thanh.nguyenhoang.1403@gmail.com
Stories
168
Chapters
1,512
Words
3.2 M
Comments
0
Reading
11 d, 4 h
-
LUCAN The subterranean canals beneath the grand cathedral are not meant for the living. They are the arteries of the dead, pitch-black waterways used solely to ferry the highest echelon of the priesthood to their crypts. I step off the flooded bathhouse tiles and onto the rotting deck of an abandoned funeral gondola. The heavy, crimson silk draped over its hull is stiff with dried salt and age. The water here is not just absent of light; it is predatory. It is a thick, oily darkness that seems to crawl…-
20.6 K • Completed
-
-
SERA The Inquisition guards freeze, the heavy iron mechanisms of their arbalests already drawn tight. The light from the broken corridor spills over the three of them, illuminating the crimson crosses on their breastplates. The tapestry lies in a crumpled heap on the stone floor. We are exposed. "Don't move," the lead guard barks, his eyes fixed on Vale's chest. He doesn't recognize the thief. He doesn't recognize me. His gaze shifts to the golden light still bleeding faintly from the corridor…
-
20.6 K • Completed
-
-
Thirteen Years Before the Execution Ors heard the bell beneath the water before the city admitted it was drowning. The sound came through the soles of his boots: one low bronze note, too deep for any tower above the canal, vibrating up his bones while the eastern district burned red behind him. Refugees crowded the bridge in both directions. Soldiers shouted for them to keep moving. No one moved. The morning had become a knot of bodies, smoke, and black water. Then time stopped. A woman’s dropped cup…
-
20.6 K • Completed
-
-
SERA The iron of the chopping block bites into my jaw, smelling of old rust and someone else’s dried terror. Black canal water laps lazily at the heels of my bare feet, the tide rising higher than the executioner’s platform. High above the gilded domes of the city, the astronomical clock begins its horrific, grinding chime. It is entirely the wrong hour for darkness, yet the sky bruises into a violent purple. The eclipse has come early. A perfect, terrifying ring of black and gold swallowing the…
-
20.6 K • Completed
-
-
Left foot. Right foot. The rhythm of the stride is entirely wrong. The center of gravity is bolted too low to the deck plating, the thigh muscles too dense, the armor too heavy. I am walking, but I am not driving the machinery. My vision possesses a terrifying, predatory clarity I have never owned. The artificial lights of the orbital dream-barracks cut sharp, geometric shadows across the frosted glass corridor, burning into retinas that process light with engineered perfection. The air tastes of ozone…-
22.3 K • Completed
-
-
My wrists are bare. The heavy, magnetic cuffs that held me to the execution post are gone. The cold plasteel against my spine is gone. I am sitting on the edge of a bed, and the hands resting on my knees are calloused, scarred, and undeniably human. They are my own hands. I suck in a ragged breath, the metallic tang of the station’s recycled air filling my lungs. I am Silas Quill again. I look up. The execution yard has vanished. I am sealed inside a pristine, hexagonal observation room. The walls are…
-
22.3 K • Completed
-
-
The interrogation chair hums with a low, predatory frequency that vibrates through the soles of my heavy combat boots. I am Commander Ares-17. I stand in the center of Interrogation Bay 4, my hands clasped loosely behind my back, perfectly at ease. The air in the bay is scrubbed clean, heavily chilled, and smells faintly of industrial antiseptic. Silas Quill is strapped into the chair. Heavy plasteel restraints lock his wrists, ankles, and throat in place. The bruises from his arrest yesterday have…
-
22.3 K • Completed
-
-
The heat of his skin against mine is a localized gravity well, pulling the shattered pieces of my panic into a single, agonizingly sharp focal point. For three seconds, we exist outside the Dominion’s jurisdiction. The heavy blast doors of the quarantine cell are sealed. The observation gallery is dark. Ares’s forehead rests against mine, his breath ragged, his engineered heart hammering against my chest through the thick composite plating of his armor. I can feel the phantom echo of the shock baton…
-
22.3 K • Completed
-
-
Gravity ceases to exist, replaced by a digital free-fall. I am Commander Ares-17. The transition from the cavernous horror of the Dream Vault into the active combat sectors of the Dream Arena is a violent, tearing sensation. The pristine, sterile architecture of the Dominion mainframe violently shatters around us. The void is instantly replaced by a blinding, hyper-accelerated rendering of a warzone. We crash into a landscape of scorched red sand and shattered ferro-concrete. The heat is absolute. The…
-
22.3 K • Completed
-
-
The psychic tether snaps with the sound of a breaking spine. I am violently ripped from the Dream Arena, sucked backward through the collapsing void of the Dominion network. The blinding red static of the system purge scorches my digital retinas, and then— Cold plasteel against my spine. The smell of antiseptic and stale sweat. I gasp, my human lungs violently seizing as they try to process the sterile air of the quarantine cell. My eyes snap open. The halogen strips overhead strobe in erratic,…
-
22.3 K • Completed
-
- Previous 1 … 14 15 16 … 152 Next
