“ROOTS” Story Concept

Digital Painting

By Taylor Bender

Monsters live amongst humans, invisible to all but those with the keenest of eyes.

Dolly Hart’s biggest secret is also her proudest characteristic: she’s an extravagant amalgamation of spider, succubus, and human, the most unique combination of genes, giving her the most extraordinary acrobatic abilities the world will never see. Due to the classified nature of monster-kinds' existence, her acts must stay hidden in the underground clubs and dives of Hedera city, lest she be taken away and imprisoned just as her hybrid parents were long ago. But as years go by, and the more everyone changes, the more she stays painfully the same. Could a little extra exposure be exactly what she craves? Is a bit of attention worth the risk of being caught in another creature’s web?

Aspen Anderson is not, in fact, a noble loser- though he's lived this long without winning much. He's had a lot of practice losing, a lot of nights ended with fists to his face and spit in his eyes, with lost wallets and lost pride. After getting caught by Hedera city’s police for alleged public intoxication, he thinks it'll be his biggest loss yet, until they come to him with a proposition: expose fellow monsters in the city, or else be exposed himself as a half-human, half-fae abomination. Aspen thinks his life is over, doomed as a fly on the wall for “The Man” to use and abuse, until he realizes there may be some benefits to having the law go wherever you tell them to. Like lemmings off a cliff.