Color Unknown

dark fantasy | body horror | kidnapping | tragedy

Venture into the oceans of Faerth and meet Soot, a lonely nonbinary merfae cursed with turning all who look into their eyes into stone. When Soot is kidnapped by vicious pirates who plan to use them as a biological weapon, the last thing Soot expects is to make their first ever friend. 

Color Unknown is a 7k word fantasy horror short story and contains scenes and topics that may cause distress for certain readers. Please check here for a non-exhaustive list of content warnings. 

Praise for Color Unknown: 

"Color Unknown is stunning, heartbreaking, everything I never knew I wanted to read and everything my poor soul can't take the prospect of ever going through again. Just gorgeous." -Chris Durston, Author of Each Little Universe

"Color Unknown is a heartbreaking and complicated tale of loneliness, cruelty, devotion, and sacrifice. When one look into your eyes can turn others to stone, how do you survive the resulting isolation? When trust is betrayed, is all hope lost? My soul ached reading this one. A viscerally deep thrumming hurt that thrilled down my sternum as I read the words. How can you not love a story that evokes that kind of physical response?" -Helen Wistberry, Author of The Melody of Trees: 10 Tales from the Forest 

"A gorgon (Medusa) linked with a merfolk is such a unique creation, considering the fate of a stone dropped into the ocean, but the marvels of this story keep emerging as the reader continues. Using they/them for the main character’s pronouns allows them to transcend all social constructions, except the truly universal concepts (i.e., loneliness, acceptance, and betrayal), which are the cornerstones of the work. When coupled with the stroke of brilliance to make the main character sign instead of speak telepathically, it creates a chimera so perfect, it’s a shame they don’t exist outside of the pages of this book. Finally, the minor details of the society peppered into the sentences and paragraphs effortlessly creates a lush world, something hard to do in a full novel, let alone such a short composition. [Color Unknown] is truly inspiring." -Michael Mullen, GoodReads User