It’s time for a holiday blowout on From the Passages of Revenants (The Dark Verse, Volume I). Buy a signed copy for only $15.99 (including shipping) at sharkchildsremains.com with the coupon code “sharkmas” during checkout. All major credit cards and PayPal are accepted.

Let me guide you through my book of twenty-six short tales of fantastical horror that will follow you to the visions of your sleep (in the likeness of Lovecraft)

The Dark Verse, Volume I was a silver medal winner in the Horror category of the 2010 Independent Publisher Book Awards.

EVERY COPY IS SIGNED BY SHARKCHILD!

1. Go here: sharkchildsremains.com

2. Add the book to your cart

3. Apply the coupon code “sharkmas” at checkout
(if you choose to pay with PayPal, you’ll have to login into PayPal before it brings you back to the checkout page)

*If you want your autograph personalized, then write who you want the autograph made out to in the comments section of checkout, otherwise it will not be personalized.

ONE-OF-A-KIND
Limited Number of FIRST EDITIONS

INTERNATIONAL
Please email me at m@sharkchild.com if you want the book (you can’t order through the site). I’ll send you an invoice through PayPal (you don’t have to have an account). I charge $10 USD extra for each international order for shipping, so $25.99 USD total.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR SUPPORT!!

Words hold power of times before, to come, and times unknown. They can exist in form or invisible space. They can exist in colorful sight or invisible sound. Words create and words destroy. They convert the weak and overthrow the wise.

It was words that in astronomical infliction determined my fate—just words. But words are never just words. They are eternal. They are ageless. They are gods of communication and confusion, knowledge and history, discipline and encouragement, worship and cursing.

A curse, yes, was what controlled my fate. A curse, spoken in words, was laid upon me as a bride is laid upon her wedding bed. Delicately, expectantly, soothingly I was bathed in the glory of the warm embrace of a sweet phrase. It tinged my skin and eased my heart. Then it struck with its black truth; it struck like the regret of an ill decision. It stuck its roots deep into my soul and took hold, never to let go, never to show mercy.

But how are spoken curses given assignments? Words hold no ownership. They are bound for no set destination. Many ears receive words, yet only one receives the curse, if so chosen. How does this present itself in the realm of logic? Such questions were never by me deciphered, but it did not matter for the curse was real and what is real, whether explained or not, holds place in the universe of action and diabolical reaction.

(Listen to the entire story below)

Upward I climbed, foot over foot, and hand over hand. Blood pounded at my temples while I strained to maintain strength and focus. Beads of sweat rolled off of my forehead and fell the depths of my course. My sight was set on nothing but the path I had already traveled. My feet were above me and my hands were below. Backwards I crawled to achieve my movement—the future reversed; the past to come—to trick the summit, to allow me passage. I took my time; I rehearsed each movement meticulously in my mind. I pressed fiercely my feet into stone and moved at the pace of a turtle’s stride. Double-jointed knees abled my legs with the necessary angles of grip and with pull. My hands supported me and helped spring me to new footholds.

I did not climb because I had to. I did not climb because I wanted to. I climbed because of ill-fated ability—I climbed because I could and no one else—not the strong, not the powerful; only I—one of the strange, one of the outcasts, one of the deformed of miscreation. I climbed Mount Usen Riddiddexdedet to prove the worthiness of imperfection and to scream its curse atop the peak of existence.

(Listen to the entire story below)

The cool, still water embraced me as I jumped into it and submerged within it, leaving the sounds of laughter behind. The water wrapped its ever-changing arms around my shape and held it perfectly. I exorcized air—one quick blast to balance my buoyancy. Then there was the Calm; I did not rise, I did not fall. The dawn of time ended and then began again, churning the moments of now into a serum of rich thought and sensation. There, within the water, I hung within a suspended capsule, unknowingly engaging an energy hidden from the world within the secret place of weightlessness.

I mouthed a series of ancient words given to me through the passing and connecting of distant minds—words I did not know of a moment earlier or a moment later; I knew them only as I spoke them for the brief moments that I was a receptacle of realms. Each syllable came and went like lightning—precise, crisp, gone. My eyes were closed. My limbs were motionless. My essence roamed free.

A fey danced into my mind’s eye—so beautiful, so alluring. She twirled around my insides, caressing them with touches of deep tranquility. “How are you, my love?” she whispered to me, over and over again—not intending a question, but instilling a comfort. The peacefulness was beyond me; I was beyond my self.

Then, suddenly and shockingly, there came a sting—one beneath each of my feet—ending unpleasantly the euphoric reverie of weightlessness’ tithing. The stings immediately grew deeper, reaching through me as if I were a puppet filled by controlling hands.

I tried to open my eyes, but I could not, or if I could, I still could not see. And with the blackness, the nourishment of my breath depleted. Panic followed, coming for me on wings of dissolute hope, plunging through the surface of the water to make its kill.

Not death, I beseeched. Not death.

(Listen to the entire story below)