“From the Inside” – Preface

Once in a while, I hear a song that won’t let me go. I get an image or a feeling so strong that I am compelled to explore it further, and sometimes, magic happens. Dark magic, in the case of “From the Inside”, a story inspired by the song of the same name. Written by Leppard King Joe Elliott, the lyric reflects the subject of addiction from the drug’s point of view. It’s featured on Def Leppard’s Retro Active album, and while the rest of the album figured prominently in the birth of my fantasy world of Castasia, “From the Inside” prompted something different. I was urged to write a story about an ordinary man in an ordinary life who winds up grappling with an extraordinary hunger. It’s his story, though a pair of familiar characters figure significantly in the telling.

Part I goes up tomorrow. It was written in 1999, so it’s rough by my current standard. Then again, the subject warrants a certain brutality. Addiction isn’t pretty, though it often starts that way …