The Queen of the Underverse - Chapter 4

Notes From Foto Dono: Welcome to Chapter 4 — Oh my! I’ve managed to write 11,000 words that I actually like. Well, at least they haven’t made me cringe yet. 😜

In total, the manuscript is sitting at 45,000 words, which means I’m officially halfway through this book-shaped adventure. The chapters have grown longer, and now there are interludes! Because apparently I enjoy making things complicated.

You might be wondering: Why write this at all?

Some of you may remember I used to dabble in stories when I was younger. I never really followed through on them, and honestly, I wasn’t very good at it. Years later, when my son started telling stories like I once did, I encouraged him to write them down.

He didn’t. 🤦

During his 21st birthday, we talked about those stories. I mentioned an idea I’d had about a strange place called the Underverse. He told me he still remembered his own. That’s when I decided—if I write mine now, maybe he’ll write his too. 🤞

And so began The Last Queen of the Underverse—a story about Rebecca Lopez, an astronaut who gets hopelessly lost.

Like anyone who’s truly lost, she’s just trying to find her way home. Even though I’m sharing this with all of you, my son is the one I’m writing it for. I hope you’ve enjoyed the story so far.

Rebecca, for the record, probably hasn’t—especially not this chapter.

It’s a bit of a rough one.

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Previously on The Queen of the Underverse…

When a micrometeoroid storm cripples the ISS, astronaut Rebecca Lopez risks everything to save her crew—only to be hurled into deep space and stumble upon a mysterious door floating in the void. Stepping through, she finds herself in a bizarre realm called the Underverse, face-to-face with a dying queen surrounded by dangers she can’t yet comprehend. With no way back and caught between worlds, Rebecca must navigate a realm that defies physics, reason, and her desire to return home.

Ye saga continues...

Chapter 4: The Dente Nocturn

Mark Lopez was in his home office, surrounded by shelves packed with reference books. Though he had the internet and AI at his fingertips, he preferred the tactile nature of these well-worn tomes. Something about flipping pages helped him untangle ideas and concepts in ways digital tools couldn’t.

He sat at his desk, revising another script for a different show, his hand running through his premature grey hair. According to the few producers he trusted occasionally, Mark was known for turning mediocre drafts into gold. Recently, however, most of the scripts he received appeared to be generated by AI. He huffed at the screen.

He once had a steady gig on a police procedural with the worst dialogue he'd ever read. Ratings were tanking before he came on. However, after his rewrites—tightening plot arcs and punching up the dialogue—the show earned critical praise. The show-runner took all the credit, naturally. When the season finale script arrived in shambles, Mark essentially rewrote it from scratch.

No one noticed until after it aired, earning the show an Emmy. The absent creator, allegedly on vacation or in rehab, was livid. Mark never received another script from that team. The series fizzled out the following season. The creator got the blame; Mark got the silent black mark. But ironically, his workload increased.

He sighed. He really wanted to finish his tenth novel—something to surprise Becca with upon her return. His books weren’t blockbusters, but they sold well enough. He wrote swashbuckling adventures, fairy tales with flipped tropes—sometimes the maiden rescued the knight, sometimes the other way around. Still, there were a million stories like that out there.

Despite his moderate success and limited fan base, the work garnered no movie adaptations, Manga expansions, or book signing events.

There was a knock at the door to his office.

Knock-knock.

Knock-knock.

...Knock-knock-knock.

Mark smiled and sang out loud, "Who is that knocking on my door?"

Knock-knock.

Knock-knock.

...Knock-knock-knock..

Mark sang aloud again, "Who can that be knocking at my door? Go away; I don't live here anymore."

Knock-knock.

Knock-knock.

...Knock-knock-knock.

He opened the door suddenly. Two laughing children tumbled in.

Grinning, he said, “Well, I guess it’s lunchtime. Now, who’s going in the pot today? Paul or Sarah?” He licked his lips playfully.

The kids squealed and bolted. “Eat Paul first!” Sarah yelled. “He’s still bite-sized!”

Mark chased after them. “I don’t know… I think you could still fit in the pot.”

As he watched them vanish down the hallway, he thought, Be safe up there, Becca. I’d hate for you to miss more of these days.

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Fangs gleaming like glass shards in starlight

Rebecca stood frozen.

Jagged teeth emerged from the dark void. She had thought the door opened to low Earth orbit. Instead, a gaping maw of blackness grinned at her. The smile stretched wider, fangs gleaming like glass shards in starlight.

Then it whispered her name.

Her breath caught. Whispers spiraled into screams. Not from outside—from within.

Her children’s cries struck first. Paul sobbing in the dark. Sarah’s small voice, trembling: “Why didn’t she come back?”

Mark’s voice layered over theirs, cracked with despair: “She left us. She promised she wouldn’t. And she still left.”

“No…” Rebecca rasped.

“But she was always good at leaving,” said another voice—his or her voice. Smooth. Inevitable. Familiar.

A rush of memories surged: her parents in the kitchen, faces hard and disappointed. “We didn’t raise a coward,” her mother said. “But look at you. Running again.”

Ray, behind the bleachers. That moment. Her sixteen-year-old self frozen in shame, her voice stolen. Her body, not hers. “Stop,” she whispered.

“You didn’t say no loud enough.”

“No,” she growled, louder now.

A flicker of Sarah Mitchel floated into view, suspended in the cold void, holding a torn photograph of the two of them, smiling. It bled light. “You should’ve picked me,” Sarah said, her voice fraying at the edges. 

You always choose wrong.

“You always choose wrong,” the voice murmured. “That’s what you do.” The voice oozed from the dark, stitched from her own thoughts—like her worst fears had learned to speak.

Rebecca’s helmet was pressed too tightly. Her lungs heaved in shallow bursts. Her arms wouldn’t move.

Then the Soyuz capsule—exploding. A silent bloom of fire and metal and bone.

“No!” she screamed. Her voice echoed in her helmet, wild and raw.

Mark appeared, eyes dark and distant, cradling Paul and Sarah.

“They asked if you ever loved them,” he said flatly. “I didn’t know what to say.”

“Because she didn’t,” said the voice, close now, behind her eyes. “She loved the stars more. The silence. Herself.” It wasn’t just a voice—it was her guilt, her doubt, shaped into sound by the dark.

“You don’t get to say that,” Rebecca hissed, her hands trembling.

“But it’s true.”

Her parents stepped from the shadows, voices a chorus: “You were selfish.”

Rebecca dropped to her knees, gasping. Blackness crept up her limbs like ice in her blood. Her family faded. The void opened its jaws again.

“You’re not real,” she whispered. 

The voice laughed. 

The voice slithered out of the darkness, not separate from it but made of it—an echo forged from her buried guilt and twisted into something that wore her memories like a mask. It sounded like her... like them... like every cruel thought she’d ever tried to forget.

Her scream cracked the last of her strength. “You’re not real!”

The Gnomes surged like a tide. Their small bodies merged into massive hands, slamming the Doorwhere shut.

Rebecca clutched the key as her body gave out. The darkness took her.

But it didn’t win.

---

It simply was

The Dente Nocturn sat in a way that defied the idea of sitting. It did not hover, nor did it rest. It simply was—a presence woven into the dark, as if the void itself coiled around it in reverence or fear.

The Doorwhere to Everywhere, now closed, lay fallen on its side, its frame glimmering faintly in the gloom. A low sound rumbled from the Dente's core—not breath, not voice, but something deeper. Like hunger given form. Like thunder dreaming of flesh.

It had been long—too long—since it had tasted something living.

That flavor… Yes. Human, they called it.

There had been a moment—a whisper of that essence. Familiar. Achingly so.

It had been a thousand years since anyone opened a Doorwhere to this place. And not the Queen—not this time.

Time, even here, had frayed the bonds of its prison. The Underverse strained against itself, a patchwork of raw forces and unraveling purpose. The walls between worlds thinned, and from those cracks, the Unease stirred—subtle now, but gathering.

When the Unease rose fully, it would bring with it storms of thought and shadow, and through those storms, the Dente Nocturn would walk again.

I shall be free. To feed not in whispers, but in roars that would shake the bones of dying worlds.. No throne would bind it. No Queen would stop it. There would be only hunger, and the long feast to come.

But it had not been idle.

Even now, it slipped through unseen seams. A frayed memory here. A whispered fear there. A moment of hesitation where once there was love. Small things. Inconsequential, to most. But all rivers start as trickles.

It amused itself with these diversions. A pastime. A prelude.

And now…

That human.

---

The Queen's Residence has posted.

Rebecca stirred as the Gnomes carried her toward the Queen’s residence. They knocked on the door.

The sign on the door read: The Queen is resting. Please put her in the guest room. 

The sign changed: It’s the second door on the right—Don’t put her in the third room on the left like last time. That’s a broom cupboard.

The Gnomes carrying Rebecca, still clutching the key tightly in her hand, shuffled past a sign that read: This is the Guest Room!

Frustration filled the air, and a faint sigh escaped from a curtained window..

The Gnomes halted in front of the third door, a new sign read: This is not a Guest Room! But I guess it is now! Hang on….

A loud bang startled the Gnomes, who nearly dropped Rebecca.

The sign changed to read: There I’ve shifted the rooms.

The door opened with an audible, frustrated sigh. Inside was a simple bedroom: a large canopy bed, a window overlooking mountains, scuffed wood floors, faded yellow walls. Neat, but dusty.

The sign was quickly inscribed to read: Place her gently on the bed. One of the Majesty’s remaining attendants will be here shortly.

THUNK.

They missed the bed.

A sigh drifted from the curtains.

The words change again, although it may be the words inscribed were tinged with sarcasm: Thank you for your service. Her Majesty appreciates it.

The Gnomes squeaked and squawked at the sign.

The sign nearly shook as the words appeared: Oh My. That is very, very bad. I shall inform Her Majesty at once.

There was more high-pitched squeaking than squawking this time, the Gnomes still in the form of a hand.

The sign angrily expanded and read: You should have said so earlier. Should have been the first thing you said. You’re lucky she’s still alive.

The Gnomes then left the room. It took them three tries this time, but they finally found the right door back to the Garden of Nowhere. The Gnomes turned around to face the Queen's Residence and squeaked and squawked at it.

The sign read: Yes, I will miss her too.

Then, Gnomes finally began to break apart and go their separate ways, leaving a single Gnome behind. It squeaked and hummed, and then it rolled away back to its duties in the Garden of Nowhere.

The sign read: I’d almost be touched by that if they hadn’t left dirt everywhere again. 

The sign changed: And that stain! What do they eat? I’ve no idea how to get rid of the stain on the carpet now with the Queen’s passing….

The door to the Queen's Residence stood open for a bit longer, and then it closed slowly with small, quiet sobs.

The sign flipped one last time: 

The Queen is Dying.

Long live the Queen!

All further Appointments have been canceled.

---To be continued

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Next Time on The Queen of the Underverse…

After surviving an impossible encounter, Rebecca wakes in unfamiliar surroundings—naked, blurry-eyed, and questioning her sanity. With a talking cloak, a marble-skinned caretaker, and strange glowing patterns across her body, things are about to get weirder. What does the Queen want now—and is Rebecca truly safe, or just one twist away from a new kind of danger?

Chapter 5 - “It's Showtime"  - Just in time for the Queen’s final curtain call, or is it?

© 2025 Donnavon Evans

July 8, 2025