Short Fiction – Dear Comrade Winter

Dear Comrade Winter, How are you? I write this letter because recent events have, as you know, been momentous, and I found myself worrying about you. This is not a time that you and I ever believed we would see, and our old discussions on the matter really do seem so quaint now – but...

The Courage of Bad Taste – Resident Evil Vs. Reality

“This is the ultimate lifeform! Tyrant!” – Resident Evil 1/2/3 The Resident Evil franchise has always had an interesting relationship with reality. Try to remember all the way back to 1998, the original PlayStation release, where members of Raccoon City’s STARS (Special Tactics and Rescue Service) elite police unit, Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine, get...

US Imperialism And Quake (1998), Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Strogg

“Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie.” John Carmack once said, when id’s Tom Hall was getting too caught up in the deep lore of hit 1995 classic shooter Doom during development. “It’s expected to be there, but it’s not that important.” In 1996 id Software released a game called...

Prayer of the Oni 6: The Storeroom

It was all behind her and she was back in the courtyard with the shrine gate and compared to the hell beneath the earth, which still clung to her through the stench of the dead on her skin and the blood on her face, it was almost beautiful. She entered it through the hole in...

Prayer of the Oni 5: The Bottom of the Well

Now she found herself in a fully-enclosed corridor with solid wooden walls on both sides, a kind of transitory area that led north and south and east as well. It was sparse in decoration, with only a few lanterns and a window above to let the moonlight in, it was as well thick with dust...

Prayer of the Oni 4: The Tunnels

In her dreams she saw that face from the wooden pendant that was the face of the oni grinning at her with its demonic countenance set in a snarl. It made no sound but watched her in the dark. Its teeth were fangs and its eyes were crimson and it would not let her escape....

Prayer of the Oni 3: The Courtyard

They came to the estate in what she supposed was within the Hour of the Rooster when it was dark but not yet midnight and the streets were quieting and great Heian-kyo was coming to rest with lanterns dimmed and doors closed, all voices behind wood and only the drunk and the dead out in...

Prayer of the Oni 2: Wisteria Tree Lane

2: Wisteria Tree Lane It was the first time that she had ever bathed indoors. She washed herself in a wooden tub with water taken from the hot spring beneath the inn they were staying at, and the water was warm and welcoming and while in the bathroom of the inn the girl did not...

Prayer of the Oni 1: The Market

“The reason why sinners are deceived by their own minds to suffer these cycles in this hell is because of their wrongful passions. The wardens scold the sinners by chanting a verse: ‘’Tis not another who acted evil; ‘tis not another who’ll receive its retribution. One reaps the fruits of one’s one actions; so it...

Short Fiction – A Stiff Young Woman

A Stiff Young Woman "Fanfan sure is very beautiful," they said, "if only she would stop hopping everywhere', and I thought that in the village my father would have had their tongues for such talk, and then nailed their tongues to posts outside of town as a message to other foolish chatterers, or thrown them...