In Honor of Spooky Season, I Tried My Hand at Horror????

With the Halloween season and October in full swing, I’ve been participating in a Twitter event hosted by FantasyIndies. #FantasyIndiesSpooktober is a series of prompts that encourage writers to share things from their books, WIPs, and anything else about the writing process. For the fifth day of Spooktober, participants were prompted to writing a horror flash fiction, and while I’m admittedly not much of a horror fan, I decided to try my hand at it. Based on the cerbertes, a “wolfish” beast from my young adult fantasy series, the Heirs of Tenebris trilogy, here’s what I came up with:

The beast panted, crouching low. A growl rumbled from its chest. Snapping its jaw, saliva dripped from its sharp teeth. Fire blazed in its obsidian eyes, capturing the onlooker in a vision of their deepest fears.

Smoke and an acrid odor like sulfur invaded the onlooker’s senses. Flushed, panic swelled in their chest. The gaze of those unblinking obsidian eyes pinned the onlooker in place, trapped by their subconscious fear like the worst kind of anesthesia.

It was a numbness that wasn’t entirely unfeeling, as the mind was still intact, thrashing and screaming against the deadly nightmare playing before the forefront of the onlooker’s thoughts. The mind clawed at the nightmare, unable to shred through its vise-like grip.

The beast’s lips curled like a smirk. There wasn’t any victory in its obsidian eyes, but the onlooker knew.

The cerbertes knew the prey was in their grasp, ripe for the taking.

Want to learn more about cerbertes? Sign up for my newsletter to access the free digital companion guide for Fire & Flight, the first in my young adult fantasy series, the Heirs of Tenebris. In addition to Tenebris: An Introduction to the World of FIRE & FLIGHT, signing up for my newsletter will grant you access to a host of exclusive bonus content and deleted scenes delivered on a monthly basis right to your inbox! As I carry on with drafting book 3, I can’t wait to bring you more content from the world of Tenebris (the fictional setting of my young adult series) and some updates about Embers of Eternity’s progress through the editing process, so stay tuned!