First, “Peerless” is a story about an arrogant brat in a school for psychics who believes he has attained the peak of his education… until he meets the new girl. This story is built on the moral that no matter how great we believe we are, there is always going to be someone better.
“Metal Versus Mutants” is a flash fiction piece I included in this book which is actually a world-building story tied into one of my first published short stories, “Xeros”. I’ve played with “Xeros” a bit and continued to add more over the years, using the very first story as a first chapter. I thought of making a novella out of it, showing the progression of the tragedy that results in this era of “forced evolution” and exodus and I’m even playing with the idea of making it a comic or screenplay (more on this at a later time). This story doesn’t add a whole lot to the original short, but it does give readers an idea of where I intend the story to go. You could find “Xeros” in Megabook 2, available on Balloon’d, My Digital Comics, and DriveThru.
The next story, “Spiritual Teacher, Warrior”, is also a snapshot from a series I’ve been playing with for some time called “Ascension” (working title, of course). In a world where the angelic Empyreans fight the demonic Hadeans in a war invisible to humans, the rules are about to change, and humans champions will soon be more involved in the struggle for their very souls. I think that last sentence, actually sums up everything quite nicely!
“Rock, Paper, Scissors” is a story about a love triangle. I used the concept of the game to tell a story and relying on a little word play I hoped to convey the concept, but the title would give it away, so… yeah.
Finally, “Married to Murder” is a story that I think came to me in a dream, and I loved it so much I used it as a flash fiction piece here and even wrote a screenplay with it! It is a story about a hitman who has assignments transported into his mind via telepathy. Unable to remove the visions of his targets until he completes his assignment, he struggles to commit to a family life. Besides the psychic intrusions, being a contract killer does him no favors either, but his loving wife deals with it. This concept had so many possibilities, I actually enjoyed rewriting it as a screenplay more. There is plenty of potential to build on it and I’m excited to see what else I can find once I take the time to evaluate this story further.
And that is all for now, folks! Another post down, and another five stories covered! Because I have been slack on here I will continue this series of posts with the five-parters for the next two weeks, so check back soon!