The Uncertain Beyond
Chapter 1
Oren Kosmos
Give the Spirits What They Need.
When Death exits, sometimes she leaves the door cracked open.
At midnight, the Moonlight Motel’s empty pool beckoned. The lamppost failed to illuminate the mysteries within that dark, man-made hole. At the edge, Mozi performed a traditional Chinese offering. He lit a paper robe and planted it into a can packed with rice. The robe curled, edges blackened, smoke curling into the pool. Waves of darkness poured in, smoothing the surface until it reflected like a mirror. Mozi dropped the matchbook, knelt, and gazed past his reflection into the Uncertain Beyond.
Sue-ling’s melodic voice floated up from the basin, rippling his reflection. “Mozi, bring me back!” she called up to him.
A shiver ran through him as the chill bore down; fear crept into his mind, uncertainty gripping his heart while goosebumps rose across his bare chest.
Sue-ling emitted an agonized gasp. “Mozi!”
Mozi’s reflection wavered, shaking its head; the real Mozi stayed still. Sue-ling’s cry pierced through. “I am your mother. Help me. Give the spirits what they need,” she begged.
Chapter Eight
Oren clasped Mozi’s hands. “If we looked back, would we lose everything? Will I disappear into darkness? If all your future beaus formed a constellation, could I be an asterisk among your stars? One could say that from a distance, a constellation is nothing more than a cluster of stars in an infinite sea of such; nonetheless, you matter to me.”
Mozi echoed, “It matters to me.”
“Even if for a brief sparkling moment, let us be the only pair of stars in a universe filled with intangibles.”
When Oren finished speaking, a rush of snow swept through the room. Books unfurled their pages. The fire went out and reignited as quickly as it had extinguished: Oren was gone.
Left alone, Mozi carried a single candle down the staircase. Wax dripped down the stick. The entrance above sealed shut as he covered the flame and his shadow stretched along the walls.
In the quiet of the empty room, Mozi set the candle by the veiled bust. He fell onto the bed, facing Denis’s pillow, pressing his face into the hollow and breathing in its scent, filling his lungs with Denis. Denis’s scent filled him with ache. He cupped his hands and scooped Denis’s scent to his nose.
The weight of longing dropped in his chest.
He buried his head where Denis rested on the pillow and drifted.
The lace-covered bust of Oren turned slightly, its mouth parting to blow out the candle with a sigh.
Chapter 10
“I’ve fallen in love with the sun, and now I’ve gone blind.”
Mozi
hook
The Uncertain Beyond
When Death exits, she sometimes leaves the door cracked open.In a forgotten Southern town steeped in ghostlight and devotion, Mozi speaks with the dead, and Denis runs from sins that won’t stay buried. Their bond—fragile, forbidden, and divine—blurs the line between the living and the lost. When Death opens her door, love crosses through, unafraid of judgment, rebirth, or ruin.
A lyrical dark fantasy of queer faith, longing, and the souls who refuse to rest.
Denis
Mozi searched Denis’s eyes. “I feel hopeless, like we don’t have a future… nothing.”
Denis put the car in park. “Rich people—they ain’t happy. They chase fairytales. Buy things, people, power. To keep ‘em company. To feel new. To feel!” He pulled the key out of the ignition. “They’d trade it to be young. Healthy. To be wanted. Mozi, they want to be us!” Denis handed Mozi a rolled-up sheet of music. Mozi unrolled it, revealing intricate filigree framing the words: “Frédéric Chopin: Nocturne, Op. 9 No. 1.”
Mozi, pointing to the composer, asked, “Who’s Chopping?”
Survival
vs Stability
Order
vs Chaos
Human
vs Paranormal
bio
Rodney Hom has made a creative life about death.
Webby Honoree and Student Academy Award winner—A multidisciplinary designer, filmmaker, and author, he crafts stories that blur the line between beauty and decay, love and ruin, the living and the lost. His debut novel, The Uncertain Beyond, is a queer Southern Gothic dark fantasy where death becomes a mirror for desire and redemption. With a designer’s precision and a poet’s heart, Hom builds worlds where faith falters, beauty rises, and transformation is the only salvation. He lives and creates in the American Southwest.
Editors
Primary Editor: Mark Spencer
Mark Spencer has won four major national awards: The Faulkner Society Faulkner Award for the Short Novel, The Omaha Prize for the Novel, The Patrick T. Bradshaw Book Award, and The St. Andrews Press/Cairn Short Fiction Award.
“The overarching narrative design is wonderfully effective; you consistently move gracefully (and creepily) from character to character, plotline to plotline; and you have a consistently distinct and compelling omniscient narrative voice.
The short scenes—like in a streaming Netflix or Amazon series—enhance the reader’s sense of a swift pace. Every plotline and character is compelling—no weak narrative threads or people.
And the comedy is delightful! The novel really is a superb blend of horror, mind-bending action, pathos, and comedy.”
Consulting Editor: Timons Esaias
Timons Esaias was shortlisted for the Hugo Award and has received multiple nominations for the Rhysling, Asimov’s Readers Poll, and the British Science Fiction Awards.