A crack. A sting. Awake.

His eyes opened, but there was nothing to see. It was dark, that cold, deep dark where barely a crack of light enters, where everything seems to be absorbed by the darkness itself, like some solid mass. Someone was on top of him: he could feel their pressure as they leaned over his chest, their arms on his shoulders, the warmth of their flank just next to his hips.

“Shh, do not speak. If they hear you, they will come for, take you down there. You do not want that.” Read the rest of this entry »

It was a pressure that woke her, a sensation like falling and her legs flailed as she tried to balance herself. There was no need: she was lying on a bed, the pressure was caused by a woman leaning over her, with her knee pushing against the mattress.

Sofia’s head still ached. She wanted to rub her hand against her forehead, but there was a pain in her left wrist which she didn’t want to acknowledge. But now, the woman was resting a cold, clammy hand against her forehead.

She was in her forties, and wore a tight white dress: Sofia didn’t need more information to figure out she was in a hospital bed.

“You might want to stay where you are for a little bit, you had a fairly bad trip.” Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything, so you’ll have to excuse the first-draft-iness of it all. But the creative juices started flowing last night and resulted in this.

But seriously, ignore the first-draft-iness.

***

It was dark when the doors opened, just like it always was: the automatic lights would take a few more seconds to turn on, activated as the elevator arrived at its floor. The uneasy fingers of gravity played with her stomach and chest: the ride to the ninty-sixth floor was always a bit too fast for her liking, but she hadn’t eaten since lunchtime, and although she was afraid to check the time on her watch, she knew it was nearly midnight.

The lights overhead flickered slowly into life, and she stepped into the corridor. They would only be bright enough to help her find her way to the door: it took close to five minutes for the bulbs to illuminate fully, although it only took thirty seconds to get to the front door of her apartment.

Sofia Hastings was twenty-nine years of age, soon to be thirty, though she didn’t like to think too much about that. It was a young age to be the owner and sole inhabitant of a penthouse apartment in one of the most exclusive buildings in London. The lift and stairs were in a glass corridor connecting two hub buildings: Sofia’s apartment was to her right, one of two on the top floor of South Block.

There was a full moon outside, shining like a beacon in the dark over the city’s landscape. She thought she saw flames and smoke in the distance, but she ignored them all as she turned towards her apartment: it was nothing she hadn’t seen before, and she was more interested in food and her bed, her only solace being that, being a Friday night, she could sleep late the following morning.

There was a cough from in front of her as she approached her door: a man in dressed all in black stepped away from the wall and moved slowly towards her.

“Ms Hasting,” he said, partly a question, but more of a statement. “We need to talk.”

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been a while since I updated this, but hoping to do so more frequently. Part 3 is fairly short, the last part of the prologue.

Parts one and two can be found here (one) and here (two.)

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Part one can be found here.

***

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Below is the prologue to something I started writing a few years ago, a novel going under the working title of The Magician’s Kiss. Again, I have to say that this is a very early draft, but something I’ve been thinking of going back to.

So if you like it, let me know: I’ll go back, work on it some more and maybe even finish writing it some time soon.

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Obsoletism is a short story I wrote a few years ago, mostly as a challenge to myself to see what I could do.  It started as a diary piece, and then turned into the dialogue below (so maybe short story isn’t the best definition, but I’m going with it for now.)

As far as fiction goes, I don’t really believe in final drafts, and having a look at this, there’s still some changes I’d make if I were going back to rework it now. But I’m not going to.

This is also just the first part of it. If people enjoy it, or want to know more, I’ll post the rest later on.

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