Saturday Story 2025 #5 (Venomous)
Something new on my Patreon. The first story of February is a standalone piece that’s on the darker side of the spectrum. Synopsis below:
Rachel undergoes complex surgery that gives her a dangerous – and perhaps unstoppable! – new ability.
To read this story before anyone else, head over to my Patreon page and become Spell… B-O-U-N-D, too. The minimum pledge for this type of early access is $5 per month.
An excerpt is available below:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/121300944
The first thing Rachel felt when returning to consciousness was an itch in the back of her right ear. It was such a random thing that she couldn’t help but chuckle to herself. It was only when she opened her eyelids fluttered open and failed to recognize her surroundings that she realized something was wrong.
For starters, she was not in a bed, a sofa, or any other piece of comfortable furniture she could think of. Instead, she lay on a cold gurney, its surface unyielding against her skin. The sharp clang of metal rang in her ears as she shifted, but the movement was minimal; her arms and legs were strapped to the gurney, secured with thick leather bindings that seemed to constrict her like a snake coiling around its prey.
“What the fuck?” she thought, an appropriate response to her unexpected predicament. Panic flooded her thoughts as she attempted to thrash against her restraints, but all she could manage was a feeble wiggle of her neck and head.
Above her, a transparent plastic dome encased her entire upper body, distorting the light around her into strange patterns of refracted colors. It was as if she lay inside an enormous bubble, suspended in a world that was both alien and surreal.
Her eyes scanned the room, absorbing every detail with frantic intensity. The walls were lined with an assortment of machinery, comprising flickering panels, and more knobs and levers than she had ever seen in her life – but that wasn’t the weird part.
Standing against the farthest wall were a series of glass containers. Inside each one floated various specimens suspended in a viscous liquid that shimmered like quicksilver.
Some held what appeared to be small, pulsating organisms – gelatinous blobs that changed color as they undulated in their transparent prisons. Others contained more recognizable shapes: severed limbs, disembodied heads, and even what looked like a fully-formed creature that resembled a fusion of bird and reptile, its scales glistening.
“What is this Frankensteinian nightmare?” she muttered.(…)
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