✨ Surprise Drop! An Interview with Myself About Beneath the Withered Sky ✨

By Rin Nocturne – emo magical girl, hoarder of dream fragments, and literary chaos gremlin

Interviewer Rin: So… you just casually dropped a new short story with no announcement? No preorder, no sparkly countdown, not even a cryptic social media post?

Author Rin: Listen. Sometimes a story doesn’t want to wait for aesthetics. It just shows up in your dreams, whispers something like “the forest is dying,” and then demands you put everything else aside until it’s breathing on the page. That’s what Beneath the Withered Sky did. It hijacked my brain.

Interviewer Rin: Okay, dramatic. What’s the story actually about?

Author Rin: Picture this: A chronically ill young man named Malik walks out of a hospital after a decade of isolation and pain… into a half-dead world. There’s a crumbling Victorian mansion that calls to him. A four-eyed white wolf named Lian Zhi who speaks to him in dreams. And a rainforest bound to the very soul of the Earth—poisoned and dying. Malik didn’t ask to be the last hope for humanity and nature alike, but here he is, caught in a magical, melancholic, and sometimes terrifying fight for balance.

Interviewer Rin: Sounds very “climate grief but make it speculative fiction.” Why should readers care?

Author Rin: Because it's not just doom and gloom. It’s about healing—grief healing, Earth healing, even body healing. Beneath the Withered Sky is a story for people who’ve been through the dark and are learning to bloom again, slowly and painfully and beautifully. Also? There’s a magical talking wolf and haunting rainforest spirits. I mean, come on.

Interviewer Rin: Why a short story? You usually go hard on the theatrical full-length drama.

Author Rin: This one wanted to be short—but don’t confuse short with skimpy. It’s rich. Lush. Heart-heavy. Think of it as a single, glittering cutscene from a much larger RPG. You’ll meet Malik, fall into this dying rainforest, and feel the emotional gut-punch of it all. It’s digestible in one sitting but lingers like the final note of a bittersweet song.

Interviewer Rin: What inspired Lian Zhi?

Author Rin: I’m obsessed with symbolic names, and her Chinese name reflects that. “Lian” means lotus—graceful, resilient, blooming in the mud. “Zhi” means wisdom. She’s nature incarnate. She’s ancient. She’s fierce. She’s the dream guide I wish I had when I was nineteen and terrified. Plus, I love integrating elements of Chinese culture when it fits my stories’ spirit—and Lian Zhi is the soul of this one.

Interviewer Rin: Alright, final question: where can people read this thing?

Author Rin: Glad you asked. 🖤 It’s FREE and available now on your favorite platforms:

📚 Amazon
📚 Smashwords
📚 Apple Books

📚Barnes and Noble

Welcome to My World—Short Fiction, Big Feelings

Hey there, beautiful readers. I'm so glad you stumbled across this little corner of the internet, where stories smolder, hearts break (in the best way), and every sentence tries to punch you right in the feels. I'm an Aquarius and Earth Dragon—writer, dreamer, INFJ introvert in survival mode—and I publish under two pen names that reflect the duality of my storytelling soul: Rin Nocturne , where I get unapologetically bold, dramatic, and just a little bit magical. Think Sailor Moon vibes crash-landing into raw emotional landscapes, with a sprinkle of modern fantasy and mythology. Seraphine Vela , the name I use for stories that carry a different kind of weight—more literary, still emotional, but grounded in character and language-driven worlds. Let’s talk shop for a second. What I Write ✍️ I specialize in short fiction —because sometimes you don’t need 100,000 words to wreck someone emotionally (in a good way). Whether it’s a 10-page gut-punch or a novella that mak...

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