Round 2? Ready?
Second verse same as the first.
Darkness
It flung open the doors with a certain finality. The sound travelled, it ricocheted from pillar to floor to stained pane. The chamber, the once great hall, was empty. A husk.
The throne was likewise vacant.
It strode. The torches bowed, and snuffed their flames as it passed. It was thin, and tall. Like a spear it surged forward.
It's gait filled the room with a booming beat. The decisive rhythm of marble underfoot. It reached the small stairs to the throne, a subtle reminder of place and status. Its shadowy self rose step by step, slowly, methodically. It savoured the moment, like one would a sip of wine.
It took its place, upon that vacant throne. And sighed.
Ten tendrils leaked from it's sitting shadow, they marked and scored all the way to the chamber door. From the tarred marks arose, it's Knights. Shades of scorched steel, bent double, bowed low. At the head of each contingent, a general. All genuflecting, all in awe.
It permitted a smile. It severed the grim countenance, and yawned into a deep crescent.
"Let there... Be... Night." It spoke
Ghoul
There are tales in this city, older than the hills, of a thing that slips and slides in the night.
It stalks, they say, from the grave to the glade, glade to the gullet of Glickem.
Meet them not, on the shivering moonless night. When mist flounders and falls like aborted clouds.
It is wrong, in the way only a mirror can be. Eyes black where white should be and a smile most foul.
Around its neck, like a morose scarf, a noose, a length of rope coiled.
Meet them not, on the shivering moonless night. Lest you fall -- Victim after victim, a knot in the rope.
Metal
In the rolling depths below God's blind eye, lived a Demon. Slave to the scripture within his bones, the destiny he was carved from. He toiled, same as the rest of the Damned.
One day, however, he looked up.
Streaking, cutting the sky, was a glistening shard. His eyes for the first time widened in awe, and a word birthed onto his tongue.
"Hope?"
He broke for it, to see the shard. He stumbled and sank, rose up and ran, legs atrophied after an eternity of dulled damnation suddenly grew firm.
He found the shards, under brimstone sand, gleaming. Glittering, it felt good in his hands.
Good... He had forgotten that word.
Ideas. Thoughts new and wonderful spiralled and exploded into his mind.
He smiled.
A small eternity later, the pit churned same as it had for millions of trillions of years. But then... They all looked up.
And they saw a Demon clad in shining armour, gilded with haloes, Heaven in Hell...
A lowly imp bellowed, their throat hoarse from years of silence.
"What are you?"
He replied.
"Hope."
History/Family
The heraldry was decayed. It hung over the mantle, sagging.
A fire had broke out, seemingly eloped from the fireplace and crawling in long scorching tendrils. The ash or smoke, or both had coated the coat of arms. Dulled it.
The rest of the house was likewise, sagging. A ruin, a place that was.
The Boy wandered through the front door, now an abstraction of an aperture. The lines of streaking fire scarred the walls, like fault lines. The Boy looked back, seeing his jeering classmates goading him to wander further. He took a shallow breathe.
The Boy passed paintings boiled in their frames, the subjects warped or illegible. His imagination made them literal. Aristocratic monsters and lordly devils.
The roof has collapsed, cutting the Boy off from the upper levels. He imagined things waiting for him up there. He'd rather stay away.
He entered the living room, with the fireplace. The epicentre. His pace, already glacial, slowed. The ash, even after these years, piled up like snow. The room towered around the Boy. The ceiling higher than the sky. The slight crunch of the Boy's slow steps did not echo, they just were. Unacknowledged by the cavern.
The heraldry sagged, no more.
It slipped after an eon of threats. Its impact onto the hard fireplace's stone, that echoed. Like a gunshot. The Boy stood over the ceremonial shield. He knelt in the ash, and wiped the shield clean. As clean as it could be. A beautiful chevron. A stern helm. An Aquila and a pair of crossed arms.
And a name.
"It's yours..." said the whispers.
Witches
She ran from the village, her leg painting a ragged red line in the snow.
The crowd were an ever cresting wave, just behind the hill, the creek, the river. Always roaring. Every time she looked back, hair blowing in her face by the chill wind.
She saw the low angry shine of torches. She cursed. Her leg was going numb. Her dress wasn't made for her impromptu sprint. She was shivering. Her teeth clattered louder and louder.
The edge of the woods. Dark brambles and untamed ancient trees that shot up and ended only when your eyes would water. Die here, in the open torn apart or die in there. The roars of the mob increased.
The choice was made for her.
The limp got worse, uneven and untilled forest floor tripped her every step. Still she ran, then walked, then stumbled.
The cold. It climbed the trail of blood and burrowed into her wound. Needling along her nerves and swimming gleefully from inch to inch, like the invading mob.
She fell onto the tangled roots of a tree. The fall was graceless, the sound of snapping twigs and bruised meat was sad. She shivered more and more. It was too much.
"Young one."
They spoke, finally. Their voices, a choir of discordant whispers, falling over one another.
The wind carried the tune they could not.
Her shivering started to slow.
"Look at what they did to you..."
"And what for?"
"No reason to treat a child like that, none at all."
They came out, one by one. From the shade, from the bramble, from those tall dark trees. Hooded but unique, each a different branch of the same tree.
Her shivering became soft painful sobs.
"Come now..."
"Don't cry."
"We'll take care of you."
"Poor thing."
She withdrew, sobbing harder.
The coven stayed where they were. Looking at one another.
The eldest emerged, her hood down. She was a round one. She knelt at her side and with her long old fingers stroked her hair.
"What is your name?"
...
"Hanna..."
The eldest looked Hanna in her eyes and said.
"That's a beautiful name. No one will hurt you here, Hanna. On my life."
Body Horror
Alan's breathing was quick. His nails chewed to jagged strips. He managed to get the room. A dank motel, far away from home. From the mess he made.
Alan tried to tune everything out. The rhythmic thumping from above and below. The buzz of the vacancy sign's tired neon. He sat on the bed shirtless.
That was when it struck. Flogging at him. That feeling, like fire dancing under his skin, 'round the small of his back and through the bands and lines of his muscles. His mind was blank, an empty space. No room for higher intelligent thought only a single savage desperate solution.
Scratch.
He clawed. Dragging those raw nails across and around the patches of invisible pain. No rash met him, only sweating reddening skin. If it were boils he could point to it, get a doctor to hack it off. But this was below, beyond the purview of any degree.
The pain snaked away from his claws. It split like a hydra's head, across his arms and up his throat.
Alan murmured in pain, gibbering a prayer half formed.
Childishly he kicked and tantrumed. Jumping and landing to try and get something else, some other sensation into him except the need to
Scratch.
His mouth was shut. Wired shit by will. He knew what would happen if he let slip even an inch. He hadn't breathed in a minute.
Alan gasped. His breathing a steady heavy beat.
Inoutinoutinoutinoutinout-in... out... In. Out.
Alan was gone. His raw nails, matured and lengthened. The fire wrapped around his heart and ensnared his lungs. Alan, or what was Alan's mouth widened and widened and widened. Silently. Further than his jaw should have allowed, but still the gap grew. He took his claws and dug after the pain.
And Scratch.
Noir
Gunsmoke and cigarette smoke are both signs of death. Although ones far quicker. Some would say I'm surrounded by death. It hangs in the room, any room, I'm in. Like a sinner on Sunday.
I pour a drink and flip open the file.
Missing Kid. Young, skinny.
Photo the Mom gave me, he had a big smile. The kind that hurt your back and scar your honest soul.
I feel I've seen him around, but I don't know where. When I took the case, the Lady gave me a big wad of cash. That wasn't odd, what was odd was what she said. Usually I tune stuff like that out. Its a lot of the same sets of words, same ideas played again and again and again like a skipping record. But she was off script.
“Thank you, sir. May Iagi bless you!”
Iagi...
Never heard of that before. I needed some fresh air. Smelled like death in there.
It was windy and grey. I flipped my collar to the breeze and carried on to the library. I came through the door like a leaf in a storm. Shivering I said hi to the clerk and made my way into the maze of books.
Iagi.
Saw nothing in the old books, about Gods and Religions and stuff. The clerk went to the bathroom, daily rag in hand. I perked up.
Newspapers? They have newspapers here!
I poured over the days, the months, the years until... 6 years ago.
Church of Iagi preacher embroiled in a murder case. Again with some torture business. And again, a month prior. This time with a Dad and his kid. Kid was...
Oh that's where I saw "him".
I took my usual route. It was late but not too late.
Entered, was greeted by Ana. She made my drink as I slipped off my coat and hung it on the mass of drying and damp jackets.
I sat at the bar. And there she was. Getting ready to head out, slipping on her overcoat.
Before she headed out I lifted my drink to her and said:
"Stay safe out there. You hear me?"
"Will do, thanks!"
She gave me a smile. Not like those in that photo, the kind that'd warm your heart. The kind that felt like life.
That’s enough of that. One thing that’s interesting is I am transferring these from Discord to Substack so I notice how short and snappy my paragraphs end up being. It’s interesting to be confronted with that.
Anyway,
As always
Thank You For Reading.