Tatyana Tieken
Bio
Horror, romance, paranormal fiction writer/reader
Mental health advocate
I'm back, after a decade hiatus, trying to do what I love and reach for the proverbial stars.
And that's writing something that will give someone the outlet it gives me.
Stories (8)
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Fae Borne
There weren’t always dragons in the valley. Of course, fairies also used to be just cute little tinker bell flutterers, not hulking, stone faced warriors. They didn’t suck the soul out of you in a single instant, leaving behind drab, empty husks of humans, bound to the earth to roam until their eventual death in a strange zombified state. There certainly hadn’t been vampires or sea monsters who could walk in the sun and on land, going against everything the Old Ones had claimed they weren’t capable of. In fact, until a little over a year ago, we thought we were the top dogs of this planet, highest on the pyramid food chain. Laughable, really, with how self-destructive we are. Now, the veil has fallen between our world and theirs. The group of curious cats who had pierced through it were now either dead, enslaved, or had gone so deep underground that not a single human soul that was left had heard a whisper of their existence. And, really, I don’t blame them.
By Tatyana Tieken4 years ago in Fiction
An Open Ended Letter to My Father
There were so many things I left unsaid, the day you left. I wanted to tell you I was afraid. I wanted to tell you that I needed you, that I really wasn’t prepared for this. But I didn’t. I was your strength when you were scared, I was relief for when it became too much. In retrospect, I gave so little of my time. I thought, foolishly, that we would have more time to visit and talk about innocuous, unimportant things. I thought, naively, that there was going to be a time where you were cancer free, somewhere in the future. Even as each medication made you weaker, and yet the cells grew stronger. Even as you stumbled, confused, against the wall. Even as I drove you to the emergency room, the last time you ever went back. Even as I said goodbye, leaving you sitting in the hospital room all alone to face one of the toughest decisions of your life.
By Tatyana Tieken4 years ago in Families
After the Fall
“The humans are strangely resilient, milady.” His low, hoarse drawl echoes throughout the dark chamber, a rough caress against her skin. She shivers, her silvery, swirling gaze caught by the looking glass, where thousands of humans had banded together and overcame yet another obstacle the Elders had placed before them. She frowns, a dainty downward turn of her smooth, nearly bloodless lips. She hasn’t fed in a while, and her strength is dwindling. But she has no time now. Not while the Elders were watching so closely. Human sympathizers are thought to be the lowest energy life form of their species, the Deathless Ones, and unfortunately, she is one of the ousted. Her endless optimism for the underdog had not gone unnoticed by those who share her blood, vast as they are. And as such, she is now confined within a dusty old mirror, damned to starve and wither, her skin, once a creamy ivory, now brittle and thin as old parchment paper. While she will never die, her body will decay until all that remains is a husk filled with bone. Already her blood slows, conserving what energy remains.
By Tatyana Tieken4 years ago in Fiction
In The After
Last day of isolation. The only sound I can detect is the loud hoot from the lonesome barnyard owl. It resides across the drive, in the old, dilapidated woodshed overlooking the rotting fields of corn and beans. Harvest time has come and gone, unnoticed. The produce was paying the price as it sat and wilted away in the baking heat.
By Tatyana Tieken4 years ago in Fiction
What Lurks In Shadows
What, exactly, is it that scares us in the night? What is it that so totally envelops a person in shadowy darkness, reaching through the darkest corners of the mind, and pulls out monstrosities so real, so incredibly detailed and hideous? Is it our imagination, or is it perhaps a shred of a memory, long forgotten in the recesses of the human brain? Do we all have a basic distrust of the darkness? What is it that is hiding, right at this very moment, even mere feet away from you, as you squeeze your eyes shut, pulling the covers tighter to your chin, and tucking your feet carefully underneath the blanket, so as not to be exposed to some terribly clawed, foul demon? What could possibly be lurking outside, behind the old rusty shed, in the blanketed darkness that can't be illuminated by the low watt lightbulb on your porch, while you quickly and silently huff down a good old cigarette, the last before a fit of troubled dreams? Its eyes a sickly yellow, maybe, or perhaps its teeth sharp as a razor, one eye dark and bloodshot, the other missing, as with the rest of the skin on its face, claws rapping softly against the shed as a tree branch would do, lulling you into a false sense of security right before making its killer debut?
By Tatyana Tieken4 years ago in Horror
Fighting Myself
Today, just moments ago, I wanted to no longer be in this world. I thought, hey, maybe I’m just like an ant; insignificant, small and pesky. No real purpose, merely just a blip on the radar of the universe. Why should I suffer? Why should I make others suffer? Why do I matter?
By Tatyana Tieken4 years ago in Motivation
Going Under
She hadn’t always been a monster. Before, she never would have mercilessly slaughtered her ex husband and his new wife. But, as she was quickly finding out, there were a lot of things she never would have done before that she had no qualms doing now. As she watched, dispassionately, the blood that ran steadily down the once blank white walls puddled into the carpet next to the off-white loveseat. In fact, it was the same one that he had proposed to her on. The room was large and spacious, with a 85-inch HD television mantled over the fireplace. It was separated from the loveseat and matching furniture by an opaque glass table that held various knickknacks that only uber rich people seemed to have. The living room was just a short trip down the hall from the parlor room, which housed the front door that she had unceremoniously ripped off its hinges. Her iron tipped nails had shredded skin embedded underneath them. With a small smile, she studied the unrecognizable forms of her former lover and his newest trophy wife, still entwined in what would be their final embrace. Her once warm and kind blue eyes had hardened into ice. Her mouth that once smiled willingly was fixed in a stoic line, lips thinned and white from pressing against her slightly elongated canines that had emerged during the bout of bloodlust. There were many different aspects of her life that had changed after the classified government experiment that had gone so horribly wrong, amongst them her inability to live without the blood and flesh of living beings. She thought how much more merciful it would have been to be incompatible with the demons. Studying her fingers, longer and more elegant than they had been in her previous life, she had to admit the perks weren’t so bad.
By Tatyana Tieken4 years ago in Fiction
