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[fracturestory]

No Fractures update today.

TW: pet death

My dog passed away in my arms this morning from a heart attack. We had just started him on heart medications last night, but I guess it wasn't enough.

Thank you for everything, Cody. I'll miss you, boy.

One last ear scratch for the road. o7

[fracturestory]

3|Beyond the Darkness

Zoey groaned. How many more times was she going to wake up like this? Even with her eyes closed, she could sense the bright light around them.

…Wait. Light.

“Lisa?” she turned her head, opening an eye. Her voice was still hoarse from the screaming.

No Lisa.

Zoey shot up with a heave, propping herself up with an arm against the grass beneath her.

Grass?

She looked down. Sure enough, soft, green grass coated the ground under her. She dug her small fingers into it, feeling every individual strand that passed between her digits.

But then, what about that dark place with the smooth ground?

She stood up, brushing herself off. She was under a tree, and it was sunny. Light, puffy clouds drifted overhead, some of them clinging to the mountains in the distance.

As if nothing ever happened.

She felt her breaths begin to quicken. “Lisa!” She shouted again, breaking down into a fit of coughs almost immediately after. She ran out from underneath the tree, frantically scanning the landscape around her. There was some kind of city in the distance, but it looked nothing like the ones she knew back home.

No houses, either.

“Lisa!”

She ran to the other side of the tree.

…It was Lisa’s house. Or at least, part of it. A crash from somewhere deep inside the barely-standing wreckage made her jump.

“Zoey!” Lisa’s head popped out from the rubble. She pulled herself over the chunk of concrete concealing her, pausing at the top to reach back for something. “You were out for a while. Everything feeling okay?”

“I…” Zoey glanced at her still-bandaged hand. A splotch of red was barely visible beneath the pad. “I think so? What happened?”

“’Dunno,” Lisa tossed a crumpled sheet of metal down before hopping to the ground herself. “I woke up first after we got dragged back. I’m not sure when we passed out, or how half of my house got here with us, but when I came to, we were at the top of the stairs again. How’s your memory, by the way? Still scrambled? I think I have everything in order again myself after I woke up.”

She squat down, picking up the silvery chunk she’d pulled from the debris.

“Good, I think?” Zoey mentally recounted what happened. The big thing was the bubble. Then, they ‘woke up’ in the garage, and then… her mind fired a blank. “Nevermind.”

Lisa chuckled, walking closer now to Zoey. “Yeah, it takes a little while for everything to come back. I still don’t know what exactly happened, but I guess everything from the basement up to about half of the first floor got brought here with us.”

“Caleb!” Zoey gasped. “Does that mean—”

She watched Lisa’s forced smile fade.

Caleb was still missing.

“Do… you know where we are, then?”

Lisa shook her head. “Middle of nowhere, I guess. I know for sure that we’re not on the edge of the city anymore. But, there’s a road.”

“A road?”

“Yeah, you wanna see?” Lisa pointed with her free hand. “It’s not connecting to the driveway or anything, but there’s this old looking road that goes right up to part of the front yard. It looks almost like it got cut.”

Lisa began walking, still carrying the piece of metal with her as Zoey trailed behind. It helped a lot that Lisa wasn’t panicking or anything. It made her feel at least a little safer. Kinda.

They stopped next to what was left of the garage. Lisa ran inside for something, coming out again with a wagon in tow before continuing to lead.

Sure enough, there was a road. It was old and crumpled, but right where it ended, it looked almost like someone had cut it with a knife. Absolutely nothing went past the line where it ended; not a rock, not a pebble… Zoey squinted. Even the grass was cleanly cut between where the road ended and where the yard started.

“Have you ever seen anything like it?” Lisa continued, “It’s like the entire lower half of the yard and the house sitting on it got scooped up and plopped right back down here. You’d think that it’d be on top of some kind of dirt heap, but no.”

“Weird,” was all Zoey could muster herself.

“Very. Still” —Lisa wheeled up the wagon beside herself, the piece of metal now sitting neatly in its wooden basket— “I don’t think that we should stay inside the house. Half of it is gone and with all the cracks in it I really don’t think it’ll be safe to be in.”

She turned around, wheeling the wagon back to the remains of the garage. “For now, I think it’s best if we grab whatever we can and build ourselves a shelter of some sort for the night. It’s better if we sleep in a weird tent thing than sleeping in a house that we might get buried in by next morning, y’know?”

“Wait!” Zoey ran after her mentor. Her voice tremored with every word. “How can you be so calm right now? What about your mom and dad? What about Caleb? Aren’t you scared?”

Lisa stopped in her tracks, the handle of the wagon barely dangling in her fingers.

“Yeah, I’m scared,” the faintest hints of doubt began to creep into her voice. “I’m scared, and tired, and hungry, and so many other things right now. I carried you out and put you under that tree while I picked through whatever we have left. I’m anything but calm right now.”

She turned around, her shoulders tense as she pursed her lips, just barely beginning to tremble herself. “But you know what? It’s so that you don’t have to be scared. You’re just a kid, and you…” she rubbed the bridge of her nose, running her hand down to her cheek before letting it drop back down. “…you shouldn’t have to go through all of this. So long as it means you don’t have to worry as much, I’ll do all the worrying for both of us.”

“Li—”

Lisa turned back around, running now toward the garage.

[fracturestory]

2|The Other Side of Nothing

“Alright, everything’s fine. Everything’s just fine. We totally didn’t get swallowed up by some all-consuming bubble just now! Nothing terrible or crazy has happened, and everything is just. Fine. Just…”

Lisa’s quiet muttering jolted Zoey from her daze. She blinked, looking down at her hands.

No blood.

That was the weirdest daydream ever. Like, ever ever.

“Lisa?” Zoey hopped off her stool, kneeling down beside her babysitter. “Is something wrong?”

“I don’t know!” Lisa blurted, running a hand through her hair. “Like, one second, we were in the stairwell, and then the next, boom. We’re in the garage again—where’s Caleb?”

She shot up, glancing for a moment down at Zoey’s hands before turning her attention to the garage door. “You stay here. I’m gonna check on the boys.”

“O…kay?” Zoey watched Lisa leave.

That was also very weird.

Actually, if Lisa remembered all that too, then did that mean that it actually happened?

Zoey climbed back onto her stool, idly kicking her legs in the air and watching them fall back down. They were in the garage not too long ago. She could remember that. And her hand was bleeding, too; Lisa yanked her away and she scraped herself on the edge of something when that happened.

Oh. Right. The weird bubble thingy.

Wait.

The weird bubble thingy.

“Lisa!” Zoey hopped off her seat again, rushing for the garage door. She had to tell Lisa before it was too late!

“Liiii-saaa!” she called again, dragging out the name. “Lisa! Are you okay?”

She threw the garage door open.

It was silent. No hum, no roar, no weird shaking in the floor.

She could hear Caleb talking to his other friends in the basement.

The sound of footsteps caught her attention. She slowly turned her head, bracing for the worst. Was the bubble gonna be there again? Would Lisa be trapped halfway in like she was not too long ago?

Nope.

“I don’t get it,” Lisa continued climbing the stairs. “I swear that the house was caving in. There was this big—”

“—Bubble,” Zoey cut in. “Big bubble of shadowy stuff, and it ate me up like a shadow monster.”

Lisa nodded. “Right. A big shadow monster bubble. You remember everything too, don’t you?”

“Mm-hm.”

“But then, Caleb doesn’t seem to remember anything, and neither do his friends. They looked at me like I was crazy when I told them how relieved I was to see them alive. And then…” She paused, her brows furrowing as she struggled to come up with the words. “…then… bubble… what…”

Lisa shook her head. “No, no. This is all wrong.”

“What’s wrong?” Zoey hopped off her stool, kneeling down beside her babysitter. “Is something wrong?”

“I don’t know!” Lisa blurted, running a hand through her hair. She froze, blinking as she slowly lowered her hand. “We… we’ve been here before. Zoey, weren’t we—”

Zoey winced. A red gash formed across the back of her hand, already beginning to swell and bleed. Where’d that come from? She cringed through the pain, looking around for the source of the gash. A heavy weight suddenly caught her attention as she looked back down at the socket wrench now in her other hand. “Wait—”

“I swear, something weird is happening right now,” Lisa pulled a bandage from her pocket. “None of this makes sense. What do you remember?”

Zoey set the wrench on the table, holding out her injured hand for Lisa to apply the bandage. “Well, there was that black bubble thing, and then after that, I asked about ice cream, and then—wait no, I asked about ice cream first, right?”

Right?

“I think so,” Lisa stuck the bandage over Zoey’s gash. “I can’t remember very clearly either right now. It’s all so foggy to me. All I know is that something doesn’t feel right.”

“How?”

“I don’t know how to describe it. You know how sometimes you get that weird feeling in your stomach, where you just know that there’s something really, really wrong?”

Zoey inched a little closer on her stool… wait, wasn’t she on the floor just now?

Maybe not. Lisa didn’t seem to notice.

“That’s how it feels. Here” —Lisa shot up again— “follow me.” She raced to the door, Zoey following close behind. “If what I’m thinking is correct, Caleb should be in the baseme…”

Zoey pulled against her babysitter.

“…I already checked, didn’t I?”

“Yeah.”

“Still,” Lisa took another small step. “We should bring Caleb and his friends up here. It’s better for all of us to be together if something happens again.”

She opened the door.

Nothing was there.

Like, nothing nothing.

“Lisa…” Zoey began to tug again. That darkness behind the door was bad.

“They’re still down there,” the words drifted from Lisa. “Still… in there…”

“We have to go, Lisa,” Zoey guided her away, weaving between scattered parts and tables toward the driveway. “You said the driveway is where it’s safe.”

A sickening crunch caught both of their attentions as she took another step.

That wasn’t good, was it?

“Zoey, your—”

Foot.

Zoey stared in horror at the void just beneath them.

“Lisa?”

She felt Lisa’s hand tighten around her own.

“Yeah?”

“What’s down there?”

“I don’t know.”

The sunlight above them flickered as Lisa pulled Zoey closer. The ground and air crackled with an energy foreign to either of them as pieces of the ground began to collapse into the hole Zoey’s foot had created.

At least this time, she wasn’t caught in it.

…Like that was any less bad then whatever was happening now.

Thunk.

Everything went dark.

“Where did the sun go?” Zoey whispered, nestling closer against Lisa. A chill ran down her spine.

“I don’t know.”

The ground gave out beneath them.

---

Zoey gasped awake, her body shuddering with a heave as she frantically looked around.

It was dark. Like, really, really dark.

She felt a hand stroking her head.

“We’re not out of this yet,” Lisa’s shaky voice came from behind her. “I’m not sure where we are now, but it’s definitely not home.”

Obviously.

Zoey blindly leaned forward, crawling on her hands and knees. They were on solid ground at least, but this… she brushed her fingertips over the ground in front of her.

This wasn’t concrete anymore. Whatever this was, it was smooth. Like they were on a piece of glass.

She could feel Lisa’s hand around her ankle as she crawled. Probably this was the only way that they’d know where each other were.

“Caleb!” Lisa suddenly shouted from behind. “Caleb, you there?”

Silence. No hum, no weird growling grinding sound.

No Caleb.

There was, however, something in the distance.

“Lisa,” Zoey could feel her heart pounding her chest as she looked over her shoulder. “Lisa, do you see that?”

“Kinda. It’s that little bit of light, yeah?”

Zoey nodded, even though she knew Lisa wouldn’t see. “Yeah. Do you think we should go towards it?”

“I think so. It’s not like there’s anywhere else we could go.”

Zoey set off, slow step by slow step. Her hand still stung from the scrape she’d gotten earlier, but it hurt a little less now than before. Maybe it was something about how scared she was feeling?

All across her body now she could feel electric shudders. Almost like there was a cold breeze or something blowing past her. But slowly, the light began to grow closer with every movement. She could just barely see the outlines of her hands in front of her now, and Lisa even took her own hand off of her ankle.

It wasn’t very bright, but there was a bit of a shape beginning to form out of the light as they approached. It was a dim, almost shimmering yellow of sorts. Like a candle flickering through a window.

Zoey paused.

It was a candle flickering through a window.

She felt Lisa’s hand on her leg again. “I’m not sure if we should get any closer, Zoey. That’s not my house.”

Lisa began to pull her backwards.

“Wait!” Zoey tried to cling to the smooth ground the best she could. “That doesn’t mean we should go back!”

“I’m not” —Lisa grunted as the pulling grew stronger— “I’m not pulling you. Or, I… am I?”

She grunted again as the pull weakened. “Yeah, something’s pulling me.”

Zoey felt herself slip backwards a little. She grit her teeth, clawing now at the ground with her nails to no avail. Slowly, the two began to recede into the darkness, dragged by… whatever it was in there.

“Help!” Zoey cried out, scrambling now for something, anything that she could grip onto. Lisa joined in at some point as well, shouting out at the top of her lungs between wheezing breaths.

“Anyone?”

No one.

[fracturestory]

1|Bubble

Thunk.

The floor creaked beneath her feet. Distant, metallic screeches echoed through her skull, almost drowning out her muted humming. Her small fingers tightened around the fragile glass of the cup she held, unwilling to let it come shattering to the floor. A dim corridor terminated her path ahead—three doors. Faint voices echoed from behind the one to her left.

She watched the water in her glass tremble as a roaring hum tore through the air. Behind it stood the door straight ahead.

Even from behind it, she could smell the burning metal that singed the air. It was a unique scent to say the least; not quite ‘smoky’ in the traditional sense, but also not entirely foreign either. Like someone had lit a vat of rancid oil aflame.

Thunk.

She sucked in a breath before opening the door.

She squinted in the blazing light, both from the sunlight’s reflection off the unpolished metal sheets and from the dancing flickers of color shimmering now against her surroundings, eclipsed by the silhouette of a helmeted figure hunched over its source. She immediately covered her eyes with a free hand, well aware of the harm that those flickers could bring.

Thunk.

“Zoey?”

The flickers ceased.

“Zoey!” The figure chuckled, lifting their visor. “You didn’t have to fill the cup that far. You want any snacks while you’re at it?”

Zoey shook her head, carefully placing the glass onto the corner of a table as she entered the garage. A stray drop of water ran down her hand as she around to face the figure.

“Nope! You think we can go to that ice cream place again later, Lisa? They have this weird new flavor that I wanna try. Y’know, the one where they have grape juice mixed with chocolate?”

“Maybe,” Lisa stood up. She pulled her welding helmet off and set it down on the table beside the glass. “You know your mom doesn’t want you eating too much ice cream, right?” She picked up the glass and took a sip. A chuckle escaped her as she finished. “Alright, just a small cup this time, ‘kay? You had a bigger bowl than me last time.”

“Oka—”

A loud SHOOM rattled the concrete beneath them, followed by a dull, almost growl-like hum. Dust sifted down from above as the blast subsided around the two girls.

Lisa coughed as she pulled the collar of her shirt over her nose. She reached over and did the same with Zoey. “Stay here,” she said in muffled tones. “I’m gonna check on the boys. Go out to the driveway if it gets too dusty, alright?”

She turned around as frenzied footsteps thumped up from behind the garage door, followed by muffled pounding. “Lis!” the voice cried. “Lisa! A huge hole just opened up in the basement! I tried to pull them away, but—”

Another tremor tore through the house, followed by an earsplitting creaaak as cracks shot up across the floor and walls. The door slammed open.

“Lis!”

The hum from before was louder now that the door was open, yet it felt like all had gone quiet in this moment.

“Caleb,” Lisa’s voice pierced through the uneasy silence. “Show me.”

A single nod was all it took. Lisa trailed behind her brother, following him out of the garage and down into the open doorway to the basement. A dark, almost milky haze obscured the bottom of the stairwell.

Caleb stepped back, trembling hands gripping tightly against the railing.

“That… that wasn’t there before. Wh—”

“You think?” Lisa stepped past him, blocking his path with her arm. “Go stay with Zoey in the garage just in case. Or, no, you two go out to the driveway, ‘kay? I don’t want either of you two to be anywhere near… whatever this is. Your friends are still downstairs?”

“Y-yeah. I think so.”

Lisa stared into the darkness for a few more seconds before backing away, nudging her brother to do the same as tendrils of shadow pulsed from the dark miasma clouding their view. Dark lines spiderwebbed out in every direction around them, like cracks spreading across a mirror.

“It’s spreading,” she took another step back, nearly shoving her brother as she turned. “Caleb, go. Now.”

The two fled back to the top of the stairwell, Lisa slamming the door behind herself as she herself exited. She could feel her heart beating in her throat.

What was that down there?

It was hard to describe the hum as it sounded now. It was almost… mechanical, in a sense, rising and falling in pitch in gentle pulses as if it were a motor accelerating.

That was when it wasn’t crackling with the might of a thunderstorm.

Run.

Fractured thoughts filtered through her paralyzed mind. If Caleb’s friends were still down there, they weren’t talking anymore.

Run.

The word screamed through her head.

Run.

Were they—

Run.

Her eyes shifted to a worried Caleb, standing at the garage door and staring back at her. He was saying something.

Run

Run.

Run.

She finally tore away from the shut door, racing back into the garage with her brother in tow.

“Lisa!” Zoey sounded surprised by her return, popping up from behind a table with a socket wrench in her hand. “Did you—”

She shrieked as Lisa grabbed her by the hand, pulling her away and out of the garage.

“You two stay here,” Lisa stopped on the driveway. “I don’t know what’s going on, but this isn’t an earthquake. There’s… something down there. Caleb, call mom and dad and tell them what’s happening.”

“O-okay,” Caleb dug his hands into his pockets, feeling around. “I left my phone in the basem—”

Lisa slapped her own phone in his hands. “You already know the password, use my phone instead. Zoey, you stay with him until I get back.”

She could barely make out the pained expression on Zoey’s face before she turned away, making a beeline for the hanging tools on the wall.

A C-clamp and a length of tie-down strap would have to do.

…What was she doing?

“Lisa?” she could vaguely make out Zoey’s voice from somewhere behind her.

Her body marched itself back through the garage door. The basement’s stairwell was wide-open now; wherever its door had gone in the fleeting moments that she spent outside, she did not know.

Whatever the case was, the inky darkness had almost reached the top now. The haze had also strangely dispersed giving way instead to a uniform black; like a bubble made of pure shadow. Though, the black lines that snaked out from the ‘core’ lingered. She took a deep breath, hooking the clamp around the handrail. She twirled its handle until it had tightened, then began to tie the strap around her waist.

Every nerve in her body screamed for her to flee just as she had before.

“Lisa!” Zoey shoved herself between Lisa and the top of the stairwell. “Come on! You have to go too! Before something else bad happens! Caleb said you can check on his friends later!”

Lisa’s heart dropped.

“…Zoey?”

Zoey’s gaze drifted downward. To the darkness that now surrounded her feet.

Lisa did the same.

“…Lisa, I can’t feel my feet.”

Lisa looked back up to Zoey’s paling face.

“I can’t feel my feet, I can’t feel my feet—” Zoey’s voice wavered as she began to hyperventilate. She gripped Lisa’s arms. “Lisa, what do I do now?”

“Lisa!” Caleb’s voice came from the garage. “It’s coming through the wall now, too! I can see it!”

Her heart pounded in her throat. She grit her teeth, looking wildly around for something, anything, that she could use.

She shook her head. There was no time. She grappled Zoey beneath her arms the best she could without stepping into the shadows herself, pulling upward once she was steady. This had to—

“Ow…” Zoey managed through her own panicked breaths. Her voice was barely a whisper now. “Lisa, I’m scared.”

Lisa released her. The darkness was halfway up her calves now, and only creeping higher. Another razor-thin tendril raced past them, though this time it was suspended mid-air.

There was hardly room to stand anymore. Lisa felt her back press against the door opposite the stairwell, still holding onto Zoey by her hands. “Hold on, Zoey. I’ve still got you. You hear me?”

Zoey lifted her head, locking eyes with Lisa. She forced a trembling smile as her grip tightened a little. A shot of pain flashed across her face as she did so.

“I’ve got you.”

Lisa looked down to Zoey’s hands.

And the trickle of blood that now stained her own.

“Is everything going to be okay?”

Lisa pursed her lips. She shook her head. “No, but as long as I’m still here, I’m sure as hell gonna try.”

She felt another pair of hands grip around her own arm as she too began to sink into the darkness.

“Caleb?” she jerked her attention to her brother. “I thought I told you and Zoey to stay in the driveway!”

“Yeah, but Zoey’s my friend too” —Caleb grunted, tugging with all his strength— "Just because you’re her babysitter doesn’t mean that you have to save her by yourself. And…” He paused for a moment, heaving before he began to pull again, his feet slipping uselessly against the floor. “I’m not… going to let… another one… disappear. And you know I’m not letting you get eaten either!”

Lisa shifted her gaze downward. The bubble of darkness was up to her knees now.

Their fate had been sealed.

She glanced one last time to Zoey, her unconscious torso still poking out from the rest of the mass.

Her blood dripped down into the abyss.

She looked now to Caleb. He gave another futile tug, straining from his perch at the edge of the doorframe.

There was really only one thing left that she could do now. At the very least, perhaps it could spell an end to their collective dread.

She wrenched her arm from Caleb’s grasp and threw herself fully into the darkness.

[fracturestory]

Fractures, NaNo'23 Edition

Even though this story/draft got its start as my NaNoWriMo challenge for 2023, I'll still be working on it (albeit at a slower pace) until it's 100% done. Keep in mind that this is a rough draft, so anything's subject to change in the future when I start on the next one!

Check below the break for the chapter list! I'll be posting chapters one at a time so that things don't get overwhelming. 👍

Reblogs appreciated!

Supporting me on Patreon gets your name on the title banner and access to all currently-existing chapters that I've written! This includes scrapped chapters as well, which for the sake of keeping things a little more organized here won't be posted until after the entire draft is written and posted. Also, you get your name put on that title banner if you've supported me on my Patreon for at least a month! Doesn't matter if it's continuous or not. This is just a neat little thing I decided to do.

Without further ado, onto the table of contents!

Fractures

Bubble

The Other Side of Nothing

Beyond The Darkness

[fracturestory]

Fractures, chapter 1: Bubble

Well, here it is! The first chapter of Fractures that I feel is good enough to actually post. This story has existed for two years now, but in concept has lingered for almost a decade in some form or another. I'll be cross-posting this on Offprint once the story approval system is functional again there! In the meantime, hello from the past! I'm writing this at 11 pm because I stayed up far too late last night and I don't think I can stay up 'til midnight to post like I originally wanted to. So, scheduled post. :P Without further ado, here's the chapter!

The floor creaked under her feet. Distant, metallic screeches echoed through her skull, almost drowning out her muted humming. She clutched the fragile glass of the cup, unwilling to let it come shattering to the floor. A dim corridor terminated her path ahead—three doors. Faint voices echoed from behind the one to her left, though she kept her sights on the one directly ahead.

Here, the screeching was louder than anywhere else in the house; enough so that she could see it in the water of her cup. Burning metal singed the air, though the odor was hardly unfamiliar to the young girl. She sucked in a breath before opening the door.

She squinted in the blazing light, both from the open garage before her and from the dancing flickers of color shimmering now against her surroundings. A masked figure wearing heavy-set goggles turned their head to her, one hand still gripping the handle of the now-still circular saw they stood beside.

“Zoey!” The figure chuckled, lifting their goggles. “You don’t have to fill the cup that much. You want any snacks while you’re at it?”

Zoey shook her head, carefully lowering the glass onto the corner of the table. A stray droplet dripped down her hands. She whipped back around with a grin to face the figure. “Nope! Do you think we can go to that ice cream place again later, Lisa? I wanna try that weird new flavor that they added! Y’know, the one where they mix grape juice with chocolate?”

“Maybe,” Lisa stepped away from the saw. She pulled down her mask before reaching for the cup. “You know your mom doesn’t want you eating too much ice cream, right?” she took a sip before letting out a laugh. “Just a small cup this time, ‘kay? You had a bowl bigger than mine yesterday.”

“Oka—”

A loud SHOOM rattled the concrete beneath them. Dust sifted down from above as the initial blast subsided, replaced instead by a dull hum unlike anything either girl had heard before.

Lisa coughed as she pulled her mask back up. She reached over and pulled the collar of Zoey’s shirt over her own face. “Stay here,” she said in muffled tones. “I’m going to check on the boys. If it’s too dusty for you, go out on the driveway.”

Frenzied footsteps thumped up behind the door, followed by muffled pounding. “Lis!” the voice cried. “A huge hole just opened up in the basement! I tried to pull them away, but—”

Another tremor tore through the house, followed by an earsplitting creaaak. The door slammed open.

“Sis!”

“Caleb,” Lisa’s voice pierced through the uneasy silence. “Show me.”

A single nod was all it took. Lisa trailed behind her brother, following him out and into the open doorway to the basement. A dark, almost milky haze obscured the bottom.

Caleb stepped back, trembling hands gripping tightly against the railing.

“That… wasn’t there before.”

“You think?” Lisa blocked her brother’s path with an arm. “Go stay in the garage with Zoey. You said your friends are in there?”

“Y-yeah. Not sure if they’re still there though.”

Lisa stared at the darkness for a few more seconds before backing away. Thin tendrils of shadow pulsed from the hazy core, spiderwebbing outward in every direction like a crack in a mirror. A dull hum accompanied their slow spread as they further enveloped the stairwell.

“It’s spreading,” she took another step back. “Caleb, go. Now.”

She didn’t need to look to know that her brother did exactly that. She pulled the door shut behind him.

Fractured thoughts filtered through her paralyzed mind.

She couldn’t hear any voices coming from the basement anymore.

Run.

The word screamed through her head.

Run.

Those were Caleb’s friends down there.

Run.

Were they—

She placed a hand on the railing, feeling her body move on its own.

Run.

Run.

Run.

She tore away from the stairwell and threw open the garage door.

“Lis!” Caleb sounded surprised by his sister’s return. “Did you—”

His words faded into the background as she grabbed him by the hand, practically dragging him out further onto the driveway to join Zoey. She could barely make out the puzzled expression on his face as she turned away, making a beeline for the hanging tools on the wall.

A C-clamp and a length of tie-down strap would have to do.

What was she doing?

“Lisa?” she could vaguely make out Zoey’s voice.

Her body marched itself back through the door. She hooked the clamp around the handrail, screwing it secure while keeping an eye on the darkness. It was nearly at the top of the stairwell now. The haze had since dispersed, giving way instead to a uniform black; like a bubble made of pure shadow.

Every nerve in her body screamed for her to flee.

She tied one end of the strap around her waist.

“Lisa!” Zoey shoved herself between Lisa and the top of the stairwell. “Come on! You have to go too! Before something else bad happens!”

“…Zoey?”

Zoey’s gaze drifted downward.

“…Lisa, I can’t feel my feet.”

Lisa’s eyes fell to the darkness that Zoey now stood in. Then back to her paling face.

“Lisa,” Zoey repeated, her voice barely a whisper now. “What do I do?”

“Lisa!” Caleb’s voice came from her side. “It’s coming into the garage now, too!”

Her heart pounded in her throat. She grit her teeth, looking wildly around for something, anything, that she could use.

She shook her head. There was no time. She grappled Zoey beneath her arms the best she could, pulling upward as hard as she could while paying mind not to set her own feet into the inky black.

“Ow…” Zoey managed through her own panicked breaths.

Lisa released her. The darkness was halfway up her calves now, and only creeping higher. A razor-thin tendril of shadow raced past them.

There was hardly room to stand anymore. Lisa felt her back press against the door opposite to the stairwell. “Zoey,” Lisa held out a hand. “Hold on. I’ve got you. You hear me?”

Zoey lifted her head, locking eyes with Lisa. She forced a trembling smile as she reached with her own hand. A shot of pain flashed across her face as she did so.

“I’ve got you.”

Lisa could feel the gash across Zoey’s hand as she gripped it. She must’ve scraped it on the clamp.

“Is everything going to be okay?”

Lisa pursed her lips. She shook her head. “No, but as long as I’m still here, I’m sure as hell gonna try.”

She felt another pair of hands grip around her own arm as she too began to sink into the darkness. “Caleb?” she jerked her attention to her brother. “I thought I told you to stay in the garage!”

“You might be Zoey’s babysitter, but she’s my friend too” —Caleb grunted, tugging with all his strength— “I’m not… going to let… another one… disappear. And you know I’m not letting you get eaten either!”

 Lisa shifted her gaze downward. Caleb too was now ensnared.

Their fate had been sealed.

She glanced one last time to Zoey, who by now was only a face and a hand at the edge of the growing bubble of shadow. Her eyes were closed, though she was still breathing.

A trickle of blood ran down her hand.

She looked now to Caleb. He gave another futile tug.

There was really only one thing left that she could do now. At the very least, perhaps it could spell an end to their collective dread.

She threw herself forward fully into the darkness.

[fracturestory]

Experimental Fractures blurb.

I'll get around to converting this sideblog into something more ask-the-characters sort of a thing eventually. For now I have too much on my plate to have the motivation for another big push in any particular project. Have a thing I've written at 2 am for character practice in a situation that I personally don't fully expect to have happen in the story itself.

Concept: Rather than falling through a crack by pure chance, Zoey finds herself alone where the portal had first opened, and finds a rapidly-growing crack in the air. Requires something to have separated Zoey from the rest of the group, as well as some driving force behind why she ultimately decides to actively tear open the crack.

Zoey stared at the weird crack in the air. It wasn’t really doing anything, it was just… there. She swat her hand through it, watching it slip effortlessly through the crack as if it wasn’t even there.

She passed her hand through it a second time, slower now. The crack was just as intangible as it had been the first time, turning from a floating fracture in the air, to one in her palm, and back again as she tried for a third time.

The crack grew. Only by a little, but it grew. Big enough now that she could take a peek into the darkness it unveiled.

Darkness.

Complete and total.

To her surprise, her hand could now fit through the crack, when before it only passed behind it regardless of angle. Her small fingers curled around its surprisingly dull edges. It felt solid, yet just as intangible as it had been only moments before. Like grabbing a cloud.

She gave an experimental tug. The fracture lines spiderwebbed out as if she’d taken a sledgehammer to some invisible window. Yet, for all the violence in its abrupt spread, it remained silent.

The tear was now nearly big enough for the girl to stick her head through. She leaned in closer. Just as before, it was dark inside. But there was something else now, too; she could feel a light draft. It wasn’t coming from behind.

Her grip loosened a little. Was it a good idea to try to… tear whatever this was even further open?

Her other hand rose to grip another edge.

Unlike before, the sound was now deafening. The best description she could fit to the noise was “a hundred-thousand newspapers being shredded”.

And not necessarily for a lack of a better term, either. The young girl stood now at the edge of infinity, holding scraps of the sky in her roughened hands. She looked down at the fragments of blue still in her grasp. She did that.

She did that?

She did that.

Zoey carefully tucked the shards into a pocket, sucking in a breath before taking a step into nothingness.

[fracturestory]

Casually wondering if I should make this an ask the characters-type blog instead of being only a WIPs/updates blog for my story.

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so anyway i rewrote a character's backstory again lmao

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Here’s Zoey again! Because I’ve recycled her across so many stories, she’s already got a pretty concretely-set design, and even some far more professionally-made art made by Momoruuu!

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Yay, more character designing! This time around we have a Caleb!

… One day I’ll post some actual Fractures content beyond WIPs lol

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👁👁 laying out a potential cover design for a thingy

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Have some Zoeys. I will not elaborate.

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Heyyyyyy so guess what this project ain’t dead lol

not a webcomic anymore tho but maybe i’ll toss a crappy ms paint doodle up every now and then

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oof ouch i should probably do something

starting to question if it was a sane choice to try and make a webcomic when i know that i hardly have time to write in the first place. :P

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It begins 👀👀👀

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yes i can art fast, how can you tell?