praetorianrhapsody

-- Body Bag (1) … Then the seventh body arrived and, to Thane’s horror, it was, for all intensive purposes, sliced in half. The man’s spine remained in tact and an even slice rounded the once-cavity in front of it. Everything was cauterized to perfection. He barely bled. Apparently, his bowels had been pooled about him and the entrails appeared dry due to air-exposure. He had lived for many days after the cut was made. The cause of death was an incision to the stomach lining which released acid and bile all along his sensitive innards. The poison had slowly eaten through his organs ensuring a slow and agonizing death. It was

-- Blankha's Lighter (1) Blankha Thelander, seated atop her barstool as though it were a throne, lovingly circumcised the Turkish cigar her nerves had grown anxious for. Within seconds, a cool-blue butane flame was produced by one of a thousand complete strangers floating about the room. Once the freshly clipped vice was well lit, the woman dismissed the passerby with an appreciative nod. Having witnessed the seemingly telepathic trick at least half a dozen times that very evening, Thane couldn’t hold it anymore, “I’d love to know how you do that.” The coy red-head by then had savory succor curling from her lips, “

-- Uli Dance (1) Blankha exhaled a long drag of her cigar and gestured her hand at Kesin accepting a dance from the Gypsy Ambassador. From across the room, the fur-clad woman grinned wide. Thane, preoccupied with taking her prerequisite Jack Daniels shot, wheeled on a heel. “Why is it that two people who never dance with anyone always end up dancing together?” Blankha could not resist the chuckle, “I don’t know but it’s fun to watch.” -------- “Your name does not suit you.” The Ambassador chimed; an obvious attempt to soften the woman’s brick and mortar silence. “Is that so?” Kesin

-- Colton's Death (1) Instantaneously, Kesin all but collapsed under the weight of comprehension. The forest, so picturesquely replanted, was, in fact, a cemetery--An almost satirically living crypt. Suddenly, Colton was no longer simply hiding adeptly out of sight--he was dead. In the face of her most agonizing revelation, one would expect such an emotional levee to break as to unfetter a harrowing torrent upon all neighboring parties; but in that such moment, no outcry escaped the woman. Not a sound. Kesin breathed deeply and to her own surprise inhaled only an entrenched sense of bitter-sweet resolve. She stood before her lover's memoria

-- Shed Aura Onset (1) In spite of the weak breeze sifting through exposed slats, the air is all but stifling with the acrid stench of dead water and raw sewage wafting upon it. As though one were inhaling through a rag soaked in filth, everything about this emaciated shed is a claustrophobic’s nightmare. Tin-plated mud walls circumvent an area no greater than a utility closet with barely a ceiling and a cement floor practically dissolving into the torrential elements. The structure is stout, as half of it is buried in a hill-side, but no shelter to speak of—not in this Arabian chill. Night has erected a new moon and darkness this