Breathe deeply. Excerpt: I had an aunt who lived in the house beside my own; she was a very peculiar woman. The very nature of her peculiarity allowed me only rare opportunities to see her, although she was never more than a couple room lengths away. She called the inside of her home the Sterile Sanctuary, which, [...]

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A great burden. Excerpt: I sat back in my rocking chair and subdued my thoughts with the gentle swaying of my bones. The chair, as well as my body, creaked with the tender noise of old age. In my vision, flames within the fireplace communed with one another and my son and daughter-in-law played an immersive game [...]

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Happy Halloween!

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Here is a product video I just put together for From the Passages of Revenants (The Dark Verse, Volume I). The video quality is not quite grand, but I did the best I could! Subscribe with iTunes

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In life and death. Excerpt: I stood behind a black, baby grand piano. The instrument was unfamiliar to me and its keys, both black and white, held reflections that heightened their alluring appearance. As I looked upon it, I longed to hear a sweet melody. Surrounding the piano, two rows of seats filled with women arced in crescent [...]

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Success or failure? Excerpt: If the stars were maps of history, then my heart would have been their maker. If there were a way to look within the earliest light still traveling upon the edges of the universe, then my face would have been the subject there discovered. Bittersweet were the eons of my life. *** In my first [...]

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BOOK SPECIAL at SharkchildsRemains.com From the Passages of Revenants (The Dark Verse, Volume I) is on SALE Unsigned Copy: $17.99 Signed Copy: $21.99 FREE Shipping NO Sales Tax Special ends at midnight on October 31st THE DREADFUL INSPIRATOR CONTEST PRIZE 8GB iPod Nano and the creative direction of an episode of The Dark Verse HOW TO ENTER Submit an email to Sharkchild at m@sharkchild.com including (A) [...]

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Unsettling visions. Excerpt: My squad and I were at the end of our assignment. A brigade of three heavily armored vehicles and twenty-four exhausted, anxious men raced through the canyon of Nazlit. Dust churned behind us in wellsprings of the fleeting memories we hoped to leave behind. If the mind could have held its thoughts as lungs contained [...]

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Just stay still. Excerpt: I taped her entire body with thick, clear packing tape?every inch. I taped her fingers and toes to one another. I taped her legs together and her arms to her sides. I ran tape from her head to her shoulders, locking it in place. Her eyes were taped open; her mouth was taped [...]

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An only child. Excerpt: I was an ancient navigator. My mission was to collect data from the universe and pass it on into the vibrations of existence?stars, planets, moons, meteors?where there it would be embedded for the millions of years it would take until its presence reached an entity worthy enough to be susceptible to its slight, [...]

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The wonder of words. Excerpt: Words were my masters. Their colloquial voices chattered in my mind, enlivening an unconventional form of command. They had agendas and hate and disgust, all of which brought about a tumultuous ocean of demands within my head, so vast that I drifted upon it as weathered wreckage?for I was but an insignificant [...]

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Life changing. Excerpt: I once had a best friend; I liked to call her Dime. The name came to me when I found a dime in my pocket during a time of need. She was always there for me; she was the ?dime? in my pocket. Our relationship was brilliant. We shared secrets, experiences, and adventures. Dime [...]

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Wait for it. Excerpt: Tears from the heavens bore death like cannonballs ignited under the misery of hate. Like meteors sentenced to the fate of the world, these burning embers fell?fist-sized, amorphic masses of light ripping through plane. They poured through the hull and people alike with effortless elegance, spewing portions of things into a cataclysmic collage [...]

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To what do you give your allegiance? Excerpt: Grand castles full of cities and heavy, luscious woods lined the horizon. Their mixtures of grays and greens flooded my sight with thick promise. It was Alvershiven?s Den; the long journey was finally over. ?Are you going to do it?? Ten-Men asked while he bent down on one knee beside [...]

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Evil is as evil does. Excerpt: The chillanthon was waiting for me outside of my house, calling to me with its unsettling voice, tearing through my heart with its restlessness. I could hear its arms whip across its torso as they swiveled back and forth from shoulder sockets detested with freakish pivotal ability. It stood in the [...]

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Here is a promo video John F. Stifter put together for Sharkchild’s book, The Dark Verse, Volume I: From the Passages of Revenants available now at www.SharkchildsRemains.com. The music was composed by Sharkchild. Subscribe with iTunes

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Be released. Excerpt: On the dull road called Mayberry Lane, I stood at the turn of the evening. I had just flicked a cigarette at a passing vehicle, watching as its cinder flashed into the night. In front of me stood the Cursory?a name given to a house because no one ever gave the place a second [...]

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How it all begins. Pre-Order your copy of The Dark Verse, Volume I: From the Passages of Revenants now at www.sharkchildsremains.com. Excerpt: An army of ghastly forms waited listlessly at the gates of life. Each entity was unrestrained and raw?knowledge had yet to enter, conform, and orchestrate a platform of thought and personality for its cloudy mind. Step [...]

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Eenie, meenie… Excerpt: I was handed a small, round cage; I curled two of my fingers around the s-hook fastened to its apex. The cage had a minute door fixed with a comparably insignificant latch. It did not?by sound and feel?seem to have anything within its grasp, although nothing could be seen within the tightly placed metal [...]

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Reaching for a higher self. Excerpt: ?Just get inside!? my mom yelled. ?But please, let me?? I tried to explain. ?No! I don?t want to hear about it. Just go to your room. I?ll let you know when you can come out.? I climbed out of the minivan and went into the house. My body trembled with a mixture of [...]

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This is the all-in-one version of The Changing Feyth series, pulling together parts 1, 2, 3, and 4 from the previously published episodes. Subscribe with iTunes

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Evil succumbs. Excerpt: A body fell from the opening above me. It fell so fast there was no way to tell if it was living or dead. It crashed upon the stone floor, bones cracking and flesh splitting. And then another fell. And another. And another. And another until thirteen bodies had splattered across the floor in [...]

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Run to the hills. Excerpt: There are dismissed places?not forgotten or invisible?but ignored without refrain.  The devils of these domains are so vibrant that beings of any awareness trick their minds to see right through them, or around them?anything to succeed with avoidance. Nightmares are detrimental, but to gaze into these aces of sinister rule is to [...]

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A brave, new world. Excerpt: The precious silver hovered over the menacingly heated embers. Its surfaces glimmered and sparkled with the reflection of flickering ash. Every curve and groove of this magnificent creation completed in shape to form the perfect fork?the Serpent?s Fork. A long slender handle fell downward, widening at the bottom into a wonder of [...]

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Change is good. Excerpt: The dreams I had while I slept in the unsanctified darkness of the Slanterhorn Estate mansion?s attic were never pleasant. As I stared up into the ancient rafters, letting my body and mind be overcome by sleep?s oblivion, I sensed that the world of twisted things somehow pressed more mercilessly on such sites?places [...]

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Oh no you didn’t. Excerpt: The infinite regions within divisibility were my home. I existed in the distances of space?space void of finite ends. In these unfathomable places there was only emptiness; it was all that I had ever known. No matter where I traveled, I could find nothing different?for something boundless could not be filled, and [...]

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Open your eyes. Excerpt: ?Have you ever looked over the edge of the world?? asked the young girl sitting beside me on the train. At the time, we were passing by mountains strewn with large boulders, but my attention was on the features of the girl. Her hair was dark and her skin was light. Unusual rainbows [...]

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Dust to dust. Excerpt: When I was young, my grandfather often brought me to the burial grounds of the nethpa, and every time he led me over some barren hill, or down some hidden trail, or through some thick forest, he would share with me how I might find such a rare and extraordinary place. ?The resting grounds [...]

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On the road again. Excerpt: ?Step right up. Come see what ya?ve been waiting for?things ya could never dream of!? The man who spoke these words with such easy excitement was a haggard looking, traveling salesman. His brown, greasy hair was parted to the right and his pants sagged with a loosely fitted belt. His name was Mick [...]

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Take me! Take me! Excerpt: There was a path that led to all places, but it grew weak. As a canyon of only slight width, spreading through the horizons of the universe, it fought to exist between the gargantuan pressures of surrounding landscapes. These landscapes, formed of all things malice and chaos, fought to bring about the [...]

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Be the contact. Excerpt: I vividly remember those things I did on the day of the coming of the Purpose Giver. I was chopping wood in the back of my cabin, preparing ahead of time for the oncoming winter. My arms felt strong as they led the ax through the wood with single strokes. Perspiration beneath my [...]

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Here is another installment of The Changing Feyth series. Make sure to re-listen to Parts 1 and 2. Excerpt: My greatest ally and most infernal enemy is time. It can change history and efface memories. It can create life and it can take it away. And to the immortal, time is the ultimate instrument of both plague—the [...]

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Precious memories. Excerpt: Pieces here, pieces there—it was one sick, twisted mess. I had never before seen such an awful and visually tormenting way to die. It looked like some almighty hand of gargantuan size had grabbed the poor man along with the ground, the chair he was sitting on, and the desk he was sitting at, [...]

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Happy Halloween! The Dark Verse’s Halloween Sweepstakes: When: Now until midnight (Pacific Time) on Monday, November 3rd How to Enter: Send an email to sharkchild@thedarkverse.com including the name of your favorite episode and why Sharkchild will then randomly select a winner from those who sent an email with the required content. Prize: Choice of DVD ($20.00 or under) on Amazon.com The [...]

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Where the wild things are. Excerpt: I awoke in a strange place—a land of repulsive architecture and grim colors. All I had with me were the clothes on my back and my cracked, fragmented mind. When I first opened my eyes, they rested upon a structure similar to that of a monument. The building towered above me with [...]

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Time flies when you’re having fun. Excerpt: My hands were always true. I relied on their dexterity for manipulation, their sturdiness for strength, and their gentleness for care. With hands, I led myself forward through the galaxies of all things. Just as an insect?s wings are its salvation from danger and guide to survival, my hands were [...]

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Do you hear what I hear? Excerpt: The sound of a heartbeat is distinct. It is a ticking of time—a lifeline encroaching upon an end. Sometimes slow, sometimes fast, this ever-sustaining frequency pulsates towards the boundaries of the unknown. It represents knowledge—whether of reality or sleep it does not matter—but when it stops, the mystery begins. That [...]

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Come one, come all. Excerpt: There were many sitting around the table in the dining room at Neverlaster?s Inn. All together, there was the blind man, the ruler, the temptress, the demon, the thief, the philosopher, the jester, the card man, the hunter, the seer, the warlord, the ghost, and the masked mute. They were all dressed [...]

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O come, all ye faithful. Excerpt: There were always so many people on the beaches those days of the summer?s heat. They came with umbrellas and coolers and inhabited small squares of sand for the duration of several hours. Together, their grids of spaces collaborated into a small metropolis of unacquainted population. I walked those beaches, but [...]

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Catch me if you can. Excerpt: It came from the distance with patience and dedication. From a point of origin lost beyond the seas of matter, it traveled, setting out upon a path to reach the destination of which it chose—ages before knowledge was an aspect of existence. Once the path was formed, it did not stray—not [...]

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To what ends do you know? Excerpt: I walked through the truculent sands for many days without end. Their color glistened and appeared to shine brighter with each new dawning of the sun—a sun that radiated and shown power beyond the means of natural, un-orchestrated things. I could feel the sun?s reach and be witness to its [...]

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Make the sacrifice. Excerpt: The creations of the artisan were always magnificent. Every detail, contour, and finish orchestrated a perfection of visual embrace. The way his completed works mesmerized the most critical of art and the most cynical of achievement proved his worthiness to all who might own—or if but see—a piece of his allotted mastery. Even [...]

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Intro song for the Names series. Subscribe with iTunes

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Here is the first work of art inspired by a specific episode of The Dark Verse. It is created by John F. Stifter. See more of his art at QuantumCathedral.com. Preview (click the below link to view the full art): Subscribe with iTunes

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When you wish upon a star. Excerpt: By a very early age, I had learned the seriousness of sanctity—as far as it goes in relating to things unbound by the compass of the solvable. I knew, in other words, about the astringent potency of belief: what it was capable of and how it controlled and manipulated. There [...]

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What’s in a name? Excerpt: An amount of seasons befell me that I could not count before I became free. And surely it was an amount less than I would have thought, for time lingered awfully slow within the cool, decrepit cell of my prison holding. I did not mark the days and I did not note [...]

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Face your demons. Excerpt: My sister and I happened upon the variable of existence by chance. It might have been the way we walked in ghostly indifference under the setting sun?s light, or perhaps it was the way we stared disjointedly across the endless horizon. Nevertheless, we arrived. Like a layer resting between all things, it [...]

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Seeing is believing? Excerpt: On the softest of days, when the splinters of time bowed to uncanny sounds, I heard the ringing. It came from some region just closer than what could be called distant. As if drifting on a river of sustaining sound, the ringing reached my ears, tickling them like the elegant prose of a [...]

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Enter the never. Excerpt: One drop, three drops, twenty drops—then it was steady. The glass window facing the driveway fogged under my breathing as I watched the rain begin its exotic descension upon the glum spread of concrete and blood. My skin tingled while severe emotion shot through my body, invigorating my keenness during the very surreal [...]

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Where the wild things are. Excerpt: The movie man found me at an awards banquet. It was for my swim team, and it was the last place I expected to meet someone who would change my life. When his greeting occurred, all of the awards and speeches had been given and made, and things had just begun [...]

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What you see is what you get. Excerpt: There were certain shops that had no seizing affects outside of a planned visit, and then there were certain shops that quite brutally tortured if their magical, if not haunting, space was not investigated. Alluring displays, unorthodox merchandise, and toys—these were some of the things that made me curious, [...]

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Why must we go home? Because, where we came from, we so also must end. Excerpt: I awoke to the severe beating of my heart, which drove throbbing percussions through my temples. Beneath me, a sick, cold sweat lined the sheets. My hands were trembling and my throat was raw. I quickly rose from the bed in [...]

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Take what you can from this story. It is a mixture of many things strange and philosophical and religious. Obviously, just from its title, this story is about a great subject that has most likely surfaced at a dinner discussion or two. What I can promise you is that you have never read or heard [...]

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There is often a part of me that I wish did not exist. There are thoughts that I cannot control and actions I get caught up in. I guess these would be considered my flaws or imperfections. Sometimes I want to yank them out and let them burn. Even though I believe such things can [...]

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Here is the second part of The Changing Feyth series. Make sure you listen to the first part before listening to this episode—you will need to so you know what is going on! Excerpt: While others sleep, the feyth do not. While others dream beautiful and terrifying visions, the feyth always stir in the unrest of consciousness, [...]

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Through my eyes are the peoples of the world. I see them, at night, lying in their beds within the structures that spread over the earth. As if transparency were the walls containing them, I can find them, isolate them, and extract them in my mind, plucking them one by one between the fingers of [...]

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The mind is a strange place. Excerpt: I would lie in the middle of Turnby Road on those days when the wind would explain the seasons and the cold and the feelings quickly lit and quickly dampened. The leaves from elderly oak trees would carve their sacred fates between the airs, arousing the nostalgic memories of imagined [...]

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A noble came to me the other day. She was adamant about being released from a turmoil she could not plainly describe. When she arrived, her hair was a mess and her eyes were red and dry; she looked as if she had not slept for days. Before she even explained her situation, she begged [...]

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Everyone finds themselves at some point in their lives wishing they were someone else, or that the circumstances that befell them were different. But we live in a time where Botox and liposuction consume a state of mind with a myth that is, more often than not, impossible to reach. We also live in a [...]

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I have seen the woman dressed in violet. She came to me, suddenly, in my mind, and devoured my intelligence of judgment. With movements soft as slow moving water, she turned me against myself, indulging my nightmares with the promiscuity of the nations. I became the choice of kings—one small piece of the so many [...]

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I am hoping to create a little viral advertising. I made the website, www.immurement.com, with the purpose of forming some publicity for The Dark Verse. If you get a chance, please look at it and send it out like wild fire; it will be interesting to see what comes of it. Excerpt: My life started to deteriorate [...]

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I witnessed the star fall in the distance. I saw how it dropped low on the horizon, disappearing beneath the ocean before curving back around and out for but an instant, then vanishing away forever. There was nothing like it; nothing could be more surreal. The wars were on my mind at that time—how strange that [...]

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Sometimes it gets way too late when I post my new episode, and the energy I have left is in the negative. I really wish I could put a great introduction that asks a good, philosophical question every time, but my brain is always racked from thinking of ideas for the story. So, under the [...]

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The playground of sympathetic spirits—listen to their words: Your eyelashes, I rip them out. Your eyelids, I pull them back. White fury bulging forth, black beads expanding out— No veins to carry what the heart cannot bear. Stare back, oh eyes of murder; Catch your last glimpse. Strain for moisture and for the living water that left a desert: Your soul. With lips of [...]

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The last few episodes of The Dark Verse have been mainly horror, but since it was my overall goal to have a podcast comprised of both horror and fantasy, I realized it was time to make a promising fantasy installment (and when I say fantasy, I do mean with a touch of horror and darkness). [...]

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The playground of sympathetic spirits—listen to their words: Be wise with all endeavors of the heart. Stand firmly against the unyielding allure of the persuasive dawn. With the stone-written beliefs of your faith, you cannot fail. And if you have none, then you have not sought deep enough into the haunting core of your existence; for [...]

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Everyone loves gifts, but the gift in this story is quite unusual. Some will be disgusted by it, some will be confused by it, and some might understand and even appreciate it—maybe. Excerpt: As soon as I shouted into the vicinity of my home, the outlandish noises in the kitchen ceased. It was nothing more than the [...]

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The playground of sympathetic spirits—listen to their words: VERSE I Give of your heart To the solstice of your soul, When the goblins dance And sing in soothing seething. Leave for the dead All of withered wonders past While you tread through the black with wings of retribution. CHORUS Build a castle high On rock and broken bones; Shelter for the wise. Train the restless soil With faith and hallowed [...]

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I, like so many, wish that there were certain things, certain actions, never done in this world—thoughts never imagined, scenes never seen. What drives the human being to do the inhuman and become the monstrous father of immorality? How have those triggers of repulsive villainy even come to exist? It always comes back to the [...]

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