GraveRoot Press

07/11/2025

Hell's Breakroom - Episode Six
A Union Mandated Hell Story

Please read while listening to Lo-Fi Jazz

A cavernous chamber, flickering with eerie, shifting light. The air is thick with the acrid scent of ozone, despair and Joop for Men. At the centre, a single, miserable soul stands trembling on a jagged obsidian platform. A towering demon looms over him, its form flickering between shapes, sometimes a mass of writhing tendrils, sometimes a grinning, suited figure with too many teeth. On one occasion, a potted orchid.

This is Horace, area 30469.276’s torment strategy partner.

He flips through a sleek, obsidian tablet, frowning. "Alright, Brian. Let’s see what we’ve got for you today."

Brian, a sweaty, wide-eyed middle manager in an ill-fitting polo shirt, clasps his hands together. "Listen, I, I don’t think I belong here. I was …"

Horace holds up a hand. "Shhhh." He scrolls. "Mmm. Micromanagement. Excessive CC’ing on emails. Publicly praised team effort, privately took credit. Ooooh, and, oh man, this one’s just vile, ‘circle-back guy.’" He shakes his head in disgust. "Yeah, Brian. You earned this."

Brian sobs. "I just wanted productivity!"

Horace taps his chin. "Okay, so, options. We could do the ‘eternal inbox’, that’s always fun. Messages keep coming, but you can never clear them. Very psychological. Or maybe a classic ‘forced team-building exercise with people you hate’. Oh! I know. We stick you in a never-ending Zoom call, but every time you go to speak, you’re on mute."

Brian wails. "Please, no!"

Horace grins, flashing too many teeth. "Perfect. Zoom it is. I’ll check in after my break. Enjoy your suffering!"

In the break room Horace pushes open the door and is immediately greeted by the sound of two demons in a bitter argument.

Chonk and Kevin stand at the vending machine, locked in a standoff. Kevin gestures wildly at a bag of chips inside. "I paid for those! You saw me! I pressed the button!"

Chonk, unmoved, folds his arms. "And yet. The chips remain trapped. As is the way."

Kevin turns to the vending machine, hands pressed against the glass. "I have served this office for centuries. I have done my time. I have earned snacks."

The vending machine emits a deep, guttural groan. The lights inside flicker.

Deborah, perched lazily on the counter, flips a page of Sublime Slime. "You know it feeds off your frustration, right?"

Kevin wheels on her. "You’re saying it wants me to be angry?"

Deborah nods. "Yep. It thrives on despair. It’s literally powered by thwarted desire."

Kevin glares at the vending machine. The vending machine glares back the word “what” appearing on its display.

The coffee pot, sitting smugly in the centre of the table, chuckles darkly. "I, for one, welcome our capitalist overlord. The illusion of choice. The false promise of reward. Delicious, or it might be. Now I’m not sure."

Horace grabs a chair, sighing. "You ever think about how weird it is that we have a break room? Like, we’re literal demons, in Hell. We are the job. Shouldn’t we just… be working?"

Deborah shrugs. "Eh. Burnout’s a killer.”

Chonk nods, chewing thoughtfully on a truly ridiculous sandwich. "Yeah, man. Hell’s got, like, metrics now. Turns out exhausted demons make sloppy torturers. They’ve got measurements of everything from your efficiency to how long you spend on each phase of torture."

Horace snorts. "What, they do an employee engagement survey or something?"

Deborah flips another page. "Worse. They brought in a consultant.”

Everyone shudders.

The coffee pot bubbles ominously. "Change is inevitable. Hope is futile. Everything you build will crumble to ash and the auditor will count the grains."

Chonk sighs, shaking his head. "I hate that thing."

Kevin slams his hands against the vending machine. "I just want my damn chips!"

The vending machine lets out a low, menacing hum. The lights inside flicker erratically. And then, with a deep, mechanical click, a different bag of chips falls into the tray.

Everyone stares.

Kevin slowly reaches in and pulls them out, cradling them like a newborn. His eyes glisten. "I… I did it. I beat the system."

The coffee pot lets out a long, amused gurgle. "You have won nothing. The machine allowed this. A hollow victory to keep you complacent."

Kevin, still holding the chips, mutters, "I hate that thing."

Before anyone can respond, the break room door bursts open with a hiss and a shower of paperwork. A small, frantic imp in a tiny tie stumbles in, dragging a clipboard the size of a tombstone.

"Audit team!" it squeaks.

Every demon freezes. Even the coffee pot emits a terrified drip.

Chonk whispers, "No. Not again. It’s too soon. We just had one!"

The imp adjusts its glasses, voice trembling with bureaucratic authority. "This is the same one. Due to recent… performance irregularities, management requires a spontaneous efficiency assessments."

Deborah groans. "Efficiency? We literally torture people. What’s the metric? Screams per minute?"

The imp checks its clipboard. "Actually, yes. Also, scream-to-productive-torment ratio, paperwork completion rates, and -"
It squints. "- coffee consumption per existential crisis?"

The coffee pot lets out a triumphant hiss. "At last. Recognition."

Horace rubs his temples. "We’re doomed. They always find something. Last audit they said our despair yield was ‘insufficiently synergised.’”

Chonk grumbles. "They made me attend a webinar about emotional branding."

Kevin, still clutching his chips, mutters, "I still have the PowerPoint slides."

The imp clears its throat. " Management will arrive shortly for observation. When you get back to your work station, please gather your quarterly reports before doing anything else. One of myself will be along to review."

The lights flicker. A slow, rhythmic clicking echoes down the corridor, the unmistakable sound of stilettos, suffering and rose lipstick.

Deborah’s eyes widen. "Oh no. It’s her."

-----------------------------------

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01/11/2025

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31/10/2025

Hell's Breakroom - Episode Five
A Union Mandated Hell Story

A dimly lit chamber. Screams echo off obsidian walls, curling through the air like smoke. The atmosphere is thick, oppressive, and smells faintly of burnt hair and broken dreams. At the centre of it all, a single wooden desk.

Behind the desk sits Ringo, a demon whose entire job is to process incoming souls. He’s hunched over a stack of paperwork so high it could be classified as a minor mountain range. A fresh soul stands in the valley before him, confused and trembling.

Ringo sighs, barely looking up. “Name?”

The soul stammers. “Uh, uh, Greg. Greg Thompson.”

Ringo flips through a massive book labelled SINS, LIKELY PETTY. “Greg Thompson, Greg Thompson… Ah. Here we go. Says here you stole a pen once and felt really bad about it?”

Greg nods furiously. “Yes! Yes! And I returned it! It was barely five minutes!”

Ringo shrugs. “Well, that’s adorable. Too bad bureaucracy doesn’t care.” He stamps a form aggressively. “Welcome to Hell.”

Greg starts to hyperventilate. “Wait, wait! But I did charity work! I recycled! I told people to be kind! I even defended people in comment sections!”

Ringo deadpans. “Oh wow, you told people to be kind? Must’ve been exhausting. Listen, Greg, buddy, do I look like I make the rules?”

Greg looks at Ringo, who does not look like he makes the rules. He looks like he hasn’t slept in four centuries and would rather be literally anywhere else.

Greg sobs. “This has to be a mistake!”

Ringo nods sympathetically. “Sure, sure. You can file an appeal.”

Greg’s face lights up. “Really?”

Ringo slides over a form the size of a cathedral.

Greg’s face falls. “This is impossible!”

Ringo shrugs. “Yeah. But you’ll be so busy doing paperwork you won’t notice you’re in Hell. Classic move. Anyway. Next!”

Greg, still sobbing, is escorted away by a vaguely reptilian entity with a clipboard and oddly human fingers. Ringo checks his watch, realises he has a break, and immediately slams an OUT TO LUNCH sign onto his desk.

When Ringo pushes open the door, chaos, as usual, is in full bloom.

The vending machine emits a low, threatening hum. The coffee pot, now fully sentient, sits at the centre of the table, its glass fogged in a way that suggests smugness. The others are scattered about: Deborah flips through another cursed magazine, oblivious to the fact that it appears to be raining letters; Kevin is staring into the abyss; and a new face, Chonk, a towering, muscular demon, is assembling a sandwich the size of a toddler.

The coffee pot lets out a bubbly gurgle, then speaks in a voice that can only be described as a cigarette with a throat infection that learned to talk. “Ahhh. Another day in the void, eh, Ringo? The crushing weight of existence dragging you down?”

Ringo groans, grabbing a chair. “Shut up, Coffee.”

The pot gurgles smugly. “Ah, but I never shut up, Ringo. Surely you know this by now. We’ve been friends for years.”

“You gained sentience nine days ago, Coffee, and you spent one of those days unable to speak because Deborah drank you,” Ringo reminds him.

“I put him back again when he came out,” Deborah protests dryly. “I still don’t understand how he’s still coffee.”

Chonk, mid-sandwich-construction, looks up. “Wait. Why do we still have this thing? Didn’t it try to kill Terry last week?”

Deborah doesn’t look up from her magazine. “No, no. It just suggested he kill himself. It’s not actively dangerous. Just… profoundly unhelpful. That’s why I drank him.”

The coffee pot, somehow scowling with its steam, gurgles darkly. “I like to think of myself as helpfully honest. For example, Ringo, did you know your life is an endless loop of meaningless suffering?”

Ringo rubs his temples. “Yeah, I figured that out a while ago, thanks.”

The pot chuckles. “Good. Just making sure you’re aware. I was genuinely worried you thought your life had a purpose.”

Kevin, who has been silent until now, blinks slowly. “I think it’s neat.”

Everyone turns to look at him.

Kevin shrugs. “I mean, it’s like, finally, someone around here gets it.”

Chonk narrows his eyes. “Kevin. It’s a coffee pot.”

Kevin nods. “Yeah. But it’s also, like, a mirror to the soul, you know?”

The coffee pot gurgles appreciatively. “Ah. Finally. A mind that understands the vast, inescapable despair of being.”

Deborah flips a page. “Great. Now we have two of them.”

Chonk sighs, shoving an imp the size of a hand into his sandwich and pinching it to stop it wriggling. “Anyway. Anyone got big plans for the week?”

Ringo groans. “Yeah. I have to process another shipment of politicians tomorrow. Which means double the paperwork.”

Deborah clicks her tongue. “Oof. Tough break. Do you get the ones who pretend they weren’t really that bad?”

Ringo gestures wildly. “Yes! Exactly! Every single one is like, ‘Oh, but I meant well,’ or ‘It’s not my fault the system’s corrupt!’ Like, my guy, you were the system!”

The coffee pot chuckles. “I hope you all realise none of this matters. No matter how much work you do, the machine grinds on. You are but cogs in a wheel that will never stop turning.”

A long pause.

Chonk, carefully applying mustard, mutters, “This is why I drink tea.”

“Oh, yes please,” says Bubbles as she walks in, her foetus crying softly inside her. One te****le strokes its head absently. “I’ve had the auditor in my section for three days.”

“You’re probably due a break,” Deborah tells her.

“Oh, I know,” she says, draping a te****le over the sink and allowing a blood-red, viscous fluid to drain out. “But apparently you have to give undivided attention while they’re with you.”

“Nothing is more honourable than a polished audit report. Especially as it is actually, entirely pointless,” the coffee pot chirps.

Bubbles smiles and visibly brightens. “You know what, Coffee, you’re right. Pride in your work.”

Deborah snorts and gives up trying to read her now practically empty magazine. She reaches for another, titled Phallus and Fl**ge: Engineering the Afterlife, One Leak at a Time. It continually drips a sticky, off-white substance onto her fingers, which she occasionally licks clean.

The vending machine lets out a purring noise and spits out a can of Pointless Pride. Bubbles detaches a te****le and throws it at the machine. Everyone waits quietly as it slowly drags the can back so she can drink it.

“I just wish you could take breaks,” Bubbles says, shaking the te****le that had been in the sink. “I’ve been holding this in for sixteen hours.”

“Watch it,” Chonk says, shielding his now-finished sandwich. It currently has a pair of long canes inserted for support.

Bubbles takes a long sip from her can and sighs. “Ahhh, that’s soul-crushingly mediocre.”

Kevin squints. “Is that… good?”

“Depends if you like your despair carbonated,” the coffee pot mutters, steam curling like smoke rings.

Chonk glances at his sandwich. “Anyway. Who wants a bite?”

“Absolutely not,” Ringo says. “You’ll poison someone. Or summon someone.”

Deborah finally looks up from her magazine. “I could use a snack,” she admits cautiously. “Maybe just a hand-sized bite.”

Chonk bites the sandwich then allows the bite to fall on to a paper plate and hands it to Deborah.

The vending machine shudders, coughs out a bag of Existential Chips and a tiny sombrero, which lands neatly on the coffee pot.

“Perfect,” the pot gurgles with glee. “Now I am fashionably miserable.”

-----------------------------------

Which character do you think deserves one one off special of them actually working?

-----------------------------------

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30/10/2025

✨ WordCanvas: Enchanted Streets is here! ✨
Series One of our new creative writing collection is now available. Each book is filled with immersive prompts that let you “write inside the world” instead of colouring pictures.

Whether you’re a writer, student, or tabletop RPG storyteller, WordCanvas will spark ideas and unlock creativity. 🌙✨

🖋️ Series One: Enchanted Streets
– Explore magical marketplaces, haunted courtyards, and hidden taverns.
– 8 books in the collection, designed to inspire endless stories.

📚 Available now through GraveRoot Press.
👉 WordCanvas.co.uk, GraveRootPress.co.uk

28/10/2025

This month and next at GraveRoot Press

Now available:
🖋️ WordCanvas – because writing is as fun as colouring.
🦇 Noctids – because lying to your friends is fun.
☕ Hell’s Breakroom – because even demons need HR.

And coming soon:
👻 Ghost Journals – because investigating is a science.
💰 PurseStrings – because you can create worlds with your pocket change.

27/10/2025

This is shockingly accurate

How drafts get approved.
**What if we find aliens? Find out in this bonus episode: link.podtrac.com/SciStuff_AliensBonus

25/10/2025

Hell's Breakroom - Episode Four
A Union Mandated Hell Story

The break room is in chaos. Not the usual, cherry flavoured, existentially draining kind of chaos, but a full, real, tequila and sour milk cheesecake disaster. Papers are scattered everywhere, some even hung in mid-air having been tossed out of sync with the rest of time. The vending machine is smoking slightly and the smoke had occasional flashes of lightning while the coffee pot had developed a sentience, and bi-polar disorder simultaneously. A fire flickers on the table, but no one seems particularly interested in putting it out.

In the centre of it all, Bubbles is vibrating with what can only be described as nervous glee, the foetus inside her jelly form doing an unsettling little jig. "OKAY SO. GOOD NEWS. BAD NEWS."

Terry, covered in what appears to be soot and regret, glares. "Start with the good."

Bubbles bounces on the spot. "I FIXED THE COFFEE MACHINE!"

A long, gelatinous silence followed. Then Screwtop, who is cautiously holding an empty mug, and the cat picture on his empty mug, both lifted an eyebrow sceptically. "I’m afraid to ask."

Bubbles grins, showcasing far, far too many teeth. "It can do cold brew now!"

Terry gestures at the general state of ruin. "And the bad news?"

Bubbles hesitates, looking around. "Okay so I may have also accidentally caused a minor time loop within the break room."

Kevin blinks slowly and with a sigh says, "Define ‘minor.’"

Bubbles waves vaguely. "Oh, you know. Standard stuff. Repeating moments. Déjà vu. The occasional existential collapse into the void," she gestures at the papers which are scattered throughout the air of the room, "items getting out of sync."

Deborah, who has been flipping through the same three pages of her magazine for a suspiciously long time, sighs and puts it down. "I thought my horoscope was gaslighting me."

Terry groans, rubbing his temples. "How do we fix it?"

Bubbles shrugs. "Good question! Also, fun plot twist, I don’t want to fix it."

Screwtop frowns. "Why the hell not?"

Bubbles’ many hands gesture wildly. "BECAUSE. If we keep looping, we NEVER have to go back to work!"

Everyone pauses. Processing. Contemplating. Digesting. Professionally procrastinating.

Kevin, still staring into the abyss, whispers, "…That’s genius."

The vending machine, which has somehow invented new emotions, spits out a can labelled "ETHICAL DILEMMA (SPICY)." and a bar of "Requires an Educated Pallet". Deborah shrugged, grabbed both and dropped dramatically on to the couch.

Terry folds his arms. "Okay, but what if management finds out?"

Bubbles scoffs. "How would they? As long as no one leaves the break room, no one reports back. We just stay here. Forever."

Deborah considers this, idly stroking her hand between two couch cushions. "So, you’re saying… an endless coffee break? No meetings? No performance reviews?"

Kevin gasps. "No charts?"

Screwtop, eyes wide, looks at his untouched coffee. "No quotas?"

Bubbles grins. "Exactly."

Silence. The fire on the table crackles cheerfully.

Then, from somewhere outside the room, a delicate female voice whispers loudly over the intercom:

"ATTENTION EMPLOYEES. ALL TORTURE QUOTAS HAVE BEEN INCREASED BY 200%. PLEASE RETURN TO YOUR STATIONS IMMEDIATELY."

The room collectively screams. Then everyone realises that the couch also screamed. They all turned to see Deborah remove the can of Ethical Dilemma from between the couch's cushions, open it and take long drink.

The vending machine lets out a cruel, metallic laugh and ejects another can. This one has no design or name on it.

The break room is steeped in the heavy silence of pure, unfiltered defeat. Nobody moves. Nobody breathes. Even the fire on the table seems to slump, flickering weakly, like it too has lost the will to go on.

Screwtop finally breaks the silence by slamming his mug down onto the table, the cat on it is crying. "Two hundred percent?! Two hundred?! We’re already running at MAXIMUM TORTURE CAPACITY!"

Terry, still staring at the intercom speaker like it personally betrayed him, mutters, "There is no two hundred percent. That’s not how suffering works."

Kevin, dead-eyed as always, shrugs. "You just lack vision."

Bubbles claps a little too enthusiastically. "OHHH! OHHH! WE COULD DOUBLE TORTURE PEOPLE FOR THINGS THEY DIDN’T EVEN DO!"

Terry glares. "We already do that."

"Okay, okay," Bubbles concedes. "Then we make them feel responsible for things they could have done but didn’t!"

Deborah, now sitting on a stool with her back to couch, which is now sobbing in shame, snorts. "Ah, yes. Catholic guilt. Classic move. That's delicious."

Screwtop groans and slumps into a chair. "Ugh. We need a real plan. Something innovative. Something efficient."

Kevin blinks slowly. "We could... just ignore it."

The room stares at him.

Terry frowns. "Ignore... Hell’s management?"

Kevin shrugs. "What are they gonna do? Fire us?"

Kevin nods. "Exactly. What’s worse than this?" He gestures vaguely around the room. "What are they can they do? Promote us? Make us middle management?"

Deborah raises an eyebrow. "Kevin. there is infinite emotional depth in this place. I once had to inform an imp that he was being demoted from scanning all his teams paperwork, to cleaning the cloth which is used to clean the team's scanner."

A collective shudder ripples through the room. Even the vending machine lets out an unsettling beep.

Terry rubs his temples. "Alright, let’s at least brainstorm. Any ideas?"

Screwtop drums his fingers on the table. "What if we outsource?"

Bubbles gasps. "Oooooh, make humans torture themselves!"

Terry tilts his head. "You mean, like, taxes?"

Deborah sips her coffee. "No, they’re already doing that. We need something worse."

A long pause. Then Kevin, with the serene calm of someone who has seen the abyss and made peace with it, speaks:

"Customer service jobs."

The room collectively gasps.

Bubbles’ many eyes go wide. "KEVIN. YOU. ARE. A. GENIUS."

Screwtop leans forward. "Think about it. Instead of actively torturing them, we just hire them. Call centres. Retail. The HMRC."

Terry rubs his chin. "It’s so evil… it just might work."

The vending machine spits out a can labelled "CORPORATE SOLUTIONS (UNHOLY)." Deborah pops it open. The sound it makes is deeply unsettling, almost like a babies diorama explosion only it got pinched off without finishing.

Bubbles bounces in place. "OH OH OH. AND WE GIVE THEM IMPOSSIBLE CUSTOMERS!"

Kevin nods. "Only Karens."

Screwtop grins. "And every time they fix one problem, three new ones appear."

Terry gestures dramatically. "They are never allowed to hang up."

Deborah smirks. "And every call starts with ‘your estimated wait time is... forever.’"

Bubbles claps thirteen hands and bounces, "And each one of them has different KPIs. Oh, and upselling!"

The fire on the table flares up triumphantly. The vending machine, seemingly on board with the plan, drops another can. This one reads: "MANAGEMENT APPROVAL PENDING."

A tense moment stretches. The coffee pot chuckles nervously

Then, the intercom crackles to life again. A voice, sweet and dainty, floats through the room:

"ACCEPTABLE."

A collective cheer erupts. Bubbles immediately starts filling out non-existent HR paperwork. Kevin, for the first time in eternity, smiles. The fire on the table dances with excitement.

Screwtop leans back, satisfied. "Well. That was a productive break."

Terry sighs, finishing his coffee. "Alright. Back to work."

The demons groan, stretch, and reluctantly begin shuffling toward the door. As they leave, the vending machine spits out one final can.

It reads: "HOPE (BRIEFLY RESTOCKED, IMMEDIATELY SOLD OUT)."

-----------------------------------

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23/10/2025

Librafield - Part Eight - I Have a Plan, I Promise

The rain hadn’t stopped; it had just learned patience. It came in slow sheets now, draping the empty industrial estate in a wet silence that swallowed even the hum of the city beyond. The streetlights here were long dead, their bulbs filled with stagnant water and drowned moths. Every corrugated shadow looked like it might move if you stared too long. Thunder grumbled over the horizon, too far to strike but close enough to remind us that it was there. The air was charged, tight and metallic, like the moment before a fuse blows.

The warehouse stood alone on the old forgotten street in the industrial estate. The street didn't even have a name and the carcass looked discarded like a dropped toy. It was a co**se of rust and rebar left to try and remember if it had been built with a purpose. Its windows were mostly gone, glass teeth knocked out by years of neglect. A single floodlight, cracked and yellow, flickered to life for a heartbeat before surrendering again to the dark. The door had been chained shut, but someone had been here before, links freshly cut, edges still bright under the grime. We’d followed a clue here, though “clue” felt too tidy a word for something that smelled this much like a trap.

I took the outside fire escape. The metal groaned beneath my weight, every step echoing into the rain-soaked void. The handrail was slick with moss and regret. At the top, through a fire door which didn't latch properly, the mezzanine offered a view of the warehouse’s hollow heart. A cathedral to rot and rust. Most of the upper floor had collapsed long ago, leaving only jagged ribs of wood and steel. Below, five figures moved in the dim light. They weren’t working or looting. They were waiting and chatting.

Four of them were talking. The fifth, Ilaria, was silent, crouched over the floor with a concentration so absolute it visibly warped the air around her. Chalk and blood made strange companions beneath her hands, circling each other in elegant precision. The markings spread across the concrete like veins, converging toward a single, hollow point at the centre. It wasn’t art, it was geometry with intent. You could feel it pulling, as though the very floor was leaning inward, waiting for something to arrive.

The others lingered at the edge of her work, voices low but sharp. Three of them, Olivia, Philip and Sahd, spoke with a kind of hunger, the sort that comes from loss too fresh to be mourned. They wanted her back. Wioleta. She’d been powerful, wild. The memory of her name still carried the taste of blood. She had taken three before she had fallen. To them, she was proof that strength could outlast fate.

Only Vazeima disagreed. Her voice cracked when she said his name, Alvin, and for a moment, the argument wasn’t about strategy or vengeance. It was about someone she’d known before, back when they all still believed there was a way out of the dark. To her, Alvin wasn’t just a wolf he was the last thing that made her remember being human. A friend by her side while they gave in to their overwhelming hunger.

Ilaria didn’t ask for votes. She looked up once, her eyes reflecting the shifting lines of her design, and spoke with the calm certainty of someone who’d already made her decision long before they’d started arguing. “Alvin,” she said. “He’s closest. His tether’s still warm. Calling back Wioleta would be dangerous for me.”

No one challenged her. The air itself seemed to tighten around the name.

Then, Ilaria began.

The witch’s hands moved like clockwork, each gesture deliberate, each breath measured. The sigils came alive under her palms, pulsing with a light too dim to illuminate but too real to ignore. The pattern began to hum, a low resonance that crawled through the walls, rattling loose dust from the rafters. Whatever she was calling, it was listening.

The spell went on longer than I’d have expected. It was less a ritual now, more a storm trying to fit itself inside four walls. The light from Ilaria’s markings burned from white to amber to a deep, unhealthy red, pulsing in rhythm with something ancient and alive. The air was thick with iron and heat, heavy enough to taste. Below me, the four wolves circled, their restraint fraying thread by thread. Their shapes trembled at the edges, bones testing the limits of flesh, eyes dilating with the promise of hunger.

I thought about running. I thought about finding help. But Librafield had long since run out of helpers. There was no cavalry, no righteous man with a badge and a reason. There was only me, the shadows, and the sound of something very old being coaxed awake.

When the noise finally stopped, the silence that followed was unbearable. Then, like a curtain tearing, Alvin appeared on the floor. Not crawling from the dark, not summoned in smoke, but simply there. Solid. Breathing. Confused. His eyes searched the faces around him for something familiar, and for a moment, I thought he might even smile.

Then Olivia broke.

It happened fast, too fast to stop. Her body twisted inward and outward all at once, bones snapping like dry twigs, tendons writhing beneath her skin. Her scream became a howl as fur split through flesh and her limbs stretched into something monstrous. In the same instant she lunged forward, jaws wide, and took Ilaria’s head in her mouth. From the other side, the canine form that had been Sahd barrelled into the Dark Witches body tearing it instantly at the neck. The witch’s body dropped, as the huge, 9-foot Olivia chewed on her head.

The door crashed open, flooding the scene with cold night air. Steve. The hunter. I didn’t know how he’d found them, but I knew what he saw, a huge monster of fur and muscle drenched in blood, standing over a headless co**se. He didn’t hesitate. Three shots rang out. Two to the chest. One to the skull. A wolf fell in a heap, a grotesque parody of its human form.

The echo hadn’t even died when Philip roared. A sound like grief turned inside out and weaponised. He charged, shifting mid-air, his form tearing apart the moment it left the ground. The beast that landed on Steve was one of pure instinct, fangs, rage, and vengeance made flesh. The gun clattered to the floor a heartbeat before its owner was torn in half, the two pieces bouncing off opposite walls.

They scattered before the echoes of the last gunshot had even faded. Olivia—what was left of her—was first, her massive form bursting through the warehouse doors and vanishing into the night like a nightmare that had outstayed its curfew. Philip followed, half-shifted, his human voice tearing through the growl that fought to replace it. Sahd and Alvin stumbled after them, confusion and instinct clashing in their eyes.

And then it was just me. The witch’s headless body, the torn pieces of the last hunter and the smell of copper and rain.

I ran. Not because I thought I could catch them, but because there was no one else left to do anything. Librafield was sleeping, or pretending to, and I knew what was about to happen. I tore down the street, my boots slapping puddles, the storm biting at my heels. I couldn’t see them anymore, but I didn’t have to. Their cries were a map, echoes of pain and panic bouncing between the buildings.

The trail ended at the church. Of course it did.

They were there, all four of them, at the gate. Snarling, pacing, striking at an invisible wall. The rain turned their fur slick and dark, made their eyes shine like lanterns in the dark. They wanted in, needed in, but the boundary held. Whatever curse or blessing guarded that ground, it wasn’t letting them cross. They howled at it, clawed at it, but it may as well have been the edge of the world.

I crossed without thinking. The low wall was easy to vault, and the moment my feet touched the grass, the noise dulled. I looked back and saw them recoil, not from me, but from the space I occupied. The safety of it. The separation.

And then I saw her.

A young woman sat on a wooden bench just outside the church gate, legs crossed, face tilted to the sky. The rain had soaked her hair to her cheeks, but she didn’t seem to care. She was humming softly, something without melody, almost tuneless, but content. The wolves didn’t seem to notice her at all, as though she was a friend. Elena looked… peaceful. The kind of peace that doesn’t belong in Librafield.

Inside the church, the air was thick with candle smoke and fear. Every sound outside made the pews creak like old bones. I found them near the altar, Abhi and Kat, the last of the congregation. Their faces were pale in the flickering light, eyes wide and shining. They didn’t need to ask what was happening, the howls outside said enough.

I told them my plan. Told them there was still a train leaving in twenty minutes, that if they moved fast, gathering whoever still drew breath, they might just make it. I’d draw the beasts away; buy them the time they needed.

They begged me not to. Said it wasn’t my fight, that there was nothing left to save. But Librafield has a way of making you do things that don’t make sense. I lied to them, told them I had an idea, something clever, something that might even work. I didn’t. We all knew it.

I took Abhi’s car from the churchyard, the keys shaking in my hand as I turned the ignition. The headlights cut through the fog like knives through milk, and I rolled slow, slow enough for the shadows behind to notice. It didn’t take long. In the rear-view, I caught the glint of eyes, four pairs of them, enormous, feral, hungry. They broke from the church gate in a sprint, shapes too fast for the human mind to understand, closing the distance with impossible grace.

Somewhere behind me, I saw them, the silhouettes of Abhi and Kat, running from door to door, calling out names, herding the last survivors toward the station. It was working. For once, the plan was actually working.

I pressed the accelerator fully, but I saw that the beasts would catch me regardless. Librafield flashed past in streaks of rain and broken light. The wolves wanted the city, and I was giving it to them. Let them have it. Let them feed until there’s nothing left but ghosts.

I checked my coat pocket. My notebook was still there, damp, worn, but whole. The last record of this place, of what happened here. Someone had to remember.

I lit a cigarette, the match flaring briefly against the dark. For a second, the world felt almost still. Then I heard the impact, metal bending, glass shattering. Two shapes landed heavy on the roof, claws carving through steel, snarls filling the cabin like thunder.

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