S.K.N. Hammerstone's Blog, page 2

Lost chapter from The Vessel of Souls Trilogy

Back in June I did a part in an anthology called The Battle of Ebulon. This piece of the anthology was a missing chapter in between The Rift and The Deceived from my own series, The Vessel of Souls Trilogy. This post is that missing chapter. So read and enjoy

Ebulon; the once proud city ruled by its loving King Yadi, was falling to the armies of orcs that trampled through it, destroying every life that they passed. I had never reaped a soul before. It was my first time as angel of death. Joshua was temporarily removed from his station in Hell to go with me and teach me how to fulfill my duties.

My guardian angel, Jesse, had come as well to protect me from both the surviving orcs as well as Joshua. About a month ago some things happened between myself and Joshua that ended in me being forced to kill him. I hadn’t wanted to, but when I was forced to decide between him and Jesse; the choice had been evident.

I wasn’t exactly sure how we had gotten to Ebulon. I didn’t have wings to transport myself between worlds yet. One minute I had been standing in front of Gabriel, archangel of Heaven, and in the blink of an eye I was underneath the softly falling snow in a city on the brink of destruction.

“You need to be careful.” Jesse came up from behind me, resting a hand on my shoulder. “Not all of these people or creatures are dead. Many of them are still alive.”

I struggled to listen to him with all of the voices crying and screaming in my head. Death surrounded me, invading my mind. When someone dies, their soul is given a direct line into the head of the closest angel of death.

They continue screaming and crying out inside this angel’s head until they are reaped and taken to their final resting place. With thousands dead all around me, I couldn’t sort one voice from the next. They were speaking in numerous languages and dialects, trying to gain my attention to free them from their bodies.

“Yes, it’s a dangerous job.” Joshua rolled his eyes as he walked by us. “Baby the little queen to the point of you doing her job for her. Isn’t that how it has always worked?”

“I don’t baby her,” Jesse stated. “Rachael is new to this job. I am making sure she stays safe.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Joshua stopped in front of the body of what I believed to be an orc, kicking it onto its back so he didn’t have to touch it. “That one’s dead. Come over here.”

I reluctantly walked over to him, Jesse following closely behind me. Somehow I had once again found myself trapped between the two of them. I stopped within a safe distance. The orc was covered in grayish, scaly hide that had numerous lesions and stab marks all over it. Its face was deformed and hideous and the entire body smelled putrid.

“Good god!” Jesse turned his head. “How long has that thing been dead?”

“Not very long.” Joshua picked up a discarded sword and prodded the body with it, letting loose a new flow of greenish blood. “You’re up, princess.”

“I don’t want to touch that,” I told him. “I would much rather start on a human.”

“Of course you would.” He turned to me. “But you don’t have that choice. You have to reap everything that has a soul, no matter how dark and twisted. You think this is bad? Try reaping a demon. Now get on your knees and reap that… thing.”

I wanted to just turn around and run, but he was right; I didn’t have a choice. I had to do this. There was no one else out there to help these creatures. Taking a deep breath; I rested an unwilling hand on the orc’s forehead. I found his voice among the numerous ones in my head, following it straight into his mind.

“Who are you?” He was hostile and angry, trying to figure out what was happening to him.

“My name is Rachael,” I told him. “I’m here to help you.”

“Help me what?” he wanted to know. “I want out of wherever you have taken me!”

“I can’t.” I had found myself inside his head. It was dark and desolate, filled with disturbing images and self-loathing. “We are inside of your mind. I am here to take you to your intended resting place.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” he demanded.

“You’re dead.” I didn’t know how else to put it. It was true.

“I’m dead?” he asked. “Thank you.”

“I’m sorry?” I had expected anger and rage. Instead he was thanking me.

“You have no idea how long I have waited for this moment,” he stated. “Take me to where I can finally rest.” I nodded and started to draw his soul out of his body. I opened my eyes to the snow inside Ebulon again, a glowing sphere hovering above my hand.

“Now what?” I asked. This was all the farther I knew how to get.

“Where is he supposed to go?” Joshua prompted me.

“Hell.” I winced. “He’s supposed to go to Hell.”

“And how do you get him there?” he continued.

“The soul finds its own way once it is released from the cage of the body,” I answered.

“Exactly,” he agreed. “So let it go.” I took a deep breath and pushed the glowing soul towards the grey sky. It started to flicker briefly before it disappeared. “Now was that so very hard to do?”

“I just killed him.” Realization hit me.

“No.” Jesse helped me stand with a gentle hand on my waist. “He was already dead. You helped him be at peace.”

“Well, if we are done here, I am going to let myself be returned to Hell to live out my sentence of eternal torture.” Joshua’s voice interrupted my guilt.

“You can’t just leave!” I told him. “I can’t reap this entire city of its inhabitance on my own!”

“I did it on my own for a thousand years,” he answered. “And you act like I care.”

“You’re not allowed to leave until this is finished,” Jesse informed him.

“Who might you be to tell me what I can and cannot do?” Joshua turned his anger on Jesse.

“I am the angel appointed to keep you from escaping and to keep you in line,” he stated.

“So, the babysitter?” The two of them had never gotten along, even before I was in the picture. Now they really didn’t get along.

“No.” Jesse’s grip on my waist involuntarily tightened and I winced slightly. “I’m the man who is going to kill you if you do not do what you are supposed to do.”

“I’m already dead,” Joshua hissed.

“I can make it worse.” Jesse stared him down until Joshua eventually turned away.

“Whatever.” He moved over to another body, starting to reap the soul of the fallen human. I reluctantly walked over to another orc, lying in a sticky pool of his grayish-green blood.

I rested my hand on his forehead, trying to center in on his voice with my eyes tightly closed. Whereas the last voice had been so easy to find, for some reason I could not get this one. I didn’t understand why I was having such a hard time until a hand closed around my throat. My eyes flew open and I tried to escape, but the orc I had thought to be dead had me in a vise-like grip, growling savagely as it strangled me.

“Rachael!” Jesse was suddenly there, stabbing his hunting knife deep into the creature’s heart. I took in a pained breath as the orc let go, falling onto my back on the ground. “Are you alright?” I struggled to breathe, my windpipe closing in on itself. I couldn’t think or answer him as this orc’s voice joined the others. Every minute added another agonized voice to the masses screaming at me.

I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t think, I couldn’t talk. I didn’t want this job. I wanted to go home and hide from all of this death and agony around me and I wanted my mind back. The feeling of insanity closed in around me, sending a panicked feeling through my body. Escape wasn’t an option anymore. The only option was to calm down and get back to work.

“Rachael.” Jesse’s soothing voice broke through the chaos. I focused on his brilliant blue eyes, my breathing swiftly going back to normal. I got up, using the back of my hand to wipe the orc’s blood off of my face.

“I’m fine,” I told him.

“Ok.” He nodded. I knew he didn’t believe me. He knew I wasn’t actually ok. I placed my hand on his forehead again, knowing he was actually dead this time. He was far more hostile than the first orc, mostly because he had died trying to kill me. I decided to move on to a human then.

If I stumbled upon one who was not actually dead at least they wouldn’t try to kill me. I chose a young man, dressed in the uniform of Ebulon. He looked like he was frozen in time; his eyes still wide open in shock and horror. The snow fell onto and around him, covering his hair and the fur on his uniform.

He might have been twenty years old, if that. Dead long before his time. My hand melted the frost and snowflakes on his forehead as his terrified voice led me inside his mind.

“Hi.” I decided to say the first thing since he was looking at me in fear.

“You’re an angel,” he realized.

“Yes, I am.” It was better to start small and build up to the fact that he was… well dead.

“If you’re an angel, then that means…” He struggled to build up the courage to say it. “That means I’m dead, right?”

“Yes.” I didn’t know what else to say. Maybe this was why Joshua was so angry and testy all of the time. He had to tell people numerous times a day that they were dead. Not that they were dying but that they were dead.

“I’m not ready to die,” he told me. “Please! I have a fiancé and she’s pregnant! I can’t leave them all alone!”

“I’m truly very sorry,” I answered. “There is nothing I can do…”

“I have heard stories about people being spared.” He interrupted me. “They were dead for hours or even days and they were brought back. You are the angel of death; you must know something about that! You have to be able to help me!”

“I’m not… I haven’t been the angel of death for very long,” I admitted. “I don’t know what caused something like that but I don’t think…”

“My leader’s name is Ky,” he interrupted me again. “He was dead and has been for a long time and yet he fights today in Ebulon because of the deal he made with the angel of death. You’re the angel of death. I wish to make the same deal with you as he did.”

“I didn’t make a deal with anyone,” I insisted. “I don’t know who Ky is. If someone made a deal with him; it was Joshua…”

“You have to help me!” He repeated. “I cannot leave them alone! They need me! Don’t you understand that? Isn’t there someone that you would give anything to be with?”

“Yes.” My answer was quiet. Jesse. I would give anything to be with him. I knew that my mistress, Elizabeth, did not approve and she would do anything she could to separate us. She knew it wouldn’t work though. Jesse had been by my side since I was six years old, never letting anything happen to me and never letting anyone hurt me. I knew what this man was feeling.

“If this was you and you were dying, wouldn’t you want someone to help you?” he asked. I struggled with what I knew I was supposed to do and what I now wanted to do. This man was right; it was possible. Joshua had done at least three times. There was a way to do it. I had to think. The soul was damaged right now.

It would be repaired once it got to Heaven. That was where this man was destined to go. If I could take it out and then repair it, I might be able to put it back into his body and bring him back to life. The reason for death in any human is the damaging of their soul. A person could sustain horrible injuries to their body, but they only died when their soul suffered injuries as well.

If I could heal his soul, there would be no reason why he couldn’t live again. I had to at least try. If I was in his place and I was the one who was dead, I would want the angel of death to do everything they could to bring me back to Jesse.

“Ok.” I agreed. “I will help you.” I drew his soul out of his body, opening my eyes in the snow-covered street inside Ebulon. The glowing orb floated over to my hand, waiting for me to help it. I only knew basic healing and I didn’t know if it would help the soul or not. I would try though. I knew Joshua wouldn’t help me and Jesse wouldn’t approve either. I had to do this on my own and fast.

I held my free hand over the rotating sphere and started to slowly release a small amount of healing energy into it. The slight red line started to turn with the soul, filling in the little empty spaces and tears in its surface.

“What are you doing?” Jesse asked, moving to stand behind me. I didn’t answer him. I had to concentrate. The soul kept drawing in more and more energy, feeding itself and bringing itself back to life. “Rachael?” When the soul stopped taking in my energy I knew it was healed. Now I had to put him back in his body.

I didn’t know any way other than to force it into his body like pure energy. It would hurt but there was no other way. I slammed the soul down against his chest, restarting his heart and re-embedding his soul at the same time. The man jerked to a seated position, drawing in a sharp and agonized breath.

“Rachael!” Jesse pulled me to my feet, moving me away from him.

“Jesse, it’s fine!” I insisted. “I did that for him. He had a family. He wasn’t ready to die. It wasn’t his time.”

“Actually.” Joshua wandered back over. “It was his time. There are no rules against bringing souls back from the dead but there will be consequences. There always are. They can come in any form and most end in the person you saved dying again.”

“It wasn’t his time,” I repeated. I knew I was wrong but I had to believe that things would work out for this man.

“I’m not here to argue with you.” He rolled his eyes. “I’m here to escape a few hours of torment. However this is turning out to be even worse than the torture I suffer in Hell. I’d rather have my ears cut off than listen to either of you for one more minute.” Joshua moved to yet another victim after his rampage.

“Thank you.” The man I had brought back got to his knees in front of me, grasping my hand tightly. “I will repay you. I swear.”

“You don’t have to repay me,” I told him. “It was nothing.”

“But it wasn’t nothing!” his eyes started to tear up. “You have given me my life back! I will never forget what you have done for me today.” I didn’t know what to say. I was still new to… well all of this. Everything to do with being an angel of death. I didn’t like it and I really wished I hadn’t doomed myself to this.

“Find your family,” I stated. “They will be looking for you.” He quickly got to his feet, dashing further into the city. “Don’t say anything.” I knew Jesse didn’t like this. I wasn’t about to let him tell me what I had done was wrong, though.

“I wasn’t going to.” He surprised me by sounding pleased with it. “I think you did a good thing. I don’t like this whole angel of death business any more than you do. I don’t like anything that puts you or the baby…”

“Don’t talk about it in front of him,” I stopped him before he went too far. Joshua was beside an orc, deep inside the creatures mind, but I knew him well enough to know he was always listening and he wasn’t supposed to know about that.

“Sorry.” Jesse glanced over at him. “I don’t like anything that puts you in danger. Or her.” He spoke quieter, resting a tender hand on my stomach.

“Jesse.” I turned as Joshua drew the soul out of its body. Jesse quickly moved his hand so he didn’t draw attention to where it was placed.

“What are you standing around for?” Joshua wanted to know. “Move! Go reap someone so I’m not stuck here any longer than I absolutely have to be.” I closed my eyes briefly so I wouldn’t snap at him. I had murdered him. I deserved to be treated like that. He should get a free shot at me.

I bent down next to another human, searching for his voice. I let myself disappear into his mind, cut off from the rest of the world. It was the worst thing I could have done at that moment. I just wouldn’t know it until it was too late.

“Who are you?” It was a question I would get used to.

“My name is Rachael,” I answered. “I am here to take you to your place of rest.”

“No!” He was angrier than any of the other ones were. “You will not kill me!”

“I am not the one who killed you!” I tried to calm him down. “I am here to help you.”

“You want to help me?!” he demanded. “Then get the hell out of my head!”

“I’m trying…”

“No!” he shouted. “You are not trying anything! You will not kill me!”

“I don’t want to…” It wasn’t him that cut me off this time. It was an agonizing, shooting pain in my back. I choked on the sensation, rippling through my disconnected body.

“What’s wrong with you?” His voice faded as my subconscious ripped its way through his mind, trying to get back to my body. The pain threaded its way through every vein in my system, tearing through me.

“Rachael!” Jesse’s voice slowly made its way into my panicking mind. He guided me back to the reality of Ebulon where I found myself in worse pain than I had been in that man’s head. I couldn’t even scream; it hurt that bad. What was going on?

“I thought you said that there weren’t any more coming!” Joshua’s angry shout momentarily distracted me enough from the pain to see the tip of a barbed arrow piercing the skin under my collar bone.

“What…? What happened?” I could barely whisper.

“There weren’t!” Jesse didn’t answer me, turning to Joshua instead.

“Well you didn’t do enough research, now did you?” Joshua was standing near the gates to the city, his sword in his hand. I turned slightly, the pain intensifying. Jesse was next to Joshua, his hunting knives in his hands. They were looking out at a huge squadron of orcs, charging towards the city.

“Jesse.” I tried to get his attention. Neither of them realized I had been shot by an arrow because they were focused on the approaching army. The arrow had gone into my back and went the entire way through my body. If it had hit something vital, I would have known. I had to help them because they couldn’t help me.

I started to get up, gritting my teeth against the pain. As soon as I tried to take a step, the darkness descended around my vision. I stumbled and started to fall, the poison from the arrow flowing through my blood stream.

*********

“Jesse.” I barely heard her whisper as I turned around. Rachael fell towards the ground, an arrow embedded in her back.

“No!” I ran to her side, barely catching her before she hit the street.

“What are you…? Good God!” Joshua turned to see what had happened.

“Jesse.” She struggled to breathe, her wide, panicked eyes focused on me. A cold sweat covered her skin and her heart was beating so fast I could feel it against my leg from her body resting on my lap. Her blood spilled out onto the hand I held tightly around the base of the arrow in her back.

“You’re ok, sweetheart.” I tried to reassure her but I had no idea what I was going to do. I didn’t have the kind of training required to help her. She had a poisoned arrow shot the entire way through her body.

“You need to pull it out and you need to do it fast,” Joshua told me, glancing back and forth between Rachael and the quickly approaching orcs.

“She might bleed out!” I wasn’t just going to pull this thing out. I could kill her.

“If you don’t get it out of her, she’ll die from the poison,” he stated.

“Just let me think!” If I wasn’t a guardian, I would have been a healer. I really liked helping people. The reason I wanted to be a guardian more than a healer was because of Rachael. Gabriel had given me the option as a child. He showed me several pictures of angels I could help if I used my power to be a healer. However; as soon as he had given me a picture of Rachael there was no longer a choice. I knew I had to be with her. Now I was losing her and my baby and there was nothing I could do.

“Fine! Think all you want while we all die!” The orcs were so close that I could hear their individual roars of bloodlust. I didn’t have much time.

“Don’t let me die!” she begged, her voice still a whisper. A single tear escaped from her eyes, the fear all over her features. “Don’t let us die.”

“I’m not going to let you die.” I refused to let that even be a possibility. I cradled her in my arms, knowing my time was running out.

“Hurry, angel boy!” Joshua stood ready for the orcs. They were less than twenty yards away from him. Thirty yards away from me. I only had seconds. I couldn’t pull it out from her back. The barbs would take pieces of her with it. I had to help it continue its path through her body.

“I am so, so sorry.” I kissed her forehead before I pushed it out through her chest. She gave an agonized cry but I couldn’t stop. As much as her pain hurt me; her death would be far worse. I pushed the arrow as far as her body would allow before I switched hands and took the end coming out of her chest to pull it the rest of the way out.

By now the orcs had reach Joshua. He was able to fend them off because only about four or five could come through the gate at a time. He wouldn’t be able to keep it up for long. I had to fix Rachael as fast as I could. Her blood poured out onto my hands, her shock and agony evident. I pressed my hand to the wound in her chest.

“You are going to be ok,” I repeated. I pushed as much energy into her as I could with no regards to my own personal store. My life and my own strength were not as important as hers. It didn’t take as much energy as I expected. Her vitals were uninjured and it was mostly just the repairing of her muscles and skin. “Does anything still hurt?”

“No.” She shook her head. I glanced back to see that three of the orcs had escaped Joshua and were headed straight towards us.

“Stay back here,” I ordered. “Don’t go anywhere near the fighting.”

“But, Jesse…”

“No.” I didn’t let her finish. “You are not endangering your life or hers. Stay here.” I stood up, making sure she moved away from the fighting, before I met two of the orcs with my knives through their throats. I pulled them out as quickly as I had stabbed them in, sending the third one to his knees with one in his stomach and then to the ground with the other straight into his brain.

I stayed behind Joshua, letting him head them off and catching what he missed. I was more concerned with keeping Rachael safe than protecting the city. However with the vast amount of these creatures pouring in through the destroyed city gates; it was very likely that I was going to be taking her out of this place.

She could continue to reap these godforsaken souls once they were all truly dead.

*******

These creatures were even more grotesque alive than dead. They varied in how deformed their faces were. Several could be recognizable as having slightly human faces. Others were so horrific that they couldn’t be distinguishable as living. If they didn’t have souls I wouldn’t believe that they were living beings.

I was so distracted I could barely hear the voice calling to me for help. Even when I did hear it, the voice almost got lost in the numerous voices screaming desperately in my head. It wasn’t until I actually saw one of the bodies move that I realized there was still someone alive among the dead.

“Hello?” I walked cautiously up to the body. With all of the snow and mixed blood around I couldn’t tell if it was a human or an orc. “Did you say something to me?”

“I asked why it took you so long to come.” A distinctively human voice came from the mass of snow and fur.

“I’m sorry?” Most people didn’t ask me that. They didn’t want to see the angel of death coming to them. More often I got asked why I was there so soon.

“We have been waiting for hours for our reinforcements to come.” He turned around and I quickly hid my expression of shock. A huge gash ran from his left temple to the lower, right side of his jaw. It went through one of his eyes and sliced his nose completely in half. “There were only twenty of us down here. We sent out a distress call hours ago and no one came. Why did you take so long?”

“I’m… we’re not your reinforcements,” I told him.

“Than what the hell are you?” he wanted to know.

“I’m the angel of death,” I reluctantly answered. “I’m here to collect the dead.”

“Good luck with that.” He laughed bitterly. “You’d have better luck collecting the living. Why don’t you tell me when there’s good news? Like when my reinforcements finally show up.”

“I don’t think anyone is coming,” I stated. “I think that once we come it means that the battle is over. There’s no one left to come to you.”

“This may be why you’re the angel of death.” He turned away from me. “You don’t even have the common courtesy to comfort a dying man with the possibility that his death might have been worthwhile.”

“I’m sorry… it’s just… this is my first time doing this.” I winced inwardly. That came out wrong.

“This is your first time doing what?” He turned back around. The last thing a man on the brink of death wanted to know was that the angel of death who should be taking him to rest was on her first day on the job.

“Never mind.” I shook my head.

“This is your first time being the angel of death,” he guessed.

“Maybe.” I glanced over to Jesse. He was surrounded by dead orcs with more rushing towards him. I really would much rather be helping him keep the orcs at bay than talking to a bitter, dying warrior.

“One of my fellow soldiers came this close to death last year,” he started to explain. “He said the angel of death was at his bedside for hours before he pulled through with the help of our most talented healers. He also said that the angel of death was a man.” I looked away from him. He didn’t need to prove I wasn’t who he expected. I already knew.

“I am sorry that I am not what you wanted,” I started. “But I am not here for you. I’m not here to help you fight and I am not here to collect your soul because you are not dying. Count yourself lucky. Not everyone else was so gifted.”

“I don’t count myself lucky.” His eyes were filled with a frightening fire that made me wish I was facing an orc instead. “I would rather die defending my city than live knowing it has fallen.”

“We don’t know for sure that it has fallen.” Now I was starting to feel uneasy. As soon as I got back to Washington DC I was going to give this title and this job over to Elizabeth. She had wanted it from the start and I never wanted it.

“I know it has fallen.” The fire left his eyes. “This city is in the heart of all who live in it. We know when it is dying.” Joshua and Jesse were finishing off the last of the orcs but I knew he was right. There was nothing left of this city.

Smoke rose in all directions from across the mountainous city and the death rippling through my head was worse than anything I have ever heard in my entire life. Death was not something I wanted to experience anymore. I was supposed to be focusing on life but I couldn’t when all I could think about was that every life ended in death.

My own life would end in death as would Jesse’s and our baby’s. Joshua was already dead and I was the one who had made that happen. Every person and every creature of every kind was going to die and it was my job to take their life. This was not the life I wanted. The life of the angel of death is a lonely and desolate one. The life of an angel of death is the only one that truly welcomes death when it comes to them.

The Allure of Supernatural (Or perhaps Dean Winchester)

I have been absent for a while and I am very sorry for that so I have an excellent blog post planned for you today. The question? What is the allure of Supernatural? No I am not talking about the supernatural realm or creatures. I am taking about this:



This is hands down my favorite show of all time and in this post I am going to explain not only why it is my favorite but why it should be yours as well.

I am going to do this in a simple list of 3 reasons, going from most important to the still important.

#1: Dean Winchester (aka batman)



For the women who watch the show it could just be the his is probably hands down the most attractive man on TV but it is also so much more than that.

First off, unlike his over emotional, slightly annoying, and rather lacking in common sense brother; Sam



He is a man’s kind of man. He has the strength, a bit of a pie addiction, loves his women in all forms, and is the best demon hunter out there. Rarely does he let emotion get in the way of him getting rid of a few demons. He has his job down to a science and when he doesn’t have his demon-killing colt or knife, he rattles off exorcisms like the alphabet. All in all he is the ultimate bad ass and the best TV character in the history of TV.



#2: Action



Who doesn’t love some awesome paranormal action? Demons, angels, vampires, and the likes in various action sequences. Never a dull moment in the lives of the Winchesters.

Lastly:

#3: Humor









Have I convinced you to watch it yet? These are just the top 3 reasons to watch this show. So have you ever seen it? Are you going to watch it now? are you a fan like myself? Who is your favorite character? Let me know in the comments.

Winner of the fairy tale flash fictions

The winner and the story I will be expanding upon is Deserted, the Hansel and Gretel story.

http://sknhammerstonebooks.wordpress.com/2013/08/24/deserted/

Look for it in the coming days, probably in more than one part. Thank you to all who voted. Hopefully I will have time to expand on more than one but for now it will be Deserted

Advertisement of the month

I am doing my monthly, "these are my books" post now. I have written two books, both YA horror. They are both only $1.99 and available in every country. They are in a series about a 17 year old girl who discovers she is living in two separate worlds after attempting suicide. I always appreciate my readers so if you have the time, please pick them up. I will post a link to the first in the series since they are in the same trilogy
http://www.amazon.com/The-Rift-Vessel...

YA Hop minibook from MFRW

As some of you know I have had the chance to be featured as a YA romance author in a YA minibook in the Yahoo book group, Marketing for Romance Writers or MFRW

You can download this minibook right off of my blog here:

YA_Hop_Excerpt_Book

This is a pdf file so hopefully you can download. Free and has quite a few YA book excerpts including my own (the third one in the book)

Check it out and there will be more info coming soon

Tie breaker

Alright so we have had a 4 way tie out of 5 stories for the dark, sci fi, fairy tale, flash fiction contest. So we must have a tie breaker! The remaining choices are:

Ransom: http://sknhammerstonebooks.wordpress.com/2013/08/21/ransom/

Death Warrant: http://sknhammerstonebooks.wordpress.com/2013/08/22/death-warrant/

Deserted: http://sknhammerstonebooks.wordpress.com/2013/08/24/deserted/

The Captain: http://sknhammerstonebooks.wordpress.com/2013/08/25/the-captain/

Vote so I can write one of these

Take Our Poll

Horror but true fact of the day

You know I had to do one of these once I found out about this. What horror author could resist? I was in a class at the college I am currently attending a few days ago. This particular class is about the Introduction to the history of Western Music. It was the first day of the class so the professor was giving us a few random facts about the history of music as a whole.

Along the way the subject of the violin came up (as it often does in music classes) and he mentioned an interesting instrument that I, of course, had to share.

In Mongolia the horse is revered as “holy” and the Mongolian people treat them with respect. So what do they do with one when it dies? They create what is now known as the horsehead fiddle.



I’m sure from the picture you can come close to guess what that is. Essentially this instrument is made from the skull of the dead horse. They carve it up, shape it up, and then use the horses intestines to make the strings. What’s more the bow is usually made from the leg bone and hairs from the horse’s tail.

Sound gruesome to you? This was just something that sounded so much like it came straight from a horror book so I had to share.

Anyone else know of any such instruments?

Another kind of Doctor Who angels

As I am still catching up on Doctor who in light of the new doctor, I have come across yet another kind of angel.

They are called the Help and they appear in Season 4: Episode 1: Voyage of the Damned. What are they in this episode?

They are Robotic servants made to look like angels in the light of an alien ship touring Earth on Christmas Eve. What is the catch? Well it’s Doctor Who so obviously there is a catch. The catch is that they are programed to kill the passengers.

Of course the brilliant Doctor changes that.



Evil angels seem to be a theme in Doctor who. It leads me to ask where did all of these evil angels come from? Where did they originate? Did they come from a time lord named Angel? A long lost relative of the Doctor? Perhaps I will write a Doctor Who fan fiction explaining just that.

I am just very curious at this point as to what other angels appear in Doctor who.

Why? Well because it combines angels and one of my favorite TV shows of course!

Time to vote!!!

It is time to vote for your favorite of my 5 dark, sci fi, fairy tale flash fictions (is that a mouthful of what?!)

The options are:

Ransom: http://sknhammerstonebooks.wordpress.com/2013/08/21/ransom/

Death Warrant: http://sknhammerstonebooks.wordpress.com/2013/08/22/death-warrant/

Code Name: Cinderella:
Deserted: http://sknhammerstonebooks.wordpress.com/2013/08/24/deserted/

The Captain: http://sknhammerstonebooks.wordpress.com/2013/08/25/the-captain/

Whichever one is chosen will be expanded upon to create a short novella.




Take Our Poll

So vote now!!

The Captain

The final flash fiction in my dark sci fi flash fiction series. Based on Beauty and the Beast. More info here: http://sknhammerstonebooks.wordpress.com/2013/08/21/fairy-tales-with-a-twist-part-1/



“He refuses treatment.”

The officer led me to the room where Captain Brutum had been taken. His ship had been shot down, crashing into the uninhabited planet of Venus.

“Hello, Captain.” I walked into the room, the chrome door sliding shut. “I have been told you refuse treatment.”

He was covered in burns from the ship crash and Venus’ horrific atmosphere. He was almost unrecognizable as human.

“My crew was killed,” he stated. “I don’t want treatment.”

“I was brought here…”

“You were not brought here,” he interrupted me. “I took your father and forced you to serve in my fleet in return for his release.”

“That was you?” My blood ran cold.

Three years ago a man had taken my father from the planet Aran. He returned him to home when I agreed to be taken as a slave. Now I was meeting the beast face to face.