In Darkness

Another story you’ve never seen before.

The Cart ties in with the whole Lovecraftian mythos I was creating. That means its related to The Inquisitors, Sign of the Usurper, and all of the October Falls stories. On its own, there really isn’t much to say about The Cart. It’s one of the first stories I ever wrote (and it shows, trust me) and it was supposed to be one (of many) tastes of the “evil older than God, behind the scenes of reality, driving people insane” type of stuff I was wanting to do at the time.

I could definitely do better if I were to write it today… but then, these days I’ve given up trying to be the next H.P. Lovecraft. So now that I’ve talked you OUT of reading it, maybe you should go check it out anyway, just for laughs at my expense.

A long while back, a guy (not me) had an idea about a world where people suddenly started developing superhuman abilities. This was before Heroes and before 4400… way before. He created an online magazine and started writing the stories himself. These super-powered individuals were called the “Sovereign,” and for some reason that I can’t remember (or never found out) all of the stories were set in the 1980’s. Soon he was looking for other folks to contribute their stories set in his fictional world. I forget if I found him or he found me, probably the former, but I liked the set-up and wanted to play. I took one of my old ideas, dusted it off, polished it up, and wedged it into the rigid rules of his fictional world… and there were a LOT of rules. Once we agreed on what was possible and what wasn’t, I started writing.

My story was called “Wraith.” It was told as a series, with one short chapter coming out every month or so. Unfortunately, the project shut down before the end of the story was ever published.

I honestly don’t know if I ever published the entire story on my own site(s) since then. I can’t even remember how much of the story was published before it was shut down. But it’s all here now. This may, in fact, be the first time anyone other than me and the magazine editor has ever seen the ending. All of the other stories (written by that other guy) have long since vanished from the web. I can’t even remember the website address or the editor’s name, so even the wayback machine may not be able to help with this one. I do remember some details about the how’s and why’s of superhumans appearing on earth, but honestly the stories weren’t about the how’s and why’s. They were about the people and what happened to them… that’s what made them good. Hopefully, you’ll feel the same about “Wraith”.

Step 1: Create your own vision of Hell
Step 2: Drop a character into it
Step 3: Enjoy the show.

This story wasn’t so much abandoned as much as it mutated into something else, and then that something ELSE was abandoned.

Yeah, that makes sense.

I figure creating my own version of Hell was a bit ambitious, but I did it and I’ve got the notes to prove it. I didn’t really have an ending in mind for this story, but it would have been an entertaining ride as the plot would be, quite literally, one damned thing after another (after another!).

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How are you feeling about the “From the Archives” stuff?

Annoying or entertaining? Both? Neither?

I can keep going. But it’d be even easier to stop if nobody is into it. You tell me.

The beginning of a standard fantasy tale involving three rogues. This was going to be one of those “continuing adventures” type serials, where this trio continued to get deeper and deeper into trouble as the series progressed. Oddly enough, my notes say that this was supposed to be a “dark comedy”.

Well, let’s see:

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