Nosleep spire in the woods cracked#
Nosleep spire in the woods Patch#
Nosleep spire in the woods password#

Trinity on the spike, wide and terrified eyes going glassy with blood loss as her little mouth struggles and fails to form a plea for help. Behind her eyelids, she sees what she always sees.

Nosleep spire in the woods cracked#

She shuts her eyes tight, presses her face to the cracked tile of the kitchen counter as sobs rock her wasting frame. Ruined in a single fusillade of frames and words. Butcher.Ĭoupled with ambien and supermarket gin, the nature documentaries had been the only thing that helped her fall asleep for the last month, but that’s over now. She tries not to listen as she hunches over the filthy, dish-choked sink, retching and gasping for air, but the words still come. The vibrant green and brown hues of the nature documentary wash the inside of her darkened apartment, sonorous tones of the narration hanging in the air. Instead, she stumbles for the kitchen sink, feeling her throat clench with acrid, stinging horror. The Shrike was first published in audio on Pseudopodīy the time she’s thrown herself upright and grasped for the remote with shaking hands, it’s too late. The sounds of rushing air and shearing metal that I’d lived with for a year slides into the background.Ĭontinue reading “The Green Tunnel” → Featured On the first day, as I’d hoped, I lose myself in the immediacy. Rising to the peak of Springer Mountain, I descend the other side without stopping to sign the register. I am the smell of Georgia pines and melting snow. I am each step, and then the next, and nothing more. With the anxiety of planning and preparation behind me, there is only the fixed certainty of the next six months ahead. The sweat on my back cools in the morning chill. The thrum of cars gives way to the whisper of wind through spring buds and the crunch of snow underfoot. I have no intention of dying on the Appalachian Trail, no matter what my friends assume. I packed food into parcels - dehydrated meals, rice, and protein bars - and mailed them to post offices along the route.

Nosleep spire in the woods Patch#

I made sure I could pitch the tent in the rain, strip the stove to clean each valve, patch the ultralight air mattress in the dark if it sprung a leak. I’d broken them in on day hikes in the winter, testing each bit of gear as it arrived. The new boots wrap my feet like second skin. When I come out the other side, I’ll report it stolen, and cash out more of the settlement to buy a new car with fewer seats. Walking away, new red backpack heavy on my hips, I realize I never want to see the car again. I leave the Volvo at the Springer Mountain Trailhead, keys underneath the seat. The Green Tunnel originally appeared in LampLight – Volume 7, Issue 1, edited by Jacob Haddon The world tree was half again as tall, a wooden spire of red and green, perpetually wreathed in clouds, and Lachie slept most nights nestled in a bed of felt-textured leaves. The craggy peak, modeled on the fearsome heights of the old Alps, but in miniature, rose only a few thousand feet above the plains below.

The world tree stood on the peak of the tallest mountain of Ur, a mountain still without a name.

He sat up and the branches and broad leaves of the world tree unfurled, revealing a glorious vista of the fields of Ur. The cool breeze licked his face and ruffled his shaggy hair as he stretched, arching his back and feeling each joint pop with pleasurable release. On the morning of the incident, Lachie woke to the gentle trills of impossible birds, nestled in his bed in the boughs of the world tree of Ur. He never responded, and that was the last I heard of it. Months later, when I completed it, I sent him a draft and wished Lachlan well on his recovery. It was such an oddly forward request that I said yes without much consideration. The root of this story feels like a fever dream: someone named Ben emailed me to tell me that his friend Lachlan had been hit by a cab in Brisbane, and would I consider writing him into a short story to him. This story is nearly ten years old now, and I stopped trying to find a home for it after a few false starts over five years ago. Links for suggested donations can be found at the bottom. If you are able, please continue to do anything you can to protect trans kids.

Nosleep spire in the woods password#

Previously, this story was behind a password for people who had donated in support of urgent causes.