Kc McClary (
) is a valued member of the team here at One Brilliant Arc. They have been contributing their writing to our publication for nearly a year now, sharing from their unique experience how stories impact their life. Right now, Kc is in the trenches of a real life “Dark Night of the Soul” moment in their own journey—they are fighting to rewrite the story that oppressive systems have tried to force on them.Kc is living proof of our mission here at OBA: that the knowledge of story helps us defy erasure by overcoming the false narratives that keep us silenced. The way Kc uses their gift for writing to create meaningful art out of the hard parts of their life story especially inspires me, as I hope does to you.
That said, here is the Part 2 of Kc’s serial story, “Dark Bloom” (you can read Part 1 here), with a special note from them to you below. I hope you take the opportunity to go encourage Kc at
as they continue to boldly wield the pen against the real and metaphorical dark forces that exist and try to overrun our world.Next week, we’ll be back with the first installment of our new series by
, “We Are the Stories.” Until then, keep fighting bravely to use your own gifts to tell a better story than the one the world tells us to settle for!- (Editor-in-Chief, One Brilliant Arc)
The Tombs of Lycaon
The heavy iron doors groaned open, exhaling a rotten breath of stale air and dust that swallowed Chimera and Nathara whole. Beyond the threshold, darkness swallowed all but the narrow beam of their flickering flashlights. The scent of decay was thick. Ancient stone soaked in blood and forgotten death.
“Keep your eyes sharp,” Chimera whispered, voice tight like a wire. “This place don't want no visitors.”
Nathara’s blade gleamed faintly in the gloom as they stepped onto cracked mosaic floors slick with moss and something darker. Their footsteps echoed, swallowed by silence until it wasn’t.
A guttural hiss echoed down a corridor. From the shadows emerged the first horror: an Echo Weaver. A nightmarish red widow-like abomination with a writhing mass of human faces fused into its abdomen, each face belonging to a former victim frozen in eternal agony, groaning & screaming. Its multiple elongated limbs, tipped with bone-like pincers, wove thick webs made of shadow and sinew traps that did more than just bind.
Victims caught in the Echo Weaver’s web were once subjected to haunting auditory and visual hallucinations as the Hell-spawn channeled and replayed the final screams, movements, and memories of the previously slain directly into the minds of those ensnared, driving them to madness and an unfathomable despair.
The Echo Weaver used these echoes to manipulate prey, making them see and hear phantom allies or foes, breaking their grip on reality before finishing the kill. Its webs slowly drained life energy, leaving victims as hollow husks destined to become part of the Weaver’s grotesque collection of faces.
Armed with this knowledge from having read the old reports written by miraculous survivors, Chimera wasted no time raising his gun, suppressing the urge to panic. Nathara chanted forbidden blood incantations, summoning a dagger of pure entropy to slice through sinew and shadow, severing a malformed arm that lashed at her throat. The creatures screamed a sound like a thousand broken bones grinding and lunged again.
They fought hard and fast; the battle twisted between body and mind. Only by breaking the Weaver’s snares and destroying its grotesque face collection did the stench of blood and sulfur choke the air as the demon fell, twitching momentarily, before dissolving into thick black ichor that sizzled against the cold stone.
After the Echo Weaver was slain, the two pushed deeper, senses sharpened by adrenaline. The tomb was a labyrinth, walls etched with glowing runes that pulsed faintly, as if the tomb itself breathed beneath their feet.
At the heart of the maze, they found the puzzle chamber: a massive circular room. The floor was dominated by an enormous honeycomb-shaped mosaic, each hexagonal tile carved from ancient stone, weathered yet gleaming faintly with residual magic. Intricate glyphs and celestial symbols adorned each hex, pulsing softly under their flashlight beams.
“The sigil pieces,” Nathara breathed, tracing the edges of several tiles. “We need to realign all this like a puzzle of the stars.”
Each hexagonal tile could be rotated independently, revealing parts of constellations, sacred symbols, and ritual markings. But rotating one tile affected the surrounding ones. A complex web of interconnected movements that mirrored the balance of the cosmos itself.
After nearly an hour and a half the duo realized that they needed to rotate the honeycomb’s tiles so that the constellations connected perfectly across the hexes, forming continuous lines of power that converged on the central recess.
Broken shards of perhaps another sigil were already in place. With each additional correct alignment they made, a deep hum vibrated through the chamber, and faint glyphs on the walls glowed brighter.
But a wrong move triggered a morass of unsettling whispers and flickers of shadow that slithered just beyond the edges of their vision.
They worked carefully, rotating the tiles in cautious synchrony, piecing together the cosmic puzzle while holding off the creeping tension of the tomb’s watchful presence; manipulating massive stone discs embedded in the floor, each clicking into place with grinding, ancient gears. Shadows shifted unnervingly as they worked. Halfway through piecing together the intricate puzzle, somewhere deep below their feet, a low rumble began and didn't stop.
With a final turn, the floor trembled and split open, revealing a stairway descending into darkness lit by faint bioluminescence.
At the base waited the Velth’ra Blood Maw, a bloated, grotesque abomination with a gaping mouth full of rows of razor-sharp, piranha-like teeth.
The battle was brutal. Time warped as Chimera’s mind was dragged into looping nightmares and memories of betrayal and loss twisted by the Blood Maws dark magic. Nathara’s arcane chant cracked through the illusion, her voice bleeding with power and pain as the fiend broke into rageful fits & spewed corrosive blood acid.
The Blood Maw let out a guttural roar, the sound vibrating through the very marrow of their bones as the two treasure hunters fought in tandem, bullets and spells carving through the beast. Weakening from the onslaught of attacks, the creature coiled like a serpent and lashed forward, sweeping its body low to slam Chimera against the wall.
Determined to safeguard her partner, Nathara spotted a crumbling support beam above. “Keep it busy!” she shouted, diving toward the lever for the ancient pulley system.
Chimera screamed back, firing another volley of hot lead into the Blood Maw’s many body boils, sending one bulbous orb bursting like an overripe fruit.
The creature shrieked, a mind-piercing wail that echoed off the chamber walls, before barreling toward her in blind fury. Nathara yanked the lever, the beam crashing down with a deafening crack, splintering across the Blood Maw’s armored midsection.
It writhed, screeched, and thrashed in agony, its body spraying a scalding mist of blood and bile. Chimera didn’t wait for it to recover, he grabbed Nathara & fled down the narrow tomb passage, the Blood Maw’s screams chasing them like a curse in the dark. As they descended deeper, they still could hear its final scream shattering the tomb’s silence.
“I don't know if we’re ready for all of this,” said Nathara.
Chimera wiped sweat and blood from his brow. “But there's no turning back and we can’t punk out, not with this big of a payday on the line.”
Meanwhile, from the depths below, the tomb whispered. Hungry, watching, and waiting.
I’ve always believed in showing up with heart when the chips are down, even when the odds are stacked. Right now, I’m navigating food insecurity and housing instability while building toward a new and brighter future for myself. If my work, my words, or my story have ever resonate with you, I’d be deeply grateful for any support you can offer. Every donation helps me stay fed, cover transportation fees, buy much needed resources while I finish out my Army enlistment, and stay focused on the path ahead. Even $1 makes a difference.
You can donate via CashApp at $ChantlMcClary (the one with the creative profile pic) and if you can’t give, sharing this helps more than you know. Thank you for walking with me & reading my work.
📰 To follow my journey, be sure to subscribe to my Substack newsletter! It’s packed with a variety of pieces: Writing tips, personal stories, social commentary, Art analysis, & True Crime. Join the community and stay in the loop — consider subscribing. 🙂
The Aesthetics of Soft Suffering
 | A guest post by
|