Tales from 13 Realms

By Arken Wheeler

The first story of this lucky collection of thirteen, a flash fiction titled “Green Ground Zero”, reveals a captivating window into a post-apocalyptic world where sentient algae long took over the globe turning humanity into swamp creatures. The protagonist, Nap, is a laborer marching in formation on a distribution mission, who uses unexpected chaos in the algae-orchestrated order, to rebel against shepherds and risk his life for a taste of freedom.

“A Growing Madness In Mayaguez” is a flash nonfiction account of A.R. Wheeler’s sudden encounter with a seemingly possessed woman on the otherwise empty streets of Mayaguez, the third largest city and crumbling post-colonial outpost in Puerto Rico.

“Skeleton Soulmate”, is possibly the only optimistic romance story in this collection, telling the dark fantasy entranced meeting of a numb ex-tattoo artist hermit who can only see human beings as walking skeletons, and a carefree wandering man-child who views himself and everyone else as babies. As the two literally collide, their worlds are merged and shaken into an even stranger reality which neither imagined possible.

“Dead End Synthesis”, chronicles a Saturday night on drunkard bustling 7th Avenue of Ybor City in Tampa, where Dusty, a paraplegic Vietnam Vet beggar transcends his current reality to review his life in reverse, following a dose of the experimental psychedelic made by his only friend, Kosmov, the world finessing Afghan veteran and aspiring chemist. This is partly a resilient anti-war statement and also a question of street ethics and best intentions.

“Landowner” is an apocalyptic flash story oozing horror and suspense, following an unprepared and idealistic writer from Florida escaping to rural South Carolina after a possible apocalyptic event. Breaking down nearby and hitch-hiking, he attempts to locate his recently purchased land. His new neighbor, the twisted old man who sold him the property, happily gives him a lift.

“NOWSPIN”, is a surrealist urban fantasy nightmare based in a Tampa, Florida laundromat during a thunderstorm, in which Captain Wolfman, a sewer-dwelling alcoholic pirate hunting late-night prey for petty change robbery, targets a vulnerable Thai Buddhist monk, drying an industrial load of nothingness, resulting in a paradigm shattering confrontation.

In the center of this collection of short stories is “Intermission (An Excerpt From Hierarchy of Eyes)” the intermission from a yet-to-be published interdimensional espionage odyssey novel HIERARCHY OF EYES. This piece from a cyberpunk mind-bending tale about agents from various dimensions waging wars for total oversight, details the origins of Five-Eyes, who turned into a goat-man with five-eyes upon a psychedelic induced reception of a message later written as an occultist holy text called Hierarchy of Eyes. In this story, after recently finishing the book, the tired scribe orders a pizza and attempts to convince Four-Eyes, the visually impaired teenaged delivery boy with dreams of space travel, to be his first disciple.

The horrifying post-apocalyptic monster story titled “A Dirty World War”, set during humanity’s losing war against members of a more vicious and powerful species, experiences Trixie, a very pregnant call girl, attempting to hide in a 24/7 Tampa laundromat from The Drain King, one of the giant winged amphibious alien monsters that uses the flooded sewers to navigate the city. After burning down the Buddhist monastery that sheltered her, the Drain King tracks Trixie down to the laundromat and corners her in a final standoff and revelation.

“Q-Coolin: The Hero of Mars” is an epic hero science fiction retelling of the Celtic myth on Mars, in which Martian human society is founded when Danielle MacNamara, a chemist for terraforming firm TDD, discovers a way to create a utopia that after many generations will be defended by one hive-mind hero against armies of savages.

These and other t

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arken Wheeler
• Release date: Mar 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215588543

Arken Wheeler

With an enduring foundation as a poet, short story writer, and novelist, Arken Wheeler is a screenwriter from Tampa, Florida based in Atlanta, Georgia. Arken specializes in mind-bending cyberpunk, biopunk, science fiction western, science fantasy, antihero fantasy, magic realism, noir, and crime drama sagas interwoven with dark comedy and horror elements. Arken is earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Full Sail University and is a member of the International Association of Professional Writers and Editors.Arken's work is published through Amnesty International USA, Curbside Splendor, and Entropy Magazine. Arken has written, produced, directed, and acted in two original web series, Broken Ark and Demigods, now in post-production. He has one pilot with story bible for an historical sci-fi crime-drama currently in pre-production. When not writing stories, Arken works as the founding lyricist for experimental hardcore band VS., a photojournalist, a fashion-designer/jeweler, and substitute teacher.

Book preview

TALES FROM

13 REALMS

By Arken Wheeler

Copyright © Arken Wheeler, 2023

Cover Art Photo and Design by Arken Wheeler

BE WEIRD.

Published by Arken Wheeler at Smashwords

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title Page

Copyright Page

Table of Contents

Dedication

Green Ground Zero

A Growing Madness In Mayaguez

Skeleton Soulmate

Dead End Synthesis

Landowner

NOWSPIN

Intermission (From Hierarchy of Eyes)

Dirty World War

Q-Coolin: The Hero of Mars

Rose Quartz

Zombalibot

The Adaptive Rapture

Midnight Ascent

About The Author

DEDICATION

To The Savage World

And The Sweetness Found

In Absolute Madness

Navigators of Shadow Worlds

And Those Who Stayed Awake

At Our Wild Parties

Til Sunrise

To Raiannah Zazulia,

The Livewire Love

Who Helped Me

See Life Through

GREEN GROUND ZERO

Throughout night's ash-frost and the frequency's constant hum across glowing green landscapes, Nap trudged within the line of laborers into the green fog-filtered dawning sun. The levitating lime-green orb illuminated the endless beach-path of Florida’s Gulf Coast, where spreading algae as a landmass originated.

Reaching the old expressway onramp conquered by glistening algae, Nap slipped and plunged both palms into warm sentient slime. Clutching clumps of it, Nap hesitated to let go. Sweet humid aromas ruptured from this edible life, filling a pruned stomach with desire. Organ-consuming hunger raged in blindness as Nap contorted toward murky skies in Green Ground Zero. Planting fingers deeper into the moist mat, a boom shot rang out. 

The congested line flinched backwards, some sliding down the ramp. The same tired surprise echoed through twelve different languages. 

Past the ramp, The Shepherd found one attempting to taste the earthly master, dealing the death penalty to the false threat. 

Guiding mantras emanated from the terrain. The weaving snake of workers broke through horizons of past trauma left behind, and future promised lands to the front, out of sight. 

Nap marched instep now, chewing the heavenly ooze in stone-faced silence, likening the flavor to arugula.

A GROWING MADNESS IN MAYAGUEZ

We fled the hectic spectacle in San Juan for a quaint studio in the quiet town of Mayaguez, where something sinister shared the silent streets. Looming over the town square dominated by Catholic temples and crumbling Spanish colonial buildings, the statue of Christopher Columbus standing upon the planet should’ve been our first sign. Cobblestone streets populated by traffic in the sunshine, and deserted upon sunset, should've been the second.

We both worked remotely in this studio apartment. Weeks of claustrophobic capitalism and lacking interaction with the outside world slowly drove us up the compact walls. We engaged in absurd arguments. One, caused by my incorrect relation of the Pythagorean theorem to explain why a shorter route would save two minutes walking in the blistering heat, when indeed the potential routes formed a trapezoid, lasted three hours.

Following another fight, triggered by my interruption of an intention-setting before choosing from a hat, a location to stabilize, she asked me to leave. Wandering lifeless nocturnal streets, I fought an internal collapse reflecting this town's nature. I wondered if a curfew was in place. Maybe there was crucial knowledge, everyone here except myself shared.

Where the diagonal side street cuts toward the ocean, an unfinished auditorium for salsa concerts stood beside a slim park with concrete tables and benches. Anguished cries reached my ears before my eyes could determine their source among the park's shadows. I was within physical reach before I realized it was an amorphous woman withered upon the bench, wailing throughout the emptiness.

Before I could ask in Spanish if she needed help, she erupted from the cocooned fetal position, flailing a blur of limbs with a shrill mix of screams and laughter. She advanced. This unpredictable act propelled me backward. A few hundred meters to the coastline, I sprinted.

Breathing... studying the common isolation of each moonlit wave crashing upon the wall where I stood, I constantly looked over my shoulder.

After some reflection, I turned to walk back to the apartment and reconcile with my lover amidst this madness. In the distance, an ambulance was strapping the frantic woman from the bench onto a gurney.

Turning down a dim alley of impulsiveness, I got lost upon the long way back to love.

Skeleton Soulmate

These visions overshadowed textbook madness. The divisions between what began as a delusion of self-defense fizzled away. Now she stayed safe in the land of walking skeletons consuming the world. In her eyes, there was no soul lost in these scraps worth touching. The stripped frames of homo sapiens somehow held themselves together for some surface level purpose on a spinning dizzy earth. These obvious victims of the hustle and bustle were completely out of the question. Well, at least out of any question she was still willing to ask.

Simple sustenance came easy now after her honest talk with a psychotherapist monotonal skull who smoked out of a long mahogany pipe in all seriousness, inspiring fits of laughter as she tried to describe her problem to a pile of bones with a PhD. Now she gets a monthly check to pay rent for the tiny high rise she inhabits wide-eyed all