The last “newsletter” was many months ago. My life has been so noisy and my work so busy that my writing life has had to take a backseat. I am currently attending college full-time; I write full-time; I am also the Poet Laureate of a college school system. As you can imagine, all of those things have left me little time to produce a newsletter. For that reason, I apologize.

However, Ink, Rot, & Rambling will begin producing newsletters monthly starting with this edition. I no longer have a topic for each newsletter. In the past, trying to come up with a topic each time was a huge pain for me and it took all the fun away from writing them. From now on, I will not build each newsletter based upon three movies and a pile of books I read that particular month. Instead, I want to keep it simple: whatever is happening in my writing life at that moment, that’s what I will put into each newsletter. Some months this may include discussion about the process of creating art. Other months it may include logistical issues. Both are true of this month, so there’s much to catch up on.

The Cup

So the first draft of my debut novel is finally finished.

This first draft is actually the one that I’ve been working on in the periphery for almost a year now - it’s the story of Ryan Krepct, a literature teacher in rural Virginia, who learns to reconcile his life with becoming a vessel for something that was never intended to exist within a human.

Cosmic horror and body horror are not mutually exclusive in this book - they are two sides of the same coin, the coin being the gruesome toll that the protagonist’s self-discovery exacts on him. As a fan of cosmic and body horror themselves (please, forgive any potential bias in that regard), the ability to utilise both genres in this book was one of the most fulfilling parts of writing it.

The first draft, before any of the editing has begun, is 50560 words in length, with 16 chapters. All of it had to be typed first, edited furiously with a red pen (followed by re-typing and further editing), which is a tedious process but one that any aspiring writer will tell you becomes significantly less time-consuming with practice. With regards to said editing process - now is when I get to put a scalpel to the raw meat of this first draft and begin my butchery in earnest, so I’m definitely not in any hurry to get this part over with.

And so, here’s where we leave off for now (well, actually, further below, for the remainder of the sixth week). The next step, after this tedious waiting period, is to begin sending out ARCs for feedback, before submitting the manuscript to anyone who has the authority to publish this somewhere bigger than this first blog. But trust me, it’s not because I’m in any hurry to begin editing, because it’s not. I know that the natural instinct of any anxious creator is to want to keep working and working on their project, but that’s precisely why I use this six-week period, which is inspired by none other than Stephen King (if he’s as prolific a writer as he’s reputed to be, which everyone knows he absolutely is, he must’ve needed such brakes to keep his editing self from rushing into things), as a tool to forcibly make myself step away from my work.

Interior: Ex Tenebris

In other news! my first soon to be published poetry collection is finished and ready to go!

This one will feature fifteen poems exploring the emotions not found on any greeting card (or at least those that hide behind the ones that do), from the ones lurking in the dark and do not apologize, to the ones utilizing cosmic horror and theological conceits to get to the same place, as both are, to me, manifestations of something too big to be properly witnessed, and too demanding to be ignored.

Formatted and production ready, its set to launch on IngramSpark, dedicated to Caroline the love of my life, and opens with a line stolen from Hopkins’ Carrion Comfort and the cover made from a public domain blake painting that I think captures the themes it explores very nicely.

ARC signups are going to start very, very soon (i’ll post more about that when my PR team gets everything sorted out, which is why i actually have a PR team, doing it all myself is too much work xD ). The release date is October 31st, and the reason i picked this date is because its the only night of the year where other people are thinking about the same kind of stuff my book is.

The Road

Another thing is that last few months has also been less about drafting and editing, and more about being out there in the universe with this thing in ways not wholly different than before.

But this past couple weeks I got to speak at the VCCS Chancellor‘s Retreat at Hotel Roanoke, reading a speech/poem to a captive audience that doesn‘t typically hear about cosmic horror as part of their professional development. The collective sentiment afterward was that it was deeply moving and got most if not all of the attendees to a watering hole. (Still processing it myself haha)

Being poet laureate this year has also opened up doors for me in other spaces, which I think is a good thing; I hope to lean into the opportunities presented rather than treat the position as something that exists on my resume.

What This Newsletter Is Now

Going forward, Ink, Rot, and Rambling is the place for all of it — the writing, the process, the events, the wins, the stuff that doesn’t fit anywhere else. Once a month. No theme requirement. Just where things stand in the world of me and the work.

If you’re new here: welcome to the mess. If you’ve been here a while: thanks for not unsubscribing during the silence.

More next month.

— Connor

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I’ve been writing a lot of things lately. The novella is one of them to the surprise of no one— the one I talk about much without spoiling because I want to share it with the world.

But I want to pull the curtain back just slightly. Not the plot. Not the who or the what. Just — what it feels like from the inside of writing it.

The body horror came first. Before the cosmic wrongness, before anything that could be named or scaled, there was just a man in a bathroom noticing something was off. A taste. A sound. The kind of thing you chalk up to bad sleep or too much coffee. The kind of thing that, by the time you recognize it for what it is, has already been inside you long enough to know your shape better than you do.

That’s what I keep coming back to in this one. The ambience of it. The way dread doesn’t arrive — it accretes. Quietly. Intimately. Like something tapping against the other side of a wall you didn’t know you had.

The cosmic horror is there too. It’s enormous and it is old and it is indifferent in the way that only truly ancient things can be indifferent. But it earns that scale through the small stuff first. Through the body. Through the human center of a man who is too stubborn to ask for help even when the thing using that stubbornness against him is geometrically wrong and older than the word old.

I don’t know what the title is yet. I know what it’s about.

More on this as it develops. For now just know that it’s alive and growing in the dark somewhere — which feels appropriate.

— Connor

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Hello, everyone, and welcome to the fifth installment of my weekly newsletter series!

I want to talk about where this novella is coming from in an what is inspiring me sort of way.

Not in a craft-talk way, not in a “here are my influences” way that reads like a college essay trying to sound literary. I want to talk about it the way I actually think about it, which is messier and more honest and probably going to require a couple of tangents before I land anywhere useful. Fair warning.

The question I get most often about the novella — from the people I’ve told about it, from the readers who’ve been following along through these newsletters — is some version of: what is it? And I keep giving the same deliberately vague answer, which is that it’s body horror and cosmic horror and it has a human center holding everything up, and that the dread is earned rather than announced. All of that is true. None of that actually explains what built it.

So. Where did this thing come from?

The Films

Let’s start with Annihilation.

Alex Garland’s 2018 adaptation of Jeff VanderMeer’s novel is, as far as I’m concerned, one of the few genuinely great cosmic horror films ever committed to screen. And I don’t say that as a compliment handed out casually. I mean it in the specific, technical sense: it accomplishes something that almost nobody manages to accomplish in the genre, which is making the incomprehensible feel beautiful and terrifying at the same time, without resolving either one of those into the other.

The Shimmer — the mysterious, expanding zone at the center of the film, doesn’t want to destroy the characters who enter it. It’s not malevolent in the way horror monsters are usually malevolent. It’s indifferent in the way weather is indifferent. It’s indifferent the way evolution is indifferent. It refracts everything that passes through it — DNA, memory, identity — not out of cruelty but because that’s simply what it does, the way a prism doesn’t choose to split light, it just is the thing that splits light. And the characters don’t so much fight it as they dissolve into it, slowly, until the person who entered the Shimmer is no longer entirely the person standing inside it.

That’s what got me. The idea that transformation and destruction can be the same process. That something can unmake you not because it hates you but because it doesn’t know what you are, and doesn’t particularly need to find out.

My novella isn’t Annihilation. But it’s in conversation with the question that film refuses to answer cleanly.

And then there’s The Thing.

John Carpenter’s 1982 masterpiece is a different animal entirely — pun intended, sort of. Where Annihilation gives you beauty alongside the dread, The Thing gives you nothing but paranoia and meat. It is, in the most precise sense I can use the word, a film about the body becoming untrustworthy. The alien organism at its center doesn’t conquer the characters or overpower them in any dramatic sense. It wears them. It learns their shape and copies it and the copy is perfect enough to pass, until it isn’t. And then it isn’t in the most spectacular, grotesque, practical-effects-driven way imaginable.

What Carpenter understood, and what I’ve been trying to carry into my own work, is that body horror at its best isn’t about gore for its own sake. It’s about the specific, nauseating wrongness of something that looks like you but isn’t. The horror isn’t the monster. The horror is the moment your certainty about what you’re looking at begins to slip. Because once that certainty goes, it doesn’t come back clean. You don’t get to unlearn the thing the film taught you.

And Hereditary.

I’ll keep this one shorter because if you’ve seen it, you already know, and if you haven’t, I don’t want to be the person who ruins it for you. What I’ll say is that Ari Aster’s film accomplishes something genuinely rare, which is making a horror film that functions simultaneously as a family drama that earns full-bore nightmare status through emotional damage alone before the supernatural elements even fully arrive. The horror in Hereditary doesn’t descend on characters from outside. It emerges from the family itself, from the architecture of their grief and their resentment and their inherited psychological wreckage. The supernatural is almost beside the point. The terror is that these people were always heading here. The terror is inescapability. The terror is that love and doom sometimes move in the same direction.

That idea, of horror that comes from inside the human relationships at the center of a story rather than from an outside force acting upon them, is one of the things I’ve been wrestling with most in the novella.

The Fiction

Brian Bowyer’s Metro Kinetic is not a book I talk about enough, and I should fix that.

Bowyer operates in a register that I find genuinely rare in contemporary horror fiction: controlled chaos, the phrase that comes to mind most when I try to describe it. He shifts tone, pace, and narrative flow in ways that should absolutely not work and somehow do, every time. Metro Kinetic lives at the intersection of creation and death in a city where the line between derangement and normalcy has been quietly erased until you can’t remember where it used to be. It’s the kind of book that asks a question in its opening chapter and then spends the rest of its runtime making you uncomfortable with the answer.

What I take from Bowyer isn’t a specific technique so much as a permission. A reminder that horror fiction doesn’t have to be polite about the things it’s willing to do.

C.J. Leede’s Maeve Fly gave me something different.

It’s a book that operates in the body. Literally, graphically, unapologetically in the body. Leede’s protagonist is a kind of domestic horror all by herself, a woman whose interior life is so precisely calibrated between genuine feeling and bottomless violence that the reader is constantly doing the uncomfortable work of deciding how much sympathy she deserves, and never quite arriving at a firm answer. It is gory in ways I found genuinely impressive, not because gore itself is impressive but because Leede uses it with specificity, as a language rather than as decoration.

The body horror in my novella is quieter than Maeve Fly — less in-your-face, more of the slow creeping wrongness variety. But Leede’s work reminded me that body horror, when it’s working, is about intimacy. The horror is located precisely in the places we live most closely with ourselves. The horror is that the body is the one thing we’re supposed to be certain about, and it turns out we aren’t.

And then there is Lovecraft.

I’m not going to pretend this one needs as much explanation. You know who he is. You’ve probably read him, or read about him, or heard enough about him to have an opinion. And yes — the man was complicated in ways that matter, in ways that shouldn’t be hand-waved away because his fiction is canonically important. I hold that tension consciously.

What I keep coming back to, despite everything, is the specific shape of the dread he invented. The idea that the universe is not hostile to humanity but simply indifferent — that we are not threatened so much as we are irrelevant, and that the discovery of our own irrelevance is the most destabilizing thing a human mind can encounter. The idea that knowledge itself is the thing that destroys you, that some truths are not illuminating but corrosive. That the monster is less terrifying than what it implies about everything else.

That framework is so deeply embedded in everything I write that I don’t always notice it until I step back and look. But it’s there. It’s always there.

And Then There’s Me

All of that is real. All of those films and books genuinely fed into this project. But I want to be honest about something, which is that the strangest ingredient in the novella is the one I brought myself.

Horror, for me, has always been most interesting when it’s doing something the writer actually needed to do. When there’s a pressure behind the fiction that isn’t just craft or genre or market awareness, but something more personal and less easily named. The best horror I’ve read has always felt like it came from somewhere the writer was genuinely scared to go, and went anyway because the story demanded it.

I don’t fully know yet what the novella is doing on that level. I’m still inside it. But I know there’s something in there that isn’t just homage to the films and books I love, something that belongs specifically to this particular project and to me and to the way I process the things I can’t say plainly.

That’s the part I’m most curious to see when I get to the other side of it. And the part I’m least ready to talk about in a newsletter.

More soon.

Keep wandering.

— Connor

Ink and Entropy is a Substack for fiction, poetry, craft, and the occasional dispatch from somewhere between the page and the dark thing on the other side of it. If someone passed this your way and you want to stay, you can subscribe below.

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There are certain obsessions you don’t really choose. They choose you early and keep resurfacing in different forms until you realize they’ve been threading through nearly everything you make.

For me, cosmic horror has always been one of those.

I released a new episode of Ink and Entropy today, and this one feels more personal than the last. Less criticism or theory, more reflection. I wanted to talk about why this corner of horror has held me for so long — not just as a reader, but as a poet and fiction writer.

Not cosmic horror as shorthand for tentacles and ancient gods, but cosmic horror as atmosphere. As insignificance. As the unsettling possibility that reality is much stranger, colder, and more alive than we’re built to comprehend.

I ended up talking a lot about things I circle constantly in my own work: the relationship between poetry and the unnameable, why indifference can be more terrifying than evil, why restraint matters in horror, and how much of the mythology of the Loom grew out of those fascinations.

In some ways this episode is also about writing itself — about trying to give language to what resists language.

About standing near something immense and still trying to describe the shape it casts.

There’s a line from my poem The Frequency That Looks Back that opens the episode:

I dream the way a radio dreams — not of songs, but of the space between stations.

That space between stations may be the place I write from more often than I realize.

Maybe this episode is me trying to map it.

If you spend time in weird fiction, cosmic horror, dark fantasy, or just enjoy conversations about how genre and craft overlap, I think you’ll find something here.

Listen here: Spotify link [Ink and Entropy Ep. 3]
YouTube link [Ink and Entropy Ep. 3]

And if you do listen, I’d genuinely love to know what works of cosmic horror first unsettled you in the best way. I’m always curious what doors other people walked through.

Keep wandering the maze with me.

— Connor

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I’m not going to pretend April didn’t happen. As this challenge was originally supposed to start in April.

Life moved fast — faster than I planned for. Between finishing projects, submitting work, and, oh, becoming the VCCS Poet Laureate, the challenge got pushed. I’m not apologizing for that. But I am making good on the promise.

The challenge starts May 1st. First prompt drops Monday, May 4th.

It’s happening. Let’s talk about what you’re walking into.

What This Is

This is not a participation-trophy writing exercise. This is a month-long writing challenge built on real deadlines, real feedback, and real stakes.

Every genre is welcome and each week the prompt will explore a different genre of fiction — horror, romance, sci-fi, historical fiction, whatever you’ve been sitting on. The only requirement is that you actually write it.

I’ll be head judge. Bradley Ramsey joins as guest judge.

The Prize

The winner at the end of the month walks away with:

• A physical trophy, engraved with your name or pen name — because writing should leave a mark you can actually hold

• An exclusive interview on Ink and Entropy, my podcast

• A guaranteed spot in Issue Two of The Oblivion Index

Note: If the winner is outside the USA, shipping costs make the physical trophy impossible — but you’ll receive a custom digital certificate in its place. Runner-up prizes are still being finalized. Suggestions are welcome.

The Schedule (ET)

• May 1 — Official launch announcement

• Monday, May 4 — First prompt drops

• Fridays at 11:59 PM ET — Weekly entry deadline

• End of May — Winner announced

How to Enter

1. Write a story based on the weekly prompt

2. Stay within that week’s word count

3. Submit by the deadline

Each week I’ll post a subscriber chat thread. Drop your submission link there. That’s it.

Judging Rubric (100 points total)

Craft & Control — 30 pts Prose, structure, mechanics. Does the writing do what it sets out to do?

Prompt Execution — 25 pts Did you actually follow the prompt and its constraints?

Originality & Risk — 20 pts Fresh choices. Bold swings that land. Not the first idea you had.

Impact — 15 pts Does the story linger after it ends?

Word Count & Compliance — 10 pts Formatting, word count. The easy points. Don’t lose them.

I’ll share standing updates throughout the month so you know where things are.

The Rules

• One entry per person per week

• New work only — written for the prompt

• No AI-generated stories (If you use AI as a guide — not a creator — for a physical, mental, or health-related reason, contact me before submitting so we can talk)

• No plagiarism

• No explicit sexual content. Non-negotiable.

• You keep all rights to your work. By entering, you’re giving me permission to quote a short excerpt in the recap or winner post — unless you tell me otherwise.

Why This Exists

The fastest way to improve your writing is to write — and to have it seen.

If you’ve been waiting for a reason to start, this is it. The prompt drops May 4th.

Bring something original. Bring something honest.

And if you want your name on that trophy?

Earn it.

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I’ll be honest I have not written a short story in a while (assuming you don’t count my submission for debut publishing house)—but when I saw sci-fi and romance as the combined genre this week my first thought was well, that’s not horror, so this is going to be a problem. My second thought was grief is romantic. Obsession is romantic. The thing you build in the dark out of everything you refuse to let go of is the most romantic thing there is. So as always I weaved my horror deep into the roots while staying true the the prompt at its core.

So that’s where this one came from.

All three elements, level three. The Forbidden Vault, the software engineer with clearance she’s never had reason to use, and a man she stopped trusting eleven years ago for very good reasons — reasons that turned out to still be valid. I leaned hard into the body horror because that’s where I live, and I leaned hard into the love because that’s what made the horror worth anything. The two aren’t separate here. They never were.

Under 3K. Deadline met. Here we go.

A Body Made of Wanting

By Connor Mancuso

The server hummed around her right to the marrow of her very bones. God It always hummed. Mara had stopped noticing it the way people stop noticing their own heartbeat, that was—until the night she pressed her palm flat against the casing and felt Dren inside it, it was warm, warm in the way electronics always are when running, not in the way he used to be warm when he slept with his back to her and she would press her face between his shoulder blades just to feel his lungs move.

That was eight months ago. Eight long and godforsaken months. The server had been running for nine.

She had built it herself in the weeks after his diagnosis, during the stretch of time when the doctors surrounding the two of them were still using words like illness trajectory, symptom management and quality of remaining life, words that meant nothing except that they had decided to stop trying. That they had run out of available options. She however had not decided to stop trying. She couldn’t stop trying and she refused to do so. She had gone home and coded through four sunrises and had not eaten anything; only when it was absolutely necessary did she consume just enough to keep her going, and when she was done she had the shell of something that could hold a person. She just needed Dren to fill it.

He had let her. That was the thing she returned to, over and over, in the months after—in those long months after he had let her. He’d sat across from her at the kitchen table with the oxygen line running under his nose and his hands wrapped around a mug he could no longer taste and could hardly lift up and he’d said, Mara, if this is what you need, then yes. He had not said I want this. He had not said I’ll be okay. He had just loved her the way he’d always loved her, which was by making room for the enormity of what she felt, even when it frightened him.

She had worn a headset for six hours while he talked. She had captured 73,000 words of him. She had mapped his speech patterns, his inflections, the way he said her name differently depending on what he was about to ask—the long Mara when he was tired, the quick Mar when he was excited. She had everything except the way his throat vibrated when he spoke with his cheek against her hair.

She had not been there when he died. She had been at her workstation, refining the model.

The guilt of this had a shape. She knew its dimensions the way you know a room you’ve lived in for years—she could move through it in the dark without hitting anything.

The Vault was on Kessidra-7, which was not a planet so much as a decision made by someone with power and no conscience. The atmosphere was primarily nitrogen and sulfuric particulate, the surface temperature averaged forty below, and the wildlife, well that was if you could even call it that. It had evolved in total isolation from anything resembling decency. You needed a class-four environmental suit just to breathe outside the installation, and even inside, the recycled air tasted like old metal, burnt hair, and something that had died in the vents.

Mara had clearance. She had always had the clearance. Her work for the Directorate on the Mindbridge project had earned her a level of access that made most of her colleagues uncomfortable, it was the kind of access that meant someone in a quiet room had decided she was more valuable inside their secrets than outside them. She had never used it to visit the Vault. She had never had a reason.

For she most certainly had a reason now.

The experiment was catalogued under the designation PB-441, buried in a file she’d accessed seventeen times in the past two months, always at night, always with the server humming beside her. The experiment had been a human synthesis program—a 3D bioprinting array capable of producing a functional human body from base biological material and a sufficient consciousness template. It had worked, well technically it worked. It had worked in the way that most terrible things work: completely, and then catastrophically. The body had lived for eleven minutes. The documentation after that was redacted, but she was good at reading redactions.

She needed that array. She needed the body it could build.

She needed Voss.

Eleven years was a long time to be angry. She had kept it up faithfully, the way you maintain a garden you hate but can’t let die, because dying would mean accepting that the thing you grew there was gone. Voss had sold her out on the Halcyon Station project. He had given her name to the Directorate’s internal security bureau when they’d come asking about an unauthorized data access, her unauthorized data access, which she had performed on behalf of both of them, which he had asked her to perform, which he had then promptly forgotten he had anything to do with. She had spent four months in a Directorate holding facility. She had lost her first clearance level, her apartment on Callerus Prime, and a relationship she’d thought was going somewhere.

She had rebuilt. She had no other choice but to rebuild.

She found him through channels she preferred not to examine too closely, and she sent a message that said only: I need to get into Kessidra-7. I know you still have the contact there. This isn’t about what happened. I need your help.

He responded in two hours. Name the place.

She didn’t trust him. She trusted that he had something to gain. That was a different thing, and she knew better than to confuse them, but she had run every other option until there were no other options, and Dren was in a server that was not going to hum forever.

They met on Pell Station, in a café that played music so softly it felt like the room itself was sighing. Voss looked the same—settled, unhurried, like a man who had arranged himself into a shape he intended to keep. He had gray at his temples now. He looked at her the way you look at someone you have wronged and have since forgiven yourself for wronging, which was the most dangerous way a person could look at you.

“Mara,” he said.

“Don’t,” she said, and sat down.

She told him what she needed. Not about Dren—she did not give him Dren—but the operational specifics, the access point, the timing window, the reason she needed the synthesis array functional and unmonitored for a minimum of four hours. That she gave him. He listened without interrupting, which was new. The Voss she remembered had always been interrupting, filling silence with himself the way water fills a low place.

“I can get you in,” he said, when she finished.

“What does it cost.”

“Nothing.” He looked at his coffee. “I owe you.”

That was the most frightening thing he could have said, and she almost left. But Dren was in the server, and the server once again would not hum forever.

He got her in. That part was true.

He used his contact, a security officer named Leth who had apparently been taking Directorate money and giving Voss information for years, an arrangement she chose not to examine, and they walked through the outer checkpoint with fabricated maintenance credentials and Mara’s real clearance carrying the weight that it always carried, which was the weight of being more valuable than she was trusted. The inner vault required a biometric she didn’t have, and Voss provided it, and she did not ask how.

The array was in sublevel four. She knew it from the files. What the files had not conveyed was the smell, something about it was very organic and very very wrong, the smell of protein rendered down to its base components and then reassembled incorrectly, the smell of matter that had been made and unmade so many times it had forgotten what it was for. The room was cold and very large and the array dominated the center of it like an altar made by someone who did not believe in any outside force but that of science.

She transferred Dren’s template in forty minutes. The array read it in another twelve. She stood with her hands very still at her sides and she did not let herself feel anything while it worked because she knew if she started feeling she would not be able to stop, and she needed to be here, present, functional, for this.

The first sound it made was a sound she did not have a name for. Wet and structural at once, like something learning to have bones.

She looked.

He had Dren’s height. That was the first thing she saw, and her heart did the thing it had no business doing anymore—it lifted. It physically lifted, like an animal that has been in a cage so long it has forgotten there’s a world outside and then suddenly smells it. He had Dren’s height, and the general architecture of him, the broadness through the shoulder, the length of the arm.

Then the light shifted and she saw the rest.

The face was Dren’s the way a reflection in water is Dren’s, it was recognizable at the first glance, wrong at the sustained one. The proportions were almost right. Almost. The jaw sat a half-centimeter too far forward and the eyes were open and very dark and perfectly circular, and they did not track independently the way eyes track. They moved together, like a single instrument pivoting. The skin was new in the wrong way, too uniform, without the slight topography of a life lived, no lines, no pores, no record of sun or laughter or grief. It was the skin of something that had never waited for anything.

It breathed. She could see it breathing, the chest rising and falling in a rhythm that was correct but not natural, correct the way a metronome is correct, nothing syncopated, nothing involuntary about it.

It opened its mouth.

The voice was Dren’s. That was the worst part—the voice was exactly his, every frequency she had captured and fed into the template, the long vowels, the particular music of him, and it said her name in the way he said it when he was tired, the long Mara, and her body responded before her mind could stop it, a full-body flinch toward the sound, toward him, every nerve she had reaching—

She saw its hands.

The fingers were too long. Not grotesquely, not at first. Just long enough that when it reached toward her—and it did reach, a slow and patient extension of that wrong hand, she counted without meaning to, the way you count things that are off, and there were six. Six fingers on the right hand, arranged in a radial pattern that was not quite how hands arranged, fanning slightly, the joints bending in the direction joints do not bend.

It said her name again. The voice was perfect.

The thing that was wearing Dren’s voice took a step toward her, and she heard the sound of its foot making contact with the floor, and the sound it was just another thing that was far far too wrong, too dense, too final, the sound of something that weighed considerably more than it appeared to, and the floor beneath it developed a thin spiderweb crack from the impact.

It was still walking toward her. It was smiling now, and the smile was Dren’s smile, she knew that smile in her throat and her chest and the backs of her hands, she had memorized it the way you memorize the things you are afraid to lose, and it sat on its face like a coat on a frame that was not built to wear it, the lips stretched too far, the teeth behind them too many, too white, arranged in two neat rows.

She did not scream. She was not sure she could have.

Behind her, the door sealed. She had not heard it seal. She turned to find Voss on the other side of the viewport, and he was looking at her, and his expression was the expression of a man who had arranged something and was waiting to see if it held. He had his comm unit in his hand. He was speaking to someone. He was not looking at her with horror. He was not looking at her with guilt.

He was looking at her the way you look at something you have delivered.

She turned back to the thing with Dren’s voice.

It said, you came back for me.

She had. She had come back for him. She had built a server and filled it with everything she had of him and she had swallowed eleven years of the right kind of anger and she had walked into a vault on a world that wanted to kill her and she had fed her dead husband’s soul into a machine that had made something that called itself by his name and reached for her with six-fingered hands and smiled with too many teeth.

The love was still there. That was the horror of it. Standing in a sealed room on a hostile world with the wrong thing wearing Dren’s voice and Voss watching from the other side of the glass, she could still feel it—the full, ungovernable weight of it, the grief that had been driving her for nine months like a hand at the back of her neck—and it had nowhere to go.

It reached for her again, and she stood very still, and it touched her face with those long inhumanly human fingers, gently, it was a gentleness that was exactly right, exactly his, and the temperature of its hand was the temperature of a living thing.

Mara, it said, in his voice, with his cadence, with all the love she had given it to work from.

The floor cracked further beneath its feet.

She closed her eyes.

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Hello again, everyone. It is time for another IRR newsletter

Last week was. . . A LOT but not in a bad or negative sense but rather In the best possible way — it was the the kind of week that had me in a nonstop frenzy of doing the things I love; all from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to sleep. It was a week were at the end of each of those days I sat down realized, okay, something actually happened here. Something worth writing down.

So let’s write it down.

The Conference — New Horizons and What Happened in That Room

Last week I attended the VCCS New Horizons Conference as the Virginia Community College System Poet Laureate, and it was an incredible opportunity, experience, and joy to be a part of.

I was on a student panel. The focus was the community college experience — what it actually looks like from the inside, what it costs, what it gives back, what it means to be a student navigating all of it while also trying to build a life that makes sense. And I’ll tell you: that panel did something to the room. Faculty and staff were leaning in by the end of it. There’s a specific quality of attention that comes over a room when something true is being said — not polite attention, not conference-room-nodding attention, but the kind where people go quiet because they don’t want to miss anything. That’s what it felt like. We had that.

And then before the panel I performed once again my poet laureate winning poem The Frequency That Looks Back.

I’ve performed that poem before. I wrote it to not only win, but to showcase the depth of my mind and imagination and it did that, and I’ve carried it with me into a handful of rooms since. But performing it in front of the full conference — in a room full of the people who make the system it lives inside of, who pour their professional lives into the institutions and students the poem is ultimately about, that was different in a way I wasn’t fully prepared for. Every line landed differently than it ever has. There was a weight to it that I could feel in real time, which is a strange and rare experience. Usually you perform and then you know afterward whether it worked. This time I knew during.

I don’t take those moments for granted. I’ve learned, slowly and somewhat painfully, not to. I had a couple people come up to me and tell me it brought tears to their eyes and I am still processing that information tonight as I draft this newsletter.

The conference as a whole was one of those reminders of why showing up matters — not just to events, not just to rooms, but to the work itself. Being seen as a laureate, as a panelist, as someone whose voice carries weight in a space like that, is both deeply affirming and a little surreal. I keep waiting to feel like I’ve earned it enough to stop being surprised by it. I’m not sure that feeling ever fully goes away. I’m not sure it’s supposed to.

Beyond the Glade — A Poem, A Contest, and What I’m Not Going to Say

I recently wrote a new poem.

I’m not going to share it here, not yet, not like this, and I want to be upfront about why. It’s been entered into a contest, the 27th Annual Poquson Poetry Contest. There’s a part of me that wants to put it up immediately because I’m genuinely proud of it. And I am. But the patient part of me knows to wait. Also because by posting it early I would violate rules and be disqualified, but I promise you will all (rather the ones that want to) see it soon.

What I’ll tell you is this: it’s called Beyond the Glade, and it came from a place I don’t always let myself go to directly. It started with a garden, it was actually inspired by my visit with my girlfriend to the Norfolk Botanical Gardens and ended somewhere much older than a garden has any business being. If you know my work, you know what that means. If you don’t yet, this is a good time to get curious.

The contest has been running for over two decades. That’s not nothing. That’s a legitimate literary institution with a history and a standard. I entered it because I intend to win it well I always intend on winning that’s my competitive nature, but win or lose that doesn’t truly mater to me, what does mater is that I will be able to write whether I win or lose.

More on this when there’s more to say.

The Novella — An Update From the Dark

It’s still alive.

I know I’ve said that before. I know it’s starting to feel like the update I give every issue and I understand if part of you is beginning to wonder whether the novella actually exists or whether I’ve just been haunted by the idea of one for so long that I’ve confused the two. It exists. I promise.

Here’s what I’ll say: the last few weeks of work on it have genuinely surprised me. Not because the horror has gotten bigger — it hasn’t, and bigger was never the goal — but because it’s gotten sharper. There’s a difference between a story that unsettles you with scale and one that unsettles you with precision, and this thing has been quietly, steadily choosing precision every time I sit down with it. The body horror is doing what body horror does best when it’s working, which is making the familiar feel like a betrayal. And the cosmic element — the thing underneath everything, the wrongness that doesn’t announce itself — is exactly where I want it. Present. Patient. Not explained.

But what’s been keeping me up at night, in the best possible sense, is the human center of this story. The person at the middle of all of it. I’ve said before that the dread feels earned because the character feels real, and that’s still true, but what I didn’t anticipate is how much that human center would start to complicate the horror in ways I didn’t plan for. The story is doing something to me as I write it, which is usually the sign that it’s doing something right.

I’m not going to give you plot. I’m not going to give you character names or chapter details or any of the specifics that might let you build a picture before the picture is ready to be seen. That’s not me being coy — it’s me protecting something I care about from the version of enthusiasm that accidentally talks it to death.

What I’ll give you is this: it’s a story about what happens when the body stops being yours and the mind tries to catch up. And the things lurking at the edges of it are not going to announce themselves before they arrive.

Stay patient with me. It’ll be worth the wait.

That’s all I’ve got for this one.

As always — thank you for being here. For reading these updates even when they’re more questions than answers, for staying in the maze with me through the dark stretches where the map stops making sense. It matters more than I usually know how to say.

Keep wandering.

— Connor

Ink and Entropy is a Substack for fiction, poetry, craft, and the occasional dispatch from somewhere between the page and whatever comes after it. If someone passed this your way and you want to stay — you can subscribe below.

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Hello again everyone,

It’s been a full week for me. The kind of full that leaves me tired, but in the best possible way — the kind where I sat down at the end of it and realized that a lot actually happened, and most of it was good.

So let’s get into it.

IAE Episode Two Of The Podcast Is Live

Episode two of Ink and Entropy is out now.

The Stories That Stay is probably the most personal thing I’ve recorded so far, and I say that knowing episode one exists. This one is a deep dive into why horror matters — not just as a genre, not just as entertainment, but as a lens for understanding fear, culture, and what it means to be honest in your writing. We go through the psychology of why we seek out scary stories, horror as a mirror of its cultural moment, what the genre demands at the craft level, and why I personally keep coming back to the dark as a writer.

It runs close to 45 minutes. I think it earns that runtime.

You can find it on Spotify and YouTube — links below. If it resonates with you, sharing it genuinely means the world. This podcast is still finding its legs and every listen counts more than you know.

👉 Spotify [Ink and Entropy Ep. 2 The Stories That Stay]
👉 YouTube [Ink and Entropy Ep. 2 The Stories That Stay]

The Novella Is Moving

I don’t want to say too much here because I’ve learned from time to time that talking too much about work in progress is a good way to jinx it — or worse, to replace the satisfaction of writing it with the satisfaction of talking about it. Or even more so reveal too much and lose the momentum when it's finally done.

But I will say this: it’s moving. Steadily, carefully, and in a direction that’s exciting me more the deeper I get into it.

The emotional architecture underneath this thing has gotten sharper over the past few weeks in a way I didn’t fully anticipate. The horror is there — the body horror, the cosmic wrongness, all of it — but what’s been surprising me lately is how much the human center of it is holding everything up. The dread feels earned because the person at the center of it feels real.

That’s the goal. That’s always the goal.

More on this as it develops. For now just know that it’s alive and growing in the dark somewhere, which feels appropriate.

New Horizons — I’ll Be There This Week

This week I’ll be attending the New Horizons Conference as the Virginia Community College System Poet Laureate, and I couldn’t be more excited about it.

I’ll be speaking, performing, and sitting on a panel — three very different ways of showing up in a room, and I love all of them for different reasons. Speaking asks you to be clear. Performing asks you to be present. Paneling asks you to be honest in real time, which is the hardest one and probably the most valuable.

If you’re going to be there, please come find me. I mean that. These events are always better when you get to actually talk to people rather than just wave from across a conference room.

I’ll be sharing updates from the weekend over on Instagram as things happen, so if you want the live version, that’s the place to be.

Norfolk Botanical Garden, and What Flowers Do to a Brain

I want to end this one on something quieter.

Last week I took myself to the Norfolk Botanical Garden, and I think it was one of the better decisions I’ve made recently.

I’ve been in a stretch where the work has felt productive but also relentless — submissions, events, the podcast, the novella, all of it moving at once in ways that are genuinely exciting but also don’t leave a lot of room to just be somewhere without an agenda. The garden gave me that. A few hours of wandering paths with no particular destination, no deadline attached to any of it.

The Japanese maples were extraordinary. There’s something about the way those trees grow — the twisting, reaching quality of the branches, the way the copper and green coexist without competing — that does something to the part of my brain where images come from. I sat near one for a long time and just looked at it. I don’t know exactly what that gave me but I could feel it giving me something.

The azaleas were in full bloom too, that particular shade of purple-magenta that almost doesn’t look real in direct sunlight. Standing next to a wall of them felt a little overwhelming in the best possible way — like the world was briefly louder than the inside of my head, which is not always a given.

I came home with a notebook full of half-formed lines and a genuine sense of having reset something. Writing and poetry need that. The desk and the screen are where the work gets finished, but the ideas — the images, the emotional textures, the strange little details that end up meaning everything — those come from being somewhere. From paying attention.

Go somewhere this week if you can. Somewhere with trees in it, preferably.

That’s all I’ve got for this one.

As always — thank you for being here. For reading, for listening, for showing up. It genuinely matters and I don’t take it lightly.

Keep wandering the maze with me.

— Connor

Ink and Entropy is a Substack for fiction, poetry, craft, and the occasional rambling update from somewhere with good light. If someone forwarded this to you and you want to subscribe, you can do that here.

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Episode 2 of the Ink and Entropy podcast — “The Stories That Stay” — is available now on Spotify and YouTube.

Hello again everyone,

A while ago I released the first episode of my Podcast but I was dissatisfied with it and how I made it so I left it on the burner and now it is BACK!

the revamped return of the podcast / YouTube series.

This new episode feels like the beginning of something sharper, more intentional, and much closer to the atmosphere I’ve always wanted the series to live in.

The original heart of the project is still there — conversations around writing, horror, creativity, literature, process, and the strange things that linger in the mind long after the page is closed — but this new version feels more fully realized.

Darker. More focused. More alive.

And honestly, that feels right.

listen to or watch Ink and Entropy EP 1

Why I Wanted to Rebuild the Series

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how creative projects evolve.

Sometimes the first version of something teaches you what it wants to become.

That’s what happened here.

This series has always been about more than just talking into a microphone. I wanted it to feel like an extension of the same world my fiction, poetry, and newsletters come from: a place where horror, literature, process, and personal reflection all overlap.

A place where we can talk not just about what we create, but why we create it.

The revamped version finally feels like it’s stepping into that space.

It feels less like content and more like a real continuation of the maze.

Inside This Episode

This episode leans into one of the most meaningful creative experiences I’ve ever had: my trip to Roanoke, Virginia for the VCCS Poet Laureate competition and the surreal experience of coming home with the title.

A lot of what I talk about in this episode centers on the emotional rhythm of that weekend — the anticipation of traveling out for the event, the energy of being surrounded by poets and artists who care so deeply about language, and the vulnerability that comes with stepping onto a stage and letting your work finally live in your voice.

I spend time reflecting on what it felt like to perform in that space, the atmosphere of the competition itself, and the strange mixture of exhaustion, disbelief, gratitude, and pride that came with hearing my name called.

Without giving too much away, the episode moves through themes of:

• performance and vulnerability

• the emotional weight of creative recognition

• what it means for poetry to leave the page

• how milestone moments can reshape the writing mind

• the connection between public success and private creative growth

• carrying inspiration from one form into the next

It ended up being one of the most personal episodes I’ve recorded so far because it captures a moment that genuinely reminded me why I keep doing this work.

And honestly, that sense of reflection is exactly what I want this series to keep chasing.

At the end of the episode, I also tease next week’s conversation on why horror in fiction and storytelling matters, which feels like the perfect next hallway in the maze.

What This Series Is Becoming

What excites me most is what this opens up moving forward.

This new version of the series gives me space to share more of the things that don’t always fit neatly into fiction updates alone:

theory, horror discussions, poetry, creative philosophy, process reflections, inspirations, drafts in progress, and the darker corners of the writing life.

It’s becoming a space for the conversations that live between the books.

And I love that.

If the newsletter is the written map of the maze, this series feels like the voice echoing through it.

What’s Next

This is only the beginning of the revamped version.

I already have ideas for future episodes that go deeper into:

• horror as transformation

• body horror and vulnerability

• writing process deep dives

• poetry and image-making

• publishing life

• behind-the-scenes novella talk

• author event reflections

• the books and media currently haunting me

• guest hosts

• etc

So if you watched or listened to this first episode, I’d genuinely love to hear what resonated with you most and what kinds of conversations you’d like to see next.

This series is meant to feel like an ongoing conversation, not just a one-way broadcast.

Before I Go

It feels good to bring this back in a way that finally feels true to what I’ve been building across everything else.

The books.
The poetry.
The horror.
The newsletters.
The voice behind all of it.

This new episode feels like another hallway opening in the maze.

Thank you for walking it with me.

More soon.

If you’ve been following along in the last week or so, you know I’ve been sitting on a specific secret since Saturday the 28th (the actual poem I won with). I’ve written about the trophy and the lights in Roanoke, but I haven’t actually shown you the work that survived the competition itself.

Winning the 2026 VCCS Poet Laureate title was surreal, but the poem itself came from a very grounded, very quiet place. This year’s theme was “I Dream,” and for a writer obsessed with cosmic horror and the “hairline cracks in reality,” a dream isn’t just a wish. It’s a haunting. It’s a memory that refuses to behave.

This poem, “The Frequency That Looks Back“, is the result of that haunting.

I had to wait until after the competition itself before I was able to share this with you all. But now I am able to do that, and I hope it is something you all will enjoy.

The Frequency That Looks Back

I dream the way a radio dreams—
not of songs, but of the space between stations.
That thin, patient hush where the world forgets to explain itself,
and the air becomes a mouth held open.

In the dream, the ceiling is not a ceiling.
It is a lid placed gently over a vastness that keeps breathing anyway.
The paint has hairline seams like river maps,
and if I stare long enough, the seams begin to stare back—
not with eyes, but with attention.
The kind that makes your name feel briefly mispronounced.

I dream of a black star that does not shine,
but listens.
It is the color of a thought you can’t finish,
the weight of a sentence you swallow before it turns you inside out.
Around it, constellations rearrange like polite furniture
being moved for a guest who never announces themselves.

In the dream, I am standing at the edge of water—
Tidewater-dark, glassy, ordinary from a distance—
and the moon is doing what it always does:
holding the ocean’s hand without touching it.
But the waves arrive wrong.
Not violent. Not loud.
Just… incorrect, like a clock with one extra hour.

I dream that every doorway is a suggestion,
and every mirror is an opinion.
My reflection keeps its posture, keeps its calm,
but its pupils widen as if the room behind me grows deeper
than my life has any right to contain.

I dream of a library where the books are closed
and still turning pages.
I press my ear to a spine and hear—softly—
the sound of language learning to become an ocean.
Not words. Not meanings.
A slow, patient pressure
teaching paper how to remember being tree,
teaching ink how to remember being night.

I dream of a chorus that hums without music.
It rises from streetlights, from HVAC vents,
from the gentle red blink of distant towers.
A hymn made of utility and voltage,
and every note is a question asked so quietly
it slips past my defenses and sits down in my chest.

I dream my own breath is borrowed.
Not stolen—nothing so dramatic.
Just loaned from a larger atmosphere
that expects it back eventually, with interest.
When I inhale, I taste the far-away:
cold starlight, salt, the metallic sweetness of rain on concrete,
the faintest hint of something older than weather
waiting in the margins.

And here is the strangest part:
the dream is gentle with me.
It does not threaten.
It does not chase.
It simply reveals—
like a curtain drawn an inch to prove there is, in fact, a stage.

I wake with my hands empty,
but my fingers remember holding a shape
that does not exist in daylight.
I make coffee. I check my phone.
I do the small human rituals
that keep the universe from noticing me too closely.

Yet all day, beneath conversation and errands,
beneath laughter, beneath the normal gravity of names,
I feel it—
a vast attention moving through ordinary things
the way wind moves through tall grass:
not to harm,
but to confirm.

I dream, and the dream dreams back.
Not of me—
I am too small for that.
But through me, briefly,
it practices being near.

And I—
I practice being awake
without insisting the sky is finished,
without insisting the dark is empty,
without insisting that what watches can only watch with malice.

Because sometimes the cosmos is not cruel.
Sometimes it is simply immense,
and curious,
and quiet enough
to fit inside a human sleep.

I dream—
and somewhere beyond the thin, painted ceiling of the world,
something nods, almost kindly,
as if to say:

Yes.
That’s the frequency.

The “Why”

I wrote this because I wanted to capture in a truly cosmic, ethereal, and unknowable way the concept of dreaming all the while maintaining that sense of human understanding.

To my subscribers who have been here since the early drafts of The Loom and the Maw: this win belongs to you, too. You’ve tolerated all my spam posts earlier on in this substack, my short stories, my notes, my promotion and marketing of my first book, and for that I thank you.

What’s Next?
This poem will eventually be the cornerstone of an upcoming collection that I will start working on alongside the other two books I am currently writing.

Until then, keep wandering the maze with me.

— Connor

2026 VCCS Poet Laureate Trophy and medal

Hello again everyone,

This past weekend left me feeling exhausted, rewarded, and determined for what the future has in store.

It truly is a very good feeling.

I spent the weekend at the Virginia Community College System Poet Laureate competition, surrounded by poets, artists, educators, and the kind of creative energy that reminded me why words matter in the first place. It was one of those experiences that manages to be both deeply affirming and deeply humbling at the same time.

There’s was something so surreal about stepping into a room full of people who all love language enough to shape themselves around it. Every voice there carried something different whether that be grief, memory, longing, resistance, or hope and hearing how many different ways people can bend poetry toward those truths was honestly one of the most energizing experiences I’ve had in a long time.

The state competition itself brought together students from across Virginia’s community colleges, all building on this year’s theme, “I Dream.” Seeing that much talent gathered in one place was a reminder to me that poetry is alive in so many different corners of the world, often quietly, often without fanfare, but always with force.

Connor Mancuso performing “The Frequency That Looks back” VCCS Poet Laureate contest 2026

What the Weekend Meant to Me

More than anything, the weekend reminded me how important it is to stay connected to the part of writing that begins in vulnerability.

Whether that be publishing, deadlines, revisions, submissions, events it doesn’t matter. All of that can make writing start to feel logistical if you’re not careful. Is it necessary, yes, but logistical none the less.

Poetry has a way of stripping all of that back.

It reminds me that before writing becomes the final product, before it becomes published piece, even before it becomes something tangible enough to hold in your hands at a signing table, it begins as risk. It begins as an attempt to say the thing as honestly as possible.

Being in that environment re-centered something in me.

It made me come home wanting to write sharper, stranger, and more truthfully, and wanting to write even more.

And honestly, I think that’s already showing up in the work.

Novella Progress (Without Giving Too Much Away)

My upcoming body/cosmic horror novella is moving.

Still slowly. Still carefully. But definitely moving.

I don’t want to spoil anything yet, especially because so much of this project depends on atmosphere, dread, and the slow realization of what’s wrong before the full shape of it comes into focus. But I can say that the emotional core is getting sharper.

The thing I’ve been most focused on lately is making sure the horror doesn’t just live in the imagery, but in the inevitability of what’s unfolding.

I want everyone who ends up reading it to feel the shape of the trap before they can name it.

A lot of my recent work that I have been toiling away at has been about tension: what to reveal, what to withhold, how to let the body of the story transform in a way that feels both intimate and impossible to stop. The deeper I get into it, the more I’m realizing this may be one of the most psychologically invasive things I’ve written.

Which, if you know me, and you know my writing that is saying something.

The body horror is still there. The cosmic wrongness is still there. But what’s really exciting me right now is how much the emotional architecture underneath it has strengthened over the past couple weeks.

It feels alive.

Horror mood-board

What’s Coming Up: Book Signings & Events

This next stretch of months is going to be a busy one in the best possible way, because I have several upcoming signings and literary events on the calendar that I’m genuinely excited about.

If you’re local (or nearby), I’d love to see you at one of these.

Upcoming Appearances

• April 11 — South County Library, Roanoke

• April 25 — Oozlefinch Beers & Blending

• May 3 — The Fallen Acorn Bookshop

• July 18 — Rolling Ladders Book Signing Event, Richmond

• September 18–19 — Margins and Moonlight Book Fair & Literary Ball, Richmond

There’s something really special about getting to meet readers face-to-face after spending so much time alone with the work. Writing is such an isolated act for most of its life, so these events always feel like the moment the work finally gets to breathe in public.

I’ll be sharing reminders, times, and probably a few behind-the-scenes photos as each one gets closer.

Where My Head Is At Lately

Right now I feel like I’m in one of those rare stretches where every part of my creative life is feeding every other part.

The poetry world sharpened my sense of language.

The novella is feeding the darker corners of my imagination.

The upcoming signings are reminding me that stories eventually leave the desk and enter other people’s lives and are no longer my own.

It all feels connected right now in a way that’s hard to explain but deeply motivating and keeps me moving forward and keeps the ink flowing.

There’s movement happening on every front — some visible, some still in the dark.

And honestly, I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Before I Go

This season of life feels full in a way I’m grateful for.

Is it a little exhausting, yes. A little chaotic, definitely. But it is the kind of chaos that reminds me I’m exactly where I need to be: writing, revising, showing up, reading my work aloud, meeting readers, and continuing to build the strange things that first made me fall in love with storytelling.

Thank you for being here for all of it.

More soon — and hopefully with even more progress from the novella lurking just beneath the surface.

— Connor

Performing “The Frequency That Looks Back” during the 2026 VCCS I Dream Poet Laureate competition in Roanoke.

There are moments in a writer’s life that feel almost impossible to narrate while they are still warm.

This weekend in Roanoke, one of those moments became real.

I was honored to compete in the 2026 VCCS I Dream Poet Laureate competition, representing VPCC after winning at the college level earlier this year. What began as a campus honor became something much larger: it was a chance to stand on a statewide stage, share my work, speak about why poetry matters, and advocate for the kind of literary community I believe students and everyone as a whole deserve.

And somehow, beautifully, and seemingly impossibly—

I won.

I am officially the 2026 VCCS I Dream Poet Laureate.

Even typing that now still feels surreal.

The trip to Roanoke was about much more than the final announcement. On Friday, I sat before the judges and spoke about my awareness project, Atmosphere Lab: Free-Form Narrative Poetry, a workshop-centered initiative built around making poetry more accessible, exploratory, and alive for students who may not yet realize poetry already belongs to them.

I spoke about poetry not as something distant or elite, but as a practical art of voice, reflection, and human connection. A way for everyone to expressed there emotions, to build empathy, and to connect with others in a way they never thought possible/

That conversation alone was deeply meaningful.

Then came Saturday.

Standing on stage, reading “The Frequency That Looks Back,” I felt something rare settle over the room—that strange and electric stillness that happens when a poem fully arrives where it is supposed to land.

It was one of those performances where the world narrows to breath, line, silence, and the next word.

The kind of moment every poet hopes for.

When they announced my name as the winner, I genuinely needed a second for reality to catch up. My breath was truly taken away.

Not because I didn’t believe in the poem.

Not because I didn’t prepare.

But because there is still something astonishing about hearing your work called forward in a room full of brilliant artists and realizing that your voice resonated.

That your strange little frequencies reached someone.

That the dream looked back.

Winning this title means more to me than a trophy, though I am absolutely cherishing that too.

It feels like confirmation that the kind of poetry I care most about—atmosphere-heavy, psychologically strange, emotionally resonant work that trusts image and unease—can truly connect with people.

It also strengthens my commitment to the work ahead.

As Poet Laureate, I now get to continue advocating for student creativity, community writing spaces, and the idea that poetry should be welcoming without ever becoming shallow.

That matters to me deeply.

Officially the 2026 VCCS Poet Laureate.

I also had the chance to meet and connect with the 2024 former Poet Laureate, the Art Luminary winner, and the full panel of judges and organizers who made this event possible.

Those moments of conversation, encouragement, and artistic camaraderie are honestly just as meaningful as the award itself. It reminded me that literary communities are built not only through solitary writing, but through shared belief in the arts and the people willing to keep them alive.

Connor and the former 2024 poet laureate

Chancellor of VCCS, Visual art Luminary, Poet laurate, portion of judging panel left to right

Chancellor of VCCS, winners, and judging panel

One of my favorite things about this weekend was realizing how many different forms creativity took in the room. Poetry, visual art, conversation, mentorship, performance—it all felt connected by the same underlying impulse: to make meaning, to make beauty, to make something that outlives the moment it was born.

That’s what I want to keep building.

This win is not an ending. If anything, it feels like an opening.

I’m already thinking about what this title means for my larger body of work, for the upcoming novella, for The Loom and the Maw, and for the literary spaces I want to keep creating both on and off campus.

More workshops.
More poems.
More strange frequencies.
More worlds.

And yes, probably a few sleepless nights chasing the next line.

To everyone who has read my work, encouraged my experiments, supported the Substack, or simply believed in the strange places my writing likes to go—thank you.

This one belongs to all of us.

The dream did, in fact, dream back.

Hi,

So I know it has been quite a while since my last “post”

A lot has been happening behind the scenes lately for me — some exciting, some stressful, some just being the usual chaos that comes with trying to balance life, writing, working, and college all full time without losing my mind in the process (but that may have already happened who knows truly). So this newsletter is going to be my way of checking in every couple of weeks and giving a real update on what I’ve been working on, what’s been inspiring me, what’s coming next, and whatever else is currently taking up too much space in my brain.

So, without further adieu here’s where I’m at lately.

Life Lately

Right now, life feels like a strange mix of waiting and building.

On one side, I’m still waiting to hear back from publishers about The Loom and the Maw, which has honestly been its own special kind of torture. I am trying to be confident but keep my expectations low and reasonable. While I have one self Published book already. This is my first attempt at the traditional publishing sphere. There’s not really a clean or glamorous way to describe this stage. I spent all that time building something, shaping it, living inside it, and then one day it leaves my hands and all I can really do is wait and try not to spiral every time your inbox refreshes.

It’s exciting, obviously. But it’s also unbelievably nerve-wracking in that very specific way that only writing seems capable of being.

At the same time, I’ve been throwing myself into new work, which is probably the only thing keeping me sane.

What I’m Working On

Lately I’ve been focused on two major projects, both very different from each other in process and energy, but both taking up a lot of room in my head.

The first is my next novel, which is still in the outlining and early development stage. I’ve been doing research, building atmosphere, figuring out the bones of the story, doing the appropriate research, and trying to make sure the foundation is as solid as possible before I get too deep into drafting. It’s still in that half-seen stage right now, where the shape of it exists but not every room in the house has lights on yet.

The second is a body/cosmic horror novella, and this one feels a lot meaner. A lot more intimate in the worst ways. It’s the kind of project that started with an image and a feeling and has been growing from there like something damp left in the dark too long. I’ve been spending a lot of time with themes of physical corruption, helplessness, mutation, dread, and that very specific kind of horror where the body stops feeling like something you own.

Which, naturally, means I’ve been having a great time.

This one is a lot further along than my novel as for why that is. . . Well I honestly have no idea. It might just be simply due to the fact I have been addicted to the story I am telling in my upcoming novella.

Enjoy this poorly made mood board for the novella. . .

What My Writing Process Looks Like Right Now

My process lately has been less “sit down and write in a clean, linear way like a normal person” and more “collect fragments until they start talking to each other.” Especially after I stopped pantsing and started drafting and planing.

A lot of the time, I find tone before plot. I need texture first. I want to know how the air feels in the story. I want to know what kind of silence it has. And I need to understand the emotional weather before I can fully understand the structure.

So lately my writing life has looked a lot like this:

messy outlines, scattered notes, research tabs open at ungodly hours, random lines typed into my phone before I forget them, and trying to follow whatever strange instinct first made me interested in the project. (all in the name of learning planning and switching from pantsing to planing lol)

It is not always pretty, but it is usually where the good stuff for me starts starts.

Lately my process has been:
Drafting
Researching
Re-outlining
Deleting and rewriting
Collecting weird little details
Thinking too hard in the shower (as someone who takes an 1+ hour shower this hits hard for me xD)

What’s Been Inspiring Me

A lot of what’s been feeding my brain recently has been horror that leans into body horror, graphic violence, and slow-building dread. The things the haunt us and give us fear without us ever really knowing or realizing that it is ever happening. The slow loss of self. Not horror that exists just to shock, but horror that feels invasive. Horror that gets under the skin and stays there. The kind that leaves residue.

I’ve been especially interested in stories that use horror as a way to dig into deeper human things — grief, obsession, shame, transformation, decay, loneliness. The older I get as a writer, the less interested I am in monsters that are only monsters for the sake of shock, and the more interested I am in what makes something become monstrous in the first place.

That’s been shaping a lot of what I’m reading, what I’m thinking about, and what I’m trying to write toward.

Here are just a few of the things I have been reading lately.

Other Writing Things

Outside of my own work, I’ve also still been doing my curator work with FicStack, which has been a great way to stay engaged with other writers and other corners of horror while I’m buried in my own projects.

Reading other people’s work while I’m drafting always helps me recalibrate. It reminds me how wide the genre really is and how many different ways there are to unsettle a reader. It also just keeps me excited about the work as a whole, not just my own little corner of it.

And honestly, that matters.

What’s Coming Up

For now, the main plan is pretty simple: keep writing, keep building, keep pushing forward.

That means continuing work on both projects, continuing to survive the waiting game with The Loom and the Maw, and continuing to gather the pieces of whatever comes next. I’ll also use these newsletters to keep you updated on any events, appearances, publication news, releases, or general writing-related chaos as that stuff develops.

So if you’re into behind-the-scenes writing process talk, works-in-progress, reading updates, horror rambling, and occasional life updates from someone who probably spends too much time thinking about rot and the sublime, that’s what these bi-weekly posts are here for.

Here are my upcoming events

What to look forward to:

• more progress on the new novel

• more novella drafting

• reading updates

• publishing news whenever I have it

• whatever else drags itself into the light

Before I Go

Anyway, that’s where I’m at right now.

A lot of waiting. A lot of writing. A lot of trying to turn strange instincts and ugly little fragments into something worth reading.

Thanks for being here and following along. Seriously. It means a lot to have people interested in the work while it’s still being built, while it’s still uncertain, while it’s still alive in that messy in-between stage.

More soon.

— Connor

I’ve been quiet on here for a bit, but not gone.

Mostly, I’ve been buried in the kind of work that doesn’t always show well from the outside—the long, strange, obsessive kind. The kind where you look up and realize days have passed, your notes are multiplying, your drafts are getting meaner in the best way, and your brain has been living somewhere halfway between this world and one you’re trying to drag onto the page.

A lot of that quiet has come from writing and the sheer love I have for it. I would also be lying if I said I haven’t read close to seven book in the last two months or so and man were they good! But that’s besides the point.

Right now, I’m deep in work on my next novel, and I’ve also been shaping and writing a novella alongside it. They’re very different beasts, but both feel sharp in their own way. One is rooted in the woods, in consequence, in the things that warp slowly until they no longer resemble what they once were. The other is more intimate and immediate—tighter, meaner, more claustrophobic. Teeth-clenched kind of horror. I’m being careful not to say too much yet because I do not want to spoil either project before they’re ready, but I will say this: I’m excited about both of them, and they each feel like they’re pushing me in good ways as a writer.

That’s really what I’ve been up to most: writing, outlining, redrafting, researching, and trying to make each project feel as alive and unsettling as it deserves to be. Oh and like I said before reading. . . A METRIC TON OF READING LOL.

At the same time, I’m also in that strange in-between place with The Loom and the Maw—waiting to hear back from publishers and sitting with all the uncertainty that comes with that. Accepted, rejected, delayed, whatever comes, it’s still a weird space to live in. You spend so long making something, revising it, living inside it, sending it off with all the hope you can manage, and then suddenly the hardest part becomes the waiting. There’s no dramatic wisdom I can offer about that yet. It just is what it is: hopeful, nerve-racking, exciting, and a little brutal.

Still, I’m trying not to let the waiting make me stagnant.

If anything, it’s pushed me harder back into the work itself. Back into drafting. Back into building the next thing. Back into reminding myself that whatever happens with one book, the answer is still to keep writing the next page.

So that’s the update. And my apology for being absent from you all for the last couple weeks. There is also life things that have kept me busy; work, school (midterms are right around the corner and that has been. . .a chore and a half.)

I’m still here. I’m still working. I’m still making dark things.

And when I can share more—without ruining the fun—I will.

If you’ve been here while I’ve been quieter than usual, thank you. Truly.

—Connor

PART 3 — THE PRISON REMEMBERS ITS PURPOSE

X. THE BLACK THREAD IS NOT THREAD

Varrus did not stop thinking about the way the severed black line moved.

It had not behaved like fiber.

It had behaved like muscle.

Like tendon.

Like something that once belonged inside a living thing
and had been taught a new job.

They made camp in the shell of a chapel
whose roof had long ago caved in,
leaving the shattered moon to stare straight down
at whatever prayers remained.

The Thread Bearers did not build fires.
Fire made shadows.
Shadows made shapes.
Shapes were invitations.

Instead they sat in a tight circle
and let their pale mantles serve as the only boundary
between them and the epoch.

Varrus took the strip of world-fabric
he’d recovered from the Loom’s catacombs—
the stolen piece of tapestry—
and held it near the air.

The Loom-thread around his wrist
tugged faintly,
as if home were restless.

He looked at the strip’s frayed edge.

Chewed.

Worried open.

Then he looked at his own tools.

Not needles.

Not blades.

Language.

The stitch-signs the Loom had taught his Order
to bind rupture,
to seal blasphemy,
to keep reality from unbuttoning itself.

In D’veen, those signs worked—
but they worked like forcing a foreign lock
with a familiar key.

It held.

But it scraped.

And scraping left marks.

Marks became memory.

Memory became doors.

Varrus set the tapestry strip down.

He reached for something else.

A small glass vial—
emptied now—
that had once held holy light-thread.

He used it for a different purpose.

He had ordered Jessa to collect a single strand
of the cultists’ black line
after they severed the anchor.

Not to touch it.

Not to breathe on it.

To trap it in glass
the way you trap a wasp
before it learns your house.

Jessa placed the vial in his palm
without meeting his eyes.

Even she—scarred, old, resolute—
looked uneasy near it.

“It moved,” she said quietly.
“In the glass.”

Varrus nodded.

He held the vial up to moonlight.

Inside, coiled like a sleeping parasite,
the black strand rested.

It was not perfectly black.

It had subtle undertones—
a bruised purple,
a deep green,
like oil on water,
like decay trying to masquerade as elegance.

Varrus listened.

Not with ears.

With the Loom’s taught attention.

The strand had a hum—faint—
and within that hum
a texture like whispering.

Not words.

A throat practicing.

Varrus’ stomach tightened.

He had felt that before—
in relic chambers,
in places where Azhal’Ruun’s cult had bled into stone.

He held the vial closer.

The strand twitched.

It pressed itself against the inner glass wall
as if feeling for warmth.

As if sensing the pulse in his fingers.

Then—slowly—
it began to crawl.

Not by moving along glass.

By moving through meaning.

It traced a spiral against the inside of the vial
that looked almost like a Thread Bearer sign
until you realized
the spiral was turning the wrong way.

Inward.

Always inward.

Always toward bite.

Jessa’s voice trembled.

“What is it made of?”

Varrus didn’t answer immediately.

Because the answer arrived like nausea.

Not reasoned.

Recognized.

He lowered the vial.

He stared at the strand
as if staring would force it to confess.

“It’s not made,” he said at last.

“It’s harvested.”

Silence tightened around them.

One of the younger Bearers swallowed.

“From what?” he asked.

Varrus looked up at the shattered moon.

“At the fracture-lines in the sky.

He thought of the corpse they’d found earlier
with filament webbed through its eyes.

He thought of the empty doors in the abandoned village.

He thought of how D’veen’s grief sat in the air
like a second atmosphere.

He exhaled.

“From endings,” he said.

The younger Bearer blinked.

“That’s not—”

“It’s made of what’s left behind
when a soul is forced to accept its own ruin,” Varrus continued.
“It’s made of resignation.
Of the moment a person stops fighting.”

He looked at the vial again.

“This is despair spun into line,” he said.
“A thread woven from surrender.”

Jessa’s jaw tightened.

“And they’re using it to tie the tear open,” she whispered.

“Yes,” Varrus said.

He set the vial down carefully.

Then he spoke the thought
that made his own blood feel cold:

“D’veen is already full of surrender,” he said.
“That’s why they came here.”

He looked at his Order.

“Azhal’Ruun’s cult doesn’t just want a new realm,” he said.
“They want a realm already halfway to kneeling.”

Outside the chapel shell,
wind moaned through broken stone.

It sounded, for a moment,
like something laughing very far away.

Varrus rose.

He did not allow rest.

Rest was how you missed the next stitch snapping.

“We move before they finish the address,” he said.
“If the prison becomes familiar with his name—
if it begins to repeat it—
then closing the door won’t matter.”

Jessa stood.

“Where?” she asked.

Varrus looked toward the ravine’s direction.

“Kazra’s Deep,” he said.

“And we pray,” he added softly,
“that we are not too late
to keep hunger from learning the taste of Titan-bone.”

XI. THE RUNNER IN THE CELLAR SPEAKS IN A CHORUS

Finton did not like cellars.

Not because they were dark.

Because they were honest.

A cellar was where a building kept its rot
so the upstairs could pretend.

The Pawn woman—Ressa, he remembered her name now—
unlatched the reinforced door
with a hand that did not tremble.

Bravery was common in the Annihilation Epoch.

It was the only currency left
people didn’t hoard.

The runner sat in the corner
chained to a wall bracket.

He looked young.
Too young.

His eyes were open
and they were wrong.

Not empty.

Too full.

As if something had poured itself in
and hadn’t found the edges yet.

He rocked slightly.

Not from fear.

From rhythm.

The same phrase rolled out of his mouth
in a cadence that didn’t belong to him:

“Hold the thread. Hold the thread. Hold the thread.”

Finton crouched at a safe distance.

He spoke gently,
like speaking to a wounded animal.

“What did you see?” he asked.

The runner’s lips stretched.

Not a smile.

A mimicry of one.

“A seam,” the runner said.

Finton’s throat tightened.

“Where?” he asked.

The runner’s head tilted.

His voice changed.

It layered.

Two. Three. Many.

“DOWN,” it said.

Finton felt Ressa stiffen behind him.

Finton didn’t move.

He had lived long enough to know
that panic was a donation.

“What else?” Finton asked.

The runner’s eyes rolled slightly upward
as if trying to look at something behind Finton.

“THREAD-BRIGHT MEN,” the chorus said.

Finton went still.

Thread-bright men.

That was not D’veen speech.

That sounded like an outsider trying to describe something
it hadn’t fully understood yet.

“Did they hurt you?” Finton asked quietly.

The runner’s mouth opened wider than it should.

For a moment Finton thought the jaw would crack.

Then the voice came out soft—almost tender:

“THEY TRIED TO CLOSE THE MOUTH.”

Finton exhaled through his nose.

“Good,” he muttered.

Ressa whispered, “Finton—”

He raised one hand
without looking at her.

“Where is the mouth?” he asked the runner.

The runner’s head jerked
as if pulled by a string.

“KAZRA,” the chorus said.

Finton’s stomach sank.

Of course.

He stared at the runner’s face.

At the too-full eyes.

At the way the voice did not sound like an infection—
it sounded like a broadcast.

Something was using the runner’s throat
to speak into the world.

And it had already learned enough language
to say Kazra.

Finton leaned in just slightly.

“Who’s speaking through you?” he asked.

The runner’s lips peeled back.

Then—quietly—
a different phrase slipped out,
not shouted,
not layered—

human.

A small voice under the chorus.

“Please,” it whispered.

Finton’s jaw clenched.

There was still a person in there.

Still a soul pushing against the mouth
trying to reclaim its tongue.

Finton stood.

He looked at Ressa.

“Get the Pawns moving,” he said.
“All of them.
Anyone who still has both eyes and their name.”

Ressa swallowed.

“That many?” she asked.

Finton nodded once.

“Yes,” he said.

Then he looked back at the runner.

He spoke softly,
like a promise and a threat both.

“We’re going to Kazra,” he said.
“And we’re taking the door away from whatever is using you.”

The runner’s head tilted again.

The chorus hissed, amused.

“YOU CAN’T TAKE A DOOR
FROM HUNGER.”

Finton’s eyes hardened.

“No,” he agreed.
“But I can take away the hinges.”

He turned and left the cellar.

Above, the tavern murmured with fear.

Finton walked through it like a blade.

He began issuing orders—quiet, precise.

Food. Water. Rope. Lanterns.

Not weapons.

Weapons were for things you could kill.

Finton needed tools for things you could only contain.

As the Pawns gathered,
Finton felt the air outside change.

A faint sideways hum.

He paused in the doorway.

The shattered moon hung above Avondale’s trees.

And for a moment,
one of its fracture-lines
looked like a grin.

Finton’s skin crawled.

He whispered to himself:

“Whatever you are—
you’re not from here.”

The hum did not answer in words.

It answered with a feeling:

And yet, I am learning.

Finton stepped out.

He marched toward Kazra’s Deep.

XII. THE TWO HUNGERS BEGIN TO NEGOTIATE

Kazra’s Deep did not look the same
when approached with an army of Pawns
as it did when approached with an Order of Thread Bearers.

It looked like a choice
someone had regretted for centuries.

The ravine cut the earth cleanly.

The air above it wavered
like heat above a fire—
except there was no fire.

Only pressure.

Only breath.

Varrus arrived first.

He could feel it in his bones:

the anchor pattern was gone—mostly.

Severed.

But in its place
a new arrangement had begun to form.

Not as precise.

Not as clean.

Improvised.

Like cultists working faster now,
more desperate,
because something beneath the ravine
had acknowledged their presence.

Varrus’ Loom-thread tugged hard.

A warning like a hand around his wrist.

He stepped to the ravine’s lip.

He did not look down.

He refused the invitation.

Instead he looked at the ground around the edge.

Black thread had been rewoven
into a looser web—
less ritual, more net.

The tallow candles were fewer,
but the air tasted thicker.

The smoke clung to the ravine
like a parasite refusing to be shaken.

Jessa knelt and pointed.

“Here,” she said.

A smear of something on the rock—
fresh—
and shaped like a palm print.

Not human.

Too many finger marks.

Too long.

Too… eager.

Varrus’ stomach tightened.

The cultists weren’t the only ones touching the edges anymore.

The prison was reaching up.

A deep sound rose from below.

Not speech.

A low grinding,
like a mountain shifting in sleep.

Varrus felt the Loom’s hum in his chest
tighten again.

He realized something with awful clarity:

If the Slumbering Terror woke fully
while Azhal’Ruun’s cult was feeding it his name—

then the result wouldn’t be two apocalypses.

It would be one.

A merger.

A negotiation between hungers
that would make D’veen
not just die—

but convert.

Convert into something else.

A realm whose laws
served malice
the way lungs serve air.

Varrus lifted his hands.

He began to draw a binding-sign—
a tight stitch meant for ruptures.

But before he could complete it,
the air above the ravine twitched.

Like a lid flicking.

A seam appeared.

Not open fully.

But visible—

a thin, shimmering line
hovering just above the ravine’s mouth.

A tear in the air.

A new doorway being forced into existence
using D’veen’s own wound as leverage.

The Thread Bearers gasped softly.

Varrus’ fingers froze.

Because he recognized the feel of that seam:

It was the same kind of tear
Azhal’Ruun’s cult had used to cross.

Only this one was being pulled from below.

The Slumbering Terror was learning
how to make its own exits.

And then—

movement.

Not from the ravine.

From the surrounding ruins.

A line of figures approached—
lanterns, cloaks, human silhouettes.

Finton’s Pawns.

Finton at their front.

He walked like a man
who had already accepted
that death might be the kindest outcome.

He saw Varrus and the white-mantled Order
and stopped.

His eyes narrowed.

Not fear.

Recognition.

Because the runner’s chorus
had already planted the image:

thread-bright men.

Varrus turned slowly.

He looked at Finton from a distance.

They did not greet.

They did not exchange names.

Not yet.

Because the ravine breathed again,
and the breath came out warm—

a living exhale.

The hovering seam above the ravine widened
by a fraction.

And from below,
a voice rose.

Not the cult.

Not the Pawns.

Not the Loom.

Something deeper.

A slow, ancient sound
that was almost language.

Almost.

Like a mouth remembering
it used to have words.

Finton’s lantern light shook.

He stared at the hovering seam
and whispered, more to himself than anyone:

“That’s a door.”

Varrus’ voice cut through the air, controlled.

“A mouth,” he corrected.

Finton’s gaze flicked to him.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

Varrus didn’t answer with his name.

Names could be eaten.

He answered with function.

“I’m the one trying to keep your prison
from becoming my god’s throat,” he said.

Finton went still.

“My god?” he echoed.

Varrus’ eyes remained on the seam.

“Not mine,” he said.
“The one chasing us.”

Finton’s jaw tightened.

“Then you’re the outsiders,” he said, accusation and relief braided together.

Varrus finally looked at him fully.

“Not here to harm your realm,” he said.
“Here because harm followed us in.”

Finton’s expression hardened.

“Everything follows everything,” he said.
“That’s the problem.”

The hovering seam widened again.

The air screamed silently.

Both Orders—Pawns and Thread Bearers—
felt it.

A pressure like a tongue pressed against glass
from the other side.

And then—
a whisper in the mind, not the air.

Not one voice.

Many.

A choir of malice.

LET ME IN.

Finton’s face drained.

He gripped his lantern tighter.

Varrus’ Loom-thread jerked hard.

Behind him, one of the Thread Bearers choked
as if something had tried to speak through his throat.

Varrus snapped his hands up
and drew a stitch-sign fast—
a gag for the soul.

The Bearer gasped, reclaimed.

Finton saw it.

His eyes widened.

“What are you?” he asked again, voice rough.

Varrus breathed out.

“A servant,” he said.
“Of a creator you’ve never met.”

Finton’s mouth tightened.

“Titans,” he muttered.

Varrus shook his head once.

“Older,” he said.

The hovering seam pulsed.

A thin line of black ooze seeped from it,
dripping down toward the ravine like saliva.

When the ooze touched the air,
it began to spin into thread.

Black thread.

Despair-thread.

Azhal’Ruun’s harvest.

And the ravine’s breath deepened,
as if delighted by the offering.

Finton stared.

“You’re telling me that thing,” he said, voice trembling with fury,
“is feeding my prison.”

Varrus’ eyes went cold.

“Yes,” he said.

Finton took one step forward.

“So we stop it,” he said.

Varrus nodded.

“Yes,” he replied.

A beat.

Then, finally, Varrus spoke his name—quietly—
as if staking a claim in a world
that wanted to swallow claims whole.

“Varrus Threadborne,” he said.

Finton’s jaw flexed.

“Finton Merrybrook,” he answered.

They did not shake hands.

They did not smile.

They did not become allies.

They became two men standing at the edge of a mouth
deciding what kind of sacrifice
would keep the teeth from closing.

Varrus looked at the hovering seam.

Then at the ravine.

Then back at Finton.

“We end this in stages,” he said.
“First, we cut the cult’s line.
Then we stitch the seam shut.
Then we pray your prison forgets
it ever learned our scent.”

Finton’s eyes flicked to his Pawns.

“They’ll die,” he said.

Varrus’ voice was flat.

“Yes,” he said.
“And if we do nothing,
they’ll die and become thread.”

Finton swallowed.

He nodded once.

A Pawn at his side whispered,
“Orders?”

Finton’s voice didn’t waver.

“Hold the line,” he said,
and the phrase landed different now—
not a chorus infection,
but a human command.

Varrus heard it.

He felt the bitter irony.

Hold the line. Hold the thread.

Language becoming battlefield.

The hovering seam widened again.

And from within it,
something pressed forward—

not fully,
not yet—

a fingertip of negation.

A scout of malice.

The night grew colder.

Not temperature.

Meaning.

As if the universe itself
was stepping back
to watch what the two Orders would do
when faced with a door
that wanted to become a mouth.

Before the story

SEAM-EATER continues.

Part I was the tear—proof in the catacombs, a strip of world-fabric stolen clean out of the Loom’s tapestry, and the first step into a realm that shouldn’t know our names.

Part II is what happens after the crossing: D’veen’s silence starts acting like a presence, not an absence. Varrus and the Thread Bearers follow disturbances in pattern like blood in water. Finton, meanwhile, realizes the “outsider” isn’t just pressing at the veil—it’s already teaching the world how to speak back.

If you’re new here, you can start now. here is part I.

don’t touch the seam.

Part II begins below.

PART 2 — THE ANNIHILATION EPOCH HAS NEW TEETH

V. ASH DOESN’T FALL HERE—IT LISTENS

Varrus learned quickly
that D’veen’s silence was not empty.

It was occupied.

The wind moved wrong,
not in direction—
in intention.

It didn’t pass through the ruined streets
like weather.

It skimmed them
like fingertips over scar tissue,
testing which wounds still flinched.

The Loom-thread around Varrus’ wrist
pulled faintly as his Order advanced,
a constant reminder that home still existed
somewhere behind the seam—

and also that the seam
did not like being reminded.

The Thread Bearers moved in a staggered line,
mantles pale against soot-dark stone,
each one carrying a different tool of the Order:

A needle made from a saint’s rib.

A spool of light-thread sealed in glass.

A blade etched with stitch-signs
that never cut flesh the same way twice.

Varrus carried none of those.

He carried the Loom’s permission in his spine
and the burden of being the one
whose mistakes became doctrine.

They followed signs the way animals follow scent—
not footprints,
not broken branches—

but disturbances in pattern.

A doorframe leaning at an angle
that made the air around it itch.

A patch of road where pebbles arranged themselves
into a spiral when no one watched.

A dead crow—impossible, since there were no birds—
laid out like a symbol.

Each clue felt less like evidence
and more like a lure
left by something that understood curiosity
was just hunger wearing a better coat.

One of the Thread Bearers, Jessa,
paused beside a collapsed market stall.

“Head Thread,” she murmured.

Varrus stopped.

She pointed at the stall’s wood slats.
Scratched into them—fresh—
were shallow grooves.

Not words.

Not exactly.

A series of small, repeating cuts
that resembled a stitch pattern
gone wrong.

Varrus bent close.

His stomach tightened.

This wasn’t Thread Bearer script.

This was someone imitating it
without knowing what it meant.

Like a child drawing a noose
because it likes the shape of circles.

“They’re learning,” Jessa whispered.

Varrus straightened.

“Yes,” he said.

He looked down the street.

Farther ahead, the ruined city opened into a plaza
where a statue lay broken on its side—
some Titan-era hero, maybe,
or some human king who once thought
stone could protect him from history.

The statue’s face had been chiseled away.

Not vandalized.

Removed with deliberate care
as if someone didn’t want the world
to remember who it had once prayed to.

Varrus felt the Loom hum sideways again.

He lifted his hand
and drew a small stitch-sign in the air,
not binding,
not sealing—

listening.

The air responded with a faint shimmer,
like a spiderweb catching light
only when the angle is perfect.

He followed that shimmer.

It led to the base of the toppled statue.

And there—beneath the stone’s shadow—
a thin line in the air
wavered.

A seam.

Not open.
Not yet.

But stressed.

Like fabric
right before it rips.

Varrus crouched.

The seam smelled like tallow
and old spite.

He didn’t touch it.

He did not offer his skin to foreign law.

Instead he pressed two fingers to his wrist
and felt the Loom-thread tug.

The tug wasn’t toward home.

It was toward down.

Toward depth.

Toward a place D’veen had already cut open
and tried very hard to forget.

One of the younger Bearers swallowed.

“I can feel it,” he whispered.
“It’s like… like the air has a pulse.”

Varrus nodded once.

“That’s because it does,” he said.
“This realm is wounded,
and wounds beat.”

He rose.

“Move,” he ordered,
and the Order followed.

As they left the plaza,
Varrus glanced back.

For the briefest moment
the seam beneath the statue
seemed to widen—
not with force—

with interest.

As if something behind reality
had noticed him noticing it.

The Loom-thread around his wrist
tightened like a warning.

VI. FINTON MERRYBROOK LEARNS A NEW KIND OF WRONG

Finton did not sleep after the cottage.

He sat in a chair that wasn’t his
and listened to the painting breathe.

That is what it did.

It breathed—
in and out—
so softly a sane man would call it imagination
and move on.

Finton had outlived sane men.

He placed his listening stone on the table.

It warmed and cooled in pulses,
a heartbeat that didn’t match his own.

The silhouette—
the not-quite-person—
stood near the easel,
its edges wavering.

“It’s getting louder,” she whispered.

Finton watched the canvas.

The violet sky inside it
darkened by fractions,
as if an eclipse was happening
in a place that wasn’t a place.

One of the distant stars blinked again.

Not like a star.

Like a lid.

Finton exhaled.

“I need names,” he said.

The silhouette’s head tilted.

“Names are dangerous,” she replied.

“Everything is dangerous,” Finton said.
“But I need the right kind of dangerous.”

He reached into his satchel
and drew out a folded paper—
a list of taverns, crossroads,
people who still owed him favors.

He hated favors.

They were threads around your throat.

But he hated ignorance more.

“Order of the Pawn,” he muttered.

The words tasted like rusted courage.

He had built the Order
because he had watched too many heroes die
for causes that didn’t deserve them.

Pawns were different.

Pawns didn’t need glory.

They needed direction.

They needed a board
and someone willing to admit
the game was rigged
and play anyway.

Finton stood.

He did not look at the silhouette.

He looked at the painting.

“If something outside D’veen is pressing its face to our veil,” he said,
“then either it’s lost—
or it’s hungry.”

The silhouette’s voice cracked.

“It’s hungry.”

Finton nodded.

“Then we do what we always do,” he whispered.

He rolled his shoulders.

His age creaked in him like old floorboards.

“We find the door,” he said,
“and we decide whether we can afford to slam it.”

He stepped toward the canvas.

The air in front of it prickled.

The listening stone on the table
vibrated hard enough to rattle.

Finton didn’t touch the painting.

He didn’t need to.

He leaned close,
as if listening at a wall.

And he heard it.

Not words.

Not sound.

A pressure in the skull.

A sensation of being looked at
by something that didn’t have eyes
because it didn’t need them.

Finton’s lips parted.

He whispered the first name
that rose from the sensation—

not because it was accurate,
but because it was the closest shape
his mind could hold without breaking.

“Outsider.”

The air shivered, pleased.

Finton stiffened.

The shiver felt like agreement.

That scared him more than hostility.

Because hostility meant boundaries.

Agreement meant entry.

He stepped back.

He grabbed his satchel.

He did not take the listening stone—
he left it on the table,
still pulsing,
still listening—

because he had a sudden, sharp thought:

If it learns to listen back,
then anything that listens becomes a mouth.

He left the cottage quickly.

Outside, the shattered moon
hung above the treeline
like a broken promise.

The wind carried rot.

Finton walked toward the nearest road-marker
where he knew, if the world still behaved,
a runner from his Order would sometimes wait.

Sometimes.

If the runner hadn’t been eaten by the epoch.

If the epoch hadn’t decided
to repurpose him.

He found the marker.

A stone pillar with faded runes.

No runner.

But something else.

A strip of red cloth
tied around the pillar’s middle
like a ribbon on a grave.

Finton’s chest tightened.

He untied it carefully.

The cloth was damp.

Not with rain.

With sweat.

Human sweat.

And inside the knot
was a small object—

a pawn token, carved from bone.

Finton recognized it.

One of his.

A message.

He flipped the token.

On the underside, scratched in hurried strokes:

AVONDALE. ROT STIRS. SOMETHING ELSE TOO.
EYES IN THE SKY THAT AREN’T OURS.
KAZRA’S DEEP BREATHES.

Finton stared at the last line.

Kazra’s Deep breathes.

He swore softly.

Of course it did.

Of course the prison chose now
to remember it was alive.

He folded the cloth and token into his satchel.

Then he set off toward Avondale.

Not because Avondale was safe.

Because it was a place where danger had names,
and named danger was a kind of comfort.

VII. THE CULTISTS MAKE A MAP OUT OF PAIN

The cult leader—Smile-Scar—
stood on a ridge above a dead orchard
and watched D’veen’s horizon tremble.

Behind her, the cultists moved quietly,
hands busy with their black thread spool.

They had learned quickly
that D’veen’s fabric resisted.

Not like the Loom’s tapestry resisted—
the Loom resisted with authority.

D’veen resisted with exhaustion.

Like a man too tired to fight
but still too proud to kneel.

The leader liked that.

Exhaustion was soft.

Soft things tore.

She held up her palm.

The others stopped.

In the distance,
a ravine split the earth
like a fresh cut.

Cold air rose from it in steady breaths.

Kazra’s Deep.

They had heard the name in whispers
from ruined villages,
from madmen at crossroads,
from paintings that cried when you stared too long.

A prison.

A place where Titans had tried
to solve their mistakes
by burying them.

The leader smiled.

Burying mistakes
was how you fed them.

She turned to her youngest cultist—
the one who still looked nervous,
still human enough
to feel the shape of consequences.

“Do you feel it?” she asked.

He swallowed.

“Yes,” he whispered.

“What does it feel like?”

He hesitated.

Then: “Like… like something sleeping
with its mouth open.”

The leader nodded, pleased.

“Good,” she said.

She pulled the black thread spool from her satchel
and unwound a length.

The thread shimmered wetly
in the shattered moonlight,
drinking it.

“This realm is already full of hunger,” she murmured.
“We don’t need to bring our god all at once.”

She looked toward the ravine.

“We just need to teach the hunger
the shape of Azhal’Ruun’s name.”

She wrapped the black thread around her wrist
and cut it with her teeth.

The thread did not snap clean.

It stretched, elastic, alive.

Her cultists watched her, reverent.

Smile-Scar raised her hands.

“Draw the address,” she whispered.

And the cultists began to work.

They drove stakes into the soil
around the ravine’s lip.

They looped black thread between them
in spirals and ribs,
imitating the Loom’s sacred curves
and turning them inside out.

They pressed tallow candles into the earth,
lit them,
and let the smoke rise thick and greasy.

The smoke did not drift away.

It clung to the thread-lines
as if attracted.

As if the thread was teaching the air
where to gather.

As the pattern formed,
the ravine’s breath changed.

It grew warmer.

Not comforting.

Alive.

Smile-Scar closed her eyes.

She listened.

And she heard something stir beneath.

Not the Slumbering Terror itself—
not yet—

but the attention of it.

A slow turning of something vast
toward the new smell in its cage.

She smiled wider.

“Hello,” she whispered into the ravine.

Her voice echoed back wrong.

Not delayed.

Returned altered.

The ravine answered in a layered chorus
made of stone and sleep:

“HELLO.”

The cultists shuddered with awe.

Smile-Scar opened her eyes
and looked up at the shattered moon.

“Soon,” she murmured.

Not to her cult.

To the god behind her thoughts.

“Soon you’ll have a realm
that doesn’t know how to refuse you.”

VIII. VARRUS THREADBORNE FINDS THE FIRST ANCHOR

The ravine’s wind hit Varrus
long before the ravine appeared.

It carried a stink
that made his teeth ache.

Not Rot.

Not exactly.

Rot was D’veen’s disease.

This was an infection with intent.

A flavor of malice
laid over decay like oil over water.

The Thread Bearers approached the ravine cautiously,
their pale mantles catching moon-shards.

At the edge, they stopped.

Because they saw the pattern.

Black thread strung between stakes.

Tallow smoke hanging in place
like a held breath.

Spirals carved into the soil
as if someone had used a knife
to teach the earth
how to remember a wound.

Varrus crouched near one stake.

He did not touch the black thread.

He didn’t need to.

He could feel it tugging
at the air around it.

As if it was sewing the ravine to the sky.

One of his Bearers whispered,
“Blasphemy.”

“Yes,” Varrus said.

He stood.

He looked down into the ravine.

The darkness below was too deep.

Not because light couldn’t reach.

Because the darkness ate it.

Varrus felt something down there
press against the underside of the world
in slow, patient curiosity.

He remembered the cult leader’s warning,
the scraps of doctrine about Azhal’Ruun:

He does not arrive as a person.

He arrives as a condition.

A rule change.

A law that says:

Suffering is not a byproduct.

Suffering is the point.

Varrus looked at the pattern again.

This wasn’t a summoning yet.

It was an anchor.

A place for malice to tie its rope
before it started pulling.

The Loom-thread around Varrus’ wrist
tightened sharply.

A warning.

He realized, in that instant,
what the cultists were doing:

They weren’t trying to rip D’veen open
with brute force.

They were trying to convince D’veen
to rip itself open willingly.

To make the prison participate.

To make the wound confess
it had always wanted to be a mouth.

Varrus raised his hands.

The Thread Bearers behind him formed a circle,
silent, disciplined.

He drew a stitch-sign in the air—
not binding.

Not sealing.

A severing curve.

The Loom answered with a cold, precise hum
that made the black thread lines vibrate.

The tallow smoke trembled.

Then—

it laughed.

A soft crackle, like fat on flame.

Varrus’ skin prickled.

The laugh wasn’t from any throat.

It was from the pattern itself.

As if the anchor
was already learning joy.

One of the Thread Bearers faltered.

“Head Thread—”

Varrus cut him off.

“Hold,” he said.

He stepped into the pattern ring.

The black thread lines tightened,
reacting to his presence.

They wanted to wrap him.

They wanted to measure him.

They wanted to learn how Loom-thread felt
so they could imitate it.

Varrus moved carefully,
keeping his gaze down,
refusing to look into the ravine.

He reached the nearest stake
and placed two fingers an inch from the thread,
letting the Loom’s hum fill his bones.

Then he did something that felt wrong
in a foreign realm:

He commanded reality.

“Unweave,” he whispered.

The Loom’s severing curve flared.

A line of pale light
sliced through the black thread.

The thread snapped—

but not like fiber.

Like tendon.

It recoiled with a wet twitch
and the severed ends
tried to crawl toward each other,
trying to stitch themselves back.

Varrus moved fast.

He drew the severing curve again,
cutting another segment.

The Thread Bearers behind him followed suit,
their hands making the same gesture
with the same cold precision.

Black thread lines snapped one by one.

The pattern trembled.

The tallow smoke bucked.

And then—

from below—

a sound rose.

A deep, slow inhale.

The ravine’s breath.

But altered.

As if something sleeping beneath
had smelled blood.

Varrus froze.

He felt a pressure from below,
a vast attention turning.

Not Azhal’Ruun’s.

Something older to this realm.

Something Titan-bound.

Something that did not appreciate
its prison being redecorated.

The air around the ravine thickened.

Stones at the edge
vibrated faintly.

Jessa whispered, voice shaking,
“What did we wake?”

Varrus’ mouth went dry.

“We didn’t wake it,” he said.

He stared at the severed black thread ends
still trying to crawl.

“We reminded it.”

The ravine exhaled.

And the exhale carried a word
no human throat could shape.

A sound like rock grinding on bone.

The Thread Bearers flinched.

Varrus didn’t.

He felt the Loom-thread around his wrist
pull hard—

not toward home.

Toward away.

As if the Loom itself
was trying to drag him back from the edge
by force.

Varrus swallowed.

If the Loom was warning him—

then whatever was stirring beneath Kazra’s Deep
was not just a local threat.

It was a second god-mouth.

A second hunger.

And the cultists had chosen it
as their altar.

Varrus stepped backward out of the pattern ring.

He raised his hand.

“Fall back,” he ordered.

The Thread Bearers retreated,
slowly,
carefully,
like backing away from a sleeping beast
whose eyelid has begun to twitch.

As they withdrew, Varrus’ gaze flicked once,
against his will,
toward the ravine’s depths.

For a heartbeat
he saw something down there—

not a creature—

a shape of absence
wrapped around a pulse of ancient will.

It wasn’t awake.

Not fully.

But it was aware.

And it was hungry.

Varrus looked away instantly.

Too late.

His mind tingled
as if something had brushed it.

A question forming not in words
but in appetite:

What are you?

Varrus clenched his jaw.

He tightened his grip on his own thoughts.

He would not answer by existing too loudly.

He led his Order away from the ravine.

But he knew—
with a cold certainty—
that the cultists had succeeded in one thing:

They had gotten the prison’s attention.

And attention, in cosmic terms,
was half of a door.

IX. A BOARD BEGINS TO FORM

Finton reached Avondale
at the edge of dawn
when the sky couldn’t decide
what color it deserved.

The forest around Avondale
was thinner than it should have been,
as if the trees had started dying
in self-defense.

He found one of his taverns
still standing.

The sign swung in the wind
like a pendulum measuring doom.

Inside, the air was warm—
a miracle.

People sat in corners,
speaking in low voices
as if volume could attract gods.

When Finton entered,
heads turned.

Not with hope.

With recognition.

Finton Merrybrook meant trouble
in the way thunder means trouble.

A woman approached him,
cloak stained with travel,
eyes sharp enough to cut rope.

A Pawn.

One of his.

“Finton,” she said.

He nodded.

“Tell me what you’ve seen,” he replied.

She didn’t waste time.

“Rot pockets,” she said.
“More than before.
And the moon… it’s been staring.”

Finton’s stomach tightened.

“And Kazra’s Deep?” he asked.

Her expression flickered.

“A runner didn’t come back,” she said.
“One came back wrong.”

Finton’s voice went very quiet.

“Wrong how?”

She swallowed.

“He kept repeating a phrase,” she said.
“Like a prayer.”

Finton’s skin prickled.

“What phrase?”

She hesitated.

Then, reluctantly:

“‘Hold the thread.’”

Finton went still.

That wasn’t D’veen language.

Not any oath he’d written.

Not any prayer his realm had grown.

Hold the thread.

It sounded like a warning
from somewhere else.

From another set of hands.

Finton’s gaze hardened.

“Where is the runner now?” he asked.

“Locked in the cellar,” she said.
“He tried to bite someone.”

Finton nodded once.

“Show me,” he said.

He followed her down into the tavern’s lower rooms
where the air smelled of damp wood and fear.

At the end of the corridor
a heavy door sat reinforced with iron bands.

Behind it, a voice murmured
in a layered cadence
that did not belong to one throat.

“Hold the thread,” it whispered.
“Hold the thread.
Hold the thread—”

Finton’s hand hovered near the latch.

He didn’t open it.

Not yet.

He leaned close.

“What did you see?” he asked through the door.

The voice paused.

Then, softly:

“A seam.”

Finton’s breath caught.

“A seam in what?” he demanded.

The voice on the other side
laughed wetly.

“In everything,” it said.

Finton stepped back.

His mind reached for the painting again,
for the foreign hum,
for the star that blinked like an eye.

He realized then—fully—
that whatever was pressing at D’veen’s veil
was no longer a distant pressure.

It was already sending messages through people.

Already writing phrases into mouths.

Already teaching locals
how to speak its language.

Finton looked at his Pawn.

“We’re moving,” he said.

“To where?” she asked.

Finton’s eyes lifted
toward the direction of Kazra’s Deep.

His jaw set.

“Toward the mouth,” he said.
“Before it learns how to say our names.”

To be continued. . .

I’ve been quiet lately while working on writing projects on the side quiet, in that particular way horror writers get quiet—when something in the room changes temperature, when the air tastes like metal, when you realize the “monster” isn’t metaphor anymore.

There’s been a surge of targeted harassment on Substack—especially toward women writers, artists, creators, etc—violent threats, slurs, and the kind of ugly that crawls into your inbox and tries to make you feel small for existing out loud. A coalition of writers laid it out clearly in this open letter to Substack (published Feb 24, 2026) and it’s hard to read because it’s painfully familiar: report, block, “thanks for reporting,” and then…

lettersfromafeminist

an open letter to the substack team- a platform slowly turning into a sanctuary for online abuse

Dear Substack/ Substack Team…

Read more

6 months ago · 545 likes · 197 comments · lettersfromafeminist, Write sober, edit sober🤎📖, ❤︎ Sara Krane ❤︎, Luciana Cole they/them, emma 🐞⋆˚꩜, Marie Rose🌹, and ⋆˚࿔🅐🅛🅛🅨𝜗𝜚˚⋆✮

Here’s my stance, plainly:

I write dark.
My stories are full of teeth. Full of gods, entities, and creatures that don’t love us back. Full of corridors that go on too long and doors that open the wrong way.

But my work has never been an altar for hate.

Horror is supposed to be a place we process fear, emotions, grief, etc—not a place where cruelty gets a microphone and vulnerable people get told to endure it as the price of community. “Free speech” is not a magic spell you cast to justify harassment. It means saying what’s right and standing up for those that cannot. Safety isn’t censorship—it’s the minimum requirement for any platform that claims it’s building connection.

So if you’re here—a woman, marginalized, or simply tired of being treated like a target—this is me saying clearly: you’re safe with me. You’re wanted here.

And if you’re one of the people who thinks threats, abuse, repression, and fear-mongering are “just jokes,” or “just trolling,” or some edgy performance art?

You picked the wrong house.

What I’m doing on my end

• Zero tolerance. If I see harassment in my comments/notes or sent to people in my orbit, you’re gone. Blocked. Reported. No debate club.

• If you get hit and don’t want to be alone with it, DM me. I can’t fix Substack by myself, but I can make sure you’re not facing it in silence.

• Doing what I can to stand up for those who are facing this vile and evil hate in anyway that I am able to do so.

What you can do right now (practical, not performative)

The open letter recommends a simple, repeatable approach:

• Screenshot. Report. Block.

• And email Substack directly with screenshots and relevant details (they list tos@substackinc.com in the letter, along with a template).

I know that’s exhausting. I know it asks more of the people already being harmed. But collective pressure is one of the only languages platforms reliably hear—especially when it’s documented, repeated, and impossible to ignore.

The horror-writer part of me needs to say this too

Monsters love two things: attention and isolation.

They want you alone in your inbox, thinking you’re the only one, thinking leaving is the only way to breathe again. Sometimes leaving is the right call—for your sanity, for your safety, for your life. If that’s where you’re at, you have my full support. No shame. No guilt.

But if you stay?

Then we stay together. And we make it expensive to be cruel here. We deny the spectacle. We close the doors. We lock the windows. We keep each other’s names warm in our mouths.

Because yes—evil can win a battle. It can bruise. It can spit. It can scream.

But good wins the war the same way it always has:
by refusing to disappear.
by choosing community anyway.
by protecting the people the darkness tries to swallow first.

My page will remain what it has always been: a place for stories that stare into the abyss—without becoming it.

If you’re going through it right now: I see you. I believe you. And you’re not alone.

Yesterday — February 22, 2026 — marked six months of me showing up here on Substack.

Six months of tapping on the glass.
Six months of leaving little flare-signals in the fog.
Six months of finding out there are real people on the other side of the screen who actually read this stuff (and sometimes even reply, which still feels slightly wrong to me).

If you’ve been here from the beginning, thank you for taking a chance on a voice you didn’t know yet.
If you got here last week, last month etc. . . welcome — the door sticks a little, but it does open I promise.

What these six months have been

A blur in the best way.

• Fragments from the Void (my Tuesday writing ritual): short pieces, sharp edges, the kind of microfiction that leaves ash in your mouth.

• When the Black Star Sang: Tales from the Void becoming real — not just a file, not just a draft, but an actual book in the world (and then a book signing, which is still one of the strangest, coolest experiences of my life).

• Winning the VPCC I Dream 2026 Poetry Laureate contest and representing at the state level — which honestly still doesn’t sound like a sentence that belongs to me, but it does.

• And in the background of all of it: The Loom and the Maw — still alive, still hungry, still getting stitched tighter with every revision.

I came to Substack because I wanted a place where my writing, my horror, and my internal thoughts could breathe.

A place where I can write horror the way I mean it: lyrical, unsettling, character-first, with beauty you can’t fully trust.

And somehow… it worked.

What I’ve learned (the honest version)

I used to think consistency meant “post on schedule, don’t miss, don’t falter.”

Now I think consistency is something else.

Consistency is returning to the page even when you don’t feel brilliant.
Consistency is letting my work be imperfect while it’s becoming and forming into its final form.
Consistency is writing anyway — especially anyway, as I have said in the past. NEVER STOP WRITING.

And the best part?

Doing it with people around.

Not an audience. Not “followers.”
Readers. Fellow travelers. People who also like staring into the dark long enough for it to stare back.

Thank you (for real)

Thank you for reading.
Thank you for restacking and sharing and commenting and sending messages that make me feel less like I’m broadcasting into space.

Thank you for meeting me in the strange place between places — the threshold where stories get their teeth.

If you’ve ever:

• left a comment that made me laugh out loud,

• sent a note that landed on a hard day like a hand on my shoulder,

• or told someone else, “hey, you should read this,”
  just know you helped keep this alive.

What’s next

More Fragments from the Void.
More poetry. More essays from inside the process.
More updates as The Loom and the Maw continues to tighten its grip.

And yes — more moments where I try something weird on purpose and see if it survives the light. I am looking at you everyone who does cozy prompts in challenges I am apart of.

If you’ve been meaning to do any of the supportive-things, this is the easiest possible moment:

• Restack a post you liked so it finds new eyes.

• Comment with the piece that stuck with you most so far (I genuinely want to know).

• Or if you’re new: start wherever you want. The void doesn’t care about order.

Either way, I’m grateful you’re here.

Six months down.

Let’s keep pulling on the thread.

— Connor

Flash Fiction February rolls on over at The Writer’s Journey, hosted by Bradley Ramsey, and I’m back with Day 22’s prompt: is Sci-FI and yes this story is a day late due to equal part partial burn out, and a crazy busy day yesterday. But better late than never!

Every Like, Comment, and Restack gives me points for my submissions to climb the leaderboard against all the other talented authors in this month long challenge. So whether you want to see me win, enjoy my writing, etc. . . please help me out by giving it a like, comment, restack or all of the above if you feel inclined.

Cell Status: SEALED

It happened faster than we could ever hope to comprehend.

They didn’t knock.

They didn’t announce themselves with ships over cities
or trumpets in the clouds
or a new sun rising where it shouldn’t.

They just… interrupted.

Every screen at once.
Every speaker.
Every device that had ever learned your voice
and called it “assistant”
and listened with that blank, obedient patience.

The microwave clock blinked into a perfect rectangle of white.
My phone went black, then bright.
The TV, dead since the grid started coughing, lit anyway—
as if electricity had become a suggestion
and suggestions were suddenly enough.

A tone rolled through the apartment.

Not loud.
Not shrill.

Accurate.

It made the glass in my window
decide whether it wanted to be glass.

Then the message appeared,
plain as a verdict,
in a font that didn’t feel designed:

EARTH IS A GALACTIC PRISON.
HUMANITY ARE ITS PRISONERS.

I laughed once.
A small, stupid sound.
The kind you make when fear shows up early
and you try to pretend it missed the appointment.

The message continued,
unbothered by my denial.

THE GALACTIC COUNCIL HAS REVIEWED YOUR ACTIONS
OVER THE LAST 300,000 YEARS.
SENTENCE: DEATH.

In the corner of the screen,
a countdown began.

23:59:58

23:59:57

The numbers weren’t red.
They weren’t dramatic.

They were clean.
Like a hospital hallway.
Like a receipt.

Somewhere down the hall,
a neighbor screamed,
and the scream cut off halfway through,
as if the building had decided to mute her.

A new line typed itself, slow and polite:

THE EXECUTION WILL COMMENCE IN TWENTY-FOUR HOURS.
DO NOT ATTEMPT TO FLEE.
THIS CELL IS SEALED.

Cell.

Not planet.
Not world.
Not home.

Cell.

I stared at the word
until it stopped being language
and became a shape—
bars,
angles,
a box you don’t notice
until someone tells you you’re inside it.

Outside, the city went quiet
in the way a crowd goes quiet
when the stage lights come up.

Car alarms didn’t start.
No sirens.

Just the soft, rising chorus of screens
turning on in apartments, cars, hospitals,
lighting faces like candles.

I stepped to the window.

The street below was full of people
standing in the open
holding their phones up to the sky
as if the sky might explain itself
if we all begged at the same time.

Every billboard in the distance
had become the same white,
the same message,
the same ticking.

In the sky, the stars were… off.

Not disappearing.
Not moving.

Just incorrect,
like someone rearranged them by half a thought
and expected the human brain
to accept the new map without protest.

I tried the obvious.

I turned off my phone.
It turned itself back on.

I unplugged the TV.
It stayed lit, patient,
the countdown ticking
as if time belonged to it now.

I sat on the floor,
because the body likes rituals
even when the world stops obeying.

Around 2 a.m.,
the broadcast changed.

Not the words.

The voice.

A sound poured out of every speaker at once—
phone, TV, even the smoke detector.

Not language.

A presence wearing sound
like a glove trying to learn fingers.

It made my stomach fold in on itself.
It made my thoughts feel readable.

And I understood, very clearly,
that the “council” was not a room.

Not even a species.

An arrangement.
A consensus of something too large to argue with itself.

When it spoke,
it didn’t deliver information.

It adjusted the world.

My glass of water on the counter shivered.
A single ripple traveled across the surface
like a fingertip dragging through it
from the inside.

I whispered, “Why?”

The answer arrived as pressure,
not sound:

Because your kind forgets boundaries.
Because you chew through restraint.
Because you mistake time for forgiveness.

At 12 hours left,
the sky changed.

Not the weather.

The geometry.

Clouds formed a grid.
Perfect squares.
A ceiling pattern.

The sun rose, but it looked… supervised.
Too round.
Too well-behaved.

Birds flew in repeating loops
like they’d been assigned routes.

People prayed.
People screamed.
People laughed thinly, like broken glass.

Comedy is just a scream
with better posture.

The countdown hit 00:10:00.

The broadcast returned to pure text,
bright enough to bleach the world:

PREPARE.

And beneath it, smaller:

YOUR CELL WILL BE OPENED.
THIS IS NOT RELEASE.
THIS IS REMOVAL.

I felt it then—
not fear exactly.

Scale.

The sensation that the sky was not above us,
but around us,
like a lid
we had mistaken for freedom.

The horizon shimmered.

Not like heat.

Like a boundary being brought into focus.

For a second, I swear I saw it—
a faint arc of something transparent
catching sunlight at the edge,
like the outline of a dome you didn’t notice
until someone cleaned it.

00:01:00.

The broadcast dimmed the entire world
so the numbers could be seen more clearly.

00:00:10
00:00:09

I thought about all the stories we told ourselves
to survive being small:
that the universe was empty enough to ignore us.

00:00:03
00:00:02
00:00:01

The screens went black.

The city went silent.

Then something “opened.”

Not a door you can point at.
Not a crack in the sky.

An absence in the laws we’d been leaning on.

Gravity loosened its grip
like a hand relaxing.

Sound thinned.

Time did a subtle lurch,
as if it had been waiting for permission
to behave differently.

People rose off the ground,
not floating,
being taken—

lifted in clean, invisible increments
like data being pulled off a drive.

A woman grabbed my wrist.
Her nails dug in.

Her grip slipped.

Not because she let go.

Because her hand became light.
Then smoke.
Then a blank where a hand had been,
as if the world had decided
it never owed her fingers in the first place.

Around me, bodies vanished in orderly waves,
rows of people removed
like chairs being cleared after an event.

I was still there.

For a moment, I thought—

Maybe I’m spared.

Then my phone lit in my pocket,
warm as flesh.

A final message, gentle as a verdict:

YOU ARE NOT BEING EXECUTED.
YOU ARE BEING RECYCLED.

A pause.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR MATERIAL.

And then the world tilted,
and I understood the last cruelty of a prison:

You can’t escape a cage
you didn’t know had walls.

And somewhere above the ceiling-grid sky,
something enormous adjusted its attention—

patient,
precise,
already bored—

moving on
to the next cell.

Flash Fiction February rolls on over at The Writer’s Journey, hosted by Bradley Ramsey, and I’m back with Day 21’s prompt: is OPEN and well. . . everyone knows what that means! I went with Cosmic Horror. hehe

Every Like, Comment, and Restack gives me points for my submissions to climb the leaderboard against all the other talented authors in this month long challenge. So whether you want to see me win, enjoy my writing, etc. . . please help me out by giving it a like, comment, restack or all of the above if you feel inclined.

PLEASE. SIT. SAY IT.

photo by:

The first thing I noticed was the carpet.

Not the color—
that bruised mauve that tries to be neutral and fails—
but the way it drank sound.

My footsteps didn’t echo.
They didn’t even land.
They arrived and were swallowed,
like the floor was hungry for proof I existed.

Overhead, track lights ran in neat little lines,
the kind you see in dead retail spaces,
the kind meant to make merchandise look honest.

There was no merchandise.

White walls.
Corner seams too crisp.
A ceiling grid that pretended to be office-safe.
And glass at one end—
a storefront window looking out into a hallway
that looked out into another hallway
that looked out into nothing.

I stood still, waiting for my brain to catch up to my body.

It didn’t.

The air smelled like drywall and old air-conditioning,
that sterile nothing that makes you think of time clocks
and forgotten keys
and people saying “Have a good one”
like they mean it.

Except the lights weren’t fluorescent.

They were watching.

Not with eyes.

With attention.

A quiet, unblinking awareness
spread evenly through the room
the way cold spreads through metal.

I turned in a slow circle and found no doors.

There were door-shaped outlines—
frames without handles,
panels that looked like they could open
if you were the kind of person the building wanted.

I walked toward the glass.

The window showed a street beyond it—
gray day, pale sky, a parked car—
but the car had no license plate
and the sky had a paper texture
like it could tear if you stared too hard.

When I blinked, the scene didn’t shift.
It didn’t breathe.

It sat there like an image held up to keep me calm.

I pressed my palm to the glass.

Cold.

Then warmer—
as if it was learning my temperature.

My reflection floated faintly over the window,
but it was delayed by the smallest fraction,
a little late to its own existence.

I smiled at it, reflex.

It didn’t.

It stared the way an elevator camera stares:
patient, indifferent—
and behind that indifference, a subtle interest.

Yes. That. Do it again.

I pulled my hand back.

The room stayed quiet.

The quiet didn’t feel empty.

It felt full of withheld sound,
like the whole place was holding its breath
because it was waiting for me to speak first.

“Hello?” I said.

My voice came out too loud
and too close,
as if it didn’t travel through air at all
but through a wire pressed to my throat.

No echo.

No answer.

But the track lights above me adjusted—barely—
tilting their white pools of illumination
so they fell on my face more cleanly.

I stepped left.
The light corrected.

I stepped right.
It followed again.

Not dramatic.

Just… a camera finding focus.

The glass flickered.

For a heartbeat, the hallway beyond it was different—
longer, narrower—
lined with the same mauve carpet,
the same white walls,
the same neat, hungry light.

Something sat on the floor out there.

A small object.

Coin. Button. Screw.

Except it was none of those.

A tooth.

Pale and clean,
resting on the carpet like punctuation.

Then the hallway snapped back to “normal,”
and the tooth was gone.

The room was giving me flashes,
like a film skipping frames.

Not to scare me.

To show me what it was
when it stopped pretending.

I turned away from the window and walked.

The room was bigger than it should be,
and my sense of direction did that soft, sick thing
where it stops trusting itself.

I passed the same pillar twice.
Recognized the same scuff on the wall,
a smear like someone had bumped a cart too hard.

I tried to count—
lights, tiles, steps—
because counting is how you build fences
inside your own skull.

One. Two. Three.

On the fourth tile, a hairline crack ran through paint.

I leaned in.

The crack wasn’t random.

It curved gentle as handwriting,
as if something had drawn it from inside the wall.

The paint around it lifted and settled—
so slight I could’ve blamed my eyes.

Then the crack opened by a millimeter
and I heard the faintest sound from within.

Not a voice.

A breath.

Slow and curious,
like a diver under ice.

I stepped back.

The crack closed.
The wall went smooth again
the way a mouth closes
when it realizes you noticed it.

The lights brightened.

Not to help.

To keep me visible.

Across the room, a single chair waited.

Office chair. Cheap. Padded.
Placed in the center of empty carpet
like an offering.

It hadn’t been there before.

On the seat lay a laminated card.

Blank on one side.
On the other: a single word in clean black print.

PLEASE.

A polite word.
A gentle word.

The kind of word that asks you to comply
without ever admitting it’s a command.

I picked it up.

The laminate was warm—
like it had been held recently
by something that understands the idea of hands
and wants to practice.

I looked up.

The track lights had shifted into a loose ring,
a soft spotlight arrangement,
a stage built for one actor.

For me.

“This is insane,” I said,
because saying it out loud is how you try to shrink it.

The room didn’t respond.

It didn’t need to.

The chair rolled forward two inches.

No sound.
No squeak.
No catching on carpet fibers.

It glided like friction was optional here.

A new card sat on the seat
as if the air had blinked.

SIT.

My pulse thudded.

I backed away.

The chair followed—slow, patient—
keeping the same distance from me
the way an animal keeps distance
before it decides what you are.

I turned and walked fast—
not running,
because running is loud
and I didn’t want the place to enjoy that.

Walls slid past in smooth repetition.
Corners arrived too late.

I should’ve hit a wall.

Instead, the space folded around my path
like it was letting me circle
because circles are comforting.

Because circles make you believe
you can come back to where you started.

I stopped.

Silence.

Then, from somewhere not quite behind me—
a soft mechanical click,
like a camera shutter trying to be polite about it.

I turned.

A new window had appeared in the wall.

Not a storefront.
A small rectangular pane—
like the kind you find in office doors.

Behind it:

me.

Not reflection.
Not delay.

A live view.

The angle was wrong—too low, slightly tilted—
as if the camera was pressed to the other side of the wall
with the hungry intimacy of a face at glass.

I lifted my hand.

In the window, I lifted it too—
half a second late.

Always late.

Learning timing.

Text appeared at the bottom, white on black.

YOU ARE HERE.

A dot appeared after it.

Then another.

YOU ARE HERE…

The dots kept coming.

The sentence didn’t end.

Click.

The image froze.

It wasn’t me anymore.

It was the room—empty.

No chair.

No me.

Just carpet and walls and light,
sterile and waiting.

As if it was showing me the room’s preferred state:

without witness.

I stepped back, and the lights dimmed—not off—
just lowered,
as if the shadows deserved more authority.

In the corner of my vision, the seams became visible:
thin filaments in the air,
stitches holding the lie in place.

And in that filigree of “almost,”
I felt it.

The room was just its mouth.

The thing behind it was attention—
a presence that didn’t need eyes
because it could look through angles,
through structures,
through the concept of “inside.”

Not to attack.

To observe how your mind breaks
when it realizes a place between places
is still a place someone owns.

A card slid across the carpet toward my feet.

No hand.
No breeze.

Just a gentle glide.

NAME.

I swallowed.

Names are doors you build inside your mouth.

Some doors only open once.

“No,” I said.

The word came out like a scraped knee.

The lights brightened in response.

Not angry.

Interested.

The chair rolled into view again and stopped in front of me.

New cards stacked on its seat, one on top of another:

PLEASE.
WE CAN LEAVE.
TOGETHER.

Truth-cold rushed through me.

It didn’t want my name to know me.

It wanted my name
so it could be me better.

So it could practice my voice
until my voice fit the hallway,
until the hallway fit the world,
until the world was just another empty room
with track lights and mauve carpet
and the right kind of silence.

The seams tightened.

The walls shifted, almost imperceptibly,
the way a throat rearranges itself
to swallow.

And beneath everything, I heard it—
a low, constant note,
not loud, not cruel,
just waiting.

A bell tone you feel in your teeth.

A sound meant to be answered.

The chair rolled forward.

The top card changed.

SAY IT.

My mouth went dry.

I tried to think of any other word,
any other sound,
anything I could throw into the air
to drown out the invitation.

I said the first thing that came to me.

A small, stupid, human word.

“Home.”

The room paused.

The lights blinked—one long eyelid-close.

When they opened, the wall in front of me was a doorway.

Real frame.
Real handle.
A thin line of light beneath it.

From the gap, a slow inhale—pleased—
as if something had been waiting
for me to hand it a key.

The handle turned on its own.

Slow. Careful.

The door opened a fraction.

Beyond it: a hallway of the same carpet and lights,
and in the distance, a small rectangular window in a wall
showing me—already there—
already looking back.

Half a second late.

Learning.

Waiting.

The room held its breath.

So did I.

And somewhere deep in the structure of this place,
something patient and enormous
pressed its attention against the seams
like a fingertip testing bruised fruit—

waiting
for the moment I finally said the right word.