The Bonds That Bleed, Part IV

The red cloud hung over the sky like a bleeding mist, perpetuating the groaning torment of the eons all drawn into one semi-solid form. The lies and misdeeds swelling like a womb.

I stood there, black as black, a shadow cast in iron doubt. I was the warrior whisper, armored by those whispers I had lain with.

I stood there on a barren field of empty rock and dirt, dust still hovering where my feet had touched, but I left no prints. The echo of my passage nothing, as I had made myself to be.

How I knew this, I did not understand.

Then in the fold of my brains, wisps of others melded together in a sinewy tendril like intestines, I heard a voice of touch instead of sound. I felt the speech in my mind.

It made me filthy. Yet this was for my own acts reaccounted through my eyelessness, feeling every thought I ever had absorbed.

On the pebbles and rock, atop the dust and bones, a man of shadow, a memory, walked with company. His inky wings folded behind his back. He walked companionably with a fox at his side, a thing with the tail of a scorpion.

The winged one saw me, though he never looked my way. Coy eyes only light and feathery, a look for another, not I.

The fox raised his head, a powerful beast cut and bruised, always freshly bleeding, always his tail lashing at his own body.

"Master," said this fox, his voice pained and subdued yet laced with violence. "Prophet, See. Shall I void him now, this knight of Doubts?"

A smile barely perceived, a hint of a memory, graced the lips of this winged prophet. He said: "Do you see the memories inside him, of him? They, like you, are lost within their own suffering. Do you see?"

"I do not See like you, Prophet, this you know."

"You both know each other well, from a time before Time, in a different memory."

I was stunned silent. I could feel those words toiling around, making me real, making me gag on its congestion.

The prophet looked at me then, his eyes alight and dead and real, when everything else were but smoky hazes of a reverie. "I know you, Walaffai; you once knew Djetul. Forget and be rejoined, for you were once brothers."

This last part was to the fox.

The fox lowered its head, inching it forward. "Walaffai; the Whisper Shaker, Shadow Gout; I have heard you in my dreams. A foul wind blows around you."

I spoke, then, with the words from the memories of others, "I feel toiled and broke. Why am I here? I know Depth of Heart I see, Prophet; the Ebon Man, the Black Devil, for I know your names as well, cursed fox. I am not here to bandy words, for I am confused. Where am I?"

"I have found you, Walaffai. When we knew each other in the other Memory Time, now we do not. I have come to offer you council, for you are a broken, pieced together by nothing and more. Never but Ever."

What the Prophet said was true and honest; it shook my soul with a vice-like grip. Yes, he did know me and well, and truly he was a Prophet and the rejected Son of the Gods.

"Council me, then, Prophet." And I lay there prostrated.

"I tell you that there is disease as Old taking heart and will. You must refuel them, feed them. Be their father but do not coddle them. You must need let go of your pain and do, for your hand as never seen is your sword and shield, the shadows your armor. Use them wisely, for shorn them and they will choke you."

I heeded the words of the prophet. The clink and clatter of my armor loud and rauckus. My body talking always in whispers. There was no silence to me, for I was, as the prophet had touched in my mind, nothing but the doubt that I had twisted so readily over the years.

Then, the prophet said unto me: "Go now, for the longer you dwell here, Walaffai, the more likely you are to awake in Annwn. Find yourself, and may we never see one another again. For you now, I rekindle the sun of your light, for it creates your darkness. You must need be both. Fortune be with you, lest I have need of reaping what you have sewn."

The Bonds That Bleed, Part III

Within the confines of the tent, there was a sense of death and rot to the place that made me recoil, and as I did, I saw her. The shell of of my love. Nothing more than a barren husk that jerked and spasmed and screamed with hollow, hollow eyes.

My entire body went rigid.

The sun of my light snuffed, lit, and exploded out in a destructive sphere.

I remember skinned knees, blank eyes, and a touch that quit. On my knees before her, I tried to connect, sliding my fingers down her face in that very common way for me to communicate my adoration for her. She snapped back like a wounded animal; her eyes tore into me, accusing me as her tormentor.

My body spasmed and cursed itself, a poison that soared through my veins like cold water. A sweat broke out as I watched the ground tear out from between us. The quaking earth burst and rent in a frenzied madness, sending showers of boulders through the air. I stared in disbelief as she shrunk back, growing smaller and smaller in my view. The walls fell away and left me there on my small island of despair while the darkness around my lover cruelly offered her the world. All within the confines of the tent.

I tried to connect, to establish some form of contact that would awaken her, yet she howled enraged and frightened and clawed at me as if I were the cause of this pain.

The realization was a slap in the face, the damage ten-fold, as I fought the Darkness in her with rapier and dagger, only to be thrown aside by the cleave of the claymore.

Others came, shutting out the space within the voided tent and spewed foul rot from their mouths, burning my skin. Burning.

Information shot up around me like pieces of flint shun from a blade. Lost ever more in the air as one part of me shot greedy hands out to shove the words into my mouth, but it did no good as the chips melted into gas and smoke. The other part of me reached out across the abyss for my love, and I knew nothing but the fact that I am not...capable.

How could they not see the condition my love was in? How could they be so fucking thoughtless and senseless and hateful and--

In a flurry of angry tears, I screamed and jerked around, blade drawn and re-sheathed into the blonde woman's throat. I watched as she tried to talk. It reminded me of someone talking under water, the way the words bubbled. She mewled and I sneered, twisting and ripping my dagger from her. The man I know. I saw him. I felt him like a renegade thought laughing playfully, like my son used to. His shock stayed his hand; my foot shot out, took his knee from him. Completely. To the stones of the dead fire he crawled, and I did the one thing that would please me the most. I took his head, opened his mouth, put it on the edge of the rock, and STOMPED on the back of his head.

The lesson is to curb yourself or someone else will do it for you.

I sat there before my lost love unfound. I could hear the two talk behind me. Man and woman.

I cried her name with mine tears.

I reached back out for her, the distance growing exponentially now as she shoved me away, scrambled over and burst towards the exit. Suddenly wild and feral, she lashed out, restrained.

I looked around; uncontrollable animal held by whore, blockaded in by mutt, and the monster gorging on words and emotions.

The sun of my darkness bore my secret name, mocking me.

Always mocking me.

The Bonds That Bleed, Part II

There was blood and bone in that barren room what felt like a battlefield. It was a rebirthing room, angry with the contractions of a woman in labor.

The hotness of her was searing to the touch, instantly evaporating all forms of disillusion and would allow for nothing but cold fact. The methodical touch like one would graze wood or stone was all I could give her. But give to her I did.

My hands worked over her like an experienced man deflowering a virgin bride, for that was what she was to me, now and ever more. She was my bride sealed by that of blood and unity; the very beat of her heart was the throbbing of my seed filling her like a womb.

Broken was she, that I set her a-right the best I could. A fickle game that had need of the poison coursing her veins. It was the clock by which I worked.

On the verge of death I managed to salvage her life, while stripping the last of her dignity away in one fell swoop. Although at that very time I could not admire her shapely body, I knew that in hindsight when I saw her lying there she would not be broken and bloodied, but the harbinger of sensuality, accepting me with her breasts as they heave with exhilaration, hips wide and wonderful for bearing a man as well as child. The fiery union of her exalting sweetness a mixture that no man could resist. I knew that in hindsight, should I view her complete and whole and ready, my loins would burn like tomorrow set afire.

The Darkness had tainted me, for I was not always so callous and thoughtless to a woman and my desire for her. While my love thought myself impure, I danced the gray and melted the blackness with my infidelity, even if it were only in thought.

Thoughts pervade; salacious and infectious. This known to men like me...if ever there were any.

Back to thought, I moved like a whisper on a dream through her shrouded perception of life. When weak and dying, there were always regrets and life unlived. I knew that and that was the curse I knew that was bestowed upon me from that omnipotent whirlwind of Darkness. I could only imagine what other damage had been caused me by my curiosity that was not sated.

Exhaustion took me then, and as she slept, I turned away with a callous indifference. I could not let myself even admire a life saved, because work must be continued and she was now incapacitated, dead to the whispers that were out and about, needing to be harvested.

There was only one other who should be given the right to managing her care, and this skrell of haloed horns was whom I sought. Her with her single-point trident and unwavering ignorance and devotion. A psychopath incorporated into the path of the gods, who even to this day I am uncertain as if they care naught for the havoc wreaked by the Ebon Plague.

I paced well my passage to Milford, leaving alone the living dead, trying to focus on bringing solitude to her for I could not give her that when my own body denied me peace. I could no longer look at her as just a child shroud in cloak and concealed from me. I had seen her naked and I will see her mend; when those two combine I know the blasphemy will be mine to bear; my heart upon my sleeve.

The third mistake I made that night was the fire in my loins.

The outpost empty and vague, a decrepit bastion of armed solitude, reminding me of a promise I made at the quotation of another: I will be the war that protects you.

She was not there, this Zealot of the Fields. She was not there when she was needed, and I curse her name, condemning her to the shallowness that fermented within the rotting core of this haven.

So I find solitude where I can; the demons and wolves leave me be as my memories and thoughts brood and churn. They are afraid, as they should be. Even I am not left without the mocking laughter of the unvoiced Gods as their blessings condemn.

So I find solitude where I can; the sun of my light palpitated like a heart, bright and then dimmer than before.

So I find myself before the spearing tip of the Darkness that had yawned and swallowed me. I watch its veins of blood and heat throb through the smoky blackness, ominous and inviting in a way that would attract a mortal with its maliciousness.

I do not find myself daunted by the realization that men and all other races were violent and sloth to begin with, because the gods could do only as they could, making us in their own image. The fact that they begged for loyalty and faith and perfection, while they themselves spread the seeds of arrogance and self-worship was not a paradox, it was a contradiction.

A hypocrisy.

Too many times I had stood on the cusp of the precipice and screamed for them to answer me. What was to be deified as sacred was nothing more than a rotten mold cast upon the earth, told to be the bread of the gods. Why separate themselves when they knew full well their disease and lies, and that they all were forged from the mold of trickery and deceit.

The Eight are One.

I said this to the portal crawling over the ground like the dead pulling itself from the grave. Clawing. Clawing.

There was blood upon the ground nearby. I could see it glittering like diamond-encrusted rubies in the night's poor light, when the red moon kissed the sky in the Witching Hour. I paid no heed knowing that people of all walks of life were intrigued by what the Darkness held. The only problem was that they wanted to know but could not tolerate the pain.

I am not a man of combative prowess, yet I stood the wrath of it for much longer than any other. I am the One. But again, like the gods I knew that that was a double-edged sword. My life was destroying itself piece by claw-raked piece. And that was only the surface of it.

Something tickled at my senses. I looked to the blood again and became the leopard, tracking down its passage, like moving forward, back in Time.

Through the fields I hunted, untouched by demon and man and beast alike. I was a child of the Night, as I always had been. I am the Walaffai, the Whisper Shaker, knowing a fly upon my web through all senses simultaneously.

I was brooding, cold and methodical. I was being me in all my splendor and glory, a Dark Templar of an onerous nature. Reap what had been sown.

That was until I saw the rose on the abandoned campground earth, forlorn and drenched in fresh blood.

The sun of my light quivered and imploded.

The Bonds That Bleed, Part I

The sun of my light pulsed, dimming and drawing in on itself.

Like a whorl, my two existences collided with one another and melted together. Drawing inward, always inward.

A kiss of passion ended when he interrupted me and mine. What had been a promise of sexual brimstone and fire was gone now, like ashes choking out life, when he said those fated words.

"She needs you."

Like a switch, forlorn was dormant and an echo of a memory, as it should be.

The tavern's main room was not as I had just left it. The quietude had shattered and now concern and voices mingled with the smells of blood. Like a leopard on a scent, was I, as I stalked down she who was grievously injured, sitting upright awaiting judgment from me, whom she had come for.

The words of my lover were muted and distant, and as much as I had not wanted to take that flight, it was mandatory. For the sake of prosperity, I needed this redhead alive. Like her carmine hair, she was part of the blood that flood from my veins into the city about me.

Damn it all, you pasty fool, do you know what you have done?

There was ticking in the backdrop, soft and true. It called my secret name.

It teased me.

There was no longer any way to conceal my involvement with this teenage girl. I had relied so heavily on the image that I partook of her sweet sex, fucking her into adherence.

But now that was gone; I was forced to reveal my hand and play off of the River. I could not stave off the wolves and whelps and envious children of the Ignorant any longer. I had to openly require the right to touch her, this skittish girl.

Now they knew I was not her lover. While they may not have put it together then, the pieces of the puzzle fell inevitably, irrefutably in place, for one would remember and pass that knowledge onto someone who could discern fact from mask.

Her bodily injuries baffled me. It looked as if something had played her like a fiddle until she cracked and broke. I could smell fresh blood exuding from her. I could taste the salt of her sweat as it, vermilion and burning, mixed with her blood.

She should not be here; she should be in the hospital.

Gripping me like a lifeline, the first touch she had ever laid upon me was faint and distant, she whispered to me, those gray eyes hot and vague, lost to everything common and decent, strive within to plead and beg me for life. I was not the Berserker, and I did not take life needlessly.

I do not abandon those to Annwn when my blood was theirs.

Maybe I was angry with her or with myself, but I knew that I was enraged at the fools and bigots that littered this tavern, staring and gawking like fucking fish upon the sight of their own reflection.

"Please," her eyes pleaded, crying out for me in pain and exhaustion. "I crawled all this way because I need you. Help me help you! HELP ME HELP YOU!"

Down on my knees for her, in front of my own lover, I cooed with my own eyes that were not as dead as my face. "I promised my blood for yours, lover-mine of the Web. I will adhere to my words and make love to your wounds until they curl and close with sighs of contentment."

Discarding the pale rider was simple enough; a quick flick of my barbed tongue and he mewled like a kitten starved. I am a leopard on the prowl; I am the viper that spun the webs that connected deceit to deceit.

The first mistake I made that night was enlisting the one person I should not have. My lover, her skin as dark as mine, hair as metallic and wild as mine; yet it were her eyes that I spoke to then, summoning the unpredictability within those emerald orbs, and I had honed it to my own calm and measuring windows.

Through the streets I had carried that young woman who had cuts and tears and breaks externally to match those that she hid from the world. I heard her light sigh and groan. I had to move quickly. Before she flickered and faded.

My second mistake was taking my lover to the home of this girl, which ironically poisoned her mind in the exact opposite way that it had infiltrated the others. She was to not know these things, not like this, and it came as a pain to me as my hallowed heart was quaking.

She delivered the young, broken woman's things to her doorstep and left me there with a look that said to me so many things I shall never forget them, for they slipped through my defenses like a hot knife.

"Goodbye, my love. Goodbye, so that when you see me again and hold me in your arms and eyes, it shall be without my heart and mind, for you have bled me so this day, taking this last innocence from me. And I shall never forgive you."

She bade me farewell and left with the flight of foot so common to her gypsy blood, my rose still in her hair. But I could not cry for her, not then, and I did not pursue her for my task was to heal and nurture another woman...at the cost of my own deep love.

A snick and the door closed. A sound that emanated the closure of one chapter of my life.

The sun of my light swelled in upon itself and the dark side of light became my own.

Pearl

You against the door; whispers in your ear. "Bear with me."

Bear with me, because I am about to just...let...go.

Fingertips down your face, the one I know so well over such a short time. There is passion there, desire; there are emotions here, too, ones that you know. Ahhh, can't you see, darlin', that I can tell? Any fool can see it in your eyes.

A kiss, soft and tender, so I may bask in your essence. I breathe a sigh, hot against your lips. I let my hands roam free to palm back your thick hair. Another kiss. Ahhh, I must control this, until you follow. I don't think you'll understand until it's too late.

So be it.

The desire comes forth unbidden, bubbling up to the surface and I just let it out. I have done all but bear my soul to you, so why let it stop now? The Darkness has a way of giving despair; I am driven now into your arms, love, by that very thing but for hope, longing. A bit of human touch.

To the bed we go, hand in hand, mouth to mouth, and I am dancing with you to this lovers' tune. Breaths and sighs lacing through our anticipation, and I cannot wait--but I must. I try.

Slowly so that my eyes may know every part of you, let my hands remember every contour, every fiber...every tremble. But that can't happen. I'm incapable of doing it. I don't know what's harder for me, restraining you or controlling myself.

Let go.

Hands drift from your coppery hair to your dress, pulling it up and over, removing the barriers between us. It dawns on me then as we do this that there is a hunger inside of me that spoke truth before. We are walking down a path that probably nethier of us were looking for but more than likely need.

I am drawn in by the scent of you. It makes me lightheaded, and the pressure of being inside you is a welcomed bliss. You and I savor the feeling of being one. I hold you and close my eyes.

A flash of sooty crimson smears across my vision and I clench my eyes tight. Arms beneath you, I hold on, letting your beauty and the slickness of your skin fill my senses, washing away these dark, dark images. I let go and pour myself out into you, releasing every fear and passion of mine with every emotion my body carries. I tense with the suddenness of this yearning that, at this point, is undefined.

I hear your breaths and feel your hands clenching my shoulders and it sounds like you cry out in a way that has so much more inside of it than mere lustful pleasure, and this I cling to, only now realizing that I am on the verge of tears that will not come. I hold you tighter unwilling to focus on the release of the floodgates, and I think that maybe I am afraid right now to know just what it is I'm doing, possibly ashamed but not stopping because it is far too late.

Now I know, somewhere out there, between the sheets and nestled in your hair, I am begging quietly, and you can hear me. You and I, amidst this rolling wave of energy, because I know this is not just a simple experience we share. To me, at least, it is so much more.

Depleted now, I stare unfocused at your hair upon the pillow. I am too exhausted, I think, to see the damnation of days past, but I am still ashamed to expose myself this way to you. In the afterglow, I am still on the verge of tears.

Have I offended you? I just need you to hold me tonight.

The Rack

"Hush, now. Shhh...hushaby, baby. Shhh...quiet now. Just over there, can you see him?"

"I can."

"Isn't he getting big? Looks more like you everyday. Acts like you, too."

"Awe, I ain't so bad, am I?"

"Not so much that I can't handle. You have your sweet moments. I think those are the reason why I stay with you."

"How'd he get so big?"

"Don't be surprised, hon. He's twelve now, almost a man grown."

"Jus' so hard t'believe. Does he know me?"

"Do you want to go and talk to him, love? Alright, then! Go see him. He's been very eager to see you."

"He has, huh?"

"Yes, he has. He wants to tell you about how his skin rots off and grows back as scales. How he plays with the other kids, tearing out their eyes and gorging himself on their innards."

"Wh-what?"

"Love? What's wrong?"

A searing pain lanced through his body causing him to buckle over, leg shooting out to catch himself. The black hotness like the suns bake his insides, making him sweat profusely. His foot slid on the brown and bright red blood. A rumbling emitted from the walls, thrumming like wardrums, each beat sending a wave of agony through him like a liquefied explosion. It was like breathing.

Forcing himself to look up, he spies the great slab of cerulean gemstone and watched a reflection that had no real presence vanish out of range, and then like a sigh the stone merely vaporized and a few chunks of coal tumbled down, splashing into the blood like slop. Now there were bodies everywhere, unknown faces staring out with empty eyes or sockets. They were burned and torn and skinned; most had their intestines and other organs flowering out of their chest cavities and stomachs.

The walls pulsated like an artery, blood spurting up behind the cloudlike substance that roiled and churned, groaning in ecstasy. Every sound a lick against the man, forcing him to his knees, and all he could do was wrap his arms around his stomach as if to hold it back from bursting open.

"Stop it! Dat tickles! Hey, don't complain, yer likely tuh get more den a slap if y'keep it up! Hey! Hey! That--stop dat! Ooh, gods...no, don't stop..."

It throbbed, from inside of him outside. This was a queer feeling when it wasn't agonizing, and pure chaotic turmoil when it felt like his liver and kidneys were boiling or ash flaking away from the walls of his lungs. He cried out because the pain was all too real. Rents and tears slithered onto random places of his body, feeling like a sword's cut, slow and meticulous.

On his knees now, with as much strength as he can muster he forces himself to look around yet again, as if somehow trying to discern the reality of that place. But he snapped his eyes shut as a bloody tear evaporated from off of his cheek, leaving a brown snowflake drifting in the chamber.

He screamed.

"Look at me for once, please! I know you see me. You see everything. You. You make my life worthwhile and it's you that I'm too frightened to thank! Gods, I want to just express myself, give you that one thing which you really want! But is it enough? Is it good enough for you that you can have what you want, but I'm left without so much as a goodbye? What is it about you that keeps me hanging on. Why do I feel like I should just--nevermind. This is too much for me. I'm crazy."

Words echoed in his head, but they were his own. Or was he speaking aloud? There was no difference to him as he felt the palpatating anger drive him over, to his knees, to his hands, on his face. It was a heavy burden that moved over him, not unlike the stare of a loved one scorned. Something clicked.

With Will his only ally, as he knew it would be when he originally came to this place, he pushed himself up. Ribbons of flesh separated as muscles strained, scarlet beads popping out with a spitting sound. He groaned in agony. The chamber moaned in ecstasy. He sneered and squinted and focused, his ears filled with the voices of things once said, things left unsaid, and those that were yet to come.

He could see them out of his peripheral but he could not touch them. At a chance to see them he would look and nothing would be there except for the corpses, the rot, and the blood. The veins in his neck bulged out as he came to his knees. Turning, he could hear the thoughts and voices clearly, knowing the web in his mind was spinning.

Turning, he fell and dragged himself forward. Palms bubbled with blisters that popped, blood mixed with puss and sweat. His mouth was open as he breathed, focusing, trying. His will was still his own though it was wavering, no longer steadfast and true. Lacerations covered his face and neck, bones snapped and protruded from cut skin. Massive humps separated on his shoulderblades and still he pushed on.

What had occurred to him, what had given him the means to actually retreat, was that he should be dead, yet he was not. Each time he moved, he screamed. Screamed in torturous agony, screamed in determination, and screamed to simply hear the sound of his own voice. Vermillion saliva dripped from his mouth in a long, continual strand that turned carmine on the bloody floor.

Upon his knees near the wall of billowing clouds of ash and bone and blood, he reached a hand out, touched the face of the wall and wanted to recoil back. A great spasm of pain quaked through his body and he continually trembled with the shock of it. The heat and cold and pain and despair wound through his frame and made his flesh quiver over his muscles like a sheet in the breeze. Eyes wide open, he stared with an open mouth unable to make a sound. His heart thumped. Stopped. Thumped. Stopped.

Thump.

Thump. Thump. Thump, thump, thump-thump-thump.

"Are ya' still wit' me, love? Heh, good. 'Cause it's time t'wake up. Wake up."

Behind Eyes Wide Shut

The sun has just risen.

The horizon melts away into a bulbous form that takes on the shape of a large semi-sphere just beginning to ascend into the sky. Green bleeds back into a whitish sky-blue, and then further up, an indigo. Cirrus clouds streak the heavens, awed and sitting next to her on a slope of a hill, backs to the way they have traversed. Molten colors begin to shiver with the haze of the early morning mist beginning to burn off. It will be a few hours until that eventually happens; it is always a pleasure to watch until the sun is fully in the sky. Then, and only then can the day begin.

Impatience is nonexistent. On the grassy hill, the scenario unfolds for those youthful faces full of hope and quiet awe, while staring off into the distance, captivated. The bare tip of the sun breaks away from the horizon like a retrogressive teardrop; an invert bead of gold. The edge of the horizon shakes, ripples, and then separates mint-green from the copper base of the star. Liquefied air quivers before settling. Already the shadows are retreating, awaiting night once more. The paper thin clouds drift by lethargically, airbrushed onto the canvas of perpetual blue.

Dark eyes find green ones, and she smiles with love and unbound passion. Soft, heart-shaped thoughts budding from a river of sighs. Leaning in, she offers a kiss as languid and soft as the morning dew. She draws back to open eyes of sincerity, but there's a darkness lining the edge of her countenance.

Pain like sliding down a razor's edge fills her eyes, mouth peeling back as lips melt into the haze of a deteriorating backdrop. Teeth shimmer in the sun and laughter fills the air, but it's source isn't from her, yet it is a yawning hollow at the crest of the sun's form that twitches and slyly curves up at the newly budded corners.

Her, life as it has always been known, dies in all but reality as skin slides like wax over bone growing from her cheeks and brow and shoulders. Empty sound emits, she hunches over, quaking and jerking as hands grasp at the voided air before her. She reaches.

Reaches.

Golden hair, once so beautiful, crowns an ashen skull that grins; agony turns to emptiness in her eyes, while the smile bears more empathy, desire. Reaching. Reaching.

Running, breathing hot and thick. Suffocating. Tears burning through the darkness that infests everything it touches.

Grass slithers and withers as tiny horns spiral from green stalks. Gnarled hands spread from branches of trees, opening dormant eyes and jagged teeth of bark, speaking with voices from within the recesses of blistering red, furnaces once hollow and quiet. Great behemoths with unsteady gaits lope in the distance, corporeal body parts joined together in a melting pot, limbs protruding from its bulbous body; its eyes, thousands of them upon its husk, twitch and stare all around its form as it walks. They raise their heads, one after another, and cry a deep, mournful sound full of tears and pain and despair.

The carcasses of the dying still moving drag uncooperative limbs behind them as they dawdle, trying to bite the air. A mockery of a kitten nipping at bugs. Others were humping each other or rocks or trees. The latter would coil fingered branches around the violators and drag them into hungry mouths, roots rising to shove the foodstuff greedily into their orifices. Smoke plumes from between the teeth of crunching jaws smiling like the sun.

Distance needs screaming, haunting. Home. Through the door and past remains of one parent being eaten by the other, and into the nursery...