The Dark Verse (Horror and Fantasy Fiction Podcast)

[Sharkchild]

THE DARK VERSE is 14th on the list of top 100 literary podcasts on iTunes right now!

Download Episode 54: Soul Divided

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Excerpt:

I stood behind a black, baby grand piano. The instrument was unfamiliar to me and its keys, both black and white, held reflections that heightened their alluring appearance. As I looked upon it, I longed to hear a sweet melody.

Surrounding the piano, two rows of seats filled with women arced in crescent form. The women’s ages ranged from young to old, and they wore black attire and grave semblances. Quietly, they conversed amongst themselves while I stood gazing out upon them.

This arena was set within the living room of my great grandfather’s plantation house—a home passed down from one generation to the next. The soft light of candles was the only source of illumination, and with it, the shadows danced more confidently.

“Please, can I have everyone’s attention,” I addressed the women. Their conversations ceased; their eyes probed me. “I would like us to begin our session.

“This piano was delivered yesterday—beautiful, isn’t it? Well, I have never played such a grand instrument before; I have not even tried. I want you to make me play it. Please begin whenever you are ready.”

[Sharkchild]

Download Episode 55: In Placing The Titan's Emotion

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Excerpt:

I sat back in my rocking chair and subdued my thoughts with the gentle swaying of my bones. The chair, as well as my body, creaked with the tender noise of old age. In my vision, flames within the fireplace communed with one another and my son and daughter-in-law played an immersive game of chess. On an end table, my record player hummed off the tunes of Lanton Templestock’s Fifth Symphony entitled Invasive Things. The music very accurately encapsulated the essence of my feelings at that very lucid moment. Sweeping crescendo’s peeling off into a prominent melody from flutes purported the surreal story of the music’s hidden language.

The layers of things around me were oddly discernible and vividly clear. It was like the abstract entity of my mind itself had laid its head upon an ethereal pillow, hushing absurdities and harnessing the craft of time and space.

Beside me, on a small table, my cup of tea expelled steam as if in rehearsal with the notes that flew through its particles; its display unlocked the secrets of the universe. I found myself lost within their complexity, and as I stared on into the unknowable, the delusion of consciousness encroached, putting me to sleep.

[Sharkchild]

Download Episode 56: A Lonely, Imprisoned Stranger

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Excerpt:

I had an aunt who lived in the house beside my own; she was a very peculiar woman. The very nature of her peculiarity allowed me only rare opportunities to see her, although she was never more than a couple room lengths away. She called the inside of her home the Sterile Sanctuary, which, specifically, meant that she arranged her belongings and adapted her living conditions in a way that promoted cleanliness to an astonishing degree. To achieve such an endeavor, she put everything into transparent, plexiglass cases, creating pockets of living. These cases encapsulated everything from lights, cupboards, and dressers to the sofa and her bed. The house itself had a unique ventilation system installed that filtered and rotated the air over and over—never letting outside air in and never letting inside air out. The smaller cases were not connected to this system and were always airtight, but the cases that allowed human entrance were only airtight until vents that were affixed to them were opened—these included cases around the kitchen table, her rocking chair, and the toilets. Everything my aunt owned was protected from those things that collected in the air.

To maintain habitable levels of oxygen, my aunt housed a plethora of small trees, each stationed beside a window inside a case with a vent. These trees were the heart of her system and so she took immaculate care of them. Before being brought into the house and placed in their proper cases, the trees were hosed off, removed from their previous pots and soil, scrubbed down in my aunt’s own sterilizing solution, and placed in the transitional vacuum chamber connected to the house’s front door. In this chamber, the air from the outside was completely extracted from around the trees before they were brought inside and planted into pots and soil that had been scrupulously cleaned; a similar process was required for any item or person who wished to enter my aunt’s house.

[Sharkchild]

Download Episode 57: What The Water Means

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Excerpt:

On the top of a thirty-two foot long counter, I lived amongst a population of two-hundred and forty-three—a civilization wrought by the hands of man in the age of his illustrious prime. Our kind was called humids—life forms birthed from a mixture of DNA and infinitesimal computer processors. Our size was measurably minute, but our appearances were only marginally different than that of our creators. Life, essence, and love were ours to behold and share and abuse. And by logic and labor we fought to maintain purpose, although it passed like air through our lungs, coming and going, sustaining, then depleting. We existed for forty-four years and two-hundred and sixteen days before our world came to an end.

On the morning of our last day, I awoke to the sound of pandemonium. Cries of abhorrence echoed throughout the societal chamber on the top of the counter as those who became sentient to the noise made their way to the source and discovered the disturbance first-hand.

I got out of bed and collected myself. My head throbbed as if the bothersome noise had surrounded me for the entirety of my sleep and dreaming and only now continued into the reality that it was. When the haze behind my eyes had passed, I awoke my companion and alerted her of the situation. We, too, then set out to investigate.

[Doc Faustus]

If you're fans of Gaiman, Dunsany or trippy Lovecraft. Sharkchild's work is well worth checking out.

[neverending]

Excellent audio work too.

[Sharkchild]

Well thanks, guys.

[Sharkchild]

Download Episode 58: The Long Travel

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Excerpt:

There is a hidden labyrinth of pathways linking the worlds of things that can be seen. It can be found with the use of elementary magic. A rune, spoken as a beseecher to the fabric of life, is all it takes to beckon forth the portal and gateway to this land of overwhelming connectivity. The pathways are the Veins of Existence; they connect all folds of life together, from places separated by distances ranging in the unfathomable to doorways between universes. This conglomeration of veins is the chauffeur to all possible knowledge and experience.

I was part of a brotherhood of sorcerers who centuries before me had by luck stumbled upon the rune that led to the Veins of Existence. At that time, the brotherhood was only a congregation of petty common-folk, but over those same centuries preceding my upbringing, the discoverers traveled the pathways of the Veins and accumulated the knowledge of bizarre places, sciences, and magics, recording them as a history of all things and using them to tap into near-unlimited energy. Upon my arrival into life, this same brotherhood of sorcerers had become practitioners of godliness—not in the ways of holiness or righteousness, but in incomparable, awesome power and ability.

[Sharkchild]

The Kindle Version of From the Passages of Revenants (The Dark Verse, Volume I) is now available on Amazon!

Kindle Version on Amazon

[Angra]

Amen hallelujah!!