Author S. K. Nicholas

x and i: a novel

a journal for damned lovers vol 1-3

XandI

  • Sniffs and Snorts

    With her fingers digging into his wet body, Gretchen sets herself down on the fox’s back. The horses, seemingly hellbent on chasing the night into the mouth of oblivion, disappear among the moving trees ahead. The fox, small as he is, gallops so fast that Gretchen has to wrap her arms around his neck to Read more

  • The Trees

    The fox had never spoken to the trees, nor had the trees ever spoken to him. He knew they could talk, though, for he often heard them calling as they swept through the fields in the dead of night. To whom they were calling, he couldn’t say. Perhaps it was to other trees the same Read more

  • Buttercups and Dreams

    Although to begin with, she only saw the Ferris wheel towering over the trees in the distance, the glow of the moon now illuminates an entire funfair of flashing lights blinking to the beat of a strange new rhythm. The rhythm, due to its cosmic nature, is one she has no way of deciphering. Yet, Read more

  • Tiny but Massive

    Gretchen breathes in the steam from the fox’s nose. The fox, with its wet coat of fur glistening like oil, does the same to hers, and in both their lungs, the universe bubbles like a pan of boiling milk. The bubbles, tiny but massive, escape through their nostrils and drip down their chins to be Read more

  • Nose Against Nose

    Mesmerised by the slow spinning of the wheel, Gretchen wishes to speak, but the words don’t come. They’re in the back of her throat somewhere, formed and precise, and yet try as she might, they won’t venture out. All she can do is gaze at the structure that at this moment seems to her to Read more

  • Brain Fog

    With Gretchen’s eyes dazzled by the sight of this strange and wonderful apparition, the fox continues to stare at her with what resembles a smile on its whiskery face. It doesn’t need to look at the wheel. It’s seen it before. Turning with aged precision, the paint of its metal frame appears new and yet Read more

  • A Wild Din

    As the ground shakes and the fox tilts its head to one side, Gretchen does the same. Passing either side of them with as much force as the storm, the animals surge through the grass like the swishing blade of a scythe, a scythe brandished by a skeleton wearing a black cloak. The Grim Reaper? Read more

  • After This Night

    Plucking a lump of hair from the torso of the fox, she grins and places it in the front pocket of her nightie. Yelping in pain, the fox snaps back its head and bares its teeth. For a second, it thinks about giving the girl a nip, but it’s not angry for long as the Read more

  • Making Humans

    As Gretchen screams at the thunder and intermittent flashes of lightning, the fox leaps from the shoulders of the belligerent badger. Landing with a squishy thud in a sea of gloopy, flowing mud, it scurries through the wet stalks of grass, hissing and spitting at things unseen. Running her fingers through the fox’s fur with Read more

  • Trashy Cable Channels

    Taking her deeper into the field of long, tall grass on the back of the grumbling badger, the fox licks the rain as it soaks those rushing to the light. For a moment, Gretchen feels as if she’s in a western. Certainly a movie of some kind. One with a chase scene in—a thriller like Read more