Violence Is The Answer

Violence is the Answer

Violence is the Answer

Is the Answer

And I forgot the fucking question

Violence is the Answer

Is the Answer

So don’t ask no fucking questions

Blow up the world

Destroy the evil axis

Conquer it all

With hatred, death and taxes

They fight for God

We fight for Greed

Bullet and mortar holes

Is what we need

Violence is the Answer

Is the Answer

And I forgot the fucking question

Violence is the Answer

Is the Answer

So don’t ask no fucking questions

Burn up the sky

With mushroom clouds

Pray for our souls

Behind its evil shroud

Freedom revolution

Blood is the price

We bleed willingly

But still they feed us lies

Violence is the Answer

Is the Answer

And I forgot the fucking question

Violence is the Answer

Is the Answer

So don’t ask no fucking questions

Darker Than Black excerpt Darker Than Black, Tales of Horror

Darker Than Black excerpt

Darker Than Black, Tales of Horror

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“She’s a very thin woman,” Bobby said after his first clear look at the strange lady in black. “Her skin doesn’t look natural; it has a green pall. And her eyes are black. Helluva makeup job.”

“Let me see,” Andy reached for the binoculars.

“No way,” Bobby pulled back, almost losing his balance and falling off the tree house. After gathering himself, he put the binoculars back to his eyes again. “The stroller looks a hundred years old. The lace is ripped and the wheels are rusty. I bet it makes a helluva racket.”

“Can you see what’s inside of it?”

“No, wrong angle, and she has the lid up. We’ll have to wait till she passes us.”

“Not going to happen, she’s turning into the cemetery.”

“We have to follow her!”

“Let’s go!”

The boys swiftly climbed out of the tree and ran across the street, binoculars and wooden swords in hand. They crept along as quietly as they could once they entered the cemetery, going from tree to tree, like ninjas. The girl in black didn’t seem to notice.

The shadowy girl walked the winding path until she was about halfway through the cemetery. Then she cut across a swath of graves that led to an area of mausoleums. The boys closed in, not to attack, but to get a better view and understanding of what she was up to.

She pushed the stroller over rocks, roots and whatever was in the way as she made a beeline to the creepiest mausoleum in the cemetery. It was half covered in vines, mostly covered in moss, had cracks all through it and its door was half open. The girl squeezed the stroller in and from there the darkness of the crypt took her out of view.

“Whaah!” a cry came from the crypt.

“It’s a baby!” the boys screamed in unison.

Their outburst must have startled the girl and an otherworldly fog began pouring out of the crypt. She hissed at them in the most hellish voice the boys had ever heard, setting the hairs on their arms and neck straight up. Then they heard the sounds of heavy stones being rubbed against each other. She was either opening or closing a tomb.

Ready for battle, the boys ran towards the crypt but stopped dead in their tracks when the growls of an angry wolf startled them. It was humungous, and had a bloodthirsty look its glowing red eyes. It slowly came out of the shadows and placed itself between the crypt and the boys, its white fur blending ominously with the fog.

With nothing left to do but flee, the scared boys started slowly walking backwards. The wolf stayed where it was at but continued its eerie growling. When they’d gotten out of sight of the beast, they turned and ran as fast as they could out of the cemetery and into their backyard.

Hell is Empty excerpt, Darker Than Black, Tales of Horror

Hell is Empty excerpt

Darker Than Black, Tales of Horror

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It didn’t long for her to understand that the IV was just to keep her alive. As the days dragged into weeks, she started to resemble a skeleton. She wondered if she could be kept alive indefinitely like this, like a coma patient. Despite the constant high from the sedatives the figure occasionally spiked into her IV, she would panic and struggle against her bonds. Her wrists and ankles had been rubbed raw from her constant wrestling against them, but still she couldn’t slip through. Still, she refused to accept her fate.

The next time the doctor figure entered, he was pushing a laptop computer on an old fashioned rollable television stand. Taken aback, Mary Beth didn’t yell at the man this time. Instead, she quietly watched as he placed it in front of her, locked the wheels, plugged it in and queued up a video. He pushed play, tapped the mouse a couple times and walked out.

Her eyes fixed on the computer screen; she sat through several moments of static before a video began to play. She was appalled by what she saw and turned her head, but couldn’t keep it turned away. This wasn’t just any type of disturbing video. It was something much more dubious; foretelling her fate in no uncertain terms, and leaving little doubt what unmerciful action was about to befall her.

The video showed a young woman, about her age, starved half to death, strapped to the same table she was now. The doctor figure slowly inched towards the woman, with his hands skillfully gripping a scalpel. He put the blade next to her vagina and without hesitation split the girl all the way to her throat, Jack the Ripper style. She did not die instantly, but rather terribly, with her bowels exposed and her dying screams only drowned out by the harried screaming of Mary.

All alone in this dreadfully white room, Mary tried her best to puke, but there was nothing in her stomach to purge. So, she dry heaved until her starving stomach cramped relentlessly, sending blinding pain through her senses. Gasping for air, tears streamed down her face, as the video looped over and over again. There was no escaping the torturous death of the girl in the video and no escaping the evil which was surely going to happen to her, whenever the mysterious doctor figure chose the time of her end.
  

The Boy That Created Monsters excerpt, Darker Than Black, Tales of Horror

The Boy That Created Monsters excerpt

Darker Than Black, Tales of Horror

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The slew of doctors and therapists who saw Theo were shocked and disturbed by his withdrawn persona and the violent nature of his drawings. This caused Theo to be held in the asylum indefinitely. He saw many doctors in his time there because the suicide rate amongst workers at the asylum increased dramatically after Theo’s admission.

This went on for quite some time, until one doctor noticed the correlation between the suicides and Theo. All the suicides had one thing in common: they’d all come into contact with Theo. The doctor that pieced it together noticed that amongst the thousands of sketches that Theo had produced, several were of those doctors, and the manner in which they met their violent, self-induced deaths, were an exact match to those drawings.

 Going against everything he’d been taught, the doctor became convinced that Theo was possessed by demons and that if he wanted to go on living, he’d better befriend the boy, so as not to appear as a threat, like the other doctors apparently had.

So, instead of trying to repress Theo’s artistic abilities, he decided to help him expand them. He started bringing all manner of drawing tools and sketch pads for the boy and brought him snacks and drinks. This did little to help Theo fit in with the rest of the patients, who never received such special treatment, but Theo didn’t care, nor did the doctor. All Theo cared about was drawing monsters and all the doctor cared about was finding a useful way to manipulate the boy’s supernatural gifts. Since this doctor never questioned Theo’s art, his death scene was never drawn. Their friendship flourished.

 Soon, Theo became the most feared patient at the facility. It became painfully obvious that any of the patients who messed with Theo was soon found dead, either by freak accident or suicide. The other doctors and nurses never saw the connection between the doctors and patients deaths, but the patients did, and those that survived his killing spree avoided him at all costs. When he was allowed in the common area, he sat alone, as everyone else stayed far away from him.

Theo’s isolation from the outside world and the asylum inmates continued throughout his teenage years. He was a silent loner, and it was obvious to all the medical professionals at the facility that he couldn’t survive in the real world with his lack of communication skills and morbid attitude toward human life.

Though all the doctors still involved with his case thought the violence Theo portrayed in his drawings would never come to physical fruition, because of his docile personality, they were all in agreement that he would never be able to fit into society. All, that is, except one: his personal doctor friend.

 As Theo’s eighteenth birthday neared, Theo’s doctor friend pressed hard for his release, even against the wishes of the rest of the staff. He finally convinced the board to release Theo into his custody. He was a well-respected doctor and his personal assurance that he would take care of the young man, swayed the final decision in his favor.

Graveyard Serial Killer excerpt Dark Than Black, Tales of Horror

Graveyard Serial Killer excerpt

Darker Than Black, Tales of Horror

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Once Jimmy dragged the frightened girl into his house, he wasted little time throwing her down the steps. He locked the door and left her there for a number of days. When he finally went down to her, he chained the famished girl up to one of his torture devices and then binge raped her. When he'd gotten his fill, he simply left her alone to die. In her weakened state, it didn’t take long.

Now the monster had created a crisis for himself. What was he going to do with the girl’s body? He threw her into a deep freezer until he could think of something. Breaking from his normal routine of exclusively watching porn, he started obsessively watching the television news and fictional cop shows. He started seeing murderers of all types and realized he wasn’t alone in the world; he had kindred spirits out there!

Jimmy paid particular attention to how these killers disposed of their victims. Most simply left them were they’d fallen, which wasn’t an option for him because he wanted to kill again and his freezer only held one body. Some killers burnt their victims in an effort to conceal their crimes. Others cut their victims into pieces and spread those pieces far and wide. Others, still, put their victims in shallow graves, in dumpsters or dumped them in waterways, weighted down, of course. None of these schemes worked for Jimmy, because he noticed a disturbing pattern. All those killers ended up getting caught.

Then one day at work, while digging a grave, he had a brainstorm. The opportunity was there, all he had to do was act upon it. Later that night, he pulled the dead girl from the freezer, wrapped her in a rug, dragged her to his car and threw her in the trunk. He nervously drove to the cemetery, paranoid that a cop would suspect him and pull him over, but despite his fears, he made it to the cemetery and drove through a secluded back entrance, unnoticed.

He went straight to a grave he’d dug earlier in the day, removed the dead girl from the car and threw her into the hole. He took a shovel and covered her body with just enough dirt were she couldn’t be seen, and then left. When he got home he drank himself into a stupor.

The next day he went to work as usual, despite the hangover. He was waiting near the grave when the hearse and the funeral procession arrived. They took the coffin from the hearse, and the pall bearers carried it to the grave site. Not saying a word or making contact with anyone, he waited patiently while the priest said the last rites and the family said their final, tearful goodbyes. When they all left, he lowered the casket into the grave and covered it with earth. The body of his victim would never be found.

Perfect Reflection excerpt from Darker Than Black, Tales of Horror.

Perfect Reflection

Darker Than Black, Tales of Horror

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Despondent, she sat in front of her mirror one night and cried her eyes out while begging the mirror to talk to her once more. Again, the mirror stayed silent. She fell asleep in front of it and soon found herself in a strange new world where she felt beautiful, wanted, and above all, loved. It was possibly the best dream she’d ever had. But it was short lived.

She woke from the dream when her mother banged on her bedroom door, yelling at her to get ready for school. She lifted her dizzy head from the floor, told her mom she would get right on it and then looked in the mirror.

Her hair was messed up and her makeup smeared from weeping. She was horrified at what she had become. She thought she was the ugliest girl alive, triggering tears to run down her face once again.

She cursed at the mirror for abandoning her, but received no satisfaction from her outburst. She needed an outlet for her frustrations, but had none, so she balled up her fist as tight as she could and punched the mirror, shattering it.

Still sullen, she slammed her fist into the pieces of broken mirror over and over again until the flesh of her knuckles was shredded. By that time, most of the mirror lay on the floor in shards.

As the pain from her wounds finally broke through her intense anger and registered in her brain, she grabbed her throbbing hand and started sobbing. Blood poured from the multitude of cuts and dripped onto the shattered pieces of mirror, empowering them with the unsought magic of her rage.

Slowly the shards of mirror came to life. As she moaned in pain, they screamed at her in a thousand contradicting voices before gathering to speak in one voice. “Broken mirror, shards and all. Anna, now, must kill them all!”

“I cannot kill,” she bawled, not believing what she was hearing.

“Broken mirror, shards and all. Anna, now, must kill them all!” the mirror wailed at her.

Anna put her hands over her ears to block the unholy voice that was encoding her with violent commands more powerful than any force she’d ever felt. A pacifist at heart, violence was against the very grain of her soul, but the vulgar voice and its diabolical demands tore through her soul, as if replenishing the blood that poured from her hands with a new, hateful indulgence. 

Darker Than Black, Tales of Horror

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The tales of horror contained inside my first short story collection were born from the nightmares that keep me awake at night. From the dregs of society that seemingly exist only to terrify us, to the supernatural monsters, demons and entities that made them that way. 

Entertainment, not just for the sake of cruelty, the difference between being a fictional victim and a fictional monster are often just matters of fate and the stroke of a pen. Reality isn't much different.

The isolation, suffering and stark fear these stories explore teeter on the possibility of redemption, escape, or the ultimate hastening of the inevitable allure of death. 

Darker Than Black

Careless thrill-seeking teens awaken the anger of a desperate vampire on an eternal search for her lost baby. 

Perfect Reflection

A high school girl delves into madness through the mirror she uses to cope with a reality of extreme bulling by her mother, teachers and peers.

The Boy That Created Monsters

An abused boy finds that he can summons a supernatural weapon through his natural gift of art to punish his enemies and avenge his murdered father.

Hell is Empty

A twisted doctor haunts sleazy bars to to find victims to torture and murder in his secret laboratory.

Graveyard Serial Killer

A social outcast finds an occupation that provides the perfect cover for a string of heinous murders.

Closet Full of Demons

Two young men move into an home abandoned by their neighbors. Thinking they'd found the perfect party house, they soon discover why the creepy house had been deserted.


Ladies and gentlemen, the world is darker than black. Reality provides us with monsters worse than fiction ever could. I like to think of this book as a welcome respite from the real horrors of humanity. 

Everyone needs a good scare every now and then.

Go on. Feed your Fears.

Closet Full of Demons excerpt (Darker Than Black, Tales of Horror ) 10.31.15

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“We might get a good buzz going but I doubt it will make me feel better,” Dan replied, despondent about his domestic situation. “I still have nowhere to stay.”

“Problem solved,” Ron waved at a moving van that was barreling down the street. “That’s Coleman’s family. I heard they were moving to Florida.”

“Coleman is a right decent dude, and his sisters are so hot. I’ll miss chatting them up. But how does that solve our problem?”

“Have you ever heard of squatting?” Ron replied with a devilish grin.

“Squatting? What the hell do you mean? Like, squatting in the woods to take a shit?”

“No! They moved out, we move in, that’s what squatting is. If anyone asks, we tell them that we’re house-sitting until they return. No one will ever know.”

“You’re brilliant, Ron! Let’s go check out the place. How are we supposed to get in? They probably locked it up tight.”

“The old brick through the back window entry method, my green friend. It’s never failed me yet!”

The boys broke into the newly abandoned old house in the middle of the afternoon; the sounds of breaking glass alarming no one. The house was older than the other houses in the neighborhood; its rooms immaculate and huge. The move would be a huge step up for the boys. They’d both been living in cramped apartments with their overly-religious families, who were hell bent on doing their share to increase the worship base. The old, run down house seemed like a mansion in comparison to what they were accustomed to.

“Why would they leave such a wonderful house?” Dan asked incredulously.

“Coleman told me they were moving to the country because his dad couldn’t deal with the crime rate,” Ron answered. “But in secret, he told me they couldn’t deal the ghosts that haunt this place.”

Fire Dragon Attack Destroys Moscow Russia, Age of the Fire Dragon Excerpt

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The pilot fired his payload of heat seeking missiles. They exploded into me, which only made me stronger. The chopper veered to the left. I followed it, staying in front of it the entire time. It dive bombed. I stayed with it. It shot upwards. I stayed with it. It couldn’t shake me.

I was a killing spree ready to happen, a disaster ready to strike, and I did strike. I blew a long stream of fire into the cockpit and laughed as the men aboard roasted alive. I then turned away from the burning chopper, which was now spinning around uncontrollably. I spun and swatted the chopper with my tail. It flew through the sky like a fiery homerun belted by a demonic slugger, before it exploded into a confetti of fiery bits. The Russian president and his entourage were dead.

Still unsatisfied, I attacked the Kremlin buildings, destroying them with fire. They fell like biblical brimstone onto the streets below, killing stubborn soldiers that still thought they could fell a fire dragon with mere bullets. Smoke lifted from the crumpled buildings and began to travel with the wind, covering Moscow with a pall of destruction that I’d brought forth.

I was nowhere close to being finished.

By now, Russia’s military had been alerted and their fighter jets had been scrambled. I saw them coming and instead of turning tail and running, I went after them. Missiles streaked across the sky towards me. I breathed fire upon them, causing them to explode and spiral out of control. It made the Norway Spiral Lights look like a bottle rocket gone wrong.

Nothing they threw at me could’ve thwarted me that day. My strength and confidence soared, as the explosions that rocked the skies above Moscow only served to give me more energy. I sucked up their power like a vampire sucking immortality from his victims. I was an unstoppable monster.

I began firing back on the squadrons of fighter jets that had been sent to attack me. I destroyed them with blasts of fire and they careened to the ground, leaving giant impact holes in the city streets. I prayed for the souls of the innocent victims on the streets below, but I also realized that the people that would die this day would prevent the millions or billions that would’ve died if I’d done nothing and allowed the presidents of Russian and the United States to carry out their evil plots.

Methodically, I destroyed each and every jet in the sky until none remained. I was hell-bent on destroying Russia’s war machine and was willing to let the people count the costs and cast blame, after I was finished. I knew I had to go to where the military had amassed on the borders of Russia and the other countries that once made up the Soviet Union, but I also knew there was much work to do before I could take care of that.

I went about destroying Russia’s communications, which is the first crucial step for disabling modern armies. Cell phone towers, satellite dishes, power plants, I destroyed them all. I went after government buildings next. It was tediously slow, but it had to be done. When that was completed, I was finished with Moscow.

I flew out of the city and into the countryside. I knew that Russia wouldn’t go quietly, so I flew high into the sky and waited. Panicked Russian government and military officials would surely view this as an attack by their enemies. Who in their right mind would believe that a fire breathing dragon had dismantled Moscow?

Nuclear warheads began appearing in the skies almost as soon as I’d ascended into the heavens. I attacked them one by one, blasting them with fire so hot that it melted the wires and circuits that made the damned things work. Before they fell to the ground in harmless heaps of molten metal, I absorbed the radiation so that it wouldn’t harm innocents. Thousands of the missiles were launched and not one made it past me.

With their communications crippled and their nuclear capabilities exhausted, I made a beeline towards the Russian fronts. Occasionally, a squadron of fighters appeared to attack me, but that was child’s play to me. I dusted them off like they were mosquitos and continued to my target. I wasn’t going to let anything stop me from destroying their ability to make war. I was determined to end this stupid game as fast as I possibly could. I’d worry about damage control later.

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Fire Dragon Mocked by Son, Age of the Fire Dragon Excerpt

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My dad, my wonderful dad, is a dragon. I always wanted to fly, just like him, but he would never teach me. So, I learned it on my own when I was twelve. My life was forever changed. 

My dad, my aunt Lori and I are the only humans on the planet that can fly without mechanical devices. We’re all shape-shifting witches of the highest order. My dad is always gone though, doing his part to bring about world peace by stopping armies from making war. My aunt Lori has devoted her life to raising me, and taking care of my cousin Troy. I’m just trying to find myself in the world.

My name is Gabriel Windstorm and my dad, my wonderful dad, is Gazzy Windstorm, the Fire Dragon. He likes to call me Gabby, which I find to be an utterly ridiculous name for an eighteen year old man of the world, like myself. I hate that name, but I’d never let him know that.

There is a lot about me that he doesn’t know. For instance, he is ignorant of the fact that I never forgave him for abandoning me as a child and for allowing my mother be butchered by witches while he sat and watched. And I never will.

Yes, I’ve heard the story about how he was powerless to do anything, but I don’t buy that. He is the most powerful entity on the planet and he couldn’t even stop his one true love from being blood sacrificed in front of his very eyes?

I hate my wonderful dad.

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The Cursed Coin, Age of the Fire Dragon excerpt

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My new enemy had outsmarted me at every turn. First, he’d appeared out of nowhere and killed Troy in such a manner that I was the only suspect. This led my family to hate me and send me into exile. I came to my cave to think things through, but he was waiting for me. His trap succeeded because I hadn’t even seen it coming. I’d played the fool.

The thing that puzzled me most was how he knew about my cave’s second entrance. Sure, most caves have more than one entrance, but he went to it so quickly that he must’ve already known it was there. As far as I knew, only Sir Giovalde and I even knew about the cave, much less about the second entrance.

Surely it wasn’t Giovalde? Was it possible that he could’ve been killed and resurrected into a fire dragon? I couldn’t allow myself to believe that. Giovalde was a man of principles and had always been loyal to me, despite my faults and mistakes. He’d never turn on me in such a manner.

Neither could it be Gabby, the only other dragon I knew to exist. Fire dragons are created in the bowels of Hades, and Gabby had surely never been there. Plus, Gabby loved Troy. He’d never have killed his mentor just to punish me.

It was puzzling how he’d avoided being roasted by the beast that had ruined my life, but his deep wounds did prove to me that he was a victim. Unfortunately, with me being trapped inside my former sanctuary, he’d likely be victimized again, along with Lori and Sir Jefferson. My only hope was that Sir Giovalde would return and protect them.

The only problem with that was that Giovalde was only an Onyx dragon. Not to belittle Onyx dragons, they’re absolutely an elite creature, unmatched and unthreatened by any beast upon the face of the Earth, except fire dragons. Fire dragons were like Onyx dragons to the tenth power. My new enemy would most likely find Giovalde to be easy prey.

Distraught, I started to panic. It wasn’t because I was claustrophobic or anything of that nature, it was just that I knew I couldn’t survive in this cave very long with no food. There were a few bats nested on the roof of the cave, but that wouldn’t sustain me very long.

Since no one knew I was even here, besides my enemy, it looked like I’d remain trapped here for a very long time. The only chance I had at long term survival was to stay in dragon-form and hibernate. It could be a year, a thousand years, or, it could be eternity. I liked none of those possibilities.

I calmed myself by employing meditative techniques I’d learned over the years When I finally reached an emotional state that would allow me to think clearly again, I walked over to the far wall of the cave and picked up the coin the fiery beast had thrown in for me before sealing me in. I sat down and began to examine it.

“What was the purpose of this?” I asked myself. “Was it cursed? Was it something that was supposed to pacify me during my imprisonment?”

The coin was gold. It was also ancient. Marked with the year 1368, I figured it was from about the time of the mythical King Arthur. This was also about the time when dragons across the world largely disappeared from mythical stories.

The coin had English lettering, but it was so worn down that I couldn’t read it. It had a man’s bust on it, but I couldn’t tell exactly who it was. It was mysterious to say the least and I was completely stumped by its significance. Perhaps it was symbolic, or perhaps my enemy only meant to keep me guessing.

I clutched the coin tight in my hand. I could feel a strange electro-magnetism radiating from it, pulling me in such a way that I instinctively wanted to protect it. The weird feeling freaked me out and I tossed the damned thing down a tunnel but as soon as it left my hand I felt a dreadful craving overtake me that weighed me down with sorrow.

I ran down the tunnel as quickly as I could to find my coin. It was extremely dark and I couldn’t find it, so I turned to dragon-form so I could use my supernatural night vision. The tunnel was barely big enough to contain me so I crawled until I grabbed my coin.

Obsession for possessing it completely absorbed my soul. Protecting that coin was all I could think about. I was angry at myself for the way I felt about this enchanted coin and I knew I’d been outsmarted again. I tried to think of ways to escape my imprisonment but as long as I held this mind-consuming piece of gold, I couldn’t focus my thoughts on anything but it.

I angrily tossed the coin down the tunnel again. I started shaking horribly, like an addict in the throes of detox. I began to feel dizzy and nauseas. So, I crawled back down the tunnel again to retrieve my fix.

I was caught in a vicious cycle of possessing the coin and purging myself of it. I couldn’t stop myself. I wanted that coin more than anything I’d ever wanted in my life. Finally, I found it again and immediately the withdrawal symptoms stopped and I began to feel happy again.

I laughed at myself for becoming like Gollum in the J.R.R. Tolkien’s famous tale of Hobbits. He was so obsessed over the one ring that he turned into a monster. Then I realized it wasn’t so funny and I stopped laughing and started crying.

I flung the coin down the tunnel again. Again I was forced to go retrieve it by my very soul’s unquenchable thirst for it. I was shocked by how easily I’d been drawn into the coin’s curse. Its evil power over me was inescapable.

The cycle played out over and over again. It could’ve been hours, days or weeks. My mind was so clouded that I’d lost all sense of time and purpose. The weight of its power was crushing me. Retrieving it, clutching it, protecting it, loving it, hating it, throwing it away and then retrieving the malevolent coin would kill me, of that I was sure. If I didn’t hibernate I’d starve to death. My enemy was much shrewder than I’d given him credit for.

Fed up with my doomed attraction to this bewitched coin, I consumed the damned thing. When it hit my stomach, a fiery sensation began burning within me, which I thought to be extremely odd, because I was made of fire. I transformed into human-form, hoping this would help ease the pain, but it only made it worse, so I went back to dragon-form.

The coin seemed like it was burning a hole in my stomach. The pain was so excruciating that I purged it. It hit the floor in a blanket of foul smelling, green foamy puke. I dug through the retched vomit and retrieved my coin and squeezed it tightly.

For a brief moment I was happy. Then I became angry again and tossed it back down the tunnel. Tears rolled from my dragon eyes and steamed away on my burning flesh. My mental state continued to fall into a dark abyss of despair. I was a hopeless slave to this godforsaken coin and there wasn’t a damned thing I could do about it. 

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When the Owls Cried…Age of the Fire Dragon Excerpt

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I covered my eyes with my hands, but as soon as the first tear ran down my wrist and dropped to the forest floor, I started hearing owls flying in from every direction. I rubbed away the blurriness and saw every kind of owl imaginable perched in the trees, all with their heads bowed. Then the sounds of rain filled the woods. I saw nothing but sunlight peeking through the holes in the forest’s ceiling and knew it was the owls. They were crying.

It was then that I finally understood how great Lori was. How could one obtain such love from wild animals? It was simple. She was their beloved queen. Even though people like Father Cyrus and my son, Gabby, had played with her mind to the point that she stopped visiting them, the owls, like me, never gave up on her. She was too good to give up on.

Giovalde finally showed up with Lori’s ashes. He was astonished as I, at the gathering owls who’d come to share our farewell to her. Giovalde knelt and placed her urn on the ground in front of him. I silently knelt beside him while he sang hymns and spoke the rites. To be honest, as beautiful as his words were, they didn’t comfort me. In fact, they went in one ear and out the other, as my mind was so anguished that I could feel nothing more than cold dread and grief.

I was unsure if the owls could understand a word he was saying, but I was sure their sorrow was tearing at their hearts, as mine was being torn. After a moment of silence, Giovalde stood up and pulled his sword and raised it high. He spoke a few more words and then placed his sword back into its scabbard.

“Do you have anything to add?” he asked me glumly.

“No, I think you pretty much covered it all. But I will say that I loved Lori and I will forever miss her.”

The owls hooted in unison as Giovalde lifted her urn, removed the lid and held it high while he said more graceful words. He tilted the urn downward and a small stream of ashes flew out, got caught in the wind and were scattered amongst the forest. He then tilted it more and nothing happened. Frustrated, he shook it hard until a blob of ashes fell out and exploded into the swirling wind.

Before her ashes could disappear, the owls took flight all at once and made a sphere around the blowing ashes. Giovalde and I both looked at one another in amazement; neither of us knowing what was going on. The owls hovered and started flapping their wings with fervent intensity. Lori’s ashes swirled around inside their protective sphere and eventually started massing in the center. I could see an image of a human female starting to take shape.

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