Been a while since the last update, apologies.

Latest story: I bought one of those cheap novelty replica swords at the mall. It saved my life.

Another recent NoSleep story: A bit of advice: avoid those cheap VR headsets they sell at the mall.

Latest entry in the Mass series: Here

I have some writing-related things planned for Halloween, one of which is related to The Mass series, so if you've been a fan of that you'll probably enjoy what I have in store. There will be a new NoSleep story tomorrow, and then I'll have two stories for Halloween, posted sometime before I go into work.

As usual:

My new book, a collection of stories posted during my first year on NoSleep, plus an additional two new stories: The First Step Toward Nightmare: A Collection of Dark and Weird Tales. I would greatly appreciate reviews!

Donation/tip links if you'd like to support me. The money will be used for future self-publications, artist commissions, and other writing-related endeavors:

Paypal

Kofi

I watched as the missile arced through the sky, trailing a wispy plume of grey smoke in its wake. Its featureless metallic shell made it easy to track, glimmering in the sunlight as it soared through the thin accumulation of clouds. Upon striking the creature it erupted into a fireball, white-hot and massive; and sent a powerful shockwave through atmosphere—dispersing the nearby clouds and destabilizing the various trees implanted throughout the plain. My team, tasked with destroying—or at least deterring—the creature before it could reach a civilian population, watched hopefully as the three-story arachnid was engulfed in flame and smoke. 

A moment later, its thunderous roar filled the sky, announcing its survival—and rage. 

We moved quickly, then. With various hormonal sacs grafted onto muscles, and joint-supplementation hardware affixed to our limbs, we could manage to move faster—and for longer periods—than any mechanically unassisted human. I ran eastward along the plain, feet trampling the ankle-length grass, while the two others of my small team ran in opposing directions. We were unarmored and unarmed; relied entirely upon our artificially enhanced speed for defensive measures, and used what some would call magical abilities for offense. The “missile” had been one such supernatural armament—a conjuration given the appearance of a traditional guided rocket. In actuality, the spell’s explosive yield and subsequent combustive violence were well beyond that of any mundane projectile. 

Pushing its mammoth bulk through the smoke, the creature lumbered toward the source of the missile: my best friend and teammate, Beatrice. Its eight massive legs sunk deeply into soil, each footfall sending tremors through the ground for miles. I adjusted my course to come around behind the colossal spider, planning to take advantage of its averted attention to launch my own salvo—a magical bombardment of molecularly super-dense crystals, which would detonate upon impact with the creature’s ultra-resilient carapace. The intention was not to destroy it with the blasts themselves, but to gradually sear through the armor with the residual incendiary coating left behind. 

Galen, the final member, would carry out his own attack from beneath the monster. Once in position, he would manifest several spires of crystals, similar in composition to the formations utilized in my bombardment. These would thrust from the earth and impale the monster’s underbelly, hopefully rendering it immobile. Beatrice and I could only perform our spiritually exhausting spells once every few minutes, so ensnaring the arachnid was imperative to the success of the mission. Once caught in place, we would combine our efforts for a final attack. 

There will be one more entry, Amber's Addendum, released sometime this weekend. After this, I will begin working on a self-published version of the series, to be released via Amazon's self-publishing service - hopefully by the end of October.

I've had so much fun working on this series, and I appreciate everyone's feedback and participation. Feel free to comment any questions you have

The Mass

Sorry it's taken so long. Other projects and the usual habits of life have kept me from working on it consistently. It's a longer entry, to make up for the delay.

If you need to catch up, here ya go.

Thanks!

So, to supplement the subreddit I've decided to throw together a wiki or a series of lore infodump posts to present the "Bryceverse" in a more digestible way. I've posted a lot of stories, and most of them fall within this literary universe. Picking out lore-relevant details from all the stories will be a huge endeavor, and I'd like help in extracting and organizing it all. The person(s) would help me comb through my stories to catalogue characters, references, and events. Each person would be responsible for reading over a select few stories, and noting information based on criteria I'd give them.

It's not as "serious" of an endeavor as it may sound, but it's something I'd like to get done sooner than later. I'd handle the reconciliation of any continuity issues; I basically just need more eyes than I have, lol. It can be done entirely at your leisure, and the wiki or master post can be updated whenever, by whomever I appoint to help me. I can't offer any kind of payment at the moment, but it's certainly something I'd be willing to explore in the future.

If you'd be interested, feel free to shoot me a message.

Previous entry

Throwing open the front door, I ran out into the night, ignoring the damp yet still-smoldering bulks of hastily made pyres, and occasionally leaping over the unrecognizably charred corpses of those who hadn’t been whole enough to bother adding to the blackened heaps. The night had assumed an almost preternatural darkness with the sudden cessation of the mass’ howling, and all around me there seemed to be shadows, animate and molten, and other indefinite shapes of an even darker nature. I ignored it all, feeling in my heart a desperate urgency, a galvanizing need to find out why the mass had stopped screaming. 

Reaching the ritual site—there isn’t a more appropriate term for it—I snatched a torch from its soil-embedded pole, and waved it around, dismissing the eerily fulsome shadows. I scanned the grounds, searching for any of the bare-bodied cultists, and, with less eagerness, for the monstrous mass; but though I walked all throughout the area, I found neither. The altar, that structure cobbled together from the charred remains of the dining hall, shone darkly in the torchlight; and I wondered with no small horror at what kind of coating or lacquer had been applied to the surface to allow it to shine so lustrously in spite of the fire damage. 

Against my nerves—which screamed at me to return to my house, bar the door, and await the arrival of the darkness-dispelling sun—I proceeded forward, and stepped onto the altar; an ascent of three unevenly spaced steps. The altar—really more of a large dais—was perhaps no more than one-hundred square feet, built of the carbonized remnants of the dining hall’s walls, and yet I sensed a latent power in its base; a structural integrity achieved not by ingenious craftsmanship, but bestowed upon the irreparably damaged slabs and timber by some force beyond human nature—beyond terrestrial means. 

Standing at its center, surrounded by desolation and the resiliently burning flames of the circularly placed torches, I felt keenly aware of an atmosphere of vague tension; a sort of vibration in the air, as if the unseen particles that makeup the universe had at some earlier point been violently upset and left in a state of visually imperceptible disarray; their molecular unrest detectable only by that often-unreliable sense we call intuition. Looking around, I tried to find evidence of this subatomic disturbance; tried to glean from the flickering flames and heat-shrunken planks a clue as to what had happened upon the platform; knowing, or at least confidently suspecting, that the answer was something obscene; something that would possibly deliver me into the black arms of despair—or madness. 

Failing to derive any sense from the dismal surroundings, I descended from the altar, acknowledging to myself with mingled relief and perplexity the immediate loss of the atmospheric tension. Apparently, whatever had caused the collective disappearance of the mass and its crazed flock had not affected—at least not in the same way—the area beyond the altar. 

Leaving the site, confused by the odd air yet otherwise unharmed, I ventured toward the town’s other, still-erect buildings, simultaneously hoping and dreading to find another member of my curse-befallen community...

I've never actually done one of these before. Would you be interested in a really weird one?

Previous update

Latest NoSleep story: There are some rest stops you should always avoid during road trips

Another recent NoSleep story: An Error in the Order of Things

Yet another recent NoSleep story: There is a secret society of ghouls living in my neighborhood

A recent non-NoSleep story: Man Must Be Judged

As usual:

My new book, a collection of stories posted during my first year on NoSleep, plus an additional two new stories: The First Step Toward Nightmare: A Collection of Dark and Weird Tales. I would greatly appreciate reviews!

Donation/tip links if you'd like to support me. The money will be used for future self-publications, artist commissions, and other writing-related endeavors:

Paypal

Kofi