Concerning Bycatch: Ch 13

First Chapter

Index

He screamed as he fell. 

The cry rang through the courtyard, off the castle walls and back into the rain. Then all fell silent. 

King Boo hung in the air, frozen halfway to the well. Purple jolts tainted his aura and his crown glowed dully—its last dribbles of power bleeding out through the cracks in the gem, turning the rain to a halo of steam over his head. Soft tremors juttered through him as he stared, half blind, through the glow hanging before his vision. The notion that Mario would come bounding out again fluttered in his dazed mind. But no such thing happened. 

The reds and purples of spilled magic reflected off puddles and lit the faces of the statues. Boos floated aimlessly in the air or lay panting against the ground, burned out by the overflow of magic they had saved him from. The King felt empty, cold, and tired. 

He couldn’t remember the last time he felt tired.  

Concerning Bycatch Ch. 12

First Chapter
Index

As soon as the other ghosts left, Clive shut and locked the door on the far side of the room, closing off any chance Comet had of getting into the halls.

The other door was still open, a straight shot to the sparring room and the courtyard beyond. More than once Comet considered taking it, but what would she do then? Go back to the graveyard? Climb the twelve foot, rain slicked fence?

And what if the ghosts did find Novi? What would happen if Comet was gone when they came back? And so, against all better judgment, she stayed.

Concerning Bycatch: Chapter 10

First Chapter
Index

The ground under the window had turned to slurry a long time ago. It was a good thing too, or Comet’s landing would have come off a lot worse than it had.

She stayed where she had fallen for a long time, half sunk in mud, looking up at the sky in a shell-shocked way. The gummy ghost had stuck its head out of the window and yelled abuse, but hadn’t seemed keen on following. Eventually it had gone back inside.

When she was sure it was gone Comet had pushed herself up, slowly and stiffly stumbling into the yard.

Concerning Bycatch: Chapter 6

 

First Chapter
Index

  Luigi wasn't sure what he had expected when the professor offered to help him. One thing was for certain, though, it hadn't been this.

  At first E.Gadd had put together a field kit. In addition to the device--which looked for all the world like some sort of vacuum cleaner--he had given him a set of emergency tools, five or six mansion keys, the rest of the mushroom drops, a more powerful flashlight, and some sort of tablet called a 'Gameboy Horror'. Each of these items had been stashed in a storage compartment on the vacuum, and Luigi should have been ready to go.

  How he had gone from that to being locked in the professor's cellar was something Luigi was still figuring out.

Illustration - Dark Hallways

I should not have drawn this.

There is so much writing stacked up for me to work on right now: Concerning Bycatch is still running full steam, paving the way for writing full length novels of my own; I've officially begun work on Aunt Lira's Stuffy, which I intend to publish by the end of the year; and there's a whole shoal of short stories floating around my head, just waiting to be preened and polished for submission to various writing magazines.

So of course I work on art.
I mean, it only counts as procrastination if you have nothing to show for it, right?

This piece is actually the back-drop for a much bigger project. I'll lay out more details whenever I get around to working on this properly, but for now, I'll just say it's another animation attempt. Even though I really didn't have time to be making stuff like this now I'm glad to have it done, if only because it moves the project from the realm of 'potentially good idea' to 'project to be done in the future' even if it takes a while to get around to it. I've been wanting to do this for a long time, and even that small shift feels very good.