Writing

read part 1 - read part 3 Four gardens surrounding a pool of starlight. Three ancient stone benches, a fourth crumbling. A streak across the night, moon to moon. Then, a flower of gold and red blooming on the nearest satellite. She carves. Glances up, pauses, returns to work. Rough wood, pulled from the floor of the nature sanctuary. A small piece of something greater. She seeks what is hidden within. The hidden thing. The hidden memory. Beyond the gardens and pools, harsh lights. A naked night on a naked world. Over the stone paths through the sanctuary to the…

read part 1 - read part 2 I've never been a woman. "I've never been a woman." He's not sure which of them said this. I'm not sure which of them said this. Someone said this. Or maybe no one. Voices have a way of slithering into the ether, worming into the air and floating about, just being, just existing, until the moment they need to be heard. Sometimes at night, when his body froze in place and the shadows grew eyes, he'd hear the voices outside the window or just outside the bedroom door, murmuring in a language just…

read part 1 Sometimes when he slept, he would half wake. A menace would hang in the air. Something would be in the room with him, just on the edges of his vision, smeared into the shadows and watching him with burning eyes. He'd try to scream but couldn't. He first saw one when he was 11 or 12. His eyes eased opening after a night awake wondering why it felt so strange to lay on your stomach. Just outside his bedroom door, a skeleton. Not a collection of bones strung together like you'd find in a classroom. No, this…