Below is a list of all of my self-published short stories and episodic series that I usually write whenever inspiration hits. I should note that many of these stories are one-and-done and typically written in an hour or two to some writing prompt. Because of this, the editing isn’t 100%, although in my more recent stories I try to make more of an effort to edit before publication. This list, although in alphabetical order, can also be seen as a time-capsule of my writing journey, as each story is an expression of my interests and skill level at the time.
Themes I like to explore are existentialism, identity, and absurdism. As mentioned in my about page, most of my writing philosophy stems from the idea of “things happen, and people deal with it.” So I tend to focus less on why something is happening, and more on how people react to it. The specific mechanisms behind the cause for the story is less interesting to me. I also like to explore these topics in both comedic and dramatic lenses, as I believe that both are just two different angles to look at the same thing. Also, sometimes I just want to write something funny, and other times something more sober.
Happy reading! And if you enjoyed the stories, or even have a piece of valuable feedback, feel free to comment or message me via social media or the comment form on my contact page.
If you would like to be in the know of any recently published short stories you can subscribe to my newsletter, where I’ll include links to the most recent ones. Or you can subscribe to my subreddit, /r/QuadrantNine, where I tend to publish these stories first.
Series
The Adventures of Dar’goth (Feb 2023 to Present)
An episodic horror-comedy series about the titular Old God of Madness after he has returned to take over the world. Only to be beaten down by cultural norms he does not understand, incompetent followers, and government bureaucracy. Below is the list of entries in publication order.
Unregistered Tenants (Feb 2023)
You can see them too? That’s a shame. I really liked you miss landlord, your rent was so cheap for this part of town. Oh well, I guess the celestial beings and I will have to sacrifice your body to become the avatar of our long awaited god, Dar’goth. We have big plans, I hope you understand as an entrepreneur yourself that these sacrifices must be made.
Code Inspection (Feb 2023)
It’s not easy building a temple dedicated to an ancient long forgotten elder god on top of an apartment complex, especially when those pesky folks from the city’s code department bust out the old archaic codes from the past specifically for this kind of construction. Who knew that their code books dated thousands of years back when worshiping the old gods was nothing more than a passing fad, like Bennie Babies?
The Final Temple (May 2023)
I was the most devout of his followers. I built a temple dedicated to his reign during the Age of Madness. Some would say I was the best architect of my era, but I disagree, I was the best to ever live. But my time there was cut short as I found myself in a far future sitting in front of a middle aged woman who sounds just like my old master.
John the Conman: Or Why One Should Never Impersonate an Old God Upon His Return (Aug 2023)
It’s easy suckering desperate cult members into believing you’re the reincarnation of the Old God of Madness. Dealing with legal threats from the god you’re pretending to be, well that’s a different story.
The Mark & The Drone (Oct 2023)
You’re a petty robber. Too bad your mark today so happens to be the old god Dar’goth. Whoops.
A Sacrifice with a Purpose (Aug 2025)
Finally, in death I can be useful. I can serve the one god I truly worshiped. I just hope that it’s much different from my dead end job.
A Host with a Feeble Mind (Aug 2025)
It’s been long enough since Dar’goth had returned and he’s in need of a better body. The middle aged body of Tabitha Martin will do no good anymore. He needs one that’s strong and handsome, and with a feeble mind that he can manipulate at will.
Desperate Times (Sep 2025)
Glenavieer, the Warrior Witch has returned. The only human to ever slain Dar’goth! However Dar’goth’s forces are growing stronger, as more and more community centers are being reserved for weekly congregations of worshipers. Desperate, she has formed a small team consisting of her dimwitted squire, a shapeshifting skinwalker, and something that even terrifies her, and she’s killed plenty of eldritch beings.
Just Keeping Tabs (Series) (Oct 2023 to… Now a Novel, Coming October 2025!)
Subscribe to my newsletter for updates!
You’ll never meet a horror fans as big as Eleanor. But after a while things in the genre get predictable and boring leading her to the darkest parts of the web to get that fix. However, one day she stumbles upon a cursed video and the FBI agent assigned to monitoring her internet usage isn’t happy about what she inadvertently made him watch.
Topics: Horror, meta, FBI
Interception (Sep 2020 to Discontinued)
A runner wakes up in a room he doesn’t recognize, his memories a jumbled mess. How did he get here, and who did he piss off this time?
Topics: Scifi, cyberpunk
Standalone Stories
Abinmo & David (Mar 2023)
Sometimes life on Earth ain’t easy and all you hope for is an alien to abduct you and take you on a journey across the cosmos. Unfortunately life in space isn’t so exciting either.
Topics: Ufos, aliens, satire, unlikely friendship
After the Adventure (Aug 2024)
Sometimes I wonder if we should have stayed in that world. The time away has been tearing my brother apart.
Topics: Isekai, deconstruction
At the Foot of the Slide (May 2023)
Anthony hates water slides. Sophia loves them. Anthony likes Sophia. Today he’s decided to overcome that fear and impress her, but perhaps he should have listened to his gut because what lies at the foot of the slide isn’t worse than he ever feared.
Topics: Horror, liminal, cosmic horror
Billionaire Brutus Mayne Invests into Prison Reform! (Feb 2023)
Mothman City, MH. Local billionaire Brutus Mayne has pledged to end the brutal treatment of the inmates at the Markham State Asylum for the Criminally Insane, home of local vigilante’s Catman’s infamous “Rogues Galley.” The public is not happy with Mr. Mayne’s humanitarian aid, but Mr. Mayne says that he will not rest until the inmates there are given human treatment.
Topics: Superhero, satire, comedy
Bitter Black Beans (Sep 2021)
We drink coffee to build machines. We build machines so we can drink more coffee.
Topics: Poetry, coffee
Bo’ub (Jun 2020)
While exploring the ruins of an ancient civilization in Antarctica, a woman encounters a horror unlike any other.
Topics: Scifi, Lovecraftian, comedy
The Bowl (Oct 2021)
Mike found Julia’s bowl of spices, and now Mike can’t stop eating.
Topics: Horror, weird
Boxed In (Feb 2023)
The life of a mimic is one of patience and cleverness. To be the best you must have both, since a mimic can only change forms after their trap has sprung and their mean of adventurers has been consumed. Well, it’s been ten thousand years since anybody has come to the derelict castle I lay in wait in, and I’m beginning to think that taking a form of a storage crate might have been a mistake.
Topics: Fantasy, introspective
Cassettes (Dec 2021)
I found a box of strange cassettes in the attic. They’ve taken me places I can’t describe.
Topics: weird
Community Meeting (Jun 2020)
Do you know that giant fireball in the sky? No not the sun, the other one. Yeah, it’s taken a new route and we need to discuss how it’s affecting our quaint little neighborhood. Wear your protection, you don’t want to arrive with blisters and blinded vision.
Topics: Magical realism, comedy
A Completely Reasonable Solution to Testing Human Spaceflight (Oct 2023)
A group of out of touch billionaires get together to propose a new solution to testing human spaceflight, ethics be dammed. Hannah, a spokeswoman for the company who’s had enough, can’t take it anymore.
Topics: Comedy, scifi, poor business decisions
The Constant (Nov 2020)
Every empire that has ever existed in our galaxy has perished to the same man over and over again. After two centuries of searching, I have found him.
Topics: Scifi
The Department of Unholy Deals (Or My Life as an Antinatalist Demon) (May 2023)
Torturing human souls was fun for the first eight millennia or so, but after that it just became the same old same old. Luckily my idea of having humans make a deal with the horned devil himself in return for the first born son took off, and one of these centuries humans will hopefully stop having kids all together once we scare them out of having them. Then I can finally retire and take of knitting.
Topics: Comedy, dark comedy
D’heet Z’hin (May 2020)
The prophecy foretold of a man born within our village will one day finally free us of the grasp of the Carnot Empire. The spirit D’heet Z’hin lives within him, and he shall carry us to victory. Wait, are we sure he’s the right guy?
Topics: Chosen one, fantasy
A Donkey’s Wisdom (Mar 2023)
I have granted wisdom from my roost of stone and cloth on the highest point of the highest mountain since time immemorial. People have come all around the globe for centuries seeking out my advice, and yet I’ve grown indifferent towards my own teachings. Until I decided to confront an immortal donkey.
Topics: Introspective, comedy, supernatural
An Endless Abyss of Cyan (Aug 2025)
We went to the caves to find the missing miners. I have found them, but I cannot look away.
Topics: Horror, cosmic horror, atmospheric
Enjoy It While It Lasts (Oct 2021)
We exist within a sliver of a sliver of a sliver of a sliver of time. Enjoy it while it lasts.
Topics: Introspective
The Feeders (May 2021)
They came from the sky, their tendrils fed on everything in their path.
Topics: Scifi, horror, cosmic horror
Heart Stoppers (May 2023)
What happens when two assassins accidentally assassinate each other during a botch job? Romance, that’s what happens.
Topics: Assassins, comedy, romance
The Horns of Lochrane (Aug 2021)
The horns are howling, the windstorms are nigh.
Topics: Fantasy
The Humans (Nov 2022)
We created the humans in our image, except they’re way more intelligent and aggressive than we could ever anticipate.
Topics: SciFi, comedy
I Am Human. I Am Human. (May 2023)
Some might call me a fanatic, others obsessive. I just like to think of myself as a connoisseur of the human form. After all, what makes a human if not the flesh upon their bones?
Topics: Horror, cosmic horror, skin theft
Inter-Dimensional Day Trip With Bigfoot (Jan 2021)
A host of a late night paranormal talk show get a call from a man who claims to have taken a strange trip with bigfoot while visiting the woods.
Topics: Absurdist, comedy, weird
Jack and the Girl (Sep 2021)
Jack can’t catch a break. He’s a loser to the T, even his own brain can’t stand him. But all is about to change when he meets a certain girl with a particular set of skills.
Topics: Scifi, comedy
Lack of Belief (Aug 2025)
When I died I thought there would be nothingness. Turns out my lack of belief sent me directly to hell, and they’re offering me a job!
Topics: Afterlife, satire, introspective
The Last Apple (Feb 2023)
Once the last apple had been eaten, the doctors finally showed their true faces.
Topics: Comedy, horror, horror-comedy, medical drama
The Last Voyage of the Sea King (Sep 2021)
The city is long destroyed, people are living inland. A storm is coming, and the Sea King must stop it.
Topics: Post-Apocalyptic
Let the World Hurry By (Jun 2020)
A woman overwhelmed by the world retreats into her home. She just needs a break.
Topics: Magical realism, introspection
The Lonely Grave (Aug 2021)
Somewhere within the Neighborhood of Wonder lies a lonely grave within an undeveloped lot.
Topics: Magical realism
Long Forgotten Face (Feb 2023)
It’s been fifteen years since we’ve last seen each other. It wasn’t easy living with one another after an irreversible body-swap. If we had only hadn’t had that fight. Now I need to see him, still wearing my body, for some much needed closure. What they don’t show you in those body-swap comedies is just how horrifying it really is to live as another.
Topics: Drama, supernatural, body-swap, deconstruction
The LSA (Oct 2021)
What happens with a character on a sitcom becomes unfunny?
Topics: Weird, satire
The Midnight Bus (Jun 2020)
A man’s bus is late, again. When it finally arrives the driver takes him to battle.
Topics: Action, comedy, urban fantasy
New Changes to the Corporate Structure (Aug 2025)
Nobody sends me any memos anymore. What do you mean we’re cloning souls now to make it easier to sort them in the afterlife?
Topics: Afterlife, satire, comedy, office
Ninth & General Way (Oct 2023)
An immortal man experiencing homelessness reflects upon how the city has changed so much over the past few centuries.
Topics: Introspective, immortality, scifi
Numb Snow (Dec 2021)
I awoke in a frozen forest with no memory of how I got there. The snow is numb to the touch and the sun through the woods whispers to me.
Topics: surreal, horror
Perfectly Reasonable (May 2020)
He had haunted the walls of the house for years, scaring off any newcomer who had ever stepped foot within his house, until now. Scientists ruin everything!
Topics: Supernatural, comedy
Pigeon Cop (Feb 2023)
High up in the sky, I fly searching for coo-rooks on the run. The citizens believe I’m a waste of taxpayers money, a joke, and an embarrassment. But I’ll show them! Now if only the criminals took me seriously too…
Topics: Comedy, absurdist, pigeons?
Potted Plant (Sep 2022)
Todd & Wren have moved to the suburbs with their seven year old daughter. The house has everything they need: ample room to raise a child, located near a good school, and a strange man hiding behind a potted plant in their living room.
Topics: Horror, weird
Pretty Eyes (Sep 2022)
I know you’re wondering how I got here in the first place. Well let you tell you the story about my date with the strange woman who obsessed over my eyes. Wait you’ve heard this one? Trust me, my story’s different.
Topics: Horror, comedy, weird
Probable Crimes (May 2023)
Every year we sit before the Oracle while it calculates our futures, fearing our own potential. But the machine isn’t right, its outcomes are just probable, but the judges detest. I should know, I helped build it.
Topics: Scifi
The Pups in the Yard (Jun 2021)
One of these days the pups in the yard will play with a squirrel. Part of the Neighborhood of Wonder. Check out the first draft if you want to see how it began.
Topics: Magical realism, comedy
Rain (May 2020)
She was born with the gift of telepathy, but nobody must know.
Topics: Supernatural, scifi
Ratman Found Guilty of All Child Abuse Charges! (Jul 2022)
In Mega City, infamous vigilante Ratman has been found guilty of child abuse for taking in young men under his crime fighting wing.
Topics: Comedy, satire, superhero
Recessive
You’d think that being the only human amongst a family of vampires, werewolfs, and shapeshifters would suck, but it has its perks.
Topics: Supernatural, satire
Retirement (Jan 2023)
I’ve been called upon for many centuries to help my empire become the strongest with the promise of a glorious retirement at the end of the millennium. Except when I woke up my empire is nothing more than dust and rubble and yet the machines call upon me to win a war that is no more.
Topics: SciFi, introspective, post-apocalyptic
The Road to R-Day (Sep 2020)
R-Day, as most of you know by now, was the single greatest medical discovery since the vaccine, and the most significant spiritual event since Jesus walked the Earth. But how did we get here?
Topics: Scifi
Sad Sack of Flesh (Oct 2021)
Dana and her brother Stephen are meeting up for coffee, except Stephen’s looking a little decayed.
Topics: Supernatural, zombie
Safe Haven (Oct 2021)
On the outskirts of the farm, strange creatures lurk. We must harvest to keep them away.
Topics: Horror, flash fiction
The Scouts (Jul 2022)
We were afraid of the abyss between stars so we sent weapons out to exterminate those who laid between them. Except our own weapons have come back to take care of us.
Topics: SciFi
Seven Years (Aug 2022)
Todd & Wren finally got their night out since their newborn arrived in this world. What was supposed to be short date night is prolonged by a rather long red light in their sleepy rural town.
Topics: Weird
The Skin Tailor (Dec 2022)
A tailor who works with flesh is forced to give a fugitive a new face.
Topics: Weird
The Subtle Silhouette (May 2020)
A seasoned henchman takes a promising job helping a young upstart villain.
Topics: Superheroes
The Suburban Glow (Aug 2021)
Far on the outskirts of the city, you can see the suburban glow.
Topics: Introspective
Swing (Oct 2021)
Loss isn’t easy. Why can’t we swing to heaven?
Follow up story: The Weight of Death
Topics: Introspective, depressing
A Thousand Years (Oct 2020)
A man is sentenced to a thousand years of life.
Topics: Scifi
The Twenty-Niners (Apr 2023)
Like all of you, at the time of my birth I was given by the oracles the month and day of my death: February the 29th. However, they did not account for the fact that due to some political shenanigans the 29th day of February would be wiped away from our calendars. Its been four hundred years since then and I’m still waiting to die.
Topics: Immortality, absurd, introspective
The Two Minute Rule (Sep 2020)
A man forgets to clean a mess from the previous night and reflects on his mother’s golden rule of cleaning.
Topics: Weird, comedy, fable
Vines (Mar 2023)
They took away her one happy place tucked away in a nature reserve outside the city limits. After she died nature took it back.
Topics: Introspective, nature, environmentalism, supernatural
Within the Tower (Feb 2023)
My journey has been long, painful, yet valiant one. After I had slayed the dragon all what was left was to save the damsel from within the tower. Instead, all I found was an endless void and something much worse at the bottom of the tower.
Topics: Fantasy, horror
With The Cool Autumn Breeze (Nov 2021)
The fall has come. Time to take it easy and enjoy a nice book.
Topics: Nostalgic, cozy
Within a Single Breath (Oct 2023)
The world changes so much within a single breath.
Topics: Introspective, experimental, multi-point of view
Wrong Number (Oct 2020)
Even God butt dials sometimes.
Topics: Comedy
You are viewing selected reviews for Raine’s Spells & Potions, LLC (May 2023)
It ain’t easy being a small business owner, especially in such a trendy market such as witchcraft.
Topics: Comedy, supernatural