CRASHNEXUS Stock Images Now Available...

Our first stock pack has been uploaded to deviantart. We'll be following it up with plenty more - as well as brushes and other useful stuff for you to play around with.

Go find it on our deviantart account - http://crashnexus.deviantart.com

HALLOWEEEEEEN

Fancy being a part of something this Halloween?

We know that among those of you who follow our output, there are many people with their own creative talents - from art and photography, to film-makers and writers, musicians and allsorts. After our downloadable mini-fiction; The INVOKED - Preludes, we got a good deal of positive feedback and even some requests to collaberate on future downloads.

So... heres the challenge...

If YOU would be interested in taking up a CRASHNEXUS challenge in time for Halloween publication, please use the 'Contact' page and drop us a line telling us what you do, what kinds of themes / genres you like and provide any links you can to your work around the web. We'll contact you in return asap with details of YOUR challenge.

Entries must be recieved by 21st October 2011 to qualify, and be able to turn arouns challenge content by .26th October 2011.

It doesn't matter whetehr you're a professional or a budding amateur - everybody's welcome to have a go, after all, CRASHNEXUS is about having a go.

If you arent familiar with how our challenges work, then read more of the posts on this blog.

The INVOKED Preludes (Free Download!)...

WE PROUDLY PRESENT THE FIRST DIGITAL DOWNLOAD EDITION OF THE INVOKED.

Contains two prelude tails to our upcoming one-shot The INVOKED - as well as all the usual stuff we throw into a usual Weekend Workshop and a few bonus bits too.

This release has been delayed due to severe technical difficulties - so bloody enjoy it!

Click the image or the links to download either a 40MB PDF or a 20MB CBR file for use with CDisplay Comic Book Reader

DOWNLOAD PDF

DOWNLOAD CBR

DOWNLOAD CDISPLAY

Weekend Workshop: Sierra Forlorn

THIS WEEKEND WORKSHOP WAS INSPIRED BY MANY THINGS, BUT MOSTLY BY THE STRUGGLES OF PEOPLE EVERYWHERE WHO GO THROUGH THE MADNESS AND HORROR THAT CIVIL WAR AND GREED FOR RESOURCES INEVITABLY CAUSES.

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“We’re here in Sierra Leone, a place torn by civil unrest and violence. Located in western Africa, control of the government is currently being disputed between the Revolutionary United Front and the Momoh government. Already, thousands have been killed over control of alluvial diamonds and the RUF has taken over much of the eastern and southern parts of the county in their campaign of blood. I’m standing with my friend Abubakarr in a small town in the Kono District, which is in the Eastern Province of Sierra Leone. Tell us what has happened to your town.”

“Yes. Terrible things happen.” The African man spoke in broken English, as he began to tell the tale of his broken town. “Men come from other country, they come here to murder and steal. We have nowhere to go. Soon they will come here too and take everything from us.”

“That’s terrible.” I said, making sure the camera got a close-up of the emotion in his eyes. The networks loved that.

“White men are not safe here, they will kill you for being here.” He went on, looking around desperately for any sign of the men he was referring to.

“We know that, and we’ll be leaving soon, but we had to make sure your story was told.” I assured him. He nodded and stared off into the distance. I put my hand on his shoulder and continued my report.

“This is the fear that the RUF has instilled in local population of this once peaceful town. Many African countries are plagued with what is widely referred to as the ‘resource curse’. Countries, rich in diamonds, are often burdened by the corruption of their leaders who use the resources to further their own agen-“

Before I could finish the sentence, gunfire erupted from somewhere on the eastern side of town. Abubakarr began shouting in his native language to one of the villagers as he ran by us, who shouted back and continued on his way.

“What’s happening?” I asked, looking from my shrugging crew to Abubakarr for an answer.

“They are here!” he shouted and began running with blinding speed into the thick jungle in the opposite direction.

Screams began to fill the village, and my crew took it as their cue to move and began hastily packing their equipment so we could get the hell out of there. I completely agreed with them.

“Come on, just throw it all in and go.” I urged them as men in uniform began to appear in the village, beating or shooting anyone who got in their way.

“They blocked the road.” Our driver announced from the front seat of the van. “We’ll have to hoof it.”

“We can’t lose the tape, this footage is too valuable!” I protested.

“Our lives are more valuable!” he shot back as he exited the vehicle and began to run into the thick jungle with the fleeing villagers. The remainder of my crew looked back at me impatiently for further instruction... shooting glances longingly at their fleeing companion.

“Follow him,” I ordered. “I’ll be right behind you.”

Without hesitating, they began to run – not daring to look behind them as the rebels advanced towards the edge of the village. I jumped into the back of the van, located the camera and pulled the tape from it. Then, just before I decided to make my run for it, I stopped… realizing that this could be my chance to really capture the true violence of this civil war and convince people that something had to be done about it. So I grabbed the camera and locked the van, pressing it against the tinted window to get a good view of the action taking place.

To my shock and horror, the men invading the village weren’t men at all, but children. I watched as they marched through the village, holding weapons and wearing clothes that barely fit them, beating and shooting people who were old enough to be their parents. It was heart-wrenching. I never would have thought that children who could barely hold the weapons they carried were capable of the violence I witnessed.

These weren’t children… not anymore. They had been turned into the monsters at the hands of a corrupt military that sought to further its own selfish agenda above anything else. They mimicked the acts of violence the RUF had imprinted on their susceptible minds ruthlessly, and without mercy – torching houses, beating men with pipes, and the older ones even raping women two or three times their age. They had been stripped of their innocence and turned into cold-hearted machines; tools of the RUF. I had come to this county for a shock story that would boost my career as a war correspondent. What I got, was first-hand experience of just how cruel this world can be.

They eventually found me, and took me hostage. I was forced to travel with them for months until the Sierra Leone Army pushed them back to the Liberian border and I was rescued. During that time, I learned more about human violence and its limitless than I had ever imagined and hoped to be possible. When I had been rescued and made it back home, I was praised for my bravery and offered the promotion I had been hoping for before my capture. But the experience had changed me forever, and from that day forth I became a humanitarian. I never again took for granted the things that most people do every single day and instead began to fight my own war for peace.

Too long have wars been named for the places, times, and ideas for which they took place. I am a soldier in the Human Civil War, and this is my call to battle. We are at war with ourselves, and it’s time for us to pick a side.

Weekend Workshop: Transhuman

THIS WEEKEND WORKSHOP IS A DELAYED RELEASE FROM THE WEEK ENDING 8TH MAY 2011. THIS IS DUE TO TECHNICAL PROBLEMS.

Transhuman 

“Abandon ship! Abandon all hope! Abandon reality! We murdered God and her cruel humor is our end...”


... the words wake me from my dormant state.


My world is a flashing red light. My vision pulses from dark to light in a pattern and dark shapes drift around the edges like ghosts haunting the corners of my mind. It is cold around me, like dark places in the earth where life refuses to live. I am a being of unknown nature, alive or not I have no way of knowing. Trying to remember how I got into this world hurts me, so I am forced to surrender myself to the sea of confussion flowing around me, making me inceasingly nautious by the second... assuming, that is, that time even exists here.


The ghosts fade from my vision and the blurs begin to define themselves as shapes that seem somehow familiar to me. A blaring noise echoes in my head, warning me of some danger I can’t decipher. I feel myself come back to life and compelled to move. I find myself caught in the middle of a tunnel, which sways back and forth as I will myself to move through it. I shake violently; on the verge of collapse as the tunnel spins like a child shaking a jar that contains an insect he captured. A horrible sense of dread washes over when I realize that I am completely alone.


Tingling sensations surge through me as my world grows and shrinks like I’m nearing the surface of a deep ocean. The shroud around me begins to clear and shapes form. I recognize this place; I’ve walked through it many times. But something’s out of place; I’ve never felt as alien here as I do now.


Something catches my attention. Movement. I freeze in my tracks, conscious of my every breath I take as my eyes dart towards it and I slowly adjust my head to face it. I see a flame flickering in the world beyond my own; out of my reach but within my sight. Jets of flame shoot out into the void from a vast structure that looms before me. It is unfamiliar to me and, inexplicably, it is also the source of my horror.


We murdered God and her cruel humor is our end...


Those words that brought me back to this place repeat in my head suddenly, overwhelming my senses. The beast that lurks beyond these walls taunts me, taking credit for inspiring the author of that message before his demise. My breath begins to fog the transparent surface of the barrier between us, I swear that I can hear its threats as words in my head. I do not know why or how, but I do know that whatever it is is evil, and desires to end me at all costs.


Voices! I must be going mad. I hear them in my head... random, nonsensical. Are they talking to me? I hear rushed words, yells, deafening screams. Where are they? Who do the voices belong to? Questions race through my mind and I race further down the path before me. A light at the end presents itself, bright and welcoming; surely it holds my salvation.


I burst out of the tunnel and into the light, feeling renewed as I enter the realm beyond. This is it; I have been led here for a purpose. Surely everything will be made clear now.


The voices and blaring sound are gone, making the low hum of the room stand out like the growl of an unwelcome animal. This place is death. I realize now that the light wasn’t my salvation as I survey the shells of the dead laid out before me. Their faces are familiar to me and I sense that they are like me, or that we were at some point. But like the familiarities of the world before this one, there is something out of place that I can’t explain, and it fills me with dread.


The urge to touch them is overwhelming, so I reach out with the hand I forgot I owned to find that it is identical to theirs. My fingers quiver and the hairs on my arm begin to stand as I draw closer and closer to the corpse of a young man. At the moment before my skin touches his dead flesh, his eyes burst open like black holes forming after the collapse of a star and I am sucked into the world behind his eyes.


I am engulfed in void. Time and space have ceased to exist, and I have left my body behind. I float for an impossible eternity, with nothing but paradoxial time on my noncorporeal hands. But, as in the world before, I discover the ability to navigate this place – able to move not only through space, but time as well. They exist sorely as concepts in my mind now; I control them here.


I see myself back in the tunnel at a time before the one I awoke in. The dead are alive once more, and I am among them as they go about their daily routines. Then panic strikes and the world is covered in the red light and the warning sound begins again. We awoke the beast that dwelled in the world beyond our own, proded it with our tools, tried to understand it, tried to become it. In the end, we got what we wanted, got what we deserved.


The memories come flooding back in torrents as the words begin to make sense to me now. The beast tempted us with great power, knowing that we would give into our lust and become the makers of our own destruction. Throughout the ages many have dedicated their lives in hopes of answering the single greatest question of their limited existence; what is the meaning of it? Though they were destined to fail, they never gave up the persuit of the answer. The one thing they all overlooked, however, is what would happen if they didn’t like the answer.


The beast offered us the key to unlock the secrets of our own bodies; those forms which would carry us from one plane of existence to another like a vessel accross a vast ocean of life. We accepted graciously, wasting no time in deciding what to add and what to remove. When we had finished and the answer didn’t present itself, we strayed from the path – spitting in the face of God and declaring ourselves the masters of our own evolution. We gave our species a new name, going forth beyond the confines of our limited dimension based in time and space and becoming “transhuman”. A wise man once set that those who do not learn from their mistakes are doomed to repeat them. How naive we were to think that we could play God.


So here we exist, barred from reality as we once knew it for an eternity; a word that’s very definition mocks us with promise of a finite pergatory. I do not know what we became, but we ceased to be children of the God who created us, listening instead to the beast who tempted us with knowledge. Just as it was then, we were punished for out sins – though instead of being cursed to grow old and die, now we are cursed to live on forever in nothingness until the end of the universe. Now I understand the dread I feel; the inability to die.


It’s a cruel irony that our species greatest fear should become our greatest hope – and that which we sought to be our eternal salvation would become our eternal destruction. I wish I could just go back and warn them them all of their impending doom. But I know it would be fruitless; its human nature to question the unknown and to pursue knowledge. It’s in our nature to destroy ourselves.


If thousands of years weren’t long enough to keep us from repeating our very first sin, then I can only pray to the God who we forsook that we will learn our lesson soon while we continue timelessly down the path of our existence... the hell we have chosen as punishment for our final sin.

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Weekend Workshop 1st May 2011. “My Own Private Hell”.

PLEASE DON'T FORGET TO SEE THE MAKING OF THE IMAGE - INCLUDING VIDEO AT LINK
AND SEE THE MACHINATIONS OF THE WRITER'S MIND AT LINK

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My Own Private Hell

The dead of night; if only those who used the phrase truly understood its meaning. If only they could walk these desolate streets like I have; see the sky burn, smell the ash and decay, hear the screams. They pass me by, blissfully unaware of the hell they occupy, the hell that they share for a fraction of a second when their eyes meet mine and they see the demons tearing me apart from the inside. The spires of the Minster - standing watch over the shop-lined streets like ancient protectors – offer no refuge, damning me from the paradise it promises to others.

I wear their skin, their clothes, eat like them, act like them – but I am not one of them. That’s not to say that I am not human – to my knowledge I still am – but they aren’t capable of what I am. They look at me with their probing eyes; judging me, labeling me, and then move on having done more damage than they could ever possibly know in their limited minds. The man who said “ignorance is bliss” didn’t realize the devasation those words would cause.

A cool night wind whispers through my ears, teasing me with just enough temporary pleasure to remind me of the world at stake. I pull the parka over my shoulders closer and brace myself for the path I am about to travel – a path that I’ve walked many times. A path I fear with every fiber of my being.

I take the first step into the cold, paved road. It quivers and sizzles around me like the surface of the sun as I begin my journey through my own personal hell.

I walk down Stonegate of York. People go about their business, stopping in shops, drinking in bars, or just passing through. I feel like crying out to them as they pass. How can they not see what I see? How do they not know?

Shadows shift in the amber light of the lanterns hanging over the street, like burning silhouettes desperate to escape the scorched city. I move into more welcoming light, stopping at the window of a nearby resturaunt. Inside are happy people, enjoying their meals with their friends and loved ones... blissfully unaware of the devastation that will tear them apart.

Then another figure appears inside – a hooded form. As I look closer, I recognize it as my own reflection. I see the haunted look in my eyes - buried in the shadow of the hood over my head - unable to block out the dying world around me.

But wait... it isn’t my reflection - it’s the great shadow: the Invoked. The figure turns black and the eyes burn with flame. I can feel myself being drawn toward it as it beckons to me. It reaches out with its dark hand, inviting me closer. It feels like I’m falling down an impossibly dark hole, waiting to hit a bottom that doesn’t exist. It whispers to me. I don’t understand the words but I know their meaning. It is a warning – a warning of tihngs to come. As it’s deathly hand meets mine the glass cracks and shatters. I jump back suddenly as its horrible screech echoes through the street like a banshee’s wail.

The people inside the resturaunt stare at me, startled by my sudden movement. I walk briskly away to avoid any more stares. I’m near the end of the street now. Paranoia sets in and I can feel the shadows closing in behind me. The amber light intensifies behind me... but I don’t dare look back.

Then, an earth-shattering boom shoots  accross the sky. The shockwave knocks me to the end of the road as a hail of glass shards from the blown-out shop windows fall around me. I shake with fear, unable to resist the urge to look back down the hellish street from whence I came. I shield my eyes as the black clouds of night intensify into a firey yellow-orange. Flame roars through the sky like a match hitting gasoline. I can feel the air being sucked form my lungs and my bones ache as intense pressure pushes down on them from some invisible force. Just before the flame reaches me I see the dark figure standing at its center at a distance I can’t calculate. Is it a man or beast? These questions haunt my memory to their conclusion as I am engulfed in the flames and eaten alive...

Weekend Workshops...

Our Weekend Workshop challenges are a means to an end for both of us - not only do we get to have some fun playing around with new ideas and concepts, but we also find ways to stretch our skills and thought processes. Whilst we will post any new challenges in the blogfeed, here are a few of the more popular ones we have done so far - all of which are available to read / view upon our individual blogsites.

Terran Twilight

The blackening sky began to blot out the remaining sunlight of the dying sun as it plunged the planet into another restless night, full of fear and despair. The bones of humanity's civilization pocked the surface of the broken planet, a mere shadow of the life that had once flourished on her face. Humans, once the defining species of the planet earth with their vast cities, advanced technology, and knowledge of themselves and the universe in which they lived, would leave the stage as a mere echo of all that they had accomplished in their short time on the planet... and there would be no audience to mourn them.

The medal of their deeds loomed in the sky overhead, due soon to be reunited with its mother that had protected it through the millennia. It returned the favor by shining as a beacon of hope in the darkness; a reminder that, even in the darkest of nights, the sun would come out tomorrow. But no longer. It moved sluggishly through the heavens, it's surface scarred and ablaze with the nuclear fires of humanity's self-destructive tenancies. Ablaze, its course would lead it to a destructive finale, sealing humanity's final chapter in its grave.

The last stragglers of the doomed ball of scorched rock and ash followed the light of the sickly orange star that had once shone down brightly on them, spreading life over the surface of their birthplace. It is faith that, in their final moments, the hope of another dawn granted them some small release from the burden that their selfishness had chained upon them, and that their souls would escape the torment of the fires that would soon extinguish the remaining traces of those who had forsaken the paradise that had become their hell.

The Next Genesis

“And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered.” – Genesis 13:16

Earth, 9253 AD. I can’t believe I’m here. This place is like a putrid ball of slime covered in maggots. But this is what I agreed to, so here I am. The entire planet is covered with our cities, our people, our ideas. I remember old holo images showcasing all the blues and greens, white clouds, clean skies, glistening cities… my how it’s changed. I don’t think there’s a living person who remembers what it was before it became the dumping ground of the galaxy. It’s no coincidence that a bunch of disease-ridden parasites claimed this festering boil of a planet we used to love.

Being here now forces me to remember what set these events in motion. 3000 years ago, an age that will never be forgotten, we faced the very real threat of overpopulating the galaxy. Millions were being born every minute and we were forced to constantly annex new planets to support our overgrown population. I think that was when we stopped being human.  Our finest scientists, biologists, philosophers – none of them could come up with a solution to the problem. That’s when the government came up with a solution that would change everything.

Every possible idea was discussed and debated ruthlessly, but in the end, the solution could not be ignored. It was our only salvation. We were a plague that threatened all life in the galaxy, and we had to be exterminated… at least, that was how they justified the mass genocide of hundreds of worlds and the war that started and still rages to this day. The idea was humble; willingly killing ourselves to save the remaining life in the galaxy - but our methodology was flawed. Long after the war began, another solution finally came to light; a solution that would end the war and give us another chance. But that idea will never be heard… not while the overlord is in charge.

I am part of an alliance of worlds that believe that we can prosper symbiotically with other life in the galaxy, like the organisms that once populated earth in ancient times. I carry a unique gene that, once introduced into the planets ecosystem, will allow us to transcend our bodies and transform into a form of pure energy. Though my mission is critical the survival of our species, my opposition will be great. Too long have we allowed self-destruction and bloodshed to be our ultimatum; it must end here.

I stand in the middle of a massive, bustling street filled with human drones; an endless sea of scared, hopeless individuals disgusted at their very existence. Many thousands of years ago, this was one of our most prosperous cities, before it became the planet-spanning supercity it exists as now. London, it was called – part of the European continent of earth’s eastern hemisphere. It was a beautiful green island, surrounded by clear, glistening water and flowing with its own unique culture. Now, it exists merely as an extension of the dark towers that pierce the exhausted, polluted skies above; all traces of individuality and inspiration far removed – save for one thing.

My destination may very well be the last surviving place in the entire galaxy that retains any resemblance of the cultures of old. The Palace of Westminster, an ancient meeting place for the houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, stands alone as the last surviving landmark from that era of history. It was claimed by the overlord 3000 years ago as his personal residence to oversee the operation of the galaxy and the subsequent purge of all life he deemed unfit for the final order. It is here that I must go, and deliver myself. I am the final hope of life in our dying galaxy.

The streets are lined with soldiers who constantly scan the thoughts of passerby, ready to suppress any opposition at the first stray thought of harm directed at the overlord. My thoughts linger on our bible, an ancient writing called “1984”. My commanders treat this writing as an ancient premonition, and the author, their prophet. Though I have never considered myself a religious man (since most of that died out thousands of years ago when we realized that there was no god) I can understand why they would adopt it. Their prophet – Orwell - saw what we were destined to become and had tried to warn us. But, as is true for the countless problems we have faced as our species has developed, it is only in our darkest hour that we find the motivation to act. This is our final hour.

The soldiers eye me suspiciously, no doubt wondering why they cannot probe my mind as easily as the others. My unique genome has altered my brain frequency to function at a much higher range than the garden variety human. The effect will be like radio static to their minds. No doubt they will just think I am just a particularly suppressed individual and pay me no heed.

Up above me, masked behind the noxious grey clouds, an atmosphere of flying transports herd millions of people off of this rock, bound for destinations unknown. Most will no doubt live a few years only to be exterminated in accordance with Law 2128-B. Some will be fortunate enough to find themselves on one of the few remaining planets where life still thrives. And the rest will be like me; fighters recruited into the last war that we will ever fight.

My body tingles with anticipation as I round a corner and find myself confronted with my objective. It stands before me; its dull, brown exterior threatens to overcome me with emotion as it presents itself gracefully against a backdrop of dead, emotionless grey. This is it – there’s no turning back now. I approach it with my head hung low, doing my best to blend into the surrounding drones. I mustn’t be so careless; another emotional outburst like that and I’ll be detected and all hope will die with me.

I am at the doors. The guards eye me suspiciously as I probe their minds and convince them that the overlord has sent me. They understand and open the doors. The doors open slowly, the ancient squeal of their obsolete design welcomes me inside like a ghost of the past begging me to return life to its barren halls as I step inside.

I sense the overlord in his chambers, watching meticulously over the galaxy and all life within it as the self-appointed god he proclaimed himself to be. I am close now, anticipation threatens to overwhelm me as the fate of our past, present and future reaches the moment that will define our eternity.

Suddenly, an alarm in my mind begins to sound. I have been detected. I can feel their minds enter mine, their thoughts stab at my mind in an attempt to shut it down.  I must remember my training if I am to survive the assault. Pain… such pain… hurts to think… resist.

The overlord’s chambers are before me. The guards at the door are alerted by my presence and return my gaze with wide-eyed stares. I can feel their thoughts join the others. They are the strongest I have ever encountered. They are compromising my objectivity, preying off the desperate nature of my mission and using it as a weapon against me. NO! I must not lose! Too much is at stake. Quickly… regain your objectivity – do not let your feelings cloud your judgment! Why can’t they understand what I am trying to do? All hope is NOT lost!

That’s it! I must make them understand.

“Give up. The overlord cannot be defeated.”

They threatened me audibly in an attempt to intimidate me.

“Two plus two equals five.” I countered.

“Incorrect.” They riposted.

“Two plus two equals five!” I insisted.

“Incorrect!” they shouted back.

This isn’t working. They told me this would work! The prophet must have been wrong. I must unleash the weapon. I was warned that it was it would surely compromise my thought process as well as theirs, but that it would render them defenseless. I am recalling the memory they implanted and am projecting it into their minds.

“Somewhere over the rainbow

Way up high,

There’s a land that I heard of

Once in a lullaby.

 Somewhere over the rainbow

Skies are blue,

And the dreams that you dare to dream

Really do come true.”

My legs have stopped functioning and I have collapsed to the floor. Tears fall from my eyes as I crawl past the guards and into the chamber of the overlord. The chamber, which at one time was a regal and inspiring place, is choked with fat and veins poisoned by the technological monster now lingering within. The stasis pod that contains the overlord, taps into the very heart of the planet, drawing on the heat of the core for geothermal energy – but more than that, it draws from the life energy of all living things. This is what gives him the power that so effortlessly controls our fate; by holding hostage our own mother, the one who has protected us through millions of years. Time has given us all the tools we needed to hone our aggression to its finality.

I place my hand against the glass of the stasis pod in which he resides and project the thought as clear and concisely as my enhanced genome will allow me.

“Somewhere over the rainbow

Bluebirds fly.

Birds fly over the rainbow.

Why then oh why can’t I?

If happy little bluebirds fly

Beyond the rainbow

Why, oh why can’t I?”

I can feel the effect of the words, written by our poets of old and buried under layers of neglect and repression manifesting in the consciousness of the overlord. Has it really been so long since another human being shared such emotion with another that it would have such a profound effect? He analyzes every word, every note, the mathematics of the symphony – the whole is no mere sum of the parts, the effect was not a predictable one, there was no defense against it. The aggression of our race, which he had preyed upon in an effort to become the undisputed ruler of our destiny, had failed to realize its antonym: compassion. There truly was hope for us all, but it lay over the rainbow. We simply needed to shrug off the burdens of our senseless violence and learn to fly.

Conflicting data overloaded the overlord’s thought patterns. The stasis chamber exploded and the 3000-year old overlord who had decided our fates for far too long came tumbling out. His frail body, overcome with age and the stress of the inhospitable environment disintegrated immediately and his presence vanished from our galaxy forever, allowing us to finally ascend unhindered by our infantile impulses. I ceased to exist in any form your limited mind might understand, but the story of our vindicated race would live on into the stories of the next genesis.

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. “ - Genesis 1:1

The Chapel of Many Angles

The air of the chapel was thick, as though a cloud of smoke had seeped its way up from the cracks of Hell and filled it to the top of its high, stone ceiling.  It was here that the father stood ever vigilant over the prince, to whom he had provided sanctuary at his request. The prince kneeled at the altar before him in prayer, shaken over the rumors of the king’s murder at the hands of an angry mob. The father’s eyes remained steadfast on the book he held in his hands as he read a passage that had always given him strength in times of need.

The prince was not a particularly faithful man by reputation - and yet here he was; confessing his life’s sins in what he felt in his heart to be his final moments. The father paid little attention to the man who begged his attention in his hour of despair, unworthy as he was. But it was not his place to judge the man; judgment would come to all in due time.

The door to the chapel burst in suddenly, slamming against the wall with a loud crack. The prince stood suddenly, his eyes pleading with the father to cast his divine protection upon him as the mob advanced before them. They laid their accusations at the prince’s feet and he begged for his life before their tools of justice and strife. It was then that the father spoke, calling upon the wisdom and teachings of his life’s calling to protect the sheep of his flock.

“I stand before you as the Lord’s disciple. His eyes are upon you. It is his will that, for as long as I stand before you, no harm come to this man in His holy sanctuary.”

They ignored his warning with cries of “Blasphemy!” flying from their tongues as they advanced towards him. The prince retreated behind the priest, relying on his faith in his words to shield him from harm. The father clasped the crucifix tightly in his fingers, calling upon the strength of the heavens as the mob drew closer with their weapons raised in malice. His heart fell as the trapdoor to the undercroft slammed shut behind him and the prince fled the chapel, forsaking him. The prince, like the mob closing around him, had failed to realize that there was no escaping the eyes of God.

The father acted quickly, kneeling down to lock the door and pocketing the key in his priest’s robe. His eyes returned to the book that had been his teacher, his protector, and his friend all his life. He read the words as he had countless times before, gaining new understanding in its words as time began to slow and the dull grey halls of the chapel he had walked every day of his life burst into blinding white light.

The book fell from his hands and on to the floor of the desecrated chapel. Just as its pages had given him life, he gave his life now to its blood-stained pages as they fluttered in the breeze flowing through the open door and over his crumpled body. The words of his favorite story, stained forever red, told the final moments of his life - just as they had the man for whom the story had been written.

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do…”

The INVOKED

A short comic made primarily to satisfy our need to do one, but also to say thanks to all our blog regulars. Already, it has our synapses firing off even more ideas and a possbile, more ambitious sequel.

In the closing future or near past, events unfold that will shake us to the very foundations of our souls and crack the surface of what we perceive as reality. Transdimensional beings put their plots in motion after millennia of waiting - playing their cultist zealots as pawns in a chess game. All time and space begin to warp and buckle under the strain of lost gods finding the path to what they once lay claim to and some very ancient truths are rediscovered. Amongst this background, there is one who must break their trappings and seek out the ruins of what was before to make way for what is to come… 

The ZONE

An extensive 'fan-fiction' by Psynexus, set in the universe of GSC Gameworld's S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games. Having already proved popular with the hardcore fans, a sequel is already nearing completion.

Later this year, the first GRAPHICALLY ENHANCED edition will be released - with illustration and layouts by Cyrus Crashtest.

To find out more about The ZONE and read the first volume, follow this LINK.

As progress continues on this project, we will post any news in our blog feed, and also here.