Tag: fantasy

A Whisper…

The Reaper’s Child

By Serena Mossgraves

The world seems to be a place where myths are taken for granted. Everyone knows the Myth of the pilot of the River Styx. The Ferryman who ferries souls over to the afterlife for a cost. They all have it wrong though. The Reaper doesn’t want coin. They are an immortal being. Such creatures have no need for money. The ferry driver instead takes the best story each soul has to tell. Sometimes just the telling of the story is too much for a soul to bear. Words carry weight. They are the most painful things in existence. They can also be the most gratifying things that life has to offer.
The ferryman has so many names, and most of them are just the myths coming to signify the way the mortal beings see them. For me, they are my creator. I guess you could call me the reaper’s child. It is not exactly correct, but it is the closest term for what I am. I am a story that became too much for even an immortal mind to bear. So, I grew sentience. Now I search the world for the others like myself, dark stories and memories that weigh heavy on mortality. Stories of killers, and crime, heartache, and such twisted thoughts that they are relegated to impossible fiction. That is the sort of thing that I collect. Like the ferryman I take these weights from the ones who cannot bear them any longer. I think of it as saving those souls who would break under such terrible weights.
I save each story in a notebook, lovingly hand written. My creator kept the stories told to them in perfect memory…I am not quite that blessed. Instead I will keep my notebooks…Stacked full of nightmares. The only story I have been able to remember without writing it down is the one that caused my creation. Perhaps someday I will meet the snowman…I would love to collect all of Frosty’s stories. I can only imagine what notebooks I could fill with that.
I have collected the tale of a vampire that would use it’s victims for the creation of art.
And the tale of the ghost who used to be a mercenary in a rainforest expedition that went badly. He was a wealth of stories. He gave me my own nightmares for weeks after taking his stories.
I collected the story of the nun who was cursed with immortality. It drove her mad. She spoke of becoming a killer, and how it was a kindness to save the women from the hands of the priests.
Each tale has it’s own power to describe a different aspect of life, a different aspect of death.
The story of the woman who went back after she died to steal away the child that her husband loved more than he loved her…She sang it sweet lullabies as she took it to the edge of the River Styx.
I could easily entertain so many with my tales. Which story should I share? Perhaps about the creature named Harvey? The flesh-eater that enjoyed driving it’s meals mad first?
I have considered passing myself off as a horror writer. Telling my tales as if they were fiction to see if anyone would recognize. It is not as if I do not have thousands of dark and dismal tales.
There is the one about the three ghosts who tried to get a rich man to change his ways before it was too late.
or the one about the Witch who gave five teens their wish…but at what cost?
My notebooks are a treasure. I do not write the story whilst the teller yet lives. I make sure to leave them a tale to pay the ferry with. I can at least be that kind. Though I have considered what would happen in this world if there where not enough stories left to pay the ferry. Would all of the storytellers end up stuck here? And if they did would that just create more interesting tales?
I don’t dare allow myself to consider it too closely. I might just decide that I want all of the stories.

Okay….1. That is the first flash Fiction in Stacked Nightmares. 2. How many of Serena’s Stories can you see a nod to in that? I will say that one of the stories she refers to is not Serena’s to tell. It belongs to Malachi Nocturm. However, He is very uncertain about how good his writing is…so I don’t know if I can talk him into finishing it and then allowing me to publish it. So I used a small nod because I love the idea. This is the first thing I have been able to write (Other than Poetry) in 2 weeks. It has a word count of 680. So I had to share it.

Also Serena’s Story Heat & Ice was Accepted by Fractured Mind Publishing for their A Monster I Love Anthology. I will post more as I have details.

Kingdoms of Sin. In progress continues

Gareth sighed. He was of royal blood. This king thing was not supposed to be difficult. The kingdom of Greed was a right mess when he took the throne. The ones who were supposed to be monitoring the finances were stealing from the taxes brought in. The people were starving. He had to fight with himself not to allow his own greed to overtake him. Starving people couldn’t pay taxes after all.
Add in the visions and dreams here lately… Gareth really was starting to wonder if he was going mad. He had not been the sort to fancy a man in his bed. He enjoyed the ladies too much to even consider such a thing. His dreams have been so very erotic. Causing sensations that he had only imagined beforehand. And always the same man. Tall, pale skin, dark black hair down his back. Piercing blue eyes that he woke up wishing to see again.
Gareth would wake up hearing the same words, feeling as if he was being caressed by those long nimble hands. “My greed, you are mine, and mine alone.” There was never anyone else in his bed. He always woke up a mess as if there was a lover with him.
That, and Gareth could swear that Dracus would be on the throne when he would go to the throne room. The sight was both reassuring and disturbing. He heard the servants whispering. He was apparently the only one who saw the man. So he stopped reacting. He had enough of a mess to clean up in this kingdom without the people thinking that he was going mad. In fact he needed to create an illusion of strength to be able to get things done.
He had some weirdo running around calling himself the pie lich. Gareth didn’t really mind that this idiot was handing out free food, but inciting the poor people to hate the crown… Well he couldn’t allow that.
The dirgibles that flowed between the kingdoms were always searched, and the guards were watching for this Pie Lich. To no avail. Gareth was certain that the people were protecting their “hero”. He really did not want to kill the idiot, as it would create a martyr. Just a conversation perhaps, to get the crown bashing to stop. Perhaps even learn the magic woven into the pie pans he handed out. There were three types of pie pan, silver, gold, and platinum. The silver pan would refill itself once each day. The gold would refill three times each day. The platinum would stay filled.
The problem was that they only functioned for the family gifted with them. So, the magic could not be dissected by his mages. Gareth had already seen that failure.
Gareth walked to the window, feeling that moment of homesickness. He felt a hand gentle on his shoulder, even as Dracus’s voice slid into his mind. “Your mother visits my envy. She plans to see you. Do you regret that moment when you took the throne?”
Thrown into a flashback, Gareth thought about the first time he landed in this kindom. Two years ago, walking off of the gangplank from the dirigible. Thinking then of how he could run this kingdom better than the old man who held the throne.
Though the seas had ships for the fishing and such, the dirigibles were safer for passengers and goods. The fish in the seas were massive and mean. There were no fees for basic passage, only for the higher class passengers.
Though he was of royal blood, he was also a runaway. He had snuck into free seating, and then seethed with envy and rage the whole trip. His father had given his sister what was rightfully his. Gareth knew how childish he had been. When he climbed down the gangplank, he saw the misery around him. How people were to the point of stabbing each other over crusts of bread. Gareth felt the draw of the throne. He was born to rule!

Note ****

This is not a direct continue from the story. This is part of the second chapter. It is also before editing, so there might be changes to the final story… These are teases into what Serena is working on. If you want to read the whole thing then you will have to get the book when she finishes it. I will be working on the cover soon. And Serena has told me that this is her Nanowrimo project.