Dark Matter

January 1937. Clouds of war are gathering over a fogbound London. Twenty-eight year old Jack is poor, lonely, and desperate to change his life, so when he's offered the chance to join an Arctic expedition, he jumps at it. Spirits are high as the ship leaves Norway: five men and eight huskies, crossing the Barents Sea by the light of the midnight sun. At last they reach the remote, uninhabited bay where they will camp for the next year, Gruhuken, but the Arctic summer is brief. As night returns to claim the land, Jack feels a creeping unease. One by one, his companions are forced to leave. He faces a stark choice: stay or go. Soon he will see the last of the sun, as the polar night engulfs the camp in months of darkness. Soon he will reach the point of no return--when the sea will freeze, making escape impossible. Gruhuken is not uninhabited. Jack is not alone. Something walks there in the dark...

The moon wasn’t up yet, but there was still enough light to see by. No wind. The dogs had stopped howling.

Out of nowhere, for no reason, I was afraid. Not merely apprehensive. This was deep, visceral, pounding dread. My skin prickled. My heart thudded in my throat. My senses were stretched taut. My body knew before I did that I was not alone.

Thirty yards away on the rocks, something moved.

I tried to cry out. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.

It crouched at the edge of the rocks. It was streaming wet. It had just hauled itself from the sea. And yet the stillness was absolute. No sound of droplets pattering on snow. No creaks of waterproofs as it rose. Slowly. Awkwardly.

It stood. It faced me. Dark, dark against the sea. I saw its arms hanging at its sides. I saw that one shoulder was higher than the other. I saw its wet round head.

I knew at once that it wasn’t some trapper from a nearby camp, or a polar mirage, or that hoary excuse, ‘a trick of the light’. The mind does not suggest explanations which don’t fit the facts, only to reject them a moment later. I knew what it was. I knew, with some ancient part of me, that it wasn’t alive.

There’s no end to all this daylight, there is no sign of the night

I've just finished Dark Matter and just wow. I loved everything about it. The moody main character, Jack, the descriptions, the bleak setting, the blooming friendship and romance, and of course, the dog.

Anyway, being the lover of music I am I did what I do best and put together a playlist while reading. I pulled from all the best evocative scores and tried to invoke the aesthetic the book gave me while I listened to it read.

Only you beneath the moon and under the sun.

The Groundhog day fic I’ve been thinking about forever and just wrote in about an hour. Please heed the warnings.

❄️ Dark Matter zine updates 👻

hello! Due to life getting in the way, there has had to be a change of plan for the zine.

Instead of a check in process and the old schedule, a folder to submit completed works can be found here and the new deadline is 31st August 2022.

Full guidlines and FAQ can be found here.

If you have not already signed up but would like to take part, please fill in the new sign up form before submitting your work.

LOVE SPEAKS ITS NAME

Only you beneath the moon and under the sun.

The Groundhog day fic I’ve been thinking about forever and just wrote in about an hour. Please heed the warnings.

❄️ Dark Matter zine updates 👻

hello! Due to life getting in the way, there has had to be a change of plan for the zine.

Instead of a check in process and the old schedule, a folder to submit completed works can be found here and the new deadline is 31st August 2022.

Full guidlines and FAQ can be found here.

If you have not already signed up but would like to take part, please fill in the new sign up form before submitting your work.

Two weeks left to sign up for the Dark Matter zine!

Sign ups to contribute as a writer or an artist to the Dark Matter zine are open until 15th February. Please check the FAQ and contributor guidelines before signing up at the link below!

❄️ 👻❄️Sign up here ❄️👻❄️