The Glister

In the desolate, post-industrial village of Innertown, a palpable sense of decay and despair permeates the air, mirroring the environmental ruin that surrounds its inhabitants. Mysterious illnesses proliferate, yet a deeper, more insidious horror unfolds largely unnoticed: teenage boys are vanishing into the poisoned woods that encircle an abandoned chemical plant. Amidst the pervasive apathy, where even the town’s lone, jaded police officer finds his leads evaporating, these disappearances are met with silence or willful ignorance. However, for one particular boy, the derelict chemical plant isn't a monument to ruin but a place of unsettling beauty and potent mystery. Driven by a quiet resolve, he begins to formulate a plan, convinced he can alter the grim fate awaiting the children of Innertown. His desperate quest will force him to confront the raw, blinding reality that pulsates from the very heart of the plant's cavernous, forbidden core, challenging conventional notions of innocence, exposing profound evil, and meticulously dissecting the shadowed morality of a forgotten community. Burnside masterfully crafts a narrative that plunges into the darkest corners of the human psyche against a backdrop of literal and metaphorical poisoning.