Dark Descent — Morgan Campbell

What if you woke up one day to find the language you spoke was replaced with another? Imagine seeing your native language, so familiar, yet you can't understand a single word or letter. That was the experience of an alien race, the Yukkob, whose language was obliterated by another foreign species known as the Akshaki. The leadership of the Yukkob, the Council, spent many years searching for the culprits until their pursuit led them to an unassuming salt mine in Region 2. A young reporter, Gaiakeya, is sent to investigate the mine, suspicious of the Council's motivation for initiating the excavation. The miners unwittingly uncover a monster with an obsidian-black shell and a drive to kill. Now, she must hide from a creature with the power to control fire so hot it can melt steel with a single touch. Will Gaiakeya and the miners escape the underground deathtrap, or will they burn in the inferno? This short 7,000-word story is part 1 of 9 of an 85,000-word book to be released over the course of 2023 and 2024.