“Mike Allen’s ‘She Who Runs’ gives flesh to spells moving faster than time.”

— Publishers Weekly

No girl had ever lived so long wearing the curse of She Who Runs.

Lassamtu was not her name, but the name forced on her by the high priest in the temple where she’d been enslaved since her mother’s murder. Nor had she asked for the suicidal task thrust upon her, to hurl an enchanted spear into the eye of Abzu, the Serpent that strove to crush the Egg of the World. The priest doomed her to the curse of She Who Runs, a spell that forces her to run at inhuman speed with no control over her destination. It won’t release her until she strikes Abzu blind.

But Lassamtu will discover that all she’s ever learned about the creation of her world amounts to lies and deception. Her tormentors will learn she’s nowhere near as helpless as they thought. And that’s only the start of this sinister yarn.

Part mythical fiction, part science fiction, part horror tale, “She Who Runs” first appeared in the anthology SKY WHALES AND OTHER WONDERS (ed. Vera Nazarian, Norilana Books, 2009.)

Art by Luis Beltrán

Posted in Fiction, Short stories, Writing