"The Strangest Unknown" - Sebastian Michaels

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Distortions
by Patrick Granger

I fell where the road turned to breath,
mouth full of lightless dust and time,
the sky a coil of burning threads,
thoughts dripping backwards through my spine.
She came in pieces, soft and gold,
a figure painted in the air,
I couldn’t see her, not the whole,
just scent like songs that aren’t quite there.
She lifted me, no hands, no sound,
and all the weight forgot to care.

I stumbled through a field of hush,
she shimmered always just ahead.
No footprints left, no name to call
just echoes naming me instead.
Her dress was dusk, her steps were wind,
the kind that hums of things unsaid.
I begged her once to slow, to speak
she turned where all the flowers bled.
And then I saw her…no, not quite
her face was smeared like dreams half-dead.

A blur, a blur, a canvas torn,
too bright to grasp, too dark to hold.
She whispered stars in foreign tongues,
each word too old, too sharp, too cold.
I knew her voice. I felt her eyes.
I bled with joy, or fear, or both.
She touched my cheek and spoke of fire,
and everything around us slowed.
I blinked, and it was daylight then.
She vanished, but the wind still knows.

Eye in the Night
from Traditional Folklore Vol. III

I have followed close, step by step,
Guiding you toward death or debt.
I wrote the path, the price, the toll
I grew the trees that shade your soul.

You never knew there were rules to heed,
The same that bind the dead who feed.
And now, like them, you face the scale
Your flesh and soul, my silken veil.

I've watched each road you dared to take,
Lurking deep when your spirit would quake.
You cast aside my signs, my cries
All that remains for you is lies.

They call me many things in fear
The Watcher, the star with the bleeding leer.
I burn in blue, in gold, in white
Mine is the curse that haunts the night.

So hear me now, my final breath:
Do not kneel before the stone and flame.
Do not invoke the ancient name.
Walk away while you still can falter
Lest you become the end, upon the altar.

In the Hollow
by Helena Winscott

The trees stretch tall, their limbs undone,
The ground beneath a hollow hum,
Where roots have whispered truths unsaid,
And shadows lean on paths long fled.

The wind speaks low, a twisted sound,
It knows the bones beneath the ground.
It calls me in with words unkind,
To leave the light, to leave the mind.

The night is thick, the sky hangs still,
A chorus hums against my will.
I follow where the darkness creeps.
Where silence sinks and never sleeps.

A flicker, just a shifting trace,
A sound that trembles, leaves no face.
The shadows twist with thoughts too deep,
Where all I’ve known is left to weep.

The trees now speak, a voice unknown,
It calls my name, but not my own.
The wind, it carries something more
The weight of things that I ignore.

I follow, lost, where few have gone,
Where even time begins to spawn.
And deeper still, where eyes may roam,
The woods have found me, and made me home.

The Dunes Yawn
by Soren Wilder

I said yes before it asked.
Or maybe it never did
The silence said enough.
It knew me.
Split me.
Took what I hadn’t yet lost.

Sand in my mouth,
in my veins,
in the cracks where memory hides.

The sun won't set.
It hovers, mocking.
Like it forgot how to die.

I gave it everything.
It gave me nothing.
Or worse
a piece of forever
that won’t stop screaming.

My name?
Wrong now.
It echoes weird.
Like glass bending in heat.
Like laughter made of ash.

The dunes move.
Not wind.
Not weather.
They know.
They shift like breath.
Like thought.
Like guilt with a grin.

No water.
No way back.
The map burned a century ago.
So did the sky.
So did she.

My hands shake.
Or maybe it’s the world.
Or maybe nothing’s real now.

The thing, I won’t name it.
It’s watching.
Smiling wide where the air folds.

And I smile too.
Because that’s the joke.
That’s the twist.

I chose this.

Let the sand eat.
Let the dark wear my skin.
Let it all blur,
sink,
vanish.

This body’s not mine.
This ending?
Perfect.

But it’s not over yet
I move once more.
Isn’t it strange?

My bones reform.

My vision is back,
Thoughts are here.
Life is mere.

When did I get another chance?
Is this really a chance?

If she’s still out there,
Tell her I’m still here,
Alive and kicking

Or am I?

The Strangest Unknown
by Patrick Granger

I watched stars lose their fire as the night forgot how to end.
I saw mountains collapse as they whispered like long-lost friends.
The seas rose without warning, then vanished beneath the stones.
The trees spoke in a tongue only ghosts and the wind had known.

I watched time fly by as I found myself stranded in the strangest unknown.

The moon cracked in half as it drowned in the mirrored lake.
The birds sang in reverse as the dawn refused to wake.
The roads circled back to the places I’d never been.
My breath fogged on glass that reflected a face of sin.

I watched time fly by as I found myself stranded in the strangest unknown.

The books lost their words, and the maps all began to bleed.
The hours bent like light as they fed on forgotten need.
The sky stitched a veil out of silence and bitter snow.
And still I walked on through a world I no longer know.

I watched time fly by as I found myself stranded in the strangest unknown.