by David Small
First published 2024
A man reaches old age and discovers something repellant lives within him, something that transforms him when darkness falls. He walks through familiar streets, but his reflection shows teeth that weren't there before and eyes that belong to a predator. The transformation comes not just at night but in quiet moments when he glimpses what he has become over decades of living. In another story, a man wanders through an old city where spiders descend from buildings and memories spill like liquid from cracked skulls. The streets bend around him as past and present collapse together. The final tale moves to 1930s Berlin, where a different kind of beast prowls among the shadows of a city preparing for war. These three connected stories explore what happens when men can no longer hide from what they carry inside. Small draws each transformation with precise lines, showing how the monstrous emerges not in grand gestures but in small surrenders to what was always there.
Genres: literary-fiction, horror, supernatural, paranormal
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, thought-provoking
Tropes: monsters, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Berlin, Germany
Period: 1930s
160 pages · ebook · Liveright
Content warnings: body-horror, gore