'_-* A DYING HEART STILL BEATS '

“A DYING HEART STILL BEATS” is a NIGHTCRAWLER one-shot created for two people. Two friends, two partners or even two strangers. Thrust into unfortunate circumstances, the only things they can rely on are their firearms and each other. A tale of being in the wrong place at the right time. With empty mags and open hearts, we welcome you to Montana.

...welcome to Montana

The will of flesh and warm-blood marches onwards. You. It possesses an empty bliss, because even such, today feels a little warmer than yesterday. The ascetics of this desolate wasteland yearn for sustainability, power and purpose. Rumors of a ‘zone’ crop up among smaller circles of storytellers and gossipers. “No one has ever returned from it! It must be cursed land -- crossed by the stars!” they say, hunched over a diminutive meal and waning fire.

“What about [...]? Didn’t they have a walkie-talkie? We would at least get a transmission out, right?”

A call to the void, self-sabotage and ignorant courage all tug on the living. A metaphysical grasp expands far beyond its all encompassing fog. Fallen prone to its tricks, wanderers are left to struggle as their bodies slowly eat themselves. A labyrinth of illusion and repetition -- only inhabited by broken people and the regrets they’ve let consume them. Shrouded in misfortune and bloodlust, the sane few who remain travel from chamber to chamber. Warm firearms embrace with cold hands. At its center stand piercing white eyes and impossible limbs constructed of gnashing wood.

"Kill him and you will be free."

Wanderer coalesce within the sheltered woods as deacons of pine suffocate the starry night sky. A low fog creeps between the legs of survivors -- obscuring vision and masking the smell of rot. They may not know it, but they are trapped. A neverending dream where time and space do not flow as expected. The hollowed corpses of shed humanity walk these woods -- their faint cries echoing in the distance. This plane of being possesses its own ecosystem of predatory creatures and the prey that fall ill to the zone’s allure. Though they appear monstrous, not all who remain are malicious. They rarely have use for what the dead have on their ravaged bodies. The introspective and observant should take notice of those who passed before them, and take all that remains. A single bullet, match or crumb of food may be all a wanderer needs to exalt the wilderness.

‘A DYING HEART STILL BEATS’ is a story about the right people in the wrong place at the right time.