Breaking the Wheel |

By Nick Hayden
June 7, 2013

I still hear that voice, faint but constant. I force the door to the next room open, the hinges protesting. The floor above is visible. Two more dead, and one alive beneath the rubble. Grigor. He likes tea. That’s all I can remember of him at the moment, all that sticks. He stares up at the third-floor ceiling. His legs are pinned beneath a cabinet. He’s cut somehow; I see blood pooled beneath his lower body. His lips are moving, and sometimes they make noise. I come to him.

“Do you know where Calea Lisan is?”

He stares at me, confused. Suddenly, his hand is at my neck, fumbling for my collar.

“I had a dream,” he says. “I knew I would die this way.”

* * *

I read this passage during one of my last edits of The Select’s Bodyguard, and for the life of me I couldn’t remember why I wrote it this way. This throwaway character had a dream about his death? There was a story there, somewhere. (This is how I write, with random details I can come back and unpack later if I want.)

Eventually, I decided that it was a story that should be written, and once I started thinking like that, I wanted to write other little snapshots of Jalseion. It’s a big city, with lots of different cultures, and you get only a glimpse during Bron’s head-long journey through the city.

What formed is The Wheel Is Broken, a collection of 10 flash fictions about how the Cataclysm affects different parts of Jalseion. It includes beggars, doctors, children, priests, Select, and everyone’s favorite Guide, Calea. I wanted it to be a tapestry of varying reactions to a catastrophic event, and I think I succeeded, at least to some extent.

This is bonus material, and as such, it won’t be serialized in the same way as the main storylines. Next week, I’ll post two sample chapters, then the ebook will be available for purchase. We’ll always present main content for free, but we figure bonus content is exclusive and worth a token fee.

I’m looking forward to sharing it with you next week!