The Sprawl: Speculative Fiction

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Hey everyone! Breaking format here for an update. I’ve been writing weekly shorts for the last few months and while it’s been really great, I need to…
DC Kalbach

July 2021

Kater believed in ghosts. He loved the idea of haunting. When he died, he wanted to linger on in the Chicken’s Coop tavern and make wailing sounds every…
DC Kalbach
1
“This place is going to blow your mind.” I squeezed Bell’s hand as we walked along a rain-choked sidewalk past rundown shops and restaurants. The…
DC Kalbach
3

June 2021

Jain left his pregnant wife behind to go scavenging in the sewers beneath Verash. The upper levels were still in use and covered in sticky dark muck…
DC Kalbach
The skypit was a gash in the crust of the earth that stretched from horizon to horizon. Millie stood at the edge gripping the trunk of a young pine…
DC Kalbach
I never wanted to get older. When I was barely ten years old, my mother sat me down in our cramped apartment, touched my face, and said, “There’s a man…
DC Kalbach
Ster rode out from the mountain palace at the head of a twelve-man hunting party. At the base of the steep trail were the rolling grasslands of the…
DC Kalbach
The entrance to the labyrinth was a crack in the cliff face wide enough for two people to walk through shoulder-to-shoulder. Baran was afraid of getting…
DC Kalbach
1

May 2021

The tincture was bright green and smelled like rotting hay. It boiled in a cauldron above the fire while Dillin counted the coins at the adjacent table…
DC Kalbach
Men in robes and thick canvas gloves dumped piles of raw material into massive black-iron bubbling vats: smashed stone, weeds ripped from pavement…
DC Kalbach
Jim posted for the first time two weeks after the funeral. — I swear this isn’t a troll and I know you guys aren’t gonna believe me, I’m just saying I…
DC Kalbach
I dragged my knife down the stone wall over and over until a nice fat divot formed in the crust. Villie stood at the alley entrance keeping watch and…
DC Kalbach
© 2023 DC Kalbach
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