Updated 2/16/24 Hello, dear friends! I’m very excited to announce that my platform for hosting my original fiction is officially live on Patreon! –>Read the first part of my debut novel La Gorgona here! I hope you’ll consider joining as a paid member to support me in my dream of becoming a full-time, original fiction
The Pact Side-Stories: The Centipede Hunt, Part 9
Shin gaped at Kaori the tough girl, bawling her eyes out like a baby. What the… Around him the bandits looked just as caught offguard by her crying fit as he did. The two brothers shifted on their heels, glancing between themselves. Seichii scowled. Daiji scratched at his bald egg-head. “Hey, now, little girl,” he
Bane of Blood: La Gorgona, Part 70
In the scant illumination of the embers, Fernando fumbled for the flashlight he’d brought with him from Chico’s place. The pale beam streamed out before him. Descending the warped wooden steps, he started out across the churned, sticking mud of the yard. He circled around the hulking wreckage of the shack. The nighttime landscape distorted
The Pact Side-Stories: The Centipede Hunt, Part 8
Seiichi’s skinny brows shot up. “Centipedes?” “Sounds made up to me,” Daiji grunted. “Aye,” Seiichi said narrowly. “What kind of wild lie is that?” Shit, Shin thought again. Kaori stamped her foot at being called a liar. “Great big monster centipedes,” she tried huffily to explain, but from the darkening looks on the two bandits’
Bane of Blood: La Gorgona, Part 69
Outside the forsaken chicken coop, with the bloody spiked maul glistening at his feet, Fernando stood hunched and panting. He considered, as his clarity returned to him, that a more fitting revenge would have been to smash the snake’s skull and slit open its belly to reclaim the stolen eggs. But what was done was
The Pact Side-Stories: The Centipede Hunt, Part 7
“What’re you kids doing here?” Seiichi demanded, squinting at them Jakkenishly. “You two barely look big enough t’ve left the teat.” Beside him, Daiji snickered. Smiling, Shin stepped forward to answer, before Kaori could pop off at the mouth. “Hiya—we were just playing around in the woods and got lost.” “That so?” “Uh-huh,” Shin said,
It should go without saying…
…That common courtesy is a basic expectation of those who choose to interact on this site, a free, personal fiction blog I created for the sole purpose of sharing stories with those out there in the world who might enjoy them. It should also go without saying that for anyone who is no longer enjoying
The Pact Side-Stories: The Centipede Hunt, Part 6
Before Kaori or Shin could make a move, a pair of bandits appeared across the clearing, shouldering their way through the branches. One was skinny and greasy as an eel and the other was big and beefy as a ox. They held something brown, bloody and hoofed between them, hanging from a stick. “…Goddamn pig
Bane of Blood: La Gorgona, Part 68
Fernando trudged back through the stiffening, sucking muck. Depleted, he sat down on the steps of the ruined porch. He felt useless to do anything else because there was nothing else. Nothing to salvage, nothing spared. What little the storm hadn’t leveled he would have to see leveled himself. But not today. Today there was
The Pact Side-Stories: The Centipede Hunt, Part 5
Brushing off Kaori’s naysaying, Shin slung his practice sword over his shoulder and strutted past her, pacing back and forth down the trail. “First thing’s first, though,” he said, taking a swing at a passing dragonfly, “I’ve gotta help my mom find my dad. I’ve never met him before, but I know he’s really strong—he’s
Bane of Blood: La Gorgona, Part 67
Fernando rested for a few hours at Chico’s home, then he returned to his grandmother’s property—or what remained of it, that was. On his climb up the hill to the home site, muddy rivulets coursed past him sluggishly, like slow-clotting veins. He spied the shed he’d thought to take refuge in swept clear down the