Havok Publishing

Thriller

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The Gnat

The first thing you notice is light—cool and soft white, pervasive and blank.
You are so comfortable and drowsy it doesn’t occur to you to wonder where you are or how you got there. The temperature is pleasant. There is no sound other than your pulse, no smell besides a faint,

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Radio Silent

The first thing Mia noticed was the blood—dark specks drizzled across fresh snow like errant paint strokes. Her boots crunched in pursuit until the spatter disappeared into a sheet of white beyond the remote compound.
Blinding wind cut at her eyes as she peered into the Yukon permafrost and shouldered her

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Taming the Volcano

Auahi is angry.
He burns molten hot, his flanks shaking, gray clouds billowing. I adjust the scarf over my mouth and continue hiking up the volcano.
After one hundred years of peace, Auahi is finally awake. Now, his fury will destroy my village—and those who are unable to escape it in time.

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Mirror of the Sky

I gazed at the distant horizon, where the sky met the sea. The indigo twilight slowly faded into the dark ocean.
Something in that vast emptiness called out to me. It was more than just a vague desire to see the world. It was more of a beckoning. Like a beacon from a distant

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The Egg

The way I see it, you find a giant egg in the forest, you have two options. You break it open or you don’t.
The lodge we’d passed through was easy to see from the edge of the crater. Stand atop a fallen tree and there it was—civilization. Like children in sight

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Man & Beast

“I’m warning ye Elial, if it happens again, I’ll destroy yer vermin pets meself!”
“My wyrms didn’t touch your sheep, Malchi.” Elial fought down his irritation. This was the second dead ewe found mangled in Malchi’s fields, with neighbors suffering similar losses. No one knew the culprit, but many placed the crime squarely

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The Darkest Hunger

The news ran rampant through the College of Advanced Mage Arts: there was a demon in the gymnasium. Students evacuated the area, congesting the halls with a tumult of people, strobing lights, and blaring alarms. Sebastian could hardly think in the cacophony, which was probably how he managed to wade so calmly against the

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Dealing with Mold

The mold had grown since Hannah first noticed it in the corner of the warm attic—a fist-sized patch of black silken hairs with a silver shimmer. She sprayed it with bleach, then waddled down the ladder, and returned to tiling the bathroom. The doctor told her to stop working, but she couldn’t rest.

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Serengeti Karma

I have the best job in the world. I’m a game warden on Africa’s magnificent Serengeti. This wilderness grabs you by the heart and enchants you forever with its shrouded mystique and vast majesty.
My project is big game preservation—in particular, black rhino and African buffalo which share the same range.

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A Clamor of Wings

Mandla is agitated today.
The iksomi’s feathered wings spread to at least twenty paces in width. They block out the bluish light of the twin suns as he stalks across the black sand dunes. When I take a hesitant step forward, Mandla makes a low growling noise in the back of his throat, revealing long, curved teeth.

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Last Journey of the Abyss Delver

“I should not have smoked that joint before going on a deep-sea mission,” I mused as I gazed upon what looked like an eel with a broken chainsaw for a head.
“You did what?”
“Calm down, professor. You’re gonna be fine. The bathyscaphe practically drives itself—as it’s been doing for the past hour.

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Z Karr and the Pearls of Aphrodite

Aphrodite drifted in its orbit like a polished gem, the vibrant blue of the planet-wide ocean striated with wispy white clouds.
“I can see why everyone vacations there,” Tetsuo said as he gazed into the viewscreen. “It’s beautiful.”
“Eh… that color kind of gives me a headache.” Zach slipped on his orange sunglasses

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