Hello again all.
I'm pleased to announce (albeit rather late. I tend to forget my blog exists) that I was featured on Night's End's Halloween special with Consumed. Consumed has turned out to be a fairly popular piece, and I love what they've done to it. Their narration and effects breathe new life into a piece and made me feel like I was hearing it for the first time.
If you are so inclined, feel free to see what they've done with it here.
I also was cleaning out old blogs and found what is sort of a precursor to my first novel, Dredge of Decay.
It's something I wrote about coming home at night while living in Beijing. I later decided to take the familiarity away from the subject of the story by stripping it of any real-life references. It's nice to go back to things you wrote before and find that you're able to see more tangibly how you've grown as a writer. A lot of my more recognizable tendencies of writing that I still struggle to consistently correct are present.
This was originally posted on December 20, 2017. At the time I had this idea of posting an overarching storyline of blog posts detailing my own fictitious supernatural adventures of late-night walks in unfamiliar places.
This was the only entry.
The Black Gate
Each worker ant stayed in line, seeping in where neither the beginning or end could be seen, dispersing in groups to smaller, ever bustling trails with each emptying train. Somehow there was still the feeling of a ghost town. I was invisible, not part of the dark sea of crawling workers, but perhaps a stray moth, fumbling alongside them, watching curiously this puzzling behavior. Images of every stray video from the most horrible depths of streaming sites that promise gore and depravity were returning to remind me how likely it was that no one would notice if this stray moth were to become a streak on a windshield. It seemed somehow truer now that I arrived, helplessly wandering along and stepping over a manhole cover that had been split straight in half. The shadows of the branches seemed to seep out of the blackness under it in what little light remained from the unfathomably bright advertisement LEDs which were now so far away. My wandering had gotten me lost, as it so often did, usually in the safety of being able to ask for help, but not here. This random stop, the furthest away from home I could get on the train, seemed devoid of anyone who could speak my language. It seemed devoid of anyone who would even notice my existence.
As the darkness deepened, my curiosity deepened as well to a churning but subdued panic in my gut. Supermarkets and hair salons closing up for the illegal food stalls to take their place, selling curious-smelling stews and skewers. I was no stranger to being lost, less so to wandering until the trains started running again in the morning, but the chill was not quite so mild. I was sure that the others would not lead me back now, seeking egress behind a particularly bright street stall. Down the alley I walked, and those bright lights disappeared almost immediately; they must have been facing forward, I thought, the cellphones of the couple walking before me becoming my only light now, but they too soon veered off. It was just me. It seemed impossible to be alone in these streets, but this place never seemed to stop surprising me. Instead of caving and reaching for my own dying phone, I risked tapping my boot carefully along the dust just in front of me, inching along as I reached out to ground myself by brushing a hesitant palm against the stone wall on one of either side of me. It too was covered in dust. Even the insides of my nostrils were covered in it, but I hardly noticed now. In looking up, the end seemed no closer, and in looking back, I saw just the same. I must have underestimated it, as I tend to do, I thought, looking back down at my boots as I edged along, and just as I would retreat my hand, wiping it on my thick canvas coat, another manhole cover tripped me up.
I stumbled, just into something that wasn’t there before. A curtain? Some sort of door? No, it was someone. My fingers gratefully brushed against the heavy layers of cloth draped over the unknown person before me as I prevented myself from dashing into the dirt. I profusely apologized despite being sure that I wouldn’t be understood in my panic. Where did this person come from? “You’re lost,” he noted. His voice was clear and had a baffling playful tone. More importantly, I understood it, despite the unusual greeting. I could only look up, slack-jawed as I tried to make out any features above the scarves made of various fabrics that I had briefly clutched onto.
He hooked an arm around my shoulders gracefully, gently guiding me. I tensed up in anxiety initially, but there was a supernatural air about him that melted it away. I nodded in the darkness, replying simply, “Yes.” It wasn’t necessary to explain, the way he seemed to know already, but I was eager to speak to someone who could understand. To what extent was another question entirely.
The light that seemed never to have budged suddenly would appear to be drawing ever near again, and before long, with this stranger’s guidance, we reached the other side. His unique face finally came into view, with a wide mouth and deep, sharp eyes. Just as I would turn to look up at him, he slipped away from me, disappearing again with the faintest hint of a smirk. It didn’t matter how drawn by him I was. He only revealed himself on his own terms. Deep in my mind, I knew this, as if we had perhaps met before.
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