Author: Nina D'Arcangela

Nina D’Arcangela is a quirky horror writer who likes to spin soul rending snippets of despair. She reads anything from splatter matter to dark matter. She's an UrbEx adventurer who suffers from unquenchable wanderlust. She loves to photograph abandoned places, bits of decay and old grave yards. Nina is a co-owner of Sirens Call Publications, a co-founder of the horror writer's group 'Pen of the Damned', founder and administrator of the Ladies of Horror Picture-prompt Monthly Writing Challenge, and if that isn't enough, put a check mark in the box next to owner and resident nut-job of Dark Angel Photography.

Invaders

May 24, 2023May 21, 2023 ~ Nina D'Arcangela ~ 4 Comments

Growing in clusters and well cocooned in a thistle-like brush, this non-indigenous species has begun to bud on the south-western side of Pular. The stratovolcano has been active for some time now, emitting noxious fumes that have kept researchers and volcanologist rife with both anticipation and abundant caution. As the area is not stable, we are unsure if the flora emit carbon dioxide or not, though other plant species in the area seem to be dwindling which would indicate a rise of gaseous fumes that smother what sparse life is able to grow there.

Recent reports seem to indicate that when the bud has reached maturity, it will detach from the stem allowing for a new bud to form. This naturally occurring ‘dead-head’ process releases the buds in what might be referred to as a rhythmic pulse. Once the buds separate from the mother plant, they begin gathering in small clusters, making their way toward the western shoreline of Chile along the Pacific Coast. There is a sense of waiting, a pregnant pause if you will, in the tension forming in the seemingly endless row of invaders.

One can only deduce that a sufficient number have gathered as the thousands of buds lining the shore have begun to mobilize. Waves of what look like gray sleigh bells have entered the water, and appear to be moving with intent toward the continental shelf.

Two weeks have passed, and what we initially believed to be floral pods are clearly presenting as small aquatic beings. Unlike the naturally occurring creatures in the depths of the ocean, these lifeforms appear to be toxic to any fish, crustacean, or invertebrates they manage to hunt down or infiltrate. At this rate, predictive algorithms suggest all life in our oceans will be consumed within a matter of twelve to fourteen months, though I would posit that figure to be munificent of the actual impending depletion. As more buds bloom, detach, and make their way to the water, I would suggest that six months of life left on planet Earth is a generous estimate.

∼ Nina D’Arcangela

Drops

March 1, 2023February 26, 2023 ~ Nina D'Arcangela ~ 6 Comments

With each tear that fell from her cheek, another drop of laudanum fell from the pipette. Chewing her lower lip, she wondered if the choice she’d made was a just one. Closing her eyes, she drew forth a fond memory of her once vital son laughing as he played – a sound she’s not heard in some time. Her knees buckled as her resolve strengthened. A few more drops and his pain would be ended. Climbing the stairs, the glass of apple juice trembling in her hand, she choked back her own wail of agony.

∼ Nina D’arcangela

Reliquary

November 23, 2022November 16, 2022 ~ Nina D'Arcangela ~ 6 Comments

Tiny bones arranged on a bed of cotton. A single daffodil snuggled in golden glory and lavender sprigs – an offering of love and fidelity. A stone from the garden to keep her beloved grounded; Lucy’s favorite toy sacrificed so she’d never be alone. To say her tears could fill a sea would be an understatement, though today they flowed with intent as each drop was captured in a small heart-shaped vial. Once stoppered, this too was placed with care. A final relic, the band she wore the day she came home. A watershed moment in a life yet unlived. With broken heart, the young one spoke the words only an eight year old’s grief could conjure before the lid was sealed and the small box buried at the base of Great-grans favorite tree.

As they turned to walk back to the house, the ground rumbled, the clouds darkened, and the tree began to shake. Brilliant fingers of light spread below them; enchanted, the child ran back to the tree. She hugged the bark and called out to her beloved Lucy, and Lucy answered in vibrant hues of orange yellow and red. As the phoenix burst through the canopy, the young girl began to scream. Flesh melted from bone. Blood ran free to quench the earth. Flaxen strands crisped in the heat.

∼ Nina D’arcangela

Inconvenient

September 28, 2022October 6, 2022 ~ Nina D'Arcangela ~ 6 Comments

Click and whir, the soundtrack to my life. I’m to be grateful, Mother says, Father worked very hard on my new heart. It’s meant to keep me alive, but it offers no life. It ticks and clacks, and occasionally stops, but that’s why I have a winding key in my side. A bit awkward, the weight of it, the mechanical heart, not the key – that would be daft! I know I’m to be appreciative for the inconvenience, but I really would have preferred the key in my back. Dressing is awkward, standing even more so as I always lean to one side. If I’m not careful, I tip forward, making a spectacle of myself. Father says it embarrasses him when I fall, but what am I to do? I asked for a crutch, but Mother doesn’t want a cripple, she says the ladies at the club would shun her if I gimped around like a palsy victim. It would be a blight on our good name if I were to need sticks to walk. So instead, I stumble.

The gentlemen at the club are kind. As Mother lunches with the others, frilly napkins and finger sandwiches that would leave even me hungry, the waiters watch and catch me if I begin to list. Very kind, that. But I’d rather walk, and run, and play like a normal boy and girl. Oh, did I not mention that beyond a failing heart, I was also born a hermaphrodite? It doesn’t bother Mother, she always wanted one of each – a little girl named Suzy, and a little boy named Joseph, so she calls me Jozy. Father is appalled by my duality, says it’s an aberration that God should not have allowed. I suppose I was lucky to be born to a clockmaker, but as others stare and make fun of me as I hobble past, I don’t feel lucky. I feel broken. Not my heart, not my gender, not even because Mother dresses me like the dolly she wants to play with that day, but because if I’d had a choice, I would have chosen crib-death. It’s really not as horrible as you think, at least not as horrible as living as a wind-up freak.

∼ Nina D’Arcangela

Remnant

July 13, 2022July 4, 2022 ~ Nina D'Arcangela ~ 6 Comments

Stone fucking cold. An awareness that emanates from within. I’ve always believed the most grievous pain would come from what is held inside, from emotional wounds that take more than what forever is offering to heal; I was wrong. The worst pain of all is being empty, drained, a vacuous core, a dull resonating hollow that allows for nothing – not even the sting of its own frigid harshness.

What then remains?

The echo – a concurrent wave. The thunderous slamming of logical thought, things I know to be true and by virtue of their own truth, to be right – just no longer right here.

The shadow – of what was conscious feeling; a memory. The memory of warmth, reaching out to it, grasping it; confusion at being sliced to ribbons on its brittle fractured edge, its tensile strength less than that of my own. For once I make contact with it, it can be nothing more than what I am: cold, empty, invisible, alone; the reality of full awareness.

The roar – perhaps the most heinous of all, but no, the echo is far worse for it is the remnant of the roar. Self-recrimination screaming in my head that this is my mind, my sacred territory, my imminent domain to control; my folly, so it would seem. Comical, though I have no laughter to spare in this moment. The thought that my own strength of will, my conscious pattern of thought exerted under strict control for so long – what I consider to be my euphemistic beating heart – would never grow cold. The mocking echo is utterly relentless.

I am a creature of science, one who ascribes to chaos theory. In chaos there is random order to be found that given enough time becomes specified; thus, specified random order within chaos. Some would argue the merit of this statement to be the antithesis of chaos itself, simply order if it is to be qualified as specific; and order is not chaos. But if chaos creates order, and order forms pattern, is it not then a foregone conclusion that the rigid stricture of order will in all occurrences destroy the fluidity of chaos thereby no longer allowing for the existence of the chaos that created the order that formed the pattern that left me stone fucking cold?

I’ll opt to believe in chaos, in the randomness of the order and the disorder that it also brings. I’ll choose to feel the nothing that gnaws a pit through my existence as there is something worth feeling the nothing for. What that something is – herein undefined.

It’s something that was created by chaos, and is being consumed by the stricture of random structure. It is a string that unifies me with a plane that is a more desired reality, a place where warmth still exists – where an echo is to be feared no more than a comforting howl carried along with the breeze.

Welcome to my happily never after.

∼ Nina D’Arcangela

Ripe

April 20, 2022April 5, 2022 ~ Nina D'Arcangela ~ 6 Comments

“Gather only the ones that are near to bursting. They grow on the south side of the cliff, their hue that of the melon’s meat. Bring me only what I ask, boy, the ripest. An extra shilling in it should you be back before the sun crests the sky.” Off the child went as the old crone began collecting the necessary herbs to hide the sweet taste.

Several hours later, the boy burst through the doorway, his speed so quick, the weathered skins that served as a barrier flapped in his wake. The gwrach turned from her steeping brew. The child’s face was rouged the hue of dark jostaberry; not a healthy shade to say the least. He panted and gasped, berries coddled in his filthy tunic. He held the thread-bare garment gently in yellow stained fingers. She stared for a moment, then pointed to the oaken table. The boy stumbled to it and unburdened himself of his precious load. As his pallor shifted from crimson to deep purple, she asked if he’d eaten any of the fruit. As he began to deny it, his knees crippled collapsing him to the dirt floor. She hobbled over with walking stick in hand, poked his distended gut, and watched as juice flowed from the cracks between his teeth. “Foolish,” she muttered. The witch leaned heavily on the staff as she knelt to collect the liquid that flowed from the corner of his mouth as she pressed upon his stomach. The boy twitched, lost to the nightmare world the engorged pods brought on. Finished, she tossed two shillings on his hitching chest, not as payment for the errand, but to pay the man that would dispose of his remains.

∼ Nina D’arcangela

Revelation

February 9, 2022January 15, 2022 ~ Nina D'Arcangela ~ 6 Comments

Creeping slowly from the deep, the creature within obeys without question – as do the others. The line marches forward; the shelf shallows by inches. All the while, whispers gurgle malicious intent. Too long have they resided below, an army dormant while another presumes apex stature. Alone, they are helpless, hapless, unwitting; far too fragile to cause effect. But together, united by His call, they will once again lay claim for they are legion. Shallow cuts in the sand mark their passage as the echo within grows. It resounds not the hark of angelic horns, but a violent thrumming of reclamation. Lining the shores, they wait as the flaming sky sizzles into crueler darkness.

∼ Nina D’Arcangela

Forgotten

November 24, 2021November 12, 2021 ~ Nina D'Arcangela ~ 6 Comments

Hell has laid claim to places on this earth, places that are lost, forgotten, for all intents and purposes, no longer exist. I woke in such a place. For days I screamed for help, but none came. A failed attempt to climb the walls left me with a broken ankle and no hope. From time to time, I would hear creatures snuffling at night, but even they wouldn’t approach the edge of my open-air coffin. Daylight would come and the glass above this pool of no pools amplified the sun’s rays to the point of roasting me. My mind wandered to time spent in the Polynesian Islands, the pua’a I enjoyed with such gluttony – no thought given to what the creature may have endured when lowered into the roasting pit. Far from those days, I’m left to consume every bug and rodent found in my living crypt, to lick dry the weep from the concrete walls. Now I wait. Death will find me, it’s the only thing I’m sure of.

∼ Nina D’arcangela

Slivers

September 2, 2021 ~ Nina D'Arcangela ~ 6 Comments

Slivers, that’s all I ever saw – it peered through the crack of a door that didn’t seat in its jam, between window and sash where the slightest breeze blew, below floorboards that had shrunken leaving the barest opening. Slivers, as it watched and waited. For what, I dared not imagine in my waking hours, though I’d suspect it was for my guard to falter.

Closeting myself in a fully sealed room with no chinks each night, I allowed myself sleep when it would come; my dreams invaded by visions of that godless eye. It stared at me relentlessly, the light absorbed by its depth-less void; a lie of beauty hidden among the allure of its iridescent skin. But I knew far better than to be fooled by its camouflage. Looking into that eye, I could see what it promised – it promised pain, it promised torture, it promised an end that would not come swiftly or easily. Worse yet than the uncaring, unfeeling eye were the endless rows of teeth. They glistened, dripped with saliva. Translucent and viciously pointed; some jutted straight upward to pierce and stab, others curved backward toward its bulbous throat, insuring that once it had snagged its prey, there would be no escape. Teeth designed for ripping, tearing, rending chunks of flesh from bone to be swallowed whole. A gruesome death awaited any that it caught. I did not wish to die that way.

Perhaps worst of all were the moments sleep did not come in my tiny sanctuary. I’d crouch listening as it scratched at the walls, the floor, the ceiling above me. It knew where I hid; it was only a matter of time before it breached my woeful defenses. This we both knew, but still I longed to live just one more day…

∼ Nina D’arcangela