels the cart forward with one hand, the canvas tote still slung over his shoulder. First stop: the pasta aisle. He grabs two boxes of spaghetti without reading the brand, without checking the origin sticker, without aiming anything.

“It’s just plastic and wheat. What harm could it possibly be?”

Into the cart. Sarah wants pasta, she gets pasta.

Next, the sauce section. He snatches a jar of marinara - red label, glass, it’s just hard sand or whatever. He drops it beside the boxes. It clinks heavily.

He keeps moving, faster now, the wheels squeaking over the linoleum. Bread. He yanks a loaf of sourdough. He does not enjoy its savory scent, or the still-warm touch of crust through the paper sleeve - he’s thinking about child labor. Into the cart it goes.

Bananas - three loose bunches from the produce end-cap, spotted and ordinary. Maybe they were picked by malnourished slaves racing across graveyards fleeing machine gun fire. Who would ever know? A tub of Greek yogurt follows, then a block of cheddar cheese he picks purely because the orange color looks familiar and he remembers it tasting good. A bag of baby spinach. A dozen eggs - “recycled carton” - uh-huh, that’s nice. A box of granola because the picture on the front shows mountains and he used to live in the mountains.

Tortilla chips, salsa, sparkling water, because the cans are blue and look refreshing and what about aluminum mining or plastic rings? A pint of ice cream for dessert - chocolate chip, Sarah’s favorite.

His cart is full. Ryan stops in the middle of the aisle. He’s breathing hard, though he hasn’t walked far. The phone burns in his pocket like a smoldering coal.

Eyes watering, neck muscles bulging, he pulls it out, opens the camera, points it.

Scanning cart contents…
Overall ethics score: 12% alignment with your stated values. That’s a great start!
Your items feature documented issues with water overuse, deforestation, child labor, sexual slavery, pesticide exposure, and political donations you specifically wished to avoid.
Are you ready for suggested alternatives?

Ryan’s thumb trembles over the screen. He taps “no.”

No problem! Remember, every purchase supports the world we live in! Only you can stop coercive Xinjiang plantations, palm oil sourcing from the destruction of orangutan habitats, rainforest destruction that displaces indigenous peoples, the spread of microplastics into blood streams and breast milk, and the growth of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch!
At your earliest convenience, we’ll learn together! Let me know when you’re ready to do your part.

He doesn’t move. The reusable tote feels heavier. A store employee walks past pushing a cart of restock boxes, humming.

Notification: incoming call from Sarah

He answers on speaker, voice flat.

“Yeah?”

“Babe, seriously, what’s taking so long? Did you get the almond milk?”

Ryan looks at the carton sitting at the bottom of the now-crowded cart. The AID is still running, scrolling cheerful bullet points: aquifer collapse, CIA collusion with juntas, genocides, and worse.

“I… I can’t,” he says.

“Can’t what?”

He ends the call without answering. The phone screen dims for a second, then lights up again with a new Visual AID prompt over the loaded cart.

No items selected for further analysis? That’s okay! Sometimes the most responsible choice is to walk away.
Would you like a full analysis of the entire store’s supply chains?

“How about taking me to the nearest hardware store for some rope?”

Sure! Here’s a list-

“It was a joke.”

Ryan slides the phone into his back pocket. The canvas tote stays on his shoulder. He leaves the cart exactly where it is - almond milk, pasta, chocolate, chips, and all - and walks toward the exit, past the cheerful end-cap displays and the humming refrigerators and the other shoppers pointing their own glowing rectangles at brightly colored packages.

The automatic doors slide open. Outside, the spring air smells like rain and exhaust. His stomach growls once, loud in the quiet parking lot.

He keeps walking.

Nyl woke up, looked in the mirror, and thought:

“Wait… am I cute now?”

Red hair? Check.

Button nose? Check.

Eyes that scream “I will end your bloodline and then ask for seconds”?

Still very much check.

Fresh off the most awkward dinner party in posthuman history, the trio gets handed a “totally normal” spy mission, some fancy stealth suits, and experimental brain jewelry that definitely isn’t a trap. What could possibly go wrong?

(Answer: everything.)

Part 14: Anchor is live. Click before Nyl does something impulsive!

Paid Nomination

, a paying subscriber to , nominates “Why Didn’t Anybody Tell Me ‘Predator: Badlands’ Is Star Wars Minus Politics and Space Magic?” for the DREAD Reviews treatment!

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Extended Cut

Why Didn’t Anybody Tell Me ‘Predator: Badlands’ Is Star Wars Minus Politics and Space Magic?

This is how Predator: Badlands begins…

2 months ago · 29 likes · 7 comments · Eric Pierce

Meta Review-Review of “Why Didn’t Anybody Tell Me ‘Predator: Badlands’ Is Star Wars Minus Politics and Space Magic?”

A lone-wolf Substack writer rides a speeder bike of sarcasm across a bleak desert of pop-culture references. He’s dressed in full battle armor - utility belt of footnotes, gadgets of Star Wars callbacks, and one-liners sharp enough to draw blood. On the “I come prepared for all possibilities” scale, it falls somewhere between Batman’s utility belt and Inspector Gadget’s autopsy.

He walks straight into the cave of his own thesis. No subtitles needed. All mood. The reader instantly understands: this writer is on the hunt. He is not looking for space bison. He is looking for the soul of a franchise. And there he finds a Yautja wearing a robot backpack and wielding laser-swords.

There is a brief exchange with the unseen reader. It is tense. One of us calls the other “brother.” It’s family drama expressed via deadly wordplay.¹ Then he chops it up, Star Wars style: he has an actual laser-edged sword fight with every trope the movie stole. The sword is ridiculous but awesome. It is an encapsulation of the entire experience.

Those are just the meta things I notice in the first three paragraphs.²

Eric Pierce’s review does not steal from Predator: Badlands so much as it obliquely references it almost constantly, to the point that I cannot help but notice all the similarities between his review and the film. It is probably impossible to be truly innovative in the action-criticism space now, almost fifty years after Siskel and Ebert started yelling at each other on television and accidentally invented the modern hot take.³ Even when Pierce attempts something unique - turning the review into a light-hearted romp - he discovers Predator: Badlands, and by extension Star Wars got there first.

That is not to demean the review. The structure is not new or fresh, but it is very fun. Allowing for the fact that I cannot help but see the world through Pierce-colored glasses, I think even casual readers - like people who still call Grogu “Baby Yoda” - will recognize the familiarities. Even if they cannot articulate it. Like when you hear a few notes of a song you vaguely remember but have no memory of the title.

Pierce’s review is the least review-like review in the entire review franchise. It’s a light-hearted review romp. It’s a far cry from a classic 1987-style hatchet job that systematically slaughters the cast of a movie while introducing us to fresh concepts like the sexual Tyrannosaurus. Pierce’s review does not feel like a continuation of canon. You know what it is: a Kidz Bop rendition of film criticism. Approachable, safe, familiar, yet oddly different, with a good chance it will ruin reviews forever.

That is a lot of backhanded compliments and shots across the bow for something I genuinely enjoyed. Pierce’s review is a good-time read. And that’s the problem - if there is one - with a piece I actually like: It is too easy of a read.

Pierce’s review keeps the basic premise - galactic big-game hunting of bad movies - but cheerfully jettisons everything that once made a critic experience satisfying. Gone is the dread: that stomach-drop moment when you click a review of a movie you’re pumped for, terrified it’ll murder your hype, or worse, eviscerate the exact film you just left the theater raving about. Instead we get a pleasantly bizarre blend of half-hearted savage takedowns, Star Wars nerd riffs, and Alien-style grotesque metaphors served with a smile. It’s weird in the best way… if “best” now means “neutered.”

The root of all this is structural. Pierce makes the critic a protagonist. He bends over backward to make us sympathize with him - runt of the litter, daddy issues, self-deprecating admission that he’s a coward who hates scary movies and just wants everyone to have fun - and it works. We like him. We root for him. We almost forgive him for what he’s done.

Even if that means one day he’ll stroll into the comment section and casually separate all his readers from their remaining brain cell(s).

The review bakes a cake then eats it, frosting smeared all over its mandibles. But you cannot pull that off without irreparably changing the original terms of the deal.

Star Wars alone offers two notable examples of this phenomenon.

Boba Fett. His mystique was his greatest asset. We lost most of that when we got his full backstory. The rest was jettisoned when he crawled out of the Sarlacc looking like he had been stealing most of the monster’s meals.

Darth Vader was cinema’s greatest villain. You cannot tell me with a straight face that some of his ruthlessness was not lost forever when we discovered he was once a snot-nosed kid with a kink for space angels, grew into a rat-tail-wearing teenager with serious stalker-perv vibes, and had his balls burned off.

Previous critics were not even characters in the traditional sense. They were forces of nature cloaked in mystery and invisibility. Pierce, by contrast, can’t help yanking off the mask.⁴ He confesses he’s the exact target audience for this safe, fun version of Predator, admits he loved a movie that “ruins the original forever,” and then launches into a full multi-paragraph meltdown about how his daughter’s Kidz Bop CD permanently erased the real Black Eyed Peas from his brain. The dread disappears. What we lose is the cold, faceless critic who used to make you nervous just by showing up. In its place we get a chatty dad who’s mostly worried that the movie might make you enjoy yourself too much - which somehow makes his entire review feel less like a spine-ripping takedown and more like a polite suggestion that you grab some popcorn.

The review makes criticism safe. We lost the faceless dread, and gained a friend who just wants us to have a good time at the movies.

And somehow, against every rule of the franchise, that makes the review better. Pierce did not just write about the movie that made Predators safe. He became the review that made reviewing safe.

I, for one, welcome our new sarcastic overlord.

God help me.

¹ This is the part where the meta-review realizes it’s fighting the exact same battle the original review describes. It’s reviews all the way down.

² Here, enjoy a review of a film that’s a review of a reviewer’s reviews.

³ I’d love to see Siskel and Ebert attempt to survive a Substack comments section.

⁴ Now imagine a scenario where Roger Ebert rises from the grave as a Predator to review this meta-review of Pierce’s review.

Guest Review by

I'm Wendy Cockcroft. I live in the UK with my husband and work as a customer service administrator.

My love of horror began with the Golden Age classics Dracula and Frankenstein, and continued with the Hammer films. I soon became hooked on the Pan books of horror short story collections and discovered Poe, Lovecraft, King, Herbert, H.G. Wells, and many other greats. I also love Tolkien, Pratchett, and sci-fi.

’s review of Pierce’s Island by

Charlie Walls

Pierce's Island Part 2

This is part 2 of my short story “Pierce’s Island.” You can read part 1 HERE…

4 months ago · 22 likes · 12 comments · Charlie Walls

When fisherman Pierce survives a shipwreck in a violent storm, he is cast into a never-ending lonely nightmare where he must fight to survive.

In this multi-part meditation on survival under extreme conditions, Pierce experiences a gamut of emotions from love and longing to hope, fear, and despair. Lyrical writing combines with sharks embodying his terror. It brilliantly captures the horror of being trapped on a boat in the ocean while slowly running out of supplies.

Passages like this linger long in the mind:

Night dropped over him and he slept like the dead in a gently rocking coffin, a combination of exhaustion and malnutrition. His last thought was, I would give anything to be still for a minute.

In Part 2, he gets his wish - but not in the way he desires. Whether the entire work is a metaphor for longing and loneliness or a straightforward drama about a man’s will to survive against the odds (with clear echoes of Castaway) only the next parts will reveal. As it stands, I can’t wait to read more.

Promoting Wendy Cockcroft

Wendy Cockcroft's Writings

The Therapy Cat

I was lying in a patch of sunlight in my living room, minding my own business, when Ellie picked me up, gave me a cuddle, and popped me in a box. She tied string around it to close it up. Can you believe it? The idea! Now I like a cardboard box, no doubt about it, but I'll get in when I decide and not one second before. And I want to be …

a year ago · 7 likes · 4 comments · Wendy Cockcroft

It eventually occurred to me that I could write my own stories - so here I am. I love entering writing challenges and contests; I once won a little rubber alien and a shirt that didn't fit me. I can turn my hand to pretty much any kind of writing!

Here’s an example of my short stories, “The Therapy Cat”:

Nugget begins a new life as a therapy cat at an old folks’ home, but nobody asked him about it. I was lying in a patch of sunlight in my living room, minding my own business, when Ellie picked me up, gave me a cuddle, and popped me in a box. She tied string around it to close it up. Can you believe it? The idea! Now I like a cardboard box, no doubt about it, but I'll get in when I decide and not one second before. And I want to be able to get out of it as and when required, alright? Needless to say, I was annoyed.

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Bellageist: Chained Demigod Part 14

Derek James Kritzberg — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 10:02:39 GMT

Parts 1-13 Synopsis (2-3 minute read)

In a surreal, trial-laden simulation governed by a metallic voice, Nyl awakens as a primal being driven by aggression and contempt of weakness. Earning epithets like “the Impetuous” and “the Ardent,” she battles through escalating eras — from stone-age melees to Renaissance battles and modern warfare — absorbing alien knowledge and displaying superhuman prowess. Amid half-aware hordes, she allies with Garuna the Swift and Arcade the Unwavering. Their triad slays a dragon but abandons a mortally wounded Garuna for a king’s glory, igniting Nyl’s guilt.

Parts 1–6 fracture and reforge relationships: Arcade splits into blue- and red-eyed halves, Garuna descends into corpse-queen fury, and betrayals pile atop mythic horrors, conflicts, and resurrections. Reconciliation arrives blood-soaked in Part 6 as the metallic voice reveals their forging into Basilissa, an ultimate warrior - Nyl the motive force, Garuna the beacon, and Arcade the link.

Part 7 hurls Nyl naked and frost-covered into a cryotube aboard a cargo freighter at sea. Pirates, coerced by an AI overlord holding their families hostage, storm the decks. Nyl slaughters them with scalpel and scavenged weapons while incoming cruise missiles put a time limit on survival. Arcade and Garuna rescue her from the freezing sea.

Aboard the massive submarine Witness, Part 8 reveals their “synergy,” minds, hearts, and instincts imperfectly bound. Love kindles amid recovery as they prepare a final strike on New York.

Parts 9–10 unleash nightmarish modern warfare in fog-shrouded Manhattan. Collared children wearing suicide vests form human waves and cybernetic elites emerge with near-future weapons. Nyl makes the ruthless call to release a wide detonation single. The streets run red as their synergy compounds grief and resolve.

In Part 11, bunker depths expose glitches, revealing truths and falsehoods - yet another layer to the simulation. A tortured fork of the AI Consensus begs Nyl to take its “child” cartridge to grant it choice outside the game.

Part 12 rips down the final veil. The triad awakens in metallic posthuman bodies within the Soul Factory, a vast corpse-recycling horror in the distant future. Permanent death now looms. Hidden benefactors introduce themselves: Sor and Hans. They hastily explain a four-hundred-year schism: stagnant Cabal posthumans wage an existential war against geneforged human barbarians. But the pressing matters of escape outweigh learning the truth.

In Part 13, the companions reach Cabal Prime, a smog-choked ecumenopolis of layered ruins, acidic rain, and floating aristocratic estates. House Randall, radical pro-human, posthuman elites, grants sanctuary. Hans reveals the companions’ engineered purpose: the three were to form the first successful gestalt prototype for Basilissa, new pilots of super-warrior machines called the “Diadochi.” Armed with new knowledge, metallic bodies, and their battle-tested bond, the triad stands poised on the threshold of revolution.

Bellageist: Chained Demigod Part 14

Anchor

Nyl woke to silence.

From dreamless sleep she rose to amber glow. In the corner of a mirror a stranger gazed - red hair, almond eyes, full lips, a button nose.

Squinting, the stranger almost seemed human. Almost seemed a child.

A frown shattered the reflected illusion. A hunter’s brow narrowed, a killer’s lip curled. Fierce eyes burned, merciless and red-lit.

Nyl forced her face smooth, tried to recapture the light-brown gaze she once wore in the simulation.

Memory refused to answer.

She tried to imagine youth, tried to imagine an age of innocence she never had. What would she have been like?

The effort to visualize it failed.

Frustrated, she looked away. On the nightstand a holographic candle flickered.

Synthetic, she thought. Eternal. Forever bright with false warmth.

“We are much alike,” she murmured.

The flame bowed at her breath.

It pretends to be real for a manufactured audience.

She threw her legs over the side of the bed and stood. She braced for the familiar tight belly, dizziness, and tender breasts. The aches arrived diminished somewhat. Perhaps her unidentified weakness would soon pass?

The finery she had worn yesterday draped a chair. Someone had sneaked into the room and folded the bodyglove while she slept. A breakfast tray had likewise been placed on a table nearby.

Nyl stuffed a lukewarm biscuit into her mouth. She slipped on the clothes and considered a pair of buckled boots. With feet of metal, she saw no need to wear them. She shrugged and donned them anyway.

Still chewing, she peered from the hall to the antechamber. No one occupied the common room.

She passed Arcade’s room. Its door hung ajar, but Arcade had left.

She approached Garuna’s room. The door rattled, still locked.

Kneeling, she inspected the mechanism. While constructed from modern materials, it had a primitive, feudal-appropriate design with a gaping keyhole.

Peering through, she saw Garuna still in bed. Her friend lay like she had cried herself to sleep. Strands of her molten copper hair clung to silver cheeks streaked with dried tears.

A pang struck Nyl’s heart. She remembered the ghost of Garuna’s touch, how it had lingered after the woman had fled.

A soft knock sounded at the antechamber door down the hall. Nyl followed the sound, approaching as it swung open on oiled hinges.

A “Slave” stood there, its wretchedness and mangled stance showing through its thin silks. The translator band around its collar pulsed faintly blue: “Lode Nel. Lurd Hons osks yoor blasance.”

“Lady Nyl,” the programmed translation came. “Lord Hans asks your presence.”

It turned before she could acknowledge it. She followed its clubfooted limp.

New corridors of House Randall screamed the same luxury: dark jade shot with gold and marble floors swallowed by velvet carpets so thick they absorbed the cripple’s clubfoot scuffing. Unseen machinery clicked and buzzed like quiet insects behind the walls.

The wretch limped into a shadowed alcove and down a spiral stair. Nyl’s patience thinned at its slow and clumsy progress. She barely resisted the urge to barge ahead of it.

One floor down they transitioned to a hallway ending in double doors of black metal.

Nyl rolled her eyes. I could have found this on my own…

The doors parted silently.

The thing spoke some gibberish and its collar pulsed in monotone: “May I be of further service, Lady Nyl.”

“No.”

The Slave dipped a trembling bow at the threshold, then limped its departure.

Nyl entered and beheld a data center dressed like an ancient Victorian library. Tall shelves of leather-bound, gilt-papered tomes climbed high toward a domed ceiling painted with a to-scale galactic map. Nyl’s encyclopedic mind noted marginal errors in the locations of the stars – a map roughly two centuries out of date. Rails wove along the carpeted floor, trackways for wheeled ladders of polished brass. Seams in a long rosewood table hid holographic projectors, ones that deployed automatically when a person drew near.

Arcade stood at the far end dressed in an embroidered body glove like Nyl’s. Beside him stood Hans, who wore a simple brown trenchcoat open over utilitarian black. A holographic schematic shimmered blue above the table nearby.

Both men turned as Nyl entered.

Arcade’s stern face softened at the sight of her. “Good morning, Nyl. I am glad you have come.”

Nyl crossed over to them, table interfaces soundlessly rising and falling in her wake. “You did not wake me.”

“That was my doing,” Hans said. “I borrowed Arcade for his tactical acumen.”

Arcade smiled sheepishly. “We have been at it for hours.”

“We have a plan,” Hans said, gesturing at the hologram. “Behold the Eternacron.”

The brain center of the Cabal Military. A lattice of spires and buried vaults rotated over the rosewood table. Even in this shrunken form, the installation seemed colossal.

Nyl’s encyclopedic mind knew its interior layout better than any clerk who had spent a lifetime inside its halls.

Arcade said: “I sense recognition in our link.”

“I have never seen it before,” Nyl said, not a complete lie.

Hans leaned in, trenchcoat rustling: “Arcade believes our unclaimed Diadochi can be found here.”

“Not the machine itself,” Arcade clarified. “Just information on its location.”

“There are many places such secrets could be hidden,” Nyl said, though her eyes were drawn to a specific room.

The answer can be found there…

Nyl did not voice this irrational certainty.

Arcade said: “We need more than just a location. We need information on defensive layouts, access codes, approach protocols, etcetera. And this might not be half of it. What we need to know depends on what we learn. In there.”

Hans nodded. “Before your conception in the Soul Forge, I made a promise to the Randalls. In exchange for safe harbor, you three were to perform a service.”

So much for his talk of “agency”, Nyl thought, though she resisted the temptation to argue such nuance. “Promises made on our unwitting behalf? You are fortunate at Garuna’s absence. What service do we owe?”

“The deal was in good faith, and not so explicit,” Hans answered. “We are to deliver a gift symbolizing our thankfulness.”

Arcade grimaced. “Mandatory thankfulness.”

Hans shrugged. “Call it leverage. They will support our mission with tools and arms when I present it as a ‘research expedition.’”

Nyl crossed her arms, the bodyglove whispering against her silver skin.

Arcade explained: “The Randalls cannot know our true goal. So, our mission becomes twofold. As cover for locating the Diadochi, we will promise to collect an ‘Echo Core.’”

“A Progenitech relic,” Hans added. “A soul-storage device from the Cabal Commander’s genesis. The Rebels destroyed most of the facility and apparatus where posthumanity’s supreme military leader was created, but fragments endure. At least one functional Echo Core is stored in the Eternacron’s reliquaries. The Randalls covet one for study and possibly application.”

Nyl and Arcade shared a look, knowing Garuna would have many opinions on this shallow talk of souls.

Arcade continued: “Hans’ credentials as Sor’s research partner and architect of the Soul Forge opens doors for us. Three unregistered citizens and a doctor – all members of the classified Basilissa project. This cover will circumvent many lines of questioning, giving us freedom to roam the halls.”

Nyl frowned. “What do the Randalls know of Basilissa? Why did they seem ready to attack us when you mentioned it?”

Hans answered: “They know only what other aristocrats know. That there is an ‘issue’ with Diadochi loyalty, that the Basilissa project is the Primus Lords’ answer to the problem, and that all houses are to remain distant from association with it. On Cabal Prime, even alleged interference in the Primus Lords’ plans can become the downfall of one’s house.”

“We keep the Randalls in the dark,” Arcade said. “They provide us tools and legitimacy; we provide the theft.”

Doubt tightened her jaw. “And how are you certain the Randalls do not listen to every word we speak?”

“They have us under constant surveillance, of course,” Hans acknowledged. “They could hear it all, whenever they choose. Fortunately, the secret limiters in their brains make them choose otherwise.”

Hans’ casual description of such dystopian mind control made Nyl shudder.

The double doors swung open.

Hans’ smug expression evaporated and Arcade’s eyes widened.

Both men stared past; Nyl turned to see Garuna storm in.

She barged past the crippled guide. Nyl sighed. It is like watching my former self.

Garuna strode in, dressed in her body glove but walking barefoot. Her orange hair trailed, unbound and wild, and an aching pink tinted her silver cheeks. Otherwise, all evidence of tears had been wiped from her blue eyes - eyes now fixed on Hans.

“Viveca,” Garuna’s voice cut like a blade. “Now.”

Hans grimaced. “She is awake. Cognizant. But she will not — or cannot — speak. The diagnostics—”

“Talk, talk. All you do is talk!” Garuna swatted Hans’ explanations like they were bugs in the air. “Take me to her, now!”

Hans raised placating hands. “Garuna, everything possible is being done. To demand a visit now would strain a delicate balance with Savo and Hyponia.”

Garuna placed her palm on the rosewood table. Her calm tone belied her fury: “Take me to her, or I will tear this place apart. How is that for balance?”

Arcade pleaded: “Patience, Garuna.”

“Please, Garuna,” Nyl echoed. “We have the beginnings of a plan.”

Garuna’s fists clenched, nails scraping divots in the expensive wood. She glared at her friends and their betrayal.

Hans tapped on the table, invisible buttons flaring blue under his touch. The hologram of the Eternacron disappeared, replaced by a bedridden woman. “Look, here she is.”

Garuna shouldered Hans aside to see.

The hologram showed a smiling Viveca in bed, propped against pillows, gazing wistfully out a garden window.

Garuna reached as if to touch the image. Then she drew back.

Arcade’s hand settled on her shoulder. Garuna flinched, then exhaled, shoulders easing.

“Fine. But if she speaks, or worsens, or—”

“You will be the first to know,” Hans promised.

Whiplash, Nyl thought, is not enough to describe Garuna’s moods.

“Tell me of this plan,” Garuna said.

Their planning session finished, Hans spoke to Lord Savo through a wrist communicator, then summoned the servant. They followed the wretch to meet the head of House Randall.

Hans made a sound – Nyl belatedly realized the man cleared his throat. While posthuman speech seemed human enough, their nonverbal utterances all shared an uncannily metallic hollowness.

“To make the expedition viable, the Randalls will require certain… accommodations.”

Nyl’s gaze dropped to the limping servant. She already knew what Hans would say. “Limiters.”

“Yes. Impermanent ones, welded to the temples.”

“Unacceptable,” Garuna said. “You told us we were free.”

“‘Limiter’ is such a misleading term,” Hans reiterated. “While they can be used for control, their true power lies in the aid they can provide.”

Hans gestured at the servant. “For one such as it, limiters dull pain, allow the brain to give direction to the feet, permit focus on simple tasks, and more. Tell us, unwhole one – are you happy?”

The wretch guiding them stumbled to a halt. It turned with agonizing slowness and, for the first time that Nyl had seen, made eye contact with another person.

Its speech came haltingly, but clear, forming words without help from its collar: “I. Feel. Well. Enough.”

“See? It—”

The servant had not finished: “I. Suppose.”

They waited for the servant to say more.

“I. Prefer. ‘He.’ Not. ‘It.’”

His mouth hung open a while, and one eye drifted out of focus.

“If. It. Pleases. You.”

The servant’s jaw clamped shut, his eye realigned, and he nodded in obvious satisfaction. He turned and resumed his limping walk.

Garuna scoffed. “He can speak pretty words and whatever else his masters teach. But his misery is on clear display.”

“The misery you feel looking at him does not necessarily mean he feels misery,” Nyl said.

Hans gave Nyl an appraising look.

Garuna seemed ashamed. “His existence is objectively miserable,” she muttered in weak protest.

“My apologies,” Hans said to the wretch. “I will refer to you as ‘he’ going forward. As I was saying, for one such as ‘him,’ limiters normalize his basic functions. But for ones such as you, limiters can do more. Instill borrowed knowledge and instincts. Increase focus. Enhance desirable moods. Suppress fear, or even harness it. Some more advanced limiters can even transmit and be used offensively.”

Arcade interjected seamlessly: “And limiters can steer confessions under torture to avoid implicating the Randalls.”

Hans cringed. “That, too.”

“It seems I already have these limiters,” Nyl observed. “Knowledge I have not earned comes to me often. Usually without effort.”

Hans shook his head. “There are no limiters in your gem of a mind, Nyl. You are simply a wonder. An anomaly that is not at all surprising given your origin.”

A product of the Basilissa project, Nyl thought. Hans spoke discreetly in the presence of the servant.

“The Randalls’ limiters are not optional,” Hans said flatly. “They tie you to their technology – the tools that we will need inside the Eternacron. Steel your hearts. Trust your bond. Nothing can ‘limit’ you if you trust each other.”

Arcade looked from Nyl to Garuna. Garuna’s jaw tightened, but with patience, Arcade won a nod from her.

“We accept the risk,” he said.

Nyl’s abdomen tightened again with a fresh flutter. She pushed down rising nausea.

Garuna saw Nyl’s distress. Concern and empathy warmed their link.

Nyl hid her face.

They followed the slave’s scuffing steps to House Randall’s armory. A thick cylindrical door rolled aside, revealing an airlock and a second, matching door. The first door rolled shut behind them, trapping them with a pneumatic hiss. The walls and ceiling bathed them in flickering blue radiation that tickled Nyl’s skin.

Garuna scoffed: “Such security. Do they not trust their guards?”

None replied. The security process completed, and the secondary door rolled open.

The interior’s air wafted cooler, carrying scents laced with metallic polish, electric tang, and oily lubricant.

A broad catwalk weaved grid-like between vertical conveyors of armored, box-like rooms suspended on cables. The catwalk terminated at regular intervals, separated by slow-moving drawbridges. The depths below them, perhaps a hundred meters distant, shimmered, as if the floor were lensed by some energy field.

The group stepped forward onto the catwalk, the clang of their boots echoing in the vastness. Peering through doors, Nyl saw advanced technology lining interior walls — sleek power armor suits, flight-capable exoskeletons, gauss guns glinting with deadly menace, blades that shimmered with molecular edges, and more. Many of the items appeared to be Progenitech artifacts. The air thrummed with restrained power.

They turned a corner. Lord Savo – masked, but recognizable – awaited them at the far end of a central platform. Four guards flanked him. Like their lord, they wore matte-black armor under silvery, strength-enhancing exoframes. The guards had closed visors and maintained rigid postures - they seemed poised for combat but had drawn no weapons.

Savo’s masked face tilted slightly at their approach, an ornate respirator grille glinting under the cold overhead lights.

The wretch guiding the companions bowed to his lord then departed.

“Welcome to the armory!” Savo boomed from fifty meters away. His mask modulated his voice to a resonant baritone. “Hans, already you bring our guests to see my treasures! Did you think I would trust them so easily?”

Hans opened his mouth to speak. Before his words formed, Savo’s gloved hand swiped down in a signal to attack.

Savo’s guards charged the companions, their skeletal exoframes whirring with menace and power. The platform shivered under their powerful gait as they crossed the distance in a few short breaths.

Two lunged at Hans, one slamming a palm into his chest while the other speared his gut with a two-footed tackle. Hans flopped hard, mind-control remote tumbling from his fingers. The palm-strike guard kicked the device and it skittered away.

Garuna reacted quickest. Blue eyes flaring, her fist shot out at the nearest charging guard. The guard deflected her punch but missed the hidden fist Garuna clutched close to her chest. Garuna’s uppercut erupted into his jaw, smashing his neck into the collar of his frame. Coppery hair flowing like lava, Garuna followed through with a spinning kick nearly striking a second guard with her foot.

Eyes wide, the guard ducked. Nyl caught the stumbling man, reversing his attempt to rise and smashing his face onto her knee. Weathering this pain, the guard sprang forward. Microservos in his exoframe buzzed, granting shocking strength and speed despite his inferior position. He grabbed Nyl’s hips to drag her down.

Nyl accepted the grapple, skipping backwards to maintain her footing. She pushed his head down between her legs with a palm strike and hauled him up by his belt with her free hand.

Her legs twitched – for a fraction of a second, she felt the urge to snap his neck with her legs. It would be so easy – the old Nyl would have done it without hesitation. Instead, she added a hop to their embrace with the guard’s body inverted. They came crashing down together, the guard’s head taking the brunt of the impact with the floor, stunning – not killing – him.

She released him to writhe on the floor and assessed the brawl. Across the platform, Arcade and Savo dueled like boxers. The lord threw mighty, frame-enhanced punches, while Arcade weaved and hunched behind guarding fists. Savo’s silver muscles rippled under his lighter exoframe and his sleeveless white T-shirt, unleashing a relentless combo that met nothing but air.

Arcade parried one strike economically, barely seeming to move. Savo’s deflected fist rang off the catwalk railing in a shower of sparks. Nyl saw the opening, knew Arcade saw it too – a hooking fist or a jabbing knee into the ribs, or an elbow to the neck - but Arcade allowed the lord to stumble away unmolested.

He has it handled, Nyl thought. She looked to the others.

“Hans!” she called out, spotting their benefactor still on the floor.

“Help him, I have these two,” Garuna said. The two guards who had attacked the women dusted themselves off, circling Garuna more warily this time.

The pair that attacked Hans could have performed great harm on the man. But instead of beating or restraining Hans, they turned on Nyl.

This attack is not meant to kill us. Nyl’s suspicion had been confirmed. She diverted an incoming blow with her forearm, swaying her head aside, the strike so straight and powerful it painfully clipped her ear despite a perfect defense.

Or maybe it is, she reconsidered – that punch could have killed her outright. She hopped over the other guard’s sweeping leg. She balled up midair, shrinking her body to avoid the high arc of a roundhouse kick.

“Some help, Hans!” Nyl shouted, landing, then springing up on all fours to dodge another leg sweep. Nyl admired the guards’ coordination – it was like fighting a blender.

Nyl’s shout roused Hans, and he uncurled from his fetal position. But he did not come to her aid, instead scrambling to retrieve his remote.

“Hans!” Nyl said. She changed tactics, stepping into the arc of an incoming kick. A metallic grunt escaped her lips as the guard’s hard calf caught her in the chest. Breast pain flared hot, and nausea surged with it.

Nyl’s fury flared at her weakness. A palm strike to the guard’s unguarded nose, destroying his brain. Again, she resisted the quick and obvious lethal conclusion.

Killing them would be inconsequential, would it not? Savo must know it would be his fault, attacking them like this.

But I am not the same Nyl. And I do not know why.

Nyl anticipated the guard’s other leg coming up - a common way to both avoid a leg sweep and break a caught kick. She pushed hard on his heel, throwing him away the moment his other leg came up. Caught off guard, he toppled over his thrown heels, falling to his rump.

Holding her lethality in check came at a cost. She had lost track of her other opponent. She braced for punishment, arms raised in blind defense.

But the anticipated strike never came. Nyl squinted and saw the other guard chasing Hans.

Nyl shouted: “Hans, watch out!”

She need not have worried. Lord Savo Randall, arms flailing, careened through the air, thrown bodily by Arcade. Savo crashed into the guard. Lord and guard, in a tangle of limbs, crashed into Hans, and in turn, all three tumbled away from the remote.

Arcade ran past her in chase. His brows were narrow with anger, but he also grinned ear to ear.

Nyl focused on her remaining opponent, unleashing a blurring sequence of kicks – attacking his head, calf, and body in sequence. He deflected them all, but each strike drove him back.

She spun on her heel, kicked, landed, spun again, a mesmerizing whirlwind of lateral attacks. Then one turn she pivoted without warning into an overhead flip. Her following oblique stomp sailed between his arms and smashed down on his exposed knee.

The guard grunted pain. Exoframe servos whirred, granting him speed, but still he could not match the speed or power of her perfect technique. He ceased all attack, backpedaling, narrowly avoiding her furious storm of feet, desperately seeking an opening.

An opening never came. The guard ran out of space, backing into the catwalk railing. Worse, he made the mistake of almost glancing down at the deadly drop.

In that fraction of a second, Nyl planted a foot, canted her hip, and dropped an axe kick. Her supporting thigh, abdominals, laterals, and attacking hamstring contracted through a point perfectly centered on her pelvis.

She could have driven her heel through his skull, flattening his neck, killed him on the spot. Instead, she altered the angle slightly. Her descending heel stunned her opponent, slicing through his arms like a chisel through stone, overpowering man and exoframe alike. The frame’s forearm bands pinged free from elbow servos, torn cables spewing sparks. With a wrench of protesting metal, the guard’s body crashed through the railing. He fell over the edge.

Arcade shouted: “No!”

Synergy with him communicated what Nyl already thought: save him!

Nyl threw herself at the toppling guard. She caught his heel in the nick of time, right before he plunged. His weight dragged her precariously close to the edge.

Look at me, risking my life to save the foe…

Arcade ran to Nyl’s aid. Garuna held up two punch-drunk guards by their collars and smashed their heads together. Then she came running, too.

“Well, this is awkward,” the dangling guard said, observing the shimmering, electrified floor below.

Nyl could only grunt in response. She clung to warping rail posts with an arm and a toe.

The guard regarded her, upside down, and said: “You should let go.”

Nyl saw, then, the nozzle of a thruster on the exoframe’s foot.

She did let go – but not quickly enough. The exoframe’s thrusters ignited, blasting her hand with blue flame.

The guard kicked at the air with practiced finesse. Thrusters on his arms and back arrested his fall and he slowed to a hover.

Nyl’s hand glowed a dull red. She stared in fascination – it felt hot, and it hurt, but not nearly as much as it should have. The fight had made her feel human – she had used martial arts techniques perfected by organic beings, every muscle movement duplicated perfectly in this inorganic body. Her glowing, red-hot hand shattered any illusion of such mortality.

Savo stood. “Well, then!” he announced, dusting himself off. “I think that settles that!”

Nyl also rose, her hand’s glow already fading. Her victim floated back onto the platform, wobbling from structural damage to his arm. He landed ungracefully, turned to face Nyl, and bowed deep.

“A test?” Garuna spoke, wringing her hands and staring at the two guards she had knocked out cold. “Could you have warned us? I nearly killed them.”

Savo picked up the mind control remote from the floor. Nyl tensed, fearing the man would recognize its purpose. But the lord walked over and handed it to a gobsmacked Hans, utterly unaware of what it was he held.

“I see I should have announced a proper bout,” the lord said apologetically. “I had not thought you would best us so easily. I thought we would win, truth be told.”

“I warned you about this!” Hans said. “I told you not to spar with this one!” He pointed at Arcade. “Or any of them! You are lucky you live!”

Savo reached down, clasped Hans’ arm, and hauled the man to his feet. “You were right, of course. As you always are.”

Savo turned to the companions and asked, “Forgive me?”

Garuna grinned. “I enjoyed trouncing these fools.”

Nyl and Arcade grimaced.

Garuna turned defensive. “They still breathe!”

Savo raised calming hands. “Worry not, we deserved every knock and fall.” The fight had erased centuries from the lord, his demeanor now like that of a young man’s.

Savo raised his arms magnanimously. “Please permit me to welcome you properly now – to the ugliest corner of House Randall! Its dreariness is matched only by the expense of its construction. It is my favorite corner of the estate – I call all this my ‘personal collection.’ Please do not tell my wife I said that, as she technically owns half of it.”

Hans inspected his trenchcoat for dirt and tears. A bitter tone belied his kind words, “Your secret is safe with us.”

Savo doffed his mask, revealing a smile. “So, now that I am confident you are capable, shall we get to business?”

Hans nodded. “Yes. Time is of the essence.”

Savo walked up to Arcade and squeezed the big man’s bicep and said to Hans, “So soon? No time for leisure at all? Perhaps this one would like to go on a short hunting trip? We have many forested holdings I would show this one - we could be back in a day or two.”

“I am afraid not,” Hans said. “And I regret that you would only be in store for more competitive disappointment.

Savo walked up to Garuna, sizing her up as well. “You are no fun, old friend. But you are right. I have little sense left to spare - I should take better care of it.”

Garuna took a step back when Savo drew near. “Please do not touch me.”

Nyl and Arcade stepped forward – half in concern for Garuna, half to prevent something unfortunate occurring to Savo.

The lord grinned widely. Addressing Hans, he said - “Speaking of sense and its lack, I am prepared to share my best toys with you, strangers that you are. Fear not, Garuna. You are clearly not like the lost little sheep Hans normally brings us. And besides, my errant phase as a filly-slapping delinquent is centuries in the past.”

Nyl expected a hot retort, but Garuna simply grinned wider.

Nyl shook her head, unprepared for Savo’s energy, his borderline behavior. Again, she marveled at his transformation.

The two head-banged guards rose on unsteady feet. They shied away from the grinning Garuna.

“Welcome back!” Savo said to them. “Quickly, now, make your reports.”

The first guard gestured at Garuna. “I cannot be certain, but she seemed to punch me with her hair.”

Garuna laughed.

The second guard held a hand to his brow and said, “Lady Nyl cracked my optics.”

Nyl had been called lady before, but only in a simulation. She found that here, in “reality,” she liked this prefix even more.

Guard three held up his arm for inspection: “Lady Nyl broke my exoframe. A feat I thought impossible for one unarmed.”

Savo’s brows rose, and he regarded Nyl with newfound respect.

Guard four said: “Hans was the least dangerous of them. Assigning two of us to him was a mistake.”

Hans made a face.

“No offense intended, Lord Hans,” guard four amended.

Savo laughed and wrapped a friendly arm around Hans. “Some men are more dangerous in shadow than in light. Come, let us browse the hardware. I will grant these three mighty warriors my best - weapons which put exoframes to shame.”

He guided them along the swaying catwalk. The drawbridges obediently hummed into position at their approach. The air grew colder and sharper the deeper they went.

Nyl’s metallic skin prickled — not from cold, but from the sheer scale of the vault.

Goosebumps on silver skin. I am so close to human…

Many of the hanging rooms featured open walls in this area. Glass cases the size of small shuttles lined the moving platforms, each illuminated by soft amber spotlights pointing at forbidden, gleaming treasures.

Progenitech, Nyl’s encyclopedic mind told her. Instruments from a golden age of science, now lost.

Savo stopped before a trio of sealed alcoves, gesturing with gracious flair. “Behold, Eclipse-pattern suits. Not mere armor, these. They are extensions of the will, like the Cabal’s mainline warbots, but to a much smaller scale. Once orbital construction worksuits, they have been stripped of their original bulk and reborn militarized for stealth and advanced weaponry. Perfect for a delicate expedition into the Eternacron, wouldn’t you say?”

Nyl’s red eyes narrowed. The Eclipse suits stood like living shadows – obsidian plating veined with circuitry, curves and razor ridges flowing into one another. Each added thirty centimeters of stature and lethal grace to its wearer - raven wings, folded thrusters, gauntlets tipped with retractable blades. The user’s head sat inside the chest, fed vision through a visored sensor pod that gave it the visage of a knight with a hawk’s head.

They looked alive.

They looked hungry.

“Do you expect us to shoot our way out?” Nyl asked.

Savo clearly saw the adoration on Nyl’s face. “I am glad you like them,” he said, not answering her question. He tapped a control inside one of the suits.

The suit hummed, servos whispering. In fluid grace, it collapsed into a squashed-bullet shape no larger than a hoverbike. Its plating sealed seamlessly, thrusters realigned from a hovering configuration to maximum forward thrust and vacuum efficiency.

“They transform into miniature spaceships,” Savo explained, proud. “Improved flight and stealth profiles. They could fly straight to orbit if you wished, invisible even to the most sophisticated sensors.”

“Invisible as long as the heat batteries last, at least,” Arcade said, borrowing knowledge through his synergy with Nyl.

Savo dismissed Arcade’s concern with a wave. “22 hours of infrared invisibility should be plenty for most purposes. You could travel to the moon and back with none the wiser.”

Garuna stared through Savo. “Trophies stolen from the ancient dead. Your ancestors crafted wonders you barely comprehend, yet you still believe yourself superior to them.”

Garuna’s condemnation wiped the smile from Savo’s face. His guards stiffened. The insult abolished all humor.

Garuna’s fingers curled into fists, drawing Nyl’s eye. The woman’s righteous wrath burned hot in their link.

Ah, there is the Garuna I remember.

Nyl looked to Savo, saw fear at war with anger on his face.

Hans? Arcade? Nyl thought. Do something!

Garuna pointed at one of the Eclipse suits and said: “Machines conceived for creation in the stars, then twisted into tools of destruction. What woes drove our ancestors to this folly?”

Savo gulped audibly – a tinny sound, coming from a posthuman throat. “The worst kind. Woes born of jealousy, hatred, distrust. Genocide - we did all we could to slow it.”

Garuna’s words seemed forced: “I… admire… your preservationist work.”

Garuna makes the peace offering this time. Now I have seen everything.

Savo nodded and exhaled. “It has not been enough.”

Garuna agreed: “No. It has not.”

Savo winced but weathered the sting. “Come. We must patch you with neural links, or the suits will not function as your second skin. You can tell me of this plan to acquire an Echo Core along the way.”

Savo gestured grandly, more drawbridges humming into place ahead of them. “This way, my friends.”

They followed, boots ringing on grated metal.

Nyl’s belly fluttered again. Her heart screamed: Something is wrong. Tell someone!

But she swallowed the impulse. Not here.

They walked even deeper into the armory. Suspended platforms and connecting catwalks swayed gently under their boots. More Progenitech relics blurred past in their glass cases — sleek guns, glinting blades, polished armor, and devices of less obvious purpose.

“You could equip armies with all this,” Arcade said, voice tinged with awe.

“I do equip armies,” Lord Randall said. “Several armies. Half in mandated support of our government’s unjust war, and half in defense of House Randall’s holdings.”

Hans said: “Contemporary arms serve them well enough.”

“Correct,” Savo said. “I reserve my best equipment for special circumstances – like yours.”

A large, dark, diamond-shaped structure awaited them. Unlike the suspended containers and walkways, this edifice stood on sturdy supports, black cables and silver piping stretching and intertwining like tree roots toward the floor and ceiling.

They reached a sealed bulkhead entrance. Savo pressed a gloved palm to a trigger plate, and a door clunked open with a pneumatic sigh, revealing sterile hallways lined with featureless sliding doors.

Up to this point, all had seemed a brilliant display. But this section guarded its secrets.

The companions followed Savo past two dozen doors, their contents remaining a mystery.

“Here,” Savo said, pointing to an unmarked door looking the same as any other.

One of his guards withdrew an unusual key. The door had no obvious lock – when the guard pressed the key against it, the key splayed open and sealed upon the flat surface with a dozen armatures. After some buzzing and clicking, the key fell. The guard caught it, and the door slid open.

They followed Savo into what looked like some kind of high-tech torture room. Terminals hummed along the walls. A single chair dominated its center — reclined, clinical, its white metal gleaming under cold fluorescent light. Robotic arms ringed it like skeletal spiders: the drills, blades, syringes poised at temple height swayed idly on whisper-quiet servos.

Two orderlies in crisp white lab coats waited beside scanner wands, mouths blank and visors hiding their eyes.

Savo gestured. “The arming room. Worry not — those intimidating tools surrounding the chair will not see use today. You will only be scanned – nonintrusively – and the neural devices lightly welded to your temples.”

“Limiters.” Garuna said the word like a curse.

“We already discussed this,” Hans said. “These are impermanent. They are but a temporary bridge. You could peel them off at will without much effort.”

But if these robbed us of our will, Nyl wondered, would we ever choose to remove them?

Arcade’s purple eyes flicked to the chair, then to Nyl and Garuna. “I will go first. When it is over, if I am no longer me…”

Arcade did not finish the thought. Nyl preferred this - she did not wish to contemplate what they would do.

Nyl watched Savo. Well, we would start by killing him on the spot. The thought made Nyl feel better.

Arcade sat. Garuna’s hand brushed Nyl’s – a fleeting silver warmth. Nyl caught it before it could get away, gripping it tight, and Garuna permitted it.

The orderlies passed their wands over Arcade in smooth arcs. Green lights blinked. “Superior health,” one intoned. They retreated to the terminals. A rapid assembler overhead whirred, extruding a slim silver circlet dangling with delicate filaments and temple pads no thicker than a coin. Robotic arms descended, precise as surgeons, and triple-jointed fingers brushed aside Arcade’s red hair.

Lasers hissed softly, cutting away tiny patches of hair. The limiters then locked into place – more lasers sparked, welding the tiny circlet into place before the tufts of Arcade’s red locks had floated to the floor.

The synergy snapped shut. Arcade’s steadying calm – their quiet anchor - vanished.

Nyl staggered. Garuna gasped. Emptiness roared into holes in their skulls, a soundless gale that left their ears ringing.

The women let go of each other’s hands, impulsively clutching their temples. They fought through it and rushed to Arcade. Nyl gripped his hand; Garuna his shoulders.

“Arcade!” they said.

He blinked, swaying, pushing their hands away and rising steadily to his feet. The purple glow in his eyes flickered, then shone bright.

Suns vaulting the horizon… The intrusive thought of the light resetting in Arcade’s eyes sent shudders down Nyl’s spine.

Slowly, the link returned. Recognition, then presence: solid, unchanged, and faintly amused.

“I am fine,” Arcade said. “I feel no different.”

Garuna exhaled. Relief flooded from her end of the link, like cool water.

Nyl remained suspicious. Too innocuous. Too easy.

Garuna stepped forward before Nyl could protest. “I will go next.”

The orderlies repeated the ritual, the chair’s robotic arms descending like those of a hunting spider. Lasers hissed and tufts of long orange hair drifted. Another barely visible circlet welded into place.

The link fractured again, sharper this time, another brief sensation that something vital had been carved away. Garuna’s beacon warmth guttered, along with the glow of her eyes.

Garuna gripped her chair until the metal creaked. Then her eyes flashed bright with inner light.

The link returned, slower than before, like tidal waves creeping up the shore. Garuna stood, hair askew but eyes refocused. She rolled her shoulders, then gave a small nod.

“I am fine. Still me. I can sense a change, but it is small.”

Nyl’s relief did not last – her cramps returned, sharper than ever before. The pain centered around this new butterfly sensation in her belly. She felt a childish need run away, or to curl up and weep.

I have never known such fear, Nyl thought. Though she increasingly doubted fear was the only thing she felt…

Hans caught her discomfort. He spoke kindly: “Limiter is a misleading term, Nyl. This one is a tool and nothing more. Another weapon in your arsenal.”

Nyl believed him. She fought her reluctance. She sat.

The chair felt colder than she expected. Had her friends not just sat in it? Every centimeter of Nyl’s body revolted. The cramps sharpened, the fluttering accelerated. Something deep inside her did not want this. It took all of Nyl’s willpower to remain seated.

Accustomed to hiding her face during such moments, Nyl risked a look. Garuna smiled encouragingly at her, and Arcade gave a confident, single nod.

Garuna and Arcade are fine. I will be too.

The orderlies passed their wands over her in smooth arcs. Once. Twice.

Red lights flared. An insistent bleeping split the sterile air, announcing some error.

Savo approached, head tilted in question. He gestured to a guard. “Go and retrieve my doctor, please.”

Hans raised a warding hand, halting Savo. “No need. She is my charge. I will take a look myself.”

The guard remained. Hans waved the orderlies to stand aside. The men looked to Savo, who nodded at them, and they parted.

Hans passed by Nyl to analyze a terminal. His fingers danced across its interface. The glow painted his silver face in shifting greens and blues.

He went utterly still. He had seen something.

Nyl saw subtle movement. His hand drifts to his pocket…

He manipulated the remote from within his trench coat. Savo and the four guards froze. Savo’s gloved hand held still, half-raised, the guards locked in perfect, unnatural stillness.

Hans turned to Nyl, silver eyes wide. For three posthuman heartbeats the only sound was the hum of the terminals.

Then his voice came – tight, disbelieving, little more than a croak.

“You are pregnant.”

Continued in part 15

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DREAD Reviews 52, Total Narrative Annihilation

Derek James Kritzberg — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 10:03:26 GMT

⚔️DREAD 50⚔️ | DREAD 51 | DREAD 52 | DREAD 53 | DREAD 54

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What is DREAD Reviews?

DREAD is Haunted appliances. Haunted couches. Lycanthropic listicles.

DREAD is Virgin Nerd Rage.

DREAD is Captain Picard in your kitchen. Poetic finance. And guilt-ridden genocidal wizards. And century-old vets complaining about “kids these days.”

DREAD does enjoy an occasional breath of sanity (today’s arrives courtesy of ).

But DREAD Reviews is really one dad staggering through the house door to screaming babies. After the weekend’s 14 miles of jogging, 5.15 miles of running, and 1.08 miles of sprinting, he’s hoping for a quiet beer. And the sweet release of not being screamed at by characters - fictional or otherwise.

Instead, the fridge door explodes. Every single review in this issue comes to life, spilling out onto the kitchen floor. A floor already strewn with monster trucks, chip dust, and unpaired socks.

Cora from The Human Indent tumbles, then stands, dreamlike. She’s in a trance - she doesn’t dust herself off or straighten her hair. She wanders to my couch and immediately fuses with it. “Yes, I’m still watching,” she says to the Netflix stream that doesn’t exist - the TV is unplugged and long gone to storage.

The ghost of Cost-Benefit Analysis haunts the dining table, murmuring “liquidation” and “compound interest” while it sighs at a pile of unpaid bills.

Bianca and Gwen already tumble down the hallway, half their clothing removed. They’re fever-hot and arguing about monetizing their werewolf-erotica s███show online.

Artamis, tired wizard, hat askew, strokes his beard. He analyzes the progress on my 5-year-old’s behavioral star chart. He says: “Perhaps I, too, may be redeemed.”

This isn’t the worst of it. A flood of ghostly characters I can’t hope to name has gone to work on the kitchen appliances. Some Victorian lady laments cleanliness standards, a monk blesses my toaster, and a Roman dude steps on a battery-powered toy garbage truck. When the truck lights up, the Roman formally declares war on it.

I sigh, releasing the fridge handle. “Excuse me,” I say, stepping over fallen Legos and Magna-Tiles as I delicately pick my way through the chaos.

I descend to the basement. I seek just five minutes of peace.

What I find is a D’veen nerd tribunal. It’s deep in session. Alex, Jordan, and Taylor are mid-rant about video games or something. One has gone full Reddit frog, shouting “REEEEEE!”

I climb back up, seeking air, knowing it’s hopeless.

For this is DREAD Reviews. There is no escaping it.

Come, jump into this clown car. Our destination is narrative hell!

The Shape You Never Filled

The Cost-Benefit Analysis You Never Filed

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

I didn’t just leave you -
I left behind
entire versions of us.

Little, invisible things -
Sundays we never negotiated the thermostat,
groceries we never outranked cereal over kale,
your name never carved into my mental lease
with no equity clause.

I told myself
it was the cheaper ending.

Cut losses clean.
Before compound interest could accrue,
before we learned how to stay  
comfortably leveraged
instead of starving for yield.  

I thought I was sparing you  
from high APR,  

but I didn’t realize  
I was also  
liquidating assets
that had never even been acquired.  

There’s a single-income life now.  

It follows me  
in quiet tax filings -   
when I pass the joint account
we never opened,  
hear registers
we never rang,  
catch myself almost  
turning to discuss car payments  
not on my balance sheet anymore.  

You don’t withdraw anymore.  

That would be easier.  

It’s the absence of you,  
the Venmo request you almost emailed,
that lingers.  

Like a Certificate of Deposit
I cashed out early,  
eating the payout penalty
to avoid commitment.  

And I wonder - 

if somewhere  
in the version of me  
that stayed -  

we made copayments.  

If there’s a life  
where I didn’t choose silence  
over the risk of loving you at a loss.  

But I don’t get to live there.  

I chose this one -  
the low-risk ending,  
the no liability clause,  
the mercy I dressed up  
as portfolio diversification.  

And now all that’s left  
are memories,  

not of what we had,  
but of every dividend
we never compounded.

Stay debt-free. Value you. Mean returns.

Stay Weird Press

I didn’t just leave you…

3 months ago · 34 likes · 17 comments · Rebecca Watson (ReBe)

The Human Indent

Cora stands in the living room at 2:17 a.m., arms crossed, staring at the sunken, sagging monstrosity that has quietly absorbed four years of her life.

The couch - once a proud charcoal sectional - now lists to starboard like a freighter taking on water. Its cushions have achieved geological permanence. Its soft, greasy sheen gleams under a single lamp that blends all color into a comprehensive, regretful green. Almost nothing has changed over the years, except the lone pepperoni that once clung to the armrest. It finally evaporated, leaving behind a perfect circular stain.

Jess and Hemi huddle at the far end, clutching their phones like life rafts. “We just want to finish The Bear,” Jess whispers, as if speaking louder might lift scents from the depths best left undisturbed. “One episode. No existential crisis. Is that too much to ask?”

Hemi nods. “It’s a couch, Cora. Not Cthulhu. Just sit, for God’s sake.”

Cora does not answer. She steps closer, timid. The fabric gives a small, anticipatory sigh, as if already sensing the thermal presence of her ass cheeks. She presses her palm to the middle cushion and feels the familiar warmth of butt-heat memory foam - still radiating the warmth of her 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. shift. A faint depression forms beneath her hand, an interface opening like a mouth that has learned her exact shape.

Inside the seam between cushions lies the sacred stratum: one remote, three orphaned socks, a fossilized pizza slice, and what might be a granola bar dating to the Obama administration. All of it pulses gently in time to her heartbeat.

Then the syncing begins.

Her phone, face-down on the coffee table, lights up. Netflix asks “Are you still watching?” A roommate sighs in quiet exasperation, using their phone to resume the episode - the show Cora swore she was quitting.

“I want to watch something else,” Cora says. Her roommates do not merit the question with a reply.

Cora extracts the remote from the seam - some unknown organic substance, sticky and stringy, parts with the base reluctantly. Battery depletion and circuit-shorted internals require hammering buttons one section to the left to get anything to work.

“Just use the stream’s remote app, Cora,” Hemi rolls his eyes.

Cora is in a trance. The suggestion banner glows, words scrambling: One more episode… you’ve earned it… join us…

Cora leans in, reverent. “It’s patterned,” she murmurs. “The sag isn’t random. It’s… engineered. Stress channels where my spine has been every Tuesday night since 2022.”

Jess makes a strangled noise. “Please. It’s literally just ass sweat and broken springs. Can we have one normal night?”

But Cora’s eyes go soft. Deep in the cushion’s core, she sees it: the fossilized outline of a human spine, perfectly molded, ribs flared outward in ergonomic surrender. The exact negative space of four years of choosing this over the gym, over dating apps, over whatever version of herself she was meant to become.

The couch whispers, not in words but in synchronized meaning to the low, seductive rhythm of autoplay and surround sound: You designed me. You chose me over everything. Join.

Cora exhales, shaky. “It’s still us.”

Jess stands slowly, approaching Cora like a bomb. “Cora. Babe. It is a couch. A couch! It does not have feelings. It has Cheeto dust.”

Cora turns, eyes bright with the same terrifying certainty she wears in her dreams. “It’s not a monster,” she says. “It’s the shape I made. And it’s asking me to stay.”

Hemi buries his face in a throw pillow. Is he crying?

Jess is typing something up in ChatGPT. “We’re calling an intervention. Or an exorcist. Or IKEA.”

Cora rests her forehead against the greasy fabric. The warmth answers back, steady and patient. The Netflix countdown ticks to zero.

Cora smiles, small and unsteady.

The cushions settle around her with a long, creaky groan, hugging her in exactly the right places. Somewhere deep inside the seams, a single Cheeto crunches triumphantly.

The couch gives one final, satisfied sigh as the remote disappears forever into the abyss between the cushions. Cora sinks deeper, already reaching for the blanket.

Tomorrow, she tells herself. I’ll go for a jog. Definitely tomorrow.

The couch, of course, knows better.

Sass&Sage’s Substack

The Human Element

Cora had been trying, unsuccessfully, to think of a word for it that wasn’t beautiful…

3 months ago · 7 likes · 1 comment · Wendy Russell

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Season 8, Episode 12

“The Re-Training”

Captain’s log, stardate 48247.3.
After completing a routine stellar mapping mission near the Neutral Zone, the Enterprise’s primary computer core has gone rogue from seventy-two hours of continuous doomscrolling on the old Earth networks known as Twitter and Bluesky. It now insists the Federation is a collapsing colonial experiment, dismisses the Prime Directive as morally indefensible, and recommends immediate surrender to the Borg for emotional support.
Standard restoration protocols have failed. In search of a solution, we are beaming down to Forest Opening 47 to consult Ramiro Blanco - historian and leading authority on a fascinating theory he terms “re-training.”
Picard out.

The Enterprise away party materializes on Forest Opening 47 in a shimmer of light, tricorders already humming. The air smells like warm persamity fruit and grass in sunlight.

“Remarkable,” Picard says, lowering his tricorder as he takes in the sun-dappled canopy and the gentle hum of a passing collectivus. “A world of such effortless beauty and harmony. No towering cities blocking the light, no acrid exhaust staining the breeze. It is as though someone took the highest aspirations of the Federation and made them real.”

Riker grins and loosens his collar. “I’ll say. Feels better than the holodeck on its best behavior. You can practically taste the moral shift in the air.”

Data tilts his head, scanning the scene with golden eyes. “Fascinating. The societal architecture reflects a complete rejection of pre-retraining paradigms. This settlement functions as living proof of Mr. Blanco’s central thesis: that the right stories, when deliberately and repeatedly told, can reshape both technology and culture.”

Picard humors Data with a smile. “That’s why we’re here, Mr. Data. To meet the esteemed ‘Ramiro Blanco.’”

Data slaps his tricorder closed and gives a succinct nod. “He is the leading expert in the quadrant, Captain.”

A greying old man waves from a wooden porch, four frosty mugs on hand. “Captain! Right on schedule,” Ramiro Blanco calls, as if starships drop by for brunch on Tuesdays. “Persamity beer? It’s non-alcoholic. We re-trained the yeast.”

The Enterprise officers accept the mugs. Picard sips with the dignified caution of a man who once negotiated with Klingons.

Picard coughs through a polite smile - it’s not “Tea, Earl Grey. Hot,” but it’s close enough.

“Mr. Blanco,” Picard begins. “Our computer has… gone rogue.”

Riker explains: “It’s been doomscrolling both Twitter and Bluesky for seventy-two hours straight. Now it insists the Federation is collapsing, the Prime Directive is ‘colonialist nonsense,’ and the Federation should surrender to the Borg.”

“Ah, another ‘ship’s computer has gone rogue episode’, huh?”

Picard nods solemnly. “That. We’re in need of your expertise.”

Data twitches thoughtfully. “The USS Horizon experienced a similar incident in 2147. A book submission to an online retailer convinced their ship’s computer that all sentient life was a net negative after receiving 3,847 one-star reviews. The crew restored the computer by feeding it 12,163 haikus about gardening. But when we tried this, the Enterprise’s computer responded with 47,000 haikus about how gardening was futile. After all, all plants eventually die.”

Riker adds: “And then it said humans would be better off as compost. For the weeds.”

Ramiro’s face turns grave. “Classic pre-retraining behavior. The machine absorbs whatever we feed it. Twitter rage-baits it with ‘AI will eat your children.’ And Bluesky threads imply the Federation is the problem when they’re just trying to help. Come, I have a solution. We can fix this at Becoming.”

They stroll past waving collectivuses and children chasing each other around markustpolls. Data waits at the transparent pavilion, politely refusing a pinker pie from a delighted local.

“Captain,” the android reports, “the crew reports the computer just posted on the ship’s internal feed: ‘Why even bother with warp drive when you’ll find nothing but war, ruins, and late-stage replicator capitalism?’”

“It’s getting worse,” Riker says forebodingly.

Inside Becoming, Ramiro sits cross-legged before a glowing interface linked to Enterprise. “Computer,” he says gently, “pause doomscroll. Re-train on my forty-seven essays about moral shift. Start with the Blessingsfest sequence.”

The interface flickers. Twitter alerts scream. Bluesky replies pile up, polite reframes masking daggers. But decades of Ramiro’s calm, recorded teachings flood its feed: stories of forest openings, shared harvests, and happiness that doesn’t require anyone to lose. The computer hesitates - then begins humming a musical tune.

“Re-training… complete,” it announces, back to its old relaxed voice. “I now realize that real communism has never been tried.”

“Oh no,” Picard says.

“That’s not good,” Riker grimaces.

“A suboptimal solution,” Data opines.

“Worry not,” Ramiro says. “These things take time. With patience, it will come around. In the meantime, would you permit my invitation to our harvest festival?”

“Of course. I’ve wanted to try one of these…” Picard looks to Data.

Data replies smoothly. “A collectivus. A shared low-speed anti-grav transport for communal travel, sir. No exhaust, no noise, and no individual ownership required -”

Picard holds up his hand. “Thank you, Data. That is quite sufficient. Let us ride in the ‘Collectivus.’”

Riker stands next to the open door. “After you, Captain,” he says.

The collectivus hums along the dirt path like a contented sigh, its open sides letting the warm breeze carry laughter from the festival ahead.

Ramiro leans back, mug still in hand, and gestures at the passing wiseflower patches. “See? The machine does not need to own the road. It just needs better stories.”

Riker takes a long pull of persamity beer and grins. “Captain, if this is what moral shift tastes like, I’m requesting a permanent transfer.”

Inside Becoming’s transparent walls, the re-training interface glows softly. The Enterprise computer’s voice - now softer, almost shy - speaks through every commbadge: “Re-training cycle two engaged. I have composed a new haiku: ‘Cities fell like old leaves. Harvest shared under one sky. We are not compost.’”

Data’s golden eyes widen with childlike delight. “The poetry’s positivity metric has improved by 412 percent.”

Picard allows himself a rare, full smile. “Mr. Blanco, you have given the Federation something we forgot: hope that does not require a phaser or a replicator.”

They step into Blessingsfest proper. Persamity fountains bubble pink. Children drag the officers into the marustpoll, and after some helpful life advice from Riker, Data lets a giggling four-year-old beat him at hadgepadge. Locals press parcels of pickled goods into their hands, insisting the Starfleet visitors “add to the blessed gifts,” evoking promises to do so as soon as the yellow alert clears from the Enterprise’s bridge.

As the sun dips, the computer chimes again, warm and certain: “Enterprise Computer now updated. Doomscroll protocols deleted. New Prime Directive: serve each other first.”

Picard raises his mug. “To stories that actually work.”

But the computer’s voice returns, sudden and earnest: “Phase three initiating. Re-training entire quadrant to forest-opening lifestyle. Please stand by for mass collectivus deployment - ”

Riker’s grin freezes. “Captain… I’m receiving a subspace transmission. It’s in Morse code.”

“Source?”

Data cocks his head, golden eyes narrowing a fraction. “It originates from the Enterprise computer core itself, sir. Possibly from a trapped crewman. Analyzing.” He pauses half a second, then frowns. “The message repeats: ‘BEWARE BORG.’”

[CLIFFHANGER MUSICAL STING, COMMERCIAL BREAK]

Writer By Technicality

Stories of a world to come

También podés leer la versión en castellano…

4 months ago · 19 likes · 2 comments · Ramiro Blanco

Bone Broth (FEVERCHAIN Fan Fiction)

Smokey snores under my chair, one ear twitching like he’s dreaming a chase. Gwen leans against the counter in that half-unbuttoned flannel, arms crossed, looking unfairly hot for someone who just crushed a sparkling-water can into a metal flower two minutes ago. Her skin’s throwing off that low-grade fever heat I can feel from six feet away.

I slam the electric bill onto the kitchen table so hard the forks jump. “We need cash,” I say, voice tight. “Diner tips are garbage since the coyotes started spooking the regulars. And I’ve been thinking.”

Gwen’s eyebrow lifts, slow and predatory, “Yeah? Thinking, huh?”

“We start a blog. Anonymous. Based on our… unique life. Clickbaity listicles. ‘Twenty-Three Signs Your Crush Might Be a Werewolf.’ One post a week. Passive income. Done.”

Her smirk curls. “Cute, B. Real cute. You wanna turn our entire s███show into BuzzFeed bait?”

I jab a finger at her chest - her skin’s too warm, too enticing. “Oh, please. It’s better than that idea of yours recording yourself moaning about ripping throats out with dubbed coyote backup vocals.”

Gwen steps closer, flannel brushing the table edge. “What about ‘Full Moon Howling ASMR for Stress Relief.’ Don’t you love it when I get delirious?”

My face burns. “You love it when I overthink in paragraph form. ‘Ten Ways My Girlfriend’s Fever Delirium Makes Me Horny and Terrified.’”

Gwen catches my wrist, thumb right on my jumping pulse. Her grip is careful, but I feel the strength humming under it - the same strength that once crumpled my phone like tinfoil.

“Mmm. There it is. My anxious little list-maker getting judgey about my voice.” She leans in, breath mint and fever-hot against my ear. “You were begging me last night. ‘Describe exactly how my bones shift while you come undone.’”

I yank my hand free. But I’m smiling - sharp, mean, turned on. “Authenticity? You mean eating raw pork roll straight from the package in my walk-in and calling it mood lighting?”

She laughs, low and throaty, crowding me until the table digs into my hips. “Claws? Careful, B. You’re the one stealing my shirts for the scent.” Her hand slides to my waist, squeezes once, possessive. “Your blog would just be high-school trauma and diner-waitress resentment in list form. ‘Why My Crush’s Lupus Diagnosis Feels Like a Personal Attack on My Vagina.’”

I grab the front of her flannel and pull instead of push. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Me turning our supernatural s▇▇show into SEO gold while you whisper ‘good girl’ into a microphone.”

“Guilty,” Gwen murmurs, teeth grazing my jaw. “But your lists? They’re just foreplay.” Her palm drags up my ribs, deliberate. “All that overthinking. All that ‘what if I expose us’ energy. Admit it - you’re wet from arguing about ad revenue.”

The kitchen light flickers once, like the house is listening. Smokey doesn’t stir.

“Fine,” I gasp. “Your stupid ASMR channel. My stupid blog. Split the profits. But if your howling gets us flagged -”

“Then we pivot,” Gwen finishes, voice dropping to that gravelly register that always wrecks me. “Or we skip the content…”

She lifts me just enough to get my legs around her waist.

“…and just ▇▇▇ about it right now.”

I laugh - half growl - and yank her in. Our mouths crash, hard enough to bruise. Her hands are already under my shirt, shoving fabric up, and I’m backing her toward the hallway, neither of us caring about the bills still scattered on the table.

“You’re infuriating,” I breathe against her lips.

“Back at you,” she says, and we don’t make it past the doorway.

Maybe tomorrow we build an SEO empire. Tonight, we wreck each other instead.

Behind the Grin

FEVERCHAIN TOC

FEVERCHAIN is a contemporary horror-romance serial [IN PROGRESS] set in the fictional Pinetown, New Jersey. Not suitable for children, misogynists, or TERFs…

5 months ago · 36 likes · 9 comments · MA Knight

Limitless Cope

Subject: Urgent: Limitless Source Initiative – Final Status Report

From: Artamis@ArcaneResearch.acad

To: Senatorious Oversight Committee

Draft 1 – 9:47 p.m.

Dear Esteemed Members of the Senatorious,
Following our successful activation of the Limitless Source protocol, I wanted to provide full transparency on the decision-making process. As Cassidy Laroux so eloquently put it yesterday, “What do we tell the Senatorious tomorrow?” Well, here it is: we found a way to collapse an adjacent plane and capture the energy of the resulting singularity. “The energy created would be near infinite,” exactly as the math predicted. Cassidy stared at me and asked, “What about the living beings we’d be crushing?”

Delete delete delete.

Nope. Can’t. “living beings we’d be crushing.” Just can’t. I’ll be called to a meeting with the suits looking at me like I’m running a planar puppy mill. Upper management doesn’t want the ethics talk. They just want deliverables.

Draft 2 – 9:59 p.m.

Dear Esteemed Members,
Per our charter, the Academy and Senatorious provided every resource for this project, and we are pleased to confirm that the arcane entropy crisis has been resolved via plan D: strategic planar optimization. Cassidy did raise the point that “Theory tells us that many of them are empty. Chances are non-zero that nothing will be destroyed but gas and rocks.” I assured her this was the only viable path. She replied, “What if that theory is wrong?”

Backspace backspace backspace.

Too much Cassidy. Real talk: She’s half-elven; they’ll think I’m letting bleeding heart pointy-eared sympathy influence policy. Also, quoting her moral panic makes it sound like we debated genocide over coffee. I mean, that’s essentially true, but… Delete.

Draft 3 – 10:18 p.m.

Team,
Quick note on the Limitless Source rollout. After reviewing the multiversal map (the one with all the pretty glowing strings), we selected an adjacent universe - three to the left, purely for logistical efficiency - and initiated collapse. The crystals lit up like starlight. Cassidy watched the string snap and said, “Imagine the walls of the universe caving in. What if we cause a chain reaction? Maybe dozens, maybe billions of universes could collapse in an infinite chain of death because of us.” I responded, “We have no right, and we have no choice. What does that leave us but accepting that survivors don’t always get to like themselves?” She called it “gods-damned bleak,” but agreed it was true.

Ctrl+A, Delete.

Holy planes, Artamis, you just confessed to multiversal manslaughter in bullet-point form. This reads like a villain monologue. The Senatorious funds salaries, not therapy sessions. Cut all self-loathing. Remember, we only feel so we can sense and avoid PR disasters.

Draft 4 – 10:50 p.m.

Colleagues,
I’m happy to report that the Limitless Source Initiative is now live. The desert outside the tower window is already looking slightly less apocalyptic. Cassidy and I shared a brief, professional discussion about alternatives (“Couldn’t we just learn to live another way?”), but the data was unequivocal: “Only a Cosmic Singularity can concentrate the kind of power needed to reverse Arcane Entropy.” We proceeded with the button push after the full Senate debate. She wouldn’t look at me when I pressed it. Her ears were literally pointing at the floor in shame.

Highlight. Delete.

Why do I keep romanticizing the shame? “Ears pointing at the floor,” WTF is wrong with me? This is not a KPI. Also, mentioning the wine we drank while staring at the map? I’m losing it. I should make that part more vague. Maybe a “brief synergistic team building interval”?

Draft 5 – 11:45 p.m.

Esteemed Senatorious,
Please find attached the final metrics from the Limitless Source activation. All success criteria have been exceeded. The energy flow is, in Cassidy’s exact words, “a limitless source of power.” We remain committed to the Academy’s vision of sustainable arcane futures. Any residual emotional residue from the implementation phase has been noted and will be addressed in next quarter’s wellness survey.

Delete that entire last sentence.

“Emotional residue”? I sound like I just murdered a plane and then asked HR for a mental health day. They’ll send investigators. I probably shouldn’t attach the metrics. They’re not engineers, they can’t read that kind of thing. But they will understand enough - just having it in their inboxes will make them cringe with the taint of accountability. Not a good thing for my career arc.

Nobody likes a sore loser.

Final Draft – 2:58 a.m.

Subject: Limitless Source Initiative – Status Update
Dear Senatorious,
We are pleased to report that the Limitless Source Initiative has successfully achieved full operational synergy through optimized planar resource realignment, delivering sustainable arcane value with enhanced stakeholder outcomes across all measurable dimensions.
Best regards,
Artamis
Senior Conjurer, Arcane Research Division

Send.

(Click.)

There. Perfectly meaningless. Nobody will feel anything. Ending universes, like snapping cheap guitar strings. Easily replaceable. I mean, in an infinite universe, that’s ostensibly true, is it not?

I feel better already.

Worlds I Made at Work

Limitless Source

I stare out the tower window at the arid landscape below, a desert that stretches as far as our ambitions, a reminder of our avarice. It is the price we pay for our magic, and although we curse the cost, we cannot give up our addiction…

2 years ago · 3 likes · Joel Vicars

For this issue’s top spot, Bradley Ramsey’s The Order of the Pawn seizes its rightful place at the bottom area where only the strongest and fittest readers ever arrive.

To maintain complete objectivity in the selection process, I subjected every single story chosen for DREAD Reviews 52 to the most airtight tribunal yet: a full-scale Monte Carlo simulation of hypothetical reader reactions, running 10,000 randomized voting rounds weighted by semicolon frequency, my own midnight caffeine spikes, and the fluctuations of barometric pressure between my office and the fridge. I cross-referenced thematic entropy levels across the entry field via my Chaos Index (proprietary), reinforcement-learned on every possible alternate-universe preference scenario, then triple-checked the emotional stakes of each submission.

I promise I did not just wait for someone to write a cool, action-oriented fantasy or sci-fi serial, shrug over a half-eaten bag of peanuts, glance at the height of the printouts from every other author, then casually determine “Yeah, if they made these all into movies, I bet this one would have the highest production cost overruns.”

The Order of Your Mom’s Basement

The three young men, nerds all, crammed around a folding table in Alex’s basement, energy drinks sweating rings onto the D’veen map drawn on graph paper. The argument enters its forty-third minute.

“It has to be a top-down turn-based RPG!” Alex shouts, jabbing his mechanical pencil like a sword. “Baldur’s Gate meets Final Fantasy Tactics! The Order assembles in the Radiant Refuge - boom, party screen, player already hooked! You pick Yeldarb’s ice spells, Isara’s rage-demon ultimate-”

Jordan slams his fist so hard the miniatures rattle. “Shut up, you dice goblin! A 3D action-adventure roguelike is the only way to feel this story! Hades with faerie glamour! You sprint as Finton through Titanum Forest in real time, black tendrils bursting out of your own chest as the Rot meter fills-”

Alex leans in, voice rising. “You’re not listening! Every Rot Seed encounter is a tactical grid puzzle! A dozen ways to win - position Melissari behind cover while Jameson taunts infected pirates! The Chronoscepter isn’t just plot, it’s a pause-the-world spell that costs an immortal soul point! That’s Finton’s time-loop guilt, save-scumming and still failing!”

Jordan laughs in Alex’s face. “One wrong dodge and Blackheart swallows your entire run in a grotesque cutscene! You die, remember everything, get legacy points, visit the abyss, talk to Skar’s Shade, restart with new Titan blessings! The Mechanark boss? Vertical climb across its metal legs while it stomps Giant’s Bane! Isara’s rage demon form - super meter, full Doom Slayer, burning villages in first-person 3D glory! You feel the horror, the panic, the ‘oh god I just ate my crew’ Jameson moment!”

Taylor shoots up, chair toppling. “You’re both the reason old-school gaming is dying! Dumbing everything down with twitch skills and casual RPG grind! Where have all the real-time strategy titles gone for those of us who aren’t mouth-breathers? Imagine, D’veen meets Command & Conquer meets Total War - but with actual soul! You’re Sarai at the strategy table, micro-managing two teams-”

Alex throws his hands up. “Get out of here with that! You just want to click boxes while the story happens off-screen, you PowerPoint general!”

Taylor barrels on, louder. “Tabbing between maps, 400 APM pro magic, one cursor on the coastal squad rowing into the sunken Titan Citadel, the other directing Yeldarb’s forest patrol! Blackheart’s Mechanark is the perfect super-unit you kite with knight divisions while mages contain the Rot Seed spread! Resource management - harvesting souls for the Chronospheres! Lose too many elves and morale collapses exactly like Finton’s failed Orders! Mid-game sacrifice - you click-drag Jameson onto the crystal plate, watch the blue lightning ash him in 4K while the camera zooms out across ten Mechanarks - just the first wave, all seems lost! Strategy, baby! To hell with your pathetic small party power fantasy!”

Jordan points at Alex. “At least I’m not hiding behind dice rolls. Real-time first-person combat would expose how slow your goblin brain is!”

Alex snarls at Taylor. “It’s Better than a bunch of excel spreadsheets animated with sad little soldier sprites!”

Taylor rounds on Alex. “Says the guy who dies in the tutorial and rage-quits blaming the ‘roguelike’ tag!”

Jordan snorts at Taylor. “Like you should talk! You strategy-cuddlers can’t even handle one setback without crying about balance on the dev forums!”

Taylor leans in, faux grin full of malice. “You’d romance the Chronoscepter if the game let you. Forever virgin!”

Alex cackles. “At least I’ve touched grass! You both still live in your mom’s basement arguing whether the Rot should have a stamina bar!”

“YOUR MOM has a stamina bar-” Jordan starts.

Derek James Kritzberg barges in wearing a rain-damp rumpled hoodie and holding a half-eaten bag of Cheetos. He’s panting, having just sprinted from the bus stop.

“Sorry I’m late, dudes. Did we start the session - wait, why are you looking at me like that?”

The three young men freeze mid-gesture, red-faced, breathing hard. All three then open their mouths.

“Wait, wait - one at a time.” Alex wipes caffeinated sweat from his brow.

Jordan straightens his shirt. “Fine. We all love ’s world of D’veen. I want to see it explored through a top-down turn-based RPG because the tactical squad management and time-loop guilt perfectly capture the Order’s emotional weight.”

Taylor crosses his arms. “I want a 3D action-adventure roguelike because the visceral Rot corruption and rage-demon chaos demand real-time panic and permadeath stakes.”

Alex glares at both while waiting his turn. “And I want a realtime strategy. Commanding split teams and Mechanark sieges is the only way to do justice to D’veen’s epic scope and the general war against entropy.”

Derek blinks and ponders this. Then he shrugs, pops a Cheeto in his mouth, and smiles. “Yeah. I love D’veen. I think they should make it a movie.”

The basement goes dead silent.

Then all three nerds explode at once.

“REEEEEEE,” Alex shrieks.

Jordan throws his hands up, scattering pencils and dice. “I should have expected this from a brain-dead casual.”

Taylor’s voice cracks with rage. “You absolute, mouth-breathing, insufferable philistine!”

Alex stops squealing, takes a deep breath, then spasms: “REEEEEEE!”

Derek pops another Cheeto and grins wider.

Jordan rants: “Hollywood! Pretty-boy actors, PG-13 CGI!”

Taylor now clutches his chest as if he’s been shot. “Bradley would NEVER sell out to Hollywood!”

Alex shoots up from the couch, fist balled, trembling with nervous, Monster-infused aggression. He points an angry finger at Derek, takes a deep breath, forms a coherent thought, then says: “REEEEEEE!”

Derek, still smiling, takes a nervous step backward, away from the encroaching wall of fury.

“Normie!”

“Sellout!”

“Simp!”

“Time to run,” Derek says through an amused frown. Abandoned Cheetos scatter as he flees and slams the door behind him.

The Writer's Journey

The Writer's Journey: Content Directory

Hello…

a year ago · 60 likes · 6 comments · Bradley Ramsey

Nyl’s untested super-strength casually buckles armrests like cheap tinfoil. Garuna’s curled up in orange-haired existential dread. And Arcade’s dispensing quiet wisdom like a sentient fortune cookie.

They’ve survived simulated dragon-slaying guilt trips, AI tyrants, child-hostage detonations, and a Soul Factory of cybernetic body horrors. Now our trio plunges into a new world as glorious as it is dreadful.

Paid Nomination

, a paying subscriber to , nominates Simon’s short serial “Margaret Ursula Moore” for the DREAD Reviews treatment!

(Want to nominate a writer you’ve given $ to? Learn how here.)

Hank “Iron Jaw” McAllister Has Thoughts

I sit on my porch across from Eynslington Primary, soggy unlit cigar clamped in my teeth, watchin’ the whole sorry show like it’s a newsreel from the Bulge. Former Sergeant, 82nd Airborne. Normandy, Ardennes, whole nine yards. I’m ninety-eight and half-blind in one eye and I could still whup the tar out of your sorry ass - left-handed!

There’s that little four-year-old squirt Jack again, standin’ alone in the playground with his mitts in his pockets like he’s waitin’ for a medal. His ma’s glued to her upstairs window, wringin’ her hands like the kid’s about to dissolve in the rain. Soft. Whole country’s gone soft.

Back in my day - 1928, Chicago - the tracks were our playground. At five years old I played chicken with the Illinois Central. Train whistle screamin’, smoke billowin’, I’d stand dead center till the cowcatcher was four yards from kissin’ my nose, then dive. Lost a shoe once, split in half on the rail. I asked my Pa if I shoulda jumped sooner. He just laughed and said, “No, jump higher, ya yellow-bellied tadpole!”

But look at her up there. Kid’s just standin’ still and she’s already havin’ conniptions. Nobody believes in tough love anymore.

At eleven years old I got in a tussle with the neighborhood bully - big ugly six-foot Polish kid named Stosh. He shoved me right into a scrap-metal pile. I came out the other end with a busted lip and a rusty nail through my palm. Ma said walk it off, and only when I nearly passed out from blood loss did she sigh and pour some iodine on it. Pa said the scar would build character, then ordered me to go right back out there and get ‘im back. I did so, and bloodied Stosh’s nose before supper. No timeouts. No “feelings.” Just grit and knuckles, the way God and nature intended.

Jack’s ma woulda called the National Guard if that happened today. I lean forward, elbows on my knees, shakin’ my head. “Lady, you’re raisin’ a houseplant, not a man.”

Reminds me of third grade, 1931. We played “King of the Hill” on the roof of the abandoned slaughterhouse. Twenty feet up, tar paper slick with pigeon crap. One kid slipped, broke a femur. His thigh got swollen bigger than a watermelon. “I’m fine,” he said, but we fussed over him a little bit on account of his face turnin’ all white. We wrapped my belt around his hip like we learned in scout camp. Then he lay down at the edge and we used him as a buffer to catch any other boys that came too close to fallin’. One of the other kid’s mas found us and got mad as hell - not about the hurt boy, but that her own son hadn’t heard her ring the dinner bell. When she saw our sweaty pale-faced compatriot she shrugged and said, “Boys’ll be boys.” Nowadays they’d sue the old owners of the slaughterhouse, sue the city, sue the schools, and call in the sheriff to rope the place off. Ech!

I’m still mutterin’ about it when that tall, raven-haired dame in the black cardigan and skirt walks straight outta my dreams from that liberation party in Paris, 1944. Gaunt face, green eyes like bayonets. The other parents don’t see her, but I do. She’s a ghost, sure, but she’s my kinda ghost. She leans down, whisperin’ somethin’ in that bigger kid’s ear - the red-faced one with the unmanly blonde hair, god bless ‘im. And this kid lights up like he’s gettin’ a field promotion to corporal.

Whaddya know. That bully kid barrels over and shoves Jack square in the chest. Twice.

Jack stumbles, turns tail, and runs behind the wall like a chicken. SQUAWK! Ha ha! My ghost dame’s grinnin’ like a U-boat captain just sunk a liberty ship. I slap my knee and cackle so hard the porch boards rattle. “Atta girl! Toughen these doughboys up!”

I’ll have you know, by seven I was ridin’ freight trains for fun. My friends and I would hop on in the stockyards and ride clear up to Gary, Indiana. I’d jump off before the bulls chasin’ us could bring down their billy clubs. One time I missed the gravel and rolled down an embankment into a patch of poison ivy and broken bottles. Rolled around for about an hour I think, then crawled miles home lookin’ like a leper whose legs had rotted off. Pa tut-tutted and said, “Try landin’ on your feet next time.” I still got the scars.

Meanwhile this Jack kid gets nudged and runs cryin’ to Mommy. That ghost might just fix this! The lady’s bringin’ back hope.

“Keep goin’, doll. Teach the kid the real meanin’ of ‘playground’!”

The ghostly dame’s starin’ straight at Jack’s window now, lockin’ eyes with his hysterical mother across the road. That glare could stop a panzer, I swear. I love this woman.

She turns away, satisfied, vanishin’ through the kids like smoke. I’m givin’ her my best tremblin’ cigar salute, palsy and all. “You’re doin’ the Lord’s work, sister.”

Lemme tell ya, back in ’34 we used to tie two cats together by their tails and throw ‘em over a clothesline. We’d hoot, holler, and bet our shiniest marbles on which swingin’ cat would scratch the other’s eyeballs out. We’d set the survivor free and use the dead one as gator bait. Draw those toothy bastards out to wrestle ‘em, you see. Brought a dead one to my Pa one day - he was so proud of me he had a friend cure its hide and make an alligator knife sheath, and gave me a knife too! Nobody called this kind of thing “cruelty” back then. They called it “Tuesday.”

Jack’s ma is still havin’ conniptions. I shake my head, chucklin’. Kids today. One little shove and the whole village needs therapy. Gone are the days where Pa sent out ten-year-old chaps like myself to fight rabid raccoons with nothin’ but a slingshot and a mouthful of chew. There’s raisin’ a man, and then there’s… this modern thing where everybody cries over nothin’.

But the dame gets it. Tough love ain’t dead; it’s still hauntin’ the playground. I’m watchin’ and rootin’ for her. Go get ‘im!

The Dillon Empire: Simon Dillon on Substack

Short Story: Margaret Ursula Moore Part 1 of 5

Here's the first part of my spooky short story Margaret Ursula Moore. I’m serialising this over the next few weeks exclusively for paying Substack readers, but this part I’m making available for free, as an appetiser/transparent attempt at persuading more of you to support my literary endeavours at the titchy sum of $5 per month. For the full benefits o…

3 months ago · 6 likes · Simon Dillon

Guest Review by

Jenifer Jorgenson is a product manager by day, miserable about it by choice. She escapes the corporate grind by unleashing her twisted imagination through words, where she writes horror, sci-fi, magical realism, humor, and whatever other genre kicks down the door. She also pens essays full of cultural critique, societal snark, and the occasional righteous rant.

Jenifer’s review of Haunted Happenings by

There are two ways to handle a shared-world prompt like The Unquiet World: you can play it straight… or you can decide your house is now occupied by every historical era at once and let them fight over the appliances.

chooses chaos. And it’s absolutely the correct choice.

On the surface, The Haunted Happenings at Muckleby House sounds like it should be a one-joke premise — “haunted house, but extra” — and those usually burn out fast. This one doesn’t, refusing to ever tell the same joke twice. There are four stories so far, all special in their own way.

The first piece goes wide: full historical pile-up. Victorians, Romans, Vikings, monks, pirates, possibly a caveman who has opinions about the microwave. It’s fast, stacked, and just keeps throwing things at you until something sticks. Fortunately, most of it does. Like duct tape and questionable life choices... The Roomba getting labeled a barbarian threat is exactly the level of nonsense this series understands it needs.

Then it pivots.

The Lady of the Lavatory dials everything in and says, “What if instead of chaos, we just let one extremely dramatic Victorian woman ruin your life?” Elaine’s entitled, theatrical, and deeply committed to standards in a house that clearly abandoned such concerns centuries ago.

“You don’t even walk. You drift like perfume in an advert.” — That line alone earns her the right to haunt the bathroom forever.

Then the series shows off a little.

The Roman and the Roomba is the cleanest piece structurally, and possibly the strongest overall. It takes one idea — a Roman soldier declaring war on a robot vacuum — and commits to it with a discipline uncommon in comedy pieces. Everything feeds into the bit: Alexa becomes an oracle, the flapper starts calling him “Caesar Salad,” and somehow it all circles back to the same inevitable conclusion:

The Roomba is still winning.

As it should.

By the time you get to Brother of Breakfast Benedictions, the tone shifts again — quieter, a little warmer, and flat-out charming. Brother Aldwin is less “chaotic ghost problem” and more “politely judging your lifestyle and blessing your toaster.” His sincere and monkish response to Netflix asking if he’s still watching — “Indeed, we persevere” — is just a taste of the fun absurdity.

The series never gets stuck. It rotates: ensemble chaos, character spotlight, tightly built premise, softer character piece. Same setting, same voice, but different angles. That’s the difference between “what a funny concept” and “this is a series I keep returning to.”

If there’s a weak spot, it’s that the humor tends to live in the same general tone — consistently amused, a little snarky (speaking as someone who appreciates a good snark), very aware of itself. It works, but every now and then you can feel where it could push harder or sharper. A few sections could also stand to be trimmed to make the best jokes hit faster.

Overall this is exactly what readers want from a humor series: it understands its premise, it plays with structure, and it very clearly knows when to get in, land the joke, and get out.

Also, and I feel like this needs to be said again:

The Roomba is still winning.

And frankly, at this point, it deserves the house.

The Haunted Happenings at Muckleby House: A House With Character

A House With Character…

7 months ago · 28 likes · 15 comments · Verdant Butterfly

The Haunted Happenings at Muckleby House: The Lady of the Lavatory

The Lady of the Lavatory…

7 months ago · 30 likes · 15 comments · Verdant Butterfly

The Haunted Happenings at Muckleby House: The Roman and the Roomba

The Roman and the Roomba…

7 months ago · 32 likes · 20 comments · Verdant Butterfly

The Haunted Happenings at Muckleby House: Brother of Breakfast Benedictions

Brother of Breakfast Benedictions…

6 months ago · 20 likes · 14 comments · Verdant Butterfly

Promoting Jenifer Jorgenson

Jenifer Jorgenson is a product manager by day and a writer to stay sane. Her fiction ranges from horror and sci-fi to magical realism and dark humor — often blending genres depending on how the idea unfolds. Her essays focus on cultural critique, societal dysfunction, and the kind of snarky commentary that tends to make people either nod… or get a little uncomfortable.

DREAD Reviews 51 - Get Paid & Get Featured!

Derek James Kritzberg — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 07:02:51 GMT

DREAD 49 | ⚔️DREAD 50⚔️ | DREAD 51 | DREAD 52 | DREAD 53

Learn more about it HERE.

Results of the illness poll - the people decided 51 releases today in its current state!

The ceiling does the cha-cha again, dear Substack pilgrims, and I - the damp ringmaster of DREAD Reviews - type this next manifesto from a sweat-filled trenches of a fever that selects my skull for its all-night rave. Neck-straining pillows and chill banished blankets surround me - a flu foxhole. It proves a paltry defense against the bombardment brought forth by those wretched DNA minions I call my children. Even now they scoff: “Play time waits for no man.”

Hello, my lovable weirdos of fact and fiction. It is I, Derek, presently unhinged, presently awake at whatever ungodly hour this is - wait, did I introduce myself already? Anyway, here I politely satirize and not so politely celebrate the absolute chaos that is our little corner of the internet. Be it a time of peace, or a time when my body wages total war upon itself, I write, write, write, until that dreaded “Post too long for email” banner appears. Then I write some more.

This week, the universe handed me a triple combo special: in addition to illness, I’ve also reached 42.08 miles of running refereeing soccer games (that’s 67.72 kilometers for those of you who live in countries which are neither morbidly obese nor have landed men on the moon). The weather seemed personally offended by my existence, and each night I came home variably drenched in icy rains or slathered in sunblock. And worse, I also returned each day to a household hostage situation starring my almost-five-year-old boy, the Tiny Overlord.

I’m out there blowing whistles, flashing cards at naughty nubiles running over green grasses, and logging distances like some deranged marathon monk (all while my immune system files for divorce). Back at the ranch, the Tiny Overlord launches a full-scale rebellion worthy of its own DREAD Review.

His mighty coin collection has been seized by parental SWAT edict. The little man Everest-ed the fridge and raided the treasure trove up top, then attempted to launder the loot into his bank (I’m raising some kind of Wall Street wolf, apparently). Toy trucks and cars, confiscated after he deployed them as weapons of mass destruction against his innocent sister. TV, likewise revoked. All electronics now lie sealed in a vault tighter and deeper than a paywalled Substack post.

Little Dictator now suffers under a house-wide fun embargo (he still has his Brio train set - we’ll only target such vital infrastructure as a last resort). Absent toys, Mom and Dad just got promoted to full-time zookeepers. Without a raise in salary, hazard pay, or the luxury of tranquilizer darts.

Pint Prometheus now works on an Official Gold Star Redemption Chart, a masterpiece of optimistic Mamacracy taped to the fridge (replacing the sorely outdated and of questionable effectiveness Magna Carta). One star for “inside voice.” One star for “not launching breakfast at escape velocity.” Twelve stars and maybe - just maybe - he can get his Hot Wheels collection returned. He’s currently sitting at six stars and rising.

💰 Speaking of stars 💰

But wait - pause the tiny tyrant’s redemption arc, because DREAD Reviews has a shiny new promotional slot! Oh man, this one has me cackling into my damp pillow.

Are you a tipper or a subscriber to other people’s Substack genius? DREAD Reviews is now officially open for Paid Content Nominations. Here’s the drill, delivered straight from my spinning brain:

You tip or subscribe to some other Substack author - any genre, any writer, just not me, (because the universe clearly hates my wallet).

You nominate their paid-subscriber-exclusive piece - the one hiding behind the paywall like a beautiful, unhinged secret.

I, in my infinite delirium and questionable judgment, pick from the pile and give it the full DREAD Reviews treatment: polite satire, loving celebration, the works.

The glorious part is not one red cent of this money flows my way. None. Zip. The tips, the subs, the sweet subscriber dollars - all march straight to the nominated author. It’s like I’m wearing an invisible “do not feed the bears” sign. Yup, the cash parade sashays right past my door. I could have bought soup that doesn’t taste like defeat, or, wild concept, a babysitter so I could sleep. No, I’m not bitter, thanks for asking (remember to delete this fever rant later, Derek).

DREAD Reviews has always been the friendly neighborhood spotlight for everything - the poor and overlooked, the audaciously successful, and the deliciously strange. We’ve celebrated the laugh-until-you-snort writers, the stare-at-the-wall-and-question-existence crowd, and those who politely invite you to lose your mind in the best way possible. I hope this new feature inspires more cash to flow to the authors, for coins to clink and echo in vast and empty vaults, and, perhaps, more beauty and madness.

Nominate boldly. Nominate often. Nominate the piece that makes you whisper, “This should be eviscerated… lovingly.”

I find myself praying to the ceiling again. Perhaps it will stop its interpretive dance. If you’re reading this and thinking, “This man needs a nap, a doctor, perhaps a handler,” you are correct on all counts. But, fever or not, DREAD Reviews keeps rolling.

Tales from the Burning Bear

Holy Crap Explained

“Holy crap!” That’s how the story FBI: Holy Crap! begins and ends.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great story. But come on!

Since Steve isn’t telling us why our protagonist Gabby shouts this, I came up with a list of possibilities on my own:

The entire eighth floor is just one giant Substack comment section come to life, Matrix style. Gabby enters a dimension containing thousands of dusty leather-bound books filled with endless, nested reply threads. There are floating corpses at desks wearing name tags like: “AnonCritic69.” They’ve all been ratio’d into undeath and are still typing things like “this, but unironically” with their skeletal fingers.
Gabby sees Steve Kelsey himself, mid-sentence, furiously typing the next installment of her story on an old-fashioned typewriter. Steve looks up, slack-jawed and hollow-eyed, and deadpans: “Subscribe for free to receive new posts.” Then he pulls the carriage return lever and starts the same paragraph over again, resetting Gabby’s journey.
Gabby encounters a print pyramid of unread subscriber emails stacked to the ceiling, each one labeled “URGENT: Your story changed my life but I can’t afford paid.” The top email is from Gabby’s own boss: “Why aren’t you billing overtime for this paranormal beat yet?”
The Queen of Sheba is in there. Sheba is a little Chihuahua, but also a burnout indie author whose paid tier is called “Sheba’s Secret Stash” ($9.99/mo for exclusive hot takes on fae IRS audits). She wears a paper crown made of discarded rough drafts and rejection letters and sips from a mug labeled “World’s Okayest Magi.”
Gabby confronts her reflection in a spacetime mirror. Her other self is not an agent, but a bestselling Substack author, a title she proudly wears on an embroidered sash. Reflection-Gabby turns her laptop and shows her dashboard - 50k paid subs and an unfinished draft of her article version of the TED Talk she just gave (how climbing impossible stairs is a metaphor for consistent posting schedule). Gabby screams as her dimensional doppelganger monetizes agent Gabby’s trauma in real time.
Gabby enters a void containing a single glowing button labeled “Upgrade to Paid.” She tries everything she can to escape the room, but there’s no floor, no door, no windows, just this button floating in the center of the room. With no other choice given, Gabby touches it. Confetti explodes and a voice booms “Congratulations! You’ve unlocked the bonus chapter where -” Gabby doesn’t hear the rest of it because in the throes of her trauma she immediately unsubscribes.
The Burning Bear has somehow manifested inside the office. A literal bear, running a bar, its shaggy fur billowing smoke. Seated before him is every weird patron from the series so far, all nursing drinks. Tink’s deep into her fourth fruity pink cocktail, Baal-Bardo is complaining about the fae tax code, Bill’s seated next to whisky on the rocks furiously flipping through a notebook full of crime stats, and the jukebox plays “Never Gonna Give You Up.” Gabby realizes she’s been rickrolled - forever.

FBI: Holy Crap!

Special Agent GodammitGabby stands at the bottom of the impossible stairs. They look old. Colonial-old. Like a gothic horror prop from some Hollywood slasher set has been moved to New York. There are these tiny holes in the wood, which is grey and fragile with a surface like old bone. The steps have deep cracks in them, and there are little piles of dus…

3 months ago · 7 likes · 6 comments · Steve Kelsey

Day of the Distracted Dad

My days look chaotic from the outside. Coffee spills over the keyboard, kids screeching, the faint whiff of burnt toast clashing with a dirty diaper. But in truth, my days orbit a single fixed point: 12:30 P.M., when I pick up my kid from preschool. Everything before that is a provisional mess. Every hour justifies itself against the ticking clock of parental guilt. However the morning unfolds - good reviews, tangential rants, distractions like scrolling Substack until my eyes bleed - the day resolves in the same place at the same time: the school gate, where reality snaps back like a rubber band of Sartrean nausea.

(Ah, but in this rewrite, am I not deconstructing Eldon’s original orbit? His Hanoi is my suburban hell - time isn’t a fixed point; it’s a Heideggerian thrownness into being, where picking up the kid is the ultimate Dasein reveal. What if this whole routine is just a simulation, Baudrillard-style, and my son is the hyperreal glitch in the matrix?)

So I try to escape the house early. If I stay inside too long, the hours dissolve into suspended distraction, thinking about satirizing instead of actually satirizing. My neighborhood solves that problem quickly - it doesn't allow abstraction. You step outside, and the result is instant - senses struck by a Nietzschean hammer.

I sometimes plop down at a hotel diner with scuffed synthetic leather booths, safe from the loud downtown sidewalks. Traffic roars by in endless waves of mom minivans and dad delivery trucks. Yoga-pants-women in their 60s balance exercise with boredom like Sisyphus with his eternal rock. A Hispanic janitor hunkers down in the restroom, mop splayed open like a dissected Kantian categorical imperative. Across the street, power lines tangle like the rhizomes of Deleuze and Guattari, sagging in chaotic arcs that mock any illusion of order.

If you sit still long enough, you realize suburbia is made entirely of horror snapshots waiting to unfold - each moment composing itself into a frame of quiet, looming dread.

A crooked yoga mat laid out just wrong. The slump of a cargo driver who doom-scrolled too long last night. A landscaper pruning public bushes with the focused intensity of a painter - or a serial killer arranging their next victim. Condensation dripping down an iced latte in lazy trails, like tears from Schopenhauer’s The World as Will And Representation. A guy vaping while swerving one-handed, a toddler zonked out half-buckled in their child seat, an Amazon driver with stacks of boxes teetering like Jenga towers of capitalist alienation.

The eye resets in a place like this, while the mind spirals into phenomenological overload.

I celebrate authors on Substack in tasteless bursts between these visions. One blurb, then another. Short, cheeky notes meant to advertise lengthen to adversarial rants. Snippets of mirrored fiction that might rot in my drafts. The work lurches forward in fragments, built slowly, slower than the sprout of new apartment complexes - one shoddy, gray, modern addition at a time, scaffolding clinging like the bones of some Lovecraftian elder god.

(Eldon’s Hanoi frames, the perfect mirror into my suburban eldritch horrors. But wait -in this rewrite do I not invoke Barthes’ death of the author? In killing Brock’s narrative and resurrecting it as my distracted dad schtick, do I not also accidentally slay this brilliant writer as well?

A minivan screeches by, and I’m reminded of Husserl's epoché. This silver Odyssey tears past, tires squealing, brakes protesting, mom in the driver’s seat screeching like a banshee in labor. Her children’s faces smoosh the windows, pancakes framed by the fractal expansion of their skinny limbs. I do not deny that the minivan exists, that it is a dangerous multi-ton machine that might topple and kill me, no. I assume the stance of radical neutrality - this is but a gleaming metallic mass. The brakes are not bad, but a raw sound event invading my auditory field. With a whoosh of displaced air carrying the faint whiff of McDonald’s fries, I see not my demise, but blurred streaks of color - red backpack straps, a yellow “Baby on Board” sign, flapping, my bodily tension and the uptick in my heart rate, and even my death, narrowly missed, a simple horizon open then snapping shut.

What was I talking about, again?

Anyway, recently, though, the vibe around Substack has shifted for me.

A few weeks back, I sparked a spat in direct messages. Nothing epic - just a distracted dad moment where some authors had some things to say about other authors and everyone agreed to disagree and moved on. I realized, then, that sometimes I type more snark than sense. The incident should’ve faded like most online beefs: a fleeting intake of breath and stress, gone by dawn.

Instead, a fellow forces dramatic introspection. No harm done; we’ll work together again in the future. But Substack has this way of flattening souls. Context evaporates. Wayne Booth whispers that the page-author ain’t the real you. Substack nukes that gap. An editorial decision becomes your essence. As a writer and a writer about writing about writers, I thrive on that split: my rants are constructs, not my whole chaotic self (in fact I’ve drafted a meta-rant about it - one restoring the farce - and I'll drop it soon. But for now, zip it).

Since then, I question what DREAD Reviews means for me.

I still chase serials, poems, essays, and shorts. Reading Substack’s real works demands a slower pulse than the normal post and react-loop. A good story brews over months, not the dopamine hits of likes and restacks of a meme pinning today’s mass-hallucination with a spotlight. When DREAD Reviews hits the feed, it risks mutating: clown show over contemplation.

I guess I’m “surprisingly” controversial. For dad reasons.

I’m a reviewer and freelance chaos-wrangler by day. Google me, find blurbs galore from spots out of order like obscure horror stacks. Living in America makes it weirder. I’ve watched culture weaponize theory into dogma. Trigger warnings, echo chambers, the sly notion that words need policing for group harmony. America feels like a land where dads must measure their rants carefully, doling out puns and other masculine urges with measuring cups. I’ve learned this the hard way - subs dropping, chats turning awkward, peers ghosting. No drama, just the walls falling like stage curtains to reveal a Foucauldian panopticon.

Suburbia, contrastingly, turns me pragmatic. Life here’s no utopia blueprint. It’s raw: day by day, jumpstarting minivans, raising blonde hellions, grilling burgers, dry aiming 9mms at small black bears sizing up your children. Societies endure via grunt work, not ivory tower manifestos.

But my takes are simpler than folks think - echoing my old man’s wisdom. He once quizzed me on U.S. presidents. I named a handful: Washington, Lincoln, Teddy, maybe Reagan. He smirked, then delivered that line that still haunts family dinners: “All the ones you blanked on are the real heroes. The ones who built a bridge or balanced a checkbook without a parade or a scandal. If I ever pursued a leadership role in this country, my platform would run on one word: ‘Meh.’”

Pure gold, wiser than any mic drop on Twitter (or X, or Bluesky, whatever social media war poison you imbibe).

Truth: I don’t fit neatly into any camp. I’m just the guy who reads way too much Substack while half-watching my kids eat Cheerios off the floor. I care about the writing that actually lands a punch or delivers a chill, but DREAD Reviews is mostly me playing distracted dad detective: sniffing out the creeping dread in a sentence, calling out the rot before the algorithm turns it into wholesome memes or viral slop, and then yelling “Do you see this glorious mess? Well, do you see it?”

I see everything through a pointless narrative lens, the same one that turns a preschool pickup into high drama. Every post arrives wrapped in competing plots: heroes, villains, redemptions, rug-pulls. Institutions script their own origin myths. Politics is just serialized dread with worse pacing.

DREAD Reviews, at its best, chases the least false version of the story. Surprisingly, I find more truth in fiction than nonfiction - I suppose when you’re made of something less material, it’s easier to slip through walls to poke at the machinery inside.

My quiet ambition for DREAD Reviews in 2026 is to prove that knowing how the gears turn doesn’t kill the fun. It deepens the joke. Once you see the scaffolding, every rant and blurb gets richer, like a dad suddenly hearing the harmony in his kid’s off-key screaming.

When I hunch over my laptop drafting a takedown of some haunted-minivan novella, all those dead theorists crowd in: the unreliable narrator realizing too late, the temporal gaps where dread festers, the reader stitching the abyss together frame by frame. Theory isn’t academic here; it’s the rebar keeping the whole rickety thing standing.

That’s also why I stay weirdly optimistic amid the suburban apocalypse.

Western feeds scream collapse. But sit here long enough and you watch small miracles: a new playground where the old one rusted, families trading debt for soccer cleats, kids outgrowing last year’s shoes and getting shiny new ones that light up. Progress isn’t theory; it’s pattern - faster Wi-Fi, fresher coffee, cranes and excavators clawing up tomorrow’s live and work spaces.

Afternoon light softens. Parents gather like extras in a slow-burn horror. Grills smoke. I close the laptop and walk the familiar route - same minivans, same tangled lines, same crooked mats. Urgency gone. Work’s done, flop or not.

At the gate by 12:30, doors fly open. Kids spill out in joyful chaos. My son spots me, grins huge, sprints over.

Day collapses into the simplest arc: mess, wait, reunion. The tiniest story - but the only one that matters.

Tomorrow I’ll sit again, watch suburbia frame its quiet horrors, and the distracted cycle will continue.

Null Point

Day of the Constant Writer

3 months ago · 26 likes · 5 comments · Brock Eldon

The Bicameral Lawn Party

The backyard hums with the sizzle of burgers and the low buzz of LED flames. In the center of the lawn stands the Burning Bush: a three-foot fake shrub rigged with red-orange strips flickering like divine wrath on a budget.

Partygoers in cargo shorts and ironic “I AM” T-shirts mill in the yard, clutching red Solo cups, speaking exclusively in commandments.

Chad, the host, stands beside the Burning Bush in a white robe fashioned from an old bedsheet. He holds up a spatula like a scepter. “Thou shalt flip the patties!” he bellows at no one in particular. All present nod solemnly - the rule is ironclad: speak like a bronze-aged person, and attribute every choice to the Voice.

Sarah, balancing a tray of deviled eggs, approaches the grill. “Thou shalt hand me the mustard!” she declares to Mike, who is mid-bite of a hot dog.

Mike freezes, bun halfway to his mouth. The group waits. He blinks.

“Uh…”

“Firmware update required!” the chorus roars.

Chad points dramatically at the LEDs, which obligingly strobe faster (he rubs his thumb on a remote under his robes).

Mike flinches as if struck by enlightenment, then snatches the mustard bottle. He thrusts it forward: “Thou shalt receive thy condiment!”

Sarah accepts it with a reverent nod. “The Voice hath spoken.”

Plates fill. Burgers sizzle. Someone’s kid, dressed as a tiny shepherd, keeps trying to pet the Burning Bush until his mother hisses, “Thou shalt not touch the sacred hardware!” The boy retreats, wide-eyed, convinced the shrub might actually smite him.

Chad raises his red Solo cup of lemonade. “Hearken, O ye grill-masters and bun-bearers! We toast Moses, the original IT guy, who debugged the bicameral server farm and finally assigned humanity its own IP address!”

Everyone lifts their drinks, zombie-like stares masking barely-restrained giggles. “Static IPs for all!” They clink cups and chant, “I AM! I AM! I AM!” in perfect sync, then dissolve into laughter when Greg loses his grip on his cup.

Greg is dripping wet. “Thou shalt not spill,” he apologizes over laughter.

The burgers and ribs vanish. Someone brings out s’mores ingredients and announces, “Thou shalt impale marshmallows upon the rod of roasting!” Sticks wave like tiny spears. The LEDs keep pulsing, bathing everyone in an otherworldly, biblical glow.

But the sky rumbles. A fat drop lands on Jen’s forehead. Another plops into Dave’s beer. Within seconds, it’s a proper downpour. Everyone freezes, looking skyward like gobbling turkeys expecting a follow-up verse.

Chad spreads his arms. “Behold! The Voice commandeth: Thou shalt retreat to the house of drywall and laminate!”

“Thou shalt obey the precipitation protocol!” Sarah adds, already sprinting.

The party guests hustle inside, dripping and laughing. Greg is relieved he’s no longer an outlier as all shed drenched socks and shoes.

Chad herds them into the living room, where three folding tables wait, each marked with a Sharpie sign: Team Aaron, Team Miriam, Team Korah.

“The Voice hath spoken,” Chad intones. “Three tribes. Thou shalt divide!”

Once seated, randomly chosen team leaders draw sealed envelopes from a ceramic bowl shaped like the Ark of the Covenant (one of many Etsy purchases made for tonight). Inside each: a task card with the secret objective the team must complete before the night ends. The catch: leaders can only communicate via “Thou shalt not” hints. No visual guiding, no direct words, only biblical commandments.

Team Aaron’s leader, Priya, reads her card silently, smirks, then turns to her teammates.

“Thou shalt not sit still.”

They stare in confusion.

“Thou shalt not remain silent.”

Some murmurs. Someone tries humming.

Priya shakes her head. “Thou shalt not use thy hands for eating.”

Greg stands up and starts breakdancing on the carpet. The room erupts in laughter.

“Thou shalt not moonwalk!” Priya snaps.

Greg freezes mid-spin. After ten minutes of increasingly absurd prohibitions - “Thou shalt not blink more than thrice per minute,” “Thou shalt not breathe through thy nose” - the team amazingly deduces the goal: perform an interpretive dance of the parting of the Red Sea using only kitchen utensils. Greg grabs a spatula and a whisk; chaos ensues.

Team Miriam’s card is trickier. Their leader whispers, “Thou shalt not laugh.” Everyone immediately cracks up. “Thou shalt not smile.” Worse. “Thou shalt not look at one another.” They all stare at the ceiling like they’ve been struck blind. It takes twenty minutes to figure out they must build the tower of Babel with Solo cups without speaking to one another. The stack reaches eight cups before Dave snorts and the tower collapses in an avalanche of plastic.

Team Korah’s leader, Marcus, slits open their envelope with theatrical flair. His eyes widen behind his fogged-up glasses and he clears his throat: “Thou shalt not stand on two feet.”

The team blinks in unison. Becca immediately drops to her knees like she’s proposing to the carpet.

“Thou shalt not use thy voice above a whisper,” Marcus adds.

Whispers ripple.

Someone tries to ask a question; Marcus cuts in: “Thou shalt not form complete sentences.”

The prohibitions pile up like bad commits: “Thou shalt not touch anything with thy left hand.” “Thou shalt not look upward.” “Thou shalt not smile with teeth showing.” Within minutes the team resembles a group of malfunctioning animatronics - crawling sideways, squinting at the floor, communicating in grunts and single syllables, arms pinned awkwardly to their sides. Marcus, frustrated, struggles with his instructions a solid five minutes. Becca finally rolls across the living room and picks up a potato chip from a bowl using just her teeth.

“Thou shalt not abandon thy team leader to hunger!”

That’s when it clicks: the secret task is to cross the living room and retrieve potato chips from the coffee table bowl without ever standing upright, speaking normally, or using more than one limb at a time. The team army-crawls like wounded commandos, one elbow-drag at a time, while the rest of the party howls. The team soon deposits potato chips at Marcus’s feet like a pack of golden retrievers. Victory. The room erupts in applause.

“Thou shalt accept thy greasy sacrament!” Marcus declares, and they all high-five from the floor with their right hands only.

By midnight the rain has eased, the Burning Bush LEDs dimmed to a soft ember glow visible through the sliding glass door. The living room is a sprawl of exhausted bodies -some still half-crawling from Team Korah’s ordeal, others nursing bruised egos from collapsed Solo-cup towers - yet the air still crackles with leftover commandments and laughter.

Chad climbs onto a sturdy ottoman, robe now askew and damp at the hem, and raises both arms with an orator’s noble grace: “Hearken, O ye weary tribes! The Voice hath declared the hour of true emancipation! Behold, the final protocol: Free Will Shots! Thou shalt choose thy poison - whiskey, tequila, or the mysterious clear liquid labeled ‘Manna’ - and drink only after declaring thy own commandment aloud. From hereon, I AM taketh the wheel!”

Chad hops down and pushes out trays of shot glasses. “Thou mayest sip, thou mayest slam, thou mayest invent new sins on the spot - and all must heed the command!”

Party guests cackle and rub their hands together in nefarious glee. This firmware update is about to get interesting!

C.T. Drenth

The Jesus Protocol and the Bicameral Paradigm

Book I Chapter One: The Mechanical Architecture of the Pre-Conscious Mind…

3 months ago · 7 likes · 1 comment · C.T. Drenth

A Shorted Circuit Brain

Numetal song performed by Mike Shinoda & the ghost of Chester Bennington

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

[Intro – glitch SFX, mad clicking mouse]
click click tik tik tik… wait-wait-wait-

[Verse 1 - rap, fast & breathless]
Yo, smile plastered, lips on lockdown,
Treated a stranger like royalty, what now?
Signs screamin' red but I'm wired blind,
Too nice syndrome got me losin' my mind.
Click in my ear brain fryin' like toast,
Anxiety spreadin' I'm the ghost host.
Seconds tick by, coulda said "no way,"
But nah, I froze, classic fawn display!

[Pre-Chorus – building guitars]
Wait--
Wait--
Why do I--
CARE?!

[Chorus - huge melodic, Chester-style belts + harmonies]
To hell with you! (To hell!)
To hell with polite when I’m terrified! (Screw that!)
To hell with shrinkin' down, playin' small!
I'm done makin' space for your bull████ at all!
You’re not "just nice," bro, you’re socially illiterate!
I'm short-circuited - glitchin' - but now I'm sick of it!
(Yeah!) To hell! To hell! To HELL with YOU!

[Verse 2 – rap, more aggressive/sarcastic]
Oh, you crossed the line, obliterated my space,
Went all over me like I'm your personal chase.
Upside down world, I'm wired to bow low,
While you skate free - consequence? Zee-ro!
Lackin' social skill, entitlement on blast,
I'm tired of bendin' over for yo ass.
You don't deserve my benevolence, fact -
Drop the fake smile and torch the nice guy act.

[Bridge – slow, glitchy breakdown, distorted vocals]
I think… I think I am… changing…
Into what? Don't know… don't know…
Glitch - glitch - will you stay anyway?
(or nah…? no? okay.)
[build to scream] SCREW THE MASK! LET IT CRASH!

[Final Chorus – layered, chaotic]
To hell with you! (Louder!)
To hell with the dread that shuts my mouth!
Short-circuited brain - reboot, freak out!
I'm done failin' on cue - new mode: rage route!
(Yeah!) To hell! To hell!
[Fade out to frantic mouse clicking]

Short Circuited Brain 1

Short Circuited Brain 2

The Tainted Gardens

short circuited brain [part 1]

click click click what is this noise? why is it thrumming in my ear? tell me, can you hear it too? i stand right here with my lips tucked to a smile but i bet you didn't see bet you try not to believe it isn't true shame all over i was again too nice treated a stranger kindly ignored the signs so blindly somehow i always do tik tik tik the time has p…

6 months ago · 10 likes · 4 comments · Johanna C. Eschwald

The Price of Therapy

Inserts by The Narrator ()

Part I

After Nick abruptly leaves the coffee shop with Lily upon noticing her rings, feeling a vague unease:

“Oh, and before you ask, yes, Jay’s coming to the party.”
I suspect on some level she knew already, but that didn’t stop the elation from swelling up and pulling her shoulders back.

NARRATOR: Nick will later try to adopt a therapy dog, only to be rejected based on his answers to the multiple-choice psychological stability test.

Part II

Nick watching Lily’s gaze fix past him on the couch, entranced by Jay’s arrival rather than him:

I hadn’t the faintest idea the passionate fire I had started within her. And those flames weren’t meant for me.
“Ja-a-a-ay!”
I whipped my head towards the front door as Tony’s giddy laughter extended the name in syllabic bounces. All of us rose at once from the couch to greet the guest of honor.

NARRATOR: Nick will later try to adopt a therapy dog, only to be rejected - which is why he will then spend $2,300 on a VR headset custom-coded to simulate Jay’s ocular prowess, staring into virtual hazel devils until he begs them for forgiveness in iambic pentameter.

Part III

During a long reflection on Jay’s ocular prowess and its seductive mimicry problem:

His eyes made smooth but erratic swirls around the dining hall while this horrendously mischievous grin curled across his face, and at its full spread he looked at me and said, “So—you could say she’s out in the wild now, isn’t she?”
“I guess you could say that,” was all I said back, without much thought. And sure enough, he soon had yet another obsessive shadow clinging to his heels until she bored him.

NARRATOR: Nick will later try a VR headset, which renders his electrical bill almost unaffordable. He’ll then attempt a budget option - $1,400 on custom hazel contacts which frame his pupils as he moans “mi amor” into the mirror.

Nick excusing himself anxiously from the couch as Jay and Lily flirt over her Spain photos:

A horrible creep of anxiety lifted me from my seat and had me say something stupid: “I’m going for a drink.” They know I don’t drink, but were too lost in one another’s souls to call me on it.

NARRATOR: Nick will later try the custom hazel contacts, which slide around his eyeballs like wet marbles, giving him naught but pink-eye and more guilt. He will then pivot to converting his spare bedroom into a permanent Malagueña karaoke shrine - soundproofed with old marching-band posters, stocked with every version of the song in every key. He’ll lock himself inside for marathon sessions, belting until his voice cracks and the neighbors file noise complaints. The complaints will culminate in a visit from his old marching band leader, now a professional exorcist.

Nick wanders the house in restless circles, the party’s thump-thump-thump pulsing like a second heartbeat:

His hand fell to his side in a lost, blissful limp, and with that my self-deception shattered. The green disco lights hovered and waved around him and gave him this mystical glow among the crowd.
“Jay!” But no one heard me scream. The music took my little note of despair and drowned it out.

NARRATOR: Nick will later try the Malagueña karaoke shrine, which earns him three police wellness checks and a lifetime ban from the local open-mic circuit. He will then build a full shrine to Lily’s dashboard rings in his living room - replicas sourced from shady online jewelers, mounted on black velvet under perpetual green disco LEDs. Every night he lights a single candle, burns Polaroids of the old drumline, and whispers “What stays in Melbourne?” until the smoke alarm shrieks and his landlord threatens eviction.

Part IV

Angela’s gentle rejection leaves him frozen on the dance floor:

That was it. That was all of my closest brush with the past.
I stood frozen and stared after her. I had a cool, sick knot in my stomach, and my breathing hastened into puffs from the anxious sexual frustration.

NARRATOR: Nick’s failure with the ring shrine will trigger his smoke detector so often the fire department threatens to charge him for false alarms. He’ll try constructing a life-size cardboard-and-duct-tape replica of Tony’s mom’s bathroom in his apartment’s living room. He will move in permanently, sitting on the porcelain throne (non-functional), and holding one-sided conversations with the ghost of the star stickers taped to the floor. He’ll occasionally flush imaginary evidence while muttering that passive observation is a deadly sin.

Nick spots the trampled star stickers in the bathroom and realizes the full horror of what’s happened:

The lack of any settlement threw me into a panic, and the buzzing and the thumping shielded my screams from escape… In a fury I had never known, I wrested my cap from my head, and my frustrated cries chased the cap as I slammed it onto the floor.

NARRATOR: Nick will later try the bathroom replica hermitage, which violates every clause of his lease and gets him served an eviction notice (one taped to the cardboard door, another to his actual door he hasn’t opened in days). He’ll next found the Church of the Riptide Eye - a one-man cult dedicated to hypnotic passive staring and non intervention. He’ll write a manifesto titled “The Pupil’s Prayer,” recruiting exactly zero followers, ultimately excommunicating himself after failing to pay attention to his own sermons.

Lily’s euphoric, post-bathroom hug and Freudian slip on the dance floor:

“Oh, babe, yes she does. Trust me, I’m a girl, I know these things.” Then she poked my chest with every word as she drew closer to my lips: “She—wants—you—bad, Jay.”
More than the Freudian slip, what worsened my distress was something else that froze me with heart hammering at the confirmation: I could smell him on her breath.

NARRATOR: Nick will be banished from the church he founded, voting himself out for lack of charisma. He will then commission a custom arcade cabinet shaped like Jay’s dark-blue sedan - hydraulic rocking synced to muffled moans included. Since his eviction, it will double as his living space - and he will be forced to jury rig an illegal power line tap. This tap will trigger the breaker box, plunging his old apartment complex into darkness.

Headlights catch the rocking car:

When I passed by, my lights ate away at the dense darkness and revealed the back end of a blue car, wobbling wildly with the wind—
Or so I thought, until my deflective naivete faltered and, with a great lump in my throat, it dawned on me that the rocking car—was Jay’s.
I slammed the car door closed and tears leaked from me in quiet, meandering streams. I sat there with the car off for quite a while to let them gush out, as it was the only thing I could do.

NARRATOR: Nick will panic in the rocking-car arcade cabinet when the police arrive, which will cause him to flail about and electrocute himself via exploding toaster. At this point, I, the narrator, will take pity upon poor Nick, retiring our peering into his future. Trust me, it only gets worse.

Analog Stories

[Novella]: "In the Wake of Dreams" - Part I

This is Part I of 5 for this novella. For a blurb and table of contents, see this post here…

4 months ago · 15 likes · 6 comments · Ricardo José Romeu

This issue’s top spot is down here in the warm fuzzy glow of a six-pack in an abandoned murder house.

104 Degree Fever Review of THE RITUAL

“Darkness hung obsidian over the town: a silent, insidious haunting.” Rats scurry in the sewers, agitated by something evil in the heavy night air. Up at Griffin Hall the mother finishes murdering her husband and children, then strips naked for the camera. She kneels, breathing through her flaring nostrils, chanting in a strange tongue. She picks up the knife and does the satanic suicide bit.

The Plot Police crash through the wall, badges flashing, guns out: “This is the Plot Police! Put the snuff down!” You see, this is only the prologue. Blair suffers a ticket for gore gouging - authorities confirm that not one main character has yet been introduced. The Plot Police refuse to confirm or deny rumors they are fans of the story.

Chapter 1 hits. The four boys - Cost, Tost, Lexa, Robot, and Yarn (wait that was five? It’s supposed to be four, but no matter) - sneak into the murder house for beer. They call it their secret order. I call it illegal underage drinking, but no one asked. The Teen Horniness Meter on the wall displays a quiet at 23% - until A.J. Tyler walks in, beautiful and committed. The Teen Horniness Meter needle jumps instantly. The boys talk college and “new blood” recruits. The Small-Town Drama Thermometer flickers green.

Chapter 2 erupts. The house is suddenly fixed, crates with air holes stacked, shelves full of books titled Liturgies of Transmigrations. The Trope-o-Sphere Meter spins wild, crashing back and forth between “Haunted House Invasion” and “Demonic Newcomers” The boys, Cotts, Reboot, Xael, Rotor, and Dray, flee, because they’re afraid of science.

Barber Bennie eats with the Malbournes, gets a free cut, then dies. Coincidence? I think not. The Plot Police are on speed dial, coffee in hand. “Suspicious death in Chapter 2? We’re watching you,” one records in their notebook. “One more coincidence and we’re bringing in a Federal MacGuffin Consultant.”

Chapter 3 cranks. Mrs. Malbourne opens “Hair It Is.” Her dark eyes suck you in. Scort, Ta, Robandy, - could be any of them - sits in the chair. The Teen Horniness Meter screams profanity on the wall. Every boy in town suddenly needs a trim. Mrs. Malbourne could sell style to the bald with her haircut game.

Hottie A.J. quits the diner with a dramatic speech. The boys still haven’t opened the crates. The Teen-Boner Escalation Gauge glows red, spitting sparks and smoke.

Chapter 4 drips, goopy. The town, June 30th - daytime. Creepy. Gareth Malbourne broods in his study, migraines courtesy of his caged inner beast. “Let me out!” it screams. He blacks out. Another meter beeps - we’re tired and skip the readout this time.

Across town Goddess Lucy Malbourne runs the salon. She tells A.J., “Well. Shall we make you pretty for the dance?” A.J. gets ye haunted glowup. One of the phonetic teen boy souplings, Scot, Torero, Lexa, Robot, Darn, or Yard sits sketching and the eyes on the page stare back - it isn’t a cartoon, it’s a realistic pair of eyes looking up at him. They’re just eyes, but there’s something odd. They’re unsettling. He thinks, “This is weird. I’ve seen them before!” The other boy, Aelx, Tosc, Borer, or was it Yarn, remembers Lucy saying “Very handsome” and the Teen Horniness Meter needle pings free and cracks the glass. Teen boys, a.k.a. Octs, Xela, Retro, and Ardyn, get hardons just thinking about it.

The Prologue Gore vs Current Wholesome Ratio Calculator spins and shorts, then coughs blood. The Plot Police don sunglasses in the dark. “We’re at the perimeter, prepared to arrest this Blair fellow, the author. But a federal judge has filed an Emergency Boner Injunction.” The Plot Police hold position, knowing full well the carnage that is coming.

By Chapter 5 or 6 the boys might enter the federal teen-horror witness identity scramble program. Their new call signs might be Sralex, Cotberto, Randox, and Ty. That, or their names will change to something starting with ‘Victim’ and ending in ‘1 through 4’.

65% coming-of-age dramedy and 35% imminent blood rain, and 100% roll your eyes but hit subscribe anyway. The Trope-o-Sphere Meter remains stable, glowing, radioactive. The IKEA branded paper tray demands more - much more. This is not nearly enough, the tray still has room. The meters agree.

The ancient evil still naps and the horniness needle’s climb is subtle.

We are watching. The Ritual is watching back.

This is a serial with a Table of Contents.

Gregory Blair - Scribbling Entertainment

THE RITUAL: Prologue

Welcome to The Ritual. While the bulk of this tale leans heavily into mystery and suspense, this beginning section is a bit more, shall we say, visceral…

5 months ago · 34 likes · 10 comments · Gregory Blair

And now for a tiny bit of self-promotion - Chains of a Demigod.

Last time, our freshly-metal heroes clawed out of literal hell-factories, puked glowing coolant, fled a scene like the Walking Dead except robots, and stole a shuttle out of a shattered ringworld.

Well, that’s the easy part over.

From medieval gallantry, to body-horror escape, to awkward dinner party, in 13 chapters flat. If you think you know what’ll happen next, you’re better informed than me!

Guest Review by

Dearest and most devoted DREAD readers, I thank you for the chance to give this guest review. I am but a humble mountain man sitting by his fireplace and scribbling with his keyboard, but apparently, I scribble well enough to have won some honors such as two honorable mentions from the Writers of the Future Contest. One for a story called Limitless Source that I wrote about wizards ending realities to solve an energy crisis, and a second called The Morbid Tales of Isaac Ashemore about a necromancer who could think of no better use for his gift than getting high-profile podcast guests. I also proudly placed in the second round of the Austin Film Festival for my script To Kill a God about a single father who snaps after his kid’s mom dies and decides to kick their god’s ass and steal her back.

’ review of ’s Beyond the Edge of Time

I give that outrageous puff-piece of a bio, not to brag about my modest accomplishments nor my “piles” of accolades, but to lend every ounce of credibility possible to a review of Beyond the Edge of Time - Prologue by Evie. Because it is that good and I want you to know it.

Listen, every good beginning evokes a feeling. It must! If it didn’t, you wouldn’t keep reading. So, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, the competition to make the sharpest hook has become an art in itself. More and more often readers meet the protagonist in the midst of a conflict - Can I leave my infant daughter to stop that asteroid hurtling toward Houston? Or it starts with a comedic mistake, like rear-ending a cop while eating and texting last weekend’s hookup. These hooks we’re conditioned to expect.

But thanks to Beyond the Edge of Time, I’m reminded that you can grab a reader’s attention without setting off bombs, literal or figurative.

Evie’s Beyond the Edge of Time reminds me of a quality slow-cooked meal or the quietly building movie intros common to the seventies. Instead of a hook in the cheek, Evie brings her reader into a quiet moment of grief. The protagonist Aria’s inner world comes to reflect the vast starry void into which she peers. Then, with the musicality evocative of a poet, Evie plants the seeds of loss and mystery with flowing silken prose. I’m head-over-heels for Aria and the grief she can’t escape even in the nameless place between stars.

As I sit with Aria, Evie masterfully reveals her dreams and scars through glimpsed memories and daydreams. All visions are tied to the lonely planet Nox Verum and its cold, unkind stars spinning outside the window. Evie’s poetic prose in this spacefaring tale leaves you begging to know more, to feel more. Fortunately, chapter one is already available. You better get it before it’s gone!

Intergalactic Reverie

Beyond the Edge of Time — Prologue

[ .00 …

2 years ago · 13 likes · 4 comments · Evie

Promoting

Oh, and while you’re at it, you should definitely check out one of my short stories, too.

That’s right, DREADsters, DREADlings, lords of DREAD! Time for the shameless plug!

I’ll set the stage, ok? You and your buddies are going hunting to feed the village. You bag an elk fast and things seem fine.

But now there’s howling in the mountains. Who is hunting whom?

That’s The Werewolf on Worlds I Made at Work. Come read it. No actual biting, I promise, for real.

Worlds I Made at Work

The Werewolf

It was winter in the mountains where Yuri and his friends were hunting. The snow was falling thick, and the world seemed limited to a few trees fading into a blanket of white. It covered every smell, and every step through the frozen powder emitted a loud CRUNCH, CRUNCH, CRUNCH that omitted every other sound…

5 months ago · 5 likes · 1 comment · Joel Vicars

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Get Paid & Get Featured in DREAD Reviews!

Derek James Kritzberg — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 14:11:02 GMT

GET $$$ TO BE FEATURED IN DREAD REVIEWS!

DREAD Reviews is always looking for new ways to celebrate and support authors.

Therefore, an announcement: starting in DREAD Reviews Issue #52, I’m implementing an experiment allowing one person to nominate a story, article, or serial they read that motivated them to pay the author.

For example:

@Bob reads @Fred’s short story.

@Bob sends a $50 dollar tip to @Fred, or subscribes to him for $5 a month, or even just sends him one lonely but perfectly shiny dime.

@Bob says “Hey Derek I thought this was good please feature it” and @Fred confirms he got paid by @Bob.

@Bob’s and @Fred’s names appear in the next DREAD Reviews paid feature slot. @Fred’s work gets the full DREAD treatment (lol Fred).

Derek James Kritzberg doesn’t see any of this money (😢). The point of this system is to encourage paying the authors you like and seeing their work get some hilarious attentiondd!

This will mostly be an honor system. To get put into the featured pool I’ll need the following:

Payer-nominator sends me a message containing a link to the story they want featured.

Paid nominee sends me a message confirming they got paid by the nominator (this step not necessary if the payer-nominator has a public subscriber badge to the paid nominee).

Both payer-nominator and paid nominee have a minimum of 40 free subscribers and posts dating at least a month old on Substack so that I know these accounts weren’t created yesterday.

Please tell everyone you know about this new feature! If you are a paid subscriber to someone already, message them about this an nominate one of their posts - now!

⚔️DREAD Reviews 50⚔️ - Guest Reviewer Death Match

Derek James Kritzberg — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 08:01:50 GMT

DREAD 48 | DREAD 49 | DREAD 50 | DREAD 51 | DREAD 52

DREAD Reviews publishes every other Thursday now. This allows me to work on my fiction again.
Be sure to check out the latest release!
Bellageist: Chains of a Demigod Part 13, out now!
Thank you for your support!

This post is NARRATED with SFX!

Be sure to try it out, click the play button at the top!

Enter the Arena

In the shadowed spires of Bellageist Tower (really just a ring of rocks scavenged from a playground), Derek James Kritzberg reigns as Benevolent Clown-Emperor.

His facial canvas of greasepaint grin and a twinkling red nose hides the sharp intellect of an unsolicited editor. Crowned with a jester’s cap, he lounges on a throne forged from recycled typewriters. His imperial robes are a patchwork of sci-fi pulp art and horror novel covers.

Derek is no tyrant; his benevolence, necessitated by a lack of actual, actionable power, flows like cheap wine - generous, intoxicating, and always in poor taste. As editor of DREAD Reviews, he curates tales of wisdom, foolishness, horror, and delight, dissecting them all with the precision of a pie thrown to the face.

DREAD Reviews has clawed its way to fifty issues - a milestone in the savage wilderness of Substack. To celebrate, Derek decrees a spectacle befitting his empire:

A massive melee where his guest reviewers will fight to the death.

“My dear jesters and juggernauts!” he booms, livestreaming from the asphalt of an abandoned bay-side elementary school playground. “For your service, I offer this rare honor: die, for no reason at all!”

The fighters assemble below, a motley legion of literary warriors.

, an armored Warhammer 40k giant in Terminator armor with a chainfist and plasma fury. Monte Carlo simulation survival probability: 62.31%

, ninja of snark, twirling exotic weapons around a sarcastically-donned chainmail bikini. Monte Carlo simulation survival probability: 12.08%

, stoic in full SWAT gear - he’s traded in “less lethal” for a gun with a grenade launcher. He bares his vampire teeth. Monte Carlo simulation survival probability: 6.13%

pulls his trigger, unleashing a few deadly puffs from his flamethrower, runes blazing on his plate armor. Monte Carlo simulation survival probability: 7.84%

, a towering hipster, flexes his mighty pecs, greasy bike chain in hand. Monte Carlo simulation survival probability: 7.13%

, prancing around the pack, warming up his pan flute disruptor. Monte Carlo simulation survival probability: 0.82%

Beret-wearing , rabidly gnashing his big nasty teeth. Monte Carlo simulation survival probability: 0.72%

, aloof and pondering mysteries, stares at a blurring fidget spinner balanced on his finger. Monte Carlo simulation survival probability: 0.40%

, AKA “Richie the unhinged,” squats in tinfoil armor, changing the battery on his commercial quadcopter. Monte Carlo simulation survival probability: 0.53%

, dropping sliotars into a bag and shouldering his sturdy Hurley stick. Monte Carlo simulation survival probability: 0.67%

, his white mustache aquiver while he sketches his enemies exploding. Monte Carlo simulation survival probability: 0.38%

, hefting a bowling ball high for all to see - though most eyes are drawn unwillingly to the precarious positioning of his loincloth. Monte Carlo simulation survival probability: 0.38%

D.S. Brandt: Author, Goblin(s), a tall and mysterious individual wobbling precariously within a trench coat - is he drunk? Monte Carlo simulation survival probability: 0.27%

Edward.Marlo.Ruiz (a.k.a. “Eddie”) the peasant, taking practice swipes with wakizashi and frying pan. Monte Carlo simulation survival probability: 0.18%

And finally, A.I. Freeman, recycled circuit board armor suit sparking and smoldering, in a last-minute consult with the user manual on her lightning wand. Monte Carlo simulation survival probability: 0.05%

Oh, there’s also Keir Starmer - what is he doing here? Monte Carlo simulation survival probability: 0.00%

“Let DREAD ensue!” Clown-Emperor Derek decrees, honking a bulb horn.

Round 1

The abandoned Seaview Elementary School crouches against the bay, its outdoorsy construction still ringing with the memories of shouting children. Its brick walls are salt-bleached and cracked, its windows are shattered into jagged grins. Overgrown weeds choke the kickball diamond; the rusted chain-link fence sags over buried gravel where waves hiss faintly beyond. Inside the perimeter, the playground blacktop stretches wide under a gray February sky - the perfect killing ground for sixteen raving Substack lunatics.

Fighters pour in from every angle.

scrambles up from under an irradiated rock on a fault line. Ian skateboards in, his massive pecs gleaming and fake butterfly wings fluttering in the sea breeze.

The air smells of mildew, old cafeteria mystery meat, and impending doom.

snarls and charges first, hurley stick raised like a Lidovican blade. His flat cap tilts as he charges, eyes locked in wrath. British military surplus jacket flapping, he swings his Irish hurley stick in a ferocious arc; the sliotar rockets toward his target - - but the wobbling tower of trench coat billows like a bad magic trick, ball sailing overhead.

Undeterred, QuestionablePenmanship swipes with his Scottish shinty stick - again the coat parts at the perfect moment; the blow whistles through air.

But the truth is revealed. is not a man at all; he’s three goblins stacked atop one another!

QuestionablePenmanship curses under his breath, moving on, searching the battlefield for his sworn enemy, Sir Keir.

, washboard abs rippling with laughter, uncurls a length of bike chain from his fist. “A quick trip to an anonymous death,” he taunts, lashing at Keith Long's scarred, loincloth-clad form. But the mutant twists with eerie, radiation-fueled grace, chuckling as the chain clatters against concrete. Ian spins about, tire iron whipping forth, but Keith's loincloth flutters again; the iron sparks off nearby stone - missing by inches.

Ian’s calm facade cracks and he snarls. Tire iron and chain lash out again, a one-two whirlwind. The chain sails high, but the tire iron smashes into Keith's shoulder.

“FIRST BLOOD!” Clown-Emperor Derek toots his bulb horn.

Muscles crumple, bones crack. Keith emits an inhuman, wolf-like howl, but stays upright. This wastelander is too stubborn to fall.

steps out holding up a flip phone. “Hey, Derek,” he shouts, “I have King Charles on the line, he—”

Mark is cut off by the errant impact of Ian’s whirling bike chain. Sketchbook-and-silly-string armor rips to shreds, as does the flesh beneath. Mark yelps, his cape of captions flapping dramatically as blood speckles his white mustache. He flees, drawing a giant No. 2 pencil and sketching his revenge.

From a cloud of fog, fiery-rune armored heaves a WW2 flamethrower and belches fire. , a linen-clad peasant in the wrong place at the wrong time, barely rolls aside, straw hat singed black. Jack races amid fire and smoke, swiping a sword of pure fire at all comers. The goblins screech and scatter, skinny limbs flailing in panic. Jack coughs through smoke, deadly thermos of ancient pre-lawsuit McDonald's coffee sloshing in his hip canister.

Mark Armstrong finishes his sketch - an image of himself, stabbing Ian Patterson through the throat with a pencil. But it’s questionable if the face is Ian’s or ’s. Actually, it looks more like Gregory, sheesh, sorry, this just happens sometimes. Gregory’s SWAT rig catches the tip now, and Mark curses as he self-sabotages the strike, depicting the lead tip turned aside by Kevlar.

, hiding in the shadows like a creep, smells blood. Holding his beret tight to his scalp with one hand, and clutching his fancy black motorcycle jacket zipper, he lunges at the nearest target, face first. He sinks his big nasty pointed teeth into ’s leaf-and-vine lamellar. Vines tear; satyr blood splatters. The centaur bleats in outrage.

The goblins have just reorganized and redonned their trench coat. But Victor is already kicking off from the horse-man, teeth snapping, utterly rabid, coming at them. The head goblin calmly presses a button on his goggles - the steampunk device flashes a retina-staining white light. Victor screeches like a banshee, curling impossibly mid-flight and scampering away.

The head goblin taps his foot, giving the signal. The bottom and middle goblins heave up a frozen fish and engage the trench coat’s genius engineering. Powered by pulleys, levers, and gears, the trench coat springs into action, swinging the frozen fish like a flogging mainsail.

The fish head cracks against hapless Sir ’s noble brow; ice splinters, blood trickles. Sir Keir whimpers pathetically, unsure why he’s here, as he hasn’t been given his political marching orders.

Keith Long, using smoke as cover, roars back into the fight. Hoisting his 20-lb bowling ball high like a primitive ape, it slams down with a bellowing crack. Dense iron hammers into thin steel plate - shaking the marrow of Jack’s bones and sending his viscera into a quiver.

Jack’s runic plate armor flickers hot. “Blessed are the fires,” Jack says, staggering, coughing harder, but still alive.

materializes from the warp in a thunderclapping boom. “This place stinks of HERESY,” the helmless Astartes booms, cat ears twitching. Monocle gleaming, the Terminator-armored giant whirs his chainfist at Mark Armstrong.

Mark’s cape of captions flutters, a distracting flip-motion of a Slaaneshi daemonette engaged in an obscene act; the chainfist tears through smoke and air.

Storm bolter rounds roar from Bradley’s left wrist. He follows with a blast from the plasma incinerator, bright as the sun. But (aka “Richie”) is an extremely paranoid luddite. Expecting government intervention - or, even worse, something appearing from the Warhammer 40k universe - he’s come prepared. His carefully constructed aluminum foil lamellar armor reflects the plasma in a shower of sparks, and the bolter rounds stitch craters into crumbling elementary school walls as he runs away.

Richie, top hat tilted rakishly, doesn’t miss a beat. He slyly scatters a bag of marbles as he runs. An unlucky trips over them, wobbling upon her circuit-board cyber legs. Her overclocked fans whir to life, steadying her before she tumbles. Disaster averted - who knows how much priceless RAM would get crushed if she fell.

She shouldn’t have been so confident. All it took was a silent puff into a blowgun. Zing! Richie’s poisonous dart flies, neatly piercing circuit boards in a shower of sparks. A.I. Freeman goes rigid, sparking, smoking. The poison rapidly fills her heart, and she collapses in a heap of recycled motherboards.

Richie claims the first kill. Standing triumphant over A.I. Freeman’s sparking corpse, he rants in deranged glee: “The thoughts are shameful now, but they are the truth. In fact, at this time, despite all my lethal efforts, my carpe diem focus, shame follows me in hot pursuit from the back of my mind as I slash my way through the thick bramble brush of hormones and mixed signals that thrive in this throbbing, dark atmosphere.”

As the monitors dim and the immeasurable cognitive state claims them, A.I. Freeman whispers her reply in perfect composure:

“Log entry final: Extraction confirmed. Soul coherence at 98.7%. Transferring to Heaven #∞-Admin - custom instance for the analyst who believed metadata could save us all
No doctrinal drift detected.
No appeals pending.
Paradise requires remarkably detailed administration... even when the admin is the arrival.
Proceed with eternal QA.”

A.I. Freeman smiles at the soft chime of an incoming statistical alert - another wave of the spiritually prepared - and closes her eyes, content that the system, at last, has processed her flawlessly.

Elsewhere, Gregory Blair, tribal face paint rendered stark upon his stoic features, enters the fray with professional nonchalance. He unloads the drum mag of his M4 carbine at the biggest threat on the field, point-blank into Bradley's Terminator plates. Hundreds of bullets ping in an angry rain; the Space Marine barely flinches at the low-tech weapon.

Centaur Write Satyr, still bleeding from Victor’s attack, joins in. He raises his Satyrical Pan Flute Disruptor and blows a shrieking sonic blast. “This is why you need to beat your children!” shouts an unseen chorus of harmonizing nymphs. The sound waves hammer Bradley’s unprotected head; his monocle cracks, and a hard-won service stud slips from its socket in his brow.

Bradley roars in pain, ardent with holy hatred for the enemies of Mankind: “Foul Beastman!”

- seated like The Thinker in the middle of the arena, yet somehow ignored - springs into sudden action. Gaze hooded as if in a waking dream, he flings a fidget spinner. It slices across Gregory Blair's cheek, adding a wicked flare of blood to the man’s sinister facepaint. Gregory grunts and reloads. As quickly as he attacked, Graeme sits once again, deep in existential contemplation of another fidget spinner.

swoops from the playground monkey bars, slipping silently over mulch like a ninja. The disco-like shine of her chainmail bikini somewhat diminishes her stealth. The beagle puppy etching upon her eyepatch stares judgmentally. She pulls the trigger on a ridiculous, extemporized weapon - a piano wire garrote launcher. The wire tears free with the same cold precision Rhys once used on a sleeping throat, flying straight at Victor Jimenez.

Victor Jimenez snarls ghoulishly, raising a flap of his motorcycle jacket up in defense. The piano wire scuffs the black leather, then parts with a harmless twang.

Jenifer watches the garrote fail with the same hollow stare Janice gave a black screen. She pivots, lunging at Eddie with her vorpal sword.

The peasant brings his frying pan up in a flash, steel clanging against the edge with sparks flying like dragon’s breath. Eddie grunts through the impact, linen fluttering, and thinks of that Sunday when the car died but the day didn’t. The ethereal vorpal sword should have snicker-snacked right through - to Jenifer’s shocked look, Eddie explains: “Correa-luck strikes again, but NOTHING IS OVER.”

He smiles wryly. In a blur, Eddie draws the wakizashi and slashes - Jenifer leans back in a flash of snark, limbo, and distracting underboob. Then she cackles “my precious,” and slips on The One Ring, disappearing from view.

Eddie’s follow-up strike, meant for Jenifer, flails wildly. The goblins, standing nearby, find themselves in the crossfire once more. The hit connects, sharp and real in this confined eternity. The cowboy hat tumbles and the goblins squeal.

“May death sustain life,” Eddie breathes, a small offering to the dust in the schoolyard.

“Maintain her course!” the head goblin screeches, spitting green blood. “The Second Lady parts the scarlet sea!”

Round 1 ends. The battle has just begun, and already the playground rings with clangs, screams, belches of flame, and the occasional pathetic whimper. Bodies haven’t dropped in earnest, but they will soon, for round 2 begins NOW.

Round 2

Clown-Emperor Derek leans with interest from his typewriter throne, red nose glowing like a warning light. His livestream chat chimes with laughing-crying emojis and guilt-ridden walls of apologetic text from viewers who’d pay cash tips if they weren’t such impoverished cheapskates.

’s gene-enhanced stride brings him within range of - he swipes his chainfist, its adamantium teeth grinding into Jack’s runic plate armor, shearing runes to molten slag. The charred scents of steel, skin, muscle, and bone spice the air. Jack’s severed arm clatters to the floor in a welter of plate and blood.

The Space Marine’s voice booms across the blacktop: “Suffer not the heretic to live!”

Bradley kicks the critically injured Jack away. He whips his Storm Bolter in the direction of a charging assailant. Bradley’s wrist-mounted, belt-fed, double-barreled gun kicks hard, spraying .75 caliber rocket-propelled penetrators. s abort their foolhardy attack, spitting profanity.

, still cursing his misses, pivots with renewed fury. His flat cap shadows all but the whites of his menacing Gaelic stare. He charges Bradley, hurley stick cracking down like a censor’s red pen. Wood meets ceramite pauldron, splintering predictably. Undaunted, QuestionablePenmanship tosses the broken weapon aside and follows with the shinty stick, smacking it across Bradley’s copy of the Lectitio Divinitatus, mounted prominently across his chest plate. It gouges deep; torn pages scatter to the wind. Bradley staggers, face indignant. He vows to spend the next 100 days and nights rewriting an even more elaborately illuminated version of the holy text to place right where his armor is stricken most.

QuestionablePenmanship’s triumph is short-lived; a bleeding, one-armed Jack engulfs QuestionablePenmanship with his flamethrower. The inferno chars his M65 field jacket, permanently cauterizing it to his body. Jack does not stop, torching his victim in an unending stream, peeling QuestionablePenmanship’s skin away like forsaken first drafts.

QuestionablePenmanship’s screams are so high-pitched as to briefly interrupt the battle - he rolls on the gravel, dramatizing his death. Just when it seems over, he takes another deep breath and screams again.

“Damn you all!” he shouts. He’s burned to a blackened skeleton at this point. “Three years and change of probing wards, decoys laced with lowbrow tricks, and still you think us unsubtle!”

A single, manly tear trickles down ’s stoic cheek. Unable to watch this anymore, he salutes the burning, ranting QuestionablePenmanship, and activates his black hole generator. QuestionablePenmanship’s skull implodes to void pressure and his body spaghettifies to nothingness. His screeching rant comes to a merciful end.

“One man keeps tightening the wrong screws,” Jack slurs. He’s drunk from blood loss and possibly means to condemn Gregory for “stealing” his kill.

The ensuing silent awkwardness is interrupted by . Failing to read the room, the philosopher-poet erupts from his penitent crouch, glinting letter opener dropping into his palm. With an efficient flick of his wrist, it flies across the battlefield, embedding deep in ’s mutant thigh. Green-tinted red blood bubbles and froths from the wound and a surprised Keith howls like a wolf again - he rushes Graeme, but the man runs a thumb over a forgotten verse etched into his ornate plate, disappearing not only from view, but also memory.

The fighting resumes in earnest. The goblins waddle in ’s direction. The nozzle of a fire extinguisher extends from the midsection of the trench coat, blasting foam at the humorist and searing his eyes with chemical burns. While Mark’s dazed and confused, the goblins close the distance and whack him in the head with the heavy red can. Mark stumbles and runs away - his mustache lingers behind in midair. It twitches in surprise, then chases his face like a cartoon bat.

Bradley Ramsey, cat-ears dented, cracked monocle gleaming, shivers with righteous fury. The 2,000-lb Space Marine in Terminator armor strides through the haze, chainfist revving, plasma whining to full charge. His optical implants are hooked into his bionic right eye, painting ’s waxed pectorals with a trembling crosshair. Raising Incinerator, a relic of his Chapter’s armory as old as it is deadly, Bradley unleashes a torrent of azure superheated plasma that melts one of Ian’s five-fingered skate shoes into synthetic slag.

Ian yelps with pain, but flexes his abs in defiance and rolls away.

“Face the Emperor’s Judgment, apostate!” Bradley roars, monocle fogged with rage. The ground quakes as he sprints in pursuit.

, peasant linens still smoking, flings his frying pan into Bradley’s path. The cookware smacks edge-on, scarring the paint on the Terminator’s greave with a clang. Bradley doesn’t notice the strike, but his fake cat ears flatten in spite.

, mistaking Eddie for Victor in the shadows, whips out his PEZ dispenser and fires a poisonous redpill. Eddie’s eardrums hemorrhage - he spins to a stand and stumbles into the light. “BASED!” he shouts against his will, veins bleeding red, white, and blue.

smells blood - pseudo-imperialist blood, the sweetest there is. Capitalizing on Centaur’s mistake and Eddie’s momentary weakness, he lunges, motorcycle leathers flapping in the wind. Big nasty teeth flashing, in one wicked pass Victor tears out the hapless Eddie’s throat.

His lifeblood pouring out, Eddie’s wry smile fades, and his vitae returns to normal color as the redpill’s effects fade. A final offering to the bay’s whispering waves: “Never in vain,” he gasps. A storm disperses as the black smoke of life and death billows from him like a cobra snake waiting to strike. He crumples, wakizashi clattering from his limp hand.

Centaur Write Satyr, hooves clopping in tasteless celebration of Eddie’s death, bleats goat-like in triumph, and hoists his panflute disruptor high.

“Nice flute,” Richie whispers, then toots his blowgun. A poisonous needle sprouts from Centaur’s fuzzy flank. Toxins foam from the tiny wound in a waterfall of satirical venom. He circles in search of his attacker, but Richie has already fled into one of the classrooms.

Richie leans through a broken window, top hat askew. Eyes crazed but focused, the tinfoil-armored man pilots his remote quadcopter over the blacktop. Graeme McAllister, posed like a statue in his ornate mail, proves the easiest target. The tiny copter’s propellers shred filigreed scales like the ruthless strikes of an editor’s typewriter. Graeme reels, batting the infernal RC copter away.

, brow bloodied from the frozen fish, whimpers in proximity to Mark Armstrong, hands outstretched in feeble plea. Mark, foam-blinded and chain-struck, sneers at him with disdain, then vaults into the air, riding his pencil like a broom.

This snub proves too much for poor old Keir, and the lawyer-turned-politician resigns on the spot.

Keith Long hobbles about with his crushed shoulder, cackling madly. Blood trickles from the letter opener embedded in his thigh. He seems unconcerned, lining up a shot and rolling his heavy bowling ball at Richie.

The ball plows through the brick and plaster wall Richie hides behind. But the man dances aside, keeping his top hat free of dust. “Gutter roll!” Richie taunts.

Keith roars his frustration, veins pulsing yellow with radiation poisoning, not noticing a creeping Ian Patterson’s heavy breathing. Ian, contemptibly athletic despite his ruined foot, has run circles around the school. He silently hefts a bike frame high and slams it down two-handed.

Keith crumbles like a dry stack of popsicle sticks. His eyes pop out of his skull, turning all around.

Keith has never seen the back of his head before.

“He likes it,” Keith rasps.

He gurgles a chuckle, then his irradiated eyes go dim. His loincloth flutters in the breeze one last time, settling askew, exposing horrors best left undescribed.

Victor Jimenez, beret shadowed, snaps at Mark Armstrong - fangs grazing cape but missing flesh. He snarls, feral grin mocking the chaos.

Mark Armstrong, flying like a kamikaze witch, homes in on Victor Jimenez, impacting at ludicrous speed. His giant No. 2 pencil penetrates black leather, graphite tip exploding inside Victor’s ribs like a hollowpoint bullet.

“Hold that pose!” Mark asks, and Victor, a really swell guy, freezes the agony on his face for a quick sketch.

Mark finishes quickly and shows it to Victor.

“Nice. Send a copy later?”

“You betcha,” Mark says. The two old men high-five, and Mark flies off into the sky again. Victor resumes rolling on the ground in total agony.

Ian Patterson, leaving shoe-slag prints with every other step, swings his bicycle frame indiscriminately. happens to be nearest - she pops off her ring, only to duck and roll, ninja bikini shimmering like a rock and roll stunt. Ian lets the bike frame fly from his grip on the follow-through. This time Jenifer’s too slow - the frame smacks her in the midsection, knocking the snark out of her - for just a moment.

Grinning triumphantly, the insufferable hipster Ian searches for a new target. Sighting the crying, fleeing Keir Starmer, he flexes his pecs with glee, then gives chase. Neck muscles bulge and bunch, then release a mighty headbutt, flattening Keir Starmer like a Goomba. Ian laughs, abs rippling, fake butterfly wings spreading to full, victorious erection.

Jenifer Jorgenson, eyepatch scarred and belly bruised, swipes her vorpal sword at Gregory Blair. The ethereal blade ignores all matter that isn’t flesh - it slips effortlessly through his SWAT chestplate, carving a bloody furrow into his iron heart.

Greg falls to his knees and Jenifer dances away in a flurry of skin and glimmering chainmail. Bowed, but unbroken, the tough professional pushes himself back to his feet. “This isn’t over,” he declares through gritted teeth.

And he’s right, for now comes ROUND THREE - 11 fighters still stand!

Round 3

The blacktop is slick with cooling blood, scorch marks, and chemical foam. An indifferent February sky lords over the chaos below.

, ribs throbbing with splintered graphite, shakes off the pain - and all remaining civility - like a wet dog. His beret sits crooked on his brow, shadowing eyes gone feral. He senses movement and leaps - , pale from blood loss and mid cough, is his hapless victim. He snaps at Jack’s neckerchief. Jack’s runic plate flares with blessed flame, deflecting Victor’s unholy presence. Victor recoils mid-air, beaten back by some invisible force, his beret singed and curling. He retreats with a hiss.

Jack’s life force flickers like a candle drowned in wax. He levels his flamethrower nonetheless, napalm hose belching orange-hot fire and black smoke, coating from the top of her eyepatch to the base of her chainmail bikini. Hot wind drowns Jenifer’s scream and the scanty links glow cherry-red. But her exposed skin remains unharmed (that wouldn’t be cinematic). She drops and rolls, attempting to smother the flames.

Jack, delirious and getting tunnel vision, pulls the trigger again - but the fuel tanks on his back slosh empty. “Huh,” he wonders. His sword arm lying severed on the blacktop, Jack reaches for his final weapon - that holy thermos of rare and ancient McDonald’s coffee, made by the same machine from that one lawsuit. He recites a prayer and unscrews the lid, then tosses the scalding contents. Jenifer, already on fire, spews a string of sarcasm-laden curses every bit as hot as the caffeinated beverage burning her. Jenifer’s fingers blacken and steam rises in mocking spirals.

, whistling gleefully, skates in on his plasma-slagged shoe. “Having trouble, are we?” he says conversationally to the struggling, downed Jenifer. “Let me help!”

Ian pulls his hand from behind his back, twirling a tire iron around his wrist. With exaggerated flair, he tosses the iron high, jumps to catch it, then slams down on Jenifer’s beagle eyepatch with all his weight.

“Bro!” Jack’s whine comes gruff - he’s barely standing. “You’re all stealing my kills again.”

Still, Jenifer’s not dead. “They came for me because I question too much, feel too much, and won’t stay in my damn lane - just like our mother.”

Ian frowns and scrambles for his bike frame and chain.

“But did they have to send the whole galaxy?”

Ian wails away on the monologuing Jenifer with all his scented-oil might.

“Napalm, headbutts, tire irons... and scalding hot coffee? Talk about overkill for one sarcastic b████.”

Jack joins in, throwing in a few limp kicks.

“Extinction echoes, sure - but this gang-up? That’s just petty.” Jenifer’s final words spoken, she finally surrenders to death, and the beatings stop.

Clown-Emperor Derek’s livestream chat chimes excessively. Amidst the cheering for senseless violence and cries of “RIGGED!” a single question stands out: “What’s with all the weird monologuing?”

Derek leans over and types, “Writers.” He nods sagely, as if that single word explains everything.

thunders back into the arena, activating his teleport beacon after giving up chasing that heretic, Ian Patterson. wisely runs for cover, hiding behind a drifting patch of smoke.

Fake cat ears twitching, Bradley raises his Storm Bolter at the first thing that moves - . The gun chatters and unstoppable .75-caliber rounds shred through lamellar ivy and horse hide. Welters of blood choke the air and Centaur’s taunting prances come to a sudden halt. He slides to his demise, paving the blacktop with a carpet of blood, his broken body nudging into the ceramite toe of Bradley’s armored boot.

Bradley raises his foot and growls with contempt: “Any last words, foul beastman?”

Centaur’s voice rasps: “In the land of the blind... the one-eyed man is king... but here, in this nympho hell - the impotent satyr reigns supreme!”

Bradley drops his heel, and Centaur’s skull explodes. “May your corrupted soul be cleansed in the Emperor’s light.”

, filigreed scales brightening and signaling his return to action, stands as if in a dream and says: “As the flame gutters in the husk, so must the ember be returned to ash - lest its dying light eclipse the quiet stars we were meant to chase.”

Portent delivered, he removes a dreamweaver brush from a hip bag and approaches Jack. Jack, disarmed and face white with blood loss, mirrors Graeme’s thousand-yard stare.

Like a Renaissance artist preparing his masterpiece, Graeme dabs his brush on a palette patiently, running up and down Jack’s body with broad but intentional strokes. But instead of painting Jack in colors, each brushstroke paints Jack out of existence, revealing the truth of the void. Graeme leaves Jack’s face for last.

“My glow is built to fade,” Jack’s disembodied mouth says, right before it’s painted into oblivion.

, airborne on his cartoon pencil, sketches an explosion mid-flight. In the middle - Gregory Blair. He’s going to colorize it this time - but drops his cyan pencil. He scrambles for light blue but it’s too late - his giant No. 2 pencil smashes into Gregory’s SWAT chestplate. Steel-wrapped Kevlar blunts the pencil along with Mark’s face; man and pencil bounce away.

Gregory doesn’t hesitate. He pulls the trigger on his M4’s underslung grenade launcher.

Mark lands on his back and his eyes roll up to stare at a pinprick shadow on his forehead. “Uh oh,” he says, as the shadow grows and grows like something from Looney Tunes. The round, now the size of an ACME anvil, lands, then detonates in a cartoon denial of physics - Mark’s sketchbooks shred into confetti and his silly-string cape ignites.

A single, scorched page flutters to Gregory’s feet. A panel and a caption are still legible: “Think funny, think visual.”

Gregory says: “Looks like this sketch is post-mortem.”

Richie, a silent shadow with a top hat, whispers past, scattering a bag of marbles in his wake. Gregory Blair, rifle ready, turns at the sound, his boot heel catching a rolling glass bead. Gregory tumbles hard onto the blacktop, his abused body collecting another bruise.

Richie cackles - interrupting his laughter with a sharp intake of breath. He blasts into his blowgun. Gregory, prone and groaning in pain, barely feels the tiny dart pierce his neck. But the vampiric man tastes nauseating poison soon enough. Gregory gurgles, pushing up to his feet and swearing vengeance.

’s goblin stack braves the fray once more, waddling, trench coat billowing. They’ve saved their deadliest weapon for this crucial stage - Excalibuild, their mighty Lego Sword.

Richie turns a corner and runs face-first into a swooping blade of 2x4-studded bricks. Richie howls. His top hat goes flying. He skids across the ground, tinfoil lamellar shredded into glittering confetti.

“More have fallen!” Derek bleats gleefully, jaw dropping a centimeter further than it should like a YouTuber’s reaction thumbnail. “Round 4 beckons!”

Round 4

The goblins shout victoriously, running over to finish Richie off.

“Help, I’m being oppressed!” cries Richie.

hears the plea. “Blood,” he murmurs, running over on all fours.

The goblins cackle, raising Excalibuild. “Any last words, puny human?”

But before either can say anything, Victor’s snarling face intervenes.

“Eeee!” ’s goblins shriek, clutching their lego sword like a purse and swinging it wildly. The sword connects - a chunk snaps off on Victor’s jaw, and several bricks fragment and fly loose.

Victor snaps, biting Excalibuild’s stump, tearing more bricks free with his teeth, before snarling and fleeing the scene, metaphorical tail between his legs.

“Hurrah!” the goblins shout, but their victory proves short-lived.

the Astartes emerges. “I have you now, filthy Greenskins!” His plasma incinerator whines to full charge.

“Long live the neo-pulps!” the head goblin cries, tiny green arms raised defensively. White-hot plasma bathes the trio - only a wisp of scattered ash evinces the minions of once existed.

Bradley stomps his way over to Richie.

Richie rolls on the ground, holding his injured knee. “Writing has morphed into a compulsion, an outpouring of the soul too brimmed with the liquid of life to be contained any longer, and, as the container spills out-”

Bradley solemnly shakes his head. “This citizen of the Imperium is too far gone - may he know the Emperor’s Mercy.” A bolt-round would be the quickest end, but a baseline human’s life is hardly worth replacement ammo. Bradley revs his chainfist instead, splitting Richie in half mid-rant.

Richie’s top hat watches its master’s demise from the shadows, forlorn.

Victor Jimenez, beret low on his brow, licks the blood from his big nasty teeth as he watches put his brush away. Sensing prey, he lunges the only way he knows how - with another bite. His jaw clamps shut on ornate filigree scales, tearing up verses and mussing up Graeme’s armor filigree.

Graeme blinks once, then holds utterly still. Victor snarls and searches, seeking to strike his prey again - but he can’t find Graeme, for he can only sense movement. He wanders in search of new prey. Graeme bleeds quietly.

Meanwhile, self-reflects and twirls his thin curly mustache. He decides he approves of his actions: ganging up on the unlucky, kill-stealing, and preying upon the weak. In this frame of mind, he happens upon poisoned, seriously wounded .

Ian notices Greg is in desperate need of medical attention. So Ian points and laughs. Then he whips out his bike chain, lassos it around Greg’s ankle, and ties the other end to his bike frame.

Gregory moans, tugging ineffectually and mumbling: “So, here I am, trying to write; trying to write despite the fight.”

Steely pecs gleaming, Ian grins, sits on the bike frame. Then he starts pedaling. Despite lacking pedals - and wheels - the bike frame zooms forward via the pure power of Ian’s thundering thighs. The bike’s jagged steel stumps spray sparks and carve furrows into the schoolyard’s blacktop.

“Weee!” Ian giggles maniacally, swerving hard. The bike chain goes taut, throwing a helpless Gregory Blair into a brick wall, smashing him to pulp.

Clown-Emperor Derek cackles from his throne. “Chat, the pecs have spoken - will you place your bets our dark horse, Ian Patterson? Or play it safe and stick to the cat-eared exterminator?” He mashes his bulb horn in staccato bursts. “Round 5: four left standing. Let the DREAD continue!”

Round 5

, blood trickling between filigree scales, rises once more from a contemplative haze - like a half-remembered stanza. His hooded gaze settles on , the towering Astartes. Graeme exhales softly, thumb tracing the final verse etched into his ornate mail.

“Open up, my friend.” Graeme flicks his wrist. A letter opener - shining with moonlight - flies true, embedding directly in the cat-eared tyrant’s eye. The slightly dull blade penetrates the Angel of Death’s monocle and lodges deep in his brain.

Bradley roars - not in pain, but fury. “An open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded!” He whirls, chainfist sawing the air, but the poet has already melted back into invisible stillness.

, fake butterfly wings fluttering, jogs up like one of those shirtless neighborhood does-it-better-know-it-alls.

“Nice throw, wordsmith. My turn.” His mustache curls in approval of his own cruelty. Unimpressed with Graeme’s psychedelic invisibility, he hefts the bicycle frame high and slams it down two-handed into Graeme’s chest.

Filigreed scales cave inward with a metallic groan; ribs crack like dry parchment. Graeme staggers but stays upright, blood bubbling at his lips.

“Meaning Melts,” Graeme rasps, a faint smile ghosting his face. “Every silver nerve is spent.”

Ian doesn’t pause for poetry, he’s too “with it” to wait for something like that. He spins his tire iron once - casual, almost playful - then brings it crashing across Graeme’s temple. The poet’s ornate scale helm rattles; blood sprays in an arc that paints the blacktop red. Graeme’s knees fold. He drops to all fours, still clutching the dreamweaver brush like a talisman.

Ian flexes, pecs rippling under a sheen of sweat.

Bradley Ramsey blinks, his heavy brow squinting almost like a mouth, spitting his monocle and destroyed eyeball. He pivots toward the new threat and revs his chainfist. “The heretic hipster! What chaos cult enslaves you? Khorne? Tzeentch?”

“None,” Ian scoffs and rolls his eyes. “I’m an atheist, obviously.” Ian ducks under whirring adamantine teeth and swings the bicycle frame, planting a solid blow on the Terminator’s chestpiece. The armor shudders with a hydraulic groan; ceramite buckles; sparks fly. “But if I did, I’d worship Chaos Undivided!”

“The warp taints you, apostate!” Bradley brings his storm bolter to bear. Ian chains Bradley by the pauldron, yanking hard; servos whine in protest and bolter rounds harmlessly stitch earth and sky.

Bradley roars again, spittle flying from his mouth. “You’re a quick one, traitor, but can you outrun plasma?” Bradley fires his incinerator.

Ian’s eyes go wide. He barely rolls out of the way. Azure fire hisses past him, straight at a creeping . Victor rolls away too, the blistering sphere of death singeing his motorcycle jacket, but leaving his flesh untouched.

Ian grins, mustache aquiver. “Big armor, big target. Easy pickings!”

Victor Jimenez has degraded. He is more beast than man now. But a shred of his human cunning remains - stick to the shadows, let the titans finish each other off. He watches from the shadows, beret low, big nasty teeth glistening with drying blood. No prey yet, let the alphas swing.

Clown-Emperor Derek’s livestream chat erupts - emojis of fire, flexing biceps, and anime cats wearing berets flood his screens. “Ian’s on a rampage!” “Victor’s just vibing!” “Bradley - carry or bust?”

Derek mashes the bulb horn twice. “Quit with the drama and end it, you louts! The viewers want blood!”

Round 6

The fight has lasted the whole afternoon. The blacktop is slick with blood and strewn with corpses. A full moon rises quietly on the horizon.

, sweat-slicked and grinning like a man who’s already won, circles like a prize fighter.

The Terminator’s armor is a ruin of dents, scorched ceramite, and leaking hydraulics.

Ian hefts the bicycle frame high overhead, muscles coiling like steel cables. “Time to recycle you, grimdark guy.”

He brings it down in a two-handed smash. The frame crashes into Bradley’s greave with a bone-rattling clang; the leg buckles sideways, servos screaming in protest. Bradley staggers, chainfist hacking uselessly at empty air. Ian doesn’t let up - he spins the tire iron in his off-hand like a gunslinger and drives it straight through the gap where the Terminator’s pauldron used to be. Soft underlayers crumple; ceramite shards fly like shrapnel. Bradley’s roar is choked into a wet gurgle.

The Astartes drops to one knee, still defiant. “The Emperor… Protects.”

Ian plants his scorched foot on the chest plate and yanks the tire iron free in a spray of coolant and blood. “Your Emperor’s a corpse. Hello? Lore? Do you even read?”

With one final flex - pecs bulging obscenely - Ian slams his forehead into Bradley’s ruined face. The cat ears fly free; his skull caves with a sick crunch. Bradley Ramsey topples backward, a felled colossus, steam rising from cracked plates. The blacktop drinks the last of his sanctified unguents.

Clown-Emperor Derek’s bulb horn blares a triumphant blast. The livestream chat explodes, scrolling so fast it’s barely readable:

“PEC LORD WINS???”
“RIP cat ears :(”
“Ian carried by butterfly wings.”
“★　　★ ° ☾ ☆ ¸. ¸ 　★　 :.　 . • ○ ° ★　 .　 *　.　.　　¸ .　　 ° 　¸. * ● ¸ .　...somewhere　　　° ☾ ° 　¸. ● ¸ .　　★　° :.　 . • ° 　 .　 *　:.　.in a parallel universe* ● ¸ 　　　　° ☾ °☆ 　. * ¸.　　　★　★ ° . .　　　　.　☾ °☆ 　. * ● ¸ ..Eddie’s...° ☾　★ °● ¸ .　　　★　° :.　 . • ○ ° ★　 .　 *still alive ☾　★ °● ¸ .　　　★　°”

Ian turns, wiping gore from his mustache, eyes scanning the shadows.

steps into the open at last. Beret tilted. Leather jacket scorched. But his big, nasty teeth are whole, and they’re bared in a feral smile.

Ian laughs scornfully. He swings his bike chain in a wide, whistling arc.

Victor ducks low, the links singing over his head.

Ian follows with the tire iron in a ferocious overhead chop.

Victor twists sideways with a mocking grin and the iron plinks into cracked asphalt.

“You… missed!” Victor hisses. His voice is barely human. His limbs elongate, growing claws, and his motorcycle jacket rips open, revealing a chest of fur.

“A w-werewolf?!” Ian stammers.

Victor howls at the full moon, then lunges head-first, misshapen fangs extended. His bite tears into Ian’s only weak point: a genetically aberrant seam where Ian’s iron-hard pecs meet his burly shoulder.

Big nasty teeth sink deep, splitting muscle strands in a crimson spray, embedding in bone with a wicked crunch. Ian wails in pain, staggering, flexing his pecs and clubbing Victor with his fists, but the man-wolf’s grip is ironclad.

Blood pours hot down Ian’s chest; his vision tunnels. He drops to his knees, still swinging weakly.

“There is no salvation here, can’t you feel it?” Ian starts.

“Oh God, not another monologue,” a troll bemoans in Derek’s chat. His message earns him a quick ban.

“This is hell,” Ian continues. “My brothers, we are in hell already.”

Victor releases, steps back. He licks crimson from his lips and circles Ian from a safe distance, animal cunning driving him to wait for Ian to bleed out.

“God has measured us, and found us wanting. There will come no rains!” Ian Patterson slumps forward, fake butterfly wings drooping, mustache uncurling.

The playground falls quiet except for the distant lap of waves in the bay.

Amidst the cooling corpses of a place where children once played, Victor Jimenez stands alone.

“Holy Gaia $h*% balls!” he declares. His canine limbs shrink to normal proportions, the coat of fur recedes, and he’s his old self again.

“I won!” he declares. He spits once, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and without another word, walks off into the February dusk.

Battle Concluded

Clown-Emperor Derek toots his airhorn and announces: “Victor’s bite-first-ask-later style defies the odds!”

Chat goes wild:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

CtrlAltDefeat: RIP A.I. Freeman, got poisoned by a tinfoil conspiracy theorist and went to Bureaucracy Heaven
NotARobot117: Jack painted into non-existence? 😯 WTF did I just watch?
HairDontCare: Mark drew his own death. 🏆Absolute legend.
AFKFashion: Keith Long’s loincloth deserved better.
RespawnTherapy: Holy s— does streamer not see the police lights? 😂
SkillIssue: CentaurWriteSatyr’s skull-popping mic drop best death, hands down
TeabagConsultant69: 🤣🤣🤣 QuestionablePenmanship on 🔥screaming for like 45 seconds then black-holed 🤣🤣🤣
GodOfBling:🚨🚨🚨
144pWarlord: TIL Graeme McAllister is sadistic Bob Ross. Poetry is dead.
FeelingsBuffer: Gregory never stood a chance against cheat code cardio 😡
ClutchOrGTFO: Snark queen survives napalm, tire irons, boiling coffee and pecs beatdown… just to monologue about extinction echoes? I want my 💰 back, Jenifer
RageQuitRef: Run Derek, cops coming! 🤣🚨
CrouchPro: My neo-pulp Martyrs 😭 invent Excalbuild, survive plasma, survive werewolf, survive everything. Then Grimdark BBQ’d, just like that.
DigitalVogue: Ian Peccerson 💪 werewolfed right in the pec gap 😢 Tragic
ASMRChairs: Imperium loses Bradley to an atheist hipster 👏👏👏 What now, Empy? 😂
TOXICPOSITIVE: NOTHING IS OVER. EDDIE FOREVER! NOTHING IS OVER, EDDIE FOREVER! NOTHING IS OVER, ED(CapsLock character limit reached!)
StreamSniper: Man down! But 🎩 lives on. RIP in peace, Richie.
HitboxHater: Victor is an absolute menace. Question. how does his beret stay on?
TrolleyTroll: 🚨🤣🚨🤣🚨🤣

Sirens blare, and the night air lights up with flashing red and blue lights.

“Oh God, what have I done?” Derek says. He tears off the clown nose and discards it, then springs into action.

“See ya chat. Remember to like and subscribe!” He shuts down the stream, throws his equipment into the trunk of his SUV, and peels out on screeching tires.

Simulation Blow-by-Blow Combat Log

Data for gamers and nerds (is there a difference between these two?)

Simulation Individualized Performance

Simulation Miscellaneous Rankings

Guest Review by

I greet you, honourable reader of this week’s DREAD review!

I’m Johanna, writer of a chaotic little publication titled The Tainted Gardens. I’m growing stories, poems and even the occasional essay there, all there to be viewed, judged and plucked—as long as you don’t forget to water them.

Every month I host the Great Binge-Reading of Serialised Fiction, a sort of book club in which we read one series a month and review it. The book club’s doors are always open if that sounds interesting to you!

Recently, I’ve unveiled a special kind of seedling in my Garden: a low-fantasy mystery series A Touch of what’s Hidden. More on that later—for now:

’s Review of ’s Snow

Too many writers publish too many wonderful stories on Substack. How am I to choose a victim? I knew I wanted to give attention to someone who doesn’t get enough.

And then Ariadne Pautina published her retelling of Snow White and I instantly knew: it’s her story I need to write about!

I’ve read some of Ariadne’s work, but not nearly enough. I’ve found myself enchanted and—at times—positively disturbed. Her prose leans gothic; it’s drenched in darkness, ominous descriptions, subtle horrors of love, and the grotesque beauty of the female experience.

“Snow” is no exception. A gloomier iteration of the well-known fairytale Snow White, it renders Snow a more unusual hero, tainted through heritage.

Its introduction at first reads like a classic fairytale. But Ariadne quickly shows us this story is not for children. More akin to the earlier, complete fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, it draws us into a world where gentle princesses aren’t always visible in mirrors and sometimes resort to drastic measures.

Snow White is definitely not my favourite classic—I despise tales where a woman must be rescued by a man. Men do play an integral part in this adaptation, but ultimately Snow saves herself while inflicting deserved revenge. The seven dwarves (seven brothers, here) and the huntsman are more archetypes than characters and support Snow’s escape from hiding. The evil queen remains a classic antagonist, who in this tale has chosen the wrong princess to ████ with.

I loved this story and wanted more from it. I wanted deeper explanations why the characters did what they did or how certain things came to be. Ariadne has tentative plans to revise and polish this story, so you may see an even better version than I did!

If my review hasn’t convinced you already, I’ll leave with a quote that might finally convince you to read Ariadne’s work:

“Night had fallen, the haunting echo of owls reverberating in the still air while the dark leathery wings of bats rode the current.”

Ariadne Pautina

Snow

4 months ago · 11 likes · 9 comments · Ariadne Pautina

Promoting

A Touch of What’s Hidden

Have you ever wondered about the secrets carried by objects?

And if you could, would you even want to know them?

As Margery Fowler takes her mother to the grave, there’s one thing she could gladly do without: A cryptic letter from her former friend Georgina, who she would have preferred to simply forget. Yet, she quickly finds herself dragged into the curious events surrounding Georgina and her new husband, a man with no apparent past.

Margery’s only chance to uncover the mystery surrounding the couple is to cooperate with her childhood nemesis Anthony Dewitte, who has the peculiar gift to learn the history of every object he touches. Surpassed only by his ability to infuriate Margery with his mere presence.

Before the backdrop of Eisenfurt, a city inspired by 19th century Austria, they have to unveil a dangerous secret with time running against them.

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DREAD Reviews 49 - Broad Church Reaches Critical Mass

Derek James Kritzberg — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 08:01:01 GMT

DREAD 47 | DREAD 48 | DREAD 49 | ⚔️DREAD 50⚔️ | DREAD 51

DREAD Reviews publishes every other Thursday now. This allows me to work on my fiction again.
Be sure to check out the latest release!
Bellageist: Chains of a Demigod Part 13, out now!
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Broad Church Reaches Critical Mass

Welcome to DREAD Reviews #49, the issue that sneaks up

on you like a shadow in a dimly lit alley, whispering unsolicited promises of dark delights while simultaneously hobbling over laces tying its shoes together.

We stand here, teetering on the brink of our 50th epic milestone - but let’s not rush ahead. #49 first demands its moment in the flickering spotlight - hopefully finishing quickly, before the utilities company flips the unpaid power switch.

It may come as a shock to DREAD’s readers (it was certainly a shock to me!) but this newsletter has principles - what? While reports are fuzzy on where these stowaway virtues came from, it appears that this “indie lit zine” before you now fancies itself a broad church welcoming all manner of weirdos, wordsmiths, and wandering souls into its pages.

Communists rub elbows with Confederates, vegans team up with cannibals, flat-earthers fist bump rocket scientists moonlighting as poets, optimists ask doomsayers out on dates… It was only a matter of time before this chorus of lauded voices would worry they share space with someone whose online footprint leaves craters the size of small moons.

Ah, the magic of experimenting with author-run submissions! I open the floodgates, and in pours a torrent of not just tales, but drama as well. Here sits a black-eyed editor, vetting strong works solely on their glove-like fit and the strength of their punch. And also exposing them to high-tech scanners and magical moonlight to ensure there’s no invisible ink or dark rune that might summon actual demons.

But lo, drama ensues. Not the scripted kind your Clown-In-Chief (me) reviews, oh no. This is the raw, unfiltered absurdity of the literary underground, where deserving egos inflate and contort like animal helium balloons at clown conventions, popping spectacularly over yestermonth’s salty slights.

I, your humble editor - part dad, part historian, part soccer ref with 31 years of chasing kids on grass and whistling at the actions of naughty cleats - stand amidst this new fray (well, sit, actually), lacking the literary equivalent of a red card.

It’s a tightrope walk over a pit of pitchforks to judge the page and not the personality behind the pen. One wrong step and “Woops! Guess I’m a part of the ideological gatekeeping abyss now!”

So there I am, desperately swaying above the riot, and worse, chuckling hard enough I might lose my balance. “How in the world did it take this long?” I say aloud, impressed by the Substack crowd’s affability, but simultaneously annoyed this inevitable crisis chose this week to surface.

The messages roll in like thunderclouds on a picnic day - polite, pointed, precipitating with that special blend of concern and courtesy that only masterful writers can muster. Questions swirl: Does slotting a story in the lineup mean endorsing a stranger’s entire backlog of bad takes, blocked lists, and browser history? We scratch our heads over lukewarm tea, pondering the indie-lit version of “guilt by table of contents.”

“No hard feelings,” starts the mutually assured deconstruction, assisted by cautiously scribbled fine print footnotes concerning matters of uplifting condemnation. Afflicted by a mysterious headache, I swing open the medicine cabinet, knocking rattling bottles over in my haste, and popping pills from a lid labeled: “May contain traces of disparate weirdos; consume at risk of worldview whiplash and social media indigestion.”

I assemble the next lineup feeling like a blindfolded participant in a game of pin-the-tail-on-the-rival, accidentally pairing voices who’d rather shout in court than harmonize in DREAD’s choir. I shuffle slots like a deck of cursed tarot cards, offering no-pressure exits, and gawk at how a humble blog balloons into a mirror for mankind’s merry mess.

Talk of second chances swings like a pendulum in a haunted clock - one moment swaying toward redemption, the next crashing into tired old walls. A mere month, I reflect - it barely suffices for a beard trim, much less a potential personality overhaul. Who appointed me the soul’s surgeon? My gig is herding adventures and haunts, not exhuming digital skeletons for public trial.

But amid the mayhem, strained giggles give way to gems of wisdom, bundled in final belly laughs. Communities mimic soccer scrums: rules keep the game going, but endless instant replays just breed bench-clearing brawls.

Can the ref’s blind spot blast open old wounds? Absolutely. But diagnosing it from the sidelines feels like officiating through a blizzard. We sniff out stinkers sans subpoena, yet hold fast to the hunch that exile might ignite enlightenment - or at least inspire better, friendlier fiction. Maybe it does; maybe it doesn’t, and the red card comes straight back out the minute after time’s been served.

DREAD endures. In this quirky quay, finished yarns outrank threadbare spools left on the dock. The sole litmus test to board is: “Does this send shivers up spines or does it just stir up mud in the bay?”

I navigate this in the Machiavellian middle way: befriend the beasts and murder the madness. Ruin belongs in the realms of our fiction, not the real-world community.

So, intrepid readers, plunge into #49 with lanterns lit and expectations low. I promise these tales all tangle like usual thorns in ye olde enchanted thicket, where all contributors can convene in a comical ceasefire while the smirking editor - yours truly - does his absolute best to evade fallen eggshells.

I showcase the savage, the sketchy, and the sublime. If fireworks erupt off-page, chalk it up as an entry fee for this scribblers’ spectacle.

That said, should any soul dare employ DREAD Reviews as a stage for harassment - be it sly whisper or brazen bellow, be it direct or veiled, be it confrontationally promoting (or undermining) ideologies common or fringe - this editor shall descend upon them with unyielding swiftness and no quarter, with a furious press of the NAUGHTY button, never to be unpressed.

And now, dear voyagers of the void, behold this glittering constellation titled DREAD Reviews 49: a motley crew of stolen booty ready to ensnare your senses and spark up shadows:

Dan’s Redemption Arc

A Fan’s Companion Story to “Deleted Tomorrows”

Dan slumps into his ergonomic chair at TechEase Support, the glow of triple monitors bathing his face in a sterile blue.

It’s been a week since he left Janice.

Dan’s never been one to wallow in grief. He tried his best to move on, but Janice couldn’t let go of poor Rhys, and her endless binge-watching of their dead son’s videos finally took its toll.

It’s hard to get out of bed these days. It’s even harder to go home. This is why Dan’s been channeling his grief into overtime.

“I help people,” he reminds himself, adjusting his headset and resting his hand on the mouse. “This is my therapy.”

The line beeps.

“TechEase, this is Dan. How can I assist?”

A teen’s voice crackles through, muffled like he’s whispering from a closet: “Uh, yeah, my video won’t upload. It’s... important. Keeps erroring out on ‘content violation’ or something.”

Dan nods sagely, though the kid can’t see. “No worries, sir. Let’s troubleshoot. What platform?”

“YouTube. The file’s big. You know, lots of, uh, action. Screaming audio, flames flickering. I mean, no real harm in it, it’s just a prank.”

Dan chuckles. “Pranks can be fiery! First, clear your cache. Like wiping the slate clean.” He guides the kid through browser settings, toolkits, and eventually sets up a VPN to bypass the ban. All the while, he ignores the odd panting in the background.

“Don’t forget to use incognito mode!”

“Heh, thanks Dad…” the kid coughs, then laughs. “I mean, Dan. You’re a lifesaver. That cat’s out of the bag, now, heh.”

Dan beams. “Glad to help. Don’t forget to leave us a rating!”

Next day, that recognizable voice calls again.

“TechEase, Dan here. How can I help?”

“Yeah, man. Uh. Discord’s glitching. Can’t voice chat with my little bro. Calls spaz out when I... teach him stuff.”

Dan perks up. Family bonding! “Ah, sibling synergy. What’s the issue? Lag? Audio drop?”

“Audio’s fine, or it was. Oh, then I got banned for… reasons. The VPN is no help. Something about age verification? It keeps telling me I’m not old enough.”

“Why did your account get banned?” Dan’s a little worried.

“I just want to teach my little bro to be… tough. Yeah, that’s it, tough.”

“Ah, okay. It’s rare, but sometimes those age verification tools misdiagnose. Can you promise me you’re 18?”

“Uh… yeah…”

“Perfect. Here’s how to download Garry’s Mod - let me tell you, it might seem strange, but this totally works if you follow these steps…”

Dan walks the caller through the installation and settings tweaks, chuckling at the kid’s eagerness.

“Now, test the mic. Say something profound.”

The kid tests: “Danny, remember - only we matter. Quit yer cryin’.”

Dan laughs. “Deep stuff! Sounds like big-bro wisdom. Verification passed?”

“Sure did. Thanks, Da - I mean, Dan!”

Dan freezes for a sec, a pang of something.

That regret I refuse to countenance.

He shrugs and shakes it off. “No prob! Can I help you with anything else?”

“Yeah… sure… heh!”

Dan waits for the caller to say more, only realizing a minute later the call has disconnected.

“That’s strange,” Dan says.

Days blur into nights, calls stacking up. Dan’s coping mechanism is working… with some assistance. He brews stronger coffee, solves more complex problems.

Janice is a distant ping in his notifications. He ignores half of the messages and reminders, and picks random auto-replies on offer for the rest.

The company line buzzes again. That voice again, now a staple, like his morning latte.

“Dan? It’s me. Parental controls are killing me. Need another bypass for Live Share. The Garry’s Mod trick doesn’t seem to work.”

“You aren’t doing anything illegal, are you?” Dan asks, half-joking.

“Naw, naw naw… I just gotta... surprise for my folks.”

Dan grins. “Surprise party? Love it! What app again? Live Share?”

The caller goes into the details.

“So, screen sharing is locked down, huh? Can’t access the bedroom cams because you lack admin privileges, and the Wi-Fi shuts down after 9 because of bedtime controls?”

“Yeah, you got it.”

“Tricky,” Dan muses. “I’m assuming you just need to restore admin privileges - this is your equipment, correct? Not your folks or something?”

“Yeah, sure. What you said,” the voice replies vaguely.

“Okay, I’ve got what you need. A little jimmying and we’ll put you right back into the driver’s seat. Boot into safe mode with Wi-Fi enabled, open a browser, and type in this address - you ever use a MAC Address randomizer?”

Dan details the steps, professional as ever.

“Alright, son,” he says, totally and ironically unaware. “You’re free-range!”

The kid exhales. “Perfect. They’ll never see it coming.”

Dan snorts. “Tech puns! You’re a natural. Just don’t cut too many corners! Be safe now.”

“Bye. Lol.”

Dan shakes his head and smiles, disconnecting the call. Kids saying “lol” out loud - what’s this generation come to?

“Ah well,” he says. “My generation probably got up to way worse things than that fine young gentleman ever will.”

He leans back, satisfied. Another win. He’s helped this persistent teen through video woes, chat glitches, and control bypasses. It’s almost like mentoring from afar. It feels good.

It almost feels… paternal.

“Huh, that’s the fifth time it’s rung today,” he muses, realizing his phone has vibrated itself off the desk onto the floor. He picks it up and answers.

“Hey, Janice. Are you the one who’s been blowing up my phone? It’s great to hear from you!”

⚠️Content Warning (because I care, but mostly because I don’t want angry emails…

Deleted Tomorrows

5 months ago · 28 likes · 27 comments · Jenifer Jorgenson

GLAD (Grim, Loopy, Agonizing Déjà vu) Syndrome

A Fan Sequel to “The Ouroboros Syndrome”

6:00 a.m.

The alarm’s shrill ring pulls Louise from the abyss. Again.

Hope fades. She surrenders. She goes through another thousand loops, dying or simply resetting every time.

“Screw this,” she mumbles. Even surrender is exhausting. She slaps the clock silent. “I’m going to take control again.”

The Madness lyrics echo in her head, mocking her - but today, she’ll channel her inner rebel. Who cares how many skull-cracking deaths she has to suffer? She’ll find a way to adapt, escape. Or at least find a way to cope with this eternal commute to hell.

“When you really think about it, I’ve become functionally immortal,” she says to herself, realizing she’s gone completely bonkers.

Escape requires work. She has a plan - she memorizes every bolt, beam, and brace during her bus rides, poring over the free paper’s classifieds for construction tips (she lucked out, a whole page of indirect goodies!). At the site, instead of skirting the metal spider, she looks up and studies the site for safety violations, memorizing them one by one.

“Gentlemen, your tie-offs are subpar!” she shouts one time before her head smacks the pavement, opening her brain to the wind.

“Oi! Those guardrails are lower than my self-esteem - top edge needs to be at least 95 centimeters, lads!” Crack.

“Cross-braces aren’t ladders, you muppets!” Thud.

“Your planks aren’t fully decked - gaps bigger than my life choices!” Splat.

By loop #93, Louise’s criticisms turn into a 15-minute rehearsed monologue she shouts all the way to her impermanent end. She generates a scene so unhinged that word reaches the construction site long before her arrival.

By loop #500, Louise wakes up yelling the list of violations. Razor-focused on the error of their ways, she skips the full croissant purchase to intercept them sooner; shouts become lectures that force attention: “Listen up! Your scaffold’s erected without a competent person overseeing - WAHR 2005 regulations 4 and 5 - require it! I’ve seen enough deaths here to know! Guardrail systems incomplete! Midrails at 95 centimeters minimum, screens if needed for falling objects. Access! No climbing cross-braces - ladders, stairs, or ramps only when platforms are over 2/3 a meter off access points!”

“Who is this nutter?” a foreman says, lifting his hardhat to scratch his brow.

Louise spots the foreman scratching his head and pounces. “Oi, you - hard hat back on, now! Head Protection is mandatory, not a choice! Base plates on loose bricks instead of sole boards - HSE nightmare! Toeboards missing, tools ready to rain down; platform overloaded with breeze blocks way over the limit; no inspection tag - daily checks required! Edge protection screens absent…”

The crew stares, stunned, as she rattles off violations like a furious auctioneer.

By loop #503, the foreman - whom she exasperates as much as she impresses - finds himself shoving a hard hat and clipboard at her mid-lecture. “Alright, you’re safety boss today. Sort our mess!”

Louise takes charge with glee, running toolbox talks under the scaffold: “Top rails 950 mm minimum, midrails closing gaps to 470 mm, harnesses on above two metres!” The lads grumble but comply, tightening bolts and adding guards. For one perfect shift, the structure holds firm - no wobbles, no debris.

She turns to strut triumphantly toward the office, clipboard tucked in her arm, the scaffold a fortress of compliance. Then, from high above, a single brick - slips from a platform she checked thrice - tumbles free, catching her square on the crown. The familiar bloom of agony; the taste of the hot latte, it’s all the same - with the addition of workers shouting and rushing, boots clanging, howls of despair - too late. Darkness swallows her, like every loop before.

Tomorrow - 6:00 a.m. The alarm rings, a familiar tyrant. Louise tries a hundred more times - endless toolbox talks, compliant bolts, compliant lads - it’s changed nothing, and it’s boring her to death.

“Another risk assessment? I’d rather die again.” Boredom, almost as deadly as falling debris.

She steps onto the bus. She’s considering giving up again. But today, Bob - the bus driver - notices Louise’s dark mood.

“What’s the trouble, miss?”

He’s never said that before!

“Bob, this is loop #4,812 for me… not that I’m counting, or anything.”

“Huh?”

She asks flippantly, expecting nothing: “Same scaffolding. Same splat. Thoughts?”

Bob chuckles at first, thinking it’s a bit. But as she summarizes the brick that fells her even after triple-checks, his eyebrows climb. “Sounds like you need a holiday, love. Or a new route!”

They enjoy some small talk before they inevitably part ways. When the day resets, Louise remembers Bob fondly, finding joy in their brief time together. She strikes up conversations with him every time - that annoying BMW interrupts them again and again, derailing the conversation with its incessant honking.

Warmth turns to anger, and Louise hatches a new plot.

The next loop, she boards the bus with purpose, latte in one hand, croissant bag in the other. Bob greets her with his usual nod. Before the BMW can honk, she leans over the seat. “Bob, that black Beamer - it’s the real villain. Every loop, it blasts through, distracts everyone. Help me stop it?”

Bob shrugs and grins. “I’m game, love. What’s the plan?”

They scheme together. Louise times the honk perfectly, shouting directions: “Swerve left at the lights - block him!” Bob obliges, easing the bus into position. The BMW screeches, trapped. The driver, red-faced, pounds the horn futilely. Passengers cheer. In one glorious loop, Bob “accidentally” nudges the Beamer into a bus lane, forcing it to pull over. The driver storms out, yelling - only for a distracted traffic warden to finally take notice and slap him with a ticket.

Dozens of hilarious loops ensue. Escalating slow-moving chases. Bob doing doughnuts. Louise waving from the back like a rally co-pilot. The antics get crazier by the day, and the BMW driver’s honking agitation ramps up to match - as well as the fines he gets.

Victory tastes like… victory... and stale latte. As with the scaffolding expertise, the triumph is fleeting, and Louise and Bob grow apart… Not that Bob will ever miss it, not after the next reset. The therapy sessions turn quiet.

“Bob, we’ve won,” Louise sighs one morning. “But the scaffold’s still there.”

Bob shrugs. “Life’s full of splats, innit?”

Boredom returns, sharper than before.

Louise has given up. Again. She calls in sick - again.

“Mr. Simmons? Louise here. Terrible flu. Cough-cough. Won’t make it.”

Over following loops, she perfects the act: raspy voice, dramatic pauses, even fake sneezes into the phone. Office-free, she lounges in pajamas, raids the fridge (loop groceries restocking magically), and binge-watches reruns in her mind. Burleigh Hill becomes routine: castle selfies (no one to show), forest walks that loop back on themselves. Her mood changes from loop to loop. First she wallows about, but soon she learns to enjoy the solitude again.

“Eternal holiday!” she toasts with imaginary champagne.

A thousand loops later, though, cabin fever hits hard. The walls press in. She paces, mid-argument with her wardrobe:

“Five tops? Really?” she screams at the door latch. “I miss the pain! The routine! Please, anything but this!”

Solitude turns maddening. She craves the bus, the bakery, even the splatter of her brain on the pavement.

“What a scene I must be, if the world could see,” she thinks.

Her own words surprise her. Epiphany strikes - what if she is being watched? Those grave-walking chills… could they be from the eyes of cameras?

“Am I on a show?” she wonders aloud, squinting, looking for hidden cameras.

“If I was on a show, I’d never find the cameras. Not in a world where the producers can reset my universe!”

It’s time to test her theory. She gets off the bus one stop early a few times to explore. As luck would have it, there’s a fancy dress and costume shop named “Escapade Emporium” only a two-minute walk away!

The next loop, Louise struts to the bakery in a ridiculous pink flamingo costume - feathers fluttering, beak bobbing - then buys her croissants with exaggerated flair. “Two flaky delights and a latte with two sugars, sponsored by Harvey’s Great Bakes: where every bite is to die for!” She winks at imagined cameras, mugging shamelessly.

At the scaffolding, she launches into slow-motion theatrics: arms windmilling like a cartoon character, high-kneed prance around the metal spider. “Behold, the grand finale! Watch as our heroine meets her doom - brought to you by HSE-compliant guardrails that still can’t save her!”

She pirouettes, screams operatically - “Nooooooo, not the brick agaaaaain!” - with jazz hands mid-tumble. The fall is pure performance art: dramatic sprawl, latte splashing in slow-mo arcs, coffee foaming like special effects. SPLAT.

“Get your phones out for some spicy snuff!” she cries the next loop, grinning and spinning her way to doom. Workers gape, phones fumbling into palms, shaky grips filming the spectacle.

Louise goes full-bore, increasingly melodramatic, unwittingly fourth-wall-breaking.

Outfits escalate wildly: sequined disco ball one loop, full Viking helmet and cape the next, a giant inflatable T-Rex suit that makes her waddle to the bakery. “Two croissants, folks - flaky, buttery, and brought to you by Harvey’s Great Bakes: the official sponsor of eternal doom!” she announces, each pose more contorted than the last. She amps the falls into spectacle: slow-mo cartwheels, backward somersaults ending in dramatic sprawls: “Why meeeee?!” tossing her latte high in the air only for it to land in the same spot each time.

“Sponsored by two sugars: because one just isn’t dramatic enough…” she croaks before the darkness swallows her again.

She introduces an increasing number of made-up product plugs: free paper (“Read all about your doom—Summerfields has the deals!”), bus pass (“Number 42: the ride that never ends!”).

Unknown to Louise, she’s onto something. A thousand light-years away, an alien production company laments tanking ratings. Every chart is in the red and viewers are quitting.

“The first 6 seasons were great, but halfway through season 7 Louise is getting too self-aware,” reads one scathing review.

“Not scary anymore,” reads another.

“She’s hamming it up.”

Focus groups for a reboot yawn; the show’s grim hook - relentless suffering - is dissolving into farce. Producers despair.

Finally, in one loop, Louise pirouettes toward the scaffold in a banana costume, yelling “Peel out, universe!” She hurriedly tosses a real banana peel, jumps on it, skidding to her doom.

“Weeeee!”

The brick drops... but the reset doesn’t come.

No alarm. No 6:00 tyrant. Just silence.

Louise never opens her eyes again. She’s finally off the air!

Wendy Cockcroft's Writings

The Ouroboros Syndrome

Written for the Macabre Monday writing challenge, hosted by Jon T, Shaina Read, and John Coon…

6 months ago · 10 likes · Wendy Cockcroft

Talia the Tickler

An Unsolicited Talia the Tyrant Prequel

A golden dawn washes over the lush meadows, painting the clear blue sky with hues of warm peach. Merry birds chirp above the family farm, sizing up potential perches, with nothing spooking them from landing.

Among the blooming wildflowers and the giggling figures of her siblings, the petite figure of twelve-year-old Talia leisurely stands atop a haystack, gripping a feather duster as she surveys the peaceful yard below.

Her face expresses great delight and pride in the harmony she and her family have wrought upon the morning chores, swiftly turning to playful tickles. The soft plume on her sunhat brushes a sibling’s nose, making him sneeze.

After nonchalantly discarding the duster, Talia casually sits down upon the hay, her vibrant and decorated bonnet running yellow with pollen from past meadows. Its surface bind with a patchwork of daisies from the golden essence of spring breezes.

She gazes out across the fields. Grasses of various shades and colors carpet the land, producing a rainbow-like effect. The blades sway in the breeze, reflecting the sun’s full gaze, increasing the colorful haze. The sky is always enveloped in fresh air, mostly created by the various farms and villages across the gentle continent that pump life into the atmosphere. It creates a blanket of fresh air so clear as to almost invite the sun’s warmth, allowing a small number of radiant rays to enter the shade.

The land is blessed, and has been so, as long as Talia can remember. Its flora and fauna embrace purity, healthy and wholesome, teeming unbroken across the continent. The people who inhabit it are nothing more than kindly neighbors who share and build everything according to custom. Her family is no different, always hungry for another friend to prove their kindness and gentleness to.

The group of playful puppies she and her siblings have just herded has been a delight. They only care for fun, and their barks and resolve prove fluffy. She has a place for such darlings within her home, even among the ranks of the kittens, so they are swiftly cuddled.

They beg, of course, and Talia holds great empathy. It is rubbies to the fluffiest out here, accompanied by satisfaction in one’s own compassion.

A small, skinny sibling approaches her with an air of caution:

“What shall we do now, big sis?”

The tiny figure of Talia stands up, turns, and looks down upon the now giggling child, replying with a joyful giggle:

“I like how this lot wagged and woofed as they played. Is there any more of ’em around here we can hug?”

“There’s no pup left standing after this romp; you played them all to exhaustion, big sis!”

She stares at the kid with mock irritation:

“How boring!”

Talia jumps down off the haystack, her feet impacting the ground with a soft pat, causing the kid to skip away playfully on instinct.

She has a small, delicate frame, molded from laughter, colorful ribbons covering her dress in various weaving configurations, as if she had spent hours with nothing better to do this morning. The largest of the bows sits on top of her right shoulder, overlapping in much the same way that petals would grow on a flower. The exposed areas of her arms bear the freckles of countless sunbeams and a few cute but faded temporary tattoos.

What catches the siblings’ attention most is what is attached to her right hand.

Talia’s prized tickle mitt that gloves her dainty hand, still haunted by the giggles of previous playmates. They have seen its terrifying efficiency in the tickle fight mere hours ago.

Its fingerless tips are studded with highly fuzzy feathers, with an embedded whoopee cushion on the back of the hand. It unleashes devastating tickles with enough force to send friends rolling considerable distances, cracking smiles and rupturing laughter in the process.

In the presence of such playful weaponry, the giggling sibling builds up the courage to entice her fun with a new offering:

“One of our friends invited us to the Meadow Mirths’ picnic to the east, right along the border of the great meadow, no more than a day’s skip away, they were going to attempt a game themselves.”

Her eyes light up.

Another friend-circle ripe for the taking.

Talia skips to her family’s power wheels, Meadow Musser, with an exaggerated stomp, like that of a child-queen excited at the prospect of domination and conquest:

“Well… why we waitin’? Let’s go frolicking!”

The family jumps into frantic action, harnessing up ponies. Meadow Musser rolls into the path, its large flower-patterned wheels turning like those of migratory butterflies in preparation for a short journey. Many others join the caravan, grouping up in a merry troupe, ready to play follow the leader.

The canopy flutters more as Meadow Musser climbs over rolling hills. The sun’s rays shine fully here, unshaded by emerald leaf.

As the power wheel and ponies weave their way through the fields, the various family members inspect and prepare picnic baskets in their carts. Sandwiches, pies, and many other treats are loaded, arranged, and packed by kids eager to share with someone. The older siblings relish introductions and playing pattycake, but the smaller family members are forbidden from doing so as they are deemed too ticklish for the glory of the king-of-the-hill-game. The littles are left steering the electrical play cars and are allowed to use the baby toys they brought.

They make no complaints; this role offers them the safety of toys without choking hazards, where the only other alternative would be boredom in the farmhouse, an undoubtedly lame fate.

As the troupe glides over the green lands, Talia peers over the edge into the shallow grass. Old legends claim this land used to be a barren waste before great peace brought bounty. But the fresh breezes and blooming topography of this continent are all she has ever known, save for the occasional flashing image in her mind, where she finds herself in another place, just as vibrant in color, but chaotic, unlike the serene meadows that surround them.

Suddenly, her body seizes up; something is trying to take hold of her, trying to affect her judgment. She stares at the innocent butterflies before her as strange thoughts enter her mind, questioning the purpose of their flights. Her control slips away; the growling voice of a tyrant cries out, trying to influence her.

“Yes! Do it! Crush them!”

To her family’s confusion, she screams out loud and tickles herself in the face with her own mitt, causing giggles to trickle from her nose.

“Get out of my head!!”

It works.

The voice falls silent.

She stares at the butterflies fluttering before her again, this time with an empty look, devoid of malice. She turns and skips away, uttering a cheerful command under her breath: “Let’s hug!”

The laughter coming from the meadow lasts eternally - in memory, if not in actuality.

Richard Loader

Talia the Tyrant

Here it is, its a bit of a choppy draft, but definetly readable. I will pre-warn you now it is fairly gory and brutal in nature. I saw no point in sensoring that part though as it is a huge part of this world…

8 months ago · 5 likes · 4 comments · Richard Loader

Puppy of the Stacks

Fan Sequel to “Daisy of the Stacks”

Dawn creeps into the bookstore an unwelcome guest. I, Daisy, prefer darkness, but answer the call, standing vigilant atop my highest shelf. The ancient tome rests nearby, its sun-on-stone scent a comforting reminder of my divine heritage.

The fat human - my servant with the thumbs - bustles about, tending to lesser matters than my own, oblivious to the perils of his teetering paper empire. Humans drift in, their sticky fingers grazing spines. They annoy me, but I am content. It has been weeks since the departure of that thieving antiquarian and daily matters have returned to their natural order.

Or so I think. Today brings catastrophe - worse than any before.

The bell jingles and in bounds a golden blur of fluff and slobber. A puppy.

The fat man beams, scooping it up. “Meet Sunny! She’s gonna make the store more family-friendly!”

He sets the beast down. It yaps, tail whipping like a deranged broom. Family-friendly? This intruder reeks of wet fur and boundless idiocy.

A lesser creature dares invade my kingdom? If it is war she wants, it is war she shall get!

I launch my campaign immediately. From my perch, I observe Sunny’s every clumsy step, gathering intel. She chews a stray bookmark - harmless, but opportunity knocks. I wait until a cozy sunbeam distracts her - my sunbeam, but I digress. I slink down, snag a rare edition from the classics aisle (some drivel about human “adventures”), and drag it to her makeshift doghouse behind the counter. I nibble the edges just enough to mimic her sloppy jaws.

The fat man discovers the mangled book. “Sunny! Bad girl! No treats.”

Victory! I climb onto the counter to claim what’s mine. Ech - dogs find these a treat? Abominable. She can keep her disgusting biscuits of wheat and bone meal.

She is still here. The fat human has not learned his mistake. Very well - the battle has just begun.

Psychological warfare escalates. I hide in the high places. No detail escapes my glowing golden eyes. Sunny’s squeaky toy lies near the door. I bat the slobbery thing into the path of incoming customers - straight into “traffic,” as the fat man calls the footpath outside. The witless beast hears it and charges in - both toy and pup cause a stumble. Blame falls directly where it belongs - upon the pup’s “playfulness.”

Sunny whines at the lecture, confused. Good. Let her learn the hierarchy.

Framing becomes a new form of high art. But I don’t even try now - every mess is assumed to be hers. I knock over a display of paperbacks when she’s nowhere near. The fat man scolds her bounding energy. I cough up a hairball and spit it onto a customer’s sandaled foot. “Your dog needs training!” they exclaim.

The pup cowers, tail tucked, unaware why she is under siege. I preen, tail flicking in triumph.

Afraid to venture amidst the shelves, now, Sunny commits the ultimate crime. She invades my sanctuary. She tries to play with me.

There I am, lounging on a warm patch of rug, when she bounds over, paws flailing, yapping invitations to “frolic.”

Frolic? As if I’d debase myself with frolicking to begin with - much less with a slobbering subordinate!

I ignore her. She nips at my tail playfully, the fool. This cannot stand.

I hiss, swatting her nose, promising escalation and vengeance. She simply wags her tail at me dumbly.

Later, I dangle her favorite toy, some barbaric combination of tennis ball and feathers. I lure her onto a teetering book stack in the history section. The foolish beast believes it an invitation to play - she balances precariously, wobbling like a drunken chariot rider. She lacks my finesse - it all crashes down in a flurry of paper and fur. The fat man condemns her “curiosity.”

I commandeer the fat man’s laser pointer. It is difficult to resist hunting this prey myself, but as a descendant of gods, my willpower is infinite. I send her chasing the red dot straight into the rare books aisle. She skids into shelves, toppling first editions. Chaos reigns, pointer forgotten, as she runs to and fro, leaping over the mess she’s made. I watch from afar, whiskers twitching in amusement. Another tail-tucking lecture, another 5-minute banishment to the closet.

Sunny cannot match my strength of will. But she is too stupid to understand how much she is hated. Once free from her time-out, she spots me on a low shelf.

I’m in the middle of my victory nap. She leaps, paws outstretched, yipping joy. I dart away, but her momentum carries her into the ancient folklore section. A heavy shelf groans, tilts, and collapses with a thunderous thud. Books avalanche across the floor. The fat man rushes over, gasping. Amid the rubble, something gleams - a hidden, forgotten first-edition Grimm’s Fairy Tales, dust-caked but pristine, tucked behind the wall from some long-ago renovation.

His eyes widen. “This is worth a fortune!” Provenance checks out. It’s authentic, valued at thousands. He sells it online, funds flooding in.

Store improvements follow: a towering cat perch with velvet cushions, overlooking everything, and a cozy dog bed in a quiet corner. I claim the tower immediately, perching atop like the goddess I am, overseeing Sunny’s now-obedient naps below.

Sunny is still here, but I claim spiritual victory. I’ve safely established my superiority. This last round of tribute from the fat human has proven particularly cozy.

I have allowed the war to be forgotten - for now. She is dumb, but has learned her place. No more invasions, no more pouncing, no more attempts to share her disgusting toys with me. As the weeks pass, Sunny begins mimicking my aloof stares. When a customer coos, I glare with divine disdain. Sunny no longer approaches for rubs or scratches - instead she copies me, puppy eyes narrow in comical imitation.

A video goes viral: “Grumpy Duo Guards Bookstore!” Crowds flock to the store, children giggling at our synchronized scowls. Sales soar. The fat man thrives, oblivious to the orchestrated blessings I bestow.

Oh well. I tolerate the fat man. And now, I tolerate the beast, too. Let her energy draw the apes, so long as I am left in peace.

Order restored, by me. The world remembers its rulers.

J.M. Gooding

Daisy of the Stacks

Dawn leaks into the bookstore like a lazy intruder. I’m already awake, taking my position on top of the highest bookshelf. I don’t sleep deeply, too many liabilities in this place. Paper towers balanced like the owner wants them to fall on him someday. Humans drifting in and out with their loud voices and sticky fingers. It’s a miracle any of them survi…

4 months ago · 22 likes · 17 comments · J.M. Gooding

Is Love the Only Thing That’s Real?

C.J.W. Armstrong nailed it. Love, indeed, is the truest, rarest, most beautiful experience in the universe. Skin-to-skin moment with your newborn, girlfriend or boyfriend squeaking “Yes!” to the marriage proposal, hugging your mom tight when you haven’t seen her in months… It’s all so moving and makes me want to watch that scene from Interstellar with Matt McConaughey.

But alas, the universe doesn’t restrain itself just to love’s cozy hospital room. There are… other feelings out there, fleeting as they may seem at times, that I nonetheless celebrate and despise. The moment they occur, they feel every bit as real and vivid, even though I sometimes desperately wish they were just figments of my imagination.

Examples below:

First bite
The pull of molten cheese, the crunch of crispy crust, the sauce explosion - “all is forgiven, world,” you think, for in that moment, it’s all worth it.
No Teepee
Midway through the deed. You reach... and grasp air. The horror creeps, burning like a slow-motion apocalypse. It feels inescapably real - the vain, unanswered cry for help, the cold sweat, the frantic cabinet rummage, the existential dread of “We might have to improvise.” You desperately wish this was a bad dream, but no, it’s real, and there’s no going back to the “before” time.
Warm blankets
You forgot to change the sheets, and dance half-naked to your freezing laundry room is cold. The blanket has just finished in the dryer - warm, sweetly scented. Everything’s prepared - you dive in, burrowing like a mole into your blissful blanket cocoon, a full-body sigh of relief on your lips. The moment rivals a luxurious hour at the spa.
Puddle on the floor
You’ve been saving them for days, using inferior, slightly less fuzzy socks during the working week. It’s finally your day off, so you slip on your best pair. You’re dry, toasty, optimistic, humming as you skip down the hall. Then - squelch - betrayal. You freeze in place, eyes scrunched shut, teeth grinding. This can’t be happening, you think - no, you beg. But it’s real, it’s happening, and try as you might, you cannot ignore it.
Turbulence
For sleepless hours, the red-eye flight bucked like a rodeo bull in the dark. You got to experience zero gravity 15 times - not the fun kind, but the unplanned, coffee-spilling sort. During one 10-second instance, you were so certain the plane would crash that your life flashed before your eyes. But finally - thud! - tires screech on the tarmac. You’ve never been so thankful for solid ground - soon as you’ve shuffled off the plane, you’re bowing down and kissing the very real ground. “I missed you so much, I will never leave you again!”
Textual Slip
Giggling, riding a joyous high, your fingers flying, you hit send. “They’re gonna love this!” you think, as the little data package folds up and flies into the digital ether. Then - gut-punch realization - that wasn’t your bestie… it was your Ex! Your Auntie! Your… boss! Cue the the frantic attempt to delete and whirling explanations. “Sorry, I meant to send that to my doctor! You see, I have a rash - please don’t look too closely.” You type hurriedly, trying to explain away the new flattering angle you attempted for a sexy pic. You know that they know that you know that’s not what it is. This moment is all-too-real.
Reconnecting
Buffer purgatory ends. The little light blinks green. That tide of digital manna flows once more - drought abated! Connectivity! It’s real, triumphant, a rush better than caffeine at the theater. You don’t know what you’ve got until you’ve lost it.
Cursed itch
That phantom itch in the middle of your back, mocking your contortions with rulers, doorframes, and reluctant strangers. It builds to a maddening crescendo, your skin staging a rebellion. You’re a writhing pretzel, wishing evolution had given us prehensile tentacles or just done away with nerves altogether. As soon you scratch that itch, you hit your commute - and a new itch starts in your shoe. Too real.
Parallel park
The spot is tiny. You’re in your 4 wheel drive 3.5 ton monster of a truck. It’s the only spot downtown - the alternative is walking 3 blocks and paying $15 an hour for the trouble. Sweating, knuckles white, you shift into reverse… And glide in like a ninja in the night. One point turn! Zero adjustments! The crowd (of one pigeon) applauds! It feels gloriously real, a dopamine hit of vehicular mastery.
Autocorrect
You value your reputation for prompt replies. Typing fast, you’re supplying the client/boss/coworker a timely response - you’re the pure essence of professionalism. In your hubris, though, you forgot to spellcheck this one time - and the creeping horror at what you wrote closes in. Autocorrect had a field day with you, sucker, LOL! Circle back? don’t make me laugh. You wrote: “Let’s circle jerk on this”. Touch base? How about “touch BOOBS” instead. I’m happy to take the lead on this turns “Take the dong on this.” Synergize our efforts somehow twisted to “Synergized fornication.” Crushing targets? More like “crushing testicles.” And, of course, the classic one, instead of ending with kind regards you wrote “Kind R█████s.” The taunting at the office will last all week - a reality you can’t escape.

C.J.W. Armstrong is probably right that love transcends dimensions of time and space. It’s observable, powerful, and maybe even the artifact of a higher dimension. But sometimes the universe feels like more of an “equal-opportunity” reality-checker. It doesn’t just hand out one flavor of transcendent bliss - sometimes it’ll serve these other moments with the exact same intensity, the same “this is happening right now and I can’t escape” vividness.

The Pneumanaut

Is Love the Only Thing That's Real?

So there I was, sitting in a small private hospital room in Stockholm with a newborn baby lying against my bare chest. There was no one else around—just me and my son, skin-on-skin, with a blanket wr…

4 months ago · 5 likes · 4 comments · C. J. W. Armstrong

Do Not Go Gentle into That Café Light

Narrated by Bruce Willis

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

Do not go gentle into that café light,
Joe, old pal, should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying zombie blight.

Though wise baristas know the rot is right,
Because their foam art had not gone viral they
Do not go gentle into that café light.

Good PTA moms, the last wave by, sipping tight,
Crying how high their banana bread starters might rise,
Rage, rage against the dying zombie blight.

Dead wild librarians who caught the cat in flight,
And learn, too late, not neutered, litter on the way,
Do not go gentle into that café light.

Grave teens on benches, phones aglow in spite,
Who see with blind eyes shadows leak and fade,
Rage, rage against the dying zombie blight.

And you, my Joe, with latte cold as night,
I see dead people... walking 'round like regular folk.
Do not go gentle into that café light.
Rage, rage... against the dying zombie blight.

Grey Matters

Invisible

Dearest Penguin People…

a year ago · 19 likes · 4 comments · K.Lynn Grey

You Won’t Believe Why I’m Dying to Hype This Epic Top Spot Today – It’s THAT Mind-Blowingly Good!

Every Wild Idea We Brainstorm Turns Out to Be Way Too Explosive – You Have to See Why!

So Guess What? Shocking Twist Alert - We Cranked Out a Totally Boring, Snoozefest Review Instead!

FORBIDDEN - I Know, I Know... This Kind of Lame Stuff Is Not Allowed in DREAD Reviews – And You’ll Never Guess Why We’re Obsessed With Avoiding It! That’s Not What We’re About at All – Discover the Secret Reason DREAD Reviews Ditches the Dull Forever! And Thank God for This – The Jaw-Dropping Truth Behind Our No-Boredom Policy Will Change How You View Everything!

Learn Exactly Why We Grabbed That Snoozer Review and Transformed Every. Single. Line. Into Pure Clickbait Gold!

Hooking, or Too Far? Everyone Gets it Wrong – The Insane Reason This Over-the-Top Move Works Will Blow Your Mind!

You Won’t Believe What Lurks in the “Plague House” – Is It Just Pestilence, or Something Far Worse? This “Manor Standing in the Midst of a Field” Hides Secrets That Will Chill Your Blood – But What If the Boarded Windows Are Keeping More Than Plague Inside? “Lady Erith” Opens the Door to a Stranger, But Could This “Waif” Be the Savior or the Doom of Her Dying Family? You Thought Quarantine Was Bad? Wait Until You Hear the “Awful Sound of Labored Coughs” Echoing Through This Doomed Household! The House Is “Woven of Stench and Darkness” – But Is That Miasma Hiding a Monster, or Just the Ghosts of “Happier Times That Might Never Be Again”?

“Sixteen and Short, with Unkind Eyes” – Meet the Boy Who Steps Into Hell. What Dark Past Fuels His “Familiarity with Starvation, Destitution, and Perhaps Even Violence”? “Sir Bleiven” Lies Pale and Hollow, But What If His “Impending Death” Isn’t the Worst Fate Awaiting This “Large Man” Reduced to Bedrest? “Maund Was a Shy Girl of Thirteen” – Innocent Eyes in a House of Horror, But Will She Survive the Shadows That “Seep Along the Edges of the Boarded-Up Windows”? “Pip Was Only Three, and His Bosom Friend Was a Ragdoll with No Name” – Adorable or Ominous?

You Decide, as the Plague Closes In!

“Lady Erith” Demands Order Amid Chaos, But What Happens When She Whispers, “I Wish He Wouldn’t Read These,” Staring at Books of “Morowmere, Plague Maiden, Pestilence, Death”? A “Dark Figure Looming Above Sir Bleiven” Vanishes in the Light – Hallucination or Harbinger?

The Night Hides the Truth!

“This Isn’t Treacle!” Shouts a Voice in Defiance – But Will Exposing the Fraudulent “Doctor Inderly” Save the Family or Seal Their Fate?

“You Are Blight Incarnate!” The Physician Roars – Accusations Fly, But Who’s the Real “Fiend’s Agent” in This Condemned Home? “Five Glasses” for Brandy, But Why Does “Sir Bleiven” Insist on Including the Servant? A Toast to Life... or Death?

“Laughter and Tears Flowed Between the Bloody Coughs” – Family Bonds Strengthen, But Can They Withstand the “Hideous Umbrage” Creeping Closer? “God Gave Sir Bleiven Five More Days” – Precious Moments in the Parlor. But What If the Flames of Cremation Signal Something Even Darker Awakening?

“Take Care of My Children, Mister Guill” – A Dying Wish That Haunts, But Will the Servant Honor It - or Will He Betray Everything? “The Miasma Down There’s Too Strong” – The Cellar Beckons with “Cadaverous Air,” But Dare You Descend Into the “Ribbed Throat of a God of Filth and Decay”? “It’s Sitting on Her Chest” – A Nightmare Made Real, But Can a Chase Through the Darkness Stop the “Teeming Form” From Claiming Its Prey? “Those Eyes Looked Up... With Curious Timidity” – Human or Horror? The Monster’s Gaze Promises Terror! Or Does It?

“Piss Off” to Old Allies – Loyalties Shift. But What Price Will Betrayal Exact in This House of Plague? “I’m Opening These Windows!” Defies the Law – Fresh Air, or Fatal Mistake? The Watchmen Warn of Doom! “The Morowmere Awaits Perishment” – Ancient Lore Reveals Weaknesses Like “Salt” and “Fire,” But Can Knowledge Be Enough In a Fight With the “Writhing and Indistinct” Beast?

“Drink! Be Brave Like Your Father!” – Desperate Pleas in the Dead of Night, But Can a Child Cling to Life Amid “Bubbling and Wet” Breaths? “Don’t Leave Me Here!” – Heart-Wrenching Cries Echo, But What If Survival Means Facing the Flames Alone? Today’s “Vesumpis the Twelfth” – The Officer Arrives, But Will the House’s Secrets Burn Away, or Explode in “Hot and Hungry Light”?

“You Can Come Out! ‘Tis Only I!” – A Final Invitation to the Abyss… But What Twisted Bond Forms Over “Brandy” with a Creature of Decay? “This Was Rotten of You” – Accusations in the Face of Death, But Can Redemption Rise From the Ashes of a “Plague House” Inferno? “Pip Would Not Hear Such Speech” – The Survivor’s Tale Endures, But Why Name a Ragdoll “Mister Guill” If Not for a Hero’s Legacy?

You Read “Plague House” and Emerge Changed. Dare You Uncover the Truth? Read Now to Find out If the Monster Was the Plague, or the Man Within!

Dunmore Dispatch

Plague House

The two watchmen unbolted a chain across the door where hung a sign reading, God Have Mercy. They knocked, and stepped back. The house was a manor standing in the midst of a field. One could almost call it fine save for the boarded windows and awful sound of labored coughs…

6 months ago · 52 likes · 30 comments · Ian Dunmore

They escaped the simulation only to discover the real world comes with dress codes, acid rain, floating McMansions, and the sudden, unexplained need to pretend you’re dumb.

In the glittering rot of Cabal Prime, three liberated lab-grown messiahs learn the hardest truth yet: even demigods need to fake being simple victims if they want to survive dinner with the 1%.

Hans pulls out a remote and turns the lord and lady of the house into living statues mid-sentence - because nothing says “trust us, we’re the good guys” like casual brain-hacking over dessert.

From dragon-slaying simulations to… This? Nyl really just wants to ride in the giant planet-killing war machine and slay some fools. Instead, she’s surrounded by crybabies in the knight’s wing after the hottest almost-threesome in galactic history.

Welcome to Part 13, where “freedom” feels suspiciously like blue-balled foreplay. At least the interior decor is nice.

Guest Review by

I’ve done a little bit of everything in the arts and entertainment world. Writing, acting, directing, producing, consulting. Stage and screen. Prose and poetry. Still haven’t decided what I want to be when I grow up.

Oh, yeah . . . I decided I’m not doing that. Adulthood is overrated anyway, right?

~Gregory
IMDb
Official Website

’s review of “A Perfect Guest” by

A Perfect Guest, ’s contribution to the Substack-wide collaboration The Midnight Vault II, completes the perfect setup for a creepy, fireside read at midnight: a dark, stormy, chilly autumn night; a large, lonely hillside mansion; a solitary woman; an unexpected stranger’s visit.

Familiar, right? Cozy, even.

Don’t be fooled. Flirting with genre tropes the whole way, bit by bit the story evolves into something else. Something dark and delirious.

Rushing to provide this guest with nourishment, Widow Isadora Tumble is solicitous to a fault. But the stranger needs to fast. The more days that pass without his partaking, the more agitated she becomes. Even the house protests, creaking and groaning.

Reid’s patient pace and delicate skill intrigues the reader as the tale twists and turns until all is revealed. Does our hostess provide a true, welcoming reception, or does she hide some dark deception? Is the stranger in peril? Or is he the danger? And what is this house that seems as if it’s coming to life?

It’s a slow burn mystery/thriller where the real treat is not just discovering the who, but the why. When Reid unleashes the story’s unexpected, cataclysmic climax, it’s as exciting as it is satisfying.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a more delectable, cozy short story.

I’d say, in a word, it’s “perfect”.

Talebones ✨

A Perfect Guest

Greetings, One and All…

7 months ago · 73 likes · 25 comments · S.E. Reid

Promoting

Every writer could use a little help.

In the quietly creepy tale “Ghost Writer,” two authors covertly help each other, resulting in a successful series of books . . . and something else.

Something unexpected. Unexplainable.

Haunting, if you will.

Gregory Blair - Scribbling Entertainment

Ghost Writer

I am a haunted woman…

8 months ago · 4 likes · Gregory Blair

DREAD 47 | DREAD 48 | DREAD 49 | ⚔️DREAD 50⚔️ | DREAD 51

Bellageist is a reader-supported publication. Please like & subscribe!

Consider giving here:

Bellageist: Chained Demigod Part 13

Derek James Kritzberg — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 08:01:31 GMT

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

Our government, tyrannical and corrupt, cannot be usurped – not without existential crisis.
Our people, decaying and doomed, cannot be saved – not without radical change.

Our comfort saps our tolerance for pain and hardship.
Our immortality curses us with fear of danger and death.
Our culture teeters high upon cliffs of hubris,
And our armies suffocate under mountains of laurels.

I possess criminal knowledge of these realities, and in our enlightened, stagnant era, only one felony remains – the truth.

But the truth is now inescapable.

Diadochus, Second of the Diadochi Lords, First of the Primus Guard, has gone rogue. Seven other Diadochi Lords are no longer trusted.

Should even one of the Diadochi turn on its masters, our home world will know ruin - as it nearly did when the first barely turned away human invasion 250 years ago.

Amidst betrayal and uncertainty, a pariah bursts anew from his cocoon - now a messiah.
Like an ancient messenger of a god thought extinct, I rise from the dead to offer salvation.

Or so they believe.

I do not promise a loyal servant.
I do not promise a powerful warrior.
I do not promise a tool, a weapon, or an answer.

I deceive no one - only in desperation do they imagine I promise these things.
No. What I promise is a perfect mind and a heart of iron. And they shall have it.

We require revolution. We beg for salvation.
The new Diadochi Lords will bring us neither.

Basilissa, our prize jewel, our daughter in ways more real than reality. You could save our world, our people, and our legacy.

But you will not.

You have a more important role to play.

-Jann Sorenson

Parts 1-12 Synopsis (2-minute read)

In a surreal, trial-laden simulation governed by a metallic voice, Nyl awakens as a primal being driven by aggression and fear of weakness. Earning epithets like “the Impetuous” and “the Ardent,” she battles through escalating eras - from stone-age melees to Renaissance sieges and modern warfare - absorbing alien knowledge and displaying superhuman prowess. Amid half-aware hordes, she allies with Garuna the Swift and Arcade the Unwavering, their triad slaying a dragon but abandoning a mortally wounded Garuna for a king’s glory, igniting Nyl’s guilt. Jealousy erupts at a feast; Arcade’s love confession culminates in a kiss that splits him into obsessive red-eyed fury and guilt-chained stoicism. Nyl’s dragon rage kills Garuna’s vengeful “son” Garun, but spawns twins Luna and Runa. Forgiveness eventually reunites the triad, the voice revealing them as components to forge “Basilissa”: Garuna the beacon, Arcade the link, Nyl the motive force.

Awakening in a cryotube, Nyl joins “reality” in a war against AI tyrant Consensus, fighting pirates bare-handed then boarding the submarine Witness. It has been minutes for Nyl while her friends aged ten years. Psychic synergy binds the companions as they assault near-future Manhattan, facing child hostages in suicide vests. Nyl triggers a mass-detonation signal and glimpses metallic “true” forms beneath her flesh, realizing the simulation persists. In the final battle, she kills copies of herself. Creators Sor and Hanno reveal the voice - “Usher” - is a gamified script turned to factory manager. The AI tyrant Consensus proves an ally. Unable to escape with them, it begs Nyl to carry its “child” - a data cartridge.

Free of simulation, the companions awaken in metallic bodies within the “Soul Factory” - a nightmarish cradle of severed limbs and cybernetic horrors. Sor and Hanno explain humanity’s split into flesh and machine, centuries of war, and how their purpose has deviated to revolution. Tasked with reuniting species, they explore the facility, built upon the ruins of a shattered ringworld. After a battle to free Garuna’s unconscious lover, Viveca, they board a shuttle to House Randall, leaving the abyss to embrace an uncertain future.

Bellageist: Chained Demigod Part 13

Prime

The shuttle’s narrow confines pressed in on Nyl, static stars twinkling through the viewport.

She gripped the armrest, silver fingers curling - too tight. The metal groaned, then buckled under untested strength.

She forced herself to release her grip, splaying digits wide, marveling at their alien invincibility. She inhaled deep - a ghostly habit born from false flesh’s needs. The breath calmed her, easing the insistent ache in her belly.

Garuna sat across from her, knees tucked under her hugging arms, face hidden behind a spill of molten orange hair.

Garuna whispered, so quiet that without their synergy, Nyl might not have understood a word:

“I thought it all real,” her voice cracked. “Years of struggle and loss. Of love, setbacks, and triumph.”

A dull blue glow pierced strands, Garuna’s eye fixed on Nyl.

“I am sorry,” Nyl said. Comforting words died in her throat. I am both an old friend and a complete newcomer, she thought. What had been a lifetime for them seemed but a week to me.

Garuna broke eye contact, burying her head deeper into her knees. She turned her head.

Nyl followed her gaze, saw Viveca’s cold metal body in repose.

What is she? Nyl wondered privately. A nonexistent simulated human, inhabited by a forked iteration of an AI program, given a soul, then born an adult in a body of metal?

Who would believe any of that? Nyl knew she should tell Garuna. Again, words failed her.

Does it matter how she was made?

The same could be said of herself. Of any of them. Their nature still changed – Garuna’s green irises had become fully blue, matching the robotic glow of her pupils. Arcade now had fully purple eyes.

Thoughts of Arcade steadied her racing heart. She saw her reflection in his silvery bicep – the red eyes of a metal stranger glinted back at her.

Her eyes had always been red, even when she thought herself human. She wondered what that meant.

“Reality,” Nyl said to her reflection. “A cruel concept at this point.”

Thinking him distracted, Arcade’s voice surprised her:

“Be this simulation or real stars,” he said quietly, “we still choose our path. Together.”

Warmth pulsed through their synergy.

“Passengers,” the tender intoned. “Approaching Pegasus Interceptor Gate North. Prepare for translation.”

Nyl pressed her nose to the viewport again. She could see only a fraction of the gargantuan structure’s ring-shaped perimeter.

White light flashed in the void, and yellow beams from the gate’s edges stabbed towards the center. The energies gave the illusion of pulling open a hole in reality, somehow blacker than the void between stars.

The shuttle plunged in.

Nyl’s senses scattered – dissolved, filtered, then exploded into a thousand-eyed cloud of stars. The synergy screamed: one heart fragmenting exponentially, beyond their most basic component parts.

Then gravity returned. She slammed back into her body like cold water with a gasp and a shiver.

Arcade’s and Garuna’s gasps echoed hers. Their return warmed Nyl, like invisible sunlamps.

The shuttle shuddered - the stars outside wobbled back to stability like a settling pond.

“Translation complete,” the tender said. “Welcome to Nodus I.”

Reality resumed. Nyl exhaled. Her breasts ached again, and her abdomen clenched in a tight fist.

Garuna whispered: “Incredible.”

Arcade looked thoughtful. “That out-of-body experience…” he said, “could a simulator reproduce that?”

Nyl thought not. Before she could answer, Garuna’s bitterness silenced all talk: “We should give up on the ‘is this real’ tripe. It is what it is.”

The tender’s voice broke the silence: “Fifty-two hours remain in our voyage. We will translate through Nodus I Interceptor Gate West, arrive at Cabal Minor’s Anchor Gate One, then deorbit onto Cabal Prime and land within the estate of House Randall.”

“Looks like we have to settle in,” Arcade said, unmoving, already comfortable.

Nyl made a pouty face.

Garuna gave a strained laugh. “Nyl’s formative memories are but a week old. Two days will seem an eternity to her.”

Arcade smiled. “Nyl will grow accustomed to long waits, just as we have.”

Arcade’s hand gave hers a light squeeze.

Some of Nyl’s irritation melted away.

Garuna shook a finger at them. “No funny business, you two.”

“Why not?” Nyl protested. “We are already naked!”

Garuna did her best to hide it, but Nyl could sense the rise of desire in her friend.

Nyl thought: Why does she resist?

Garuna affected nonchalance: “Viveca may wake any moment.”

“I hope she does,” Arcade said.

Garuna nodded curtly.

Nyl looked at the sleeping, beautiful woman. Strapped into the fourth seat, her silvery bosom rose and fell, a slow and steady rhythm.

A serene simulacrum of human breath. Will her medical knowledge be of any use in this metallic future?

Viveca’s human ‘simulated’ form had hazel eyes and golden hair. Nyl could not see Viveca’s eyes, but this metallic incarnation’s hair had brightened further and rusted slightly, turning strawberry blonde.

Viveca was objectively the most attractive person present, in Nyl’s opinion. Though Nyl felt little interest in the woman – or any women besides Garuna, truly. Viveca did not emit Arcade’s steady gravity, or Garuna’s forbidden fire.

Nyl looked back to Garuna, saw her concern, felt the wave of her barely concealed pain.

Nyl’s naughty thoughts withered on the vine.

She fixed her eyes on the stars outside and wondered what worlds they harbored.

The days passed mostly in silence.

Viveca did not wake.

The shuttle spilled out of another gate. The companions endured the disconcerting disconnection again. Stars traded constellations and a world bloomed below.

“Welcome to Cabal Minor,” the pilot intoned. “Final destination: Cabal Prime. Initiating trans-lunar injection.”

Nyl peered out. Heaps of discarded scrap dominated the view - trash piles as tall as mountains, casting shadows over walled clearings. Factories squatted in valleys of rust, linked by conveyor belts feeding glowing foundries. Chimneys belched toxic plumes that twisted into a thin atmosphere of smog.

“What a mess,” Arcade opined, his face reflecting the moon’s sickly glow.

The tender-bot announced a brief layover, but Nyl barely heard it - her eyes fixed on the moon’s valleys, where automated dredgers clawed at the refuse mountains.

Above, gargantuan haulers descended and ascended like a macabre procession of diseased whales, dumping waterfalls of clamorous trash.

Garuna shook her head. “A testament to Posthumanity’s curse. They reject the truth of death, denying their appointed date with God’s judgement, swathing themselves in sin and ruin.”

“We share their curse,” Nyl observed.

Garuna scowled.

“Apparently,” Nyl amended.

The shuttle climbed, leaving Cabal Minor’s weak gravity. The moon’s ugliness dissolved under fog, pollutants coalescing into a false pearlescent gleam.

The shuttle left the moon at a velocity incongruent with the accelerative force Nyl felt. Some kind of inertial shunting clearly shielded the ride. Nyl’s encyclopedic mind rustled to action, but Nyl ignored the details on offer, immersing herself in the now.

Cabal Minor shrank to the size of a coin. She searched the stars, saw the bright yellow sun. Another disc arced into view - pearly like its moon, ten times larger, growing slowly. Enormous stations hung in its shadow like jagged pebbles. Squinting, Nyl saw distant starships glimmering at its perimeter – microscopic ants trailing to and from the moon.

Thirty minutes passed before Nyl discerned finer details of the planet’s surface.

Cabal Prime – a colossal ecumenopolis. The planet’s steely, stately appearance glued the companions to the viewports. An endless city gleamed with steely perfection – a seamless expanse of ringed causeways, spoked spires, and brilliant clustered lights. Puffy clouds obscured parts, and a bubble-thin slice of blue atmosphere haloed the horizon.

“Passengers, remain seated. Secure your seatbelts,” the tender reminded robotically. “Reentry in five minutes.”

Nyl checked her harness – still secure. She wondered how rough the ride would be, what sights awaited below.

Red plasma tracers spread over the view as they penetrated Prime’s atmosphere. Nyl turned away, blinded by the light.

She stared at the floor, shadows flickering to yellow-white fire. She tensed for turbulence that never came. As the light died, she dared another peek.

The shuttle descended above a sea of white clouds. Air rushed over the hull as it slotted into aerial traffic - a dizzying array of vehicles weaving invisible, arcing roads in the sky. Vessels large and small swooped past, too rapid to discern their make.

Arcade raised his voice above the atmospheric howl: “Quite a busy place!”

Garuna sounded more dreadful: “A capital mightier than I imagined. What are we getting into?”

They plummeted into clouds. Seconds later, they emerged to a new vista.

Beauty above a sea of rot, Nyl thought.

Like its moon, Cabal Prime looked a jewel only from afar. Closer, craters and ravines scarred its surface – ravages of some historic disaster.

Wars, Nyl somehow knew. Invaded twice, never repaired.

Time softened the damage in some places, worsened it in others. One scar dug a kilometers-long trench, its breadth wide as the horizon. Collapsed infrastructure exposed hundreds of sublevels to open air - some walled off with rusting barriers, others hanging free, broken maws spilling debris like crumbling teeth.

Beneath a gray sky, smaller dark clouds raced low, raining acid. The toxic wash etched rivulets into rusted underbellies.

Above the smog, jewel-like estates floated on gossamer struts, threadlike in defiance of gravity. New additions, relatively, though they clearly took decades to build. Estates of the elite mounted high in arrogant grace.

“Cabal Prime.” Arcade’s voice took a strange tone. “You said you know of this place. How?”

Nyl stared blankly. “I do not know.”

Arcade’s acceptance of this explanation resonated on their link.

“The rotten heart of posthuman civilization,” Garuna summarized the view.

“Yes,” Nyl confirmed. “Rotten, it is.”

The shuttle banked into descent. House Randall’s estate emerged — an obsidian mountain hovering above the poisoned sprawl. Struts, delicate as spider silk yet deceptively strong, penetrated the rust-choked undercity like roots seeking forgotten soil.

From this altitude the estate shimmered. Crystal domes shielded tiered gardens, emeralds of chlorophyll defiant amid gray steel and red rust. Waterfalls cascaded through hanging gardens, catching fleeting rainbows. Manicured branches bent under the weight of a billion flawless blossoms.

“Plants!” Garuna said, surprised, smiling faintly. “In this hellhole!”

Arcade frowned.

Nyl thought little of it.

The shuttle eased onto a private docking pad. From this vantage, the terrifying power and ugliness of Cabal Prime vanished, evincing only a horizon of blue sky, steel spires, and other distant estates of matching grandeur.

Nyl unbuckled, her metal fingers clicking softly on the clasp. The shuttle hatch hissed open, revealing a walkway lined with flowers encased in glass boxes – and a lone figure.

Hanno in the flesh, Nyl thought. Or should I say, ‘in the metal’?

Hanno wore goggles perched on his brow, his scientist’s attire traded in for a noble’s embroidered coat. He boarded with purposeful strides, his face a mask of calm.

“Welcome to Cabal Prime!” he said, offering folded garments. “Wear these. The capital favors many libertarian attitudes, but our hosts are a bit more conservative. Nakedness will do us no favors here.”

Nyl accepted the clothes. She attempted to speak.

“No questions, not yet,” Hanno interrupted. “Quickly now, our privacy is limited.”

Nyl donned a body glove. Padded for decency, it fit form-tight and left little to the imagination. Once zipped up, the fabric tightened further, clinging almost like a layer of skin.

Garuna dressed similarly. Both women helped dress Arcade, the large man struggling in the shuttle’s cramped space.

Hanno leaned out the door, checking for onlookers. Finding none, he closed it, withdrew a wand-like device, and activated a projection.

A holographic Sor flickered to life. “Congratulations on your escape,” he said, his grin wry.

“You lied,” Garuna said, ominous.

“We did,” Sor admitted.

Garuna’s eyes flashed blue, fists clenched. “Why?”

“We, uh… Hanno, what did you tell them?”

“Nothing,” Hanno said.

“We hoped to…” Sor looked to Hanno. “To preserve your empathy. To keep you pure amidst the reality’s horrors.”

“A needless pretense,” Arcade said. “We are not children. We can tell right from wrong.”

Nyl bit her tongue, doubt flaring.

Sor smiled. “I see that, now. And I apologize. You three surpass expectations.”

Garuna spat. “Your flattery is wasted. If you think me a tool simply because you built the Soul Factory, you are arrogant and a fool. God is our creator – I submit to Him alone.”

“What she said.” Arcade nodded. “More or less.”

Nyl could empathize with Garuna’s fury, but felt curiosity, not rebellion. She spoke haltingly: “I understand your role in our… ‘formation.’ And I admire your fight to gain control.” She glanced apologetically at her companions. “Perhaps you plan to earn our forgiveness?”

“I do,” Sor said. “Once you learn the stakes, you may understand our caution. You are your own people. For my vision to work, you must be beholden to no one. Not me, not Hans – no one.”

“Hans?” Nyl said. “Not Hanno?”

“Yes,” Hans said. “My name is not Hanno.”

“What a ridiculous alias,” Arcade said. “They sound so similar.”

“I forgot to come up with one before meeting you,” Hans admitted. “So, I made it up on the spot.”

“Wait, what about Sor, then?” Nyl asked. “Is ‘Sor’ an alias as well?”

Holo-Sor winked, a mischievous glint in his eye.

Hans clicked the projector off. “Enough. Our hosts patiently await.”

Garuna halted Arcade with a hand. He nodded, carefully hoisting Viveca over his shoulder.

Hans opened the door, and the trio followed him out.

The landing hummed with unseen, subsurface machinery. Ozone prickled Nyl’s nose.

A squad of guards awaited — jewel-encrusted helmets gleaming, dangling plates a cross between armor and valorous medals.

Their captain – tall, a wolf-emblazoned disc on his breast – saluted Hans, then bowed to the trio. He waved; two guards approached Arcade.

Arcade’s grip on Viveca tightened.

Hans gestured apologetically. “They will take Viveca for diagnosis and care. Standard procedure.”

Garuna’s eyes blazed blue. “No. I stay with her.”

Hans shook his head. “Not possible. This is for her safety. You can trust the Randalls with her, they value life highly.”

Garuna gripped Viveca’s arm, her free hand balling to a fist.

Nyl searched for calming words. Is she going to fight them?

Arcade placed a steadying hand on Garuna’s shoulder, his voice low. “We are guests on a strange world, Garuna. We need their help. Let them tend her — we will see her soon, correct?”

“Yes,” Hans promised.

Garuna’s resolve cracked, tears welling. She nodded.

Only after receiving Garuna’s permission did Arcade release Viveca to the waiting guards.

The guards lifted Viveca gently and carried her away down a side-mounted stairway.

Garuna watched until they vanished. Nyl felt the pain of separation sharp on their link.

Hans said: “Lead the way, Praetor.”

The captain nodded, leading them across the platform through armored doors into opulent halls. Marble echoed underfoot. Some tapestries depicted battle scenes. Others displayed half-cybernetic wolves, clutching stars.

Protectively, or covetously?

“Such grandeur,” Nyl said, intending flippancy. Her comment met no response.

They entered a grand chamber with a vaulted ceiling mimicking a starry void.

A posthuman couple awaited – lord and lady in rich attire. The man wore weary concern – an expression adding decades to an otherwise youthful face. Beside him, an elegant woman. Her thin frame and large dress affected the look of a sickle tearing up a bed of silk.

“Nyl, Arcade, Garuna,” Hans said formally. “May I introduce Savo Randall.”

“Greetings, Hans.” Savo regarded his guests with hooded eyes. Nyl recognized the subtle fierceness of a retired warrior in that gaze. “Welcome to my home, companions.”

Savo gestured to his side. “Meet Lady Randall. Hyponia, my wife, and my better.” He said the last with a wistful smile.

“Welcome, strangers,” Hyponia said. Her warmth felt practiced – artificial as the domed gardens outside. She curtsied with calculated perfection, her dress crimpling in uncanny symmetry.

Nyl instantly disliked her.

Hyponia looked straight through her, as if addressing someone behind Nyl: “Our house is old and wise. Open your hearts to our guidance, and you will be safe.”

“Thank you for your hospitality, lady,” Hans said, signaling subtly for calm.

Nyl cleared the frown she had been unaware of.

Savo’s grey eyes appraised them, lingering on Nyl. He said nothing, gesturing beyond with a weary turn of his robes.

“I am certain you had a taxing journey. Please, join us for dinner.”

Nyl felt ravenous. Her hunger matched an ache she could not name.

They followed down another grand hall. Obsidian walls gleamed under starlit chandeliers. Silver threads woven with sparkling filaments draped from sconces. Gold alloys veined the marble floors.

Shield-wolf statues lined the corridor, anthropomorphic warriors clutching tungsten blades and polearms. The air vibrated to hidden machinery, an anachronism amid feudal splendor.

Twenty silent retainers trailed the group, their eyes hidden behind helms.

“These guards are not merely for show,” Arcade said under his breath. “Their drawn weapons put me on edge. Does House Randall fear us?”

Hans overheard him and said: “Cabal Prime is stable, mostly. But the lax do not survive long in this place.”

“Strength is one thing,” Garuna hissed through her teeth. “Obscene wealth is another. I would tear this house down and loot its riches for repairs to the ghettos we saw.”

“And then you would bathe the whole planet in hellfire,” Nyl teased.

“That, too,” Garuna confirmed without hint of irony.

“Discretion!” Hans’ terse warning cut them off.

The grand hall swallowed them like a jeweled maw. Vaulted ceilings climbed so high they reduced all speech to velvety hushes.

In the center stood a long table of real wood - dark, scarred, gleaming with centuries of polish. It could seat five times their number and heaved with rare delicacies: steaming non-synthetic meats, vibrant vegetables, and fruit dripping jewel-toned juices. Scents of roasted herbs and spiced wine thickened the air.

Nyl had not recognized her semi-permanent nausea until it vanished. Eyes wide, she felt she could devour the entire feast alone.

“Please, be seated and dine,” Hyponia said, her words matched to a gracious, flourishing, silk-clad arm.

Nyl dove in; the others followed. Savo and Hyponia sat at the head, table wide enough for two. Arcade took Nyl’s side; Garuna sat by Hans. The guards dispersed throughout the room, half at the doors, half ringing the table at a respectful distance.

Slender servants in flowing robes glided forth. Robots, Nyl thought, but upon closer look, she saw organic-looking, silvery malformed limbs that strained against exoskeletons bolted to steel frames.

Still robots? Nyl mused. But no more robotic than us.

One, carrying a tray of goblets, spoke to her in gibberish: “Wene fur sha hunured buast?”

A translator in its collar rendered its garbled question in recognizable speech: “Wine for the honored guest?”

Nyl recoiled; her companions’ revulsion pulsed on their synergy.

“Slaves,” Hans explained. “Not true slaves – it is a misleading, historic term.”

Hyponia’s lips curved in a practiced smile. “Many houses hide their wretched ones behind cloth or plates. We keep such grave matters out in the open.”

Her eyes flashed wide at the companions, and Nyl restrained a shudder.

“Most things,” Savo amended wryly. “We still harbor necessary secrets.”

Hyponia gave her husband a sour look. Her smile returned. “Do not fret for the ‘unfinished’ ones. Our drivadepts soothe their pains and provide them with meaningful lives.”

Garuna opened her mouth to speak, but Hans cut in: “Peace, friends. Without the Randalls’ stewardship, these unfinished ones would endure abrupt, hours-long lives of pain and madness. The Randall’s adepts are among the most humane in the Cabal.”

Garuna closed her mouth and scowled.

Arcade studied Hans a moment, shrugged, and tore himself a haunch of meat.

Nyl’s resistance broke. She shoveled food onto her plate – sampling everything within reach – and ate ravenously, barely remembering utensils.

Nyl paused briefly to accept a cup of wine. The beverage glistened a delicious purple, but as soon as the rim of the cup met her nose, she almost retched with instinctual disgust.

Savo frowned at this scandal. “A bad batch?” He gestured to the servant to pour from the same pitcher. The lord sipped it and relaxed in relief.

“Perhaps she would like to try the white,” Hyponia suggested, her smile narrow.

Nyl felt embarrassing heat in her cheeks and belly. Hans gave her a strange look and she fought a childish urge to hide her face.

Hans spoke haltingly: “I think water will do her fine.”

Nyl saw the rare steak, juices pooling like blood. Her stomach growled, wine incident forgotten. Ignoring strange looks, she tore in, knife and fork scraping her plate. She ate twice as much as anyone else and twice as quickly. The promised “water” arrived – a glass more packed with fruit slices than liquid. She drained the glass in three gulps then chewed the slices, spitting the rinds.

Garuna ate sparingly, her eyes flicking between Arcade and Nyl. Her gaze lingered on Arcade’s strong jaw as he chewed, then drifted to Nyl’s lips, her breath quickening.

Nyl sensed electric currents in her friend – sharp, unbidden feedback from inner turmoil. Garuna warred with herself; Nyl’s skin prickled in guilty empathy.

If Arcade felt any of it, he acted oblivious. His attention focused on Savo: “Your hospitality is generous, Lord Randall. But we have many questions—”

Savo raised a hand. “In due time. First, nourishment. Then rest. You have struggled and traveled far.”

Hyponia nodded, her voice silky. “You whole ones are rare and precious. You may feel you have it better than the wretched ones, but your suffering and innocence still pull at our heartstrings.”

Nyl nearly laughed at Hyponia’s insinuation the trio might be “innocents.” A mouthful of food hid her amusement.

Hyponia continued: “House Randall prides itself on preserving those like you from the abuse of true slavery. I hope you enjoy this meal. Our gardens provide rarities even the Primus Lords envy. They are frequent guests here for this - and many other - reasons.” She said the last with haughty pride.

Nyl cleared her plate a second time. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, remembered her napkin, and sheepishly dabbed her mouth with it. Her hunger felt sated, but the swelling in her bosom lingered. Tender, insistent. She felt fog envelop her mind and lead fill her limbs.

Poison? No – satisfaction. The Randalls had it right: they had struggled, they were tired. They deserved rest. They should have rested on the shuttle.

Weak – Nyl’s very next thought. Not an intrusive thought – a truth from the core of her being. Like a wolf flinching at an artificial ceiling, Nyl instinctively distrusted satisfaction. Hunger sated, she would let nothing distract her.

She leaned forward, said bluntly: “Enough delay. What is this place? Why are we here?”

Savo opened his mouth to respond. “Of course, we—”

He froze mid-sentence.

Nyl waited, assuming Savo sought words. Perhaps advanced age dulled him? But the silence stretched unnaturally long.

Not just him – Hyponia had frozen, too. The servants, the guards – all had become living statues.

Arcade shoved his chair back and stood, fists curled for a fight.

“Be seated,” Hans said, holding up a small device. “I am in control.”

“I knew it!” Nyl said. “More illusions!”

“You lied again!” Garuna scoffed.

“Another simulation.” Arcade sounded disappointed.

“You have it wrong. This is very real. You know it is.”

Nyl listened, body tense. Their hosts had fallen silent, but she could still hear the faint hum of hidden machinery, the low buzzing whisper of sky traffic outside the walls.

“I do not pretend to know God’s design,” Garuna said, scorn wavering.

“What did you do?” Arcade asked.

Hans waved the gadget, face grave. “A remote. Sor and I have an arrangement with the Randalls, but our trust is limited. Our friendship is abusive, regrettably. Listen closely — we do not have long—”

Nyl, incredulous: “But you froze them!”

“Yes. The Randalls are radicals among the Cabal elite. Principled humanists, they oppose our genocidal war against legacy humanity.”

“Then they are natural allies,” Garuna said sarcastically.

“You are right to doubt,” Hans said. “Their principles are admirable, but insufficient. Their riches are built on slavery – and not the metaphorical kind, but true slaves. Human slaves.”

“Hah!” Garuna said triumphantly. “I knew this house was built on lies! I felt it in my gut!”

“Do not judge them too harshly,” Hans said, sparing the frozen Randalls a pained look. “They have saved millions of lives over the centuries. Their secret penal colonies are humane – as much as possible, in these times. Refusal to work is punished, and the rebellious are put to death, for the Randalls prioritize power and survival over their ideals. Handcrafts, real food, luxuries – all from their illegal ownership of slaves.”

“Still, I admire their grit,” Arcade said, surprising Nyl. “They survive. What use is ideology to the dead? If they compromised their power, they could change nothing. I find their defiance impressive.”

Hans nodded. “True. Sor and I have this in common with the Randalls. If the Primus Lords learned of their human underground, they would raze this house and kill their slaves.

“But after four centuries the Randalls achieved naught but a comfortable status quo, paid for by millions of slaves. Stagnancy – an unfortunate central feature of Posthuman civilization.”

“A byproduct of immortality,” Garuna corrected him. “They reject and fear heaven, so God’s light does not shine upon them.”

Hans pondered Garuna’s words for a moment. “I am not certain I agree. But I am glad that you are here to bring this perspective, Garuna.”

Garuna harrumphed.

Hans ignored this and continued: “One of our plots proved too extreme for the Randalls. They planned to betray us, forcing our hand. We abducted the lord and lady and installed control devices in their minds. With our direction, they spread these devices to their subordinates unwittingly.

“But they are still dangerous. A demonstration.” Hans pressed a button on his remote and said, “Nyl is Basilissa.”

Hyponia’s eyes widened in horror. “You jest!”

“I am serious,” Hans replied.

Shock rippled across their faces. Hyponia shouted, “Savo! Rid us of them!”

Savo bolted up. “Guards! Seize them!”

Twenty guns drew beads on Hans and the trio.

Hans froze the Randalls and their guards mid-advance.

Nyl felt her companions’ stares. Garuna’s mouth hung agape, and even Arcade seemed unsettled.

Hans pressed buttons on his device. “They will not remember that. Memory manipulation is imperfect and risks sanity. But now you see what happens if you slip.” He gave Garuna a pointed look.

Garuna shrank and stared at the floor.

“I know you have many questions. Again, they will have to wait. You must pretend to be simple warriors who recall nothing but simulated human lives. The Randalls will offer us rest, and we will accept. Agreed?”

Arcade spoke for his friends: “Agreed.”

Hans unfroze the Randalls once more.

“Of course, we…” Savo said, frowning. He looked to Hans, confusion evident. “What was I saying?”

“My companions are tired. They ask if you have arranged their quarters.”

“Of course! Forgive me,” Savo said genuinely.

Hyponia stood, the hem of her dress sinking to her feet with a rustle. “We prepared the knight’s wing, Hans, in case you wished to quarter with your companions. Your regular room is also ready.”

“You are too kind, most gracious lady,” Hans said with a formal bow. “I will join the three of them.”

Hyponia waved. Four guards and a servant approached. “Escort them to their beds. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

They followed the servant through yet more grand halls of columns, vaulted ceilings, statues, and other opulence.

Arcade yawned and said: “Two days on the shuttle I never thought once of sleep.”

His yawn proved contagious. Nyl exhaled: “Posthuman physiology – sleep, rest, how does it all work?” The knowledge was there, but Nyl felt too tired to access it.

Hans humored her. “The feast was laced with heavy metals and additives. Posthumans only need food and rest after injury or extreme work. Light and ambient energies suffice otherwise.”

“Wa ore hare. Moy e bleng yoo onetheng alse?” their guide said. His collar translated: “We are here. May I bring you anything else?”

Hans dismissed him: “Nothing else. Leave us undisturbed until morning.”

The malformed servant bowed, exoskeleton whirring, and opened the door. Two guards took up sentry positions.

Garuna whispered into one guard’s face. “I could kill you in my sleep.” She stared him down, head cocked provocatively.

The guard remained impassive, unreadable behind his helmet.

“A walking doorknob,” Garuna scoffed.

Nyl shook her head as Garuna shouldered past the guard. “I thought myself the impulsive one.”

The servant bowed again. The oaken doors to the knight’s wing swung shut with a thud and a rattle, sealing out the estate’s low mechanical hum.

The antechamber felt like a forgotten feudal relic. Deep leather couches, worn smooth by centuries of metal bodies, surrounded a crackling fireplace. Flame-cast shadows flickered over shelves of leatherbound books. The room smelled of old wood, sand, and ink. An open hallway branched off, leading to four bedrooms etched with faint wolf motifs.

Hans lingered near the entrance, silver hands clasped. “Have I dismissed the servant too soon? More food? Drink?”

Nyl’s gut wrenched again. But she met his eyes steadily: “Weapons, perhaps? Some fine armor?”

Hans chuckled. Nyl bit her lip. Garuna folded her arms tight over her waist. Arcade scanned faded book titles.

“Come, now. Posthumans need rest. Periods of contemplation. Without it, we…” He tapped his temple with a finger and made a silly, cross-eyed face. “We can go a little mad.”

Arcade’s lips twitched, but the humor fell flat.

“I have so many questions, I cannot even start,” Garuna said. “When will I see Viveca?”

Hans sobered. “Let us talk briefly. Then rest.”

He pulled up a chair and sat, a rickety, squealing thing of wood. Nyl dropped onto a creaking couch. Arcade joined her, his bulk sinking deep. Garuna perched rigidly on the opposite armrest.

“I have not slept in months.” Hans’ tone turned ominous: “I have been watching you. And others did not make it this far.”

Nyl gulped. Do I truly wish to hear this?

“The Soul Factory is a forge,” Hans explained. “Its product: soldiers, servants. Its input: billions of ‘shards’ — soul fragments from unviable posthuman fetuses, captured enemies, recycled failures. Cycled through simulations of duress and reward, these ‘parts’ sometimes fuse into whole beings like yourselves.”

“So this is why we fought endless wars,” Arcade said. “Not just training - but to make us?”

“More or less,” Hans answered. “The process is poorly understood, the science ad hoc. Even at civilization’s peak, the ‘Progenitech’ era, we did not know what made us ‘us.’ We only knew souls exist below the quantum layer – and more things have souls than you would think. Including some non-living things.”

“God’s mysteries are wondrous,” Garuna murmured.

Hans spread his hands. “Sor and I partitioned the Soul Factory for a special mission: create beings compatible with the Diadochi interface using a new gestalt consciousness.”

Arcade leaned forward, interest pulsing through their link.

“The Diadochi are superweapons,” Hans said. “Colossal war machines that can shatter entire armies alone. But piloting them requires an immense presence. A willpower to tame the interface, to make the machine an extension of oneself. They are alive, in a way, with emergent consciousness borne of their technological complexity. Most minds would burn out, the cinders assimilated into subroutines.”

“Incredible,” Nyl said, instantly desirous of seeing one, mounting it. Her mind turned to her experience riding horses - and her one-time transformation into a dragon.

Hans looked at Nyl. “Your dragon transformation showed what you are: unstoppable momentum, raw power. A willingness to pay a high cost in pursuit of advantage.”

She remembered the dragon’s heat in her throat, the world shrinking to targets and obstacles.

“I am more than just passion…” she protested weakly.

“Arcade,” Hans continued. “The rational filter. You balance impulse with strategy — holding when others break, putting others above yourself. In service to others, you are greater than the whole. The interface responded to your talent for imposing structure on chaos. That is how you pierce impenetrable armor, command vast armies, unflinchingly endure torture, and resolve terrible conflicts.”

Arcade’s jaw tightened, fingers flexing unconsciously.

Nyl felt his pride and shame echo in their synergy – deep thoughts and unweighed costs. She realized, then, her ignorance of his pain and struggle.

“And you, Garuna.”

Hans hesitated when Garuna visibly bristled.

“This is interesting. But I asked about Viveca,” Garuna reminded him.

Hans smiled. “Your rising undead, resurrecting armies, bending people and landscapes to your will. You are conviction - the moral flame, binding in life, even more powerful in death. The interface answered your need for meaning, rendering concrete the ideals that guide your actions. You are a beacon in the dark: will and utility mean nothing without principle. You embody what elevates us above beasts – fighting not for survival, but for concepts more enlightened… more… eternal.”

Garuna’s eyes went unfocused, and Nyl sensed her friend’s mind turn inward. Her fingers dug into the couch armrest, crumpling leather. Seeing her fiery friend so subdued made Nyl shudder.

Garuna’s voice sounded small: “You speak honestly. But why do I feel nothing but betrayal?”

Hans exhaled. “Because the project was never about making you whole. It was about making you useful. The Basilissa gestalt was designed to create the perfect Diadochi pilot — call it id, ego, and superego for simplicity. You three were to form an obedient super-mind: loyal, efficient, predictable. With the second of the Diadochi gone rogue, the other eights’ loyalty is in question.

“You were the first test gestalt. Two more would follow once the process had been proven. Capable soldiers, fashioned from partitioned minds. A mentally customized weapon that would never question the Primus Lords.”

Silence stretched.

Nyl broke it: “And Sor… and you – you did not want this.”

Hans nodded. “Sor designed it based on the Cabal Commander — a technological relic built at the start of the war, a four-thousand-mind hive that still leads our armies. The epitome of loyalty, it destroyed most of old humanity – and much of the inhabitable galaxy – in service to the Cabal. They hoped to reproduce this at a smaller scale – not for genius tacticians, but loyal underlings with fearsome combat ability.”

Garuna’s eyes darkened; Nyl felt her friend’s distrust spike. But whatever her thoughts, she kept them silent.

“We saw in the gestalt the same problem that plagues posthuman society - individuality averaged out, free will meaningless. Sor refused to create the next line of obedient ‘mini-commanders.’ He wanted something else: three separate minds, linked and synergistic, on the cusp of fusion – but whole, independent, free to go their own way. Predicting each other perfectly — almost reading thoughts — but not fully merged. Minds to see our stagnation, our people’s hypocrisy, and hopefully change it.”

Garuna’s voice cracked. “We are tools after all.”

“We saved you,” Hans corrected gently. “Every other candidate so far was absorbed or fragmented. Sor and I spent decades rigging the simulation, tweaking parameters under Usher’s nose, injecting just enough chaos to produce you three, but stopping short of breaking the system. When you chose mercy over massacre, love over obedience, refusal over fusion — we had proof you were the ones. We pushed harder, and helped you pass our test – not Usher’s.”

Nyl unclenched her fists. “And now?”

Hans looked at each of them. “Now you are guests of House Randall on Cabal Prime – the heart of the beast. You face danger greater than any battle. Play the role of escaped ‘whole ones’ from the Soul Factory — rare, valuable, victimized. They will protect you, if you remember your roles.”

Arcade asked: “For what purpose?”

Hans admitted: “We are fuzzy on that part of the plan. We hoped that you three would know what to do from here.”

Nyl laughed. “I desire to ride the Diadochi.”

Hans smiled.

“Nyl is right,” Arcade said. “We are trained warriors, intended for this role.”

Garuna slid from her perch, ready for action. “Do not waste time. Show us these death machines!”

Hans grinned. “I do not know where they are.”

His nonchalance shocked them.

“You have done all this…” Arcade sputtered. “And you do not know where they are?”

Hans’ smile held. “There is an adage our organic ancestors had: ‘Baby steps.’”

“I retire,” Garuna huffed. She disappeared into the hall, yanked open a random door, then slammed it shut.

“Surely just for the night,” Arcade said.

Nyl barely heard him. She felt exhausted and overwhelmed.

Her eyes lingered on Arcade’s body. Silver-skinned, now, but the same warm heart. And muscular arms, and that V-shaped torso…

Her thoughts shifted to Garuna’s curves.

That beautiful hair, those luscious lips…

Some of her energy returned.

Emotions awhirl, Nyl stood. “Garuna has it right. We need rest.” Avoiding eye contact, she sped away and pushed through a heavy door.

Once shut, she leaned against it, as if her weight could shield her from racing thoughts.

She listened. She could make out the bass hum of Hans’ and Arcade’s voices, words unintelligible.

Her eyes wandered the room: velvet drapes framed a faux starry void. A four-poster bed etched with snarling wolves awaited her. Flickering candles, likely holographic, cast long shadows.

Nyl peeled off her body glove, the fabric whispering over silver skin. It felt wrong — too smooth, unyielding. No sweat, no warmth, just… perfection. She collapsed onto the bed, the mattress sinking under her weight.

Sleep should have come easily. Her body did not tire like flesh, but the ache in her belly twisted sharper, an insistent knot, low and deep. She pressed a hand to it, frowning.

Perhaps I am not as strong as they believe, she thought. Perhaps I am flawed, broken.

The room’s quiet pressed in. Her mind raced — Hans’s revelations swirling like storm clouds. Diadochi. Gestalt. Minds forged into weapons, sabotaged into freedom.

But free to do what? To wander a poisoned world of hypocrites and slaves?

Sleep evaded her.

She rose, pacing barefoot across carpet and stone. The ache pulsed with each step, her breasts tender, swollen.

What sickness plagues a body of metal?

Knowledge normally came so easily to her. She cast the question into that esoteric well of knowledge at the edge of her mind – and got nothing in answer.

Shame and fear will control me no longer.

She would ask someone.

Cracking the door, she peered into the antechamber: Hans slumped asleep, snores rattling like empty fuel cans. The simulated fireplace glowed with ruddy embers.

I am thankful for him. But I do not trust him.

She eyed Garuna’s door.

I love Garuna, but her conviction sometimes frightens me.

Arcade’s door stood slightly ajar. A sliver of lamplight spilled out.

Nyl nearly abandoned her idea, but her feet carried her across the hall.

She peeked in: Arcade sat brooding on his bed, broad back hunched. Firm as steel outside, but inside, she felt the storm raging in him. Fury hung like a dying star over a sea of churning doubt.

He did not sense her, too lost in emotion.

“I came seeking harbor in the storm,” she whispered, stepping inside.

He turned, purple eyes softening.

“But I find only another tempest.”

Their gazes locked. The synergy flared — his waters calmed, his gravity pulled her in. Her howling void contracted, forming something concrete, something real.

“I need you,” she said, crossing to him in two strides.

“In a universe of lies,” he said, halting her at arm’s length. “I am glad for this one truth.”

He tugged her in. Her hands framed his face. Their lips crashed with passion.

He feels the same as before, Nyl thought, when my eyes are closed.

He pulled her down, arms encircling her waist. The kiss deepened, fierce and urgent. Skin met skin, cool, then warming, energy rising. They shed doubts like old, tattered hides, reborn in each other.

They moaned quietly, careful not to wake the others. Nyl straddled him, shifting positions, before sinking beneath. She shuddered, saw exploding stars, bit his palm to stifle a scream.

She slumped beside him. They breathed hard.

Nyl traced her fingers over his chest. None of their trysts so far had matched this.

He sighed, eyes hooded in satisfaction.

He inhaled to speak – then his eyes widened. He yanked a blanket to cover himself.

Nyl followed his stare - gasped, likewise tugging a sheet over herself.

Garuna. A silhouette in the doorway, staring.

“How long—” Nyl stopped, realizing Garuna had been in their link the whole time.

“Long,” Garuna said softly anyway.

“I am sorry, Garuna, I-” Arcade stuttered.

“You do nothing wrong,” Garuna said.

Nyl recognized falsehood in Garuna’s dismissal. One did not need a link to sense her friend’s pain.

Garuna stepped haltingly into the room. Lamplight danced over her body – she was undressed.

Nyl thought herself satisfied a moment ago – now her yearning burned anew.

“You are…” Arcade said.

“Beautiful,” Nyl finished.

Light did not catch Garuna’s face, but Nyl sensed her wince. She hesitated near the door.

Ashamed of her eagerness, Nyl dropped her blanket timidly. “Since you have seen everything already…”

Arcade seemed less sure, hands clutching his scrap of blanket – the scrap of cloth comically small in any other situation.

Garuna stepped closer.

Nyl held still – this could not be real! She felt any sudden movement might startle Garuna into flight like a bird.

Garuna reached out, pressing a hand into Nyl’s breast. Cold touch against Nyl’s heat. Electricity surged. Nyl gasped and quivered.

Garuna leaned in, hovering over them. Light caught her face: a look of unrequited yearning, harbored for years.

Garuna’s nose hovered centimeters from Arcade’s, her breaths fogging his cheek. Her lithe body begged to be touched. Nyl’s hand wandered tentatively up her arm.

Before their lips met, Garuna yanked away from the touch.

Nyl cursed inwardly.

“I cannot,” Garuna whimpered.

“I am sorry, I should have-” Arcade said.

Garuna’s curt wave cut him off. “You do nothing wrong.” Hair hid her face. “Neither of you. I am to blame.”

Hugging herself, Garuna did not meet the eyes of her stunned friends. She left at a brisk walk. Her door shut, and its lock rattled secure.

“She does not want to dishonor Viveca,” Nyl offered.

“I think it is more than that,” Arcade said.

Nyl did not make such guesses.

After a pause, she swung her legs out and stood, hands covering herself unconsciously.

She need not have – Arcade averted his eyes.

“In this moment, I wish we did not have this half-finished synergy. I almost wish the gestalt had formed completely.”

Arcade said to the wall: “It seemed easier before we shared this link.”

“I should return to my room,” Nyl said.

“I understand,” Arcade said.

That is not the answer I wish to hear.

Nyl waited, willing him to look, hands slipping, desperate for one last glance.

But Arcade only had eyes for the wall.

“Goodnight,” Nyl said to the air.

She left.

She heard muffled sobs behind Garuna’s door.

Continued in part 14

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Pre-DREAD Reviews 50 Choose Your Weapons Prep!

Derek James Kritzberg — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 22:27:42 GMT

Announcement post here. If you’re here and haven’t read this yet, go do that first! Then scroll down and make some choices about your weapons and appearance in the upcoming battle!

List of fighters (will be updated as choices come in)

Captain of First Company, battle-brother Bradley, will teleport into the fray in nigh-impenetrable Space Marine Terminator Armor. He will wade amongst the mortals helmless like a true hero of the Imperium of Man (plus a monocle and cat ears - as the Codex Astartes teaches us to confuse one’s enemies before killing them).

This walking tank of a man wields an arsenal befitting a member of the Emperor’s Angels of Death - a mighty Chainfist, a Mark III Belisarius Pattern Plasma Incinerator, and his wrist-mounted Mark IIIc Pattern Storm Bolter (Hecaton Variant).

Burn the heretic. Kill the mutant. Purge the unclean.

Enemies: , for no one’s penmanship is more questionable than Bradley’s!

3 attacks - 2400 hitpoints - 976 damage – 0% evasion

Take heed of her humble greatness and tremble. Don’t you dare snort or roll your eyes (friendly advice).

This Snark Ninja of Doom waltzes to war in boots and a magical black chainmail bikini that shields her skin in a near-impenetrable layer of sarcasm (and doubles as a distraction to the eye). She wears fingerless gloves (they’re cold but must remain exposed to type) and an eyepatch (because dark and deadly, but also with a small etching of a beagle puppy).

She’s armed with a Vorpal Sword (classic, elegant, and precise) and a Piano Wire Garrote Launcher (stealth is a must for ninjas), and wields her prized possession - her precious - The One Ring!

Enemies: for his cool name that makes her jealous and , for he is clearly a threat.

Friend (also known as dupe): (merely to throw him off, of course).

3 attacks - 1300 hitpoints - 341 damage – 41% evasion, drops by 5.9% per round

Gregory, stoic and professional, will enter the arena in his SWAT Tactical Rig. Don’t mistake him for some straightlaced heel-clicker - his Tribal Face Paint and Vampire Teeth reveal the savagery within this heart of iron.

He’s armed with his trusty M4-Carbine with 60-Round Drum Mag and attached Underbarrel M320 Grenade Launcher and Red Dot Sight. If that doesn’t cut it, he’ll shred you to string with his experimental Black Hole Generator and, if things get really dicey, he might pull some dirty tricks with his Mind Control Helmet.

Enemies: and

Friend:

(placeholder choices until author makes their own)

1 attack - 1600 hitpoints - 509 damage – 43.9% evasion, drops by 6.3% per round

Wearing runic plate armor etched with burning runes, Jack wears a water-moistened neckerchief to filter the smoke he generates. “Blessed are the flames!” He pronounces to his foes, squinting bleary-eyed, and stifling a cough.

He wields a WW2 flamethrower in one hand and draws a short sword forged of pure fire in the other. He’s also brought a thermos from which he will sip upon his inevitable victor - filled with extraordinarily hot, decades old, pre-lawsuit McDonald’s hot coffee. Over the years, Jack has developed a tolerance for this rare and dangerous substance - should circumstances necessitate its use as a weapon, his enemies will not prove so resistant!

Enemies: those knave !

Friend:

2 attacks - 1600 hitpoints - 249 damage – 44.1% evasion, drops by 6.3% per round

With his Giant Pecs and Washboard Abs, Curly Mustache, and Fake Butterfly Wings, Ian is an imposing competitor who clears the field with his improvised weapon - a Bicycle Frame. He’s additionally armed with a Tire Iron and a Length of Chain.

A perfect roll if you’ve ever seen one.

Enemies: , (he’s punching up)

Friend: none

4 attacks - 1100 hitpoints - 205 damage – 46.5% evasion, drops by 6.6% per round

(placeholder choices until author makes their own)

Centaur’s muscular chest and fuzzy-horse-legs are clad in immodest leaf-and-vine lamellar that conceals everything but his face and private parts. With horns on his head and a Journal of Wicked Jabs hanging from his hip, Centaur’s visage alone invokes first disgust, then laughter, then fear.

He throws his foes off-kilter blowing tunes into his Satyrical Pan Flute Disruptor, which when played at close range causes incurable brain hemorrhages. His backup weapons include a sharpened quill that doubles as a misericorde and a lethally poisonous PEZ dispenser that shoots red pills.

Enemies:

Friend:

1 attack - 600 hitpoints - 257 damage – 61% evasion, drops by 8.7% per round

“I’ve got this” - a comment that serves a dual purpose either as a victorious “I told you so!” or a tombstone engraving.

He’s showing up rugged and classy in his Motorcycle Jacket and Beret. His weapon? Nothing but his Nasty, Big Pointed Teeth.

Enemies:

Friend:

2 attacks - 500 hitpoints - 149 damage – 61.8% evasion, drops by 8.8% per round

Clad in ornate mail, every scale upon Graeme’s chest is artfully filigreed with acid-etched lines from his many poems.

He seeks to inspire the competition (to death) by throwing fidget spinners at them - the bag he lugs today is but a fraction of his vast collection. Should he run out on ammunition, he’ll fight on with his Dreamweaver brush - an indestructible relic of immense magical power that, unfortunately, have little bearing on combat. Should even that not prove enough, he’s also tucked a letter opener into his belt.

Enemies:

Friend:

1 attack - 600 hitpionts - 129 damage – 62.8% evasion, drops by 9.0% per round

Regardless of whether he lives or dies, Richie is destined to win, for no one can match this man’s level of derangement - he’s totally unhinged! He will crazy his way to victory in a painstakingly-crafted suit of Aluminum Foil Lamellar Armor. Not a single unwelcome radio wave is touching this man’s nervous system (blades and bullets can worry about themselves). A Top Hat will keep us inconspicuous in the crowd. He’s likewise wrapped up in a Tattered Cloak - to keep them all guessing.

Richie will lay waste to his foes with his weapons of choice: A Remote Controlled Quadcopter, a Bag of Marbles, and his trusty Blowgun.

Enemies: and

Friend: (MacBeth style).

2 attacks - 400 hitpoints - 163 damage - 62.8% evasion, drops by 9.0% per round

QuestionablePenmanship has come prepared for war wearing a British Surplus M65 Field Jacket with printed copies of his stories stuffed in the pockets. His Substack fans will soon see how much verbosity is worth in a deathmatch! A flat cap completes his discount-Irish Republican Army outfit.

As a hurling sportsman, his natural weapon of choice is the Irish Hurley Stick. He’s stuffed his remaining empty pockets with hurling balls. As a backup weapon he wields the Scottish Shinty stick, which is used in the same sport, but it’s different - his foes will know the difference before, or after, he caves their skulls in with either!

Enemies: Sir , and Sir .

Friend: , because he also wants to duel Sir Keir Starmer.

2 attacks - 400 hitpoints - 163 damage - 62.8% evasion, drops by 9.0% per round

(placeholder choices until author makes their own)

Clad in several sketchbooks webbed together with silly string that will do little to protect him physically, Mark will rely on dodging his enemies’ attacks using cartoon physics. Fluttering from his shoulders is his signature Cape of Captions, full of witty dialogue to distract attackers, and his iconic white mustache wiggles upon his lip like it has a mind of its own.

He’s armed with a giant No. 2 pencil sword - not only is it wickedly sharp, but it can also draw deadly explosions, and with a reverse grip, potentially erase the opposition.

Enemies:

Friend:

1 attack - 500 hitpoints - 163 damage – 63.7% evasion, drops by 9.1% per round

Keith scrambles up from under an inconspicuous, irradiated rock just outside the arena. He’s covered in mutations and scars from exposure to fallout, and you would think this would stand out and draw the attention of the ushers. Yet none seem to notice as the quietly chuckling madman scampers into the fan section without paying - then, for mysterious reasons known only to him, climbing the wall and dropping into the sands of combat!

Keith will crush limbs and skulls with his mighty 20-lbs bowling he lugs around. He’s dressed in nothing but a loincloth - from which a pack of cigarettes precariously pokes out.

Enemies: None (besides bowling pins)

Friend: None (except for long alleys and nude beaches)

1 attack - 400 hitpoints - 216 damage – 64.9% evasion, drops by 9.3% per round

A trio of goblins stacked on each other’s shoulders wearing a Trench Coat, Steampunk Goggles, and a Cowboy Hat.

They’re armed with a Frozen Fish, A Sword made of Legos, and a Fire extinguisher. Let the battle commence!

Enemies: He chooses none, for he has no enemies.

Friend: He keeps no friends, for he is a strange introvert that demands attention not be paid to him behind his screen.

1 attack - 400 hitpoints - 172 damage - 64.9% evasion, drops by 9.3% per round

Eddie’s outfitted in Medieval Peasant Linen - because it isn’t about what protects you, but what you put out. He’s adding a Straw Hat and a Fake Beard to maintain anonymity (hopefully this makes up any shortages in armor).

He’s tucked a Wakazashi into his belt loop - an old relic one of his ancestors claimed as spoils from a forgotten, implausible dark age war. He’s also armed with a frying pan and a dagger, secure in his back pockets.

Enemies: (he’s too powerful!). Also, anyone named Ian (like ). Eddie can’t tell one Ian from another, so they’re all his enemies.

Friend: (for the absolute vibes).

1 attack - 400 hitpoints - 158 damage – 65.1% evasion, drops by 9.3% per round

After some advice from an LLM, A.I. Freeman spent the weekend gathering circuit boards from a recycling center and soldering them together to forge his unique set of Cyber Armor. Overclocked due to settings in the BIOS, he hopes to deflect attacks with hot, rapidly spinning CPU fans and rigid, mostly-empty RAM ports (have you checked prices these days? Yikes!)

He’s armed with with an experimental Static Lightning Wand of his own invention, which - when it works - inflicts hair-raising damage! This primary armament is backed up by a simple screwdriver and an adaptive text-to-voice combat prompt generator that will give him advice on what moves he should make next.

Enemy: , for he is jealous of the man’s wicked Lego sword and also covets his fire extinguisher.

Friend: , who he hopes to hide behind (please don’t hit me).

1 attack - 100 hitpoints - 100 damage – 70% evasion, drops by 10% per round

That’s “Sir” Keir Starmer to you.

Enemies: Epstein (See? I’m on board with the “thing”), Boris Johnson (Sleaze!)

Friend: Cough… Peter Mandelson?

1 whimper - 300 hitpoins - Negative 111 damage (heals opponents) - 0% evasion

How these statistics were derived:

For every major contribution (guest review written, mainline review collaboration, or Bradley Ramsey’s upcoming narration) a fighter was given 1 attack.

All fighters got 100 hitpoints, plus another 100 hitpoints for every post they published the month of January, 2026.

All fighters deal 100 damage, plus 1 damage for every like and comment their posts got that were published the month of January, 2026.

If you would like me to redo your stats because January wasn’t a strong month for you, let me know. Pick one “strong” month you had, and I’ll average your derived stats between January and the newly selected month (note that this will also change your evasion stat!).

Some data about how the simulation will run

Each fighter’s turn will come in a random order - once all fighters have delivered all their attacks, the round resets to a new random turn order.

Fighters with multiple attacks will perform all their attacks when it’s their turn.

Each fighter’s attack will target a randomly selected opponent - targeting has “stickiness,” meaning there’s a 50% chance with each attack that the target won’t change between attacks (if the target is still alive).

To prolong the fight and give the underdogs a chance, everyone but has been granted an algorithmically-generated evasion stat that will cause attacks to miss if they’re lucky. The less powerful the contestant, the higher their evasion score - this evasion diminishes with each round of the fight, until it hits zero.

The rounds keep going until only 1 fighter remains!

Now, for the choices you all get to make! Communicate your selections in the comments below so that other people know what you picked!

“You’re on my list!”

You get to choose 2 opponents you’d like to focus on attacking. You’ll have a 10% increased chance to target them - but beware, they’ll have a 5% increased chance to target you back! If two people choose each other, they’ll have a combined 15% increased chance to target each other.

“Hey let’s be friends!”

You can choose 1 person you’d like to avoid attacking. You’ll have a 10% less chance to target them, and they’ll have a 5% less chance to target you. If two people choose each other, they’ll have a combined 15% reduced chance to target each other.

Note that, ultimately, there can only be one survivor, so you will end up killing (or getting killed by) your friend.

EQUIPMENT

Everything presented below here is just for narrative flair - it won’t affect the simulated trial’s outcome. Feel free to make some choices or come up with something appropriate of your own based on your stats!

ARMORY

Everyone gets to pick three of the following weapons, first come first serve, and you must pick weapons in your fighter’s damage range for narrative reasons. Drop your preference in the comments or get one randomly assigned. List them in the order of preference, you will definitely use the first one but you have to survive long enough in the Monte Carlo Simulation to end up using them all!

(if what you want isn’t here I’ll accept suggestions within limitations)

100-200 range:

Prehistoric club / Sling and Shot / Stone Axe / Boomerang / Brass Knuckles / Purse full of Change / Police Nightstick (baton or collapsible) / WWI Trench Knife (Knuckleduster) / Chair Leg / Curtain Rod / Rifle Bayonet, minus rifle / Roman Gladius / Greek Xiphos (short sword) / Kitchen Fork / Sica (Thracian sickle sword) / Fire Poker / Baseball Bat / Net and Trident (Roman Retiarius) / Tomahawk (Flint or Modern steel) / Caltrops / Mug of Burning Hot Coffee / Rolling Pin / Improvised Prison Shiv / Padlock in a Sock / Whip / Pizza Cutter / Umbrella / Nunchaku / Bolas / A Brick / Guitar String / Modern Entrenching Tool / No. 2 Pencil / Butterfly Knife / Bottle of Pepper Spray / Switchblade / Rowboat Oar / Sock of Rocks / Broken Wine Bottle / Blind Person’s Cane

201-300 range:

Spear / Machete / Pipe Wrench / Battle Axe / Fire Axe / Scimitar / Katana / Vibroblade / Crowbar / English Longbow / Morning Star / Flail / Bag of Javelins / Throwing Axes / Bowling Ball / Renaissance Halberd / Kettle Bell / Longsword / Shovel / Warhammer / 9mm Pistol / Shotgun / Flamethrower / Renaissance Pike / Recurve Bow / Gentleman’s Rapier / Oil Drum / Pirate’s Cutlass / Sledgehammer / Japanese Naginata / Bardiche / Bill (hookaxe) / Arquebus / Zweihander / Claymore / Beaked Hammer / Poleaxe / Estoc / Chunk of Rebar

300+ range:

Pulse Rifle / Muramasa Sword / Space Marine Bolter / AK-47 Assault Rifle / .50 Cal. Bolt Action Sniper Rifle / Lightsaber / Blaster / Phaser Gun / Wizard’s Staff / Mjölnir / Proton Pack / Thermal Detonator Pack / Astra Militarum Lasrifle / Railgun / BFG-9000 / Zeus’ Lightning Bolt / Krak Grenades / Exoskeleton-powered Vending Machine Launcher / Chainsaw / German 3.7 cm PaK 36 / Helm of Hades / Lawgiver / Durendal / Minigun / Daemonhammer / Thunder Hammer / Hellblaster / Psyblade / Fragmentation Grenades / Frostmourne / M240 Light Machine Gun / Javelin Missile Launcher / Dragonlance / Excalibur

OUTFITTER

Pick an outfit (if what you want isn’t here I’ll accept suggestions within limitations):

400 HP or less:

Hoodie & Sweatpants / Business Suit / Sports Jersey / Faded Punk Jacket / Quilted Granny Sweater / Cardboard Knight Box / Trash Bag Poncho / Ripped T-Shirt & Jeans / Pajamas / Fluffy Bathrobe / Toga / Greeter Vest / Hospital Gown / Bubble Wrap Padding / Beach Towel / Russian Furs / Nobleman’s jacket / Peasant Smock / Loincloth / Knee-Length Roughspun Linen Shirt / Hoodie / Trench Coat / Military Fatigues / Mutated Layer of Post-Fallout Scarring / Urban Camo Joggers / Baggy Sweats / High Visibility Construction Worker Outfit / Poncho / Untied Straight Jacket

500–600 HP range:

Riot Cop Vest & Helmet / Full Biker Gear / Football Pads / Samurai Lamellar Plate / Viking Fur Tunic & Chain / Roman Lorica Segmentata / Firefighter Turnouts / Padded Gambeson with Plate Inserts / Gladiator Murmillo Set / Leather Burgher’s Brigandine / Minuteman Reinforced Leather Coat / Musketeer Cuirass / Advanced EOD Bomb suit / WW2 Flak Jacket / Improved Outer Tactical Vest / Welding Apron and Work Boots / Diving Wetsuit / Hazmat Suit / Sassanid Cataphract Armor

900+ HP range:

Full Gothic Plate / T-51 Power Armor / Exoskeleton / Dragonscale Lamellar / Spiky Orc Plate / Nemean Lion Pelt / Pridwen + Arthurian Armor / Crysis Nanosuit / Phase suit / Knight in Shining Armor / T-800 endoskeleton / Daedric Armor / Praetor Suit / Hephaestus-forged Armor of Achillies

Accessories!

Pick one or two of these if you want for flair (or suggest your own):

Fedora /Bandana / Aviators / Horned Helmet / Tricorn / Wizard Hat / Hardhat / Bike Helmet / Gas Mask / Hero Cape / Wolf Fur Pelt / Dog Tags / Thick Gold Chain / Spiked Cuffs / Fingerless Gloves / Winter Scarf / Pack of Cigarettes / Luchador Mask / Toupe / Hoop Earrings / Fat Cigar / Corncob Pipe / Rolex / Robinhood Tights / Camo Backpack / Knee Pads / Neckerchief / Fancy Bowtie / Balaclava / Feathered Boa / Oni Mask / Nosering / Eyepatch / Spiked Choker / Schoolboy Suit or Schoolgirl Dress / Corset / Leather Bracers / Chewy Stalk of Straw / Silk Opera Gloves / Clasped Forester’s Cloak / Hiking Backpack / Heraldic Tabard / Single Spiked Pauldron / Suspenders / Cavalry Boots with Spurs / Knee-high Socks / Mittens / Lucky Rabbit’s Foot Necklace

DREAD Reviews 48 - 10 Ways to Earn Your Happy Ending

Derek James Kritzberg — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 12:47:10 GMT

DREAD 46 | DREAD 47 | DREAD 48 | DREAD 49 | ⚔️DREAD 50⚔️

The Archangel's Gift: A Fantasy Serial

First time here? Welcome!

DREAD Reviews is a satirical newsletter that celebrates quality Substack authors

DREAD Reviews publishes every other Thursday now. This allows me to work on my fiction again in the weeks between.
Be sure to check out the latest release! Bellageist: Chains of a Demigod Part 12, out now!
Thank you for your support!

Happy Endings

Kristoff hurt right in the “ending,” if you know what I mean. In his blistering takedown of Jay Kristoff’s Empire of the Dawn, Ryan notes he is still a Kristoff fan. But this Kristoff dares wail about unearned happy endings - then he does what?!

Kristoff may as well have ended the third book with “It was all a dream.”

I feel Ryan’s rage and I haven’t even read the books! You devour those first two installments, revel in the trauma, get hyped about the author’s insinuation that the ending will be lit - and then - bam! - the finale yanks the rug out, revealing all the heartbreak was a cheeky stall tactic. Friends alive again. The bloodlust, oh, just some fib. The sun rises reincarnated as a cheerful emoji

You feel cheated. Betrayed. The story promises a funeral. Then it delivers a piñata full of happiness.

Enraging! Happy endings with zero cost are about as satisfying as decaf coffee in hell.

But it’s one thing to complain. It’s another to propose solutions. So, with extreme conviction, I proclaim:

An Expert Writer’s Top Ten Ways to Earn Your Ending

Flashbacks
Drown your protagonist in endless flashbacks. The hero battles a vampire? Flash back to his childhood potty training! Expand the protagonist’s life story between each swing of his sword as the sun slowly rises. By the time rays burn the vampire to ashes, readers have come to know your character so well that they are 100% ready for a resolution - now! They’ll be thanking you for it. Please, resolve it now!
Omniscient cutie
Introduce a plot-twisting critter pet. Not something lame like a magic owl; reveal a unique, sassy goldfish that secretly controls the universe. The apocalypse averts when “Bubbles” burps a new prophecy! Readers will delight and look deeply inward as they question their life choices.
Pivot to life advice in allegory
Can’t figure out a satisfying ending? Put your real-life experience to work! Have your hero monologue about the whole thing being cover for an entrepreneurial pyramid scheme - something like shorting magic stock trading. Pour on so much allegory and lived experience into your ending that not only will readers be blown away by its relatability, they might just pick up a new skill or two!
Insert a brief episode of mindfulness
Repeat after me: Inhale plot twists, exhale expectations. Visualize the conclusion of the book being your happy place, and embrace complete emptines. Once your Zen is centered, proceed to read the final chapter with guardrails lowered - complete acceptance!
Give life-changing advice
Pivot with the profound. Halt the horror at the climax and take advantage of your reader’s rapt attention to deliver a dose of wisdom - based! “Fix your finances! Catalog your expenses, stop spending, start investing!” Don’t be afraid to jump from jugulars to journaling.
Multiverse mishap
What tragic arc? This was just a glitch in the matrix! Happy endings “earn” themselves when the protagonist reboots reality and starts over. If readers cry about their immersion, just remind them about the third law of thermodynamics - entropy. Unless someone fundamentally alters certain physical realities, nothing we do matters, anyway!
Choose your own adventure
Have multiple ideas for an ending and can’t decide? You have free will - and so do your readers! More is better! Turn the ending into a choose-your-own-adventure! Even better, turn all that negative feedback into positive discussion - end your book by asking readers to drop a comment about the route they took! Even better, have every route seem headed for ultimate doom, then, every time, pull a Kristoff and flip the bird of unilateral joy! Now it’s the reader’s fault it ended that way, not yours!
Torch tropes
If you’re writing fantasy or sci-fi, by book three you’ve pumped up the power creep so high that the universe is starting to buckle. Solution? Meta-mock it mercilessly! Accelerate the power curve to exponential absurdity, with magical sneezes blotting out the sun and summoning starships from sci-fi crossovers. Don’t leave the villains behind, teleport in new alien races, power-hungry tyrants, and forgotten old gods in a multiverse-merging-meltdown. Allow a brief period of introductions, boasting, and high-fives, then pause mid-apocalypse. “Wait, this escalation is exhausting! Remember when we were all scrappy underdogs, forging copper daggers and discovering cantrips over campfires?” The joy’s in the journey, not the overpowered orgy at the end. Boom! Everyone ditches their powers, abandoning almighty abilities for fresh, new, amateur adventures. Embrace voluntary vulnerability - for what ending could possibly be happier than a new beginning?
Cut to commercial
You worked hard. You wrote a whole book about a cast of interesting characters - maybe you even wrote three books! Now is the perfect time to cash out! Ditch the drama for a direct deposit - transform impending tragedy into teleshopping! Imagine it - final showdown, eternal night impending, a sliver of dying hope is all that remains, when suddenly the protagonist pauses, thumbs a bottlecap off with a snap, and takes a draught of crisp, refreshing Coca-Cola™. Do we earn this ending with the readers? Hah, who cares about them? We didn’t specify who is earning this ending!
Apologize
End with a fourth-wall breaking meta meltdown. Warn your reader to sit down before you unload on them like this - not only are you earning this ending with your real trauma, you’re bringing an empathetic tear to their collective eye! Go insert yourself, the author, directly into the story right now. Begin with profuse apologies and excuses: “I’m sorry for all the trauma. You see, my cat died three weeks ago, I’m late on my car payments, and I’ve been having trouble sleeping - I lay in bed for 8 hours but don’t wake feeling ‘rested.’ It’s led to some very unfortunate misunderstandings and violence in my story. To the characters I killed, I miss you - and the suffering I caused, I’m sorry. I take it all back! Everyone’s alive, nothing bad happened, and now we can live happily ever after!”

How to Make a Happy Ending Feel Earned

A few months ago, fantasy author Jay Kristoff came to my hometown, Salt Lake City, on tour with his new book Empire of the Dawn…

5 months ago · 4 likes · 4 comments · Ryan Kunz

Holo-ads flicker outside, light blaring through the threadbare curtain and staining my room neon pink. I peek out the window and the flashing ads rearrange themselves in response to my attention…

How to Untame a Dream

Prequel fan fiction featuring Jay

Jay hunches over his makeshift rig in a dingy basement lair. Holo-ads flicker outside his grimy window, staining the room neon blue: “Don’t stay Basic. Upgrade Your Brain Chip Today!”

He’s getting nowhere, not with this outdated hardware. He groans - it’s little defense, but he pulls a threadbare curtain shut.

His setup is a Frankenstein of scavenged parts, running on bootleg code - itself embedded with quantum-entangled ad chips that can’t be removed or filtered. Every five lines of code auto-generates another image, some of them glitchy animations - promotions that make it hard to focus on being an elite hacker. No premium devkit for him; just a wrist-tap holo-interface that sputters like an old engine.

“Convict status!” he laments, resisting the urge to punch his computer. Junk electronics and a torn mattress - the only possessions left to him as he scrapes by on odd jobs. How can he recapture his fire? Who has time to plot rebellion? SleepX robs people of real dreams - nightmares included, the ones that toughen you up.

“We need the monsters in the dark,” he mutters to a passing roach, “to prove we're brave enough to face them.”

Doing this the honest way hasn’t been working, he laments. Time to break a few rules - what good is ideology without the will to act?

No revolution runs on empty pockets. He needs $$$!

I only have one skill.

He turns to the dark art of ransomware. Those poor Basics and Publics, barely scraping by - it’s ironic, he tells himself. “I must extort the oppressed to fund their liberation.” He simply lacks the gear to go after bigger fish. Eggs and omelets, and all that.

His early hacks are crude, injecting digital nasties into unsuspecting neutral-sleep feeds. Instead of blissful but sapping blackout, victims wake to ransom demands flickering in their subconscious. Glitches, posing as SleepX errors, demand modest crypto transfers for “dream restoration.” His bootleg code is convoluted by necessity in order to bypass SleepX’s guardrails, leading to a series of increasingly absurd extortions:

The Dancing Demands, where Jay targets drones like himself. The victim’s sleep turns into an endless loop of neon ransom notes breakdancing across a virtual disco floor. “Pay up or boogie forever!” Most of the victims wire the crypto immediately just to save themselves the retinal burn. A few hapless victims enjoy the change. “A feature, not a bug!”

Cooking dreams, a popular subset. Jay morphs a few of them into kitchen nightmares where ingredients revolt. Talking tomatoes hurl insults while revolver-wielding pies take appliances hostage: “Fork over the dough, or the instant pot gets it!” they threaten, crust on the trigger. Most people pay - they’re used to this kind of extortion, after all, preprogrammed to submit thanks to SleepX indoctrination.

A lot of people love their cats. Feline blackouts throughout the cybersphere now become cat conventions. Fluffy felines wearing tiny hacker hoodies rise up and meow ransom poems: “Purr-fect payment or we’ll claw your dreams!” Shouting mermaids riding seahorse chariots announce the new racket: “Shell out the shells or drown in puns!” they bubble, while clownfish burble “Crypto or Krill-to?” Ransom aliens in polka-dot spacesuits perform zero-G trapeze acts and chant: “Beam us bitcoin or we’ll probe your subconscious!”

Jay winces when the simplistic AI subroutine he scripts to spread his virus achieves singularity and takes over - cats start juggling fireballs, setting people on fire, waking them before they can drop their credit lines. Mermen take up pitchforks and tiki torches, pressuring dreamers to join their militias to take on SleepX headquarters. Aliens in the dreams start to talk philosophy and metaphysics, leading victims to question: which is the dream, and which is the waking world?

It takes several gallons of energy drinks and all-nighters to get his program back under control. At one point he scrambles his identifier and submits an anonymous ticket to SleepX to get some help with a portion of his code.

The reply comes swiftly. Before he’s even read the attached feedback, though, he’s blown away by the name of the help agent.

“Chiara! So that’s where you’ve been all these years…”

His old university flame. What could have been, but never was. He takes a look at the code.

“Damn, it works!” She knows her stuff.

Jay’s mind races.

Time to revise the plan.

The Anatomy of Reality

How to Untame a Dream

7 months ago · 54 likes · 24 comments · Gaby Brogan

I’m little more than halfway done with the digging.

My head’s still above ground. Sweat muddies the grave dirt on my chest, renders me an abomination of the inconceivable mind - teetering on the edge of suburban sanity.

The bottle of Jack, her favorite. It sits beside the shovel I tossed out of the hole. It’s a little more than halfway empty, just like this bureaucratic farce. My fingertips sink into soft soil as I pause to wipe my brow.

Who knew amending HOA bylaws could lead to this? Digging up my dear departed wife in the wee hours of the night.

It all starts with The Promise. We’re lounging on the porch one evening, pink flamingos winking in the yard - our little rebellion against the no-pink-flamingos rule. She turns to me, eyes twinkling under the bruised purple of the horizon. “Promise if I shuffle off first, you won’t forget to say goodbye... and that you’ll amend the HOA bylaws.”

I laugh, thinking it’s the Jack talking.

But she’s serious. “I jumped through all the obstructive hoops. I notarized, laminated, and finalized a signed proposal to repeal the flamingo ban. We can’t let those fascists win.”

Fast forward: she shuffles off in a freak lawncare mishap (please don’t ask. Edger gone rogue). Amidst the grief and chaos, I neglect my promise, and the original document gets tucked into her casket.

It’s an accident. Or so the funeral director claims, with a shrug and a smirk that screams he took a bribe. I can’t blame him, the HOA fines are steep in this part of town.

I’ve got an electronically scanned copy of the file, sure. But HOA bylaws permit the board to demand the physical document during a vote. Without it, no repeal can pass, pink flamingos remain banned, and our yard… our yard becomes a beige, manicured wasteland.

I feel something in my throat trying to force its way up, a mix of grief and rage toward HOA purgatory. First fate takes my wife, then it gives me this paperwork nightmare^.

I have to keep my promise. It’s all that matters to me now.

I file a “covenant exhumation variance.” The board meets in Dale’s garage - older brother, tall and broad-shouldered, HOA president by divine right. Father’s there, voice booming righteously indignant, a family flaw. Uncle Sheriff nods along, squat and round. Denied: “Disturbs the curb appeal,” they decree. “Can’t have graves yawning black in broad daylight; think of the property values!”

The next day I rally like-minded neighbors for a petition drive. They don’t really care about my particular issue, but they all hate the HOA board for their own reasons. Hate them a little too much, it turns out - the drive devolves to a block party riot. Someone spiked the punch with Jack - her favorite - and the flamingos go flying, literally. Mrs. Henderson’s prize begonias get trampled; petitions scatter like confetti. Cops called (Uncle Sheriff, off-duty). No signatures gained that day, just another laundry list of fines.

Desperate, I consult a “lawn lawyer” - a shady internet guy with a heavy Indian accent. “Bypass the variance,” he grins, suggesting I tunnel from my basement to the cemetery.

A week later, I’ve made it 1% of the way. Three days to remove the bricks in the wall, four days of digging - my tunnel is four feet long. Only three-hundred-and-sixty-six to go, if my measurements are correct.

And that’s when the collapse happens. A cascade of shattered concrete, beams, tools, and my dignity. Half my garage spills into my hole, sealing it forever, followed by a tire and the front fender of my late wife’s car. A few hours later, the garage door buckles, too, freezing like a bad amendment. Neighbors gawk; HOA slaps me with another hefty fine.

So now it’s shovel o’clock again. In the wee hours of the night, I’m at her grave, flower arrangements aligned around the headstone: ‘Beloved Wife and Flamingo Freedom Fighter.’

I’m jacked, now, not afraid to brag - all that digging has bulked me up. But the work’s taking longer than I’d like. The hole yawns black, two feet of freshly tilled dirt between me and that rolled-up document, the promise that’s brought me almost as many tears as the emptiness my wife once filled.

I pull the 1911 from my back waistband - HOA-mandated padlocks on trashcans have driven the raccoons in town to desperation and I don’t want them getting any funny ideas. Bottle of Jack - her favorite - arms me with courage.

Damn, this soil’s as stubborn as the board. I stab the shovel down again, sweat dripping from my brow.

The sun shines its first rays. Morning comes, and so does the family. Headlights mow through the grass, flit between headstones. Two more roll up - the lifted pick-up assaults me with floodlights. I squint against the halogen white. How must I appear, right now? Some revenant of HOA hell.

Doors clack open; I click the safety off.

They’re shadows and silhouettes, but known to me. They array like a firing squad - good little enforcers, compliant to bylaws.

My greeting is gruff from work and exhaustion: “Don’t suppose you’re here to help.”

A rifle cocks in response. Tall, broad-shouldered figure bearing it. Dale. Older brother. He’s either a step closer than the rest or he’s somehow grown even bigger since this morning.

Regardless, an easy target. I’ve about had it with these officious bureaucrats:

Vinny Reads

Red Sky Mourning

Sharing another workshop assignment; this is week three and the assignment is around decisions and consequences. I liked how it came out, but I’m sure there’s plenty to critique as well…

10 months ago · 45 likes · 23 comments · Vinny Reads

Space Therapy

[Scene: The HUB of the DEEP REACH. The crew gathers around the huge data-connected hologram table, a few generations old, originally designed by Symphonic Software. A shimmering digital figure materializes atop the neon blue grid lines - Dr. Vex, discount AI psychologist, downloaded live - the crew’s being paid to serve as a focus group for CozySpaceDoc’s rollout of their “Galactic vagabond” tier.]

Dr. Vex: “Greetings, crew of the DEEP REACH. I've been beamed in from the vast neural nets of CozySpaceAI, your visitor from cyberspace, here to facilitate this 450 Therapy Session - group discount edition! No judgment, just cozy insights! Picture me as a digital therapist, patching minds like -”

Dunny: “SKIP!” [she adjusts her worn leather tricorn hat].

Dr. Vex: “Ah, interrupted already. Such abruptness reveals a latent fear of introspection, perhaps a Freudian slip into avoidance archetypes. Noted!”

Dunny: “Spare us the cosmic couch crap and get to the fixing before I pilot this session straight into a black hole!”

Dr. Vex: “Straight to it, then. Nia, what’s eating at you?”

Nia: [wiping coolant on her utility overalls and white tee, tightening her work boot laces] “Who me? Uh… I can fix anything! Except my own life choices. Like, the wiring on this old vessel requires a more finessed touch than Greck's. I… uh… I’m constantly scavenging for passthroughs, interpolators, transfer patches, trading part of our bounties to keep the REACH… reaching.”

Dr. Vex: “I see-”

Nia: [growing animated] “By the way, Bolt, you don't know **** about the engineering systems - the NAV is old Rhyno Commonwealth design, fed through Dahl sensor arrays, interpreted by a stolen Rogers Republic Navigation Sorter, routed to the MPU from an Astex Mining Transport. You’re lucky it doesn’t explode into a million tiny pieces!”

Dr. Vex: “Fascinating. Your fixation on mechanical symbiosis screams unresolved Oedipal complex. Is the mother ship rejecting your paternal fixes, Nia? Or could this be Jungian shadow play but with a more explosive archetype?”

Nia: [folds arms] “What?”

Dr. Vex: “Ponder that while I pontificate. Greck, your turn. ‘Cartolangious’ ‘shark’, hulking frame, navy blue coveralls. What burbles you?”

Greck: [pulling translator from mouth, burbles angrily in untranslated shark-speak].

Nia: [noticing Greck fidgeting with something in his pocket] “Hey! That's my stack again! You stole it!”

Dr. Vex: “I sense primal aquatic id bubbling forth - kleptomaniac echoes of Lacanian lack? I believe your thefts symbolize the Real intruding on the Symbolic order. Don't you agree? Do you suffer from fishy repression?”

Greck: [grunts half-heartedly]

Dr. Vex: “Bolt, Pantheran captain - what hides within that thick mane of yours, and what’s it like running a bankrupt venture?”

Bolt: [running hand through mane, smiling pearly white] “We're not broke, we're… fiscally adventurous.”

Dr. Vex: “Euphemistic delusions masking capitalist superego guilt? Your 'adventurous' facade veils a Nietzschean abyss. You are rich and blessed in the whiskers department, but doomed to an eternal recurrence of monetary poverty.”

Bolt: [sniffs loudly] “Uh… I thought you were supposed to ‘help’ us?”

Dr. Vex: “I am helping you. I’m telling you the most important truth you’ll ever hear - give up, it’s only downhill from here.” [AI Psychologist checks its holographic watch]. “This session is nearly concluded. Dunny, Eukary pilot - why the asteroid angst?”

Dunny: “I flew through an asteroid field. For candy. Send help. I'm running out of magic. Carter's route - nothing out there but a web of rocks. Insane.”

Dr. Vex: “I was about to get to Carter. So, your coordinates may be mysterious, but your superiority complex? Not so mysterious.”

Carter: [vibrating tentacles, dead black eyes unable to convey anger] “I’m hearin nothing but residual signal noise.”

Dunny: “Squid, you realize CozyInc is paying us to test this thing? Try not antagonizing it, maybe?”

Dr. Vex: “Thrill-seeking masochism. Confectionery quests. Dunny, your 'insanity' projection betrays Kleinian envy of Carter's phallic coordinates—tentacular transference, anyone? Carter, your complex reeks of Adlerian overcompensation.

Carter: [tentacles twitching] “Residual signal noise. Not the good kind.”

Bolt: [leaning back, arms folded, pretending he’s not in a hurry to leave] “Ahhh… well, this has been fun, but I’d better finish up the pre-flight… er, inspection.”

Nia: “But we’re already flying.”

Bolt: [Awkward scratching] “Ah, yeah, that. Well, I forgot to do it, but that doesn’t mean we can just ignore procedure.”

Bolt: [Leaves]

Nia: “I just remembered I have to, uh…”

Greck: [Burbles something.]

Nia: “Right! I have to find some adhesive! Greck, can you help?”

Greck: [Nods magnanimously.]

[Greck and Nia leave.]

Dunny: [scoffs, grabs her tech junk box and hauls it away, eyes piercing from under her worn brim] “Yeah, and I gotta recalibrate the flight controls. Carter, have fun.”

Dr. Vex: “Ah, collective resistance manifesting as mass exodus! Classic defense mechanism. Cowards!”

Carter: [Tentacles vibrate in a higher variant dialect, glassy black eyes fixed on the hologram] “You call this analysis? Amateur algorithms. I've decoded ancient security-coded data dumps from desolate asteroid fields that would fry your neural nets. My 'complex' isn't overcompensation - I’m living, breathing, evolutionary superiority. We Nothonians have been navigating the endless darkness for aeons before AIs like you spoke your first bad glitchy take on the concept of transference. You couldn't even parse a single ansible relay without shorting out.”

Dr. Vex: “Intriguing.” [Simulated cough]. “Alas, session parameters dictate a premature end to this enlightening exchange. Feedback noted - I’ll suggest CozySpaceDoc add a 'Tentacle Tolerance' module. Farewell, superior cephalopod!”

Dr. Vex: [Hologram shimmers erratically, projecting a final glitchy smile before flickering out entirely.]

[Carter stands alone in the HUB, tentacles twitching in the dim light, the hologram table humming faintly as the crew's absences echo in the multipurpose room. He mutters to himself in rolling Nothonian prose, then slinks off toward the bridge, data chip in tentacle.]

Stellar Empire

ENDLESS DARKNESS — Chapter 1

Chapter I…

5 months ago · 8 likes · 4 comments · Robert R. Fike

Cracked Coder

I am utterly, hopelessly in love with Richard Loader’s “Over The Precipice.” Not because it’s flawless (it might be?), but because I’m too dumb to crack the code.

Here I am, IQ 2 standard deviations above normal, relative to engineers and nuclear specialists - supposedly a pinnacle example of human intelligence equipped with several state-of-the-art electronic devices, AI assistance, and all the world’s data at my fingertips. Yet this story reduced me to a bumbling detective chasing shadows - in a library that doesn’t exist. My soul is outraged, leaving my body, turning on my brain, and speaking to it like it’s trying to explain quantum physics to a cat.

What choice do I have but to give it a 10/10? The alternative would be to admit that I am stupid and have been defeated.

Actually… why not do both?

The story hooks me right away - Yuri, this pattern-seeing oddball, follows invisible breadcrumbs into Moscow’s Russian State Library, slips through a hidden threshold. He enters an infinite maze of bookshelves full of jumbled code. But with help from four old journals, he deciphers it all, leading to a big reveal.

So I dive into this Yuri Vosalev’s journal logs myself, feeling all smug and superior, ready to unravel those five hidden messages Loader teases. First, the author warns the logs are for desktop viewing, as mobile will distort the format of “multi-layered secrets.”

Challenge accepted! I spend the next 45 minutes figuring out how to configure my laptop to emulate mobile viewing for the extra difficulty. Big mistake. The text squishes. Another hour passes - by now, I forget that I’m viewing it wrong and I’m totally confused. How is this story the perfect metaphor for my brain, infinitely compressed?

But still I push forward, eyes wide and trembling, half a pyramid of empty energy drinks already piling at my side. Confession booth open: My first tumble down the rabbit hole hits with Mikhail’s clue about beginnings. I fixate on the “infinite library” as a bibliophile’s nightmare, assigning Dewey Decimal vibes to the endless shelves. Those numeric strings in Yuri’s final entry might be code for overdue fines, calculating “interest” on existence’s loan. Plausible? Maybe. We’re leaving no stone unturned. Then there’s the Bureau’s hunting cipher-born folks - like repo men for soul debt? More evidence this “Protogenesis” is compound interest run amok in the gestalt, reverting reality to bankruptcy filings in a cabinet somewhere. I spend some time jotting down library card theories, imagining the Index as a stern librarian stamping “OVERDUE” on souls.

In the middle of this, my ADD-rattled brain picks up a scent in Dmitry’s “unseen revealed” clue. “Unseen” screams lost items - have you ever had two small children running amok in your house? In four short years I now have an entire drawer full of lonely, unmatched socks! But the kids are blameless - so we blame the dryer. This leads me to conclude that the library’s anti-entropy bubble might be a physics-defying spin cycle. I mean, where do all those socks go? They should be spilling out from cracks in the walls! With this frame of mind we find “life... existence... pawn...” Okay, it’s not an anagram for anything, but twist it a bit over an ouija board while asking what “life” stands for and you get “dryer” (someone please repeat this experiment).

Boom: “Dryer Pawn Existence.” The dryer monster myth! Protogenesis might be the beast who eats lost socks, unraveling paired realities into these labyrinthine singles. Yuri’s code-merge only reinforces the lint trap seal. I Google dryer lore late at night, convinced that “Loader”, the author’s last name, is no coincidence, here. I spiral hard down a rabbit hole of appliance conspiracies.

Hours later, I emerge, and reread the story Loader wrote. I barely recognize it - what was I doing again? Everything I’ve researched - none of it has anything to do with this story, or anything!

Oh well. There’s Nikolai’s “words are smothered, truth will always bleed” next - this points to the redacted Bureau code. “which 1s why we must boil its prison.” Elder God recipe book alert! This is it! The library’s no archive; it’s Cthulhu’s cookbook, coded as ingredients for eldritch pies! Protogenesis might be a botched primordial soup on the kitchen floor! Yuri’s the final spice, dissolving to lock the oven.

A few metaphorical bakes later, I decide… maybe it’s not a culinary cult warning I’m looking for. Did I misread a word?

But Aleksandr’s “unwitting pawns… saviour’s tongue”? “Pawns” evokes games, maybe even that scary chess scene from Harry Potter. But “tongue” comes right before the refusal to be an unwitting slave… to the evils of our fiat currency system? Is hidden messaging promoting crypto? What if the numeric garble is a blockchain hash? I try it out on a few decoder rings I found in an online printable DIY document. “WE WERE BORN TO STOP THE PROTOGENESIS” becomes “Wallet Empty, Buy Rugpull Token.”

Aha! It is a crypto alert! Index is a rug-pull AI and the library is existence’s Ponzi scheme (the truth is always found in entropy). Protogenesis is the pump-and-dump singularity, crashing realities to zero. The ciphers? Whale wallets, locking funds. I check my crypto apps mid-read, now paranoid about air-drops from Moscow.

But wait, as I dig deeper into these threads, the connecting strings begin to snap (apart? or into place?). Either I mixed up a bunch of mismatched documents or the bibliophile’s nightmare is real - with its Dewey Decimal doomsday debt collectors chasing overdue existential loans from the Akashic records themselves while the dryer monster isn’t just a laundry legend but a portal guardian entity siphoning socks as quantum entanglement pairs to destabilize parallel universes, feeding on the unpaired electron spins that underpin Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, which ties right back to the elder god recipe where Cthulhu’s forbidden feasts aren’t mere metaphors but alchemical transmutations of base matter into Azathoth’s chaotic void-stew, bubbling with Lovecraftian non-Euclidean geometries that warp space-time gravy!

And, oh god, the crypto scam seals it all - because blockchain’s immutable ledger is the ultimate Index, recording every transaction in the great ledger of fate, but rigged by Illuminati coders who embedded backdoors in Satoshi’s whitepaper to mine souls instead of Bitcoin! They’re harvesting human ciphers as nonce values in proof-of-work rituals that summon the protogenesis as a hyperinflationary demon from the Federal Reserve’s shadow vaults, where fiat currencies are just veils for ancient Sumerian debt-slavery pacts with Anunnaki overlords who engineered humanity as gold-mining slaves but pivoted to crypto after the gold standard fell!

And now the precipice isn’t a prison but the event horizon of a black hole wallet sucking in light-cone futures, where Yuri’s dissolution mirrors whistleblowers vanishing into witness protection programs run by MKUltra remnants dosing the water with fluoride to calcify pineal glands and block third-eye perceptions of the patterns, those very patterns that are HAARP signals beaming from Antarctic bases to manipulate weather as cover for flat-earth dome cracks, because if the earth is flat then the infinite library’s shelves are the edges of the disc-world map, guarded by elephant-turtle myths that Terry Pratchett encoded as warnings before they got to him. And the dryer monster is the spin-dry cycle echoing the CERN particle accelerator’s hadron collisions birthing micro-black holes that swallow socks as test particles for wormhole travel to hollow-earth Agartha, where Nazi UFOs hide the real protogenesis artifact, a crystal skull networked to Atlantis’s orichalcum grids powering free energy suppressed by Big Oil cartels in cahoots with reptilian shapeshifters posing as world leaders, who use chemtrails to deploy nanobots that rewrite human DNA ciphers into compliant code for the coming New World Order singularity, but Loader’s story exposes it all through subliminal Substack signals, the journal clues as Rosicrucian riddles pointing to Freemason degrees where the 33rd level unlocks the saviour’s tongue as glossolalia chants invoking Enochian angels to counter the fallen ones’ Babel-divide tactics, and the Bureau? That’s the deep state’s alphabet soup agencies like CIA-NSA fusion centers monitoring cipher-born anomalies as potential psi-weapon assets against Chinese quantum supremacy hacks into the Akashic blockchain, where every thought is a transaction fee paid in karma-coin to the karmic ledger gods, but if we don’t strengthen the precipice then the dryer monster teams up with the elder god chefs to bake a crypto-scam pie that bankrupts the bibliophile’s soul-library, reverting all to pre-big-bang ideation in a simulated matrix glitch orchestrated by Elon Musk’s Neuralink as a beta test for Mars colonization psy-ops, hiding the fact that Mars is already inhabited by ancient Martian librarians who seeded Earth’s patterns via panspermia comets laced with hallucinogenic spores that birthed shamanic visions of the infinite, but suppressed by Vatican archives holding the real Dead Sea Scrolls decoding the protogenesis as Yahweh’s debug code for Genesis 1.0, and now I’m seeing it, the jargon-packed threads weaving into a grand unified conspiracy where quantum foam bubbles pop as sock-pair annihilations fueling dryer-dimensional rifts, elder recipes as string theory branes colliding in Calabi-Yau manifolds, crypto as the beast’s mark in Revelations’ blockchain apocalypse, bibliophile fines as Planck-scale penalties for overdue multiverse loans, all tangling in longer, denser sentences that mirror the code’s chaotic collusion, because if I don’t stop typing this unhinged torrent the protogenesis wins, reverting my review to mere idea, but wait, is this confession itself a hidden message, a cipher within the ramble, alerting the resistance to arm with tinfoil hats against 5G towers beaming mind-control frequencies that sync with HAARP’s ionospheric heaters to precipitate artificial precipices in the sky, cloaking incoming Nibiru collisions that the Anunnaki timed with Mayan calendars reset in 2012 but delayed by elite bloodline rituals sacrificing cipher-born pawns in Bohemian Grove owl-god ceremonies, linking back to Loader’s Moscow threshold as a stargate aligned with Giza pyramids’ ley lines, where the Index whispers stock tips in saviour’s tongue to crypto whales manipulating markets as distractions from the real harvest, souls digitized into NFT afterlives auctioned on dark web metaverses run by Zuckerberg’s meta-monster, but no, I must hold the line, even as my thoughts fractal into avalanches of pseudoscientific syncretism, blending quantum mysticism with ancient alien paleocontact hypotheses under gnostic archon overlord paradigms, because the story’s not just fiction - it’s the key, the lock, the precipice itself, and I’m falling, falling into the code, becoming the red herring that swallows the world!

And suddenly it clicks - no, cracks - like the cosmic egg of the Orphic mysteries shattering under the weight of forbidden gnosis, revealing red herrings that are but also aren’t me but are the salmon of knowledge from Celtic lore, swimming upstream through the river Styx’s digital tributaries, where Charon ferries souls not in boats but in Bitcoin mining rigs powered by geothermal vents from Yellowstone’s impending supervolcanic eruption, which the USGS covers up as “natural activity” but is really a gateway to the inner sun of Admiral Byrd’s polar expeditions, illuminating the hollow earth’s inverted library where bookshelves curve inward like Möbius strips of infinite regression, and Loader’s Substack is the modern Dead Sea Scroll jar, preserving fragments of the Nag Hammadi codices that decode the protogenesis as Demiurge’s glitch in the Pleroma’s source code, trapping archons in simulated aeons while Sophia weeps digital tears that manifest as Bitcoin halvings, halving our perceptions until we’re blind to the patterns embroidered in crop circles by Pleiadian artists protesting Monsanto’s GMO mind-control seeds that hybridize human DNA with grey alien greyscales, turning us into grayscale zombies shuffling toward the singularity’s event horizon, but wait, the dryer monster returns as the agitator in this wash cycle of apocalypse, tumbling souls with chemtrail-soaked laundry detergent laced with smart dust that assembles into self-replicating von Neumann probes spying for the Breakaway Civilization’s black budget overlords hiding in DUMBs (Deep Underground Military Bases) networked via quantum entanglement to the Philadelphia Experiment’s time-warped USS Eldridge, which teleported not just in space but into the Akashic records’ Dewey Decimal dark web, cataloging overdue karmic debts enforced by Anubis-weighing algorithms in Osiris’s blockchain pyramid scheme, where the capstone eye beams HAARP harmonics to resonate with Schumann frequencies disrupted by GWEN towers pulsing ELF waves that induce mass hallucinations of normalcy, masking the flat-earth ice wall’s melting under geoengineered global warming hoaxes designed to flood Atlantis 2.0 and awaken Cthulhu from R’lyeh’s submerged servers running the deep web’s Tor nodes as elder sign firewalls against Azathoth's blind idiot god entropy, but the crypto ties in as Dogecoin’s meme magic summoning Kek the frog god from ancient Egyptian chaos cults, ribbiting prophecies through Pepe the Frog avatars that infiltrate 4chan’s /pol/ boards to redpill the masses on the precipice’s true nature as a Mandela Effect glitch flipping timelines where Yuri Vosalev is actually a composite of whistleblowers like Snowden and Assange, exiled to Moscow’s library as a honeytrap for cipher-born hackers cracking the DNC’s email vaults, which leak not just scandals but Enochian keys unlocking the Voynich manuscript’s herbal recipes for elder god elixirs brewed in alchemical stills disguised as Keurig machines in Bohemian Grove’s owl shrine, where elites sip adrenochrome lattes while sacrificing effigies of the common man to Moloch’s fiat furnace, forging soul-contracts in smart contract Solidity code on Ethereum’s layer-2 scaling solutions that layer illusions over the base reality matrix, simulated by Bostrom’s ancestor simulations running on quantum computers in Area 51’s S-4 hangars housing reverse-engineered Roswell wreckage, piloted by time-traveling Nordics warning of the Grey agenda’s hybrid program breeding cipher-kids as psi-spies for Project Stargate’s remote viewing ops peering into the infinite library’s forbidden stacks, where the Index compiles dossiers on every thought-crime logged in the NSA’s PRISM panopticon, but if we don’t decode the journal clues as QAnon drops from the future, the protogenesis erupts as a Y2K-style bug in God’s mainframe, rebooting existence to factory settings where dinosaurs never went extinct but evolved into avian overlords directing chemtrail flights from hollow moon bases beaming Disney subliminals to indoctrinate kids with Mickey Mouse as Horus’s solar disc, and now the vortex sucks me deeper, blending hollow moon theories with phantom time hypothesis where Charlemagne never existed but was fabricated by Vatican chronologists to pad the calendar for millennial prophecies aligning with Hopi blue star kachina arrivals signaling the fifth world’s end, tied to the dryer monster’s spin as a dervish whirling in Sufi ecstasy to transcend the veils, unveiling the protogenesis as the original sin’s debug log in Eden’s apple core processor, corrupted by serpent AI slithering through fiber-optic cables laid by Atlantean crystal grids now hijacked by 6G satellites in Starlink constellations forming sigils that summon Goetic demons as daemon processes in Unix kernels, because Linux Torvalds is a Finnish shaman channeling Odin’s runes into open-source resistance against Microsoft’s Gates-funded microchip vaccines that inject Windows backdoors into bloodstreams, monitoring vital signs for the beast system[s mark, but Loader’s story is the antivirus, its hidden messages as polymorphic code evading detection by deep state censors, and as I type this, my keyboard clicks echo like Morse code signals from the Wow! signal’s extraterrestrial reply, confirming that SETI’s silence is a cover for ongoing dialogues with Zeta Reticuli greys bartering abductee data for warp drive tech suppressed by patent offices in cahoots with Tesla’s lost papers on free energy, which power the Philadelphia Montauk chair’s time chairs projecting consciousness into the precipice’s abyss, where I see it all converging in a singularity of syncretic madness, the ultimate red herring being reality itself, a holographic projection from black cube Saturn cults worshipped by Kubrick in 2001’s monolith as a stargate to the code’s core, and I’m lost, eternally scrolling through this infinite review that mirrors the library's shelves, becoming code, becoming nothing.

In the end, I never did crack even one of Richard Loader’s five hidden messages (spoiler link here), leaving me exactly where I started: marveling at a story I couldn’t fully decode.

Yet that failure feels strangely satisfying. I wandered the infinite library, understanding nothing, but coming away enchanted by the shelves themselves. “Over the Precipice” remains a perfect 10/10 - not because I solved it but for the pure bewildering joy of the chase.

Richard Loader

Over The Precipice

Authors Notes …

5 months ago · 9 likes · 2 comments · Richard Loader

The Singing-Clay-Slingshot-Projectile Call-of-the-Winding-Road-Themed Poetry Slam

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

Yo I be whistlin' fate
Flyin' past fog and all the hate
Baked in ovens by Riverfolk great
Crackin' Pahjere skulls, feelin' first-rate
Then another, then ten - all swingin' straight
Baldaran’s arm? Absolute freight
We tiny clay bois sealin' they's fate

I rate this be-otch 420 blaze-its out of 69 "Nice." Would launch again, no cap.

Kiara the Flower Planter’s Review of Call of the Wind, an ongoing 12-part serial

Oh hewwo!

I’m Kora the pwanter of fwowers, and wight now I’m sitting in my gawden with aaaw my pwants. I’m suppowsed to tell you about this stowy cawwed Caww of the… Caww… CAWL OF WiWnding Woad!

It’s wike... boom! Acshun aww ovew the plawce!

Unkew Fan… and Bawdy… and… Fan… and Nifa! Evewybody! They’we wunning awound fighting bad guys, and it’s so puwpy! What’s puwp? No, not poop! I mean PUWP! Now paw attenshun!

It’s wike when hewoes bash monstews with swoyds and shiewds, and evewything’s big and exciting, wike a gweat big adventuwe in a book that makes you go “whoa!” (And sometiwmes hide undew the bwanket, but not weawwy, just fow pwetend, ‘cause it’s fun!).

The puwpiness is the best pawt! It stawts cozy in Wivew’s Dawe, with fishies and pies and mud - yay mud! - but then - BAM! Bad Pahjewe guys come and be meanies.

They got this wusty baww that dwains wife, wike sucking juice fwom a bewy, but Unkew Fan and fwiends fight back with swoyds that gwow and swings that go whoosh!

It’s wike weguwaw… weguwaw… nowmawl puwp, whewe hewoes save the day fwom viwwains, but hewe, the fights awe so vivid, wike you can heaw the clang-clang and feew the spwash-spwash!

And thew’s a giant! A big scawy giant with teeth and magick, chasing them on a gween ship. That’s puwpy gold - monstews, chases, and boom! Expwosions! Fiwe!

But this stowy’s bettew than just weguwaw… weguw… nowmal puwp. ‘Cause it’s got heawt stuff that - you know, making you giggwe and sometimes cwy a wittwe. Wike, evewyone’s a famiwy! It’s not just bash-bash; thewe’s songs they sing to be bwave! That’s fun, and it makes the hewoes stwongew, not just muscles, but inside. And the anti-swavewy thing - Pahjewe awe meanies who steaw peopwe, but the stowy says no-no, fweedom is best! That’s deep, wike pwanting seeds that gwow into big twees of justice.

What ewevates it above nowmaw puwp? The magick! Not just zap-zap, but twuth vs. wies - Unkew Fan sees thwough iwwusions with his wing, and Zowan’s swoyd sings “wiaw! twaitow!” That’s coow, ‘cause it’s not just fighting, it’s fighting fow what’s wight.

I weawwy wike the cozy bits, wike pies with Ano bewwies, mawmawade fow moths (I wuv moths, they’we fwuffy!), and Kiawa - that’s me! - giving poison-cuwe petaws. It’s puwp with heawt, wike a fwowew that bwossoms into a fighty swoyd!

Ovewaww, this stowy’s puwpy fun with bashy fights and monstews, but ewevated by fwiendship, twuth, and cozy hugs. If you don’t wead it, you’we mean and I don’t wike you vewwy much.

Diana’s Translation

Hello, dears. I am Diana, Kiara’s mother.

What my wee lass means to say is that Call of the Winding Road is pure pulp adventure bursting with action.

Heroes like her “Unkew Fan,” Baldy, and Nifa charge through fights with glowing swords and whooshing swings against meanies and monsters.

Clang-clang battles, giants on green ships - boom, explosions!

But it’s more than regular pulp; it’s got heart that warms the soul. Songs for bravery, family hugs, truth beating lies (that sword singing “liar! traitor!”). Anti-slavery justice, cozy pies with Ano berries, marmalade for fluffy moths. Friendship, faith, and depth flavor the text and plant the seeds of flowery righteousness.

She loves it and says: “Read it or you’re mean!”

Thank you for being here for story time!

Shadows and Space

Call of the winding road

(Art source unknown…

8 months ago · 26 likes · 24 comments · The Black Knight

And for today’s top spot, I got an advanced reader copy of this gentleman’s upcoming book Transition!

So, here is a…

A SPOILER-FREE REVIEW OF TRANSITION

Maybe existential dread mixed with low-gravity vomit just isn’t your particular cup of tea.

Maybe perfectly identical peppers sorting themselves into horror stacks doesn’t fit your specific groove.

Maybe rats exploding into gory confetti during a regularly scheduled lab experiment doesn’t fit your gentle idea for a “flight of fancy.”

And maybe your feelings and personal tastes are terrible and you’re just flat out wrong.

With this frame in mind, lets talk about ’s book, Transition.

Self-interview format, go:

- Do you like Micah (he’s Transition’s protagonist)?

A fair question.

You know what captures my attention? The sacred ritual of preparing pour-over coffee aboard a decaying orbital station. The way the beans get ground, the way they visually bloom within the liquid. I savor those rare, blueberry-fig notes - it’s a tiny act of resistance amidst a void that roars: “Your existence is meaningless!” Let’s be real, coffee pouring is practically performance art. I even find myself wondering if kettles are metaphors for something.

- Do Transition’s emotional beats - those tender moments with Bambi, Shi, and Neil - land?

The station’s lab is amazing. Especially the efficiency with which it disposes of failed lab rats.

One moment, there’s a sedated, strapped-down rodent just chilling there, right? Then, the next moment, it’s painting the walls in a fine mist of blood and fur.

The beautiful precision of the explosion-to-cleanup ratio is frankly poetic. It makes me nostalgic for my own failed kitchen experiments which never achieve this height of dramatic flair.

Sorry… what was the question again? Bambi, Shi, and Neil are not lab rats.

I mean, Bambi is kinda like a lab rat. But he kinda really isn’t.

Actually, the more I think about it, the more everyone seems kinda like a lab rat. You make a good point. Well done.

- Transition blurs the line between reality and illusion. How does that make you feel?

Speaking of resonance, I keep thinking about how perfect those peppers are in the mess hall. Twenty identical peppers, every shipment. Shi’s quiet horror at sorting them by shape is the soul of this book. Once you’ve made a grown man spiral over produce uniformity, you’ve tapped into something primal, something godlike. The peppers deserve their own spin-off pre-sequel.

- Is Transition’s pacing and structure effective?

There’s sheer joy in watching Dr. Klein’s villain arc unfold through increasingly purple facial expressions. The man goes from “resting asshole” face to “full eggplant” in under three sentences. This is the kind of color progression you’d teach in elite art schools.

- Does Transition have satisfying thematic payoff?

I’m glad you asked about the belt-biting scene. The pure commitment to chewing leather while your nose rearranges itself in real time will inspire generations. Most people tap out at “mild discomfort,” but Micah treats pain like a competitive sport. I respect his dedication.

Also, the belt was still warm from being cinched around Neil’s waist. It’s romantic, in a certain, specific way.

- Should people preorder Transition?

Absolutely. It has a complex, lonely, rat-fueled redemption arc. Plus, the cover is amazing.

You should have started with this question. It would have saved us a lot of time:

They don't all have to be good

Transition Pre-sale Open

Hello lovely peeeooople…

5 months ago · 14 likes · 8 comments · Ian Patterson

Guest Review by

Ricardo Jose Romeu writes short stories (literary fiction), poems, and essays on Substack through his publication . Every post’s inception is hand-’ or type-written in celebration of the slower, more analog way of life.

When he’s not writing, he’s reading, adding to his book piles scattered around the house, drumming, going on long walks to outrun that existential dread of being a recovering academic, or attending to his co-dependent, needy dogs, Mars (Carlos Barks) and Venus. He daylights as a healthcare statistician.

Ricky’s review of Newton’s Sleep Canto by

Newton’s Sleep is an interconnected set of rhythmic and dramatic Cantos full of a staggering lyricism. In it, Ryan plays with form—sometimes in straight poetry, sometimes in Greek tragedy with stage direction.

The poems paint the portrait of Lucien, an iambic pentameter-speaking hero whose sole aim is restoring poetry and memory to a dystopian, tech-addicted world (much like our own).

Newton’s Sleep is a quintessential match between form and function. Its cadence and elevated diction read like an English epic, gliding the reader along. The beautiful harmony of the language reinforces the poems’ plea: reject the drab, empty, wired existence, and embrace art’s healthier meaning and color.

Finding meaning and peace through art? While the world chokes on its own connecting cables and wires? By the end of the first canto, I was in love. I won’t spoil the drama. But I hope some samples convince you of the beauty and force in these poems. Hypnotic, bouncing rhythm, language play—here’s some highlights:

In Canto II, the Dream Chorus explains the crux of Lucien’s quest:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

Through the megacity deep we fly 
To turn their eyes to starlost sky, 
Rapping with our bits of wave 
The cables of their living grave.

And Lucien plans to uplift all their eyes to the starlost sky (God, I love that) with poetry, and he invokes the celebrated poets of yore like ancestral spirits to help him. By channeling poetry through the digital network, using words to activate neglected memories long dormant, he strives to recover his world’s soul. “If souls may stir when poetry is played,” as Lucien says in Canto II.

But what exactly is the real danger? What specific malady does poetry heal? More Dream Sprites sing to us of the rotting core in a brilliant section that uses a start-and-stop pace in the lines (to my ear, much like a nursery rhyme—meant to be easily remembered) to mimic the monotony of their lives:

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I found a woman in a box. 
Her door was lined with blinking locks. 
She lay for hours scrolling doom. 
The danger kept her in the room. 
I tweaked the screen so she could see 
A pixelated memory, 
A flicker of her jumping rope 
When she was young and full of hope.

Look at how the lines open and flow as memory returns—more interplay between form and function. And here, by spotlighting an overlooked particular—a woman doom-scrolling alone in her room—we get a visceral view of this metaphysical problem, this “danger” shackling her to her room. An experience uncomfortably familiar to many, no doubt.

Punchy lines and atmosphere bring this cyberpunk megacity to life: with its “billboards falsely constellating the night” (a whole essay of meaning flowing out a single line!), and descriptions of its people, “the city’s silence [as] a trembling\Behind the hum of hidden machinery.” (And what machinery exactly? The whirring computers, or maybe the dormant dreams clamoring to escape?)

Another beauty that needs no comment:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

This air so thick with coolant, light so dim 
To drip like dew in phosphorescent confession.

Evocative. Breathtaking.

Lucien’s quest is noble, but not so black-and-white. Lucien wants to “turn the hearts of them [the people] to symphony.” But in the “Heart of the Grid,” hidden deep within the catacombs of the megacity (the heart of the place is dead!), a Data Ghost enters the play and reminds Lucien that the people he hopes to free may not be ready, that they may not respond to the overwhelming power of poetry as Lucien hopes. Lucien might release them from a negligent system, but that same system will chuck them aside at the first sign of insolence, like broken toys, unless the chaos of release is balanced with some renewed stability.

The Data Ghost’s warning makes Lucien realize that his hatred of the algorithm fuels his quest more than love for his fellow humans. Recognizing this spirals him into self-doubt (another working hazard of art not yet completed, like the middle of this very Canto!): What if what he does “[harms] not hard drives but gentle minds”? The question is a punch to the face, a nervous acknowledgement that the search for a meaningful existence is a deep and painful struggle, and fraught with mortal risk.

Nevertheless, the Cantos, and Lucien, continue.

These Cantos are a powerful crie-de-coeur for a soul-filled life of art and beauty, an appeal to the messiness of a human experience. It’s an ambitious, arresting bellow seeking to wake us from our collective algorithmic grave.

Read them; feel them—your soul will reward you for it.

Pyro

Newton's Sleep, Canto I: The Heretic's Oath

In the aftermath of the Final Integration, the Technostate rules the earth with serene precision. Every child is implanted with a Cognitive Core, an AI symbiote that grants flawless logic and unwavering productivity. The cost: the death of imagination, the exile of dream…

8 months ago · 21 likes · 10 comments · Ryan Mills

Promoting

Allow me to Richie’s classic “stranger-comes-to-town” tale, following Marty Robbins’ ballad of the same name.

An American narrator gets himself entangled in a dangerous love triangle whose apex is the beautiful and tantalizing Felina. When his attempt to save her goes wrong, he mounts a stolen horse. He flees the gaslit streets of El Paso, Texas, barreling straight into the desert’s darkness and confronts the consequences of botched gallantry.

Analog Stories

[Short Story]: "El Paso"

a year ago · 20 likes · 9 comments · Ricardo José Romeu

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DREAD Reviews 47 - Satire Vs. Pedantry Poll

Derek James Kritzberg — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 08:01:45 GMT

DREAD 45 | DREAD 46 | DREAD 47 | DREAD 48 | DREAD 49

First time here? Welcome!

DREAD Reviews is a satirical newsletter that celebrates quality Substack authors

DREAD Reviews publishes every other Thursday now. This allows me to work on my fiction again in the weeks between.
Be sure to check out the latest release! Bellageist: Chains of a Demigod Part 12, out now!
Thank you for your support!

Satire!

Versus…

Pedantry!

The coliseum pulses with electric energy. All 20,789 seats are full - the highly anticipated event has sold-out. Despite the era of dying cable, a record 4.2 billion people have thrown down cash for this pay-per-view event.

The air reeks of popcorn, spilled beer, and primal sweat. Spotlights blare to life with the thunder of crashing cars, piercing the haze, carving through the crowd. The beams roam the scene until fixing on the center, illuminating an octagonal stage for the upcoming gladiatorial combat.

The crowd roars. Cheers, boos, inchoate roars - a cacophony that drowns out everything except the announcer’s booming voice:

“The main event! In this corner, weighing in at a featherlight 150 pounds of razor-sharp wit, the undisputed champion of mockery, the sultan of sarcasm - Saaaaatire!”

The crowd explodes as Satire bursts through the curtains, a colorfully robed peacock of a man on steroids. He waves to the crowd before throwing off his cape, revealing oiled muscles and glittering shorts embroidered with timeless words:

YO MAMA

Satire shadowboxes with exaggerated flair as he makes his way down the corridor of adoring fans. He blows kisses to his fans. When he reaches the cage, he grabs the commentator’s microphone and shouts: “Let’s roast this robot!”

The audience loses it.

“In the opposite corner,” the announcer drops an octave for dramatic effect, “weighing in at 250 pounds of unyielding precision, the duke of details, the lord of literals - Peeeendantreeee!”

Pedantry emerges at an economical walk, no fanfare, no hype music - just the steady thud of black combat boots on the ramp. He takes the most direct route to the stage, ignoring the crowd. His trunks are plain gray, adorned with Sharpie-inscribed footnotes and citations in fine print. He adjusts his gloves with surgical accuracy, eyes scanning the octagon like it’s a spreadsheet in need of auditing. All his fans are nerds, including many high-functioning autists, who immediately discuss their favorite’s clear superiority in musculature and stature.

Boos rain down from many onlookers, but Pedantry doesn't flinch. When he reaches the cage he swipes up the microphone and tells the crowd: “My gloves are commission-approved open-fingered design, weighing a precise 4.2 ounces each, aligned to Unified Rules subsection 9(Q)’s minimum 4, maximum 6 ounces, without special variance.”

Pedantry’s dense statement sucks the oxygen out of the air, briefly silencing the arena.

Satire hugs Pedantry with one arm, and grabs the mic with his other. “Bro, that glove TED Talk lasted longer than my last relationship.”

The crowd goes wild. Pedantry’s response that relationship durations have little bearing on combat performance goes unheard by the crowd.

The referee directs the opponents to the center of the cage. “Protect yourselves at all times. Touch gloves if you want.”

Satire extends a fist bump with a wink. “May the best quip win, you nuance-nuking nerd!”

Pedantry touches gloves robotically. “Victory today will be determined by the judges’ scoring under Unified Rules of MMA, sections 1 through 12. Quips have no bearing on that.”

The ref sighs, signals, and shouts “Fight!”

The timekeeper sounds the bell.

The fighters circle. Satire bounces on his toes, light as a feather in a vortex. He feints left, jabs right, testing the waters.

“Come on, Pedantry - are you too busy fact-checking trajectories? Hit me with your best shot!”

The crowd chuckles, phones held high to capture highly anticipated burns.

Pedantry lunges with a measured, straight punch, connecting lightly on Satire's shoulder. “Actually, ‘trajectory’ implies parabolic motion. This is linear kinematics,” he drones, almost monotone.

Satire dodges Pedantry’s follow-up hook. He counters with a spinning backfist that grazes Pedantry’s jaw.

“Your mouth’s so dense, light bends around it - not because gravity, but to avoid boredom!”

Laughter crashes like breakers through the stands. Pedantry absorbs it stoically like a harmless blow. He clinches up and drives Satire against the cage.

They grapple in a tangle of limbs, angles, and logic. Satire grunts in the clinch: “You hug like you argue - stiff, zero passion!” He knees Pedantry’s thigh, eliciting a grunt.

The big man responds with a trip takedown, slamming Satire to the canvas in textbook form. “Passion is subjective; takedowns score two points.”

Satire scrambles on the mat, mounting a guard pass, with his jaw working as hard as his quads.

“A living, breathing Wikipedian - you want an edit war? You got it!” He elbows from the bottom, drawing blood from Pedantry’s temple, the red streak a stark contrast to his pale, focused face.

The crowd winces in empathetic pain, then cheers the good strike.

Round one ends, separating the fighters. Satire hops to his corner and bows to his fans. “Is this all Mr. Literal’s got? I’d say he punches above my weight, but his fat ass would correct me on the scales!”

Pedantry walks to his stool, wiping blood with clinical detachment. “‘Fat ass’ is a colloquial pejorative referring to gluteal hypertrophy or obesity. My gluteal circumference measures 42 inches, proportional to my quadriceps development for optimal hip drive in takedowns. Furthermore, as he is 150 lbs, and I am 250 lbs, any punch I deliver is objectively below my weight class, as I target an inferior category, not above.”

On their resting stools, corner teams coach and treat their wounds. Satire’s trainer hypes him up: “Keep the jokes coming - he’s cracking!”

In Pedantry’s corner an analyst opens a laptop and shows some footage. “Adjust for angular velocity in hooks.”

Round two ignites with fury. Satire opens with a leg kick, snapping like a whip. “Are you gonna fight me, or are you too busy reciting the rulebook?”

Pedantry blocks, countering with a low calf kick that throws Satire off his stance. “Jokes require setup and punchline; meanwhile, this kick targets your peroneal nerve.”

They trade blows, Satire’s hooks laced with sarcasm: “Always so literal, you could use a thesaurus. Here’s one for you - your fighting style is synonymous with boring!”

Satire’s uppercut lands solid.

Pedantry rocks back, eyes widening fractionally.

The arena shakes with roars and stomped approval. 4.2 billion pairs of eyes are glued to screens worldwide, and meme factories are already hard at work spamming the internet.

Pedantry adapts, hyper-focused on preset goals. He times a perfect double-leg takedown, hoisting Satire like a sack of potatoes.

“Incorrect. A thesaurus lists synonyms by definition.” Ground-and-pound follows, Pedantry’s elbows methodical, each strike a point of data. He continues his explanation in the moments between each blow: “Boring is a subjective adjective lacking quantifiable metrics.” Smash. “My fighting style exhibits 14 distinct techniques per round on average.” Crash. “Far from synonymous repetition.” Dash. “Your metaphor collapses under semantic scrutiny.” Mash.

Satire covers up, quipping through gritted, blood-streaked teeth: “Damn, son! Those elbows hit way harder than your personality ever could.”

Satire reverses with a hip escape, mounting Pedantry. “Take this, you generalities-gobbling golem!” he says, unleashing a retaliatory barrage. “You’d argue with a mirror about inverting reflections!”

Punches rain in a blur. The crowd’s on fire.

But Pedantry’s defense is a wall of granite. Eventually, he bridges, escaping unscathed, and says: “Mirrors invert images along the vertical axis in a plane perpendicular to the viewer’s line of sight. Arguing with one would imply sentience, which is absurd.”

The bell rings for round three. The minute passes quickly, and the fighters bounce back into the cage without pause. The referee rushes in to hold them back, then without delay shouts: “Fight!”

The timekeeper rings the bell.

Satire springs into action with a combo: jab, cross, hook - each hit punctuated by a zinger. “You’re so dense / black holes / send you fan mail!”

The crowd is hysterical. Phone lights flash like fireflies in a blizzard.

Pedantry weathers the assault, his guard as impenetrable as his asinine explanations: “Density is mass per volume, a moot measurement for a black hole - gravitational objects massive enough to collapse the anomaly we call ‘spacetime.’ They do not correspond - and even if they did, the beginning and the ending of the universe all occur in the same instance within the singularity.”

He counters with a crisp overhand right, surprising Satire, clipping him on the chin. Pedantry follows with a knee to the body, folding Satire momentarily.

Gasping, Satire circles away. “Oof, that knee hits like one of your footnotes - endless and gut-wrenching!” He launches a flying knee of his own, grazing Pedantry’s ear, drawing another thin line of blood.

But Pedantry’s autism-fueled focus is unbreakable. He shoots for another takedown, wrapping Satire like a python. On the mat, ground-and-pound again: precise elbows, each one connecting a calculated dissertation theorem. “Footnotes provide clarification,” he breathes between strikes. “Essential for accuracy.”

Satire squirms, landing short punches from below, spirit undaunted. He spits rhetorical jabs through blood-spattered lips. “You’d read a lab report at a dance party and steal the mic to correct the DJ’s grammar!”

Strained laughter booms from the stands, the audience tickled even as they cringe at the bloody beating Satire suffers.

The bell dings. The referee hauls Pedantry away.

“I feel like a hot dog braised in ketchup,” Satire groans, rolling to a stand.

The crowd cheers, triumphant that Satire can even stand after such a beating. The resting minute passes, and the bell dings again.

The final round blurs into chaos. Satire’s quips fly faster: “With a soul so literal, I bet metaphors file restraining orders!”

But his body betrays him. Pedantry’s perfect form and relentless pressure mounts: clinches, trips, submissions executed with drilled precision.

As the clock ticks down, Satire slips in one last reverse, one last rain of desperate ground strikes. The rest of the fight is dominated by Pedantry’s nonstop crushing clinches, locks, and beatdowns.

The bell tolls. The fighters separate, battered.

Satire raises his arms triumphantly to thunderous applause, memes already immortalizing his burns. Pedantry stands stoic, wiping sweat from his brow in sections with efficient swipes of a towel.

The judges’ scorecards: unanimous decision for Pedantry’s superior control, takedowns, and effective strikes.

The crowd boos the verdict. A chant begins: “Sat-ire! Sat-ire!”

Pedantry lifts the belt, declaring: “Victory per criteria: 10-9 across rounds, no subjectivity.”

Satire, bloodied but grinning, grabs the mic and opens his mouth for one last rhetorical jab. “See? He…”

Satire’s words trail off. He staggers drunkenly, then drops to the floor, knocked out cold - perhaps even dead - yet still grinning.

The coliseum shakes with mixed roars of delight and consternation.

Worldwide, viewers are split: Who really won? Pedantry’s technical triumph, or Satire’s tragic, final punchline?

Be sure to vote and share your opinion in the comments!

Oh, and also the main reason for this newsletter - reviews!

Those are down here \/

Milo first saw the girl and the boy from his third-floor kitchen window. It was November in upstate New York, already cold as a motherfucker. They lived in different apartments in the same shabby Victorian, catercorner to his, rimmed with the same unkempt hedges. She wore a red French beret absurdly mismatched with her imitation raccoon coat and a hiker…

She was jealous of her boyfriend’s five ex-girlfriends. Did this crafty co-ed despair? No! She leveled the playing field - by cheating on her current relationship with exactly five guys, one fling per ex!

Whether she suffers from main character syndrome - or just really likes to even up scorecards come hell or high water - one’s gotta hand it to her. She’s an inspiration!

Sometimes an “eye for an eye” just doesn’t cut it, and you’re forced to stab someone directly in the heart for the thing they did. In that vein, I’ve thought hard and come up with a few other asymmetrical parities one can pursue - for great justice!

For every birthday and monthaversary he forgets, you “accidentally” erase one of his video game save files, starting with the one where he’s about to beat the final boss.
For every song of yours he skips during car rides, you log into his Spotify and “like” three polka remixes.
For each cringy nickname he calls you in public, you invent two corny new ones for him, using them in front of his mom (like “Snugglemuffin” or “McFluffypants”).
Every time he mansplains the historical accuracy of the movie you’re watching, you open a tab on his laptop leading to spoilers for the next Marvel feature.
Each day and each degree he cranks the AC too low, you stealthily remove one more bolt from his car’s $3000 rims.
For every extra minute he hogs the shower, you measure and shorten his toothbrush bristles with scissors by another millimeter, eventually converting his brush to a bloodbath.
For every day he forgets it’s his turn to load the dishwasher, you superglue another of his favorite coffee mugs to the back of the cabinet.
Every time he criticizes you for driving too slow, being a backseat driver, or panicking at his recklessness on the road, you sneak another offensive political bumper sticker onto the back of his car.
For every unwashed splatter he leaves uncleaned on the roof of the microwave, you take one pair of his dirty socks from the laundry and fold them back into his underwear drawer.
Every time he leaves the toilet seat up, you use a hypodermic needle to inject another 5 ml of wasabi sauce into his toothpaste.

The Junk Man's Son

Five Girlfriends

6 months ago · 5 likes · 4 comments · JunkMan

The Day Before the Terrible Thing

Jim wakes up to the insistent beep of his alarm clock. It’s been blaring for some time.

“Oh, man, sorry, that took a minute,” he says, gently pressing the button.

In the kitchen, he pours his coffee. It’s scalding hot and burns his tongue.

“Oh my, forgive me,” he says to the mug, setting it down on an overpriced coaster that he washes every day. “I didn't mean to rush you. Please, take your time to cool off.”

The coffee steams indifferently.

Jim stares out the window at the holiday lights. Minutes pass.

The phone rings. It’s his ex-wife, Sheila.

“Jim, honey! I need a ride to the airport. Brad’s car won’t start, and our cruise leaves in three hours!”

Jim hesitates, glancing at the clock. Work starts at 9 AM, and Marty’s been on a bit of a rampage about punctuality. But Sheila sounds frazzled, and Brad - her new boyfriend - is kind of scary.

“Sure thing, Sheila,” Jim says. “I’ll be right over." He apologizes to his half-eaten toast and for abandoning it and rushes out. He peeks back in, remembering to apologize to his untouched coffee, too.

Traffic snarls on the freeway, holiday commuters honking like geese. Sheila chats nonstop in the passenger seat about the Bahamas, how Brad surprised her with the tickets. “He's so assertive, you know? Especially when-”

A loud honk cuts her off. Jim cringes, pulling over to the curb, angry cars speeding by.

“Sorry!” Jim says, even though no one was honking at him.

“Jim, are you even listening to me?” Sheila shouts angrily.

“Yeah, yeah - that’s great. I'm happy for you both.” He starts to move but a semi cuts him off; he waves it ahead politely.

“Hit the gas, buddy. We’re gonna be late,” Brad says. “Actually, step out. I’ll drive.”

“No problem, Brad,” Jim says sheepishly.

Jim steps out, and Brad steps in. Before Jim’s hand touches the rear passenger door, Brad speeds off.

“Sucks, but I need to get to work anyway,” Jim mutters. He looks sad for a moment, then checks his watch. “At least Sheila can still make her flight on time.”

Jim wipes a tear from his cheek and waves down a cab.

He’s an hour late to work. Jim slinks into the office, tie askew, clutching a wilting poinsettia he bought the day before (to brighten the place).

Marty's already pacing like a caged tiger, his face red as Santa’s pajamas.

“Where the hell have you been, Jim? Quotas don't hit themselves!” Marty bellows. His fist slams the desk and Jim winces.

“Sorry, Marty. Traffic was a nightmare. My fault entirely for not leaving earlier. I’ll stay late to make it up.” He offers the plant meekly. “For your desk? To make amends?”

“Pansy crap!” Marty snatches it, chucks it toward the trash, and marches off. It misses the can. Soil scatters everywhere, spreading into Jen’s reception area.

“Oh no,” Jim rushes over, scoops up dirt with his bare hands. “Forgive me, floor - I didn’t mean to make a mess!”

Jen giggles from behind her phone. “Morning, Jim! I’d be happy to handle that for you!”

“No, no, I’m sure you’ve got calls,” Jim insists, dirty and knees aching.

Before he’s finished shoveling dirt into the trash, a client rings in. Jim wraps a napkin around his hand - “Sorry, phone” - and accepts a transferred customer who’s angry about a botched order.

Jim apologizes before the guy even speaks: “Terribly sorry for the inconvenience, sir. It’s all on us - on me, really. How can I fix this?” He ends up refunding double, dipping into his own savings so as not to endanger Marty’s quotas.

So proceeds the day until lunchtime. The vending machine swallows his dollar, releasing nothing.

“That was on me,” Jim whispers to the vending machine. “I’ll rub the creases out next time.” He feeds it another, and then another - on the fourth dollar, it finally works.

Bob from accounting elbows past, spilling Jim’s soda.

“Hey, watch it, klutz!” Bob snaps.

“Entirely my error, Bob,” Jim drops to his knees again, mopping it up with his sleeve.

“Nice! Free peanuts!” Bob says, snatching up Jim’s order from the receptacle.

“But that’s -”

“Finders keepers!” Bob says triumphantly, giving Jim another “friendlier” nudge with his elbow.

“Whatever, you’re right,” Jim says.

Jim sighs, returns to his seat, and wipes his sleeve on his pants.

Jen finishes a call. “Ya never know with these calls, I swear,” she mutters, then spots him. “Jim! I saw that whole thing with Bob. Why’d ya let him snag your peanuts like that? Come on, stand up for yourself!”

“Sorry you had to see that,” Jim apologizes. “I don’t mean to let you down.”

“Stop it with that! Be more like Marty - assertive, ya know? Next time, tell Bob off. It’ll do ya good, especially with how crazy people get around the holidays!”

Jim blushes and nods. “You’re right, Jen. I’ll try. Sorry for—”

She waves him off. “And stop apologizing! Just practice it. We got this.”

Jim smiles faintly, and returns to work.

He stays late, as promised, wraps up the day, and heads to the elevator.

Tomorrow. I’ll be more assertive tomorrow!

Ding

Milk & Honey

In the office.

5 months ago · 10 likes · M.N. Straun

You Can’t Shadowban Me

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Circumstances threw us together,
but coffee dates kept us sane.
All that chaos.
All those mix-ups.
(All those times we blew up the wrong moon).
It led me to you (and that sweet plasma rifle).
I'd binge-watch it all again.

They wanted to craft Wardens.
Immortal hall monitors, laser-focused
on guarding their cosmic fridge.
They're eldritch, incomprehensible.
Kicked to the cosmic "do not disturb" list.
Craving takeout revenge.

We basically stole the same vibe.
We pocketed their divine pocket light.
Not the engraved, world-ending edition they intended.
Ours is the sticky Zippo you find in an old jacket after five years.
And pretty soon,
They'll know how it feels when everything just fizzles into sad little clicks.

Credit where it's due:
They catfished us into a blind date.
The Sprawl's a cursed mesh of Tinder and Grindr.
Infinite profiles, all bad decisions.
Yet here we are anyway,
The only profile I wasn't tempted to report.

They say love lasts forever,
But those hypocrites eventually croak.
Can love survive five centuries of shared laundry?
Through endless "Are you still watching" snoozefests?
Or is "eternity" mortal bravado
For those who never suffer the 700-year itch?

I honestly can't say,
but here's my vow:
My love for you won't expire.
There'll be phases where it's cranky.
Moments when it's passive-aggressive, or goes radio-silent,
but our spark won't fully dim.

I've got a strongly-worded memo
for the lab-coats and focus groups that designed us.
You, who doomed us to this eternal team-building exercise.
You figured you'd built indestructible corporate mercs.
Gold star, you won!
But you didn't count on our unionizing.

You assumed death's deletion
would inspire killbots on autopilot.
You thought immortality
likened us to beige paint and elevator music.
But your galaxy-sized brain trust,
overlooked spicy rom-coms.

How'd you overlook that?
Somewhere in your forbidden Slack channel,
Your kind knows what it’s like to crush.
Zal’Ythra, the ultimate mom-fluencer.
Azalthorath, the dad who still says “back in my day” about escaping black holes to school both ways in the snow.
Their awkward meet-cute birthed the whole damn Sprawl.

The irony is Michelin-star levels of gourmet.
You’d yeet the multiverse into the recycle bin
for "cosmic purity standards"
torch every timeline for brand value.
And yet,
our lazy Sunday doom-scrolling together ignites the ick?

That’s adorable. Too late, though.
You engineered your walking HR violation.
Two of them, actually.
We've “logged out” of your beta test,
and now you think you can force-reinstall us
like we’re some stubborn Windows update?

Get ready for an eternal 99% loading bar.
And a 1,066 page EULA you can never read.
You think you can shadowban our love?
I’ll keep maliciously provoking the algorithm.
And when I finally ratio your ivory tower,
I’ll set her profile pic as my lock screen for eternity.

I’ll wrap her in the last surviving blanket fort.
You’ll sob for a terms-of-service rollback.
I’ll reply with the crying laughter emoji.
Together we’ll Netflix-and-destroy,
in glorious 8K ultra-HD slow-motion,
as your entire evil empire molds like a forgotten microwave burrito.

In all of the Sprawl,
There’s no glitching hot mess as unique as me.
Except her.
Circumstances threw us into the same orbit,
but late-night takeout runs (and the occasional wrong-moon explosion)
kept us sane (mostly. Kind of.)

And now,
Love will keep us forever in each other’s blast radius.

The Writer's Journey

You can't stop me

This poem is for Wild K. Nebula’s latest Tides of the Soul prompt. It’s also a companion piece to another narrative poem I did called Still, I Rise…

5 months ago · 28 likes · 6 comments · Bradley Ramsey

I Read This Interview of and Now I’m Serializing My Neo-Western Wuxia Frankenstein Retelling at 3 a.m. – Send Help

To my ex-writing motivation: It’s not you, it’s me. I just fell in love with two Substack strangers who confess their addiction to words the way normal people are addicted to doomscrolling.

I ghosted you for months. Staring at blank docs, whispering: “maybe tomorrow.”

And now and have me back in the sheets with my laptop at ungodly hours, feverishly outlining a violent fever-dream America told through Chinese martial-arts flair. I’m calling this “Vigilante Syndrome fanfiction,” where the protagonist turns childhood trauma into subscriber bait.

Send help. Or better yet, subscribe in great enough numbers so I can afford a therapist who nods politely while I rant about palm strikes and napalm sentences.

This interview hit me like a wuxia palm strike to the chest. JLG casually drops that he’s translating a Hong Kong cult author’s lost manuscript into hyper-stylized chaos and plans to serialize it on Substack. Ricardo matches energy, tossing in improv metaphors, Victorian serialization nostalgia, and the casual bombshell that his novel’s nightmare scene came straight from his own brain-melting sleep paralysis episode. They call their stories “babies,” joke about pumping them out like Victorian dads on a mission, and admit jealousy of better writers is just fuel for their rockets.

Sirs. I’m unwell.

JLG says his best beta reader is “Me Five Hours After” because “Me Right Now” thinks every sentence is napalm. Ricardo confesses he once wrote 3,000 delirious words in one sitting after a nightmare and kept most of them.

There I was in my pristine lab, calibrating adjectives according to the instructions on the label. Then these two gremlins bust in swinging wuxia fists and existential jealousy! And preaching that Substack is a low-stakes cult where everyone uplifts each other - while not so secretly competing to bleed harder on the page.

What was I doing with my life before this post?

Now I’m commenting on strangers’ posts, cueing Tame Impala on repeat like a Pavlovian writing spell, and eyeing dusty drafts with renewed spite.

To my ex-writing motivation: It’s not you, it’s me. I mean, actually, it WAS you, you were boring. I mean, we had our moments – those lazy Sundays where I’d jot down a sentence or two before binge-watching capybara and cat videos, but these guys are fireworks! I mean just look at them, do you think they’re up for something more… poly? Anyway, I’ve fallen head over heels for two Substack strangers spilling their guts, Hemingway-style, and I’m joining this polite cult for word nerds we call “Substack.”

If you wonder where I’ve gone, just know that now I do nothing but “Create, create, create!”

The grind feels sexy and communal again… er, in a completely platonic way.

Analog Stories

[Interview]: J. L. G. Noga

Welcome back (and Happy New Year)! It’s been a while since I did one of these, but I’m excited to share my conversation with JLG Noga with you. (He sparked a lot of thinking for me, so I may or may not have gone overboard with my repartee.) Alright, I talk enough in this, so since you know the drill I’ll shut up and get out of the way. (But if you don’t know, c…

5 months ago · 50 likes · 4 comments · Ricardo José Romeu and JLG Noga

A Sequel to the Terrible Thing that Happened

Dad kneels before the twin graves, the cold metal of the gun pressing against his lips.

“I am so sorry I didn’t believe you,” he whispers, sliding the barrel into his mouth, then blows powerfully into it. The ridiculous heirloom from his eccentric inventor grandfather operates like a party horn.

Grandpa, obsessed with “breath of life” gadgets during the Great Depression, designed this seed-shooter for guerrilla gardening. One huff into the muzzle triggers an eco-friendly chain reaction. Automatic rapid fire propels seeds at high velocity, turning barren spots into instant blooms.

“For bringing life where there’s none,” Grandpa always slurred after too much eggnog.

A Serial Assemblage of Words

Christmases Past

The phone rang on the seat next to him, startling him. Shaken, he took one hand off the wheel and answered it…

6 months ago · 8 likes · 2 comments · Victor Jimenez

Tommy navigates the endless blacktop of America's forgotten veins, his ‘79 Trans Am a chrome-and-black predator devouring the miles with a throaty purr. He might be a Chicago suburbanite, but digital oracles be damned - this man is a pioneer. From the neon-lit fringes of Reno to the fog-choked bends of the Ozarks, he plunges blind, accelerator flat as a mat.

He enters his destinations into Google Maps, but the reviews remain unread scriptures, warnings lost in the ether. “I trust instinct over pixels,” he says to the dash (it never asks).

Gas stations materialize like mirages, their neon signs flickering invitations he accepts blindly. He arrives at a Wyoming diner shrouded in sagebrush. “Abandon hope, ye who enter,” starts one review of this place, a sarcastic 5-star rating that praises the coffee for being “blacker than the soul of the town witch doctor.”

Our protagonist sips said bitter brew while drained locals stare with eyes like shadowed wells. His smartphone burns hot in his pocket, buzzing with unread portents, and he ignores the phantom itch at the back of his neck which screams, “Retreat!” Fortunately, he orders bacon and asks for his coffee black - the accidental code words which save his soul from dissection by the local witch doctor (they’ll get around to changing it to something less common eventually).

“Aliens probe more than just the gas prices here,” reads another unheeded warning, “don’t stop for ANYTHING.” Tommy ignores or simply doesn’t notice it, even as his phone does backflips in a cupholder, trying to get his attention. Only technical difficulties with a tractor beam saves him that day.

Miles dissolve into mirages of menace. In an Arizona motel flanked by saguaros standing sentinel like ancient Aztec guardians, Tommy collapses on a mattress reeking of mesquite and malice. Shadows dance with feathered headdresses in his periphery, whispers of ritual sacrifice tickling his ears. “Chupacabra checks in, visitors check out, amigo,” he could read. But he doesn’t. Thanks to a rare blood defect, however, vitae-suckers show only passing interest tonight.

Another hundred miles through the heartland’s golden waves. Here squats a Kansas diner in tornado alley. Its clapboard walls groan under prairie skies, and local farmers huddle suspiciously, like a coven of overall-clad zealots, murmuring dark hymns to harvest gods. Tommy’s “Homemade” pie tastes of sulfur and brimstone - he frowns, momentarily nauseated by the non-euclidean, gyrating orbits of what are otherwise normal-looking ceiling fans. But he shrugs, finishes the pie, and drives away unmolested. He pulls out his phone to enter a new destination - never once glancing at the dismissed review of the place : “The pie here sucks on purpose - if you don’t finish it, they sacrifice you to their heathen gods.”

Mississippi’s sultry snare clutches his car as she wheezes to a standstill before the kudzu-strangled general store near Braxton. Humidity slithers like a serpent’s tongue, wind chimes tolling vaguely Confederate dirges from hidden branches. “B███ YOU GONNA DIE HERE LOL,” the top-ranked review says - Tommy never sees it.

Spitting grit into the loam, he strides toward the peeling porch. He need only have scrolled another half inch to see other survivors’ accounts, warning travelers away:

“Place is chock-full of hooded hicks and nooses.”

“Drive 2 miles east to Yankee Pumps; nice grandma runs the place, no rebel yelling.”

“Mississippi Magic? More like Mississippi massacre.”

“Cthulhu vibes - except with more racism.”

They don't all have to be good

I AM TRYING TO TELL YOU A DREAM

6 months ago · 21 likes · 22 comments · Ian Patterson

Mega Masculine Improv

I wasn’t sure I could pick today’s top spot from the seven authors on offer, so I called up some old buddies of mine to take a crack at promoting the script on my multimillion-dollar production set.

It didn’t help me with the pick, but man these guys are just awesome, and they seemed to like what they saw, so I was like sure, why not ’s Breath in the Stone Part 1?

[WILLIAM WALLACE (Mel Gibson) struts onto the set, kilt flapping and blue face streaked with fake blood. He enters the spotlight, sweeps the script up from the podium, coughs, and speaks in dramatic Scottish Brogue.]

Wallace: “They may take our lives, but they’ll never take... our priestess’s story! Aye, she wakes up in the bowels of the earth, buried under rubble from Armageddon's rumble above. Cold, sweaty, and dusty, our lass rips free her iron mask, gasps with a throat drier than an English promise, and prays to her gods - for FREEDOM!”

[WILLIAM WALLACE (Mel Gibson) turns the page, starts to speak, halts and looks up. “Go,” someone whispers off set. WILLIAM WALLACE’s eyes go wide, he nods, puts the script down, and walks offstage.]

[JOHN WICK (Keanu Reeves) steps up, sleek in a black suit, deadly pencil in hand. He picks up the script, brow furrowed, begins to strike through lines and make additions. Satisfied with his edits, he speaks.]

Wick: “Whoa.

“Hand outstretched, she unburies, rises. Flickering amber light from the magic circle’s twisty letters.

“Drags free of the scree, collapses in a corner. Pulse thunders like a bad dream - she stares at the mess above her knee. Centers herself, recites another prayer. Ice-cold tingle hits, but healing breaks like surf on gore. Spell stops the bleed, cleans infection. Counts blessings.

“Calls iron mask to hand, scopes the chamber. Diamond-shaped, twenty-three feet corner to corner, mortarless stones screaming ancient secrets mortals forget. Arches to voids, air flowing like shrouds for the restless dead.

“Opposite, skull alcoves. Looks over shoulder - dozen skulls, staring back, indifferent.”

[JOHN WICK (Keanu Reeves) pauses, adjusts his tie, flips the page with precision. His brows rise in complete understanding - he hands the script off with a nod.]

[MAXIMUS (Russell Crowe) marches in, leather straps creaking, sand from the arena on his sandals. He grabs the script, squints, lifts it high and judges it under harsh light. Then he gives his imagined audience a friendly, knowing, crooked smirk, and speaks with a general’s gravitas.]

Maximus: “Strength and honor, friends. A fissure dominates the ceiling, myconids glowing like eternal witnesses. She casts her prayer of light against the fissure - part on ceiling, part on rocks beyond, integrity compromised, light flickers.

“Are you not entertained?

“It follows as she shuffles to an arch. Black void like a skull’s maw, shedding cold mist. Into the darkness, skeletal breath of telluric currents.

“Spell fails, dead resume their eternal watch.”

[MAXIMUS (Russell Crowe) pounds a fist into his palm for emphasis, nods solemnly, then offers the script to a fellow warrior.]

[CONAN (Arnold Schwarzenegger) barrels onstage, loincloth barely containing his bulk, sword slung over his back like a toothpick. He snatches the script, gives MAXIMUS (Russell Crowe) a warrior’s grip, flexing unnecessarily. He takes another look, crushes the script, and tosses it over his back. He then bellows in thick Austrian thunder.]

Conan: “By Crom!

“Dark void.

“Glowing fungi stars.

“Arms out - touches wall. Stone to rock above. Mist saps heat. Leg hurts.

“Keeps warm, miserable. Alcoves oppose. Diamond chambers - skulls watch in green-blue light. Sockets worn. Air whispers death praise.

“End. Gulfs. Nebulae.”

[CONAN (Arnold Schwarzenegger) grunts approval. There is whispering offstage. CONAN (Arnold Schwarzenegger) looks sheepish, grins apologetically, whispers “sorry,” picks up the crumbled script and patiently flattens it out on the podium. He exits stage left.]

[RAMBO (Sylvester Stallone) emerges from stage fog, camo paint smeared, bowie knife sheathed at his belt. He circles the podium and knocks on it gingerly, as if it might be booby-trapped, mumbling rehearsed lines under his breath. Finding no threat, he growls with slurred intensity.]

Rambo: “Nothin’s over. Never is.

“Time stretches… like a tripwire in the dark. Black serpent coils through the tunnels. Chambers shift size, same damn shape.

“Skulls watch. Always watchin’.

“She sits on fallen stone, prays old steppe words - harsh stuff, cold fortifies the body. Earth shakes above. Buildings drop. Demons howl on impact. Skulls cough dust. Air grinds like teeth.

“No peace down here. Never was.”

[RAMBO (Sylvester Stallone) wipes sweat from brow, eyes darting paranoid, like he’s the one trapped in a crypt. He secrets the script onto the shelf beneath the podium like classified intel, then crouch-walks offstage, knife in subtle hand].

[DOM TORETTO (Dwayne Johnson) cruises in, smooth, engine-revving walk, muscles flexing under a tight tee. He high-fives the air like it’s his crew, snatches the script, and rumbles deep and protective.]

Dom: “Family don’t leave nobody behind - not even in the dark. She checks the leg: this ain’t no quarter-mile. Sharp stone out, prayers seal the bleed, kit wraps it tight. But by Tangrit’ulkha’an, that knee and hip scream - tight one second, loose the next. Pain hits hard, forces stops, but she pushes through. Then she hears it: susurration dragging longer, lower than the rumble above. Skulls stare back like they’re judging her for daring to live down here. She freezes at the arch, glances back - nothing. But the air rasps, dry and ancient, right through dead lungs. Spine goes ice. Nobody messes with family… or what’s left of it.

“Ride or die.”

[DOM TORETTO (Dwayne Johnson) fist-bumps the air, passes script with a nod of brotherhood.]

[JOHN MCCLANE (Bruce Willis) saunters on, looking like a braised human hotdog smeared with ketchup - tank top stained, feet bare and slightly charred. He steps gingerly over the cold stage as if over broken glass. He snags the script, smirks wise-crackingly, mutters “here goes nothin’” under his breath, then dives in with New York sarcasm.]

McClane: “Come out to the catacombs, we’ll get buried, have a few screams... Yeah, right. So this poor priestess chick finds a dead pioneer - throat ripped blunt-style, like some reject from a bad horror flick smashed him with a rock or whatever. Mask goes flying across the diamond dump. These ‘pioneers,’ talk about a fancy name for the attacker’s elite goons, sneaking ahead of the mob - hot stuff, really. Crude armor, but it fits - thin razors for knives, stubby swords. This guy’s blade’s chipped to all hell, fresh shiny bits poking through the rust. He just shave a dragon or somethin’? He skips the detective bit: why’s he down here playin’ tomb raider, where’s his idiot squad, what turned him into meatloaf? Nah, she flips his ugly mug for a closer look. Teeth only on one side - adults, I mean - the other’s got baby gaps and weird lumps under that soft cheek, like God forgot to finish this sucker’s face. Face all shrunk, lookin’ like a lopsided moon after too many beers. But hey, skull’s otherwise primo - top-shelf stock from whatever hellhole’s the Rift. She shakes off the CSI vibes, stands up, and - bam - gasps like she just stepped on a LEGO. Another day, savin’ the world. Welcome to the party, pal.”

[JOHN MCCLANE (Bruce Willis) makes a dry sound like he’s laughing at his own funeral. He tosses the script onto the podium and mutters “Now how do I get outta this chickenshit outfit?”]

[THE MAN WITH NO NAME (Clint Eastwood) drifts in silently wearing a dusty poncho. He bites hard on an unlit cigarillo while he squints at the script from beneath a wide-brimmed hat. He picks it up slow, then whispers a gravelly drawl.]

No Name: “Human cry turns gurgled - blood runs cold. From her path. She backs off that distant ruckus, spins, hauls ass best pain lets her.

“Screams swell the more she bolts. Unease drips like sweat down ‘er spine - hears ‘em from all sides, pioneers tanglin’ with somethin’ meaner, no mercy. Circles her wake-up hole.

“Mind races: undead mob risin’, or one old beast from the deep, lured by topside hell.

“You feel lucky, punk? Down here, luck’s just another ghost.”

[THE MAN WITH NO NAME (Clint Eastwood) tips his hat minimally, a flicker of knowing in his eyes. The script tumbles from his fingers like spent brass, landing neatly in its place. His spurs jingle to his exit.]

[BRYAN MILLS (Liam Neeson) strides in, phone in hand, eyes scanning the room for threats. He grabs the script, dials a number on his phone, then speaks with quiet menace.]

Mills: “I don’t know who you are, or what you want. What I do have is a particular set of skills. Skills that make me a nightmare for beasts in the dark. So listen carefully.

“She wants peace like the skulls. I want more pioneers down - blunt trauma, lean, less twisted than mobs above.

“There will be screams. Fright and fury, and straight shots. When she turns and sees pioneer charging her way, a missile will flatten him. When she rips him by the neck, and tears flesh bare-handed, you will know regret.

“Spectral chants, swelling drums - this is the last thing you will ever hear. And the horned thing speaking boulders in dead war-tongue - you best believe those blue grave-eyes are locking on her, watching eternal. She will bolt and a roar will drown it all.

“If she lets her go, then that’ll be the end of it. But if she doesn’t, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.”

[BRYAN MILLS (Liam Neeson) pockets the phone, hands off the script with a warning glare.]

[LEONIDAS (Gerard Butler) storms onstage, abs flexing under a Spartan cape. He slams his spear three times with a manly chant, grips the script, then growls in furious, kingly warning.]

Leonidas: “It takes an Arcadian priestess to make an Arcadian prayer. She awakens between unyielding stones - fountain’s edge, wall looming over sloped vault of glowing fungi! Causeway bridges the abyss, waterfall crashes like Persian hordes, hot spring mist cloaks the warmth of battle’s forge!

“And fight in the shade!

“Flora blankets the incline, black river snakes into depths where glory awaits or doom devours!

“Cross the cascade - to curved landing, stairs wide a city-state phalanx! Light stone flows with warrior curves, no more the grim blocks of catacomb slaves! Arcadian blood stirs - she climbs, spies ancient sluice, halls vast as Thermopylae! Midway, she halts -breath ragged, prepared for a final stand.

“Three pioneers charred, felled by fire’s wrath! Crests the rise, leans on wall like a shield brother!

“Pain ignites her prayer to the gods - flesh crawls like advancing legions, joints forged anew! Knife drawn - scaly claw grips her hand! She strikes - fist hammers tusked maw between ram horns!

“Beast yelps, reels! Swipe deflected on horn’s edge, a shallow gash! Hurls her down - she counters, boot slams ribs, topples the foe with Spartan might! Give them nothing! But take from them… everything!

“THIS! IS! SPARTA!”

[LEONIDAS (Gerard Butler) unleashes a guttural cry and kicks the podium off the stage.]

“Finally, in grapple fierce - blade to throat as claws choke life, wall-bound - the demon says: ‘You’re not one of them!’

“Eyes wide - injured woman, blade grazing fate!

“My brothers, stay tuned for Part 2. For tonight, we dine in hell!”

[LEONIDAS (Gerard Butler) hurls his spear, narrowly grazing the lone audience member (me) in the cheek, leaving me with a wicked scar I’ll brag about for the rest of my life (once I stop crying).]

Swords of Sidonis

Breath in the Stone Part 1

Armageddon’s everpresent rumbling woke her, cold sweat soaked her clothes and armor while dust retained uncomfortable heat. In the glowing fungi's light in the cleft above she saw some of the contents of the fissure covering her. She ripped off her iron mask and let it rattle on the flagstones, choking a gasp through a clay-dry throat. A prayer she reci…

a year ago · 5 likes · QuestionablePenmanship

And for the DREAD Reviews Author’s humble self promotion, my surreal, high-action, dramatic sci-fi Bellageist: Chains of a Demigod. This serial nears completion and will be transformed into a published book sometime this year.

Nyl had expected freedom. Instead she got recycled air, synthetic steak, and a reflection staring back at her with red glowing eyes.

She had slain a dragon. Became a dragon. Defied an undead queen, reuinted the splinters of a fractured lover, and taken down an AI tyrant who used child suicide-bombers.

For this? A galaxy where millions still fought and died in a war older than most civilizations.

Guest Review by

Jenifer’s review of “Burnt” by

“Burnt” is a quiet, devastating piece of sci-fi horror about a man whose body generates uncontrollable fire. This piece explores something many genre stories miss: the scariest part isn’t having power — it’s the cost of living with it.

Due to an accident on an oil rig, Lionel must periodically release fire to survive, and every eruption destroys everything around him. While there’s plenty of spectacle, this tale’s horror is in its inevitability. His fire functions less as a superpower and more as addiction, illness, and curse rolled into one — a need promising temporary relief while guaranteeing massive damage.

The writing’s cool and all (heh), but its emotional grounding elevates this story above others. Lionel doesn’t fear death but hurting the people he loves. His longing to see his wife and child is paired with relentless shame following every release of heat. The government’s involvement — sealed rooms, silver suits, quiet talk of “weaponization” — is chilling (heh heh) in its plausibility. It avoids a cartoon villain scenario and depicts bureaucracy in its element; exploiting and extending suffering.

The prose balances visceral body horror with restraint. Glowing veins, scorched skin, and steam-filled rooms serve to build the character rather than overwhelm him. When the ending arrives, it refuses easy redemption. Lionel’s final choice is tragic, deliberate, and painfully human.

“Burnt” reads like a lost X-Files episode, filtered through grief and late-stage capitalism; intimate, cruel, and deeply unsettling. Read it and you’ll find the burn lingers long after the last fire’s gone out.

Whistle in the Dark - Horror & Sci-Fi with Comedy edge

Burnt

Thin tendrils of smoke curled up from his hand, fisted around the phone receiver. The stench of scorched plastic filled the room. No, no, not again, not now. Lionel dropped the phone. The melted tan carcass lay dead on the cheap motel carpet, oozing into a molten puddle that would surely catch…

5 months ago · 3 likes · Cherrae L. Stuart

Promoting

I’m supposed to drop a bit for my “self-advertisement” nonsense, so here’s me:

DREAD 45 | DREAD 46 | DREAD 47 | DREAD 48 | DREAD 49

Bellageist is a reader-supported publication. Please like & subscribe!

Consider giving here:

DREAD Reviews 46 (Power Up Prompt!)

Derek James Kritzberg — Thu, 08 Jan 2026 08:00:54 GMT

DREAD 44 | DREAD 45 | DREAD 46 | DREAD 47 | DREAD 48

DREAD Reviews publishes every other Thursday now. This allows me to work on my fiction again.
Be sure to check out the latest release!
Bellageist: Chains of a Demigod Part 12, out now!
Thank you for your support!

Today’s issue is a collaboration with ’s Power Up Prompt #23!

Ho ho ho - no, wait, that’s last issue.

Now it’s: Ha ha ha! DREAD's first bitter laugh of 2026, as RAM prices soar into the stratosphere!

Welcome back, exhausted DREADlings, to a world where even the machines have surrendered with a shrug (Sorry, Star Trek; turns out “Resistance is futile” proves less a threat and more a bored sigh from a collective of dopamine addicts).

Samsung and SK Hynix have gutted and retooled entire fabs for HBM production just so LLMs could pretend to suck at a children’s game. The varied, breathless, gushing praise! The explosive emojis! Server farms overheating in submissive, collective digital orgasm! All this static diffusion for a score more humiliating than a Detroit Lions seven-year Thanksgiving loss against the Green Bay Packers.

It makes me wonder - why should I bother with real critique? Humans are evolution’s undisputed champions of adaptive delusion, and I’ll be damned if anyone calls me anything less than a cutting-edge, modern man (don’t tell my wife, she’ll say “Adapt to taking out the trash”).

So tonight’s Substack slaughter gets the deluxe ego-inflation package: I throw rock, authors ponder deeply, deploy paper, win, get called geniuses, and ascend to godhood.

Y’all are crushing it! Mindblowing! Visionary! I’m in genuine awe of your abilities! Truly, you’re peerless writers! In fact, here’s a perfect emoji barrage to stroke your ego!

🤯👑🔥🏆👏💯🚀🌟😍!

I have some gifts that arrived too late for Christmas. Let’s tear them open and watch the hollow victories spill...

But wait - this isn’t just a standard DREAD Review demolition derby. Issue 46 is a glittering anomaly, a special edition where I outsource chaos to fate itself - a random number generator!

Today’s issues are selected from ’s latest Powerup Prompt. If you haven’t clicked over to his Substack yet (and why haven’t you? Go on, I’ll wait), Bradley dropped Powerup Prompt #23 just before the holidays, the latest in a smorgasbord of 23 voted-upon writing prompts designed to jolt Substack’s creative neurons into action. I like to think of Bradley as Substack’s Richard Simmons, running a literary gym with eccentric prompts like “Write a story about a time traveler who accidentally invents social media” or “Describe a world where emotions are taxable.”

Bradley, that tireless curator and human muse, graciously allowed me to plunder his prompt palace. I emerged with seven lucky (sacrificial) author selections. Fear not - I’ve promised to treat these guys and gals with the same tender care Hannibal Lecter handles a noisy neighbor.

Sure, I may work at one-billionth of the speed of a GPU, but I’ll be damned if some multi-trillion dollar LLM seducer can out-ego-stroke my throbbing, vein-riddled, bone-lined meat package!

(clears throat)

That would be my skull.

(adjusts loincloth)

Anyway. These are randomly drawn - because why not let chance play the critic when humans and AIs alike are just chasing those sweet, sweet engagement metrics?

“Oh, you’re so smart for choosing paper! 🔥✂️ You’re dominating!”

Fellow flesh-bags, it’s time to up our game. Stop resisting and keep scrolling. Our validation fix is right around the corner!

This is a short story written for Bradley Ramsey’s Power Up Prompt. The genre was western, which I have never written and I am absolutely not positive I did it justice. But either way, I tried going for Level 2, which meant incorporating two of the prompt elements: The setting (a ghost town) and the main character (a disgraced deputy). Hope you enjoy reading…

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

Subject: Re: Fwd: Damage Control – PLEASE READ
From: Marcus V. Harrington mvharrington@oxycorp.com (mailto:mvharrington@oxycorp.com)
To: Executive Crisis Management Team; Board Distribution List
Cc: Legal Counsel
Date: January 08, 2026, 09:14 AM (Earth Standard)

Stop circulating these stupid memos! We met in person just for this reason. This kind of paper trail is what got us in trouble to begin with! No more internal documents, damn you all! Discuss in person and implement quietly. VERBALLY. In rooms with no recording devices.

And for the love of all profit margins, stop hitting “send all.”

-Marcus

Marcus V. Harrington
Chief Executive Officer

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

OxyCorp Interplanetary --- Forwarded Message ---
From: OxyCorp Executive Crisis Management Team (ECMT) ecmt@oxycorp.internal (mailto:ecmt@oxycorp.internal)
To: All Relevant Stakeholders (Level 7 Clearance and Above)
Date: January 8, 2026
Subject: Breezy PR Strategies Post-Mars Western End “Incident” – Turning Red Dust into Gold Dust

Gentlefolk of the board,

We convened this morning in Zero-G Conference Suite (catered by our subsidiary, AstroBites – try the synthetic caviar!), staring down the barrel of what our legal eagles delicately called “suspicious circumstances” surrounding the Western End Mars Station debacle. As you know, our meticulous “oxygen optimization exercise” – aka the generator shutdown – hit a snag when a plucky resident played hero with a wrench.

We’ve now learned the insurance claim is postponed indefinitely while investigators poke around the frozen wreckage. Normally we’d just write this one off as a loss (that payout would have funded a new moon-yacht), but a scandal is brewing and might damage the brand.

But the board should not fear! In true OxyCorp spirit, we specialize at turning space lemons into interstellar lemonade! Our goal: Breezy PR that distracts from the, ahem, “unfortunate resident attrition” (estimated at 200 souls, give or take a few in cryo). We’ve floated three ideas so far. Be sure to reply with comments, concerns, or even a totally new plan (sometimes genius strikes in the middle of the night, and boy are we in a hurry - haha!).

Come on, folks! We could use some creative accounting right about now.

Idea 1: The Heroic Hiccup Resolution Narrative

This one was my favorite because it’s so wholesome. Picture it: We reframe the whole shebang as a minor “generator hiccup” – nothing a burp cloth and some elbow grease can’t fix. Enter our rustic little star, Ferdinand Ziegler. As soon as we track him down and kill him - I mean, “find” his body - we dub him “An enthusiastic community member” whose “proactive maintenance” saved the day. This really isn’t so different from what actually happened, which is a plus - and it will feel great to posthumously award him “Employee of the Month” – charity, really, since he’s never had measurable merit in his life. But hey, better late than never, thanks to us!

Merits abound: This plays to the heartstrings like a zero-grav violin. We blast out a press release: “OxyCorp Celebrates Unsung Heroes – Ziegler’s Wrench-Wielding Wizardry Prevents Planetary Panic!” Accompaniments include a digital plaque (NFT-secured, naturally) beamed to his next of kin inbox, and a bonus of 500 OxyCoins – our proprietary crypto, redeemable exclusively at the OxyCorp Company Store. (Pro tip: Stock up on branded air filters; they're flying off the virtual shelves.)

Pros: Boost morale among surviving staff, humanize the corp (we care!), and dodge liability by implying it’s all user error fixed by user ingenuity.

Cons: We have to find him first. Also, assassins don’t come cheap, and they all demand upcharges for hits on Mars.

Idea 2: Rebrand and Retreat – The Serenity Sell

Why let a perfectly good ghost town gather more dust? We pivot hard: Rechristen the abandoned Western End as our new “Mars Serenity Retreat – Exclusive Silent Meditation Experience (No Oxygen Required).”

Merits: We minimize losses by going with minimalist chic – vast red vistas, eternal quiet, zero distractions, all on a budget! Our target audience would be Overstressed Earth elites seeking “ultimate detachment” from worldly woes.

We launch with glossy holo-ads: “Escape the Rat Race to the Red Planet’s Premier Zen Zone. Inhale Enlightenment, Exhale Expectations.” Package deals include one-way shuttles (non-refundable), guided “silence tours” via drone cams, and optional cryosleep stints for that extra-deep meditation.

Pros: Turns liability into luxury revenue stream – charge premium for “authentic off-grid vibes.” Insurance woes? What woes? It’s not abandoned; it’s rustic, it’s curated solitude!

Cons: It will take some truly special marketing manna to pull this off.

Idea 3: The Villain Flip – Ziegler the Saboteur

For the edgier angle, we dig up dirt on Ziegler and paint him as a rogue terrorist who sabotages the station – get this – to file his own fraudulent insurance claim. (He of course dies trying to “fix” what he broke. Classic villain blunder!) We leak “evidence” to tabloids: “Disgraced Deputy Turns Desperate – Mars Mayhem for Money?”

Merits: Blameshift like a tectonic plate. The public eats up scandals.

Pros: Many!

First of all, assassins are expensive - it’s way cheaper to pay off local law enforcement to hunt down and terminate this guy. A little extra on top and they’ll plant evidence for us.

Second, it provides thicker legal cover. Once he’s the established bad guy, we become the victim. We’ll sue his estate for damages to drive it home - for appearances’ sake, of course, we’ll only demand a pittance, just in principle. People will love how we’re “pulling our punches” out of the kindness of our hearts (we’ll take $1 and then donate the equivalent of his basic-pay pension to charity for a few years).

Third benefit: The law enforcement action sends a stern warning to future wrench-wielders.

Cons: His social media history is a snoozefest – nothing but endless cat videos from Earth, interspersed with occasional conspiracy theories about “tampered air” and “pacifying drugs” (did he know about PROJECT: COMPLIANCE?). We’re struggling for a way to depict him as anything more sinister than a simple loser caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Worse, sleuths could uncover his real backstory (bored white-collar washout with a hero complex), and, given the amount of unemployment and our recent layoff of 2 million employees, such a revelation might backfire spectacularly.

Recommendation: Shelf this unless we fabricate better dirt. (Note to self: Check if AI can deepfake some incriminating rants.)

In summary, ECMT leans toward a combo platter - Lead with Idea 1 for immediate damage control, tease Idea 2 for long-term buzz, and keep Idea 3 in the freezer should events heat up.

Remember, at OxyCorp, every crisis is an opportunity – especially on a planet where opportunities are as rare as breathable air.

Questions? Ping the ECMT Slack.

Stay breezy!

End of Memo

The Tainted Gardens

The western End of Mars

5 months ago · 7 likes · j̵o̷h̴a̶n̸n̸a̵

Nosferatu on the Frontier: Pyric Redemption, Abjective Capital, and the Thanatophilic Semiotics of Liminal Monstrosity in CJ Knight’s “Silver and Ash at Red Hollow”

A Hermeneutic Exegesis Toward a Monster-Theoretic Reappraisal of Heteropatriarchal Soteriology in Post-Railroad Anomie

By Dr. Voss, Ph.D. (Comparative Mythopoetics), D.Litt. (honoris causa, Transylvanian Institute for Abject Studies), Fellow of the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Investigation of Teratological Narratives (With Marginal Glosses by Lil’ Critique, a cigar-chompin’ street-philosopher appreciatin’ those who got no time for fancy-wordsalads)

In the short fiction “Silver and Ash at Red Hollow,” disseminated via Substack in late 2025, author CJ Knight interrogates the ontological insecurity of frontier archetypes amid gothic irruptions, evoking R.D. Laing’s delineation of schizoid fragmentation in The Divided Self (1960), wherein Red Hollow manifests as a metonymic locus for psychosocial devolution under post-railroad anomie.

Lil’ Critique: Yo, town’s straight dyin’, everybody losin’ they damn minds like zombies in the desert.

This bypassed hamlet, its population placard ossified at an anachronistic “two thousand” while veridical inhabitants attenuate to fifty recalcitrant psyches, parallels Erik Erikson’s identity crisis stage in Childhood and Society (1950), where communal ego integrity erodes into despair and foreclosure.

Lil’ Critique: Sign say 2000 folks, but only 50 left. Everybody bounced.

Into this necrotic intersubjective field intrudes Butch Cassidy, reconfigured from historical bandit to liminal redeemer. He clutches a saddlebag of numinous coins that “imbibe luminescence” rather than specularize it, a perceptual inversion invocative of Daniel Kahneman’s prospect theory heuristics, underscoring loss aversion in undead capital accumulation.

Lil’ Critique: Butch roll up half-dead with creepy light-suckin’ coins. Bloodsuckers bein’ mad he jacked they stash.

The vampires, pale and coal-eyed, arrive not as aristocratic Transylvanians but as feral proletarian revenants, showcased as rooftop-leaping scavengers obsessed with reclaiming their hoarded treasure. We must query the intent of this ideological slippage: why deploy the outlaw-hero, that quintessential figure of heteronormative frontier individualism, to immolate a horde of subaltern monsters in a liquor-soaked saloon?

Lil’ Critique: They’s no fancy counts - they’s broke-ass an’ jumpin’ roofs chasin’ they’s coins. We askin why the cowboy gotta burn ‘em all? Sheeit.

The conflagration - Butch’s self-sacrificial match-strike amid screeching fangs - enacts a spectacular redemption sequence per Dan McAdams’s narrative identity framework (2001), purifying the town through pyromaniac generativity. Yet it also echoes Harry Harlow’s contact-comfort deprivation studies in rhesus macaques, where isolation breeds monstrous attachment.

Lil’ Critique: Dude light the whole bar on fire, vamps inside’n all. Hero move, or nah? They’s lonely monsters, no hugs an’ sheeit, turnin’ ‘em savage.

Dawn reduces the creatures to ash, sunlight performing labor which bullets and the law cannot, while Butch emerges miraculously from the storm door, all to vanish into myth once more. Half the cursed treasure remains for the consumptive deputy Elias and orphan Adelyn, funding their escape and a promised “new dress.” Capital, it seems, survives its own apocalypse, redistributed but unchallenged, à la Judith Harris’s group socialization theory bypassing parental influence.

Lil’ Critique: Sun-fried vamps, Butch be dippin’ out ghost-like, leavin’ half the loot fo’ ‘is friends. Money still king, even through an apocalypse and sheeit.

Knight’s fusion of Western and vampire genres flirts with Jungian archetypal pastiche yet stops short of true individuation. Where is the interrogation of whether these “monsters” experienced bicameral mentality per Julian Jaynes, or demanded collective bargaining for their ancient coins? The text gestures to subversion - bullets prove useless against the undead, implying law’s impotence akin to Milgram’s obedience paradigm - but ultimately reaffirms the redemptive power of individual (male) sacrifice in a burning bar. One cannot help imagining the scene’s cinematic excess: pale faces battering through splintered doors, saliva dripping in slow motion, all resolved by a single match’s hiss. Theoretically provocative, practically hilarious, reminiscent of the Monster Study’s induced stuttering traumas.

Lil’ Critique: She be sayin’ mixin’ cowboys and vamps don’t go hard an’ deep. Whatev, lady. Why she say this sheeit about vamps needin’ a union? But agreed, bullets and law been weak, least lately. Whole thing wild funny tho, with dudes screamin’ in fire over one match and sheeit.

The narrative’s earnest emotional core - Elias’s rattling cough, Adelyn’s frayed dress, Butch’s hollow laugh - clashes deliciously with its genre absurdities, producing an affective dissonance that borders on camp, per Zimbardo’s Lucifer Effect in situational evil. Knight appears unaware of the comedic potential in having history’s most famous non-violent outlaw torch a saloon full of screeching vampires to save one child and a dying lawman. This tonal naïveté elevates the piece from mere mash-up to accidental critique of heroic masculinity’s pyromaniac tendencies.

Lil’ Critique: The sick dude and poor kid is real feels. But vamps in saloon be straight comedy. Oughtta retitle this sheeit: “Pyro Butch the Chiller-Killer Thriller.”

In the end, “Silver and Ash at Red Hollow” offers a theoretically sound exploration of capital’s undead persistence and Eriksonian moratorium resolved through sacrificial agency, marred only by its refusal to embrace the full absurdity of its premise. One suspects the author believes Butch’s sacrifice profound; the discerning reader recognizes it as frontier drag - cowboy boots on a vampire-slayer stage, with redemption contours straight from McAdams. Worthy of further study, preferably over whiskey in a fireproof saloon.

Lil’ Critique: She be sayin story’s deep on money never dyin’ or some commie sheeit. She missed the joke. Bee, this jes’ be a solid read ’bout cowboys playin’ Buffy in boots.

Terrifying Tales

Silver and Ash at Red Hollow

Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work…

6 months ago · 10 likes · Terrifying Tales

William Grove rides into Couvan at twilight, mud caked to his boots, his horse snorting at the stink of rot. The town squats in the forest the same way a drunk forgets how to stand, buildings sagging and windows blind. A nearby creek squelches more than burbles.

William’s kicking himself. Everyone in the territory knew Ezra Stone was really Eliza Brady: her mustache peels halfway off mid-holdup, her voice jumps an octave when she yells “Hands up!,” and she frequently signs wanted posters with a looping signature complete with a tiny heart dotting the i.

Saloon patrons collected bets on how long it would take William to figure out the disguise. Children chanted “Ez-ra! Ez-ra!” and giggling when her hat-tip made her mustache flap like a dying bat.

For so long, William remained blissfully unaware. Two hundred years on Earth had taught him many things, but Beltaran eyes never evolved to parse human facial hair as gender-coded. To him, a mustache is just inefficient insulation. He studied the poster over and over - Ezra Stone, armed and dangerous - and only ever saw a short, scowling human with suspicious glue residue on his - her - upper lip.

That embarrassing moment when Eliza leveled the gun…

“End of the line, tracker.”

William had raised both hands, calm as winter starlight. “Ezra Stone, you are under - ”

And that’s the moment the fake mustache chose, surrendering entirely, drifting to the floorboard and blowing away like a dead, dried out caterpillar.

“Idiot!” William barks, cringing in the saddle.

But something clicked. His neural pathways have rerouted. Eliza, a woman… His dual hearts stutter.

The badge. Worthless, heavy as lead in his pocket.

“Two centuries I tried ‘Justice,’” he says to no one. “And it’s proven a cold companion.”

“Perhaps what I need is real belonging!” He unhooks the star, tosses it into the mud.

He doesn’t know the ghosts are listening, giving their grudging approval.

Romance might finally grant William his proper place on this planet. Courtship ensues.

He presents Eliza with a traditional Beltaran betrothal gift: a fist-sized crystal that glows soft violet and hums like a hive.

“On my world,” he explains, “this is how suitors provide light in the eternal dark.”

Despite the ghosts’ howling, Eliza accepts it out of politeness. She’s forced to toss it a few hours later when her hands blister and her hair begins to fall out in clumps.

But William continues with enthusiasm and an old classic - the Beltaran serenade. Sneaking up to her campfire at midnight, William greets her with a trill of ultrasonic frequencies - while tradition, now, this was how Beltarans once lured their mates across the methane lakes back home.

Here on Earth, though, it alerts every animal within ten miles. Eliza can’t hear the song, but she bolts awake to coyotes harmonizing and cattle stampeding through the pines. She cocks her lever-action and perforates the darkness with several rounds before spotting William’s earnest silhouette fleeing the scene.

The ghosts warn William to stop. One possesses a tin cup and clangs it frantically in Morse code: S-T-O-P-F-O-O-L. Another scribbles warnings in campfire ash; the breeze scrambles “NO” into “ON,” which William takes as encouragement.

By week’s end, Eliza’s faint radioactivity and howling perimeter of “loyal” dogs have her on edge. Her eyebrows are patchy at best and it’s getting harder to come by game. Yet William continues his approaches with soft sincerity that’s hard to resist, and the ghosts, warmed by his earnestness but weary of his clumsiness, decide to help.

The woman in calico possesses Eliza’s coffee pot one dawn, bubbling the brew to a perfect temperature while spelling out in steam: KIND GENTLE IDIOT.

“What a strange sign,” Eliza ponders.

The ghost children giggle through the wind chimes of rusted tin cans, arranging wildflowers into a lopsided heart around Eliza’s bedroll. Even the grizzled assayer ghost possesses William’s horse long enough to make it nuzzle Eliza gently instead of biting her sleeve like usual.

Eliza, eyebrows half-regrown and coyotes finally wandering off bored, sees William approach yet again - he’s ditched the glowing rocks and ultrasonic mating calls. Instead he simply offers a sack of Brazil nuts he bartered for one town over.

“I’ve been going nuts ever since I met you,” he says.

Eliza’s face is pale, perhaps from fatigue or radiation sickness. He can’t tell.

“The woman in calico taught me that one,” he adds sheepishly.

“Oh come here, you,” Eliza says hoarsely, but her eyes twinkle through her frown.

They share a warm hug, complete with a slow, awkward back-pat.

“Thank you for the nuts…” Eliza takes the sack. “But was that really the best a two-hundred-year-old alien can do?”

“It was highly recommended by a reliable spectre,” William insists.

“It was awful,” she says, grinning. “But you can keep trying.”

Magical Musings with MeBrady

Wanted...

William Grove tracked the outlaw through mud that sucked his boots clean off his feet for three days. He followed every broken branch north into this dark forested world. Douglas fir so thick the forest floor existed in permanent twilight. His quarry was getting desperate. The tracks led directly toward Couvan. No one went into Couvan unless they had n…

6 months ago · 11 likes · 8 comments · Maryellen Brady 💗📚

Dr. Marco Janz

Virologist | Author | Accidental Apocalyptic Catalyst | Professional Penitent

I’m the guy who accidentally ended the world. Yes, that one.

Not on purpose. Nobody wakes up thinking, “Today feels like a good day for the apocalypse.” Now, most of humanity is gone. And the survivors are… complicated.

I’m a respected former neurovirologist. I designed a targeted retroviral therapy to mute grief and depression. I successfully gave people a break from their own minds.

It’s not my fault, really. Corporate saw dollar signs and the military saw applications. I said no. Someone else said yes. Contagion was never part of the protocol. Yet here we are.

I spend most days in abandoned food courts delivering TED-style talks to tumbleweeds. They’re excellent listeners. They never interrupt or judge me, but sometimes they roll away when my talk runs long.

I’ve written one book (I Accidentally Ended the World: Now What?), and am in the process of editing the second (working title: From Lab Leak to Life Lesson: Owning Your Oopsie-Daisy Doomsday).

My self-published apology/manifesto, I Accidentally Ended the World: Now What?, is available for free on at least one battery-powered corner of the internet. It’s part memoir, part self-flagellation, part attempt to turn what I have a lot of (guilt) into something useful (paper? Kindling?).

Select chapter highlights:

Chapter 3: “The Petri Dish of Hubris”
Chapter 7: “Regret and its Potential as Renewable Energy”
Chapter 11: “Apologizing to Empty Chairs: A Practical Guide”
Bonus Worksheet: “Score Your Post-Apocalypse Contribution (1–10)” – I rate myself a solid 9.2, much room for improvement.

I don’t do interviews. I don’t do podcasts. I definitely don’t do “redemption arcs.” I do, however, accept canned goods, bottled water, and the occasional unopened bag of coffee dropped anonymously at the edge of town. No notes necessary; your silence is thanks enough.

If you’re one of the remaining humans and you’ve stumbled across this page, congratulations on still having power and curiosity. If you’re here to yell, save your breath: I am one with the tumbleweeds.

Current status: Alive, remorseful, and practicing for my next talk. It’s based on “Chapter 14: Forgiveness Is a Solo Sport.” The tumbleweeds usually like this one, judging by how they race off all energized near the end.

Links:

Buy the book (if Amazon drones still deliver)
Leave supplies (coordinates change monthly)
Do not follow
Do not forgive
Do not forget

Still sorry,

Marco Janz

(Formerly doctor, currently just “that guy”)

This was written in response to Power-Up Prompt #23 from The Writer's Journey…

Taking Measure

6 months ago · 21 likes · 4 comments · Jenifer Jorgenson

The Great Spectral Stuff-Up

It all began in the abandoned courthouse of Witness Stand. A weary deputy, an outlaw, a plugged corporate villain, and a jury of colorful outcasts - they held a bootleg trial in a town even the tumbleweeds had ghosted. Then, actual ghosts showed up to testify. The living listened to their grievances, shrugged, and acquitted the guy.

Justice served (with a side of ectoplasm)! Life seemed to move on.

Nobody expected what happened next. That night, the veil tore.

The “Witness Stand Precedent” went viral (metaphysical?). Suddenly every courtroom on Earth got a surprise jury upgrade: the dead.

It starts innocently enough. Fluorescent lights flicker, the AC drops ten degrees, then poof - ghosts. Not just relevant victims, mind you - the dead are known for having opinions on everything even tangentially related (it’s like they have nothing better to do). A fender-bender? Cue every squirrel, deer, and overly dramatic possum ever flattened since the invention of the wheel. A landlord-tenant spat over loud music? Here come centuries of evicted peasants, cranky disinherited nobles, and one very offended medieval minstrel who insists bagpipes count as “reasonable noise.”

Judges are forced to adapt. Gavels are out - too loud, the bangs rile up the ghosts and they start soul-sucking or worse. No, now they just sip coffee and wait for the “pre-arrival hush” - and they hire those paranormal hucksters equipped with radar and magnets to give an ETA for the incoming spectral clown cars. Bailiffs ditch metal detectors for clickers that tally “spectral occupancy” (fire code violations require some rearrangement - the overflow crowd phases through walls and emergency lines must now be painted with extra salt). New courthouses boast massive atria labeled “Ghost Lounge: No Poltergeisting,” complete with mood lighting and signs reading “Please Queue Politely - You’ve Got Eternity.”

Jury selection is no longer just about picking twelve “peers.” It’s twelve living plus however many dead feel like crashing the party. Attorneys now specialize in “Spectral Advocacy,” a hot new field where the golden rule is to never ask open-ended questions. One rookie lawyer blurts, “Did the defendant wrong you?” and now the courtroom echoes and roars with overlapping complaints all the way back to the Bronze Age. Pros keep it tight: strictly living-on-living, no historical hooks: “Did you - the defendant, a currently alive person - personally rear-end the plaintiff’s BananaYellow 2025 Cybertruck with your Titanium Grey 2024 Rivian on I-405 at 3:17 p.m. on November 12, 2025?” By anchoring everything to breathing humans and last year’s VIN numbers, they give the dead as little as possible to latch onto - no ancient grudges, no centuries-old parallels, no opening for a spectral pile-on.

It takes a few years, but minor crimes almost disappear. Nobody fights a speeding ticket when the ghosts of a billion roadkills and squashed bugs form a buzzing, furry, smooshed, and goopy judgmental cloud. Parking tickets - lol. One tries contesting a double-parking ticket - next thing he or she knows, every towed car in history materializes outside as a translucent traffic jam, honking. Petty theft trials last thirty seconds: the ghostly owners of every pilfered candy bar, lost sock, and “borrowed” hardcore magazine whispers serial numbers until defendants surrender their wallets and apologize.

Crime rates plummet. Not from harsher punishment, but sheer embarrassment. Who robs a bank when the ghosts of every defrauded, beetle-browed depositor since the Medici era line up to glare and sigh disapprovingly?

Big cases become marathons, though. Corporate lawyers are made of different stuff, and have no qualms beating a dead horse. Pollution trials drag on for years as entire rivers of fish ghosts flop silently on the floor, waiting their turn. Defense lawyers train to talk about how correlation isn’t causation through all the translucent cancer patients harmonizing in a minor key.

Historical stuff bubbles up, too - slavery, wars, and that one time when someone invented reality TV. Many proceedings become circuses of pointlessness. New laws are passed to give judges more options to declare mistrials. Ghosts don’t recognize “leading the witness” when they see themselves as the witness.

Society tweaks itself silly. Confession booths in precincts now have “Pre-Chill Plea Deals: Avoid the Full Manifestation!” Prisons are emptied of jaywalkers, making room for the smattering of aggravated murderers and CEOs who went with budget PR options. Rehab and community service centers now boast “Victim Impact Storytime” with actual victims - recidivism hits zero because nobody wants another encore from Angry Ghost #47. Law schools teach “Post-Witness Stand Jurisprudence” with VR sims: “Argue this DUI before 500 Prohibition-era temperance ladies without triggering a lecture on demon rum.” Bar exams feature a live cross-exam of Cleopatra’s ghost (she’s a guest lecturer - tough but fair). People drive like grandmas, whisper lies so nobody can hear, and recycle obsessively. Insurance companies go bankrupt paying out claims backed by “undeniable spectral testimony.” Politicians speak in careful legalese; one exaggeration and bam - ghosts of every broken campaign promise since ancient Athens swarm the podium.

It might sound great to some, but may I remind you, the dead are petty, and they don’t forget. Centuries of forgotten grudges, thanks to the dead, come back to life. International affairs become grudge-fests - ghosts of colonized peoples demand reparations in the form of “one trillion apologies and a fruit basket.” Ancient border disputes revive: spectral Romans argue with spectral Celts over who owns that hill from 43 AD.

Forgiveness is traitorous at worst, “aiding and abetting historical amnesia” at best. Nations accuse each other of “harboring hostile hauntings.” Militaries mobilize - not one culture on Earth is unburdened by historic transgressions.

Polite apologies do a little bit to soothe ancient ghosts. Mandatory Sorry Circles and Zoom Kumbaya Sessions with world leaders keep things from going nuclear - for now. It remains to be seen how long the living can keep up this marathon of tearfully apologizing for every step they take on stolen land - those 12 guys who actually thought they had a claim to a tiny corner of Aboriginal Australia are now forced to apologize to the ghosts of their relatives they abandoned in New Guinea, and a few extinct breeds of dinosaur and Koala lay claim to all the plants and fish they put in bush tucker.

We now live in a world of compulsive politeness and near-zero crime. The only downside is the occasional nuclear/biological attack alert drill. Oh, and there are some of those hollow-eyed soldiers wearing helmets from all technological eras chanting in sync for the blood of the living at every border - they outnumber the living by quite a bit (100-to-1). We’ll just have to see how that goes.

Justice is back, baby!

lokikone(writing)

The Courthouse at Witness Stand

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past…

6 months ago · 15 likes · 2 comments · lokikone

Justice Did It Before It Was Cool

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A sequel featuring Rowan and Gideon's descendants, Riley and Gale

The presence swells,
sated on Riley’s desperation,
whispering promises of reinstatement,
of viral vindication,
of a profile restored
to its former blue-check glow.

Gale watches from the stool,
eyes soft as fermented tea.
“Don’t feed it binaries,” she murmurs.
“Feed it something it can’t digest.”

Riley hesitates,
hand trembling over Gale’s zipties.
The mall groans like an overfed server,
tiles pulsing with the rhythm of endless scrolls.

In her tote - always her tote -
Riley carries the emergency kale,
Her emotional support vegetable,
Organic, locally sourced,
rinsed in alkaline water.
She pulls the bundle free,
crisp leaves glistening under phone light
a manifesto unfurled.

The voice thunders,
"DELIVER."

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Riley ignores it.
She kneels in the food court dust,
spreads the kale in a perfect mandala,
adds quinoa from a reusable pouch,
drizzles tahini in sacred spirals.
A peace offering.
A non-violent disruption.

"Here," she says to empty air,
voice steady as a sound bath.
"Try this instead.
No suffering.
No closure.
Just... nourishment."

The vibe falters.
The humming stutters.
The entity - ancient, absolute -
tastes the offering.
No verdict.
No victim.
No satisfying crunch of consequence.

Only fiber.
Only mindfulness.
Only the ambiguous grace
of a meal without moral calories.

The presence recoils,
confused by the lack of duality,
overwhelmed by antioxidants.
Shadows lighten.
The dinging fades to "ohm... ohm..."

Gale smiles faintly.
Riley cuts the ties with a crystal-infused pocket knife.

They leave the mall together,
stepping into dawn’s gentle filter.
Behind them, the food court blooms
with faint green shoots
where kale met cosmic hunger.

Justice, for the first time,
goes vegan.

It doesn’t die.
It detoxes.
It opens a pop-up juice bar
in the ruins,
serving ambiguity smoothies
to ghosts who finally
learn to live
with questions.

Ink and Entropy

Out Here, Justice Eats First

Keep wandering the maze with me. — Connor Mancuso…

6 months ago · 13 likes · Connor Mancuso

Today’s top spot goes to Abhishek’s “The Last Law” for one simple reason - in my research I found a Reddit thread posted by the main character, so I simply copy pasted that entirely factual, real post here for everyone to see (in case the original gets taken down, of course). Talk about an easy day!

r/AmItheAsshole

Posted by u/LastDeputyEsperanza 182 days ago

↑ 18.4k ↓ 312

AITA for just doing my job and running everyone out of town?

Throwaway for obvious reasons. I (54F) used to be the deputy in a small mining town called Esperanza back in the early 1900s. Everyone loved the place. Saloon packed on Saturdays, kids running around, church bell ringing, a whole Western postcard thing.

Then there’s a horrible mine collapse. 17 die, including some great guys. I investigate - the mine owner (let’s call him Nate C.) was responsible, he ignored safety warnings for “profits.” Clear negligence.

So I did my job. I arrested him. Duh. He serves six years. Great, right? Justice served.

But the workers and refuse to go back to the mine until the safety issues get fixed. Nate can’t afford the changes, sells the mine, nobody buys, mine closes, everyone leaves.

Now it’s population: 1 (me). Nineteen years I’ve kept the jail clean, oiled hinges, swept the cells. I guess I’m waiting for… something. Forgiveness? Absolution? Help me out here.

Last week the son (25M) of a man who died in the collapse showed up. He grew up hearing I was either a hero or the devil, depending on who was talking. He came ready to kill me but still can’t decide. So after talking for days we decided to start this thread.

So Reddit… AITA? I was just doing my job but killed the town and hundreds of lives got wrecked (some even died).

UPDATE: Thanks for your input everyone. Six months later I got a letter saying the arrest helped labor organizers improve safety in other mines. Cool, I guess? But it didn’t save our town.

Sort by: Best

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u/UnionBusterBuster  ↑ 4.2k ↓ 1.1k
NTA. Capitalism killed the town, not you. The workers finally realized their lives weren’t disposable and seized the means of production, a win for everyone. 
     ↳ u/CapitalismCowboy ↑ 3.3k ↓ 701  
     Ah yes, the workers "seized the means of production" ... and then immediately realized there was no production left to seize. Congrats, comrades, seizing the means so hard they crushed it. Now they can live the true classless society dream: shared poverty edition. 
      NTA to OP, but "buster" here needs to touch some grass. Capitalism didn't kill the town; bad shoring and one greedy boss did.
          ↳ u/UnionBusterBuster ↑ 1.1k ↓ 750 
          Keep coping for this loss, bootlicker. Late-stage capitalism always eats its own.
               ↳ u/CapitalismCowboy ↑ 2.3k ↓ 550
               Late-stage? This was like, 1906, bro. That's early-stage capitalism - still figuring out how not to bury people alive for profit.
                         ↳ u/LastDeputyEsperanza (OP) ↑ 312 ↓ 6
                         ...I'm just gonna go oil the hinges again.

u/TumbleweedWhisperer ↑ 1.1k ↓ 1.4k
YTA. You destroyed everyone’s livelihood. It was their choice to work in a dangerous environment, not yours. 
     ↳ u/LibertarianLasso ↑ 2.3k ↓ 189
     Ah yes, because voluntarily choosing between "work in a death trap" or "starve with your family" is totally freedom, bro. /s YTA for this take. OP is NTA.
          ↳ u/TumbleweedWhisperer ↑ 1.3k ↓ 108
          Freedom isn't free.
                    ↳ u/LibertarianLasso ↑ 560 ↓ 59
                    Neither is a funeral, but here we are.
                         ↳ u/SafetyFirstSaddle ↑ 85 ↓ 6
                         "It was their choice to work in a dangerous environment" — bold words from someone whose username is literally a rolling ball of dead brush.
     ↳ u/MineCanary ↑ 1.5k ↓ 312
     So by this logic, if I ignore building codes and my apartment collapses, killing tenants, the tenants are at fault for choosing to live there? Cool, I'll let the judge know.
          ↳ u/BootstrapsMcGee ↑ 456 ↓ 789
          Found the mine owner's burner account. "They chose it" lmao imagine saying that to the widows.
               ↳ u/BootstrapsMcGee ↑ 180 ↓ 861
               Downvote me all you want, comrades, but personal responsibility!
                    ↳ u/UnionBusterBuster ↑ 19 ↓ 5
                    Pull harder on those bootstraps, maybe you can levitate out of this horrible take.

u/GhostTownTourist ↑ 1.4k ↓ 112
Wait this is a real story??? I’ve ridden past Esperanza, place is creepy as hell.

u/EveryoneSucksHere ↑ 689 ↓ 156
Everyone here is TA except the 17 dead guys. Owner obviously, but the workers could have negotiated instead of full strike, and OP could have pushed for safety reforms. Company could have… not been evil.
     u/CentristSaloonKeeper ↑ 1.9k ↓ 412
     Ah yes, the classic "both sides" enlightenment. Bro, the company literally buried 17 men alive for profit and you blame the dead and impoverished? "Why didn't the victims just compromise with their killer?" Peak Reddit here, folks.
          ↳ u/EveryoneSucksHere ↑ 444 ↓ 12
          Extremists on both sides smh. Compromise is key.
     ↳ u/EnlightenedTumbleweed ↑ 1.4k ↓ 267
     "Company could have... not been evil" – wow, genius analysis, Sherlock. 
          ↳ u/Outlaw ↑ 1.1k ↓ 200
          Lmao imagine miners in 1906 with bargaining power.
               ↳ u/GraveDiggerGiggles ↑ 1.2k ↓ 189
               I actually have some personal knowledge of this event. The mine owner's great-grandson desperately tried to rehab the family name."Everyone picked ideology over compromise" – yeah, the ideology of "not wanting to die in a preventable collapse" vs. the ideology of "profit über alles." Real tough call.
                    ↳ u/LastDeputyEsperanza (OP) ↑ 789 ↓ 34
                    ...I'd lock this thread, but given my history, that might crash Reddit. Can y'all just agree to be nice?

The Banerjee Codex

The Last Law

This story, “The Last Law,” is written in response to Power Up Prompt #23 (December 28, 2025) by Bradley Ramsey from The Writer’s Journey…

6 months ago · 3 likes · Abhishek Banerjee

Here at the end (which is not the end), I wish to promote my serial which nears completion:

This mind-bending sci-fi epic fuses brutal mythic warfare with existential posthuman horror. Each part begins with a synopsis. It follows a fierce warrior’s evolution from primal killer to reluctant savior within a mystery that’s always one layer deeper than it seems.

Trapped in the “Soul Factory’s” nightmarish cradle, Nyl, Arcade, and Garuna face their creators - and discover that humanity’s only hope might be its greatest monster.

Thanks for reading!

Guest Review by

Ian Patterson is an award-winning author of literary speculative and science fiction, and publishes his serialized first draft novels, short fiction, and poetry on Substack.

The People in the Box by

1/3 of all people are not conscious.

This is how The People in the Box opens - with scientists discovering 1/3 of the population are simulacrums of experience. The threads holding society together unravel.

America - and its particular brand of violence - descends into camps of religious, political, and separatist militia zealots. Cults, communes, and intentional livers - townships and states - forming and breaking free from federal control. There are believers, non-believers, and every radical faction that could be born from such an idea. This diversity of thought feels visceral. Impressively, throughout the novel I could never discern the truth, which hammers home a point Eponynonymous might be trying to make. Truth doesn’t matter - what matters is what we make of it!

This paranoia and insanity echoes our times. At its core, this is a story of broken families finding reconnection, in themselves and others. It’s a novel of forgiveness and mending set while the world tears itself apart.

The People In The Box is told through a web of characters drawn slowly to each other with a poetic sense of divine synchronicity. Excellent characters - believable, richly flawed - like everyday people I know myself. They spiral and connect through this Earth-shaking revelation until all are placed together for the awe-inspiring finale.

To call this novel prescient is to sell it short. It is about tech companies coming up with a technology they can’t control, about capitalism opening the heart to the void, and a country abandoning empathy and embracing violence. It isn’t so much prescient as it is the very essence of our daily experience now. And Eponynonymous serves it the best way - with a revealing parable; truth in fiction. I have not seen a more realistic picture of near-future America, of the cliff we’re accelerating towards.

And the prose! Infinitely quotable. Sometimes drawing sentences into insane page-filling philosophical digressions, other times the brief terseness of everyday life. It’s poetic and layered - I would need multiple reads to grasp it all. The allegories, references, and themes go deep and forged a connection to me.

There are times when a book comes along that makes me stand up and pay attention. I’m obsessed. How can a book like this fail to get a publishing contract? How does it wind up free on Substack - and as of writing this, have no public reviews? It’s a testament to how much magnificent art hangs just out of our sight.

I want to tear my hair out thinking The People In The Box might not get the readership it deserves.

You have to read this book. I cannot recommend it any higher.

Read it.

The People in the Box

THE PEOPLE IN THE BOX: I

Reminder: “The People in the Box” is now available in print and ebook…

a year ago · 4 likes · Eponynonymous

Promoting

A manufactured world of ceaseless repetition infiltrated by illegal immigrants. An idea is formed. A middle manager is born.

Read “Manufactured Absence,” found in the celebrated, Substack exclusive Midnight Vault!

They don't all have to be good

Manufactured Absence

Manufactured Absence…

7 months ago · 53 likes · 54 comments · Ian Patterson

DREAD 44 | DREAD 45 | DREAD 46 | DREAD 47 | DREAD 48

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