
King O'Neill
Bio
My life is yet unlived.
"Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depth of your heart; confess to yourself you would have to die if you were forbidden to write."
--R M Rilke
Stories (4)
Filter by community
The Ballad of the Bear and Her Cruel Sister
The river ran backwards on the day the Queen vanished. The sky became crowded with the blackest clouds and just before the sun reached its highest point in the sky, just as the royal news descended onto the streets, the Sun rolled back down into the east and vanished behind the horizon along with her Queen. In the darkness, a thick mist settled upon the capital, obscuring the dim, candlelit homes, gathering most densely where the palace grounds languished with unease in the city center.
By King O'Neillabout a year ago in Fiction
Devotion
There was only one rule: don’t open the door. Other than that, I was free to do what I wanted. He was kind to me and would bring me gifts when I was good: porcelain dolls, ladies’ magazines. The magazines were old, the pages stuck together or missing. I would flip through the unstuck pages with the dolls. It was helpful in teaching them how to act, how to be, like he had taught me.
By King O'Neillabout a year ago in Horror
The Canyon
Each rock in the road was working against my will to keep my eyes unglazed and open, like a knee rhythmically bumping against a swaddled baby. The brown signs of the Forest blended against the passing rocks and sand. I remembered a friend telling me how ugly he thought the desert was, how plain and dusty and earthen. This thought boiled in me and helped keep me awake on the road as my tires irresponsibly tossed and turned over a much too rough road. I tended to take my car on roads it had no business being on, just to prove to no one but myself that it could. I knew at any moment, a lonely jag of a rock edge could slice my tire and leave me there, stranded with no cell service, hoping that someone might find me. Though it had been hours since I’d seen another car. It had been days since I’d seen the flesh of another human or animal. Here there was a sparseness of trees, surely housing fauna of some kind, but in the desert they hide in the day and wait, evading my searching eyes.
By King O'Neill2 years ago in Fiction
Same Old Tracks
The jostling of a train can rouse the deepest sleeper and lull to sleep the most anxious window-watcher. Eyelids fluttering open and closed, feet tapping anxiously, pacing, kicking, waiting to be let off at the next stop. When in motion, the brain is sure to keep up with the body, so whether asleep or not, the mind will wander and flail. If a train must keep to its tracks, so must the mind keep to its body, or else the owner of both may be stripped of sanity, a spirit without a home.
By King O'Neill4 years ago in Horror