PK Hrezo

The last place eighteen-year-old aspiring artist, Morgan Jaeger, wants to spend her summer after high school is in the boonies of the Transylvanian Highlands with her estranged father. She never expects to meet the handsome, free-spirited musician, Varujan, who shares her affinity for abstract art. The summer of dread becomes the summer of dreams when Varujan invites Morgan to a secret hideout of underground artists. But when the utopia turns into a thrill ride of terrors that pitch Morgan's life before her eyes she must keep her wits about her or else lose her most valuable asset forever.

A Wicked Thought

From toe to ankle, creepy crawlies cover my Converse and jeans: centipedes, scorpions, beetles, worms … 


A wave of nausea floods my stomach and rises to my throat. 


If pure fear has a texture, it’s stiff and blunt. It rubs against my insides, hulking and callous. I shrink into myself. Into the vile, mucky greens and browns of anxiety and panic. With a sharp inward pull, I retreat smaller and smaller. 


Air consumes me and slices into my skin like shattered glass. 


But beside me, the violin plays on … 


The bugs remain transfixed. Ichiro’s true nature on exhibition. 


I am his prey; my suffering, his ecstasy. 


“What happened after you died?” I ask. 


Chapter 38