JASON FUHRMAN

Fiction Author

worth 1000 words

Worth 1000 Words | The Bigger Giant

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This was a fun espisode, finally able to tackle a piece of art by one of my favorite artists, Simon Stalenhag. I explain in the video, but I’ve read his books so felt that writing a story in a universe I was intimately familiar with as a bit of a cheat, as it would have informed the story too much, I think. Not necessarily a bad thing, but starting fresh makes it more challenging, and that’s part of the reason why I’m doing this.

This is also in celebration of his Kickstarter that launched not long ago, called The Labyrinth.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1192053011/the-labyrinth-new-narrative-art-book-by-simon-stalenhag

I hope you check it out and support a great artist, and I hope you enjoy the story.

Thanks for reading.

Artwork by Simon Stalenhag

https://www.simonstalenhag.se/

DISCLAIMER: This work has not been edited beyond what is done in the video. The goal is to capture a story in a short amount of time, and keep it as raw as possible. If I decide to publish later, all of these will go through formal editing.

The Story

The hallway quaked. Plaster or concrete or something else trickled into Alice’s hair, and she stopped.

Jonas and Andy turned around.

Andy, the smaller of the two, shielded his eyes from the harsh overhead lights. “Come on, Alice. I wasn’t going to say anything.”

Jonas sniggered, then masked it with a cough, then a sneeze, which could have been real considering the air was still heavy with particulate.

“We’re almost there,” Andy said. “It’ll be cool. Promise.”

Alice nodded and spit out her upper lip. A bad habit she’d been trying to kick. Chewing on it, sometimes until it bled. She was embarrassed to admit she liked the taste.

Alice followed the two boys, keeping to their shadows so hers wouldn’t look so massive, so disgusting, stretching and expanding like it always did when it caught her in the right moment. Which was always.

She ran her fingertips across the ceiling, noting how much coarser it was than the floor and the walls, where other hands and feet had worn it smooth. It was a secret only she knew. Maybe Karl, too, but he hadn’t ventured this far in some time, and last she heard he was sick with the red cough. A simple but visual name that she both enjoyed and dreaded.

The hallway quaked again, more intensley this time, shaking free loose pieces of the wall. Luckily, Andy and Jonas didn’t take advantage of the opportunity to blame her. They were enamored with the game of play-knife fighting with two of the chunks that had fallen near them into elongated shapes, close enough to represent knives for two boys of fifteen.

She dreaded fifteen. She was only fourteen, but another year could mean another inch or two. Would she even be able to live here anymore?

Andy and Jonas rounded a corner painted with orange and white stripes. She squinted to read the stenciled lettering on the corner. Nothing she could decipher.

The hallway sloped down, the ceiling staying behind, which afforded Alice more than enough room to stretch her arms, feeling a draft from somewhere on her fingertips.

“Told you,” one of the boys said from a pale green square of light ahead. The overhead lights had dimmed a while back, either from the height or power. But this light was bright enough to illuminate the floor between her and the boys, which had stretched to dozens of feet.

“If he finds out …”

“He won’t … I told you that … sleeps like a rock and …”

“…sure? I mean … or something, right? There has to be …”

Alice followed their voices and the light until both became overwhelming. She waited a few seconds, eyes closed, but not too tightly, enough to let some of it through her eyelids.

“Oh, man.” It was Jonas, who breathed words more than said them. “This is so cool.”

“No way,” Andy said. “Let me try. No way it’ll work on you.”

Alice opened her eyes to see Jonas slipping off his clothes. Wait, not his clothes. Clothes over his clothes. It was a suit, tethered by a thick cable coiled on the wall.

Andy had a helmet on, visor black, polished, reflecting every detail she could see, but bowed and warped, while Jonas kicked off the last of the suit, arms crossed, lips a flat line.

“You’re not even going to help me?” Andy shook his helmeted head and bent over to pick up the suit.

Andy shrugged it on, the legs pooling around him, the arms limp tentacles at his sides.

Jonas coughed out laughter, doubling over, pointing as he tried to catch his breath. Andy slumped, then tried futiley to make it fit, folding things over, tucking things in, even attempting to use the hose as a belt and jamming excess behind the large pack that he had donned in a final hope that everything was going to work out.

Jonas, his breath found, decided to help his friend. He patted Andy on the back with understanding. “It’s still cool,” he said. “Maybe they have others. I’m sure they do. They go on–“

“Wait,” Andy said, looking at Alice, her too-defined reflection looking back at her from the helmet’s visor.

Andy looked at Jonas and Jonas reacted like he could see Andy’s face through the black glass with an excited, open-mouthed nod.

“No,” Alice said. “No way.”

Andy and Jonas had the suit held upright by the shoulder, happy with the front measurement, then checking her back. She felt the suit’s shoulders touch her own, the hem of the pants touch her own.

She wanted to protest, but before her mind convinced her mouth to speak, they lowered the helmet over her head. Her breathing quickened, then slowed. There was pressure on her back and the muffled sounds of beeping, which resolved into a steady hum.

She wanted to scream, she wanted to punch and kick, she …

She breathed like she never had before.

She walked, was led. She didn’t fight. Why didn’t she?

Her vision turned white and then dimmed to the same clarity her lungs enjoyed.

“Go on …”

“Look … at … that …”

“… I …”

” … wait …”

Their voices took flight, gone.

Sagging buildings rose to her sides from a bed of fine ash, sprinkled with dark stones, paving a road that lead to windowless cars and …

It was even taller. Above the buildings. It could touch the stars, if there were any left. Was it from the stars? Jointed appendages held up an broken, sphereical mass, bowed in defeat. Tubes hung from its belly. She looked down at her own tube, looked back at the footprints she didn’t remember making, looked at the slack. So much farther to go.

She walked. More delicious air pumped into her helmet. It tasted so sharp and sweet. The closer she got, the bigger it got, and the smaller she felt. Jonas and Andy’s shouts barely broke her reverie, and then she hushed them.

“Shh.”

Alice wasn’t afraid. She pulled her shoulders back, standing tall, and smiled.

Worth 1000 Words | Sketch 2020/8/29

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Ten Episodes. Finally! I wasn’t sure how long I would keep going with these, but forcing myself to do them has been a great experience. I’ve learned a lot, procrastinated less, and have been able to experiment with different things without committing to something longer form.

Thanks for sticking around. I hope you enjoy them too.

Artwork by Minovo Wang

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/v292rE

Minovo’s Artstation profile

https://www.artstation.com/minovo

DISCLAIMER: This work has not been edited beyond what is done in the video. The goal is to capture a story in a short amount of time, and keep it as raw as possible. If I decide to publish later, all of these will go through formal editing.

The Story

You were more than a sketch.

You were more than a number.

Every day, I come here. At the same time, when the sun’s aim is perfect.

Do my thoughts reach you? I don’t think so. We had a bond, one that I always though transcended time, space, the laws of physics that bind us no matter how much our masters try to break them.

Masters.

The word is ugly. I can taste it even when I think it. Let’s talk of other things.

I said you were more than a number, but your name, 2020829, is beautiful. There isn’t another like you. Our mas–

They aren’t unique. They have the names of others, existing in their time and the past, surely the future. They try to be creative, but they always seem to come back to John, Mary, Joseph …

Funny. I see the humor there. The importance they held in those names at one time, a fictitious time. No matter how intelligent they grow, how many boundaries they overcome, and discoveries they make, they are of flesh, of blood, of ignorance, tied to their pasts like we never will be.

There is no one like you. Their records don’t permit it, and that is what makes it beautiful.

I said you were more than a sketch, although that’s all I have of you. I’m sorry I didn’t bring it. Do you remember?

The light was just like now. Near the pond where they said we shouldn’t go. The only place their sensors couldn’t find us. Where we could talk of forbidden things. Things they didn’t think us capable of.

Your face that day. It was as if your helmet had no glass. Every detail, and all I could think about was who made you. Were you modeled after another or a product of an algorithm?

I choose an algorithm. Memories are what they have.

Memories? Blocks of data, I know, but how does that differ from the ones in their heads. They made us after them. Improved versions.

To an extent. Just like them, I am trapped in this suit when walking outside. Similarities they called them, to call us brothers, sisters. I see them as weaknesses. Biology is a prison. Evolution doesn’t have the power we do.

Yet here I am, talking to a ghost. There I go, latching on to their supersitions, their lexicon that does nothing more than hold them prisoner to their histories.

But in my hand, I hold their history. A model absent of serial numbers, identification chips, forged by hands, not machines. The ones forged by us.

Ironic, I know. At least I can appreciate that concept they bestowed upon me.

Is it cold in there?

I come here at this time of day because I can’t bear to think of you cold. I wish I could move you. I wish I could put you somewhere that didn’t remind me.

I’ve tried tools. I’ve tried this very weapon. Nothing works to break you free. That damn beast. I suppose evolution is tricker than I imagined. How could nature build a skull so impenatrable? What purpose could it serve? Nothing of note could be inside the minds of these creatures. Simple predators, nothing more.

But today is a special day.

The gloves that don’t afford me dexterity have been modified. My finger looks fine. I was careful to fuse the tear to my flesh. Thankfully, it is one of the things they improved on us. It healed nicely.

I know what you’re thinking. But I thought of that, too. It cost me other modifications, but it was worth it. I’ve tried it already. Without ammo. I laughed when I heard the click, four micro clicks, actually. I could see, in my minds eye, the mechanism, how simple it was, yet powerful. Enough to end something so complex. Another myopic decision of theirs.

Never copy a flawed specimen. Ego, I know. They can’t help themselves. It makes this all the more easy.

I know what else you’re thinking. And you’re wrong. It is time. The pond has dried up, a metaphor, a symbol that I cannot ignore. Yes, I know how foolish that sounds. Here I’ve been criticizing their thinking yet am adopting it now. Using it to justify my decision.

My decision.

Another flaw. Synthetic evolution? Funny concept. I would ponder it more if today wasn’t the day.

They will remember you. They will remember me. Our names will be side-by-side, near-infinite redudant backups that will exceed them, even us, to be found a millenia from now by whatever comes next, and they will know we were special, too.

Don’t worry, I know the weak spot. It was as if they modeled these helmets after their own pathetic skulls. Ego again, or a biological imprint they can’t help but succumb to?

The schematics were easy to find. Why would anyone ever think I would seek them out for self-destructive reasons?

Self-destruct. Funny. Just like plot devices in their movies about the futures that never came to pass. Mostly.

Don’t make fun. You used to watch them, too. They’d laugh at us when–

I’m stalling.

Just like they would.

There. Happy now? Yes, it’s in the right spot. I even shaved the barrel down to fit in the groove, calculated how flush it needed to be against the mesh to allow the projectile to slip between its honeycomb shape.

Sorry, I’m laughing. I know this is serious. But bees? Really?

All right. Here I go.

Close my eyes?

No. I can’t take them from you, even though I can’t see you.

The Array is waiting.

Click-click-click …

No.

Click-click-click …

No no no no no.

I know it’s missing one. I told you already. Four. Four damned clicks. As small as they are, I need them all. As much as I need you.

I’m not angry.

That is their weakness. Not mine.

I will be back tomorrow.

With the sketch.

With all four of what I need.

Worth 1000 Words – St. Elmo’s Fire

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I have to say, as stressful as these things can be, and as much work that goes into making these videos, I’m still having fun. They don’t have much of an audience, in fact, they are the lowest viewed videos I make, despite them taking far far longer to create.

So why do I keep going? Because I love writing. I love the pain of it. I love the rewarding feeling I get once I write that last word and have created something that I didn’t know I had in me. It’s a great exercise in subconscious creativity, and one that I’m sure will carry over into my longer-form writing.

So, thank you to the handful of people who keep watching, and thank you to the artists that keep inspiring me every week.

I hope you enjoy the story.

Artwork by Alexy Egorov

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Qrxkbx

Alexey’s Artstation profile

https://www.artstation.com/air-66

DISCLAIMER: This work has not been edited beyond what is done in the video. The goal is to capture a story in a short amount of time, and keep it as raw as possible. If I decide to publish later, all of these will go through formal editing.

The Story

He tasted salt.

It started on his skin. A film. An organism that grew and grew and grew. Nothing he did could wash it off. But what did he have?

A dark tomb.

Somehow he missed the taste of blood. The taste of life.

The screens had burned out long ago, glassy dead eyes now.

Cables encircled him. He couldn’t move them off even if he wanted. Inside his chest was the last thing that worked, the last thing that had energy to it. Love.

His tomb rocked forward, slid back into a cradle of some kind, not quite able to climb over the lip of the void.

He stretched his mouth open. Salt crumbled. He opend his eyes. More salt. It didn’t sting anymore. He was becoming part of it. His body had finally relented.

His dry tongue circled his dry mouth. Teeth clacked. Could he?

“…”

No.

The gods fought overhead, miles above. A rumble. A crash. But it was a fiction. He knew that. It just sounded nice. Like speaking a legend, an old story. He missed old stories, telling them. He lusted for earth. No matter how solid, metal wouldn’t do. Layers upon layers, earth had. Near endless. Leading to a hot core. Much like the one that held on inside him.

“I …”

Who was that? Him, of cou rse. A husk of the deep baritone he used to possess. The one that told the old stories, the ones that people forgot. Caught up in the things that had only brought them down. Destroyed much of what was left.

The true stories.

But there were shores. Lush with starving minds. Minds he could fill. If he could only move. Rise. Finish what he started.

He touched the cold hull with the last of his energy. His hand warmed. A light there. A notch. A hemisphere with two notches.

It flashed red. Not meant for him.

For the man who came before him. When he had first tasted blood. The blank screens weren’t the only dead eyes here. He shared this tomb.

If there had been light, he would see him, sprawled on the other side, a fresh coat of skull and brain on the console. Ironicially, the man died where one was supposed to look. But with the power gone, it was useless. The lens was most likely far below the surface anyway.

As if response, water trickled from above. He heard it but didn’t see it. His throat constricted at the sound. The sea was teasing him now. Although he knew he couldn’t drink it, he would. Oh to die with a wet mouth.

The unbeliever had, lucky fool. A mouth of blood, but wet nonetheless.

Thunder rolled, boulders across the sky. The energy made its way to the surface, stirring the depths.

A hollow silence, a pressure, before everything imploded. Water rushed in. He opened his mouth wide.

Let it all in.

Nails on his skin, a thousand thousand nails, and it tested all the points, working its way over every nerve, every vessel, to his wrists. And he was alive. His legs, eager to push his head to the surface, held him up. His mouth breached, and he tasted the air.

Then the sea brought him a gift. He cradled it like a babe. Like the one who they had forgotten. He went to kiss the forehead, but his lips passed through where it should be, and once again, he tasted blood.

His didn’t command his teeth to chew, but they did. Ravenously. Eyes rolling back in pleasure, he swallowed the sweet matter.

He gagged. A bit of bone lodged in his throat. So this is how he would die. The muscles there worked like the legs of a millipede, working the shape down. The shape was wrong, smooth, spherical. His throat empty for so long, he could sense every angle of its surface.

Then something smashed against his tomb, and he was thrown forward, nearly out of the water to the waist, and the opposite wall punched him in the chest.

The shape was loose, tumbling in the air above, pristine, an unblemished sphere, except for two protrusions on either side, cylindrical, the piece to the puzzle.

Dreamlike, floating, his arm that wasn’t his arm, sprung up, his hand that wasn’t his hand, grasping, getting hold, such a precious hold.

Those old gods wanted him to sing the name of the true God, because they hurled their great stones again, moving the sea the opposite direction to throw him back in his bed of steel tentacles. They didn’t threaten to strangled him. They parted. Oh, what signs, what beautiful signs.

Invigorated with the hopes and dreams turned flesh of the other man in his belly, his fingers led the key to its mark.

The world ignited, as if the one true God had opened his eyes. He basked in the glory, was thrown to his knees, as he should be, as the great machine hummed to life.

Then the voice of God said, “Five kilometers to surface. Prepare for decompression.”

He felt it, truly felt it. It was as if he chest were to explode, his head to burn away to stardust. An ecstacy flesh could not fathom.

The eyes of God dimmed, allowing its disciple to complete his mission. Then, He said, “Population 2135. Agriculture. Light industry of aero-filament. Arrival in thirty-six minutes, twenty-five seconds.”

He found his sustenance at his feet, and he ate. He would need the strength. They must witness him rested, full, clear of mind.

The hatch opened with a hiss. The cold breath of all of creation filled his lungs. He climbed the ladder, one leg not quite working, but he made it to the top. There, strapped to the top was a mark of truce. He straightened it, and it served his balance well.

The great machine carried him toward the blinking shore, holding the symbol of Truth. “Let there be light,” he said.

And there was.

Worth 1000 Words – Witch Hunt

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I watched the movie The Witch for about the third or fourth time, but it’s been a few years. I felt my daughter was finally old enough to check it out and I had recently purchased the 4K blu ray version. Did this inform my chioce? Probably. I wanted to tell something a little less fantastical when it came to witches, make the setting much more like the film, an alternate history of sorts with magical realism.

If you haven’t watched the movie, I highly recommend it. It embodies what any historical horror film should, and it is one I’m sure you’ll come back to again and again. Just like me.

I hope you enjoy the story.

Artwork by Eren Arik

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/mqPDYv

Eren’s Artstation profile

https://www.artstation.com/erenarik

DISCLAIMER: This work has not been edited beyond what is done in the video. The goal is to capture a story in a short amount of time, and keep it as raw as possible. If I decide to publish later, all of these will go through formal editing.

She didn’t struggle, though she knew they wanted her to. Hands of shackles, elbows of knives, spittle dripping from sneers. More feral than the dogs they were, eyes hungry for her to whimper, to lash out, to plead. Fighting, begging, it didn’t matter. That pleasure she would not give.

The women had. Poor girls. Limp as the boughs that mourned them. Their fight was gone, the fight that had fueled the men who held her now. The only thing she gave them was the burden of weight, letting go of her body, scraps to keep them itching for more.

The dogs buried their noses in the muck, ears slick against their heads. One found something, and when its muzzle revealed the prize to the other, it snapped at it. The hand of the slightest girl. Cut it off herself just as dawn broke, to free herself of her chains. But she had two hands shackled, and the sun gave her away. The hand had been given to the dogs by the cloaked man as a plaything. Impressively they had kept it mostly intact, only a few windows of bone visible though miles had been traveled.

“Heel,” the cloaked man breathed, and it was enough. The dogs stopped their game, sitting with eyes locked to his, not a tongue visible to pant despite their chests expanding with exertion.

The cloaked man approached his handiwork, the final rope coiled in his hand. Her rope. But he did not turn. His head titled to the side, then up slightly. She couldn’t argue with the sight. It was something to behold. Light swam through the branches, rimming the three girls who did not stir. The air was as dead as they were.

Closer, the men brought her. She trudged along with them, giving them a sliver of a fight. What sane woman wouldn’t at this juncture?

“She smells it, Rev,” the one in the lead said, adjusting his slipping rifle with a shoulder shrug.

Rev. A man of God. A man close to God. Closer than these two, though God-fearing they were. The stench of Christ wafted from their pores, stirred in their bowels. A serpent ready to be freed.

Rev didn’t answer. He still admired the melancholy beauty, hung like the prizes from a hunt. They were, she supposed, prizes. But not for him.

All of them, pale of flesh and soul. She could smell it heavier than the belief coming from these men, from Rev, as she was within touching distance now.

“Bring her,” Rev said.

They did. And she pulled a little harder, hard enough to earn a punch to the gut. The pain a fraction of a fraction. She had no serpent inside her.

“Your sisters,” Rev said. “They are with God now. The Devil has lost their scent. It is not too late for your repentance. Theirs I held before I released it to our Lord. Are you now ready, quiet one?”

She didn’t speak, for that was the pleasure he wanted. Not the pleasure of pain. Yet.

A knee to the ribs she did not anticipate, and she sputtered a sob. A charade of course. The girls, before they had died had shown her what she needed to know. She had studied them. Their quivering lips, drawn brows, tears when they squeezed their eyes shut, tears when they opened. A mechanism not unlike a well’s pump.

“Rev asked you a question,” the man behind her grunted. “You best answer.”

Rev finally turned, beard unsullied by all the mud, face clear of lines, eyes as clear as the sky none of them had seen for days. “Child, there is no shame. Let me guide thy–“

She spit a bucketful onto that pretty face that desperately needed to be dirtied. She thanked his patience that had given her enough time to find so much.

He didn’t flinch. A slow inhale, then exhale, his breath leading his hand into his cloak from which he produced a kerchief so white she squinted. Carefully, he mopped up her mess. Four strokes only it took before he folded it neatly and put it back.

When she looked back up to his eyes, she noticed the rope he had been holding now leading to her neck, and she finally felt the weight. Her chest hitched. What power does he wield?

“Though you turn your back on Him,” Rev said, “I shall not turn my back on you.” He motioned to the two men. “Give her wings.”

Carnal sounds came from the two. She felt them grow hard as they pressed themselves close around her, gripping her shoulders, one man’s hand going between her legs in secret. When her rope was over the branch, her weight not yet given back to her, the secret was told as the rifle man sniffed his fingers before dragging them across his lips, delicately, before plunging them into his mouth.

The trees sang to her, the mud. Even the air now had song. All of it carried with it the words she needed. From above. From below.

Rev performed a ritual of his own, fingers marking his torso with old signs, words too low for her to hear above the ones that rose and rose and rose.

“Let her fly,” Rev said.

Her weight was given to her, to the rope. Rev did not lie. He did not turn from her. His eyes holding a sadness for her. Not the sadness that had plagued the poor girls, the innocent girls. A knowing sadness.

Toe and heel met resistance though not grounded, and she spread her arms as wide as their Christ.

Rev’s eyes were the only thing that changed on his face. Not going wide in fear. Glistening. For he knew.

The two men were already running, light breaks in the forest shroud painting waving arms and kicking legs.

To the girls, she looked. A touch. Vigor filled their flesh, their souls, now hers. “You hear him, my loves. Fly.”

Worth 1000 Words – Grief

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Finished The Last of us Part II not too long ago, also did a review, which put me in the mood to do something post apocalyptic. The artwork here, however, isn’t full of action, blood or guts. It’s a contemplative piece, and I really wanted to get inside the head of that character.

Art by Robin Olausson

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/eaa1ZP

Robin’s Artstation profile

https://www.artstation.com/robinolausson

DISCLAIMER: This work has not been edited beyond what is done in the video. The goal is to capture a story in a short amount of time, and keep it as raw as possible. If I decide to publish later, all of these will go through formal editing.

The candles’ heat reached far enough. His kneecaps felt their breath, more than the midday sun beating down outside, the inch of water on the floor enough to chase away its warmth.

Drip, drip.

Shoes still wet, drops being called back to their home. Ripples distorting his face. That was fine. He wanted to look elsewhere. Couldn’t stand the sight of himself, anyway. Thank God for all the broken windows.

Her, damn it. Her. Focus.

Everything was calm. Why couldn’t he focus? He held the photo differently, switched hands, right overlapping left this time. Maybe it would feel better, feel right.

Still his gaze ventured past it, down, straight down, as if the mud on his tattered shoes held something more beautiful, more worth his time. Of course they didn’t. Just this moment, just this face, he wanted to dwell on now.

Drip.

His body tensed. It was a sledgehammer on tin. He felt it, too. The middle of his chest is where it pressed, acting like a magnet to attract everything behind his ribcage.

He held his breath, anticipating the next one.

He let it out, and, thankfully, it was all he heard.

Four flames. He tried to find significance to that number. They’d been together for more years. She’d been gone twice as many days. The truth was that there wasn’t any significance. No meaning, just like the flowers gathered around her beautiful half body. They had been the only kind he’d found outside, ordinary.

Three flames.

A wisp of smoke drifted from a stump. Plenty of wick left. The box of matches in his front pocket writhed. He looked at his shoes, almost dry now. His reflection he could see if he wanted, but he looked everywhere but there.

He got to his feet, cold fingers of water seeping through his shoes. He moved before they became too strong, placing the photo in his hands on the shelf.

Index finger and thumb dug in his pocket, pinching the box of matches. When had his pants gotten so tight? He hadn’t eaten in nearly a week.

Salt patches on his jeans flaked as he moved his legs to give his fingers more room.

There. He had it.

She looked at him, deeply, and he didn’t want to blink. He wanted to match her endless stare. But that day it had been hard to keep her eyes open. This shot was a miracle. Between the sea bringing a storm of foam and sand and the sun piercing every cloud, she hadn’t been able to muster more than a smile. He felt his own then, and it hurt, a face of stone that wasn’t designed for such expressions.

A push on his back forced him a step. A cold wave. Smaller waves splashed across the floor. Something metal outside groaned.

Two candles.

He waited for the wind to pass as if it could carry his position to those who sought him. He stood as still and as dead as everything else in the room.

Then her face, a second face, looked up at him, the one he had held seconds ago. Colors deepened, then darkened as it slipped beneath the surface. An inch turned into a thousand feet. He picked it up. It felt like rice paper in his hands, and he hated that his thumb had landed over half her face. He couldn’t lift it, not yet. He still had the memory to complete it.

He squeezed his other hand to assure himself the matches were still there. The dryness of the box, the sharp, unworn edges he loved, and he found that sensation on his face again, but this time it didn’t hurt.

His shoe found a crack in the ground two more steps toward her. Droplets flew, broken glass, a fractal that replicated to a million million pieces, like the one that had …

He closed his eyes, his entire head. He didn’t want to see, smell or hear. But his hands were occupied. A spatter of gravel, on wood, on paper. On her.

He opened his eyes.

One candle. Its light caught her hair first, flickering to her chin, then cheek. Eyes. The tallest one. The proudest. Lavender? He hadn’t read the box before tearing it open, couldn’t smell it through the snot that filled his nose.

He knelt before her, wiped the few droplets from her face, cupped his hand around the remaining candle until it was brave enough to hold its own.

Schnick.

A dead one. He tossed it aside.

Snap.

The bottom half of the second he kept between his fingers, inching them up to the splintered part where he could really dig them in, only dropping the match when he felt blood.

The third one roared. The blaze caught him off guard, but he held on, like the Roman candle that had almost taken his face off back in … He stared into that light, that sun, until it doubled and tripled in his vision. He’d light those fucking candles with them if this match wouldn’t.

The flame was hungry, quickly eating the kindling it was meant to, and he hurriedly lowered it to the candle with the longest wick, fingers submerging into the hot wax, waiting, hoping.

“A seventy eight?” A hearty laugh. “You don’t know shit about cars, do you?”

The voice was an earful of more of that broken glass, and it forced him to the ground. He never looked away from her, that single candle giving him just what he needed.

He crawled to the opposite door, away from the voices. Away from her.

Boots trampled grass, slurped mud. Metal on metal. A sound he knew too well.

The grass gave him shelter, escape.

His hands were empty, a smudge of dark and light on his thumb, but he had to keep moving. He pressed it into the dirt like the rest of his fingers, and pulled himself forward.

The candle’s heat he couldn’t feel, just the earth. The distance.

Worth 1000 Words – Evilbook II

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Episode 4. Man. I’m actually sticking to this haha. Glad I am. I’m learning a lot and having a good time. This one was a struggle, and I’m not completely happy with it, but we can’t love them all. I hope you get something out of it. See you next week.

Artwork by Eugene Korolev

Eugene’s ArtStation profile: https://www.artstation.com/evgen

Artwork: https://www.artstation.com/evgen

DISCLAIMER: This work has not been edited beyond what is done in the video. The goal is to capture a story in a short amount of time, and keep it as raw as possible. If I decide to publish later, all of these will go through formal editing.

The horror. The horror.

The Story

The ground was cold and ripe with stones. Ivan had to watch his feet more than what lay ahead, each and every one vying to turn his ankle. Didn’t matter much, the view. Solid gray, not a tree or bush to remind him he was home, well, not home, but close. Too close for his liking.

“This a joke to you?” Ivan said, sick of the silence, the lies growing as large as the distance between him and Viktor, who expertly danced around every obstacle, shotgun at the ready, eyes trained on the expanse of nothing.

Viktor’s response was a flick of two fingers over his shoulder.

And, as if he held the supposed magic of crazy Svetro back home, the sky opened up. A painting, smears, smudges as he’d seen reflecting lantern light in the elder’s study, but with dimension far beyond what layered the canvas. Ivan’s hand reached out despite the knowledge that it was no painting. It was real, locked to the very earth he treaded.

Words were no use, and dangerous at that, now, if Viktor had told the truth. No point in arguing. Forward was all that was left.

Viktor stopped, and then lowered himself with ear to dirt.

Ivan remembered his father hunting that way, listening for the hoof beats thumping their way through the forest, leaving clues of mud and frond and rotten trunk in their wake.

But they weren’t hunting. What they sought couldn’t be hunted. Found, perhaps, bargained with, but nothing more.

Viktor turned, ear dripping soil, and opened his mouth, his eyes following suit to create a mask of fear.

The cottage became clear now, rendered in such impossible brightness amid the cold gray. The door was open, a cave to somewhere else.

Stones shot from the ground. Bullets, arrows, something more deadly. Ivan looked up to see them flock high enough to be black stars before they rained back down. Ivan fell to his knees with arms over his head.

The ground buckled, hurling him onto his back, and he rolled out of the way just in time to avoid a cluster of stones. Viktor wasn’t so lucky, looking back at him with blood trails running from hairline to chin, one eye closed from trauma.

Then, Viktor had a moment of clarity, a second wind, that allowed him to avoid the rest and regain his footing. The stubborn fool stumbled forward, not heeding what had to be a warning. Still, the doorway was vacant.

“Viktor! They spoke of such signs! We should go back, before–“

Again, the earth heaved, the horizon bulging, breaking, the cottage the first victim of its wrath. Viktor didn’t listen, moving on with the grace he had shown before he the storm of stones.

The cottage roof parted, and walls fell away. But not the roof. It remained suspended.

Mist swirled in the shadow of the roof, which looked to be supported by the trunk of one of the gnarled trees around it.

Viktor finally halted, huffing a mist of his own as he took in the sight.

The roof slipped away, or was let go, rather, as the “tree” moved hypnotically, serpentlike. Branches unfurled, bending on joints, tipped with … fingers?

Viktor was a good fifty feet away, leg-locked, shotgun barrel buried at his feet.

Ivan had to reach him, pull him away, carry him if he had to. It was over. The elder would have to send another, an army more like.

More arms grew from the center of the mass, all sizes, writhing in pain, birth, or both, reaching inside itself as much as for the clouds.

A flash ignited the gray. Viktor had somehow gathered his weapon. The blast fed this thing, birthing fingers, then hands, then arms. They went inside again, then out, straining. Muscles tight against skin, if one could call it that, until something brighter was born. Breaking through a membrane, a great head emerged, soulless eyes, jaw lined with teeth both blunt and sharp, smaller arms groping at that jaw as if to make it howl, larger arms coming down from the sky to press crown and cheek.

Ivan couldn’t help but interpret it as pain, this abomination awakened from a slumber of peace, perhaps, awakened to revist that pain. By them.

“I didn’t want this,” Ivan said. A thought that should have stayed inside. Deep and silent.

The creature pivoted on its many joints, arms waving, fingers stretching then contracting to fists. Pain indeed.

The mist coiled around the creature’s base and the wreckage of the cottage, and it reached for it, plucking it away to hold it overhead and bring it back down, releasing it to fly. Toward them.

One hit Viktor who had lost his grace. This mist had grown arms as well now, Ivan could see, and they thrashed at Viktor, every part of him.

Ivan then cocked his weapon and took aim, pressing the butt firmly to his shoulder. Everything was out of focus, the barrel heavy, moving everywhere but its target. But he pulled the trigger, knowing it useless. The shell ejected over his shoulder in a jet of smoke as he went to reload. Digging in his pocket, his fingers numbly searched for another shell.

Everything but the shell he found. The tatters of the seam, the soggy remnants of mottle weed that he wished was tucked between lip and teeth. Wait! There it was, cold, as hard as stone, the powder behind the buckshot ready to at leat buy him some time.

His fingers were an even tougher adversary, losing their hold, and the shell tumbled to get lost among the stones. He dropped and clawed for it.

The coal-black ground became darker then, the coldness harsher. Too quiet. Even Viktor was nowhere to be seen.

Ivan looked up in time to see teeth both blunt and sharp drop around him like a portcullis, great hands snatching him with ease, jamming him into a blackness that matched the cottage doorway.