Short Story
During a "wellness retrofit" in a spotless high-rise, elevator engineer Hal Mercer and his estranged daughter, now a risk analyst, stall at an unlisted half-floor where basil-sweet vines and QR codes listen. The timer ticks. The truth has teeth. WELLNESS RETROFIT / VOICE-INTEGRITY UPGRADE (v3.8) Your voice is
Short Story
Mira Voss, a Time Authority technician, enters a deconsecrated basilica where clocks tick in holy disagreement. The keeper bans “the correct time,” and the drift answers her grief with a bell that won’t fade — and a minute that won’t settle. [ARCHIVE COPY: TA / Chronometry Engineering / Decommission File 7.
Short Story
3:17 a.m. A nightclub medic keeps an overdose breathing in the rain — until a mylar-lined kiddie pool gleams like a baptismal font. With cameras rolling and a lighting tech offering blind spots, she must choose what gets saved, and what gets erased. 3:17 a.m. The bass
ObscuraWednesday
A transit auditor boards a bus that isn’t on any map. Route V takes fare in whispered sins, receipts curling: YOU HAVE BEEN SEEN. As the city’s lights smear into stained glass, she reaches for the black box — before it asks for hers. [EPIGRAPH: CITY TRANSIT AUTHORITY / PASSENGER
ObscuraWednesday
Ash and Lark run an after-hours tattoo studio where star-charts double as keys. Rowan arrives with one demand: a constellation inked at 02:17. But the printout carries a missing star, the radio static thickens, and the stencil begins to shift — turning a clean procedure into a vigil that answers
ObscuraWednesday
On the last night before demolition, Lucia keeps vigil in a candle-walled chapel, tending a haunted parish server stitched from years of recorded prayers. As storms and sisters close in, she must decide whether her firewall protects the church — or cages something holy. Gathering the Small Lights By the time
ObscuraWednesday
At a counter where postage costs memory, you speak into a glass jar and watch it bloom with salt-fog; below, your words are weighed against what you meant. The city carves you hollow to receive a message you do not yet know. I. Threshold (Counter) You stand at the counter
ObscuraWednesday
In a humming lab, a small sting turns protocol into rite: the instrument listens back. A lullaby threads the hiss; 03:17 loops; stubborn gates begin to yield. A lone green LED keeps breathing in the dark, as if the experiment remembers you. I. Protocol // Gate The camera enters before
ObscuraWednesday
This story traces the first tremors of awakening: a map recovered, a diagram mistaken for picture, and the body’s gradual learning that revelation arrives sparrow-small. I. The Seed of the Gate I came to the Institute of Prospective Devotions not because I believed in the invisible mechanics of conversion