text: As Cycle 1 of Serial Saturday here on r/shortstories comes to a close, it's high time we get some spotlights posted. This spotlight has been a long time coming, but not for lack of enthusiasm or support for this next story. It’s been such a treat to watch people evolve their flash fiction serials with us and bring arcs to a close that for some have been with us for quite a while. For a good handful of writers on Serial Saturday, their stories are continuations of serials started on r/writingprompts Theme Thursday weekly threads. One such story comes from /u/Xacktar. Here at r/ShortStories we thoroughly enjoyed Xacktar's engaging tale of the victims of the Gray, and the journey they took to put things right. There's a reason why Xacktar's episodes won the fan favorite and challenge sash so many times week after week, and it's because of a story that continued to keep us wanting . But don't take my word for it! Here's a small teaser from /u/Xacktar: Some don’t even know they’re dead. Not until the Plague Keeper comes. The Gray is a disease like none other. It kills the body, yet the soul remains trapped in the dead flesh. No beating heart, no breathing lungs, yet the body still moves, the mind still thinks. So those struck by the Gray know what it means when the Keepers come. They know that it means being trapped alive within the fire while you wither crumble into ash. Lista knows this better than most. She watched in horror as her entire life burned away under the Keeper’s glare. She won’t let it happen to her. No matter what, she will find a way to live... ...even in undeath. For our first run of Serial Saturday at r/shortstories it was important for us to get author impressions of how their experience went with us, and give readers a peek at the "behind the scenes" of creating a flash fiction serial. Here's /u/Xacktar’s take on that: I never planned on the Gray being an actual serial. It was just a world that I could throw interesting characters into and have fun with for /r/WritingPrompts and Theme Thursdays. Then /u/ALiteralDumpsterFire unveiled this new amazing thing and I knew I wanted to be a part of it. I jumped into the Gray with no plan, no ideas, and just a vague idea of a world where zombies were a little less ‘Grrrr’ and ‘Arghh’ and a little more ‘Oh no. Why me?’ The amazing thing is how SerSat made it grow. It began as a loosely connected set of stories, but with each week I had more and more ideas about what this world was about, who the characters were, and what would happen in the end. Coupled with the amazing group here and all the excellent feedback and praise they gave out, I soon found myself excited for each week. Not only just to write my own stuff, but to see what others had written. We had everything from Mouse Noir to Lovecraftian Magic, to a group of oddballs on an adventure to save the world from evil bunny rabbits. I had a lot of fun here and I’m looking forward to even more next season! With the tale of The Gray Plague at an end there is only one thing left to do: show off this newly finished story for obligatory bragging rights here on r/shortstories. Let the bragging begin! /u/Xacktar’s personal sub is and I highly recommend checking out their author notes and other stories written for r/writingprompts. Without further ado, here's /u/Xacktar’s Table of Contents. | The | Gray | Plague | |:--:|:--:|:--:| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | You can check out more of /u/Xacktar's work by going to their subreddit, /r/TheWordsOfXacktar/. Congrats on finishing your serial, /u/Xacktar, and we can’t wait to see what you do next. <3 from the team at r/ShortStories, r/WritingPrompts, and Serial Saturday. For more information on the Serial Saturday program feel free to check out our Getting Started Guide. Come join us in the discord server chat. We have members from all around the world and who have all kinds of schedules, so there’s usually someone awake to talk to. We also have scheduled readings, oration critiques, spur-of-the-moment story time, or even just random hangouts over voice chat.