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HELLO TO MY HOMIES

it's that time o' week again — 🤎 NEW TDBHF EPISODE DROP! 🤎

'no. 10 | silver sinew' can be read for freeeee or upgrade to paid to read THREE EPISODES AHEAD through 'no. 13 | just driving'

'the dirt beneath her fingernails' is a serialized post-apocalyptic romantic thriller about survival, found family, and second chances. when a starving ex-drone pilot is rescued by a mysterious operative and her team of elite misfits, she's thrust into a world of covert missions and dangerous secrets. as she joins their ranks, she must confront her past, reclaim her strength, and decide who she's willing to fight for in a world overrun by the undead. new episodes delivered to your inbox every Monday. subscribe to read

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I love that Sonnet 29 is one of Shakespeare's most beloved of all time and is hailed as this like beautiful, romantic poem about the complexities of love and optimism and in reality the narrator is just like damn I wish I wasn't such a loser, I wanna be rich and cool like that guy, oh shit wait I forgot about you! you're the best! damn ok maybe life is worth living. I would never trade you for a yacht.

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mood board: the dirt beneath her fingernails

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ATTN CALLSIGN: SUNSHINE READERS!

allow me to introduce you to 'the dirt beneath her fingernails,' a complete rework of 'Callsign: Sunshine.'

this version of the story takes the general premise and adapts it to a new world and an original cast of characters.

you are now Eleanora Teller, an ex-drone pilot, spared from certain, impending death by a mysterious spymaster and her band of dark and twisty anti-heroes.

Nora has learned a lot in her thirty years of life, most notably to always expect the unexpected.

what she discovers upon her fateful rescue is a ragtag group of former criminals, military leaders, and explosives aficionados united on an unlikely and harrowing mission: save the world. whatever that means.

as she joins their ranks, Nora manages to find purchase in this post-Rift existence, reclaiming all of her past selves — bad bits and all — and a fierce devotion to those around her, including the enigmatic mercenary only known to his peers as Merc.

the story starts out much the same as the one you came to know and love, but it quickly diverges into a unique through line that stands on its own.

new episodes drop every Monday at 10 PM ET.

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Subscribe to Lindsay FM to read my other musings thank you for supporting my writing! keep reading for your the dirt beneath her fingernails preview:

This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper.   - T.S. Eliot

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Nora woke to the smell of smoke again. 

She brought her wrist to her line of sight with a sigh and a squint. The glow from her watch was dim, but just bright enough.

Ah. Wednesday.

Immolation Day.

The sun was still hiding beneath the horizon, the sky outside her window a deep, unrelenting black. She was more-than-a-little-tempted to turn over and succumb once again to a numb, sightless slumber, but her stomach let out a small yowl of denial.

If it was Wednesday, that meant it had been one, two, four days since she'd last eaten. She groaned, rubbing the sand from her eyes. 

Her last meal of any substance had been the greasy bone meat of pit-roasted street rat and a half-damp cube of bouillon. And it'd been a delicacy. 

Food — real food — was hard to come by.

That's why the Boneweavers burned the bodies.

Or, it was one reason, at least. People eating people was how this whole thing had started, according to most. Wildfires seemed like the safer risk. Better to go up in flames than fall to whatever disease potentially plagued the corpses in the street. Had they starved? Possibly. 

But they'd most likely been Rifters in the making. 

Unsophisticated in their methods, perhaps, the Boneweavers were at least committed to keeping the local population of undead to a minimum. Nora would be remiss not to count the sole blessing.

The aptly named rebel militia had taken over the town three months back. Had paraded through the streets with the last few city councilmen's' heads on spikes. Fashioned crowns out of their ribs. 

They'd looted every shop or restaurant or home. Stolen anything of value, burned everything else. They'd killed off the owners of the fertile strips of farmland on the outskirts of town. Claimed each parcel of land for themselves. 

Intentional, of course. Populations were easier to control when they relied on you to get by. 

It'd been a clean slate. A new beginning. 

But ration cards were only handed out to families. Some nonsense about shoring up the foundations of a nascent society. Culling the weak. 

Nora usually had to get creative if she wanted to eat. Shed a few morals alongside her pride. 

She sat upright in her makeshift bed — not but a thin pile of disintegrating newspapers — and took in the dark, colorless space around her. She'd run out of candles ages ago, but their remnants still littered the room. Useless waxen nubs.

She leaned over, fumbling around for her cell phone; her only luxury, when this side of the city had the power to charge it. To her surprise and momentary delight, the screen brightened when she picked it up. She narrowed her gaze at the upper right-hand corner, and grinned.

28%. 

If she was clever, she could make it last a few days. A few dozen rounds of Solitaire. 

But, first things first: food.

She needed to text Ham. See what the radio chatter was saying. How quickly the newest disease variants were spreading. How close the world sat to the precipice of another World War. She crossed her fingers that he'd caught something a little more substantive this week. Squirrel or rabbit.

Nora didn't like Ham. He was big and loud and he smelled like rotted onions. But he never took more than she agreed to give him. And, for that, she trusted him.

She peered at the screen again and frowned at the little red dot she'd missed at first glance.

Someone had called her.

She muttered a confused expletive and pulled up the log. A number she didn't recognize had come through just over an hour ago. 2300.

She knew the country code. +44. England. At least, it used to be.

Strange.

The fact that the call had connected at all was something of a shock. Nora stood and walked to the cell tower repeater perched precariously on the sill of her window. She'd stolen it ages ago alongside the phone itself. Off the corpse of some rebel schmuck who'd tried to gut her in an alley. 

The device's little blue light blinked up at her happily.

"Huh," she mused aloud.

It rarely did that.

"I'll be."

She brought the phone to her face again. Different colors blurred into one, amorphous gray blob as her eyes unfocused, and her attention wandered to the acrid scent of burning meat outside. They sharpened again, when she squeezed them in concentration. 

"Nothing to lose, I guess."

She tapped the mystery number and held the device up to her ear.

It connected instantly without ringing.

"Callum," a woman's accented voice barked from the other end. It was clear; no static or other noise. Nora fumbled the phone, nearly dropping it on her foot. She scrambled to hold it in place again, stammering a haphazard apology.

"S-sorry? H-hello? Hello?"

"Ah. Birdie," the woman — Callum — replied, matter-of-fact.

A cool sensation crept across Nora's shoulders. A spindly spider with ice for toes. It was a name she'd answered to once. One she'd grown rather comfortable with not hearing. 

"H-how did you-"

Callum cut her off. "You're quite hard to find, you know."

She was English. Her accent thick and posh. Nora tried again. "How did you get this number?"

"I'd say a little birdie told me, but I suppose you probably wouldn't find that very funny." 

"You've been tracking me? Why?"

"Look, we don't have a lot of time, so I'll cut to the chase. Your country requires your service. Yours, specifically, Sergeant."

Nora tried to suppress the full-body shiver that emerged, to little success. Her teeth clattered against one another. Her skin formed a sheen of sweat, gluing itself to her clothes.

"What ... what do you mean by my country?"

"I should hope that would be obvious. The United States."

"I wasn't aware the states were still feeling united."

The woman snorted. "Do you accept the call or not?"

Nora pinched the bridge of her nose. "Why ... why me? I was discharged. Years ago."

"I can see that."

"And ... you want me back?"

"It would seem that way, yes."

Nora's stomach growled again, drawing her gaze downward for a beat. "And...who is they?"

"You're not really in a position to be asking so many questions, Eleanora."

"Just Nora." 

"You can go by whatever you like, I just need to know whether or not you accept the call."

Nora's teeth squeaked as she ground them together. 

She thought of Ham. The way his grubby hands felt when they squeezed her hips. The choppy, staccato rhythm with which he usually moved. The chipped brown tiles of his bathroom floor.

She glanced around her room. At what she could see. A vacant, empty vessel of a life once-lived. Most of the stuff here had never even belonged to her. It'd been borrowed thrice over. Borrowed and abandoned.

She'd been glad to pick up those scraps once. Grateful. 

But there was nothing left now.

"Fine," she finally conceded, her throat tight. "What does my country need me to do exactly?"

"Rendezvous first," Callum replied, sounding almost bored. She launched into an unhelpfully vague mission explanation. A remote pick-up. Coordinates somewhere out in the desert. Nora peered at her boots. At her pinky toe, perilously close to breaking through the leather upper. 

She might have to go barefoot. 

"You'll receive a more detailed brief in-flight. You'll need to arrive by 2100 hours."

Nora blinked. "Wait. Today?"

"Yes. 2100 hours today."

"Do ... you happen to know the coordinates' exact proximity to my current location?"

The woman paused. "About 79 kilometers east of you. Why?"

"Well, let's just say my, uh, means of transportation are limited."

"To what?"

"My feet."

Again, silence on the other end. Nora's heart had begun to beat very fast. Too fast. Like it might, at any second, sprout wings and burst forth out of her chest entirely.

She'd once said she'd sooner die than rejoin the army. That she'd fuck anything and everyone before she'd let herself get fucked by the green weenie ever again. 

But that was before. She'd never been this close to death, even back then. The words of a fully living woman mean nothing to one whose foot is halfway through the door of neverafter. She didn't recognize that girl any more than that girl would recognize her. 

The first taste of a different life, immediately snatched back by her own pathetic limitations.

But then — a low rustling on the other end of the phone line. And Callum's voice again, somehow seeming a bit further away than it had before.

"You need an extraction."

"Yes, please."

"Very well. Stay alert. You can expect a bird before dawn."

Nora's throat felt tight. "Copy," she replied, recoiling instantly. The word sounded stupid in her voice. Tasted like sawdust.

"Sergeant."

"Yes?"

"Kill the phone."

"But-"

"If we can find you, anyone can."

The line went dead with a dull click. Nora stared at that little white screen for several long minutes, blinking away the enduring dryness in her eyes, before she numbly pulled up Solitaire and began to play.

She didn't think one last round would hurt. 

Until she got stuck.

A surge of bitter energy sent the phone flying across the room, where it landed on the carpet with a sad, muted thunk. 

Nora clenched and unclenched her teeth. Her fingers found their way into her hair. She combed through what tangles and knots she could, working rough sections of it into one long plait that she secured at the end with a rogue scrap of cloth. 

It wasn't the most practical way to wear her hair, not given its length. But she'd never been able to bring herself to cut it, mats and all. 

She trudged to her pack, already filled with everything else she still had to her name: a pistol — an easy to hold, easy to hide .22, a few extra bullets, a small, mostly empty medical kit, a pocket knife, and half a protein bar that she was saving for emergencies.

She eyed the bar for a full minute before she allowed herself to take off a celebratory nibble.

She pocketed the knife and took her pistol in hand. Dropped the magazine out, checked for a bullet in the chamber, slid the magazine back into place. 

She wasn't used to having so much to mull over. Her days had long taken on a droning, unending monotony, her priorities rarely diverging from those akin to her survival. 

Her thoughts usually tended to eddy around in her head like waves on the shore of a lake. On a still day. Slow. Intermittent.

Now they churned. The choppy turbulence of a Class V rapid, slamming into the walls of her skull, over and over and over again. Tempestuous. Uncontrolled. 

She took a deep breath in through her nose. Let it out through her mouth. 

One thing at a time. She took another, bigger bite of the protein bar. 

The pistol in her hand was nice. A gift. A relic from another life. Stainless steel, chrome-lined barrel, wooden grips. Customized to her preferences, of which she had many. She dropped the magazine out again and gave the gun an affectionate peck.

"Sorry about this, old gal."

She knelt beside her phone, where it had fallen when she'd thrown it, and slammed the butt into it with what little strength she could muster. 

She felt a small twinge of sorrow for the loss. She'd miss it. She hated how bitter it tasted. That weakness. 

Once the phone was in pieces, SIM crushed to dust, she inspected her pistol for damage. A few new scratches, but otherwise unharmed. She let out an involuntary sigh of relief, then re-inserted the magazine, pulled the slide back to load it, and tucked the whole thing into the waistband of her jeans. 

Nothing to do now but wait. 

She studied the dirt beneath her fingernails to pass the time. Tiny black crescents. An ugly culmination of her past, repeated ten times over. 

She scowled. Fumbled around in her pocket until she found her knife and flicked it open. 

Ultimately it was only another hour or so of fidgeting and pacing and thoughts racing before she heard the telltale chopping of helicopter blades. She was on her feet the instant she did, throwing herself out the door and into the hall. She belted her pack across her chest as she flew down the stairs, skipping two, three, four at a time. 

She stumbled into a dark stairwell, only catching herself by the grace of the railing. It was blocked at the bottom; half the second story had caved into the first a while ago. Some explosion Nora knew little about, just that it had happened. 

When she hit the third floor, she ran down the main hallway, toward the fire exits. 

She blew past a curious squatter, shoving him back through his door, an action he returned with a rude gesture and a harsh assessment of her appearance.

"Fuck you, too!"

She hardly recognized the sound of her voice. It was almost giddy. 

All told, it was a miracle she never fell flat on her face. She flung her body into the first exit door she came across and slid down the ladder into the night's lingering warmth. 

They'd had a hell of a heat wave, these last weeks; the desert had been holding onto the day's rays longer than usual. There was the vague stink of charred waste in the distance, but the air had cleared considerably since she'd first awoken. 

She spotted the helicopter amid a building cloud of dust. It’d landed a half klick away in a vacant parking lot that had once belonged to a movie theater. It was a small craft — only for personnel transport — and black as the night itself.

Nora’s pulse pounded in her ears by the time she reached the lot. Rapid-fire bursts that hurt as they slammed through her dehydrated veins.

There was a man standing before her, wearing all black. He was easily a foot taller than she. Broad shouldered, but lean. 

Wind from the copter's blades whipped strands of hair loose from her braid. She strained to hear the man over the noise, despite now only being a few feet away. 

"Birdie," he called in a deep timbre.

Nora's chest heaved. It was all she could do to nod. 

He studied her for another moment, his face impossible to read. It was covered almost entirely by a balaclava. Only his eyes were visible. He gestured with his head and turned to climb back into the cab. "With me."

She hauled herself up behind him, stumbling a little as he wordlessly shoved a corded headset into her hands. The man gave the pilot's shoulder a single tap and took a seat without so much as another glance in her direction. 

Nora slowly slipped the headset over her ears, relieved when the roar of the copter blades flattened out into a relatively inoffensive whine. She hobbled around, grabbing onto anything and everything to remain upright, eventually sinking into the chair across from the masked man with an exhausted huff.

She made a point to lift her chin when she felt the weight of his stare, intent on meeting any scrutiny with at least some measure of pride. But she had a hard time holding onto it when her eyes finally slid to his. They watched her with keen disinterest. Whatever he was thinking about what he saw, it wasn't kind. 

She cleared her throat and adjusted the mic of her headset so that it rested just beneath her chin.

"So," she tried. "You are...?"

What was visible of his expression didn't change. "Nobody."

"Nobody," she repeated dumbly.

He nodded. Turned to face the front of the craft. "Nobody."

She whispered it again under her breath. She'd certainly heard her fair share of weird nicknames and call signs. Stupid inside jokes. Outright insults. Slurs. But this was a new one. 

He shifted in his seat and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, further closing himself off to her. 

She tried not to feel offended. And failed. So she turned away from him, scooting closer toward the window so she could peer out of it.

Beneath her was an endless onyx sea of lifeless desert. As vast and expansive as the growing list of unknowns building in the back of Nora's starving, sleep-deprived mind. 

Who was Callum? What sort of fucked up blacklist was Nora on that the army was now calling her back to service? Who was this Nobody and what the hell had he done to be tasked with being her babysitter? 

She sighed, fogging the glass.

She didn't like not knowing. It made her feel itchy and hot. But she was used to that sort of discomfort. And she'd grown very, very good at waiting. 

So she would do it. She would wait. She would go on their little missions, perform their little tasks. Whoever and whatever they were. 

And then she would get her answers. If she had to root around in the dirt with just her fingers for aid, she would get her fucking answers. 

And nobody — dead or undead — was going to stand in her way.

if you prefer the og, it can still be found on my AO3, here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/58735312/chapters/149673883

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"it's all in your head" correct! unfortunately I am also in there

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1999 The Sun The Moon and Stars

Greg Mort

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the dirt beneath her fingernails

excerpt from no. 10 | silver sinew

"A line?" 

Merc's question caught Nora so off-guard, she could only manage to sputter his words back at him. 

She waffled between fury and interest. 

She was flustered. Indignant and perplexed. 

He'd spoiled her thing. This was her room to clean.

He wasn't supposed to be here. 

He was supposed to be off galavanting about the woods, stewing over his lot in life. 

Instead, he was here. And had been here, from the looks of it. There was a stack of books neatly piled at his feet. His rifle sat propped in one corner of the room. The blanket on the sofa beside him was rumpled from recent use.

He’d hidden from her. Here.

After insisting that she needed to train — more specifically that she needed to train with him — and then up and disappearing for a week.

More than a week.

Allowing her to mull and stew and fret over her choices. Alone. 

It was rich. It was insulting. 

It was fucking outrageous.

Something in Merc's face twitched, and Nora's flames guttered — just a hair. 

She picked at her thumb, not sure what to do with her hands. She took a sharp inhale in through her nose, and released it. 

The gravity of his amber eyes was gentle, if heavy. 

It wasn’t quite scrutiny that she felt from them. It was assessment. She returned it, though not intentionally. 

She watched as he set his book down on the sofa beside his leg, flipping it over to keep his place, and folded his hands in his lap. 

He wore what she'd last seen him in — black everything, boot to mask — but he'd combed his hair. It was coiffed neatly, almost like he had mousse in it. 

He looked rested. Clean. 

He had spoiled her thing. 

But, how curious that, after more than a week of wondering, she’d finally found him. Alone, in what was apparently his personal library. 

Reading, of all things. 

As though the world outside this room didn't exist.

She felt a flicker of envy at that thought.

And then, she felt mad all over again. 

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it's very important to me that others know about this remix

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Sylvia Plath, in a diary entry dated 20 June 1959, from The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

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the dirt beneath her fingernails

excerpt from no. 8 | canvas of black

Nora screwed up her face, indignant. 

"Wha-no," she huffed. She canted her body away from Merc, as if to physically bar him from taking anything. As if that would be enough. 

He just waved his fingers again. 

"Why?" she demanded, eyes snapping between his face and his outstretched hand. 

"Shooting is a privilege."

"I can shoot."

"I'm sure you can. You're not allowed to."

She squawked. "Not allowed-"

"You'll earn them back."

"What?"

"The bullets. You'll earn them back."

"How?"

Merc shrugged. "Cooperating with your training. Eating what Benji tells you."

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on."

"I'll disarm you if I have to."

She took a step back. "Don't you touch me."

"I don't need to touch you."

"Merc-"

"Birdie."

"It's Nora."

"You're deflecting."

"You're not getting my bullets."

"Then I'll take the whole thing."

"No!"

Her protests were futile. Merc was faster. Stronger. Generally better. 

She could bitch and moan all day; the outcome would be the same. 

Merc was patient. 

Ceaselessly, unendingly, if the mission called for it. 

And he was well-accustomed to being disliked. Even his so-called cadre of "friends" kept him at arm's length. He didn't mind. He'd grown comfortable with the distance. 

It was easier. 

It was usually easier. 

"Don't make this a thing," he tried. 

"I'm not making anything, anything."

With a sigh, he did, indeed, disarm her, tripping her at the ankle so that she fell into him. She yelped in surprise. He pinned her left arm behind her back, along her spine, and slipped her pistol from her waistband in one smooth, swift motion.

"Asshole!"

Merc chose to let the insult slide. 

She whirled on him as he released her, cheeks pink, eyes glistening. "Give it back."

Merc didn't acknowledge her as he released the magazine and press checked the gun, deftly catching the bullet it launched into the air. He pocketed it, and the six others she'd had loaded in the mag, eventually passing the weapon back to her, careful to keep the muzzle pointed at the ground. 

This seemed to stun her. For a moment, she didn't move. 

Then, she accepted it with tenderness, a flat, confounded stare on her face. When she glanced back up at him, she furrowed her brows.

"Why?"

"Told you. Shooting is a privilege."

"No... why'd you actually give it back?"

He flexed his jaw. "Now you don't want it?"

"No, I-," she huffed a breath. "What's the catch?"

"No catch."

"I could find another magazine. More bullets."

"Sure."

"I mean this house has gotta be full of weapons."

Merc nodded slowly. "Luca keeps them under considerable lock-and-key."

Nora's posture deflated, just a hair. "Of course he does."

Silence. 

"No catch," he repeated. 

They stared at one another. A standoff. 

Merc's specialty. He blinked at her, lazy and unruffled. 

She caved first, tucking her pistol away again with a resigned sigh. 

"Alright," she groaned. "Alright, just—fine. You win." 

Merc waited. 

"You win."

Nothing.

"What do I have to do?" she demanded, thrusting her arms in the air, then letting them fall back down by her hips. 

He observed the courtyard. The estate was still quiet, though things were well and truly on their way to daytime. The birds were beginning to come to life. Morning flowers were opening their petals, little flecks of periwinkle among a sea of green. 

The sun did little to warm the air, low as it still was, but it did cast a soothing, titian glow across the ground. 

"First," Merc waved an arm, gesturing to the long patch of grass separating the chessboard patio from the garden. "Show me your fighting stance."

She stared at him for a beat before breaking into another scowl. "That's it?"

Merc angled his head. "Baby steps."

She replied with another roll of her eyes and stomped to where he'd indicated. She cracked her neck, and looked around. 

Merc took up a spot a few feet away. 

She adjusted her legs, setting her feet a little further than hip distance apart. He watched her closely as she leaned back onto her right foot, keeping the bulk of her weight near her toes. She bounced a little, and brought her fists up just beneath her chin.

"A little higher."

-----

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Sylvia Plath, aged 26, from "The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath" (dated September 30, 1959)

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DROP! | the dirt beneath her fingernails

do you like fiction? do you like dark, angsty, end-of-the-world romances? do you like hard-headed fmcs and silent, broody mmcs? do you secretly like the suspense of waiting a whole week to watch a new episode of your favorite tv show?

boy howdy do I have the story for you...

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the dirt beneath her fingernails no. 7 | metal against metal

Merc watched Nora stomp away with quiet, reluctant relief. There was a faint stinging in his chest. Right where her shoulder had brushed against him. 

He rubbed that space absently, allowing the silence of Nora's ensuing absence to rest over him like a cloak. 

In truth, she'd managed to catch him off guard, even if inadvertently. He'd been so deep in memory, so singularly focused on ridding himself of the pounding in his skull, that he hadn't heard her footsteps. 

It was only when she'd started clanging around the pantry that he'd whirled, gun reflexively trained on her back. 

She'd been none the wiser. Had just kept digging for treasure. 

He'd struggled to make sense of her image at first. Sleep still marred his eyes. Grief, his brain. 

Her dark hair, unbound, in tidy waves to her waist, had been unrecognizable. She'd changed her clothes again, too. 

It was the sight of her sweatshirt that relaxed him. He'd given it, along with a few others, to Ari when pressed late the night before. 

He'd intentionally scraped his boot against the floor, then. A warning. As polite as he was capable. 

She'd reacted the same way he had. 

It shouldn't have surprised him. He'd read her file. He knew she wasn't entirely helpless. At least, she hadn't been, once. 

He knew better than to underestimate people. Knew better than to leave his guard down around anyone, regardless of appearance. 

She looked better than when he'd first plucked her out of the desert, at least. Less of a liability than he'd originally thought. 

Maybe.

He'd stared at her that first night in disbelief. Disgust. Concern. 

Not so much for her, though she definitely warranted a little pity, but for his team. 

Another person in the fold was always a risk. The balance of differing personalities was delicate.

It needed to be worth it. 

Out the gate, Nora didn't appear to be worth it.

Read in Full on Substack

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mood board: the dirt beneath her fingernails

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the dirt beneath her fingernails

a weekly serial, publishing every monday at 10 pm eastern time

This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper.  - T.S. Eliot

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preview of no. 1 | immolation day

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Nora woke to the smell of smoke again. 

She brought her wrist to her line of sight with a sigh and a squint. The glow from her watch was dim, but just bright enough.

Ah. Wednesday.

Immolation Day.

The sun was still hiding beneath the horizon, the sky outside her window a deep, unrelenting black. She was more-than-a-little-tempted to turn over and succumb once again to a numb, sightless slumber, but her stomach let out a small yowl of denial.

If it was Wednesday, that meant it had been one, two, four days since she'd last eaten. She groaned, rubbing the sand from her eyes. 

Her last meal of any substance had been the greasy bone meat of pit-roasted street rat and a half-damp cube of bouillon. And it'd been a delicacy. 

Food — real food — was hard to come by.

That's why the Boneweavers burned the bodies.

Or, it was one reason, at least. People eating people was how this whole thing had started, according to most. Wildfires seemed like the safer risk. Better to go up in flames than fall to whatever disease potentially plagued the corpses in the street. Had they starved? Possibly. 

But they'd most likely been Rifters in the making. 

Unsophisticated in their methods, perhaps, the Boneweavers were at least committed to keeping the local population of undead to a minimum. Nora would be remiss not to count the sole blessing.

The aptly named rebel militia had taken over the town three months back. Had paraded through the streets with the last few city councilmen's' heads on spikes. Fashioned crowns out of their ribs. 

They'd looted every shop or restaurant or home. Stolen anything of value, burned everything else. They'd killed off the owners of the fertile strips of farmland on the outskirts of town. Claimed each parcel of land for themselves. 

Intentional, of course. Populations were easier to control when they relied on you to get by. 

It'd been a clean slate. A new beginning. 

But ration cards were only handed out to families. Some nonsense about shoring up the foundations of a nascent society. Culling the weak. 

Nora usually had to get creative if she wanted to eat. Shed a few morals alongside her pride. 

She sat upright in her makeshift bed — not but a thin pile of disintegrating newspapers — and took in the dark, colorless space around her. She'd run out of candles ages ago, but their remnants still littered the room. Useless waxen nubs.

She leaned over, fumbling around for her cell phone; her only luxury, when this side of the city had the power to charge it. To her surprise and momentary delight, the screen brightened when she picked it up. She narrowed her gaze at the upper right-hand corner, and grinned.

28%. 

----

read the rest

[splendsay]

hellaur,

contrary to what this blog might suggest, I have actually been writing a lot lately (weehee!) unfortch, I got laid off (lol) so I've had to re-configure my life and my choices (womp) and have been working on developing a legitimate portfolio (wauw) and figuring out how to potentially monetize some of my work as I finish my manuscript (wot).

if u like my fanfic posts, you might like my current big project/baby/allconsumingsuccubusmonster, the dirt beneath her fingernails.

if you've been here awhile, essentially, I'm reworking callsign: sunshine into an original piece -- a weekly serial posting every Monday on Substack.

it's an original world, original characters, the whole nine. if you're up-to-date on c:s, you will prob find it to be structurally familiar, particularly in the beginning, but the stories will start to heavily diverge as we get deeper into them, and the characters have been completely and significantly reworked.

if you're new here: hai. this is a story about a post-zombie-apocalyptic world. our heroine has a military background and is called back into service -- or so she thinks.

the first few chapters are available to read for free now, with new ones releasing each week. if you want to read ahead a few weeks, you can become a paid subscriber (but no pressure lol the economy is bonk, I get it).

xoxoxoxoxo,

L

p.s. - c:s remains up on ao3 for archive members, as do all my other fics

Read the dirt beneath her fingernails

Follow me on Substack

Read Callsign: Sunshine

[splendsay]

nobody talk to me