Antidote Illusions E-Book

Erik Hofstatter

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Liene, the girl with hair colour of angry Etna. Somewhere between 800 and 1000 Celsius. And a much hotter temperament—is gone.

Tristan Grieves. The enigma peeler and ferryman on watered time is moving oars through rough months.

Boomerang throws TG into an ex-serotonin chaser’s house that smells like stolen passports. A flesh horizon where knives sail into. A nicotine party for a ghost exit, where a she-golem built from old betrayals waits. But what do you do when even the sun don’t want you?

“Hofstatter has a unique knack for reading the urban; peeling back the skin of the city, creating new myths for strange times. Sketching silk-smooth noir in full colour, these stories are sharp teeth beneath velvet. A vivid talent.” - Laura Mauro, Author of Sing Your Sadness Deep

Leseprobe

Antidote Illusions

A TRISTAN GRIEVES FRAGMENT

ERIK HOFSTATTER

Contents

Antidote Illusions

About the Author

Copyright (C) 2022 Erik Hofstatter

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2022 by Next Chapter

Published 2022 by Next Chapter

Edited by Chelsey Heller

Cover art by CoverMint

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author’s permission.

I knelt in what used to be her. The blood. It fled out of her wound-torn land. In almost visa-free rhythm. Then angel embryo fell on death’s brake pedal. Her essence became a slow tourist. She walked on a blue tightrope—my vein. I heard ichor songs play backwards. A seductive requiem to erotic despair. All inside the moribund strip club that was her body. Or maybe she just gave what was due back to the earth.

Grasshoppers, little grasses. They chirped “murder” somewhere outside. I brushed away red-hair eclipse, blocking the white sun of her face—feeling like king astronomer. Those big, calamity-colored eyes. A gateway to cy(psy)clones. She was a sanity taker. I negotiated with thin shavings from my heart.

“Why them peepers?” Boomerang said, Zippo-scorching his fag. He blew out smoke rings. A nicotine party for a ghost exit. I turned my head, looking at her, but curving words his way.

“They spoke for her spirit sometimes.”

“She was a polyamorous mess. Didn’t like guys much but dug that genderless soul-accent of yours.”

“I’m not a guy. I’m a demi-god.” I said, imagining his goblin-grin painted on my back.

“In this neighborhood, why not. You ever got your picture stuck in dead retinas?”

That mood crushing cunt. I collar-grabbed his meaning. Brain slammed it. The last sight myth. Not me. Never me. I was the square-faced polaroid (p) imp/printed on a mascara lane to cocaine heaven.

“Don’t tongue fence me.”

Wrong night. I felt weak. Piñata sluts assembled on condom littered hemi-fields. All I had for mental defense. His question choice hit hard. Doubt owned me. Miss Paranoia loved me. Was he in there? Face naked, floating eternally, in a round pool, her tears, warm still—what was the temperature of emotional turmoil? My cogitation took a knock.

“Oi. Eye-snatching prince. The night ain’t young no more.”

I got up and shrugged away higher calling. They did not belong to me. The screen-slave eyes. Only to the tricksters. The L sisterhood. The flint-hearted she-hounds and their 24/7 hunt for adoration. Deep-seated, needing, feeding, on a compliment-built throne. Digital flattery.

The currency into her knickers, where she kept all her secrets. Ego riches collected in an iPhone bank. But how do you patent hyena lust on a love beggar’s thinking plate?

“Put her in the ground, man. Let the worms take’em.”

The ferryman on watered time—always moving oars through rough months. My watch reflection showed half-past human. It was a good night to uncork memories, to let them breathe, to taste that ’94 sweet-red. I missed her shine. That unhinged mind. How she brought me down with a smile arrow. Straight to my knees like Achilles. Then the phone rang/BoomeRANG.

“Yeah?”