The third instalment of the Loveless Letters short story is available to read for FREE here on my website. Because f*ck having to pay for every single piece of entertainment… am I right?

Anyway, I started writing this series in 2023 and if you are new to it, you’ll wanna go start at story #1 (Once Upon a Portal) because these ARE sequential. I’ll be releasing the fourth and final story, soon. ALL FREE.

What’s it about?

You’ve watched them spin portals and dive into storybook worlds, but what will they do when faced with evil in the real world?

In the third instalment of the Loveless Letters Short Story Collection, you can join Curtis, Lindsay, and Sandra as they solve puzzles and face off against enemies they never expected. Is it Curtis’s time to rise to the challenge or will he need rescuing, yet again?

Preview before reading

They received the call on September 8th, 2024 at exactly 8:28pm. Curtis remembered the precise time because he was waiting, quite impatiently, for his favourite streamer to start a livestream about a new video game. His eyes were glued to the digital clock in the bottom corner of his screen as he refreshed the page over and over again.

But then came the call. That one phone call would unfurl a series of events that would change Curtis’s entire life trajectory. That one call would initiate the beginning of the end of everything he thought to be real, and pull him into a world even he never dreamed possible.

The ringing phone hardly interrupted his concentration. “Come on. Come on,” he urged. Only 10 000 people would be allowed in for the livestream and you needed to log on at just the right moment to be one of those people. But, it was hard to say if it would happen at precisely 8:30pm. Past streams started a couple minutes early and one even started fifteen minutes late. So, he refreshed and refreshed and refreshed, entirely oblivious to everything around him. Including the ringing phone.

8:28pm. Curtis squirmed in his chair with anticipation. Refresh. Refresh. Refresh. And then bam! He was in. A countdown timer displayed on his screen.

“Yes!” he shouted loud enough for his voice to bounce off the living room walls and back to himself in an echo.

“Curtis!” His father’s voice came loud from the dining room table.

“I’m sorry,” he shouted across the space between the living and dining rooms. It was more out of instinct than it was an actual apology. He hardly glanced at his dad through the open door to the dining room.

“No, Curtis. It’s fine. I just,” his father sighed. “I need you to close your computer and come over here.”

The screen in front of Curtis showed a countdown timer with less than a minute left. Tucker McGamer (a pseudonym, for sure) would be live on screen in a matter of seconds.

Curtis argued, “No, Dad, please. I’ll just be quiet. I promise.” Twenty five seconds. Twenty four. “It’s gonna start soon.”

Lindsay sat across from their dad at the table. “Curtis,” she said. And it wasn’t what she said, for his father had just said his name. It wasn’t even how she said it. There was an energy she threw across the room with his name that called him to attention.

A chill shuddered down his spine and for the first time in his life he didn’t just imagine how someone else felt, he felt it with every single fibre of his being. His sister was hurting. Deeply.

Thirteen seconds. Twelve. Curtis sighed, pushed his laptop closed, folded the recliner’s footrest, and moved slowly to the dining room.

As he took a place at the table, his eyes shifted from Lindsay to their father and back again.

Their father’s eyes welled with tears. He looked only at the table and not once at Curtis. “I’m so sorry, buddy. Nana Rose just died a few minutes ago.”