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Showing posts from October, 2025

[FICTION] Tales From Port Astor | Return To Rest

This is the third part and finale of this year's October series! Please go read part two if you have not already!       The golden light of morning shone through to paned window, and in front of you a fine breakfast. Your wife, a reporter for a local newspaper. You look upon your love, and she begins to speak, but her words are a mumble, almost underwater. You look into her eyes, the green eyes you loved so much, searching for her light, but... nothing. Then, like knives through a curtain, words.     " How long did you wait? "     " How long did you really feel that way about me? "     " How long did you pretend to miss me? "     " How long did you pretend to love me? "     You reel, your wife just sits there, beaming the same brilliant smile that she always had, looking up at you, eyes that devoured the light.     It comes back to you now. She disappeared last year, you remember the biting, haunting sorrow for h...

[FICTION] Tales from Port Astor | News Articles from the Port Astor Gazette

This is part two of the annual October series. Read part one if you haven't already! GHOST SHIP! By Valerie Kimpton     A long-missing vessel, THE EASTERN GLOAM , has resurfaced in Port Astor Harbor. While the city is under quarantine, few but the Coast Guard were able to try and dissuade this revenant from landing here in our plague-stricken city. Our official source, Lt. Boyle, said no one was left aboard after the boarding team explored the derelict from bow to stern. Out of abundant caution, Lt. Boyle said that the ship was to be towed out of the harbor, and eventually scuttled.     When we asked residents near the Astor Docks, however, we learned that there might be more to this story. One resident, under a condition of anonymity and speaking only through a closed window said that she spied a lone soul leaping from the drifting ship, then swimming to shore. Once upon land, our source continued, he simply vanished. Did our "valiant" serviceman lie to us when he c...

[FICTION] Tales from Port Astor | The Loamy Gloam

      During the lockdown, a ghost ship came into the harbor of Port Astor. With so much of the city in chaos or silence, few at the time even noticed its arrival. More did bother to pay attention, however, when word got out that an entire Coast Guard  boarding team vanished after boarding the vessel. When they sent the second team, no traces of the original crew of the ship, or the first boarding team were found.      The name of the ship was The Eastern Gloam, which was seen over a decade ago leaving for the Far East, with a crew of scholars and academics. And the only trace of anything they found aboard the ship was a carved phrase on a bulkhead: "LOAMY GLOAM".     Fearing another illness, the ship was towed out and eventually scuttled. Since then, however, a number of disappearances have been tied to the return of the ship, with the phrase "RETURN TO REST WITHIN  THE LOAMY GLOAM" showing up again and again over the years, and then us...