Kaleidoscope - look into the mind of a monster

Intro to a short SF story from "Continuum" out on 6th October

This one is so strange.

At first contact, my breath stills for a moment. I haven’t encountered the like before. His mind is a kaleidoscope of jazzing, diamond-like shapes and brilliant colours.

They clash and crunch inwards, towards the centre. So very different from anything I’ve met in all my time doing this. Quite ominous; rather frightening, actually. I shiver.

The mind-pattern changes, losing colour and sharpness. More starkly contrasting, now writhing, like a great mass of snakes, sucking at me.

I shiver again, and cover my disquiet from him, for I am a professional, and do not allow my own feelings to interfere, or to leak.

I sense into people’s minds. I see and feel their aura in my head, and I create a coloured plazglass sculpture to reflect what I’ve sensed.

But this one… a frightening jangle of tumbling thoughts that have no shape other than shattered fragments of glass in clashing colours. No. He’s back again to squirming, black-and-white snakes, pulling at me.

...continuing in Continuum...