Dead Man Division: Keeping the Dream Alive

Dead Man Division takes place in the near future where Earth is invaded by parasitic insect-like aliens. Within 15 years, America has fallen and the rest of the military hasn’t given up hope and is found scattered around the nation with the intent to find a way to take back the country.

The short story, itself, takes place in the eyes of Doctor Miranda Chavez, a xenobiologist tasked with finding out a piece of information that could turn the tide of war. She is attached to a squad of soldiers, heading to No Man’s Land to complete their mission.

The story takes place within one day and mainly follows the personality of the daily life of each character, within its wartime, sci-fi setting.

I’ve been having dreams of writing this story back in early 2019. Ideas formulating while I slept about characters and conflicts over the course of several nights. I tried to scribble down the ideas into my docs of notes, what I remembered. I drew a rough sketch of the Scouting Mechanized Carrier (SMC or “Smoke” for short.)

I’m terrible at drawing vehicles, or else I wouldn’t be too embarrassed to share it with you.

Some of the characters found in the story are based on people i know. Collins is a self insert of myself and my bizarre fountain of useless pop culture knowledge, while Spears is loosely based on my Dad and his poetic personality.

Dead Man Division came in a time of my life where I questioned both the need and love for my writing, and hadn’t not been for it, I doubt I’d have continued my path to being an author.

Read Dead Man Division Here!

Art by Megan Steadman