Fungal Halo

The way it usually goes is this: you take your vitamins, you draw the door on glass, you speak your goodbyes, and then you slip through to the other side.

Then your life is hers to play with for a while, and oh, how her pleasure makes you smile!

A coven must guard itself against the interloper that brings infectious false magic into its midst.

When it adopts a young thing that appears to have the gift, it is a kindness. When it later dumps the same girl into a pit to rot, that is also a mercy.

That the planet was haunted would never deter the executives running the galaxy’s biggest mining corporation, of course. They weren’t the ones who’d have to go near it.

No, they just send their most disposable employees there. Us.

It’s just folklore.

You try to learn it anyway, even if it doesn’t make much sense. After all, you’re traveling to visit the land of your ancestors, trying to connect with some kind of heritage, and what’s the use if you don’t put the effort into it?

The thing about being in a hacker collective is that a lot of us get really competitive, but we still cooperate to elevate the whole group, you know?

It’s in the spirit of both sides of that dichotomy that I’ve decided to try to crack one of those DroneCorp units open.

The temple of Lunera is overtaxed. Its resources—and priestesses—have been stretched to their limits caring for the crowd of villagers who lost homes, livelihoods, friends, and family.

Making things worse, our goddess has gone silent, our prayers left unanswered.

The door’s long, slow creak echoes through the large chamber filled with arcane relics, humming catalysts, and piles of recently consulted tomes.

In the center, a very bored demon perks her ears up and casts a curious glance toward her visitor.

The cameras watch her undress. They watch her brush her hair. They watch the rest of her awkward pantomime of her nightly routine.

It’s a dance that she knows all the steps to, but there is, in her body language, some visible uncertainty about performing for an audience.

There is always a Dark Monarch. There is always a Princess in Gold. There is always a Hero and always a conflict between light and shadow.

In defeat, in victory, in death—whatever the outcome—the cycle begins again with the coming of a new age.

But this cycle is different.

It was one of the most awful kinds of disasters, the doll thinks to itself. The kind of shipwreck that leaves no survivors and very little intact property like itself.

Tragic! How long before the families of the dead realize that their loved ones won’t be coming home?

One last step, and the broken creature who was once a demon arrives at their destination.

It must be so much easier, they think, for an angel to simply fall. A demon’s slow trudge upward from the Infernal Demesnes is a rather more manual process.

The forest is dark. The clearing is remote. The location is perfect for a secretive meeting of witches.

One by one they approach the fire, toss back the hood of their cloak, and greet the others with a suitably grim nod of spooky camaraderie.

I get confused sometimes. I misremember instructions Miss gives me or get lost in the house or see things that aren’t really there.

That’s why right now I’m trying to sit still and enjoy my tea and studiously avoid looking outside the window at the shouting thing below.

I fucking hate breakups.

You put your heart and soul into a relationship with someone, and in the end they betray your trust and leave you with a gaping wound in your chest. Every fucking time.

I’d just be better off giving up on love.

Her grave was not particularly deep, the coffin not particularly sturdy, the stone marker already overgrown. It was a burial in which every expense had been spared.

A mushroom sprouts through a wedding ring pushed to the surface by subterranean life.

It’s been a bad day. I thought I saw…Her. At the grocery store, picking out lemons, like a regular person. She would never, I know, but…

My therapist tells me it’s normal, that I should remind myself I left that part of my life far behind me, and She can’t take me back.

I plan for only a brief visit at your house. I have places to go, but somehow you’ve talked me into staying for dinner. For drinks. For drugs. And now it’s so late, and I’m in an unfamiliar place…

Pray to the stars, for they are eternal.

Pray for your soul, that the stars may keep it safe when you pass on from this life.

Pray to them in life, if you value the sanctity of your selfhood, that the stars may swiftly find your pure spirit in death.

Your eyes resolve so few shapes under night’s shroud, but you are content. There, bathing in golden light, is the most radiant creature you’ve ever laid eyes on.

When she dances, no gaze can resist her summons, least of all yours.

“If you’re heading out, I’m going with. Rules haven’t changed.”

“I’m a grown woman, Sev,” I counter. “I should be more than capable of grabbing cigarettes myself.”

“Still coming,” he says, grabbing his coat.

I don’t budge. “It’s because I’m not real. Isn’t it?”

“Why don’t you try taking care of a houseplant?” they said. “It might help ground you in your day-to-day life.”

I’d been planning to ignore that advice. What nonsense, right? It’ll take a hell of a lot more than some petunias to fix what’s wrong with me.

The day God died, rain poured down in heavy, wind-driven sheets, and nobody paid any mind to the child running through the streets of the city.

Her skin was scoured clean by the weather, but the bloody stains on her nightgown remained, more stubborn than the storm.

The darkness insisted on its own finality. It didn’t so much close around me as it devoured even the memory of light. It was as though darkness was all I had ever known.

It insisted I give up, lie down, and accept this ending.

Truthfully, I never did know how to do that.