The Lovely Dark

the haruspex Another night at this miserable fucking restaurant. No, no. You’re lucky to have it. Lucky lucky lucky in a triangle shape over your head as you go through the door so your mind doesn’t get clean. You go through your checklist about halfway and then start over and then a third of the way and then start over as you lock up. It’s important to do things right- there’s a momentum that needs keeping up and if you miss a catch or a check or a click click click you need to turn back to the start, not like turning pages which are soft but like the click click click of a puzzle box. Click click click a third time to finish the shape. Fuck him and no no, he’s doing his best. You’re inches from getting fired. You’re inches from getting fired. It makes the puzzle box important– this is an idea you can paint with, but it dries a different color. You work through the checklist. You work through. Okay. You have work to do. Okay. Your whole body is shaking, a little. Is it always shaking?...

 hallowed, lightless (for my mother) photography by 02vin No face in the wine-dark mirror. No light in this room. No lights under the skin and bone. She tilts her head owlish. Textures in the dark suggesting motion. Soon an eerie light wavers behind her eyes, at the back of her throat, beneath her greasy skin. Something is always coming off her, misting candle wax and paper ashes. She runs terribly hot. What was inside of her that had to make room for this? Something that grew in her and something she swallowed. Something old: drive in creature feature trailer or stones under skin. Stacking stones in driveways and sliding them in gas tanks. B thriller with A list stars. What’s in her is out of her. She replaced it with a tongue of rotten flame. Fire’s nothing nowhere. It’s in her but it’s out of her. When autumn ends at last and winter falls over the earth like a rain of ashes the fire will go out and she’ll be gone. She’ll deliquesce into drool and darkness. But autumn won’t end. ...

christmas leaves and codine falling through the cracks in my ribs Hide Me by Sasha Shaderski Swords are uncommon in the Lovely Dark. Firearms, less so. Most use colored glass bullets and piezoelectric liquid propellant capsules. They fire with a dreadful ZOK and leave a trail of glittery pink smoke. But there are others. They work like so: Guns have multiple weapon actions. To attack with a gun, choose one action. LOCK X means load your gun with X rounds, up to the maximum it allows. BURN X means that the weapon action requires and consumes X rounds. A single inventory slot can hold 100 rounds. Guns must select their targets within a limited RANGE. Guns require direct line of sight. They cannot target through smoke or darkness. If you are darting in and out of an opponent's range, ducking into smoke, and hiding behind bookcases, you are COVERED. If you're just standing there cackling, you're OPEN. Your gun has an X-in-6 chance to JAM when fired, where X is the number of ...

photo from dozydawn but you're never satisfied you want something that's larger than life and i give that to you but it doesn't mean anything if my love is a victimless crime templates: A) dreamlike mimicry & yew tree lessons // +1 to attack B) idleness and mischief // +1 language C) new hallow OR old hallow // +1 to attack D) a sick rose // +1 language roll three times: kitten-sized mosquito on a silver chain three sets of colored glasses in funny shapes pocket watch with a compartment the size of a baby rat umbrella with a hollow needle in the tip three poison pill rings spotless white silk gloves taxidermy hat that whistles birdsong when the wind blows through it thin tube of lipstick around a razor living spleen in solution pins and the killing jar mourning locket with a compartment the size of an eyeball orb-weaving spider who admires you thorny bouquet of silk flowers tattered veil you can see through one way twenty books of matches ghost of a lapdog in a glass ...

  MAGICIAN fuyuko matsui There’s not another road for you than this. I’m so sorry. Starting Equipment: specially tailored clothes, a letter of termination Skills : 1) theoretical physicist 2) paranoid clerk 3) corporate striver 4) lab animal 5) fugitive Templates A) Katalepsis, Graveyard Girl // Kataleptic Limit 5 B) Down the Wolf's Throat // +2 Parasitic Tombs, Kataleptic Limit 10 C) The Dark Dark House // +2 Parasitic Tombs, +1 Appetite, Kataleptic Limit 15 D) Dogsbody // +2 Parasitic Tombs, +1 Appetite,  +1 Haunt,   Kataleptic Limit 20 ∆) Vers La Flamme Katalepsis rothko They drill the hole at the nape of your neck. There’s a tap that keeps the fluid in, but lets the membrane extrude. It’s agony the first time, but you get used to it. An invisible worm, a questing tongue. As you flex and feed it, it expands into a cobra hood of tangled false-nerves and alien mucus-slick. You can’t touch it, but you can feel it coming out of you. You can’t see it, but un...