You are listening to the fourth story for the month of December 2024, issue 219.

Welcome to Soul Jacker by Shari Paul.

And welcome to the Clarkshould magazine podcast.

My name is Kate Baker, and I'm your host and narrator.

Now, our author, Sherry Paul, is a speculative fiction

writer from Trinidad and Tobago, a land of oil, music, and carnival. Sherry has a BA in

literatures in English, but works as a clerk. She has been published in Faya, the dark, Clark's

World and Escape Pod, with reprints and Podcastle and

I'll Buyo. You may find her on X ranting about drama's music or anything really when

she's not writing. And if you like what you hear, you can go back to Beck, Asundant,

and between zero and one there is infinity.

Now, the reason I'm telling you about Sherry, the reason I tell you about all of our authors,

is because we can't bring them to you without your ongoing support.

So please visit patreon.com forward slash Clarksworld or Clarksworld Citizens.com or purchase that subscription. However you want to support us, please do so because we can bring

you works like Sherry's. We can bring you works each and every month. And if you've already

been doing that, if you've already been contributing, if this is your first story, or you've been with us from the beginning, thank you. Thank you so, so much.

With all that said, I do hope you can sit back, listener, and let me tell you a story.

Salome is always a little disoriented, the first few moments after logging out.

It's supposed to be like waking up from a dreamless sleep,

but instead it's like swimming to the surface from deep underwater. Her eyelids are heavy,

her eyes struggle to focus and she's breathing hard. And that's before she looks around and realize that she doesn't know where she is. It doesn't happen often, but sometimes the masquerader

does too much and finds themselves in places they shouldn't be.

...