Spring Forward

I came across a writing prompt that sparked this little idea, it was to write a story about someone who didn't change their clocks for Daylight Savings Time. I immediately thought about giving Cal a pocket watch, from there is turned into this super short story. I like writing these little glimpses into Cal and Lucas' "normal" life as a couple.

---

“Cal, did you forget to reset your watch?” Lucas peered at the antique pocket watch on Cal’s desk. It was small, a lady’s watch of the kind he remembered being worn around a hundred years ago. Silver with delicate filigree, the open face showed the time. It was an hour off.

“No, I never change it for Daylight Savings Time.”

Trope of the Week - #1 Damsel in Distress

I love to play with tropes in my writing and the single best way for me to lose a couple hours is to visit the TVTropes website. Since I do enjoy tropes, I thought it would be fun to start a Trope of the Week feature. The goal is of course to do these weekly as my schedule permits.

The structure of these will be simple, an introduction and analysis of the trope and how they can be used both well and badly. So lets kick it off with one of the most famous tropes: the Damsel in Distress. This is one where I have to put on my feminist hat because of all the tropes out there this is one of the easiest tropes for the writer to inadvertently fall into perpetuating sexism. However I personally love stories that involve a rescue (or an attempted rescue) so how do we strike a balance? First lets talk about what a Damsel in Distress is.

Chance Meeting - Part III

The last part of this little story and this is where things get interesting. Not beta read, if you find any mistakes you can flog me for them. Share and enjoy.

<<Part II

---

Cal sat up, her shirt slipping down her arms. She didn't notice. How had she been so stupid? That was easy, she had not wanted to see. It was so obvious if she had only paid attention, he was pale, ate no food at the pub, lips colder than they should be, his physical presence and strength.

"I suppose there's no point convincing you vampires don't exist. Not with shields like that." His gaze drifted down to her now exposed arms, recognition filled his eyes. "Those are spell glyphs aren't they?"

Chance Meeting - Part II

I swear not every picture for
this story will be a cat.

Just a mild content notice, things get a bit sexy in this chapter or at least that's the intention. Your mileage may vary. The final part of this story will be posted Friday, Nov. 8. Again, this hasn't been beta read so any mistakes are 100% my fault. Share and enjoy.

Cal's cat Ghost is based off a stray cat that adopted my family when I was a kid. He was brown rather than gray but the personality is the same. Whiskers was a big, tough, cat who would disappear for days or weeks at a time and saw humans mostly as food dispensers.

<<Part I  --  Part III>>

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Cal lived on the outskirts of Falmouth, still close enough to Portland to make the drive less than twenty minutes on the nearly empty roads, but far enough out to be almost rural. The house sat back a ways from the road, partially screened by a line of trees. Stretching out around and behind the house was a half-acre of, mostly wooded, land that served as a buffer zone between her and the neighbors. It wasn't a large place, just an average two bedroom cape with fading yellow siding and gray shingle roof.

The only thing that made it stand out from the hundreds of similar houses along the Maine coast was the front yard. There was no lawn, instead there was a riot of perennials, flowering shrubs, and wildflowers that reseeded themselves each year. A haven for butterflies, bees, and birds. This late in the autumn, however, it was dead and brown except for a handful of evergreens and the bright red of winterberries.

Chance Meeting - Part I

I googled 'toaster kitten' this is what I found.

Here's the first part of how Cal and Lucas met, part 2 will be posted Friday, Nov 1. Thanks go to my good friend (and actual professional author) Garrett Cook for coming up with the band name "Toaster Kittens".

This has not been beta read by anyone so I take full responsibility for any mistakes. Share and enjoy.

<<Introduction  --  Part II>>

---

“How do I look?” Jill gave a little twirl. Her short red dress flared out around her hips as she turned. Loose waves tumbled around her shoulders, the darkest gold that could still be called blonde.

“Fantastic.” Cal replied. Jill had a knack for fashion and makeup that Cal found almost miraculous. The vintage Hollywood starlet in front of her was so different from the casual look Jill usually sported. The round girlish face transformed from cute to sultry with full red lips and large blue eyes.

Chance Meeting - Introduction

Starting on FridayI have a brand new short story. It's been cut into three parts which are a little longer than I like to post but it was where the natural breaks in the story are.

This isn't a story I planned to write at first but while working on my novel I found myself needing more of Cal's backstory with Lucas. The problem with this is of course that I don't write love stories, not out of any objection to them, I just have no sense of romance (which every guy I've ever been with can attest to). So instead I approached this story in two ways:

First I wanted to play with some tropes of both vampire stories and romances, either subverting them or making them fully justified by the circumstances (actually playing with genre tropes is one of my favorite parts of writing). For example, fabulous sexy wardrobes are a staple of romances but Cal and Lucas are both pretty casual dressers most of the time. So the circumstances they meet under justifies being dressed in sexier outfits than their everyday wardrobes which lean heavily to jeans and tshirts.

Second I wanted to explore why Cal would choose to start a relationship with a vampire. I'm not a fan of soul mates, love at first sight, or overpowering attraction as the reason for a relationship, it seems like a lazy way to throw two people together who otherwise would never otherwise get together. Real relationship grow into love, they don't start that way, so why would anyone start dating a monster who sees them as food? Cal has her reasons and I wanted to explore them (Lucas of course has reasons of his own but most of the story is from Cal's POV).

I have more I want to say about Chance Meeting but I'm going to save it for the wrap-up post. 

Few Thoughts on Writing

One of the reasons I started writing was as a way to relax, I create art for a living so as satisfying as that is it's still work. Writing is solely for fun, any sales on ebooks or anything is just a nice bonus. I have other creative pursuits that pay the bills.

I've always been a bit disappointed with certain types of books and TV shows. Too often the "strong" female characters really aren't that strong or if they are that all goes to hell once they fall in love. This even happens in Buffy the Vampire Slayer at times as much as I love that show, Angel and then later Riley and even Spike made her weaker not stronger. So if I'm writing a female lead character I don't want her to need rescuing all the time, not that she never needs help (because that would be boring and unrealistic even in a universe where magic and vampires exist), but she is quite competent and formidable all on her own and it is not the job of her love interest to save her. In my mind Cal's a bit like a female Harry Dresden.

Yeah, this doesn't happen in my writing. Period. Not even with a freaky chaos inducing spell on Halloween.

 This isn't a happy nice world, again magic and creatures that eat people exist in it and that doesn't lend itself to sunshine and puppies. Even if it did, that would be boring. It seems like the more I write using these characters the darker it gets, the Blue Lady has a pretty tidy happy ending but the novella I'm working on right now probably won't (I'm still fuzzy on how I'll end it, but I'm far from that point in the writing) and I'm torturing my characters in the process.

You could could make a pretty good drinking game out of spotting my kinks in my writing and they aren't light and fluffy ones. I'll admit now that there's a certain amount of what I write that is blatantly pulled from my own fantasies (ahem, Lucas's accent). In a lot of vampire stories it's implied that blood drinking is a metaphor or substitute for penetrative sex, I'm going to say right now that in my stories it's not. Doesn't mean the blood drinking isn't sexual, because it certainly is, but it's more of a masochistic blood fetish because that's a lot more fun to explore.

This is how I like to approach my writing. I ask myself what sort of scenarios would be fun to explore and go from there. This is why I've chosen to have Cal and Lucas already in a relationship that has existed long enough for them to be living together because figuring out how you actually make a long term relationship with a vampire work is more interesting to me than how they fell in love (I am writing a short story about how they met, because the idea I came up with was kind of fun and I couldn't leave it just as something in my notes). I hope people enjoy it but I write to please myself first and my audience second. 

Update on Writing Progress

So what I had planned to be a novella in the 20K word range is taking on a life of it's own. My rough draft is already a few pages longer than the Blue Lady and I'm still firmly in the beginning of the story. I would be unsurprised if the final word count for the rough draft is closer to 50K and my rough drafts are always shorter than my later drafts (because I work out plot and characters first then flesh out the rest). What this means is that for the foreseeable future posts with new fiction will be few and far between unless I get an idea stuck in my head.

Boredom

This is the first piece of really short fiction from the Blood Mage universe. I sometimes get these ideas stuck in my head that really don't belong in a longer story but are fun and help me get to know the characters a little better. It hasn't been edited or checked for errors by anyone other than myself.

This story came about when I asked myself what Cal and Lucas would do if they were bored on a night at home. It doesn't really have a set time it takes place other than sometime after Cal and Lucas begin living together.

---

Cal could feel a light pressure behind her eyes. She looked up from the book she was reading and turned to Lucas.

"I get it, you're bored?"

"What?" He gave her his most innocent look. It didn't work, maybe because he was never innocent.

"You're trying to get into my head and you only do that when you're bored." The first time Lucas had tried to use mind control on her Cal had been livid. That was before either of them knew what the other was, now it had become something of a game between them. Lucas would try to find cracks in her shields and she would build them up stronger. This time he had tried to be subtle, to find a weakness before she knew he was probing at her mind. He was getting much better at this but his touch still wasn’t light enough to avoid detection.

What's Next?

I've started a new writing project featuring Cal and Lucas which is looking to be quite a bit longer than 'The Blue Lady' and it's far from complete. In the meantime updates won't be as regular but I hope to post little bits of flash fiction on a semi-regular basis. Some will be in the Bloodmage world and some won't. It really depends on what strikes my fancy. 

I will post the novella here but I don't really write in a way that I can post chapters as I finish them. I need a complete first draft that's pretty rough to just work out the plot then I rewrite everything. Is it efficient? Not really, but I'm doing this for fun.

The Blue Lady - Part VIII

Part VII

---

Jill took Matty into one of the small bedrooms to tuck him into a cot. It was the first time Cal had gotten a good look at him, a little small for his age with a mop of coppery hair and she thought she got a glimpse of freckles underneath the dirt.

Lucas, Cal, and her grandfather sat at a small card table in front of the cast iron woodstove. Cal had her back to the comforting heat sipping a cup of tea. The pleasantries aside Russ got down to business, he wasn’t talking grandfather to granddaughter anymore but as the Guardian for Northern New England speaking to one of his Mediators.

“This is the fifth time something has come through in the past six months and that’s only in New England.” Russ’ voice was gravelly with a heavy Maine accent. “First was that goddamned banshee on Route 1 you took dealt with. Then there were trolls in Vermont."<!--more-->

"Trolls? Is that what happened to your truck?" She had noticed the pickup had some new dents and the hood had been replaced.

"Ayuh, I hit one there. Stove up the whole front end. I also banished a pixie that was playing tricks up in Machias." He chuckled before continuing with a more serious tone. "Then there was a fucking Black Dog in the middle of Boston last month that took Hilda and half a dozen other mages to corral and send back.”

Cal had known about the trickster fairy but trolls and a Black Dog? That was far more and far nastier than should be coming through the Veil. Maine got more than it’s share of fae with all the wild places it still had but a city like Boston had wards in place and few enough green spaces for most to avoid the place. It should have been protected. This could be pretty bad.

“No idea why?” Lucas asked, Cal didn’t need to she could tell from the look on her grandfather’s face.

“I’m telling you I’m going to find out. Hilda has been digging too.”

Cal didn’t get along with the Guardian of Massachusetts but she respected Hilda. She also had an extensive network of magic users, preternatural beings, and mundane informants. If anyone in New England knew what was going on Hilda Ingridsdottir would find out.

“We’ll let you know if we hear anything Grampa.”

Russ patted her softly on the back it, it was as close to affectionate as the old mage got.

“You’d better take off, don’t want your bloodsucker to get sunburnt.”

That was the closest to concern for Lucas he had ever shown. It was a definite improvement in relations when Russ didn’t want to kill him.

Cal walked back to the bedroom where Jill had stayed with Matty. She was sitting on an old folding chair watching over the little boy. Russ’ dog Bandit was curled up at the end of the bed, his head laying across Matty’s feet.

“How’s he doing?” She asked softly.

“Seems okay. He must be exhausted, he didn’t even wake up when I carried him in.”

“He probably is but Lucas also put him under.” She leaned down to scratch behind one of Bandit’s floppy ears. He was a big, good-natured, mutt. No one was entirely sure what breeds were in his background but he was shaped a bit like a labrador but with long thick fur and markings a bit like a husky, including the dark mask that gave him his name.

“You know it’s creepy that he can do that, right?”

“Yeah.” Cal didn’t like the direction the conversation had taken. Lucas’ ability to affect minds both disturbed her and frequently came in handy. She also felt strangely guilty that it was something she’d never had to worry about him using it on her, even before they’d really gotten to know each other, being a mage she already had strong mental shields up.

“Callie, look at your pants. They’re ruined.” Cal looked down at her blue jeans, they weren’t very blue anymore. She doubted she’d ever be able to get the combination of drying blood and muck out of them. At least her shirt had been spared.

Cal and Lucas said their goodbyes and climbed back into the Jeep. She was too tired to argue over who drove and just curled up into the passenger seat. They made it home a couple hours before dawn. Cal had insisted on finding someplace that was open to get food, they had finally found a 24-hour drive-through. One coffee and a blueberry muffin later they were back on the road.

Cal barely took the time to undress before collapsing in bed. She didn’t even have the energy to wash off the remaining smears of dried blood. Lucas on the other hand didn’t seem to be too tired to her as he started nibbling on her ear.

Cal rolled over and looked at her lover. “You are insane. I’m so tired I can barely move and you’re horny?”

“Mm hmm… “ He mumbled into her hair. Cal thought this was taking his fetish for danger a bit far.

“I’m going to sleep now. Goodnight.” She swore he was actually pouting but it was a fleeting thought as her body gave in to exhaustion.

---

Jill called that evening to fill her in one what had happened that morning. She and Russ had used a story about Bandit finding Matty while out for an early morning walk. Cal had to laugh at that, the big shaggy mutt wasn’t terribly bright. He’d once gone into a fenced pasture and couldn’t find his way back out through the open gate, finding anyone was well beyond him.

Matty had been tired, hungry, and a little dehydrated but otherwise fine. Scraped knees were the only injuries. His parents thought it was a miracle and no one was all that surprised when he didn’t remember much. They all assume the funny blue lady he kept talking about had been a dream.

---

And that's the end of the Blue Lady. I'm already working on the next story featuring Cal and Lucas

Part VII

The Blue Lady - Part VII

Part VI -- Part VIII

---

  “Vampire, why do you protect this child?” The voice was strangely melodious, flute-like. “It is mine now.”

 “He looks tasty.”

A small shudder ran through Cal and she tried to remain focused on the spell. As much as she might with otherwise that was how he saw the little boy. Lying to fairies was much too dangerous. She had no illusions about how little compassion he had for most humans, they were only food to him. What he said wasn’t an answer to the question but it was the truth.

She managed to bring her focus back to the spell, hoping that Lucas would keep the fairy too distracted to notice her for a few more minutes. Her blood was black in the moonlight as she held her bleeding hands over the bowl. Large, heavy drops fell onto the bread. Tendrils of power spouted out of it like vines, glowing faintly at first then stronger. Ember red.

The fairy turned towards where Cal was crouched among the trees. It knew now that someone was trying to banish it. Cal would see everything now with the intense clarity that the magic gave her, enhancing all her senses. She had to stand her ground now, breaking the spell at this point would bring it back on herself. She pushed more power into the blood flowing out of her body. Hot rivulets ran down her chest and belly, far more than the shallow cut should have produced. This was the cost.

The Blue Lady - Part VI

Part V  --  Part VII

---

The drive up to the lake took close to an hour. Lucas grumbled the whole time that if he’d been at the wheel of the Jeep it would have been much faster. They had left before sunset so Cal was forced to drive. The vampire had lain in the back seat with Cal’s jacket over his head. The fading sunlight wasn’t enough to harm him but was still painful. 286 years old and he could still be incredibly childish.

“I swear I’m going to start keeping a ball gag in the glove box.”

“Handcuffs too?” Lucas grinned.

“Oh hell. I can’t win can I?”

“No.”

The Blue Lady - Part V

Part IV -- Part VI

---

Jill let out a scream of surprise. The small explosion had sent glass dust over the table and both women. Cal just stared at the hole in the map.

“What the hell was that?” Lucas’ asked from the doorway. He was clad in only his sleep shorts, his hair is disarray.

“I don’t know but it’s not good.” Cal was surprised her voice was so calm.

“Clearly. That much was obvious when I woke to an explosion. Are you alright?”

Call nodded. Lucas grabbed her still bleeding hand and brought it to his mouth.

The Blue Lady - Part IV

Part III -- Part V

---

Loud banging pulled Cal from her sleep. It took her a minute to realize it was someone knocking on the basement door. Only a few people other than Cal and Lucas had keys to the house, and none of them would let themselves in if it wasn’t important.

“What is it?”

“I need your help Callie.” Jill’s voice sounded strained.

Cal grabbed her bathrobe from the floor and threw it on. It was just past four in the afternoon according to the clock next to the bed. That explained why Lucas didn’t wake up, it was hard to rouse him during the day. Opening the door she was greeted by Jill’s round, bright red, face. Her shoulder length blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she still wire her state police uniform.

The Blue Lady - Part III

Part II  --  Part IV

---

Cal jerked awake in a cold sweat. She had fallen asleep curled up on the couch with her head in Lucas’ lap. Tears ran down her face and she was still shaking. Lucas ran his fingers through her hair to comfort her, he didn’t need to ask what the nightmare had been.

“You didn’t scream this time.” His voice was soft.

Cal nodded, at least that was progress she supposed. Lucas tried to give her what support he could over the past six months. He didn’t really understand what she was going through or how she felt. He hadn’t been human in so long he didn’t feel things the same way and he no longer dreamt.

The nightmares were a regular occurrence. The memories of the banshee replayed in her mind nearly every time she slept. It had driven home how dangerous the work she did for the Guardians could be. She’d see the battle with the banshee, the pieces that had once been the three teenagers it had killed, Lucas’ chest in ribbons as he collapsed onto the ground, the look on his face at the hospital as they gave her blood transfusions. It hadn’t really been his fault he’d taken too much that night and almost killed her. Neither of them had realized just how much blood she had already lost to the magic.

The Blue Lady - Part II

Part I  --  Part III

---

He was stretched out on the king size bed in the large basement room they’d converted into their bedroom. All cool darks and lights, pale skin and dark brown hair, against the deep red comforter. Lucas was a couple inches taller than Cal, thin almost to the point of bony. She have described him as willowy if he didn’t exude such a sense of strength, not surprising considering the fact she’s seen him throw a guy twice his size a good thirty feet. Cal always thought he looked different when he slept though, even with the complete stillness he looked more human to her. It oddly felt wrong to think of his like that, he was far from human and she wouldn’t want that to change.

Sitting next to his motionless body Cal ran her wounded fingertip across his lips. He didn’t open his eyes or make any move other than smiling and gently lick the trace of blood away with his pale pink tongue. Cal pulled her hand away and replaced it with her own lips.

The Blue Lady on Kindle

If you are impatient and don't want to wait for a new part each week you can get all of The Blue Lady for Kindle. I'm not trying to make lots of money off this so it's just $0.99 from Amazon.

Edit: I've also put it up on Smashwords so you can get it in more formats.

The Blue Lady - Part I

Introduction -- Part II

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Pale swirling lines wound their way across light bronze skin, even more noticeable than they had been just a few weeks earlier. It was only April but Calliope Bránán already had the start of the tan that would darken into a deep golden brown later in the summer. Most people assumed the subtle patterns were simply body art but the scars were much more than that, they were spell glyphs. She had dozens of them carved into her arms. A shortcut for her magic. Her blood pressed onto the right combination of symbols while focusing on the spell would cast it. She had turned her body into a spellbook over the years. There were of course spells that were too complex or rarely used to make it onto her arms but everything she used most was there.

The spell she was preparing for today was one she used frequently. In fact it was one of the first she had ever learned and the very first she had thought to add permanently to her body: a finding spell.

The Blue Lady - Introduction

My short story the Blue Lady is now finished and I've worked up the courage to post it here. I have to thank my friends who proofread and critiqued the story, their help and encouragement was invaluable. Starting on Monday, May 5, I'll be posting a new part of the story every week and it will run for 8 weeks. Now on to a brief introduction to the world I've created for the Blue Lady and other stories that are in the works.

The Blue Lady and the other stories that will feature Cal and Lucas take place in a world where magic, vampires, and other supernatural beings exist. It's otherwise just like our own, most people go about their lives thinking such things only exist in fiction (a sort of psychological SEP field*). Sometimes that isn't possible and someone has to fix it.

*Somebody Else's Problem Field, see Life, the Universe, and Everything by Douglas Adams.

Upcoming Short Story

So I'm in the middle of revising a short story. I'm a bit shy when it comes to sharing the fiction I write, I know my writing has it's problems (not being descriptive enough is one of my biggest). I'm having a lot of fun though and fun is better when it's shared.

What I'm working on is a modern fantasy story using some characters I came up with a while back, a Blood Mage and a vampire. The plan is to do a series of short stories and maybe work up to something novel length. I wanted to do something in the vein of Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Anita Blake/Dresden Files but set in Maine with the lead characters already in an established relationship. I really just want to write fun stories about these characters handling magical baddies, not a romance, and also I think it would be fun to have a little mystery to their back story and reveal it in bits and pieces as I write about them. The two characters are also very different and play off each other a lot, I like the idea of someone in a relationship with a vampire who can not just hold her own but is often the one in charge. Also I just love pairings of people who are very different but who complement each other (Holmes/Watson, Frodo/Sam, Mulder/Scully, etc).

WARNING: I'm writing about a Blood Mage and a vampire, the stories are going to have a lot of references to blood, violence, and sex. I don't like writing sex scenes so there won't be anything explicit but I'm not going to shy away from references to sex and sexuality (and it won't all be straight either). There will be descriptions of bloodletting for magical purposes, vampires being vampires and drinking blood. and fight scenes. If any of this squicks you out then you might want to take a pass on reading.

I hoping to be done this first story in the next week or so and once I run it by a few people to make sure I don't have any big problems I'll be posting it here on the blog. I'm not sure how many parts I'll break it up into, it's looking like it will be somewhere between 6,500 and 7,500 words. There may also be illustrations depending on whether I draw anything I actually like.

Cephalopod Snippets #3

The final batch of four single paragraph cephalopod stories. These take place in the final frontier.

Space Cuttlefish

Floating lazily through space, a shimmering figure is seen from the ship's deck viewport. The crew stares speechless at the sight of the space cuttlefish, all thinking the same thing 'this can't be real'.

Space Octopus

The astrobiologist furiously took notes as he observed the space octopus. His scientific reputation would be made once he presented his work on this new species. It was truly a remarkable example of convergent evolution, so alike the earth octopus in appearance yet not even a carbon based life form.

Space Squid

Black tentacles flashed with shimmering waves of color as two space squid were locked in battle. Great fins along their heads flapped angrily and beaks snapped at one another. The battle stretched on and on, other denizens of that area of the galaxy learned to avoid it.

Space Nautilus

The first anyone saw of the space nautilus was it's long pale tentacles the color of a winter moon. It's dark shimmering shell blended into the depths of deep space. Most didn't survive love enough to see it.

Cephalopod Snippets #2

Here's the second set of one paragraph cephalopod stories. This time for mechanical creatures.

Steampunk Octopus

It lurks in a crevice of the reef, an oddly shiny tentacle darts out. Ignoring the usual prey of an octopus, this one searches the sea floor for shiny bits of glass and metal to decorate its lair. Tiny treasures to remind it of the past while waiting for its gears to finally wind down.

Steampunk Squid

A soft ticking sound trailed the sleek body of the squid. It was lagging behind the school of reef squid. Other stragglers were being picked off by predators but they shied away from this bizarre metallic squid with it's whirring gears on it's back.

 Steampunk Cuttlefish

Gliding through the ocean the clockwork cuttlefish quietly whirred and clicked as it swam. Where this strange creature came from no one know, some strange creation of a mad scientist perhaps? It has been traveling the ocean for years along with it's brethren, the mechanical squids, octopuses, and nautiluses. Until the day their mechanisms finally slow down and they wash ashore to be marveled over by curious beach combers.

 Steampunk Nautilus

A solo wanderer of the sea, a relic of some contemporary of Captain Nemo or maybe even the captain himself. The mechanical nautilus makes its way through the water year after year.

Cephalopod Snippets #1

So the story I set this blog up in order to share hasn't been coming along too fast, I keep changing my mind on where it will go so I'm going to share some little one paragraph stories I wrote a while back based on my cephalopod themed jewelry. Here are the first four.

Octopus

Darting in and out of crevices in the coral reef the octopus hunts for food. Tiny crabs scuttle out of the way but not fast enough. Arms dart out and wrap around the small crustacean and pull it towards it's hungry beak.

Squid

A giant squid swims through murky deep sea waters. Many of the creatures it passes are lit up by bioluminescence, glowing in this realm where the sun's light never reached. This squid isn't interested in a meal, it's trying to keep from being one itself. Sperm whales have invaded, the greatest enemy and predator of the giant squid.

Cuttlefish

A group of cuttlefish glitter in the tropical ocean waters. It's the mating season and they are on full display, flashing bright colors to attract a mate. It will be the final act of many of their lives, the females living only long enough to lay their eggs. They will never see their young.

Nautilus

As it had many times before the nautilus rose from deeper waters that night to feed among the coral. It was an old nautilus, unlike other cephalopods it didn't die after mating once but could live upwards of 20 years, it's shell was scratched and battered by the sea. Each night the journey got harder and harder, soon it would no longer be able to evade the predators.