The Phantom Pulse #1 | May 2026
Lex Chamberlin
Cilla’s hand drips with coagulated muck as she grips the dead heart above her work. The soggy brain sits in place already behind the construction’s marigold eyes, laced roots for a scalp, a string of mums for a mouth. She’d had to handle the lattermost quite carefully to keep her own throat from closing up too soon. But those blooms remained the necessary choice, and one of the few that the cursed tome had offered besides.
She leans forward and curls her free hand around one of the limbs—a bough stolen from her and Galen’s midnight willow, carefully separated and sharpened to digits at the extremity. A web of thinner branches structures the botanical torso, where vines cradle the hollows for the two remaining meaty bits required. The organ in her fingers squelches horribly as Cilla moves it into position. She wrinkles her nose, and she shoves it into the hole.
She exhales to tame her nausea; one hollow to go.
As ever, the biggest problem with all of this is his stomach. An oft-overlooked piece of the mind, but no less important than the cerebral matter. She closes her eyes a moment, feels the memory run its course again: his blood and bile slipping down her spiteful fingers, the twist of the blade in his gut, her momentary rage so cruelly evaporating as he fell. It is almost ironic: the organ that had failed her figuratively in his life, now failing her literally in his death—
Outside the hut, harsh voices call through the whistling night, crunching nearer and nearer over the late-autumn detritus. They’d find her soon. And when they did, Galen’s betrayal would reach its logical conclusion.
Cilla hustles back to the bloodstained worktable across the room. Waiting in flickering torchlight, a small wicker basket cradles the makeshift substitute for Galen’s mutilated digestive organ. It is not quite endorsed by the original text—the instructions are scribbled in the margin, violently, as though offering a warning through illegibility alone. But there is no other option:
The small bit of lining she could recover from his drained remains. His favorite fruit, for the pit of the stomach so often dropped. A tear of bread, for energy. A splash of vinegar, for the acids lost in death. And a dash of her own mortal blood, as tax for the subpar materials gathered.
The first of the traps outside sound. Cilla pushes cold air through her teeth, braces her jaw. Now or never—she takes up the little basket in both her bloodied hands, spins back to the abomination, and smooshes the makeshift organ into its waiting hollow. She crosses the final vines in front to seal everything in place. She drops to her knees, fingers splayed wide over his twiggy flesh, and she utters the requisite words.
The golem of Galen shudders to life.
There’s a shade of green to everything. I try to blink, to clear it. There are no eyelids. I resign myself to this.
Sounds fade into perception. I hinge up on my stone-slab bed. Quivering light, basket upon endless basket hanging in rows along the wall. Plant matter, primarily, though some jars half-filled with swimming meats as well. Movement to my left; I turn.
Cilla.
Down her back, her braid is sweaty and frayed, longer than I remember it. She brandishes an improvised wooden spear at a cluster of furious men, three of whom have entered the hut. Blades aloft, they’ve begun to flank her. I spy two more lingering just outside the open door, righteous violence glinting in their eyes.
This won’t do.
I swing my branched legs over the edge of the stone and lower their tips to the ground. As I wobble up, one of the men finally spots me. He yelps and slips backward, accidentally cutting himself with his own weapon on his way to the ground. Near the hut’s threshold, he curls up to cradle his mortal wound. No longer my concern, then.
I step-fall toward the next assailant. This man doesn’t see me, too preoccupied with his fallen friend. I grasp him by the shoulder. My fingers were well sharpened before I was born: they slide easily through his layers of leather, his living leather, his delicate inner organs. The gurgle in his throat is brief. Abdominal debris waters the dirt. Cilla’s shout of encouragement fills me.
I turn away from the eviscerated man, and he sloughs off my hand. I lope toward the third assassin as he swipes a blade at Cilla’s neck—she is fast enough, but only just. Something drops in my stomach. I close the distance, place myself between them. I feel the sword as it cleaves clean through my pelvis like a hum, a distant vibration. Not nearly enough to prevent me from piercing him in return. For a moment, in a way, we are mirror images.
As he drops to the ground, my pointed fingers drip with his entrails. I pull his weapon from my body. It comes out wet—a small gasp behind me. I ignore the fleeing survivors and the promise of further trouble sealed by their escape.
I catch her.
We settle on the ground, a puddle of dark muck sipping at my knees. She’s weak but smiling. I don’t try to speak—I know, without experimentation, that her kind and mine can’t commune in that way. The color is draining from her cheeks; the thing in my stomach flips again. She puts a hand on my face and turns it toward the stone table, then a little further—toward the book.
The memories flood back in a swirling rush.
A dark parish, devouring my secrets, yet only growing my guilt. A late-night house call for a second confession, my plea for forgiveness at her doorstep. A warning: I’d betrayed our research, her blasphemous intentions, where the authorities could find her. Then Cilla’s incandescent rage, the knife through my middle—the hint of regret in her eyes before I’d even hit the ground.
She directs my face back to hers. Her hands slip weakly down to my shoulders, and I react to the softest of pressures—I let her pull me down. Feel the delicate warmth of her mouth on mine, like sunshine after a dreary winter.
Her lips swell.
A horrific sound in her throat—I pull back in alarm. A confounding look of triumph gleams from her bulging eyes. I cast around for anything to help, but she grips me tight. I catch my reflection in the clean end of a fallen blade. Then I go still.
Mums.
Of course—my mouth as her poison. I slump back down, watch as the reaction finishes its work while blood seeps across her dress. I understand her intention now. Regardless of whether the mob came for her, I would be the one to kill her. Clever as ever, Cilla.
I hold on until she lets go.
Afterward, I sit with the corpse a while. Thinking. I move her to the slab, then drag the others out of the hut. I lope over to the book. It’s open. I skim the page: “Construction of the Middle.”
Romantic we should die with such similar wounds.
Carefully, as not to tear the text, I begin to leaf through. I pick up the book, move it closer to the body. I am delicate in my incisions. Cilla was so diligent herself—I have everything I need. I feel warm when I get to the fruit in particular. Among the breads and peaches and vinegar and legumes, there is a cache of rotten plums. They are not my favorite, could only have been kept around for one purpose in this state. For one hope.
The final tricky bit is the blood. It takes some rummaging, but I find a handheld mirror. I part my central vines, spot the organ pumping away in my chest. It shudders as I make my way in. But surely I can scrape just the very edge—
There’s a shade of green to everything. Something hovers over me, just off to the side. Floral, angelic…familiar. I turn my head.
Cilla, Galen says. His lips do not part for speech. His face is a mesmerizing bouquet, body a twisting maze of delicately placed foliage. There is no hint of reservation or distraction, in his posture or his tone.
The corners of my bespoke mouth curl.
He understands now, then—he must. His pious guilt over our work was unnecessary. This is no cruel fate. The occult tome we peeled from the swamp is divinity itself, Galen’s traitorous attempt to cleanse his conscience being the true blasphemy. And now he’s dirtied his hands too much in reviving me, well beyond any hope of absolution.
He’s mine.
Outside, clutches of twigs break around the clearing’s edge. The crackling of carried flame draws nearer and nearer. Sanctimonious chants—promises of impending bloodshed under the clouded moonlight.
Help me up, I say.
Galen nods. He extends the bloodstained stakes I’d crafted for his fingers and entangles them with my own. He made me just as sharp as he is—as these creatures, we’re a better match than ever. I hinge up at the waist with his help. His marigolds are bright. Beautiful.
Over his shoulder, I spy torch-wielders retreating to a rumbling throng in the distance. The hut’s walls begin to smoke; Galen glances up toward the crackling ceiling.
Wait here, he says.
He wobbles across the room toward my stacked barrels of water. He takes up the chipped clay pitcher atop them, fills it, and carries it back to my slab. Keep still. He distributes the liquid carefully, emphasizing the foliage guarding my mortal parts. As he refills the container, I watch an orange ember settle on a vine running the length of my torso. It goes out.
Galen drenches his own boughs and core and strides back to me with a strange sort of grace. He takes up my stakes again. The ceiling begins to cave with curls of crackling smoke, and he draws me up to his side. I sway a moment, but he steadies me. With his free hand, he collects and tucks under his arm the fateful grimoire—the center of all our discord. Now safeguarded tightly near his heart.
No more ethical quandaries, then. No more ethical anything, I suspect, beyond the bounds of our bond. I squeeze his wooden hand in mine, my mortal heart beating proud in the fibrous chest he’s crafted for me. He followed the path I laid out for him to perfection: defending me, killing me, and then reviving me just in time.
If he hadn’t, of course, I would still have rested in satisfaction. I’d have atoned for my moment of rage, and more importantly, I’d have left a seed of well-deserved guilt to fester in his heart for dooming me. But that’s all nothing now. Joined in immortality, we have a wondrous symphony of revenge ahead. Perhaps we’ll even grow a family along the way—the dead are everywhere, just begging to rise again in the caress of witchcraft and flora. They may do so in our image.
As we glide away from the slab, the woven baskets along the wall puff into ravenous flame, and my remaining glass jars shatter. I feel nothing as my former treasures disintegrate, as my human home collapses. Hand-in-hand, my dear Galen and I cross the threshold, in sync and attuned. The pitchforks at the forest’s edge titter back as we horrors emerge from the smoke, but shouts for courage echo back through the mob. The front line dashes forward with a cry for the kill.
We rinse off their blood in the swamp before following their footsteps into town.
About the Author
Lex Chamberlin (they/she) is a nonbinary and autistic writer of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror. They hold a master’s degree in book publishing and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, and they reside in the Pacific Northwest with their husband and quadrupedal heirs. Find them online at lexchamberlin.com.