Other Prose & Poetry by Ariel Archer

Codrin Voinescu, a retired soldier, a man approaching 50, haunted by past choices, grief, loss, and a present that seems without hope and purpose. A return trip to his home village in Transylvania that ends in one last unexpected conflict. A hasty retreat into the nearby Hoia Baciu Forest, a woodland with an equally haunted reputation, offers Codrin an encounter with a strange Faerie (well, half-Faerie, technically) guide who has a rather interesting story of her own. Their sojourn in the woods and what happens over a two-week period will change everything.

A 7-year old girl saved from drowning with the sinking of the Titanic by...a mermaid? A copy-cat serial killer, separated by four decades and an ocean from the original, only to "rip" through the wrong neighborhood. Everything that could go wrong aboard a prototype airship's maiden flight does go wrong.... Is it true what they say about gremlins? And a group of friends from the city spending a serene summer by the lake in scenic upstate New York.... Do you really want to know what they did?

Dr. Richard Arden is a man of science, a renowned and respected forensic anthropologist who at the age of 80 and now afflicted with an incurable disease has seen a few things, had some unusual experiences, and done some “connecting of the dots” to formulate a rather unorthodox and a bit “unscientific-sounding” hypothesis: that we are not, in fact, alone on this planet.

Six short stories. Worlds of possibilities. The future, both near and distant. Alternate and plausible realities. Messages of hope and of doom. Fate, chance, and definitely choices.