Darkstar12c

Slaying Medusa

by Darkstar12c

Chapter 69 in Beast of Burden

The alarm sounds at 5:30 a.m., but I am already awake. The routine persists—my body knows the schedule before my mind accepts it. I rise from the bed in slow fashion, still mildly hampered by last night's champagne. I shower quickly, efficiently. By 5:45, I am naked, c...

Clubs

by Darkstar12c

Chapter 10 in The Rewrite

Delilah arrived on campus wanting to put the weekend's events behind her. And she made the attempt with all the effort a B-minus student can muster. She lasted all the way till lunch, when she entered the dining hall to meet Sebastian. Finding him wasn't hard. At first he kept a...

Mediation

by Darkstar12c

Chapter 68 in Beast of Burden

The mediation room was silent. Vanessa's body language changed the moment she saw Clarence Starling sitting alongside me, Colette, Agnes, and our lawyers. She fought off a scowl and lost. It's a little worrying that her own counsel looks frightened of her, but worrying in a usefu...

Pick another book off the shelf

by Darkstar12c

Chapter 11 in The Rewrite

The Clowning Achievement

by Darkstar12c

Chapter 10 in The Rewrite

The big top rose in towers of many colors, in ways that could only be described as non-Euclidean and eldritch. The central bulwark of wood and fabric she'd been placed in front of climbed so high she could see neither clouds nor moon. Delilah looked left, then tur...

Transmutation

by Darkstar12c

Chapter 9 in The Rewrite

The fear finally died down enough for Delilah's brain to reconnect the wires. That was when she registered two facts, in order. One: she was now even more lost than before. Two: she was completely, absolutely naked. "Okay. This is only the most common nightmare in the world," D...

The All-Seeing Madame Pyrrha and the Ponygirls

by Darkstar12c

Chapter 8 in The Rewrite

The chaos of the midway hit her like a wall of sound. Behind her, the tent flaps sealed shut with a vault-door-like thump. The only things that escaped were the muffled "we can rebuild him, we have the technology" bleeding through the canvas and the sound of a very large man and...

Carl and Natasha

by Darkstar12c

Chapter 7 in The Rewrite

The tent flap closed behind her, and the noise of the midway went muffled, as if someone had thrown a blanket over the world. Delilah stood in the dark for a moment, letting her eyes adjust. The smell was the first thing that hit her—not sawdust and oil nor sex like the rest of...

The Ringmaster

by Darkstar12c

Chapter 6 in The Rewrite

\*\*"Step right up, step right up, my perverse spectators, to the most depraved and spine-chilling spectacle of the season!"\*\* The air was thick with the scent of fear and the echoes of pleas—some for relief of a purely physical nature, the denied calling out for ple...

Nightfall

by Darkstar12c

Chapter 5 in The Rewrite

Delilah threw the holy water at the haunted machine. Arcing as it traveled, the blessed water landed on the keyboard with a pitter-patter sound. Delilah held her breath, waiting for the presence inside the laptop to leave, to put the world back to the way it was before. The wa...

Maddness,class, and coffee

by Darkstar12c

Chapter 4 in The Rewrite

Delilah backed against the wall, her breath coming in shallow gasps. The room smelled of pumpkin spice and decaying leaves. She should call the police. She should run. She should do any of the sane, rational things that her former self, the Delilah who existed before th...

The Carnival by D.C.Embers ( Halloween special)

by Darkstar12c

Chapter 3 in The Rewrite

Delilah peered out the open window and immediately felt something was wrong. Not just with her apartment ,though that was part of it,but with the world itself. Colors seemed to pulse with an unnatural life; certain hues glowed with an almost radioactive intensity while...

Interviews

by Darkstar12c

Chapter 67 in Beast of Burden

We get to work the following morning. Agnes calls the lawyer to finalize the details while Colette and I work to drag Clarence Starling onto terrain that favors us. We scroll maps looking for places that fit the criteria. We need someplace that will sell us as a powerful player,...

The Court

by Darkstar12c

Chapter 66 in Beast of Burden

They whisper, they gesture, they negotiate. They approach, then enter the door of the judge one by one. Judge LaForge returns from chambers with a compromise written on her face. She does not look satisfied. She looks like someone who has negotiated with terrorists and convinced...

Edgars family farm

by Darkstar12c

Chapter 9 in The Rewrite

The next morning she made coffee and eggs, silently cursing the enforced behavior as she caught herself wiping down the little counter top with a paper towel, putting egg shells in the garbage instead of a bowl to avoid extra cleaning, and in general predicting messes and counter...

The Judge

by Darkstar12c

Chapter 65 in Beast of Burden

Agnes's legal maneuvers paid off in the course of two days; she had every major legal firm lined up for a consultation. Her calendar was so full that she needed to hire a temp worker as an assistant of her own to take all the consultation meetings. I would catch snippets of the c...

Thursday Night's Tenants Meeting

by Darkstar12c

Chapter 8 in The Rewrite

The following days were not the hardest in Delilah's life. But it was the most uniquely challenging, if strangely routine. "If this bitch wanted a maid, why not just hire a prostitute or an actual maid," she spat as she folded laundry. Now it was her laundry she was folding, so f...

Meeting the In-Laws

by Darkstar12c

Chapter 64 in Beast of Burden

I hear them before I see them. Dad's laugh—too loud, the one he uses when he's uncomfortable. Mom's heels click against the floor with that particular rhythm she reserves for nice restaurants. They're talking about something as we get closer. "The article," Mom says suddenly, he...

The New Routine

by Darkstar12c

Chapter 63 in Beast of Burden

When the plane touches down, Colette moves with a confidence that feels new, less like she was performing from someone else's playbook and more like she was taking her own strides. The weight of her sisters rules and restrictions sliding off her back allowing to figuratively and...

Unpleasant Encounters

by Darkstar12c

Chapter 7 in The Rewrite

Dr. Warsh's classroom occupied the basement of the business building, a windowless mausoleum that smelled of mothballs and the particular desperation of 3:00 PM classes. Delilah found a seat in the back row like always, her heart pounding so hard her brain was getting slammed bac...