Post an excerpt for Anthology 2, give us a little taste

[Marv]

Heh, cool. But shouldn't 'thrown' should be spelt 'throne'?

Yes, it should. What would I ever accomplish without you, dAN?

[dANdeLION]

Heh, sorry....I have always been a grammar nazi, and having to teach my 5 kids to spell properly (and other words) hasn't improved things!

[drew]

Heh, sorry....I have always been a grammar nazi, and having to teach my 5 kids to spell properly (and other words) hasn't improved things!

-Droll, how very droll.

[CovenantJr]

Not a good joke, but amusing.

[Khaliban]

The Mendacious Gland



Pain is knowing the truth will never be believed. It is knowing you have the answer but can never share it, can never share anything. I intend to share the truth. This is my instruction to you. You will not believe any of it.
I sit at a table at lunch. Two women sit five tables away. One woman tells the other about a plumber. She lies often, and her eyes become energetic. He is handsome. A lie. Her eyes move in the wrong direction. He comes on to her. A lie. A flash of reaction as she speaks. She manipulates him. A lie. She pauses to select an extravagant word.
Her friend reciprocates. A repairman last week. Same thing happened. He looked good sweaty. If she weren't married. They laugh at their stories. The first wants a boyfriend. The second needs time with her husband. They laugh again and move on to trivial stories.
The married woman has been friendly towards me but is distance, as one might expect. The other is pretty and has smiled at me twice. I decide I will make her my target.

[drew]

--sounds Dirty

[Khaliban]

--sounds Dirty

In a friendly sociopath kind of way.

[Loredoctor]

I started work on my submission for the third anthology. Here is an exerpt (from a story titled 'Seethe').

Hell was considered as one of the largest planets ever known, but from high orbit, one could be forgiven for mistaking Hell to be an ordinary world. Certainly, the vast ring of factories and computers orbiting the world would suggest that the pale orb below was something unique. However, upon closer inspection, there were no signs of habitation – no cities or towns, starports, roads, mining facilities or factories. It was as though the glittering gold, amber and steel ring of facilities had no interest in the featureless world below.

Heaven – the collection of orbital structures – was not interested. Nothing passed between Heaven and Hell, and the many shining white towers were built on the outer surfaces of the orbiting facilities and pointing outwards towards the dark and empty expanse of space, seemingly focused on the distant stars.

The illusion of normality was shattered as one neared the pale surface of Hell. Descending to only a few miles above the surface an observer would note that the planet was mottled, as though exotic plants completely covered the vast surface: there were no green colours, only regular patches of ghostly white, cream, light or dark brown, jaundiced yellow, and black. However, these patches writhed or vanished, like strange, quivering fungi that slowly crawled across the planet. Thus, from this height, and indeed closer, Hell’s surface appeared to seethe. Yet, Hell seethed without noise, for there was no atmosphere; the planet was exposed to the severe vacuum of space.

Besides what appeared to be motile plants or fungi, there was another form of life. Mountain-sized, striding monstrosities scuttled or crawled across the surface on tall, spindly legs. They were armoured in thick purple or red carapace, and were hunched over, with enormous serrated or shovel-like claws tucked under the wide body. They looked like crabs moving across a silent, shifting beach, occasionally unfolding their claws and digging into the surface to collect the struggling surface material. Almost constantly, shimmering horned or winged figures would climb out form under the shield-like back or from between the joints of the many limbs and launch off into the airless sky, leaving a trail of crimson gas behind them. It was as though the crab-mountains were home to, or infested by, thousands of ethereal entities. Or perhaps they animated the spidery grotesques.

Perhaps, one would gaze with fascination at the way the carapace of these beasts had been carved into towers, forts, houses and pits, but anyone reaching only a few hundred feet from the surface would ignore this and instead stare with bleak dismay at the writhing ground.

What appeared to be patches of colour – plant life or fungus was in reality human forms of various skin colours, sizes and ages. The entire planet’s surface was made up of many billions of living human naked bodies, squirming and crawling over each other, fighting amongst themselves, or grasping each other as though in passion, or in anxiety to find familiarity. Each face shone with maddened desperation or desolate horror, as they fought to stay on the surface and avoid being pulled down into a planet-wide ocean of bodies. They fought, sometimes like maniacs, to avoid being dragged under as billions fought their way to reach the surface. It was an eternal struggle to stay afloat and to avoid the crushing depths where untold millions were buried, unable to move or cry – eternally entombed by walls of limbs and soil of skin.

Hell was thus a planet made of living humans, from the core of bodies squeezed where near-infinite pressure merged flesh and bone to the desperate chaos of the surface. A repository for every human that died – their minds retrieved following death by judgment machine-satellites in low orbit, and placed in a manufactured organic, immortal body before being hurled from space to the planet; to fall like some fragile lonely meteor into Hell’s immense gravitational embrace. Thus, with each death another undying body was added to the living planet.

In that way, Hell grew.

[variol son]

Ooer - interesting. I wanna read more.

[hierachy]

Wow. That is intrigueing, Loremaster. I can't wait for Anthology 3 now! (even though I have yet to read 2).

[Loredoctor]

Thanks, guys. Well, I'm one-quarter of the way through. This story will be massive - around 20,000 words.