The Last Throne of Saint Peter

Welcome to The ParaZone—transforming today’s headlines into eerie, esoteric micro-fiction, blurring the line between reality and the surreal. Today, we will dive into the story of a reluctant cardinal, who battles prophecy and fate as Rome collapses under apocalyptic, supernatural forces.

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The following is based on a thousand-year-old prophecy...

April 21, 2025.

The Vatican was dark, the kind of unsettling quiet that pressed against your ears, making the air seem heavier than it should be. In his chambers, Cardinal Pietro Luciani sat by the window, his worn fingers gliding along the edge of ancient papal documents. Beyond the glass, black clouds churned with violent, unnatural intent. The storm was coming—it always was, creeping closer with each breath.

"Cardinal," a soft voice broke the silence. Cardinal Maria Verdi, young, sharp-eyed, far too quick to judge, entered the room. "The conclave is beginning. We need you."

Rooted in place, Pietro kept his gaze on the cracked glass, unmoving as thoughts churned beneath the surface. The prophecy—the prophecy—pressed in, heavy and unshakable. One hundred twelve popes. One hundred twelve fates. And the last: Peter the Roman. Rome would burn, Christ would return, and he—he—was foretold to lead them into the fire, if the ancient words held true.

"I know," he said, voice barely above a whisper.

Maria hesitated, stepping closer. "Do you believe it, Pietro? The prophecy? Or are we—"

He cut her off with a sharp glance. "It doesn’t matter what I believe. It’s written. And it’s real." His voice trembled, betraying his calm exterior.

With a hollow rush, a gust of wind swept through the room, rattling the old shutters against their frames. The signs had begun. Beyond the walls, bells tolled, their deep, resonant hum rolling over the city like a slow drumbeat. When the final toll sounded—deafening and sharp—it hung in the air like a warning no one could ignore.

"You think you can escape it?" Maria’s voice was firm, insistent. "They’ll choose you, Pietro. Peter the Roman. That’s what it says. The Church needs you, even if you don’t want it."

"Let them choose," Pietro muttered. "I’ll decline."

Maria frowned. "It’s not that simple. You know what happens to the one who refuses."

His hands clenched into fists. Refuse? Renounce? Could he? Would the blood that had soaked this place for centuries stain him too?

Beneath their feet, the ground trembled—not with the roughness of an earthquake, but with something far more unnatural. Overhead, the lights flickered, casting frantic shadows along the walls. The air thinned, turning bitter and cold. "Pietro…" Maria whispered, her voice barely rising above a breath, her wide eyes snapping toward the door, where something—someone—waited in the gloom.

A shadow flickered between the doorframe like a broken image.

"Is it him?" she breathed.

Pietro’s heart pounded. Out of the shadows, the figure stepped forward—an old man draped in tattered robes, hollow eyes brimming with endless sorrow—Saint Malachy himself, or something far worse. Never had the prophecy been a mere metaphor; Pietro saw it clearly now, written in the ghost’s empty gaze—the cold inevitability of it all.

"You cannot run," the figure rasped. "Fate binds you, Peter. You will wear the crown, and the fires will consume all."

Pietro rose slowly, legs unsteady, the weight of history pressing against him. "Then let the fires come," he said through gritted teeth, stepping past Maria and into the hall. "Let them come."

As the shadows thickened, the storm roared in an unholy chorus overhead. From the heart of the city, the bells tolled again—louder, heavier—each strike signaling the end of something: an era, a prophecy, perhaps even his soul.

"Rome is already lost," he muttered. "And with it, my soul."

Outside, the world had already begun to break.

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Exciting news! Cumberland Chronicles has officially launched on Books2Read! If you're a fan of supernatural, horror, or weird stories, I’d love for you to give it a read. If it’s not quite your style, a quick share would go a long way in helping me connect with the right audience. Thank you for the support!

The Rougarou Heist

Welcome to The ParaZone—transforming today’s headlines into eerie, esoteric micro-fiction, blurring the line between reality and the surreal. Today, we will dive into a desperate young drifter who seeks a quick score to escape poverty, but when he dons a cursed werewolf mask that begins to consume his soul, he must fight the growing beast within or lose himself to an ancient hunger stalking the shadows of New Orleans.

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The following is based on a report in the New York Post...

April, 1:15 am.

Along Chef Menteur Highway, the air reeked of saltwater rot and long-buried secrets. In the hollowed-out shell of a once-bustling corner store, Keddrick Demon Jones Jr. crouched by the back fence, eyes scanning the empty street. He was tall—too tall for his frame—but it didn’t matter. After the storm swept through, it stripped away any hope of a quiet life, leaving hunger and frustration to gnaw at him from within. 

He glanced over his shoulder, made sure the street was empty, then slid the mask over his face—a moldy, cracked thing he’d found in a voodoo shop’s forgotten chest. Dark and tattered, it resembled no man, more beast: a rougarou, a shapeshifter cursed to haunt the night.

When the mask settled in place, something stirred within. From his backpack, he pulled the crowbar and crept to the shattered door. Inside, cold emptiness pressed in as he moved with quick, practiced motions—smashing glass, rifling drawers, and stuffing valuables into black plastic bags, scavenging the easy pickings of a forgotten world.

“You won’t get caught,” Keddrick muttered, but his voice sounded hollow, distant, as if it came from somewhere deeper. The mask pulsed against his skin, the stench of old leather filling his nostrils.

As the crowbar struck the register, the mask’s edges curled, tightening around his skull. With a sharp, quick tremor coursing through him, his breath hitched—not from bodily unease, but something deeper. Something else had awakened. Something old.

When the alarm screamed, Keddrick didn’t flinch. He moved faster, grabbing the last bag of cash, bolting for the exit. “Not today,” he muttered again, but his focus slipped. 

Near the fence, he heard it—claws scraping concrete. Not his. As his heart pounded fiercely, he pressed on, unable to pause. Against his face, the mask pulsed, while his trembling hands betrayed his resolve. The stolen bags dragged at him.

He ducked beneath the fence, stumbling into the alley. As he ran toward Stemway Drive, the darkness seemed to close in, curling at the edges of his vision. Something followed, breath hot on his neck. He turned—nothing. Only moonlight, filtering through thinning trees.

“Dream,” Keddrick whispered, wiping sweat from his brow. But the mask—the thing behind it—wasn’t listening. It waited. Every step dragged him deeper into the myth.

At the end of the street, the bags were gone. The hunger, the feeling of being hunted, hadn’t faded. It had only begun.

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Exciting news! Cumberland Chronicles has officially launched on Books2Read! If you're a fan of supernatural, horror, or weird stories, I’d love for you to give it a read. If it’s not quite your style, a quick share would go a long way in helping me connect with the right audience. Thank you for the support!

The Howl Beneath the Ice

Welcome to The ParaZone—transforming today’s headlines into eerie, esoteric micro-fiction, blurring the line between reality and the surreal. Today, we will dive into a story that sees a geneticist who unleashes cursed dire wolves and must sacrifice herself to seal their ancient evil.

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The following is based on research and development at Colossal Biosciences...

March 2025.

Dr. Evelyn Marris stood in the cold, sterile light of the lab, her fingers trembling slightly as she reviewed the data. The pups—those unnervingly large, white-furred wolves—had grown at an exponential rate. Only six months old, and already, they were the size of full-grown gray wolves. She tried to tell herself it was normal. After all, she had engineered them to be genetically superior, their cells altered with ancient dire wolf DNA. But nothing about them felt natural.

"You saw it, too, didn't you?" Dr. Rhee asked, his voice tight with tension as he approached her side. His eyes flicked nervously to the monitor, then back to the trio of wolves pacing in their pen. "Their eyes... they don't look like wolves anymore."

Evelyn didn’t respond immediately. She just stared at the pack, their amber eyes flickering in the dim glow of the observation room. The way they moved—too deliberate, too aware—sent a chill down her spine. "It's just a side effect of the gene-editing," she said, more to herself than to him, though even she didn't believe the words. "We’ve altered their brain chemistry. They’re smarter. More... perceptive."

"Smarter doesn’t explain the way they’re watching us," Rhee muttered, his voice cracking.

The door to the pen rattled, and Evelyn’s eyes shot to the steel frame. The youngest pup, the one with the scar-like marking across its snout, had its nose pressed against the thick glass. Its head tilted, ears back, as though studying her. As though understanding her.

It wasn’t until the first disappearance that the fear set in. Dr. Jacobs, one of the senior geneticists, had gone missing without a trace, the only clue a smear of blood on the fence surrounding the preserve. Evelyn had chalked it up to a freak accident—until another team member vanished, and another. There were no signs of struggle, no bodies, just... absence. 

"We should have shut this down weeks ago," Rhee said, pacing now, his knuckles white as he gripped the edge of the desk. "What the hell were we thinking, Evelyn? This—this was never supposed to be possible."

Evelyn swallowed, her throat dry. "I don’t think it was us... not entirely. This wasn’t just science. There’s something else here."

The walls around them seemed to hum, a low, vibrating frequency, and the wolves, now gathered in a perfect circle in the pen, turned their heads toward the lab. Their bodies rippled beneath the fur, muscles shifting in unnatural harmony. 

"Listen to me," Evelyn whispered, gripping Rhee’s arm as she pointed to the monitor. "My brother... he left something behind. In the journal, he described the curse—the Vargstyrka. The ancient spirits bound to these creatures. I think... I think we’ve unleashed something that’s been dormant for millennia."

Rhee’s face went ashen. "You have to be kidding me. You're saying these things... they’re—what? Possessed?"

"I don’t know," Evelyn muttered, shaking her head. "But I’ve seen the signs. The claw marks on the doors... facing inward. The howls at night, only they don’t sound right—too deep, too... human."

A scream echoed from the compound's east end, the sound distorted, cut short. Rhee took a step back, panic flooding his features. "We need to get out. Now."

But Evelyn remained rooted in place. "We can’t run. Not anymore. If we don’t stop them now... they'll spread. They’re not just wolves. They’re something... older."

As the storm outside intensified, the wind howling against the windows, Evelyn’s voice dropped to a near whisper. "We have one chance. If I perform the ritual—the one in his journal—I can trap them. But..." She hesitated, her gaze meeting his. "I’ll have to stay. Bind myself to them, like he did. If I fail, they’ll take us all."

Rhee’s eyes widened, his lips parted to argue, but the words died in his throat as the wolves’ eyes glowed brighter, more intense, their howls rising in unison. The air grew thick with an unnatural weight, pressing down on them, suffocating. 

“I’m not letting them take you,” Rhee said, his voice hoarse, but Evelyn was already moving toward the door, pulling a vial from her pocket. Her brother’s relic—a bone carved with symbols, pulsing with a faint, eerie light.

"You have to trust me," she said, her voice steady as she turned to face the wolves. "This is the only way."

As the first howl split the air, Evelyn closed her eyes, preparing to sacrifice herself to the spirits she had awakened, and as the wolves charged, she felt her soul rip free—pulled into the darkness, bound to the pack forever.

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Big news! My book, Cumberland Chronicles, is officially available on Books2Read! If you're into supernatural thrills, horror, and the weird, I’d love for you to dive in. Even if that's not your usual read, a quick share would mean the world to me. Thanks for helping me spread the word!