Sun field
A man as tall as a castle tower, and as thin as a newly planted tree stood alone in an empty field. Covering his pale, dirt stained flesh was an old, well worn black robe. The only other thing the man had with him was a brown, leather bound book that was covered in leather straps holding it closed. The field was surrounded by trees, too thick to see through, and the field itself mostly covered in the wet green grass, coated with the dew from a humid morning. Near the edges of the large field, just before the surrounding forest, were weeds extending around four feet into the sky. A small amount of sunlight was visible through the thick, dark, almost opaque clouds enveloping the entire sky above the man's' head.
The man fell to his knees and bowed his head. The moisture of the field began to seep into the cloth covering his knees, and sent a chill down his spine.
The man's' forehead bowed down until it touched the grass, insects and water from the ground began to absorb and crawl into the fabric on the hood of his cloak.
A large centipede had quickly crawled it's way into the mans' hood and began to climb around the outside of his skull. Upon finding the man's' ear canal, the centipede began to crawl inside. The man could feel each of the small creatures thirty or so legs grabbing on the outer rim of his ear as it slowly crawled its way deeper inside.
The mans' teeth grinded and his face scrunched up as he lost hearing in his left ear. Suddenly on the top of the man's' head, a small feeling of pressure began to form. The bug had made its way, under the flesh, to the top of his skull.
The man slowly sat up, on his knees still, and brought his pale hands that were covered in dirt up above his head as he took off his hood. His book lay on the ground before him, and as his hood fell onto his back, the book began to shake violently. It's leather straps acted as large tentacles, flailing around as the book and it's pages convulsed. Wicking water off nearby grass, creating a mess of liquid leather squirms before the man. The book shot open to a page near the back of the book and stopped shaking.
The man, breathing heavily and visibly worried, stared at the book which was now slowly levitating a few feet off the ground. He heard a crunching noise that sounded like an echo, he realised quickly that it came from within his own skull. Feeling the top of his head, the centipede had now landed itself dead center on top of the man's skull, and deflated itself somehow, releasing the horrible pressure in his skull.
The book floating before the man tilted towards him, calling him to read the pages that were presented to him. His neck twitching, his hands shaking, and his knees so cold he couldn't feel them anymore, he looked at the pages of the book.
Inscribed on the pages were sigils, symbols, and pictures of large centipedes inside of magic circles and triangles. He began to speak the phrases on the page out loud, repeating them like a mantra, quietly to himself.
His jaw shaking, as his body twitched in the cold damp field, he focused on his breathing and calmed himself, continuing the ancient phrases as his eyes fluttered like hummingbird wings, and behind them his eyes turned black.
"There is he is!" a large bearded man screamed from the edge of the forest.
A large mob of people with torches, pitchforks, and axes became visible as they exited the forest behind the bearded man.
"Charlie, you don't have to keep going down this path!" someone from the mob of people yelled.
"Please Charlie, let us help you, let the church help you!" said a middle aged woman at the back of the crowd.
"Stay back here, give me a moment with him alone" the bearded man said.
The bearded man approached the cloaked man that was still on his knees. Upon seeing the book floating in mid air, the bearded man kept his distance and slowly made his way around to the front of Charlie, who was still kneeling on the ground, so he could see his face better.
He was greeted with his brother's face, but something was wrong. Pale flesh, and a thin body, his brothers' eyes were black, and his neck was snapping, and twitching in all directions as he muttered something under his breath.
"Charlie, please it's me, Tristan. I just want to help you, please let's get back to town and we can go the church, they'll know what to do to help you in these dark times you’ve fallen upon."
Charlie's' head stopped twitching, the book dropped to the grass covered ground, and with his still blackened eyes Charlie turned to stare into the soul of his brother Tristan.
"Come here my brother, I must share something with you" Charlie whispered under his breath.
"Alright Charlie, but then we're going back to town."
As Tristan made his way closer to his brother, he noticed the top of Charlie's' bald head had a large black marking on it, going down the middle towards his spine that appeared to be moving.
"Charlie, what's that on the top of your head?" asked Tristan
"Come closer my brother, worry not about this body" Charlie slowly hissed through chattering teeth, and out of his mouth.
Tristan was finally close enough to his brother to lay a hand on his shoulder and take a knee beside him.
"What is it Charlie, what can we do to help you, the whole town is worried about you. Father John said that if we bring you back to the church he's read about how to help fix your path and make your life a more righteous one. You've gotten into something dark haven't you Charlie? Oh please let us help you, let the church help you!"
Charlie exhaled a scoff like laugh, and brought his mouth close to Tristan's' ear.
"Brother, I don't need the church, for I am the son of God" Charlie whispered.
"Charlie, you are not the son of God, you need hel-"
Before Tristan could finish his sentence, Charlie had a cold, pale, and clammy hand around his throat. Charlie stood up to his feet while lifting Tristan off the ground choking him as his face began to turn shades of red, and then blue. Veins in his forehead bulging as if ready to pop at any second. His black eyes staring into his brothers, as he began to speak once again.
Black liquid poured out of his mouth as he screamed in a gargled tone.
"I AM THE SUN OF GOD!"
Charlie snapped his brothers neck, and allowed the body to fall limp to the ground, where thousands of small bugs burrowed their way out of the dirt and began to devour his flesh almost instantly.
Charlie's book began to shake, and floated back off the ground and placed itself, floating just in front of Charlie's' body.
The crowd of people on the edge of the forest gasped and screamed at the sight of Tristan laying dead on the ground. Some dropped their belongings and ran as fast as they could away from the scene.
"I AM THE SUN OF GOD!"
Another gurgled, liquid filled scream echoed through the field, pushing the low hanging fog away from where Charlie was standing and blowing the small strands of grass as well.
"Please don't hurt any of us Charlie, we're just here to try and help you" a small man holding a torch said from within the crowd.
"I AM THE SUN OF GOD!"
As Charlie said that sentence for the third time, the dark clouds above him parted, creating a cloud tunnel from him, to the sun.
The crowd of people looked up at the sun in horror. It was a full solar eclipse. The black sun shot tainted rays of light down onto the top of Charlie's head, as he screamed words in a language no one from the crowd had ever heard.
Charlie's' body, starting at the top of his head, began to rip and tear. Shredding his flesh as a large black, goo covered body of an insect began to pour of it. His lifeless human flesh shell lay on the ground below him as his new, dark black centipede body, quickly slithered it's way across the field towards the crowd of townsfolk.
Stories of the old days are still told by the elders. Not a single soul will travel past the forest edge, even during the daylight hours to try and pick crops the the middle of Sun Field. It is said that the soil there makes crops so filling, that you could survive for a year off a handful of food from it.
The elders speak of a man who left the church, and became so taken over by the devil's temptations that God turned him into a large bug to forever roam the land surrounding Sun Field without a mouth to speak the devil's' evil words to anyone else's ears.
the glass jar
In an old rotted cabin, somewhere in a dense forest without a name. There is a shelf barely being held up by its nails anymore. On the top of the shelf is a thick layer of dust and cobwebs, and a small glass jar. Inside of the jar is where you find yourself. You watch the sun rise, and the moon take over the night shift, filling the stale lifeless cabin with different shades of light. You were cursed by a witch many hundreds of moons ago. To live life forever more, at the size of a rat.
The witch's bones lay dead on the floor wrapped in a black robe with golden symbols embroidered along the sleeves. You can't remember how long ago it was when she died, but you remember her body being thrown back into her cabin, to act as some sort of crypt for her corpse. You screamed for help when the large men brought her body here, but it fell on deaf ears.
Weak and powerless, your mind has turned to a liquid state as you drift in and out of sleep. Memories and events from your life begin to pour into one another, creating an alternate timeline where you you're not in a jar, and never were. You see your family again. Your two daughters playing in the fields with flowers in their hair, and your wife hanging up clothing to dry in the warm summer air. Before you can feel the sun on your face, a large black cloud coats the sky quickly and large black limbs begin to reach down from the darkness and grab at your family members. You wake up from a nightmare, to find yourself in another. Small creatures have found their way into the cabin, it's night now and all you can see are the shadows moving across the cabin walls, and you can hear the scraping of large claws on the rotting wooden floorboards.
"Master not be pleased if bring him nothing." A gristly voice breaks through the shadows and fills the cabin.
"Aye, witch been dead too long, not able bring back to life for eating" another one of the creatures said.
"What that move up dare?" as a thin gray coloured hand reaches out of the darkness, and into the moonlight shooting in from a window, you see his long dirty fingernail pointing towards you.
Terrified, you moved away from the edge of the shelf, and to the back of the jar. You close your eyes. Even with your eyes closed, the bit of moonlight shooting through your eyelids suddenly becomes darker as something moves in front of you from the left.
"What we have here?" a whispered gurgled voice rings out.
You open your eyes and slowly begin to look up. On the other side of the glass jar is a large pair of yellow eyes staring directly at you. You begin you shake and hyperventilate with fear, until you pass out.
While you fade back into consciousness, you can hear a large metal scraping sound, ringing endlessly like an echo chamber in the jar. You realize the creature is taking the lid off the jar. Your mind is scrambling waiting for a disgusting hand to reach in and grab you.
"Hear something, but nothing" the creature said as looked into the jar through the opening at the top.
"Let go, must find food for Master!" yelled the creature with the gristly voice.
The creature holding the jar placed it down sideways on a small work bench below the shelf, and ran through he door with the others, yelling and screaming into the night as they faded into the shadows outside.
You didn't understand, until you walked outside of the jar. The fresh air filled parts of your lungs that you forgot existed. Your skin felt sensation of a small breeze on it again. Before you on the work bench was the witches open book, to when she cast the curse on you. Inside of the book was three spells on the open pages. One was to shrink a person, one was a curse to live forever, and the third spell was for invisibility.
Everything made sense now. With a million lifetimes ahead of you, you slowly flip the spell books pages back to the beginning, and begin training yourself to become a master of magick.
calm
Through the fog filled land, tall green plants and trees stand at attention this morning, coated in a thin film of frosted water droplets. A young couple stands in their kitchen looking out of a hole rubbed on the glass to see through the condensation that had built up on the window. The young man is standing behind the woman. His chin resting on her shoulder, his arms reaching around her and grabbing one of his hands with the other on her stomach. His rough fingertips caressing the soft pink fabric of the womans' dress.
The room is lit up only by natural light, and it's an overcast day. Surrounding the couples' house is acres and acres of tall pine trees, creating a dense forest that takes days to escape from. The house smells of fresh coffee mixed in the air with the smell of the old wooden floorboards, creating a calm and comforting smell that clings to memories of childhood. The couple finished their cups of coffee and smiled at each other. The morning was calm and quiet. Not a single bird was heard, not a single light ray of sunshine crept through the dark brooding clouds or trees. The couple knew what today was going to entail, but they knew that nothing could really prepare them for it.
The silence was broken as four eardrum shattering knocks on their front door startled them in the kitchen. The couple walked over to the old wooden door together and opened it slowly, the three hinges ringing out shrill whines into the rest of the house. Before the couple stood an old woman, wearing an all black outfit under a large black coat. The couple could only see the womans' nose and mouth, as her large hood was casting shadows on the rest of her face. The old woman at the door was holding a mason jar filled with what appeared to be small black slugs. The couple moved aside, shifting their feet along the old wooden floor, and allowed the woman to step inside before closing the door.
The old woman reached out a small shriveled old hand. Inside her hand was an old leather bound book filled with stained and torn papers inside of it, and a layer of dust on the outside. As the couple flipped through the book, the old woman's finger jolted outwards towards them as they arrived on a certain page within the book. The yellow coloured stained page, had sigils and sentences written on it. Wisps of must wafted into the air from the books pages. The couple looked at each other and smiled, as they placed the book down on their kitchen table and made their way over to their living room. They moved all of the chairs, tables and rugs out of the room, leaving a bare hardwood floor.
From under her large black coat the old woman produced a satchel and handed it to the couple. Inside of the small brown bag was five black candles, white paint, and a paintbrush. The old woman walked to the kitchen and grabbed them the book, and handed it to the couple now sitting on the floor. They took the paint and drew out the sigils from the pages of the book. They placed the five candles around the markings they had painted and lit them one by one with matches. They couple waited for the paint to dry and then sat down inside of the circle they had painted. Facing each other, sitting cross legged with the old book open in their laps, they began to chant phrases from the book out loud. The couples voices seemed to echo and bounce around the room, eventually blowing all of the candles out. As the candles flames disappeared, the couples bodies fell limp, and into one another.
Moments later, the couple stood up in a haze, their eyes rolling back into the sockets, slowly whispering something under their breathe in unison. They took off all of their clothing and lied down around the edge of the painted circle, head to toe, creating a ring with their bodies around the sigil on the wooden floor. The old woman at this point, walks over the couple with the mason jar filled with black slugs and opens it. Bending down slightly she holds out the jar with her old shaking hands, and pours the entire jar of slugs out in the middle of the circle. The black candles around the sigil come to life with flame all on their own, and the couples bodies start to twitch as if being tazed by electricity. The black slugs begin to twitch, twist, and turn. Then one by one the black slugs begin to stop moving around, they shrivel up and die. All but one.
As the single black slug is left, the candles fade out again and the room gets a little darker. The black slug that remains slowly crawls it way across the floorboard leaving a trail of slime, to the feet of the woman laying naked on the ground, and begins to slowly eat her body. After consuming the womans' body in only a few hours, the slug moves onto the mans body, and consumes it whole, in half the time.
The old woman in the black coat slowly makes her way to the back of the house and opens the glass door leading to the fog filled forest outside. The black slug, now the size of two average adult human beings, shifts it way towards, and then squeezes its way outside the door. The old woman walks beside it for days, through the thick green forest and fog. Days later the slug and old woman arrive at a lake, the sky polluted with black and grey clouds. The water before them, black as the outer space. As white mist and fog shift slowly over the top of the lake, the old woman makes a few obscure gestures with her hands towards the slug, before it slowly slides itself into the water, creating a single ripple that dissipates within seconds. Days later the old woman arrives back at the couples house, and steps inside the sliding glass door, closing it behind her, as she disappears behind the condensation on the glass.
Ernesto and the Dame
I want dark shadows like in cartoons from the 1990s. Silhouettes framed inside of windows with blinds open at midnight. I want the neighbors to be peeping toms watching a goddess with black hair undress while smoking a cigarette. Her small black dress is slowly gliding downwards off of her nipples. As it falls to the floor and she stands there you see light pierce the room as a gunman walks into the room and turns the light on. You can see he's angry and asking her for something, but she’s not giving it up. He slaps her across the face with his massive hands covered in rings and she falls to the floor, picking up her dress and covering her chest.
The peeping tom puts down his coffee and puts his trench coat on. He leaves his apartment and doesn't bother to lock his door behind him. This begins the quest of going across the street to make sure the beautiful woman is okay. It's pouring rain out; the man can see it in the streetlight above him and hear the sounds of water splashing on the ground. The collar of his coat gets flipped upwards, and his shoulders move towards his ears. It's a cold and rainy night and there’s a mad man in the building across the street. He smells iron filled blood in the air, but he doesn't know why.
After making his way into the buildings hallway, which is covered in small white tiles no bigger than dominos, he makes his way up to her floor. Boots squeak as water leaves traces on top of the tiled floor. The apartment hallways upstairs were all carpet; he used this to dry off his feet.
Suddenly, there was a knock at the door.
Inside of the apartment the woman now sitting on a chair at a two seat table in the kitchen, she hears the knock at the door, and expects the worst. The gunman smiles and answers the door expecting to see one of his partners in crime, what he gets is a .44 Magnum aimed at his temple and the words "open the fucking door" whispered softly into his face by a shadowy figure standing in the hallway.
The peeping tom enters the room and asks the woman if she’s okay, she replies that she’s fine just a little roughed up, and that she’s had it worse before. The large man with rings that likes to beat women begins to laugh and informs the woman and peeping tom that his partner should be up any minute now.
Without missing a beat, the peeping tom fires a shot into the skull of the gunman. His brains, hair, and skull fragments create a new art piece over top of a painting on the wall behind him.
"Gore Velour" he proclaims silently in his head, is the title of the new art piece.
"My name is Ernesto” said the peeping tom. “That is my apartment." Ernesto points through the woman’s window at his apartment and explains to her which one is his. He tells her that the door is open and just to walk in; once he gets back they will call the police and tell them about the intrusion on her apartment.
Ernesto takes off his coat and gives it to the woman. She buttons it all the way up and begins her decent of the fire escape on the side of the building just outside her window.
Ernesto takes a small chair from the kitchen and places it in front of the apartment’s door with about five feet of clearance between him and it. His finger pushes a small button on the wall and the light filled room becomes black. He adjusts his suspenders, tucks his white dress shirt back into his trousers and takes a seat with his .44 pointed at the door, waiting for this 'partner in crime'.
Footsteps creaking floorboards under the carpet in the hallway catch his attention. He sharpens his eyes on the door frame and his pupils dilate as the door handle begins to turn.
Without hesitation he fires his gun filling the room with a moment of flash lightning. The silhouette of someone falls in the dim yellow light pouring into the apartment from the hallway.
He gets up and confirms the man is dead and drags his lifeless corpse into the apartment, peeling his trench coat off his body before it gets too covered with blood. The trench coat was a little bit too large but he needed it to go across the street, and plus he thought, why waste a good coat on a dead fellow.
The woman’s apartment door was now closed behind him as he made his way down the hallway, a large amount of the woman’s neighbors were now standing outside of their doors asking what was happening. Ernesto told them it was official police business and to go back to their apartments seeing as everything was under control.
Ernesto entered his apartment soaking wet from the rain to find the woman sitting by the window crying. He threw off his new jacket, and ran over to her without hesitation. "It's okay, it's all going to be alright now, and I took care of them." "No, you don't understand how much money I owe them, they set me up a gig singing at Pinky's Bar a couple of nights a week and I never showed up for any of the gigs, so now Moretti's boys are looking for their money back, but I don't got it anymore mister." she replied. "Well they're dead now, so you don't owe anyone jack shit no more, and you can stay here as long as you need, don't worry about money." Ernesto said while holding her hand trying to calm her down.
He wiped tears from her eyes with both of his thumbs and moved her jet black hair behind her ears with his index fingers. His hands are lightly pinching her cheeks, while he stares into her bright blue eyes that are tainted by red veins and surrounded by black makeup running down her face. "It's going to be okay" he said to her.
The woman leaned in and kissed him harder than anyone had ever kissed him in his life. Even harder than that girl that was drunk back in college that fell onto his face after passing out. His lips felt like they could pop from the pressure, her hands slowly caressing his neck. Their moment was brought to a sudden halt with the sound of multiple car doors slamming shut. Ernesto looked out of his window and saw three men getting out of an obsidian black coloured Ford Consul, and making their way into his building.
"Go hide someplace in the bedroom, there’s more men coming up here right now." Ernesto said to her calmly before turning off all the lights in the apartment and locking the front door. He heard the men walking around the apartment hallway as he pressed his ear against the door. The door is unlocked slowly by Ernesto as not to draw attention, and opened slowly, silencing all creeks in the hinges of the door. He slowly stuck his head out of the door and saw the three men walking down the hallway. Without hesitation he swings the door open quickly and throws himself onto the hallway floor, aiming his gun at the trio of dead men walking, and he unloads his remaining rounds into the men’s spines.
The men fall to the ground screaming in pain and groaning their pains until their last breathes are drawn and the hallway falls silent like the crackles on a record after the final track plays. Entering the apartment again he makes his way to the bedroom to find the woman curled into the fetal position in the corner. He turns on the light and tells her it’s all over and she comes running over, embracing her inside of his arms he says "come on let’s get out of this dead end town, I got a car out back."
The woman and Ernesto quickly packed a suitcase full of money, some clothing items, a gold watch, and a small statue of Buddha. They ran down the hallway and jumped over the dead bodies of Moretti's men, staining the bottoms of their feet with crimson red as they made their way down a few flights of stairs. Ahead of them is a dark hallway, its walls covered in pipes and at the end there is a large dark green door that leads outside.
The rain is pouring on the top of a black tarp covering a vehicle behind Ernesto’s building in an alleyway. The pair opens the dark green door and they make their way into the alley. Within seconds their feet are soaking wet from puddles of rainwater collecting in the cracked pavement. Ernesto violently rips the tarp off the car to reveal a shiny midnight black Bentley S1. She threw the suitcase in the back and got inside the car. Her body was shivering from the dampness, fear, and the cold of the night. Ernesto started the car and blasted the heater as full as it would go. He held her close and asked her if he could drive now and comfort her later. She looked up at him, makeup running down her face from her eyes and nodded her head. He started the wiper blades and turned on the headlights.
They drove to the edge of the alley. “So what way do you want to go?” “It doesn't matter to me; I don’t have any family anywhere.” “Then it looks like the world is ours young lady. By the way I still haven’t gotten your name.” “Amy. Amy White.” “Miss Amy White, welcome to the first day of the rest of your life.”
Ernesto’s car slowly drove out of the alley and turned left down a very empty street at 2:27 AM on a cold January morning, he would never enter that town again, and neither would she.
green tie die
His bright blue eyes moved around the room as if he was following a fly. Their cold gaze fixating on the static in the air. His hair was jet black and slicked back with more grease than ducks feathers after an oil spill. His eyes were only visible through the moonlight shining in through his office blinds which had months worth of dust built up on them. He was wearing his usual black suit, white dress shirt with the yellow armpit stains, and his forest green tie. Under his jacket was his Detective Special .38 Revolver with the red electrical tape covering the handle, inside its holster under his left arm. It was October 30th 1991, Devil’s Night. The matte grey finish on the clouds that hung around the moon like cigarette smoke at a jazz bar table, began to block some of the moons light shooting into the detectives office.
As the room faded to black, the detective closed his ice coloured eyes and was suddenly standing at a crime scene exactly one year ago, October 30th 1990 . He was standing in the middle of a forest, the warm rays of light shooting off the sun were no longer within sight through the thick fog and array of trees on the horizon. In front of him stood a single room, dark wood log cabin. Dead leaves covered the moss filled roof and the outer walls looked like they had been burnt in a sporadic pattern. The ground surrounding the cabin was filled with mud, broken sticks, and logs from fallen trees. The front door was open just about an inch, through it you could hear someone whispering and see orange light being cast on a wall from a fireplace, along with the shadow of what appeared to be a woman with long hair. The detective took a slow step forward and drew his gun from the holster. An old wooden board creaked under his feet. A bead of sweat dropped off the tip of his nose as he raised his head to look back inside, as he did, the woman’s’ head turned and the shadow moved towards the door.
Seeing the shadow move, the detective pushed the door in knocking an old woman wearing what appeared to be a black robe to the ground. The detective fell to the ground, still holding onto his gun, aiming it at the old woman as she lay lifeless on the floor. Her dry grey hair scattered on the floor around her. The detective calmed his breathing and allowed his eyes to move across the room. On the walls were bookshelves and newspaper clippings of missing children from the local newspaper. On the floor just in front of the fireplace was a large pentacle, drawn in what appeared to be blood. Around it there were small bones and piles of rotting flesh beside symbols draw with white chalk. The sight made the detective gag and his eyes filled with water. With shaky hands he brought his gun back over to the old woman on the floor, she was gone. The front door swinging back and forth, banging on the back wall. The rain poured in as lightning filled the sky and thunder shook the cabin. The detective got himself to his feet and ran over and shut the door. After slamming his spine onto the door he collapsed to the floor once again, crying. He slowly moved his shaking hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. He unfolded it and tilted it towards the fire so it could be read. It was a missing person flyer for his seven year old daughter Michelle. The detective crushed the paper in his hands and screamed “Michelle!” at the top of his shivering lungs.
Upon opening his eyes something caught his attention hanging by the fireplace. He stood up and walked over. It was the locket he gave Michelle for her 7th birthday, just a few days before she went missing. He walked over and picked up the locket and placed it in his pocket. The room smelled like a morgue, but less surgical. On the fireplace mantel, trophies and objects from all the other children collected dust. The detective surveyed the room once more, and saw a hinge on the floor just underneath a rug. He threw the rug across the room and opened up the hatch as quickly as he could.
The detective woke up on the cabin floor with scratch marks all over his body, he could see sunlight in the sky through the only window in the cabin. “Michelle!” he yelled into the hole in the floor. There was no reply.
After a long walk through the cold morning woods to his black 1966 Ford Mustang the detective drove himself back to his office. After gathering bandages and cleaning supplies he took off his shirt to reveal that there were no wounds on his body anymore. Just a shredded suit and whole lot of questions. He sat down in his chair, brought his hands up to his face, and closed his tear filled eyes.
The clouds allowed the moon to break free and cast light on the opening eyes of the detective, sitting back in his office in 1991. The memories and thoughts of that horrible night still haunted him, but thanks to the old woman’s pet that she had locked away in the cellar, this year he was ready. He slowly undid his forest green tie that his daughter got him for his birthday, and placed it on his desk beside his barely touched cup of black coffee.
The moon was full, his eyes glowing ice blue, he could smell the old woman’s blood in the air, and he knew this was the year he’d have his revenge. The detective slowly undid the buttons on his shirt and undid his belt. He took his .38 and placed it in his desk. After laying all of his clothing nicely on a chair, he quickly pulled open the blinds and stared out at the moon.
He howled out his daughters name before hair shot out of every skin cell on his body, while he twitched and transformed in the dust falling from the blinds.
Flower fields
When I first saw the man, he was standing in a field of flowers. His appearance seemed to be out of the past, but somewhat progressively futuristic. He was standing there in the flower field, holding onto a bouquet of flowers. As I slowly approached the man his body began to float up and shift towards me until he was staring me down while hovering a few inches above the ground.
Remember how you got here, remember your past.
A small voice inside of my head begins to repeat a feedback loop of thoughts over and over until it becomes almost like a ringing sound inside of my mind. The clouds above the two of us now standing in this flower field are dark and moving quickly to the West. The air is filled with static and I feel like it should be raining.
It was raining the night that he died, remember your past.
The ringing in my head becomes unbearable. I pull out a handgun from inside my trench coat. It's loaded and cocked already. I press the barrel to my right temple and look over the man holding the flowers.
Do you remember me from another place? Do you wish to end your life? Here, take a flower instead.
Before I could answer the man holding flowers, the gun in my hands had become a bouquet of flowers, and I was still me, but I was no longer in my body. As I look down at my feet, I was floating above the ground. Just in front of me was my body, standing in the flower field just where I left it moments ago.
I can't breathe, why can't I breathe. Why am I in this body and not mine?
Then I noticed what the problem was. There was a rope around my neck attached to a tree beside me. The tree was massive in size, and seemed to have appeared out of no where in the middle of the flower field. Legs now kicking, and tingling fingers grasping at the rope around my neck, I realized what was about to happen.
Time flows backwards, if you allow yourself to flow backwards with it.
As I took my last few gasps for air, I felt small rain drops on the top of my head and shoulders. Making their way through the leaves and branches on the tree that towered above me. My last visual was that of my boyfriend, walking into view holding a bouquet of flowers.
You told him to meet you where you first kissed him. He was going to apologize to you and you would have had such a beautiful life together. But before he got there, you had other plans to have him find your dead body. After walking in on him with another man, you really wanted to hurt him.
I'll have you know that he grows old. Very old. He will still be around when people figure out how to upload consciousness. He will study time travel, and try and come back to save you, but you need to want to save yourself.
The rain continued to pour from the sky, my body swayed in the winds blowing in form the East.
Maybe one day I'll feel worthy of a happy ending.
Prism
A cold draft filtered in through cracks in the window frame of the old weathered house. As Jacob Beasley, a fifteen year old boy stood, staring out of the dew covered bedroom window, onto the vast farm land owned by his family, the fields now only lit by the full moon produced a dark green haze beneath the fog. Jacob peered over at his younger sister Tamera as she lay in bed, knocked out cold from the bit of whiskey he'd given her to help her sleep.
A lit lantern sat near Tamera on a small oak side table beside the empty glass. Jacobs' eyes watched as the stillness of the trees began is change. The long black lightning shaped arms reaching upwards, devoid of any sort of foliage, began to violently move in rotating motions. As Jacob noticed the trees moving, a thick rain began to fall down from the sky. Thunderous crashes filled the small town of Edenbrook and lightning shot through the dark night sky. No stars where viable that night. Through the now rain covered window Jacob squinted his eyes, trying to focus on the fields in the background of his view. The fog which coated the fields moments ago was now spinning around in the middle of the field like a small tornado.
Within the tornado, although hard to make out, Jacob could see a form within the spinning fog clouds. It appeared to be a tall slim man wearing a very large black overcoat of sorts. His arms were stretched out and upwards as blue lights flickered on the ground behind him, and through the rain and thunder Jacob could hear a deep voice muttering something.
Jacob slowly moved his hand over to a small box sitting on a wooden chair beside him, and opened it slowly. Inside was Jacobs' father's .38, fully loaded. He wasn't sure if this was going to be able to help him tonight or not, but he felt safer just looking at it. As Jacob picked up the gun, it slipped out of his hands and fell the old, dry hard wood floor. Bending down to grab the gun, he quickly threw his attention back to the window, hoping the figure he saw in the field hadn't heard the noise. Edging slowly from the bottom of the window ledge upwards, he peeked outside but couldn't see anything, at all. A thunderous crash, followed by the sky being lit up my lightning reveled the figure was outside of his window, floating in thin air. Its face lit up for a moment from the lightning, showing a rather blue completion, and it's mouth opened from almost ear to ear revealing endless rows of teeth. As rain water dripped off of the hideous creatures face, it's large yellow eyes stared into the soul of Jacob, their pupils almost as small as pin points. The creature let out a deep scream to let Jacob know that he saw him.
Without hesitation, Jacob quickly bolted away from the window, grabbing his sister from her bed, and turning out the lantern, hoping that he could hide from the creature. Jacob ran into the hallway closing and locking the door behind them. "Father! Please come quickly, tis something outside the house!" As Jacob yelled down the dark empty hallway, lightning filled the hallway as a shadow passed by outside the window at the end of the hall. "Father please! I beg of thee!" But there was no reply. Jacob opened a small closet in the upstairs hallway and placed his sister inside of it, locking the door, he knew she'd be safe in there.
A creaking noise which Jacob was familiar with filled the hallway, it was the opening of the bedroom window. That thing is was now inside the house. Jacob quickly ran down the stairs to find his mother sitting by the fireplace. "Mum! Mum! Please come upstairs, bring a knife, there is something in Tameras' room!" There was no reply. "Mum?"
Jacob slowly walked around the rocking chair to face his mother. In the light of the fireplace he quickly realized why she hadn't replied. His mothers' throat was cut open, leaving the front of her white night gown soaked in red, and her eyeballs had been plucked from her face, leaving black, cold, empty sockets.
Shaken and out of breath, Jacob fell the floor. As he did, the fire behind him went out. The room went silent and all Jacob could hear was footsteps of something walking around upstairs. He began to hear a soft, almost liquid sound, coming from somewhere near him. Before he could manage to figure out where it had come from, his mothers' body stood up before him.
Jacob screamed at the top of his lungs at the horror, this undead version of his mother, as he scattered backwards across the floor, knocking things over while his mothers body raced towards him, arms out. Jacob made it to the cellar door, opened it quickly and slammed it shut behind him, causing him to fall down the stairs. Blackness. He felt a pain on his head and a could feel a warm liquid running down his now dirt covered face. He'd been in the cellar plenty of times before, he could navigate around it in the dark no problem he thought. Only on this night Jacob would learn about a room in the cellar that he didn't know existed. As he slowly stumbled down the long hallway that lead to the side door to outside, a cold musty wind blew through, stirring up dust and something else. There was a smell down here that he had never smelt before. Jacob noticed a bright blue glowing light shooting through the cracks and out of the bottom of the old wooden door leading to the wine storage room. Wide eyed and scared, he grabbed the black and brown rusted handle, and with his thumb clicked the latch to unlock the door.
Creaking the door open only slightly, Jacob peered inside the room, saw the unimaginable. Inside of the wine room, there is usually two walls of racking for the bottles and the other walls are just empty. On this night as he glanced inside the room, Jacob saw a blue door frame on the other side of the room, almost like a portal to another world. Blue flames licked the edges of it, casting a crackling sound as if it was burning. After looking around the room inside, and seeing no body was there, he opened the door and went inside. There was a smell that filled the room, a strong musty, molding smell. Something was rotting but it wasn't coming from the cellar, it was coming from the blue opening.
Jacob approached the opening slowly, eyes squinted with one hand in front of his face and the other out in front of him. He could feel wind and a sort of slime were being shot out of this opening, and sticking to the palms of his hands. There was a loud bellowing sound that began to shoot out of the opening as Jacob got closer. He looked inside to see his father, standing in a make believe world. Tall blue pillars of light shot out of runes on a rocky cliff side into the dark clouds above. His father was surrounded by a large grouping of creatures, much like the one outside of Tamera's window. His father was wearing what Jacob could now see was a cloak, covered in circular symbols. The creatures all raised their arms up into the skies, as did Jacob's father. "Father! What are you doing?!" Jacob's father quickly turned to face the portal. "No, no, no ...no, no, no... you can't be here, you're supposed to be sleeping!" The creatures standing beside Jacob's father began to look at each other and loud, liquid filled gurgles began to spray from their mouths. "Run! Run Jacob!" As his father yelled, he pulled a very old looking tome from his cloak, opened a page and began to yell something from it. "Knare!...Varish!....Prote!....Vaisa-!"
The blue portal closed. The last thing Jacob saw was his father's throat being slit by one of the webbed hands of those creatures. The cellar was dark once again, the blue light faded to nothingness and the smell lingered for only a few minutes after that.
Jacob walked down the hallway to the cellar door that led outside, his bare feet frozen and covered in slime, dirt and blood. Slowly opening the cellar door, he saw that the coast was clear. The rain had stopped, no, everything was dry. Jacob stood in confusion and then looked up at Tamera's bedroom window. It was sealed shut, and a small flame could be seen from inside the room. He crept his way around the front of the house and peered inside of a window from the kitchen. He could see the fireplace was lit, and his mother was sitting in her rocking chair again.
Having seen enough tonight, Jacob walked over with haste to the chopping block for fire wood, and grabbed his fathers ax out of the stump of the old family oak tree that Jacob had carved his initials into when he was younger. The handle felt thick in his small hands, and the head of the ax was hard to lift. He opened the front door to his house quickly and ran in with the ax above his head expecting the worst.
"Oh, good heavens! Jacob! Put that thing down this instant, tis not a toy!" his mother shouted at him as he came in the door. Shocked and comforted by his voice, he lowered the ax, and ran over to hug her. Weeping in his mothers arms, he told her what he had seen that night, including her mutilated body. His mother chalked it up to him sleep walking, or having a nightmare, and told him to get to bed.
Before going upstairs, Jacob quickly went into his fathers study to have a quick look around. There was normal legal farming papers, and journal entries about the crops and soil, but then he found a small brown, leather bound box hidden in the bottom drawer of his fathers' desk. Upon opening the box he found a large clear diamond or crystal, and a small handful of old papers, filled with a language Jacob couldn't understand and some of the symbols he had seen on the cloaks in that portal. Also inside of the box was a small book, this one written in English, and judging by the hand writing, it was his father who wrote it. There was diary entries dating back from before Jacob's sister was born. The first entry is as follows:
"Found my fathers old farming books today while cleaning out the cellar. I never knew how he handled everything in his life. My sisters deaths, running a farm by himself, raising me as a little child, but now I know. I found pages that appear to be torn out of an ancient book that must've fallen from the heavens by accident. If i look at these pages and what my father has written about them, everything starts to make sense. These things, whatever they are, they want female sacrifices, and then they will grant you blessings. So it would appear that my father kept having daughters just to throw them away to yield a good crop. Times are hard, I just had my little one Jacob not a few years ago now. I know we won't survive on the farms income this year, but I don't think I have it in me to do something this arcane, and dark."
A bit further into the book is this entry:
"Thank the heavens! Today is a beautiful day for this farm! My first daughter was born today. We named her Tamera. I feel bad giving a name to her, knowing where this is all going to lead in a few years, but I can't let Eliza know that something is going on, she wouldn't be able to handle it. I know I got good seed, I can just make another one for her. If she finds out....well, lets just hope she don't.
Jacob, tears in his eyes and with shaking hands closed the book, and the box and tucked them under his arm. He walked past his mother and softly said goodnight under his breath. Once he made his way upstairs he walked into his sister room to make sure she was okay.
Standing beside her bed, towering over eight feet was one of the creatures. All of it's features in full candle light, it's eyes blinking sideways. It's head tilting with a jittering flicker like spasm, as it stared straight into Jacob's soul. In it's arms was Jacobs' sister Tamera, half of her torso was missing and the room was coated in her blood. Her lifeless body hanging in the webbed hands of this creature as it's tongue slowly glides over it's many rows of teeth. It makes a deep stuttered inhale as it begins to back up towards the window.
Unaware of how to process what he's seeing, Jacob opens the leather box he found in his father's office. "Is this what you want? Take it! Take it all! Leave this family alone! I'm the man of this house now! Leave!" With that, Jacob took the contents to the box and threw it towards the creature. The crystal that was in the box flew across the room and hit the creature on the blue fleshy part of his arm that was sticking out of the robes. In an instant, the room burst with white light and a deep hollow scream was heard. The scream slowly became a thunderous clapping sound as Jacob was left staring out of the dew covered bedroom window onto the family farm.
"Jacob, I can't sleep." Tamera protested
"Alright give me a moment." Jacob said, before heading down to his fathers study. He looked down at the small leather box in the drawer he had just taken the whiskey bottle from, and with shaking hands, he poured a small amount of whiskey into a glass for his sister.