Completed Works
By Christoper Mitchell One Sickle lit the end of her Bali-Hai and surveyed the carnage of the room. Emergency lighting cast the space in a red glow, while circuit boards snapped and popped with still-live electricity. A gentle haze of spent gunpowder mingled with the smell of sweet cloves, and Sickle smiled. This was…
By Christopher Mitchell Nine Peck awoke with a start, realizing he’d drifted to sleep at some point during his watch. The sun had risen over the ruins of the village, the huts they’d set ablaze in the night now skeletal kindling and ash, sending streaks of smoke to drift lazily into the grey-cloaked sky. His…
By Christopher Mitchell Eight Tiberius heard the Maraughin scream in pain in his mind. The boy crumpled atop him, the remaining lamias scattering as Marcus’ blade swung out above him in those wide arcs. Tiberius screamed below the writhing body of the boy, who screamed as well. Peck had missed the heart, the pilum still…
By: Christopher Mitchell Seven “Peck, do you recognize this village?” Tiberius pulled a torch from the side of his horse, then a small glass vial of some oil from one of the pouches at his mount’s sides. He covered the cloth of the torch with the thick oil and stuffed the glass phial back in…
By Christopher Mitchell Six “He’s Mine.” Marcus meant the words. This demon would not take Peck; he felt a kinship with the boy. He knelt, fighting a sword from the rigid fingers of a dead Roman. He rose…and sensed the boy’s fear. “Courage, young Peck. You will survive this…” Peck felt him grip the sword…
By Christopher Mitchell Five Tiberius dropped his sword, falling to Marcus’ side and shaking him. “Marcus! MARCUS!” He slumbers, dear Tiberius. Tiberius withdrew his dagger, holding it out to stave off the voice that cut into his mind like whispering knives. “Who are you?” He heard cackling in the air around him, of many voices…
By Christopher Mitchell Four Marcus worried. It was his nature to protect those around him; he’d been that way since he was a boy. He worried now, watching Peck toss stones as they walked northward, the boy keeping his mind occupied as the drudgery of marching dug itself into the marrow of his mind. Marcus…
By Christopher Mitchell Chapter One Arrival Michael Mazure stood on the bow of the narrow clipper, reveling in the sensation of ocean spray misting his face. He held his hand up, and the wind whipped playfully through his calloused fingers, danced and billowed through his clothes, filling the sails above him, delivering them at speed…
Tiberius tended the fire, longing to see the moon glowing behind the veil of silver mist that hung over the land. He envisioned the moon goddess Diana closing in on her love Orion, longing for the brief embrace they’d share as their paths crossed in the aether. He knew the stories to be false… but he believed anyway. Because those stories let him hope—however falsely—that there was some modicum of rationality behind the suffering he saw in his waking nightmares.
ROCKWOOD, MI: 2074 ADE By: Christopher Mitchell Chapter One Trevor Morrigan chalked his pool cue as he eyed the patrons of the Rockwood Billiards, trying to match a face with the picture in his back pocket. He kept his ears open for the telltale signs of weapons being drawn through the sounds of colliding acrylic…