On his deathbed, legendary dwarven warrior Grangal is haunted by the one quest he fled from — a crumbling castle staircase where a Lich's nightmare curse brought him to his knees in guilt and shame.
Jared visits a brusque supernatural functionary who will arrange any act of revenge for a fee — and impulsively commits to something far worse than he intended before he can take it back.
A man wakes every morning from the same recurring vision of apocalyptic destruction wrought by vast, incomprehensible beings — and instead of fearing it, he feels chosen.
Yasmin tends a beloved garden with one unsettling corner she has never been able to cultivate — a permanently shadowed patch of shifting shapes she has quietly learned to leave alone.
A battle-hardened army camps on the eve of their assault on a great walled city, drinking and gambling as their officers contemplate the uncertain fate awaiting them at dawn.
Moments after a fatal car accident, a man finds himself in darkness where a quietly confident woman in impossible black approaches to guide him — with patient answers — to whatever comes next.
An anonymous painting appears in a hip gallery, and while the owner sees only a publicity coup, her friend is filled with creeping dread at the disturbing forms emerging from its impossible colours.