What would be worse to lose, your body or mind? That's the gamble one takes in the rebuilt remnants of the Bitterlands when they're exposed to the toxic air without a gas mask: either catch the flesh rot and slowly rot to death, or catch the soul rot and go insane.

Perhaps no one knows this better than Lacey, a fifteen-year-old in a group home for orphans of the rot. Despite the loss in her life, Lacey's gotten good at finding silver linings in a grey-tinted wasteland. When the unthinkable happens and her best friend catches the flesh rot, Lacey must steel herself and be there for him, no matter how hard it is. But as Lacey tries to show her friend a world with little things to hold on to, she can't help but reflect on the past and the tragic events that led to her being placed in the group home.

It's hard to be someone's rock when everything else has crumbled and rotted away.

"We Rotted in the Bitterlands" by Rachel Nussbaum is a Dystopian Horror novella published by Mannison Press, LLC.

Rachel Nussbaum is a writer and artist from the Big Island of Hawaii (and recent California transplant). She writes horror, science fiction and urban fantasy--basically anything with monsters. Rachel's short fiction has appeared in multiple anthologies including Night Terrors III from Blood Bound Books and The Mammoth Book of Dieselpunk from Running Press.

Rachel likes her coffee at all times of the day, loves animals, and hopes one day to write and illustrate her own novels and comic books.