The man in question was an officer in the Roman army — some say a Centurion, others a member of the Praetorian Guard itself. Whatever his rank, the man served his Emperor well, but his heart belonged to a King even higher than the Caesar: the King of Kings, Jesus Christ. The man’s name was George.

And George would slay the dragon.

The Vexation of Verisimilitude

Christian fiction has, I think it’s fair to say, an image problem. Yes, we hold the keys to the Grandpappy of Fantasy, The Lord of the Rings; but we’re also responsible for things like The Kirk Cameron Movie (for there is only one) wherein a Hallmark plot is body-snatched by a screed; the God’s Not Dead series (thanks, Kevin Sorbo); and, for those who prefer paper to celluloid, the Amish Romance novel, which is, let’s face it, romantasy for prudes.

Heck, I liked Cameron’s Fireproof. It’s not a bad movie. But it and the vast bulk of modern Christian fiction have created the perception in the general public that Christian stuff is made for Christians, as a sort of parallel economy of storytelling. You can’t touch a Christian book, the feeling goes, without being preached at.

Now, this is not an issue unique to Christian fiction. I can remember my eyes just about rolling back through my skull and out my ears when the second book in Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle featured elves who happily went on r/atheism-level rants about their disdain for superstition and religion. It was deeply satisfying when, in the third book, it was revealed that the Dwarves, at least, worshipped very real gods, if only to stick it to those knife-eared New Atheists. And James Cameron’s Avatar films are blatant anti-Western propaganda (someday I’ll put pen to paper on my Two Camerons Theory). But, because of where we stand as a post-Christian culture, these sorts of things are generally excused by the public. Fish ignorant of water and all that.

The frustrating thing is that the Christian publishing industry, across all media, seems perfectly content with this. Gospel-First, Story-Second is the default setting. And anything which threatens that equilibrium, anything which offends the senses of Dana Carvey’s Church Lady, must be done away with in favor of something squeaky-clean and utterly unappealing to the average red-blooded, uninitiated man or woman who might (gasp) judge a book by its cover and pick up something at Barnes & Noble for a few hours of pleasant reading.

“Okay, EJ, when are you going to get to the plopping point?” I hear you ask. “I was promised swords and foreskin bride-prices.” Yes, settle down, Peanut Gallery, I’m getting to that presently.

I believe that a not-insignificant part of the issue is that this Gospel-First, Story-Second approach leads to the removal of parts of life which are unpleasant results of the Fall but are no less legitimate tools in the storytelling utility belt. Things like violence. Yes. Let’s talk Violence.

The Value of Violence

Why don’t we start with the Ur-Example (for, after all, he did hail from Ur of the Chaldeans). Abraham (née Abram) had a nephew named Lot. Lot is not particularly well-known for good decision-making, but he did choose the most fertile land to settle when Abraham gave him the choice. And when the overlords of that region decided to put down a revolt, they carried off Lot, his people, and his property as spoils of war.

What did Abraham do as a result? Pray about it and sit back to hope God would sort things out?

No.

He belted on his sword, rallied his frankly impressive number of able-bodied servants, and gave chase, striking the overlords and rescuing his family in a daring raid. God was with him, the raid was successful, and Abraham refused any spoil but what his men had already taken and gave tribute to Melchizedek, the wise and saintly King of the city that would one day be named Jerusalem.

And what of David? (I told you we’d get to the foreskin bride-prices). Here is a lad who has tended sheep all his life, fighting off wolves and lions and bears, oh my, and who enters the historical narrative as a major force by slaying a giant. He then goes on to double the challenge of King Saul’s price for marrying his daughter Michal, giving the King two hundred Philistine foreskins (think counting coup but far more painful for the recipients) and, once he is crowned King, proceeds to wage successful war against all of Israel’s enemies throughout his life.

In fact, while God tells David “You shall not build a house for My name because you are a man of war and have shed blood,” (1 Chronicles 28:3), the Bible also tells us “Yahweh has sought out for Himself a man after His own heart, and Yahweh has appointed him as a ruler over His people…” (1 Samuel 13:14), and from that ruler’s line came the Messiah Himself. How could a man after God’s own heart have so much blood on his hands?

Well, gentle reader, I’ll tell you. God uses the violent purposes of men for good ends. Sometimes it’s turning evil into good (see the story of Joseph MacJacob in Genesis), and sometimes it’s using the strength of good to punish evil (see 1 Samuel 14 where Saul refuses to wipe out the Amalekites and has his dynasty taken away from him). God sometimes appoints men to positions of violence to enact His will (the book of Amos is an excellent primer on this whole concept, and an easy read). The book of Romans as well points out that the sword is given to governments by God to punish evil. Swords have only one use. God intends violence on evildoers.

So Christianity is not, in fact, a stranger to violence. Even if you’re a “New Testament-Only Christian,” I ask you this: how does God describe the sort of equipment the Christian ought to bear in the world? As armor and a sword. The shield of Faith and the belt of Truth, the helmet of Salvation and the breastplate of Righteousness, the sword of the Spirit. The “full armor of God,” to quote Ephesians 6. What we do in the world is called spiritual warfare, so why is Christian publishing so averse to violence?

It was not always so. Tolkien’s Aragorn was a wandering Ranger, a warrior against the darkness that everyday folk only dreamt of in their nightmares, before becoming Elessar, the King who held healing for Good and war against Evil equally in his hands. C. S. Lewis took things a step further, having Saint Nicolaus himself distribute swords, bows, and daggers to children to save Aslan’s kingdom from a wicked witch. Even John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, the popular originator of the parable-disguised-as-story genre, had Christian doing battle against Apollyon, blocking the demon’s fiery darts with his shield and bearing a sword to defend himself with.

And what does secular fiction give us? John Wick. A man who, when his dog is killed, embarks on a crusade that leads to the dismantling of an entire criminal empire. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t enjoy John Wick on some level — whether they like it for its thematic Trueness or its excellent cinematography — we all agree that if you shoot puppies you deserve to get Wick’d. Or take Jack Reacher. An observant titan doling out righteous fury regardless of the legality of his punishments. Alan Ritchson’s portrayal of the character is a runaway success on Amazon Prime Video. That bugbear of publishing, the Modern Audience, craves hard justice. Even if they won’t admit it.

The Virtue of Veracity

So, what’s the point?

The point, gentle reader, is this: Christian fiction could be a much broader category than is currently perceived and marketed.

Sandy Petersen is a game designer. If you’ve played TTRPGs you’re probably aware of Call of Cthulhu. He made that. If you’ve played video games you’re probably aware of Doom. He helped make that. Sandy Petersen is a Mormon, and while I’m not going to get into the whole Mormon-vs-Mainline debate here, I think it’s fair to say that no one exemplifies the Ned Flanders perception of Christianity quite like Mormons, except perhaps those who took Ferrell’s Church Lady as an instruction manual rather than a critique. And yet Petersen is in part responsible for the franchise which spawned the phrase “Rip and tear, until it is done.”

To paraphrase a comment by Petersen on how a Christian could inflict such gore as Doom offers on anyone, “We’ve been at war with demons for millennia. It’s only a matter of time before someone takes the fight to them by kicking down the door with a shotgun.” This is, of course, not his exact words, but I hope he will forgive my attempt to capture the spirit of what he said.

My own book, Redlanders, features a protagonist heavily inspired by King David. I shopped it around to various secular publishers. “Too New Testament,” they said, in more words. I shopped it around to various Christian publishers. “Too Old Testament,” they said, in more words. One Christian publisher was kind enough to provide their criteria for publication; that list would have disqualified the Chronicles of Narnia three times over. So I self-pubbed it on Amazon, throwing myself properly into the hellscape of Indie Publishing.

But sometimes violence is necessary in a fallen world.

Saul was dispossessed for failing to annihilate the enemies of Israel. David’s Messianic line was instituted because he had no such compunctions and yet loved the Lord. Violence is never a wholesome choice, but it is sometimes the choice God ordains. An oft-reposted meme is the tale of Gary Plauché, a grieved father who shot and killed his son’s rapist on live television and received nothing more than community service from his judge. I have two sons. To quote Plauché in the immediate, camera-captured aftermath, I’d “do it too.”

Christian fiction, as it stands, is too concerned with remaining wholesome. The protagonist must never take up one of those pointy things, despite Jesus warning His Apostles that they ought to sell their cloak and buy a sword (personally, I prefer polearms, but who am I to question my Creator?). While any Christian author ought to be careful that the violence they inflict on the page is either to demonstrate the wickedness or righteousness of its perpetrator, we cannot shy away from the fact that the reader has an innate sense of justice, and that they recognize on some level that even if the court denies Justice, she still cries out in the street.

The Gospel-First, Story-Second approach has neutered Christian storytelling and has relegated its preaching to the choir. The Gospel is, indeed, Good News. But it needs to be new to be News, and you’re not going to get that message in front of people who haven’t heard it before by sticking to your own cloister. The Man of Violence (not to be confused with the Violent Man) is a useful tool in the storyteller’s arsenal.

Sir George slew a dragon. He saw wickedness, girded his loins, and confronted it by the means of his profession. You don’t have to be Christian to cheer him on. Anyone who would rather see Silene in the power of the child-devouring dragon over the princess-rescuing Sir George is sick in the head. The Christian (and thereby Western) tradition is replete with warriors who took up the sword and shield to defend innocents and even the guilty from those who would do them harm by way of violence. This trope speaks to us on an instinctual level.

Christian publishing ought to take heed, plunder Egypt, and direct the reader however subtly to the Good, True, and Beautiful. Even if the GTB means cutting off the heads of serpents now and then. We should not write violence for its own sake. But we should acknowledge violence as a tool in God’s box, and be unafraid to use it properly in our stories.

E.J. Free’s novel, Redlanders, can be found at: https://www.amazon.com/Redlanders

Luke Brantley and the Fantastic Flashlight is a middle-grade paranormal adventure set in small-town Alabama during the summer of 1993.

Luke Brantley expects his final month of summer vacation to be like all the ones before—riding bikes around town, fishing, and spending time at his grandmother’s house. But while helping her sort through his late grandfather’s belongings, Luke discovers an old flashlight hidden away in the attic.

When he switches it on one night, the beam reveals something impossible lurking at the edge of the woods.

Soon Luke and his friends find themselves tangled in a mystery involving strange creatures, a secretive government organization called the Anomaly Bureau, and dangers no one else can see.

Below you can listen to a short excerpt from the opening of the book.

Many thanks to Lauren Dorman for the time she took to make the recording and the way she really helps the story come alive.

You can pre-order the Kindle version of Luke Brantley and the Fantastic Flashlight from Amazon here. Paperback and hardcover versions will be available for purchase on May 4.

“It was not always so. Once we knew the Oyarsa of your world—he was brighter and greater than I—and then we did not call it Thulcandra. It is the longest of all stories and the bitterest. He became bent. That was before any life came on your world. Those were the Bent Years of which we still speak in the heavens, when he was not yet bound to Thulcandra but free like us. It was in his mind to spoil other worlds besides his own.”

- C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet

It has all been one dirty trick: the books, the movies, the news articles. The storytelling and special effects have felt so real and so persistent that we started to think we have been to Rigel VII, Tatooine, and LV-426. Every day it feels like we are on the verge of discovering distant alien civilizations with our powerful telescopes and listening satellite dishes. Christians might as well throw in the towel because any second now it’s all going to be proven as bunk.

But none of that has happened. Science Fiction still remains science fiction (except perhaps the dystopian part they have an odd fascination with). We really haven’t discovered alien life elsewhere (UFO encounters notwithstanding) and the Big Bang still sounds just as silly as it always did. I think “they” know that, but a lie told long enough begins to be believed.

What is wrong with most of these tales of wonder is that they are all steeped in pure and unadulterated materialism. In fact, all of modern, Western society is steeped in this materialism and the culture machine that is Hollywood have changed the way we think about the world. Even as Christians, we think of the world as a series of physical causes and effects. We have started to believe that the only wonder in this world is what we can see on the Webb and Hubble telescopes (colorized and graphically altered for your viewing pleasure!).

This is by design. If you don’t believe in the soul you won’t guard it. The human soul is under siege. We are surrounded by an army of nihilistic, materialists orcs. We are being starved out by siege towers designed by the finest brutalist architects. Orc soldiers wear deconstructed post-post-modern mail armor made of mostly chinks, because imperfections make us beautiful or something. Their swords are dull and held by the blade in order to be subversive. The soldiers themselves regularly indulge in alcoholism, depression, and a healthy dose of narcotics and now an alarming rate of castration. They are the sickly kine devouring the healthy kine in Pharaoh’s dream.

The soul-cities that have not fallen are typically the Christian ones because, though cut off from the father heaven and mother earth in almost every way, they still get glimpses of the true structure of the universe in church. By this narrow resupply line the ramparts of the inner keep are still held. The enemy is largely through the gate and most defenders have retreated to that last extremity. It is not possible to lift the siege yet, but it is possible to sally forth and retake the city walls.

The solution is to drop the orc way of thinking. Drop the science fiction materialism and the loser-heroes. Instead of thinking of the universe as a watch or a factory churning out “science,” think of the world as a cathedral being maintained by humans and invisible angels alike. Every ounce of matter is being driven by the commands of God who dispatches his ministering angels to be flames and winds. Consider the true meaning of the physical reality. For instance: the symbolic meaning of the tree as a mediator between Heaven and Earth is more important than learning about photosynthesis. Which sounds more bogus: dark matter or angels? The stars are billions of light years away and billions of years old. If that’s true, who cares? How could this ever mean more than what God has said their purpose is? Which is more useful and pertinent to our existence?

This publication is not the first to ask these strange questions. Many of us cut our teeth on C.S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy, especially the final volume That Hideous Strength. We followed Lewis’ train of thought back to the Middle Ages in his short book The Discarded Image. We discovered how wholly alien the Medieval mind was to our own and how horribly the modern mind has understood it. In light of this new knowledge, The Chronicles of Narnia made more sense. We read Tolkien’s essays, we found strange folks saying strange (read: old) things on Twitter and encountered podcasts and comic books from the fringe. Everything was up for grabs, everything could be questioned.

What happens when you change your perspective and vocabulary? What happens when you drop the scientism and pick up the supernatural? What kind of stories would you tell? These stories are about the different perspective, the far older and far more useful perspective. We are not so much killing science as we are killing science fiction (though you may use “redeem” if you’d like).

Do counterfactual universes exist in the mind of God? Do angels travel through time as well as space? Why are cryptids always on the edge of our sight and pictures? Is it a hoax, or are spiritual creatures notoriously hard to see by lens and eye alike? Does the government communicate with demons believing them to be “aliens?” Maybe a nuclear blast is a portal to hell.

Our modern world is breaking down, and everyone knows it. Those materialist rules and thought-patterns are breaking down too. What rushes in and fills the vacuum? What devils and spirits haunt the desolate city? Read on.

Starting May 18th and running through June 1st, Silence & Starsong will be accepting submissions for our Fall 2026 issue. If you’ve been sitting on a story that inspires wonder and awe, now is the time to send it our way.

We’re looking for speculative fiction of all kinds: fantasy, science fiction, action and adventure, horror, fairytales, and the strange things that live at the edges of all of those. We also welcome poetry and artwork.

A few things to keep in mind:

• Prose: 4,000–9,000 words (longer works may be considered for serial publication)

• Poetry: traditional forms appreciated, but innovative work with real craft is equally welcome

• Compensation: $0.02/word for prose; $0.50/line for poetry

• Format: .doc, .docx, or .rtf, standard manuscript format, submitted to editor@silenceandstarsong.com

• We ask for 6 months’ exclusive worldwide rights for original works

For the full guidelines—including what we’re looking for, what we’re not, and a list of authors whose work gives you a sense of our taste—visit silenceandstarsong.com/submission-guidelines.

We look forward to reading your work.

The short story was polished. It was ready. I wrote five drafts before submitting it and the anthology itself had an entire team involved with editing, marketing, making the book beautiful, et cetera. Then when it came out, eighteen authors all did their darndest to get their hard-earned audiences to buy the thing.

We were happy to sell 49 copies in a week (largely just to us authors).

Meanwhile the video game was super rough. Typo-ridden. Included a game breaking bug. It was a single chapter rough draft that I blitzed through to get to the end then posted to a forum as a prototype to show people what I was envisioning.

Within a week, Chapter 1 of The Iron King’s Heir had ten thousand views and an instant following. I can only conclude that there is a craving for interactive stories that is not being adequately satisfied by the market.

The “shortage” of Christian storytellers isn’t what we’re told

You’ve probably heard the complaint that there are not enough good Christian storytellers out there. But if you’ve spent any amount of time engaging with the multitude of indie Christian authors online, you know this is simply not the case. We do not have a shortage of Christian storytellers, but we do have a shortage of patrons with the wealth and will to support and promote our work so that we have the time and resources to make our creative dreams a reality.

As a result, many storytellers default to the path of least resistance (i.e., novels and short stories), whether or not that path is the one they truly desire. I myself seriously considered a career in film, and even earned a degree in screenwriting, only to be deterred by barriers that did not seem worth surmounting. Like so many others, I eventually focused instead on short stories: they cost no money, hardly any time, and they are guaranteed publication if I so choose (even if just self-publication, though in my experience it’s pretty easy to find a niche mag to take a half-decent piece if you don’t mind a few rejections along the way).

It’s no wonder that we have so many Christians writing short stories and novels and so few telling basically any other kind of story. While I’m thrilled we have a variety of Christians writing beautiful works of prose, I believe (or at least hope) that we’re about to see more Christian game developers as well.

The barrier of entry for game development is crumbling

Would it surprise you if I told you that a person can get into game development with no team, no money, and no prior experience? It surprised me to learn this, or at least to learn just how doable this is. For a long time video games were a little like film: they required specialised equipment and knowledge, a ton of money, and an entire team of people to develop. But this is increasingly not the case. With the rise of open source software such as Godot (game engine), Krita (graphic design), and Visual Studio Code (code editor), anyone with access to a computer can start making their own games with no additional cost.

Don’t have any artistic talent? Download free or cheap game assets, learn the basics of pixel art, or do like me and write something completely text-based. Don’t know how to code? There’s only about a bajillion tutorials online. Some of these languages are not nearly so hard as you might think; I learned how to code a basic ChoiceScript game in like a day.

There are currently so many resources available to interested storytellers that the only real barriers of entry are those which we set up for ourselves (e.g., lack of discipline or motivation). As more Christians realise that game development is a viable option, something they can feasibly do on their own with no patrons and no additional cost, I hope to see more of us in the industry.

Indie games are so in right now

Not only are games getting easier and easier to make, but indie games are getting more and more desirable. Think of the massive success of Stardew Valley—made by one guy who just wanted to make his own Harvest Moon and ended up creating a game that sold tens of millions of copies. Or Undertale (also a solo project) which became a bit of a legend in the indie gaming world despite looking like this.

In such a fake world with its fake stories that try to appeal to everyone and end up appealing to no one, major studios only seem capable of creating blase, milquetoast games that look great but feel meh (I’ve already mentioned my beef with Hogwarts Legacy). But now that the sensationalism of high-budget, visually and aurally pristine games is waning, many of us find ourselves craving something different. Something raw and real and human. Something that might be a bit rough around the edges but that was created with heart by people who love the medium, and not by people who just want to use it primarily for money or political gain.

We are now at the point where gamers don’t just tolerate “bad” graphics for the sake of a good game; for many of us, retro styles such as pixelation have become a feature, not a bug. Not just a nostalgic link to the past (sorry, couldn’t help it), but a sought after aesthetic with its own special appeal, not altogether unlike the Impressionism of the nineteenth century.

Even entirely text-based game such as my own have a certain niche appeal that pretty much guarantees half-decent authors some kind of audience if we’re only willing to put in the work.

It’s time for Christians to stop being afraid of games

I’ve heard it said that Christians rejected the film industry long before the film industry rejected us, which is one of the reasons why modern films are so opposed to Christian values and why it can be so difficult for Christians to break into the industry. When the medium was in its infancy, many Christians were wary of it, and as a result the industry was adopted and raised by people who were indifferent to or even opposed to Christ and his teachings (fact check: feels legit).

Something similar is happening in the gaming world. While understandably wary Christians hem and haw about just how productive, moral, or otherwise worthwhile a gaming habit might be, everyone else is out there just playing games. With the rise of cozy games in particular, the medium is becoming more widely adopted by a variety of people. It’s not just for computer geeks and juvenile gamer bros, but for regular moms and dads, their kids, and everyone in between.

As with movies, games have already shaped culture and will continue to do so, whether we want them to or not. Maybe games shouldn’t be so culturally relevant, maybe the world would be better off without them, maybe we should all be playing less and reading more. But at the end of the day, I know my gaming habit isn’t going anywhere, and I choose to channel that interest into something creative.

If we want games to be more worthwhile, why not make it so? Why not be a part of shaping the industry into something we can proudly claim as our own, something that showcases the good, the true, and the beautiful? It’ll be work, yes, but since when have Christians shied away from that?

If you’re already doing this, by all means, drop your project in the comments and let us know how it’s going, even if it’s still a WIP. I’d love to see what other Christians are working on, and I hope I’m not alone in that. Let’s support each other and see what we accomplish together.

To Konrad the monastery had been a place of devotion to the faith, but also of great joy. The scene that greeted him was the ultimate negation of his memories. Death and destruction blanketed the sanctuary. Konrad didn’t need to count to confirm that all the brothers had been killed. In his gut he knew.

“Captain?” Eric said, gesturing toward the apse.

Konrad tore his eyes away from the carnage toward the far end of the room. There, draped in his familiar silk stole, was Father Paisios, suspended from the ceiling, his arms extended in a manner that even the most devout atheist could not mistake for anything but crucifixion. Konrad averted his eyes quickly.

“Red. Chase. Let’s get the Father down. Then we can try to . . . figure out what the devil happened here.”

While the other two men worked at lowering the prior’s body, Konrad pulled Eric along with him as they weaved among the benches. There was something odd about the long, wooden rows; they didn’t look quite the way that Konrad remembered them. The once-familiar grain of the wood—one of the few luxury items on the entire station—had taken on a crystalline quality. Perhaps, Konrad thought, the brothers had replaced them after all those years. He reached out to run his hand along the rail, but jerked it back quickly at the feeling of—he wasn’t quite sure what—a shock, almost a biting? He started to lean forward to get a closer look.

“Captain,” Red called, snapping his attention back to the other end of the room. “We have a problem.”

“What is it?” Konrad replied, gingerly stepping over one of the monks and making his way toward the front. “Eric, keep your eyes peeled and move slowly.”

The captain reached the point where Father Paisios’ lifeless body hung. He could see clearly then what his eyes had refused to see before. The white-haired old man was not suspended from the ceiling, but rather fused to it, pulled taut with what seemed to be filaments of light, not the ropes or other bindings Konrad had expected.

“He’s … in there,” Chase half-whispered. “You ever seen anything like that?”

Konrad could only shake his head. There was something off about the cleric’s body. He had seen the dead before, the eyes glazed over and glassy. But this was different: the whites of the eyes seemed impossibly bright and the irises gave off a metallic sheen.

“Well can we at least . . .” Konrad began. “Never mind, just—”

“Captain?”

This time it was Eric.

“What now?!” Konrad snapped. “Can’t you see we’re busy?”

He hated to see what had become of Father Paisios, but neither could he bear to look away just at that moment. Konrad felt that he owed the man’s memory at least that much.

“It’s just . . .” Eric continued. “You should look at this.”

Konrad let out an exasperated sigh. Nothing was going like it should have. Life on Bethlehem Station had been orderly and deliberate; now a sense of chaos seemed to drip from everything.

“What is it?”

“There,” Eric gestured toward the floor. “I rolled him over and . . .”

The Captain glanced down to where Eric had moved one of the brothers’ corpses to the far side of the aisle. There was a footprint—at least Konrad assumed it was a footprint, judging by what appeared to be the spread of several toes. He knelt down and gently touched the mark, finding that it was not blood, as he had assumed, but more like a scorched spot. Not merely a spot, he realized, but a depression.

“How . . .?” he said, glancing up at Eric momentarily. Eric merely shrugged.

Laying his weapon on the floor beside him, Konrad leaned down so that his face was inches from the strange print. The floor of the chapel had been carved directly into the asteroid’s surface; nothing should have been able to put a dent in it. The toes, Konrad realized, were not quite toes; the structure was wrong in a way he couldn’t pin down. As he continued to look, craning his neck to the right and back to the left, he saw that where the foot had landed, the stone beneath had taken on the same geometric patterns he had observed in the pew just moments before. Faint crystal fingers branched out from the mark in every direction.

“What is it, Captain?” Red was standing there now. “We laid the priest up there at the front. He . . . well, you saw.”

“Thanks, Red.”

Konrad got back to his feet and checked the shoulder strap on his rifle as he slung it back over his shoulder.

“I don’t know what this is, but where there’s one of . . . those, there are sure to be more, right? Let’s find them and see whether they lead somewhere. Spread out.”

The crew got to work, carefully moving bodies when required, pews scraping along the rock the only sound to be heard.

“Over here,” Chased called out, beckoning toward apse. “It looks like they lead back there.”

There was, Konrad knew, a rear exit to the chapel; it was never used by anyone except Father Paisios. The Captain paused briefly to say a prayer as he approached the body that Red and Chase had done their best to leave in a state of repose.

“In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost,” Konrad whispered.

No sooner had the words left his mouth than another sound assaulted the crew’s ears. At first it was low and deep before resolving into something more like someone pounding his fist against a metal door.

Instinctively, the four men crouched, scanned their surroundings, and brought their weapons to a ready position.

“What is that, Captain?” Red asked.

“I don’t know, but I have an idea. And I have an idea where to look. Follow me and stay alert.”

He switched on his rifle’s flashlight attachment, pointed it down the rear passageway, and stalked away into the darkness.

The Fear of God is the heart of horror. Supernatural, sci-fi, psychological and existential horror all point to death. And what is death if not the curse of God? Mortality is tightly bound to morality, and the Judge of all the earth has determined that we “must needs die” for our transgressions. Because all things, including stories, belong to Christ the King, reclaim both tale and genre for Christ. Yet there are some stubborn redoubts we have yet to assault. One popular genre is cosmic horror which is ripe to be synthesized into a Christian genre. For the sake of brevity, we will focus specifically on H.P. Lovecraft’s conception of the genre. Then we will look at common aspects of biblical horror and demonstrate the synthesis of cosmic and biblical horror into Theistic Horror.

Cosmic Horror Defined: The Truth is Maddening

Cosmic horror is the antithesis of Plato’s allegory of the cave, which is a story of prisoners who are born, live, and die in a dimly lit cave. In their ignorance, they mistake shadow puppets as the “real.” At some point a prisoner escapes the cave and enters daylight. He is blinded by the sun which represents wisdom and knowledge. He then returns to the cave to convince others to come with him and know the truth. Lovecraft and other cosmic writers turn the allegory on its head. The prisoner still escapes the false world, but instead of seeing the sunlight they come to find they are like ants about to be stepped on by a monstrous foot.

As Lovecraft writes in “The Call of Cthulhu”:

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

In Lovecraft’s world, were we to understand the universe properly, our poor human minds would go insane, because, in fact, the universe is pointless and uncaring, full of horrors and dark intelligences. And so, the only conclusion that one can make is that it was far better to stay in the cave and believe in the shadow puppets. The true horror, though, is that one cannot go back to the sanctuary of the anthill, because he knows the sanctuary is a lie—a good lie, but a lie nonetheless and so the truth often drives Lovecraft’s characters insane.

Civilization’s Fragility

There is, however, a parallel to insanity in societal collapse. If insanity is the microcosm, then civilizational collapse is its macrocosm. The individual mental collapse is mirrored in the wiping out of (Western) society. Lovecraft was a New England, upper crust atheist, and atheist have no reason to hope. One real world event that seems to have informed his belief was witnessing mass immigration of foreigners to the New York and New England area in the early 1900s. He writes about it in the opening to “The Horror at Red Hook.” The people of Red Hook, New York, are replaced by the alien, and the city slips into savagery and “otherness.”

Modern discussions of the “other” are usually limited to talking about how the majority mistreats the minority. Modern critics fail to understand the importance of “other” in relation to the “self.” Without the “other” there cannot be the “self.” The disappearance of borders means that that which was bordered also ceases to exist. To not have an identity and an exclusive place, means that there is no home. Lovecraft’s horror includes the horror of displacement and supplantation.

The Return of Strange Gods

Lovecraftian cosmic horror often includes alien and particularly Eastern-like gods (Dagon, Azathoth, and Nyarlothotep, etc.). Lovecraft writes of the ascendency of Eastern superstition. In his “Cthulhu mythos” there is a persistent grimoire called the Necronomicon. It was written down by the fictional “Mad Arab Abdul Alhazred.” This book of forbidden esoteric knowledge drives the reader mad or otherwise brings about his destruction.

What is implied by the existence of the Necronomicon is that the “East” is older and ultimately more powerful than the West. Its gods are greater than Western Rationalism. For instance, in The Shadow Over Innsmouth the main character visits the fictional Massachusetts fishing town while doing genealogical research. Over the course of the story, he discovers that after a severe economic downturn the town made a deal with the devil: mating with alien fish-like people and having hybrid offspring. The Innsmouth residents worship Dagon, a fish god, who inevitably proves to be more powerful than modern, Western notions of decency and virtue. At the end of the story the character embraces the Innsmouth branch of his lineage confessing that:

I shall plan my cousin’s escape from that Canton madhouse, and together we shall go to marvel-shadowed Innsmouth. We shall swim out to that brooding reef in the sea and dive down through black abysses to Cyclopean and many-columned Y’ha‑nthlei, and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory for ever.

Note how the narrator views the horror as wondrous and glorious, which indicates madness, the closest thing an atheist can come to evil. Insanity, civilizational collapse, and foreign gods all wrapped together.

The Horror of God: The Incomprehensibility of God

The incomprehensibility of God is a horror that both believer and unbeliever experience. The latter find him the most incomprehensible because in the blindness of their sin they cannot understand how God can be good, or how they could be wicked. Likewise, Christians cannot comprehend God, yet they can through the eyes of faith understand him far better. Still, for both believer and unbeliever, God is infinite and we are finite. Humans may live forever, but we were born in space and time, and we require God’s condescension in the person of the God-man, Christ. Consider the appearances of God in the Old Testament, before the incarnation of Christ, which come with not a little bit of horror:

And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled. … And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.

Exodus 19:16-18

Though the Hebrews were God’s chosen people and had been delivered from Egypt, they still feared the God that they could not fully comprehend, name, or control. Man approaching the divine is not without its horror. Thunder and lightning are completely beyond our control, striking suddenly and viciously and louder than we would like. The clouds are huge, dark, and stormy. They make us feel small and all of this on a mountain far up in the heavens.

False gods were carried around as graven images. The use of images is an attempt by the worshipper to gain a level of control over the god. This is why Jacob, when he wrestles with the angel, asks for the angel’s name but is not given it. To name something is to give it form and definition. It is to gain some comprehension of it. Armed with the familiar name, worship is less terrifying (though not devoid of horror because their gods were capricious). Worship then becomes strictly transactional. The false images can be manipulated, controlled, bribed to grant their worshipers what they desire.

But the true God is none of these things. He is not carried, but leads his people as a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. God takes no form as an animal, nor can any form be described to him, which makes him truly and uniquely other. Even His name adds more mystery, because it is self-referential: he is the I AM. God’s immensity, his power, and his incomprehensibility strikes our human hearts with fear.

The Judgment of God

Part of what makes the book of Revelation such a great piece of horror is how surreal it is. Ordinary earthly events and characters mingle with vast supernatural forces; mythological creatures breach into physical reality. Creation is being consummated, the veil between natural and supernatural is torn, and no more are these forces and entities hidden. Lovecraft never arrives at the final return of the gods and the remaking of the world that follows the collapse of civilization, but in Revelation we are given a vision—albeit hard to decipher exactly—of what the collapse of civilization and the remaking of the world would look like.

The judgment is the judgment of the “end.” It is the end that most do not believe and sincerely hope will never come. After the book of life is read and your name is found in it, then you enter into heaven. If your name is absent, then you are cast into hell. There is no other chance; there is no more pleading. The decision is final. So terrible will be the judgment that Revelation 6 describes it:

And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?

As an enemy of God, the very sight of him and his host of angels sparks animalistic fear, but not an irrational fear. Anything else that could happen to them would be infinitely better than coming into contact with God as their judge. It is better to be buried alive miles deep in the earth, rather than appear naked before God’s presence and judgment.

We see through a glass darkly the judgment of God every day, because every day is filled with little deaths (and little births). Each ending—be it the day, the week, the season or the funeral—is a taste of the final end. That final end will be the full picture, the full taste. It will be the fear of the dark, fear of being alone, fear of heights, depths, monsters, claustrophobia, all at once and amplified exponentially. Ultimately each fear is a fear of death. And because God is not an annihilationist, death will be experienced for eternity: you will be dead but you will not cease to exist.

The Providence of God

Within the judgment of God lies the providence of God. God is not only all powerful but all controlling. The Heidelberg catechism defines it as:

[H]is almighty and ever present power, whereby, as with his hand, he still upholds heaven and earth and all creatures, and so governs them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, food and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, indeed, all things, come to us not by chance but by his fatherly hand.

Having no control over your life is disturbing. Even more disturbing is the idea that a specific intelligent being is arranging everything that happens to you, good or bad. When you read and re-read biblical narratives, you witness God’s providence. There is a certain dread that comes over the reader when he re-reads Job. Job goes through the valley of the shadow of death, and brings the reader with him. There is also a certain dread in reading the Gospels when you as the reader walk with Jesus and witness his teachings and miracles knowing that each word brings you closer to the crucifixion.

When the illusion of our total control is checked we feel trapped. Not only are we not in control, but we cannot “see” what controls us. The authority over us is often invisible whether it be man or divine. Christians must go through life trusting themselves to God’s providence while the unbeliever (who is still subject to it) can have no such comfort. All in all, the unbeliever fears God, specifically his judgment. Both believer and unbeliever fear his incomprehensibility and even his providence. Within these parameters is a rich vein of stories to be mined.

Synthesis of Theistic Horror: Theistic Horror for the Damned

The logical synthesis between cosmic horror and the horror of God would be horror for the damned. Those that are not believers have the most reason to fear and many of them enjoy being scared. The greatest difficulty for the author would be to create a main character who is reprobate but still virtuous enough to be sympathetic to the reader. Consider the cosmic horror tropes in light of the synthesis.

The Truth is Maddening

Hell is maddening; there is “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” As we saw earlier, the people of the world at the return of Christ beg for mountains and hills to fall and cover them. The idea that all your deeds—even the ones done in secret as well as your very thoughts—will be judged is enough to drive one mad or perhaps into pure denial (which is what most choose). While the threat of the return of Christ is perhaps better reserved for the third trait (Return of Strange Gods), it is nonetheless present in this section hanging over the unbeliever like a sword of Damocles. Other aspects of the maddening truth are that we are all (whether for or against God) his instruments, doing the will he would have us do. Just as Babylon was raised up to destroy Judah and carry her into captivity, so did Assyria rise up and destroy Babylon for defiling God’s temple. None can escape his will. Even his enemies do his bidding.

Civilization’s Tenuous Presence and Impending Destruction

There is the city of God and there is city of Man, Jerusalem and Babylon. The city of man in all of its sinful pride will be wiped away:

And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning, standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come. And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more”

Revelation 18:9-11

This wicked city serves the same purpose as Lovecraft’s view of civilization. The return of Christ signals the end of the world system: the system that cares more for earthly things than spiritual things, the system of anti-christ, of sinful lusts. As strong as that civilization may appear (especially against other earthly powers), it is tenuous. It is ready to fall over at any moment, “for in one hour is thy judgment come.” Civilizations are always rising and falling. When it is destroyed, those who were made rich off of it will mourn and weep. In the collapse of nations there is a microcosm of the final judgment, a mini-revelation with God waiting on the other side.

Those who hate God, love the world. They love the wicked system that is the city of Babylon. Of course, Western Civilization had its great sins, one of which is apostasy; even Lovecraft understands that no rational atheism can withstand the foreign supernatural because the supernatural has no place in its atheistic system. Given how much ink has been spilled in assaults on Christians that have not been carried out on other “irrational” faiths, one must conclude that something particular about Christianity concerns atheists greatly. In fact, if it were to become undeniably true to them, or were the population to turn in repentance and faith, the atheists might well go mad as everything they consider to be great about civilization is washed away.

Return of the Strange Gods

There is today a confrontation between West and East, much like Lovecraft describes. Mass immigration from Hindu and Muslim countries brings with them their alien gods. There is plenty of material here for Christian writers who wish to carry the torch for Lovecraft. From the late 1990s to the early 2010s atheism reached its apex in the form of “New Atheists” with its four horsemen, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens. Their dominance, however, was short-lived. These men are either dead or insignificant. New age spirituality and various other patchworks of beliefs have arisen, filling the vacuum that atheism left behind.

Jehovah too is a kind of returning “strange” God. Unbelievers are scared of the Christian boogeyman creating a theocratic dystopia popularized in the novel and TV show, The Handmaid’s Tale. This fear should be exploited in Christian stories. What is paradise to a Christian is hell to the damned. The worship of God is insanity to the atheist.

Christians Writing About the Horror of God

There is a lot of source material for good horror in the Bible, but those that have done it have done it too sparingly. Compare the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark with the narrative in 1st Samuel when the ark was taken by the Philistines. Raiders uses the “power of God” as a deus ex machina to save our heroes, but the horror (and holiness) of God is the story in 1st Samuel 5-7. The Israelites failed in their duty and used the Ark as an ordinary weapon. The Philistines captured the Ark and “trapped” it as a trophy in their temple to Dagon. As it turns out, Dagon is trapped in the temple with God. The idols are destroyed and the Philistines are afflicted with tumors. God does not require saving. Even when the Israelites are given the ark back, they too are struck down by God’s wrath because “they had looked into the ark of the Lord.” No one can control God.

All readers of horror want to feel scared and uncomfortable, to ride the wave through to the end. Some people like to be scared—at least the ones that read horror—and everyone is afraid of God on some level. The horror of God is for the believer also, because in this life we will suffer many trials and, of course, we will face the final horror of death, which is the curse of God.

Not every story that Silence and Starsong publishes has to do with God, or is even explicitly Christian, but none of our stories will violate or contradict Christianity. Demons cannot be good. God cannot be evil, nor can he be just another Lovecraftian elder god. God is impassible, full of holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. Theistic Horror, by definition, cannot make good evil or evil good. This is not a limitation but a strength, because it requires unique and interesting storytelling. Consider what C.S. Lewis did in his short novel, The Great Divorce. He did not intend an accurate depiction of hell, but it serves to make a point that is true.

If the first rule is to be careful with God in your stories, then the second rule is to write a good story. Our goal is conquest of genres, but to do that authors must always love to tell stories, otherwise you are peddling bad propaganda. Authors are first and foremost storytellers. If authors answer the call to write theistic horror there will be further trial and error and new rules will undoubtedly be added. We are at a unique cultural moment where eldritch horror is experiencing a renaissance, while legacy media and traditional publishing is dying. This is the moment for writers to tell scary stories of and for the glory of God.

I’m pretty sure Hogwarts Legacy was the last video game I ever really looked forward to. Rowling’s Wizarding World has pretty much everything you could want for a game: an obvious progression system (learning new spells); clear potential for choices-matter mechanics (choosing a house); mini game options (quidditch); and a vibrant, mysterious world ripe with secrets to uncover. What could possibly go wrong?

Even if you haven’t played it, you can probably guess at the answer. The modern machine is what went wrong.

To be clear, the game isn’t all that bad. Some of the design is beautiful even, and the combat was somewhat enjoyable and certainly visually appealing. But it’s just not all that good either, despite the five years and $150 million that went into making it. The characters are flat, the dialogue cringe, and the story so uncompelling that I never bothered to finish the game.

At first I thought, “Maybe I’m just getting too old for video games.” This is probably true to a degree, but then I started a replay of Mass Effect (now almost two decades old) and within five minutes of playing I thought: “Ah, this is why I fell in love with the medium.”

Then just last year a tiny little studio staffed with a bunch of unknowns, many of whom had never even worked on a game before1, released Clair Obscur and absolutely dominated the Game of the Year awards over big franchises such as Assassin’s Creed. In one fell swoop Clair Obscur proved definitively that the industry hasn’t at all lost its potential, it just lost its heart. But that heart can be found again.

Video games matter more than most people realise

Now I’m not going to pretend that even top-tier games such as Mass Effect and Clair Obscur stand on the same level as classic novels such as Brothers Karamazov or Lord of the Rings. Yes, for many of us (me included) video games can often be a huge time suck preventing us from more important, creative, or vitalising matters, yada yada yada you know the possible pitfalls already.

But at the end of the day, they are fun. People love them. More importantly, they are art, in the old sense of the word at the very least: the result of skilled craftsmen pulling together disparate elements to form a unified whole with a specific purpose. No serious person claims that a video game cannot be a beautiful thing.

And if you know anything about beauty, you know that it will save the world.

If we’re serious about shaping culture, healing some of the brokenness of the world, and inspiring each other to pursue goodness, beauty, and truth, we need to be creating stories of all kinds that appeal to all sorts of people, stories that are better than what is currently out there. This is exactly what Silence & Starsong intends to do. We started as a humble magazine, expanded into a radio show, and now we’re venturing into the world of interactive fiction.

Our first project is well underway, and people love it

It started as a Discord conversation about the pros and cons of interactive fiction as a storytelling medium (a topic for another post, perhaps?) but we now have the first chapter of our first text-based video game up for free on Itch. In The Iron King’s Heir you play as the sole heir to a tyrant king’s throne. In this browser- and mobile-friendly royalty sim written by yours truly, your choices do, in fact, matter, and they have the potential to shape the narrative in drastically different ways. Will you follow in your father’s footsteps or chart your own path?

Perhaps the most fun thing about this medium is just how collaborative it is. I may be the one writing the story and coding the mechanics, but at the end of the day the outcome of the narrative will be a joint effort between writer and player. Partly because of this it has the potential to reach a far wider audience than a novel might. I am already shocked at the positive feedback I’ve received from a far greater variety of people than I expected, from long-time, die-hard Silence & Starsong fans to people who wouldn’t normally consider picking up a faith-inspired anthology (or perhaps any kind of anthology at all for that matter).

If you’d like to be a part of making The Iron King’s Heir the best it can be, by all means, play the game and let us know what you think. Your suggestions may just shape the direction the game takes.

And if you’re a writer who is interested in the possibilities interactive fiction has to offer, stay tuned, we’ll be talking more about the writing process in the near future.

“I thought monks were supposed to be poor.”

The irreverent mercenary could try all he liked to hide it with humor, but he—along with the rest of the S.S. Starsong’s crew—couldn’t help but be impressed as their starship approached Bethlehem Station: a kilometers-long, olive-shaped asteroid, reshaped and retrofitted to form a monastery. Great, aluminum-plated domes bubbled across its dark surface, glinting white against the stark black of space. Without any atmosphere to filter it, the sun’s glare was so bright on those domes that some wondering child on Earth might see the monastery twinkling in the night sky. Even through the Starsong’s filtered plexiglass it was painful to look at directly. Without that glass, Eric and the rest of the mercenaries would be blind right now.

There was a surreal beauty to it: the useless hunk of space rock, having been mined to depletion, now transformed into a majestic hall of prayer orbiting a thousand kilometers above the Earth’s surface.

“How much do you think it costs?” Eric continued, squinting into the glare. The lean, sandy-haired man was the youngest (and most talkative) of the crew and stood beside Konrad’s captain seat, nose almost touching the curved glass. The rest of the crew—Lily, Red, Chase, and Helix—also crowded around Konrad, their body heat starting to stifle. The bridge really wasn’t meant for everyone to stand in.

“Too much. Waste of money!” Chase grumbled, his grey-haired arms crossed as he glared at the extravagance.

“It’s beautiful,” Lily said simply.

“It’s all hand-me-downs,” said Helix. “The asteroid, the aluminum—it probably didn’t cost as much as you think.”

“This is Captain Konrad of the S.S. Starsong requesting permission to dock, over,” Konrad said into the comm system.

“Lot more money than I have,” Eric said.

“This is Captain Konrad of the S.S. Starsong requesting permission to dock, over.”

Silence. Again.

“Well it was worth a try,” Lily said.

“Or ten,” Eric grumbled.

Konrad frowned and leaned back, his chair creaking under his muscled weight. He had been warned that the station had gone silent, but he didn’t want to believe it. The implications were not something he wanted to think about.

The Earth looked so peaceful below, all blues and greens and whites, with no hint of the war and hunger that tore it apart since the days of Cain. If this mission was successful, Konrad might just be able to set foot on its surface again. Wars and all, it was home. Or used to be, and perhaps could be again.

But that was a big if. Bigger than his crew knew.

A week ago, he had been hailed directly by the United Space Federation on a secure channel, which was on its own highly unusual. Even more unusual was the fact that a high ranking admiral had done the hailing. At first, Konrad had been worried that the U.S.F. finally decided to hunt him down, that even space was no longer safe for him and his crew.

The reality was far more disturbing.

“Captain Konrad,” Admiral Thornton had said over comms, his face and voice crackling with the distance. At the time, the Starsong had been escorting a transport to Mars. “The U.S.F. would like to hire your services.”

Konrad’s initial shock morphed into horror as the scarred and stiff-jawed old admiral told the whole story. Bethlehem Station, humanity’s most ancient off-world monastery, had gone silent. No technical failures, no distress call, just one last message: “The manger is empty. The star is moving.”

“The station is on complete lockdown,” the admiral said. “Our men can’t get inside without risking the integrity of the structure. And the lives within,” he added almost as an afterthought. “It’s keyed to unlock for one ship and one ship only. Yours.”

Konrad’s grey eyes blinked at that, but little else betrayed his surprise. Why would the monks send for a lapsed novice such as himself?

“Captain Konrad, am I right in assuming that you know what we’re dealing with here?”

Konrad gritted his teeth. He wasn’t supposed to know, didn’t want to know, and most definitely wasn’t supposed to tell anyone.

“Yes.”

“Good. Then you know how important it is that this situation is dealt with. Quickly.”

#

It had taken a full week to make it back to Earth’s orbit, but the U.S.F. agreed to cover all expenses and ensure that their escort task was completed by military professionals. That left a week for Konrad to ruminate on all the ramifications of his mission. Admiral Thornton promised a full pardon for Konrad and the entire Starsong crew if they succeeded, not to mention enough money that they could all retire on Earth and never risk their lives to feed themselves again. Yet even with all that Konrad considered time and again turning right around and getting as far from Bethlehem Station as possible.

But the monks had sent for him for a reason, and he still owed them for taking him in. Besides, try as he might, he couldn’t shake the gnawing guilt that crept in every time he considered leaving. Too much time with monks has made me soft, he thought.

So now he sat in his starship, gliding towards the silent station, squinting against the white glint, trying to muster the courage to move.

He sighed and stood. “Chase, Red, Eric, suit up. We take the shuttle in ten.”

#

Three hours later the four men approached the pole of the asteroid, their shuttle’s AI rapidly calculating the asteroid’s spin and adjusting the shuttle’s to match. As Admiral Thornton had promised, the port unlocked and allowed their small craft to dock with a click and a hiss, though they didn’t hear from a single human the entire approach.

As space-bound mercenaries, he and his crew were well-accustomed to this kind of silence, with nothing but the hum of engines and the rhythm of their own breath behind their masks. This time, however, the silence had them all on edge as the four men unstrapped themselves from their seats and pulled their weightless bodies into the airlock.

When the airlock finished decompressing, Konrad led them into the adjoining elevator. According to his suit’s monitors, life support was still online and the air breathable. Whatever had happened to the station was apparently not altogether destructive. At least not physically.

“Keep your masks on,” Konrad said. “We still don’t know what to expect.”

The descent (if you could call it that) was uneventful, yet the sinking feeling in Konrad’s gut had nothing to do with the rapidly increasing “gravity” as the elevator approached the outer, habitable regions of the asteroid, where the centrifugal force of the spinning station would roughly equal Earth’s gravitational pull. Within minutes the weight returned to their bodies and their feet were once again planted on the floor.

When the elevator doors opened, Konrad almost expected to see a monk greet them. Maybe even a familiar face, someone to ask him how he’d been, to tell him this was all a great misunderstanding, that the monks just needed some space from the outside world and that’s why they’d gone silent, or that their communications went down and they just never bothered to set it back up. Konrad wouldn’t put it past them.

But the vestibule was empty when they stepped in. Empty and silent. No chanting echoed from the halls and there was no shuffle of black robes or muffled footsteps as the monks busied about their tasks. Otherwise the narthex, the transition area from the outside world to this place of contemplation and worship, was much as Konrad remembered. The floors and walls were made of the polished, grey-black rock of the asteroid itself, with a thin, translucent layer of sealant that gripped easily onto their combat boots.

The entryway’s arched ceiling lended it a tunnel-like appearance and heightened the sense of passage from the void of space to the sanctuary within, if indeed sanctuary it still was. Konrad doubted it. Colorful frescoes began halfway up the dark walls, depicting saints and angels alike, but the men’s eyes were drawn to the aperture door at the far end of the hall and the figure guarding it, a figure that was comfortingly familiar to Konrad despite the dread of the mission. Each of the door’s six leaves depicted one of the fire-like wings of a seraph, with the angel’s head in the center. Below that serene face, two hands holding the Word of God.

The dog-headed St. Christopher loomed in the archway above the seraph, one hand wielding the cross, the other raised as though cautioning the crew back.

Instead they moved forward. Their footsteps fell softly as they passed brass candlestands with cold stubs burnt right to the sand they stood in.

Nobody had been through here in some time.

“Eyes sharp,” Konrad said, his rifle raised and at the ready as he made his way to the door. Normally it would have automatically opened at his approach, but it remained shut. “Red,” he said.

“Aye aye, Captain.” Red’s voice came loud and clear into Konrad’s helmet. The machinist moved to the control panel left of the door while Konrad kept his rifle pointed straight at the seraph’s head. “Captain, there’s a password. And it looks like…a riddle? ‘Your true name.’” He pressed a few more keys. “I guess I’ll just have to hack into it. Might take a while, I’m no Lily.”

“Try ‘Christopher.’”

Red looked up and raised an eyebrow at his captain, his pale, angular face and ebon hair giving the action an exaggerated appearance. Konrad had never told his crew just how familiar he was with Bethlehem Station; that would have just opened things up to far too many unnecessary questions, questions that Konrad didn’t know how to answer even if he wanted to and wasn’t worried about the U.S.F. coming after him for divulging its secrets. Even now Konrad didn’t say anything and merely nodded to the control panel. Red leaned back over it. A moment later the machinist shook his head in disbelief. “Well it looks like you were right. We’re in.”

Konrad should have been relieved, but instead he tensed. Seemed like someone went to great lengths to make sure only Konrad would be able to get in. Someone who knew him. Who knew the patron he would have chosen had he taken his vows: the dog-headed warrior saint of the fringe. Defender. Outsider.

Monster.

Father Paisios had once told him that sometimes you needed a monster to slay a greater monster. At the time, Konrad had not been aware of what the monks kept sealed in the depths of the asteroid, that being bred of black holes and darker things, held captive by vigilant prayers a thousand kilometers from Earth. Looking back, Konrad wondered if Father Paisios had predicted this would happen. That one day soon those prayers would fail. That some monk in a moment of weakness would fall to temptation, would heed the being’s call, would set them all on the path of destruction.

But while Konrad had always agreed with Father that he was, indeed, a monster, he was never sure if he was the kind of monster that did the slaying, or the kind that needed it.

“Open it,” he said. Red keyed a button on the control pad and the seraph’s wings slid open. Konrad reflexively crossed himself, the long dormant habit suddenly awakened in need, as he walked under the figure and saw what lay beyond.

What’s next?

Here are some thoughts from the author:

In my vision, that last message sent by the monastery is code meaning something along the lines of: Some semi-demonic entity wrought in a black hole by demons (a fallen star, if you will) has emptied the manger (stolen/destroyed a device or relic that kept it at bay) and is now moving (trying to get to Earth), though I suppose any of that could change. I tried to keep the voice fairly neutral and the POV flexible to make it easier for the next person to make it his own.

The editors have selected the following continuation prompt:

Look for the next installment of this Round Robin story in March. If you want to see where the other authors will take us, subscribe below.

For a preview, here’s the prompt and other information we announced back in December:

Announcing our 2025 round robin story and opening chapter submissions.

An orbital monastery has gone silent.

There was no distress signal.
No report of technical failure.

Only one final transmission:

“The manger is empty.
And the star is moving.”

Bethlehem Station was built as a working monastery in orbit. Not a symbol. Not a museum. A place of prayer above the Earth. Now it’s dark.

We’re using this premise as the starting point for our 2025 Round Robin Story—a collaborative work of speculative fiction that will unfold one chapter at a time.

If you haven’t encountered a round robin story before, the rules are simple, but demanding. Each chapter becomes canon. Each new author must continue what came before. The story develops slowly, deliberately, and publicly.

The opening chapter matters more than the rest, so we’re treating it that way.

For the first round, we’ll be accepting submissions up to 2,000 words, giving the opening author room to establish the setting, tone, and central mystery. In addition, that author will propose two possible directions the story could take next. We’ll choose one of them, and the second chapter will follow that path.

Follow-up chapters will be limited to 1,000 words. Authors of selected installments may choose any ebook issue of Silence & Starsong Magazine as their reward. Stories will be published on our website.

All of our usual guidelines regarding appropriate content apply. Please see our website for full details.

The manger is empty.
The star is moving.

What happens next is unwritten.

— The Editors