Robin J. Harrison

       The four kids huddled around the small flame of the candle, hoping their bodies would be enough to shield the tiny flame from the massive winds.      "So." One of them, a small boy with mousey brown hair and eyes to match, started. "We know that all of us see the monster differently."     "Yes." The kid next to him, a smaller girl with wide, blue eyes and blonde pigtails agreed. "I've never seen a snake so big!"     "Right." A second boy with curly, ginger hair and blue eyes responded. "And I saw a big, big dog."     "The first boy spoke again to bring up, "I saw my doctor with a needle bigger than his arm."     The ginger boy looked at the last child, a girl with short, brown hair and green eyes. "What did you see, Adeline," he asked her.     She looked up from where she had been playing with a bug, trying to get it to crawl onto a stick she'd found nearby. "Oh, I-I haven't see...

     Khūvī sits in utter dismay at the blood that drips from the walls of the room. He goes to sit on the throne, but it's made of bones with the flesh still on the bones. Freight takes hold of his heart as he shakes and falls against a nearby wall to slide into a sitting position. Tears fill his red eyes, and his long, black hair leaves blood streaks against the wall as he moves the blood around just by sitting.     Khūvī is now the Blood God of New. Not that he wants to be. He never asked for this. All he did was help the Blood God of Old. He'd seen an older man who was drowning in his delusions, and he'd offered a cup of coffee and a sandwich, and now Khūvī had this burden on him.     He curls into his knees and sobs. He doesn't want to cry. But he can't help it as all this death and destruction surrounds him. He can tell the walls were once white. He can tell the throne has been built, it didn't just appear there.     "What causes th...