Below I have posted a trio of links of my online published short stories. While they all fall generally under the fantasy/science fiction/surreal genre, they are all very different from another...
"The New Atlantis" - Published on Liquid Imagination
"Gravitech Inc." - Published on 365 Tomorrows
"The Last Stop" - Published on Dark Fire Fiction
Online directory of published articles:
https://muckrack.com/stephen-lagioia
And for a fun little bonus, here is a sample chapter of a short story I have recently completed, from which my short film "Woods of Oblivion" is based on:
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https://muckrack.com/stephen-lagioia
And for a fun little bonus, here is a sample chapter of a short story I have recently completed, from which my short film "Woods of Oblivion" is based on:
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Ben?
Where are you?
A
faint voice echoed in the distance, jolting him awake within an
instant. He immediately recognized the voice to belong to his father.
Ben stood as still as stone, struggling to listen more closely in
order to track the source of the voice over the pounding of his
heart.
“Dad??” he shouted back in the distance, but there was no
response except for his own call carrying throughout and the endless
barrage of crickets chirping.
Having been so rattled and shocked by the sound, Ben had only now
come to realize that he found himself in the middle of Adure in the
dead of night, engulfed by twisted and menacing trees.
The grounds below
him were soft and muddy, so much so that he found himself slowly but
persistently sinking. He struggled to take in his surroundings, not
only because of the massive entanglement of trees and brush, but also
because of the potent fog that hovered around him.
He wasn't sure
why, but he had picked up bad vibes that seemed to radiate around
him, as if a poisonous force had crawled up from the muck below and
into his body. All he could think of amidst a chaos of panic in his
mind was how he could get out.
This overwhelming
urge to escape had quickly shifted to a desire to locate his father
in these eerie woods when the voice sounded again.
Ben? Are you
there? Ben! Get over here!
“Where
are you??” he cried. Again, no answer.
OVER HERE.
Ben nearly jumped
straight out of the wetland from surprise as he heard his father's
voice directly behind him, clear and close, as if he had whispered it
in his ear.
The feeling of
uncomfortable vulnerability coupled with adrenaline quickly subsided
as he suddenly found himself back in his bed. He glanced around in
confusion, and he soon realized he had been dreaming. He sunk back
into his bed, breathing a sigh of relief that his venture in the
dangerous clutches of Adure had been imagined. Though the sigh was
also one of disappointment, as just seconds ago, the very real hope
of finding his father had permeated his mind. Now the prospect of
reaching him seemed farther than it ever had.
As the disorder
brewing in his head had begun to settle, his senses returned to him.
Confusion had swiftly turned to frustration when he heard heard his
cat scratching relentlessly at his window, increasing in intensity as
both Ben and the antsy animal grew more frustrated.
“Milo, calm
down! Sheesh! What are you, hungry? Hold on...”
Ben stumbled out
of his room into the kitchen, dazed from exhaustion, but also still
partially shaken from his recent nightmare.
“Ugh, I don't
know how you can eat this stuff.”
He returned with a large bowl of cat food, turning away in disgust as the potent stench wafted towards his nostrils. He looked at his window, which had been partially opened, and realized to his dismay that he was talking to himself. The familiar gut wrenching feeling returned as he realized his cat had escaped.
He returned with a large bowl of cat food, turning away in disgust as the potent stench wafted towards his nostrils. He looked at his window, which had been partially opened, and realized to his dismay that he was talking to himself. The familiar gut wrenching feeling returned as he realized his cat had escaped.
How on earth
did he manage that? And why? he thought to himself amidst the
anxiety in his mind. Fidgeting with his windowpane, he noticed it was
very loose and gave way with little resistance. A feline
with little more than a paw and a desire to escape could in fact pull it off.. His
frantic thoughts leaped back and forth from the idea of losing his
pet, to the worry of his already peeved mother's response to his
blunder.
“Milo!” Ben
shouted desperately out his window. “Get back here, now! Ugh, this
cat is will be the end of me...”
Shaking his head
in disgust, he sped swiftly but quietly out his front door as quickly
as his cat had made his unexpected exit, and took off running.
After several
minutes leaping across the grass-covered village, he grew partially
relieved when he saw the small black silhouette of his pet, sitting
atop a shallow slope that cradled the quaint town beneath it.
Ben let out a
beckoning whistle towards the hilly outskirts, but this only
triggered his pet to sprint faster towards the dark horizon.
“No, no dammit,
Milo!” he whispered loudly, taking care not to wake any surrounding
inhabitants. He didn't need the attention now, especially if that
attention was to be brought to authorities. No, he had to be quiet
and evasive, just as his soon-to-be refugee cat had taught him.
Luckily, the tall,
soft grasses that wavered in the night breeze aided him in this
effort as he continued to run towards the ever shrinking image of the
animal.
“Milo! Get your
ass back here, now!” he whispered harshly the distance, as if he
would hear him, let alone obey.
As he continued
his seemingly hopeless chase, what had once lined the horizon with
dancing grass and brush had given way to large, ominous trees. The
sight beyond appeared to be little more than a black wall with
ruffled tops, stretching as far as the eye could see.
Oh no, not
there, Milo. Please...
He could do
nothing now but helplessly watch, hoping his reckless cat would come
to his simplistic senses and turn back, but to no avail. Within the
blink of an eye, Milo had disappeared into the black tangle of death
that stood defiantly, just yards away.
The swift trip
towards the shallow hills beyond lasted only seconds, but to Ben it
felt like an eternity as he prepared to meet the grounds of his past;
the now forbidden woods of Adure. This place once invoked vivid
feelings of bliss and comfort; reminding him of a simpler and more
joyous time, accompanied by his father. Now it had withered to
nothing more than a dim memory, marred by thoughts of terror.
When finally he
approached the lining of thick dark trees which had now towered above
him, he let out a reflexive gasp as he heard faint voices carried by
the breeze. He scrambled into a nearby bush and stood as quiet as his
adrenaline-fueled body would permit. The once peaceful surroundings
that were dominated only by cricket chirps was now accompanied by his
pounding heart and the rustling of the band of men who drew ever
closer. As their figures became revealed by the moonlight, he noticed
one of them to be a towering figure that dwarfed even Granger, who
happened to be walking alongside him. This giant sported an odd
wardrobe that Ben did not recognize, and which he could only liken to
a long cloak with an overlay of chain-mail armor that caught the
moonlight. He did, however, recognize a large emblem of the Hive,
shining on his back as he walked past Ben.
Behind Granger
trotted Saul, who Ben was not surprised to see, as the man was known
to follow him like an obedient dog. Accompanying them were a couple
of other Guards who appeared to be of even lower standing judging from their
shoddier attire and passive body language.
The men stopped
dead in their tracks not far from him, and Ben tensed up even more,
in fear that they had spotted him. After he had quietly and
discretely peaked out of the thick shrub, he was relieved to find
that their attention was fixed into the woods of Adure that stood
before them, rather than the quivering Ben.
“Is the new
shipment still on track for next week?” he heard the large man
murmur.
“You bet,”
replied Granger quickly. “At least if my merchants don't screw me
over.”
“Good. They're
starting to run thin in there, and I would not have these people
running around unchecked. All it takes is one curious renegade to
stumble on ground zero and we could be in a world of trouble...”
“Haha, the odds
of that are pretty low... You got nothin' to worry about. We'll have
the next batch here before ya know it. Once we do, there isn't a
chance in hell they even get close. I'm telling ya bud, we've got
things under control here. Trust me, alright?”
The man slowly
stepped closer to Granger. Ben could not tell if this move was to
intimidate the man, or to allow him to hear his soft spoken words.
“Good, because if word does get out, you will be the first
out of here, along with this heap of garbage you call a settlement.”
As Ben crouched
quietly and tensely, his interest had peaked. Despite his bubbling
desire to run back to the safe clutches of his village, even at the
expense of losing his adventurous pet, he was intrigued to hear more.
He couldn't even begin to fathom what these men referred to as the
'shipments,' and why they needed to meet discretely in the dead of
night to discuss its movement, especially on the borders of the
hostile woods.
To his dismay, he
would not have that luxury. Ben had done nothing more than subtly
re-situate himself in the brush, but the resulting sound, however
dim, was loud enough to draw the attention of the once preoccupied
Guards.
Ceasing their
conversation within an instant, they headed apprehensively towards
the direction of the now quaking young man.
“Hello?”
called a voice, which carried easily in the night's cold breeze.
No no no, you
damn idiot. Ben said to himself in frustration. His frustration
towards himself might have now exceeded that towards Milo.
With every once of
willpower, Ben sat as stiff and silently as humanly possible, trying
his hardest to imagine himself weightless as the wind, and still as
stone. It didn't help.
He could hear the
heavy boots rustling through the thick grasses, making their way
closer.
“Is someone
there?” From his close proximity, Ben now recognized the voice to
belong to Saul.
The one man who
would love nothing more than to see Ben arrested – or worse. Just
wonderful.
The source of the
voice walked closer and closer. As Ben reluctantly turned his gaze
from the ground below towards the approaching predator before him, he
could tell that he was trapped. The man was zeroed on his target, and
evasion was no longer a solution.
Somehow within the
realm of his frantic mind, he mulled over his two remaining options.
He could perhaps convince these men that he was in fact merely after
his stray cat, but getting his nemesis to comply with such a story
would be a long shot at best. Milo must have been long gone by now,
and with him, any proof of Ben's sincerity.
The other option
was to high tail it and sprint as quickly as possible into the woods,
where he would likely have little problem losing them. While the second choice
may have been suicide to the average villager, to an experienced
woodsman like Ben, he may have stood a chance. The unlikely
possibility of an unwanted encounter with the Blood Wolves seemed
preferable to the reality of facing the Guards, which were notorious
for their “tough love” style of governing. Now that lockdown had
commenced, Ben was certain their strictness would only intensify.
Before Ben could reach a decision, he quickly realized his cover was
now blown as the Guardsman apprentice had found him.
“Well well! Look who I found!”
barked a grinning Saul as he peered into the bush at a frightened
Ben. "You just made my job a little more exciting."
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