Circa 1269 anno domini there once was a knight of the Grand, Magnificent, Holy Order of the Temple of the Ali Baba Shrine who lived alone in an old, thatch hut on the outskirts of Cornwall in the isle of the Angles. In re: the requirements of his order, it fell upon the knight, Sir Fallsalot by name, to go forth on a quest, a magnum opus his knightly career to prove his value and worth to the Grand, Magnificent, Holy Order of the Temple of the Ali Baba Shrine. Ergo, Sir Fallsalot rose early in the morning of one not-very-fine rainy excuse for a day and leapt heroically from the roof of his thatch house onto the back of his horse, Stumpy. (It is well known that all knights must leap heroically onto the backs of the their horses in order to show off their immense horsemanship and knightly ability. Any knight who cannot leap down upon a non-motile horse has no claim upon the name.) Sadly, Stumpy, taking all these efforts and indeed, the knightly bravado in gerneral, cum grano salis stepped lightly to his left and watched Sir Fallsalot land rather precipitously on the ground. With a derisive neigh, Stumpy stepped over the prone body of his once-master in order to complete the quest which he had begun three years before in the hopes of achieving the rank of The Just Absolutely Great Equine Of The Western Half Of Northeast Cornwall. You see, the first half of the quest included a ritual period of humiliation in which our horsey protagonist had perforce to subjugate himself to a mere human and pretend subservience ad nauseum, ad infinitum, and indeed--to the horse’s opinion--ad absurdum. The object of the the ritual period of humiliation has been lost in the mists of time, but The Council of Great Horsey Leaders keeps up the tradition nominally to ensure the purity of th eoffice of The Just Absolutely Great Equine Of the Western Half Of Northeast Cornwall but really because they each had to go through and aren’t about to let any of the younger, upstart horses get away without the humiliation. Poor Stumpy (whose full name, Stumpitius “Karthago Delenda Est” XXIII, only confused his 98% watery brains) angled for a quest in absentia in which it could be generally agreed upon that he fully and satisfactorally completed his Quest of Humiliation and the following Quest of the Fish in which he would be required to transcend the bounds of horsiness by swimming three times around the nearest pool he could find. Alas, The Council of Great Horsey Leaders vetoed the request and out of general perversity nearly suggested that Stumpy perform his quest in cognito as a cat. That would have been absolutely distaster for the thoroughly equine Stumpitius because as everyone knows, there aren’t any knights that ride cats into battle, except the exceedingly small dwarf-knights of North Hampshire, and they hardly qualify. In order to attain a bona fide knight Stumpy was sure that he needed to be his own horsey self, or at least a largeish dog. Lucky, the The Council of Great Horsey Leaders was too bored with itself to enforce the cat idea, sent Stumpy away on his quests and promply forgot that he had ever arrived, thus bringing us back to the present moment.
Ambling through the slightly unpleasant and more than slighty wet ante meridiem, the rather miserable Stumpy began his search for a pool. At the first of the many nearby townships he approached, Stumpy made notice of the town inn and found himself absolutely burning at the de facto segregation of the horsey people from the simian people. Why, every building had tall, thin doors that no self-respecting horse would be able to enter! What an abomination! Ipso facto, Stumpy became so angry that he immediately abandoned his quest to become The Just Absolutely Great Equine of The Western Half of Northeast Cornwall and replaced it with a blood feud against all the simian peoples of the world, especially this small township--Karthago.
And this, my children, is the story of the heroic Stumpitius “Karthago Delenda Est” XXIII. He single-hoofedly wiped out all the simian peoples of the world by jumping up and down wildly and making them laugh themselves to death. And now, we, the horsey people populate the earth, and The Council of Great Horsey Leaders has been renamed The Council of Great Horsey Leaders and Stumpy in memoriam of his great deed.
7/26/2000
The inky blackness stretched on and on ad infinitum broken only occasionally by tiny specks of fiery starlight which did not quite fail to illuminate the not-quite-vacuum of space. And through the not-quite-unlit not-quite-vacuum soared a not-quite-identified flying object piloted by a not-quite-unalien figure. Garbleblatz the Dispossessed, as he liked to call himself (for his birthname, Jake, sounded just a little too much like that of an un-color-coordinated gladiator for his comfort) swooped and soared in his neutrino-powered space ship doing various moves reminiscent of a roller coaster hoping to spin himself ad nauseam seeing as it is such a desirable state that hundreds of thousands of people stand in hundreds of thousands of lines hundreds of thousands of days out of each year just to ride a roller coaster and throw up. Unfortunately for him and fortunately for the three and a half organs that passed for his stomach, there is no nausea in space. With that game failing, Garbleblatz the Dispossessed sought out a new game for himself. As he flew around and around through the vast emptiness of the galaxy, he spotted (or more correctly: didn't spot) a spot that seemed emptier than all the rest. It didn't respond to any sort of scanners, yet he felt highly drawn to it…. "OH BOY!!!" thought Garbleblatz the Dispossessed, "A BLACK HOLE!!!" As he took a relatively stationary orbit about the black hole and just outside its event horizon, Garbleblatz the Dispossessed watch as various normal items of spatial debris drifted into the non-existent space and became non-existent pieces of debris. In floated an asteriod, then a comet, a small cow, and finally a planet complete with several different species of nutmeg. "AH, SIC TRANSIT GLORIA MUNDI," muttered Garbleblatz the Dispossessed to himself. "WELL," thought he, "I SURE WANT TO HAVE FUN. WHAT THE HECK. YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE. TAKE WHAT LIFE HAS TO OFFER. OPPORTUNITY IS KNOCKING. CARPE DIEM." And so, he directed his neutrino powered space ship into the black hole to explore the terra incognita of the inviolable sanctum sanctorum of the universe, the heart of a black hole, and he hoped to have fun, too.
In a far galaxy far, far away quite a distance from our galaxy, a small pound of beef floated slowly out of the white hole there, looked around itself, and thought, "O TEMPORA, O MORES!!! THERE WAS A TIME WHEN A SELF-RESPECTING ALIENOID CREATURE COULD TRAVEL THROUGH A BLACK HOLE AND NOT COME OUT THE OTHER END AS A SMALL POUND OF BEEF. AS HIMSELF, AS A CHUNK OF RAW MATTER, AS A STREAM OF ENERGY, OR MAYBE AS A LARGE HORSEY THING, BUT NEVER AS A SMALL POUND OF MEAT!!!"
At that very moment, the Valdosta WalMart ran out of bathrobes.
"WHAT AN ODD NON SEQUITUR THAT WAS," commented Garbleblatz "What's For Dinner" the Yummy, as he liked to call himself (for his real name upon being transmuted into a small pound of beef--Grade A--just seemed too commercial for him to put up with). From there, Garbleblatz "What's for Dinner" the Yummy floated about aimlessly in space with all of his meat juices frozen solid against his meaty person until, by chance, floated happily into a floating butchery. Garbleblatz "What's for Dinner" the Yummy was a very happy small pound of meat indeed when as he attempted to sneak stealthily into the meat locker of the floating butchery, but the happy floating butcher of this happy floating butchery caught our friable hero in flagrante delicto and promptly sold him to two dog food executives who happened to be floating by in return for a small Roman slave girl that just happened to have been transported forward in time. (Incidentally, the butcher eventually sold the Roman slave girl for six arcade tokens to a guy dressed in a funny role-playing costume.) The dog food executives transported Garbleblatz "What's for Dinner" the Yummy back to their headquarters on Sirius Alpha only to find that none of the dogs there, be they hunting dogs, racing dogs, cat-chasing dogs, stupid dogs, dogs without teeth, dogs without tails, dogs with three tails, or big scaly lizards that look dogs would eat the meat. "Sigh…" remarked the first of the two dog food executives. "Caveat emptor," remarked the second. "What should we do with this small pound of beef?" inquired the first. "Send it to the place where all inedible small pounds of beef go," responded the second. "Oh."
The GHP Latin 2000 class sat down once again for their group lunch at the Palms only to find that it was TexMex Pizza day again. "Oh, no! You ate some of it!!!" shouted Andrew the Pimp at Jake the Gladiator. "Mea culpa," gurgled Jake who then realized that he had no head and fell over.
7/19/2000
And in the beginning there was darkness.... Not the darkness of night for there was no silver shining orb nor the tiny pin-pricks of far off stars to mitigate this inky black; not the darkness of space, either, for it was thick and full of writhing, squirming life; this was the darkness of earth, wet and moist, thick with nourishments, black of loam. And this darkness there lay a seed. The seed knew not whence it came, indeed, the seed knew very little: its entire conciousness consisted of one thought: grow. The biological imperative of growth which ruled over al its kind found no exception in the seed, and so it strove with all its might nd extended down great lengths of roots searching, probing, and make use of the water and minerals necessary for a longer life and continued growth. At the same time, it stretched forth a spindly stalk and fragile, leafless branches through the upper edge of the earth and into the outer air. For the first time, the seedling experienced LIGHT, blessed LIGHT...it soaked in the LIGHT, the warmth, the energy with a voracious, new-born hunger. And it grew.
The LIGHT intensified to an ecstatic almost unbearable brightness then dimmed low, but never did the LIGHT totally leave or mimic the absolute darkness of the seed’s womb. Again the LIGHT waxed...waned...waxed...waned...again...again...again. And so it went on and on and so the seed grew to a sapling, to a tree, to a giant.
Occasionally, or perhaps more often--the tree had no means by which to measure the passage of time--a third and terrifying type of darkness would envelop its trunk, branches, and foliage, a darkness which did mimic that of the earth itself. The tree knew not whence this darkness came, indeed, the tree knew only that which it felt. With the coming of this third darkness, the upper airs responded rearranging themselves in mad, unspeakable ways while the three felt its many hundreds of branches shake and quiver while a few broke painfully off and hurled violently to the ground, not always just beneath the tree itself. It felt again the wetness like it had before its birth to the LIGHT, yet this wetness seemed more all-encompassing, purer, wetter. Most of all, however, and definitely the most disturbing, the tree felt its brothers and its sisters. This in itself was not unusual for the tree could always feel its brothers and sisters; it always knew where they were, how they fared, and what they sensed. Yet during this particular darkness, the LIGHT would occasionally--or perhaps more often--reach out and stroke one of the arboreal siblings--only for the briefest portion of a second--and the tree would feel what its brother or sister felt: the tingling excitement as the nearby trees became aware that the LIGHT wished to touch one of their own, a supreme ecstasy as the chosen tree realized that it had been so-honored, then a sudden, total pain, and the tree, the brother or sister, simply...ceased. And so it went, again and again, and the tree grew older, larger, stronger. From its brances fell many small seeds of its own kind, and they prospered. As the great tree grew it drew more water, more nourishment from the earth, more LIGHT from the sky, and the sky grew hungry, the LIGHT made ready to take back its own. To the tree’s mild surprise, the LIGHT dimmed before it was accustomed, but not much, and so the tree continued to feed upon what LIGHT remained, and the dimness grew until hovered above the tree in a thick, wet haze, a haze which filed the tree with an eerily familiar tingling excitement, an excitement wh ich thrilled upward from the very tips of its roots to the ends of its branches and up into the sky to meet in an ecstatic union with the very essence of the LIGHT and...cease.
And in the end, there was darkness. Not the darkness of the night, for there was no silvery shining orb nor the tiny pin-pricks of far off stars to mitigate this inky black; not the darkness of space, either, for it was too thick and full of prone, morbid compost; this was the darkness of the earth, et and most, thick with nourishments, black of loam.
2/24/2001
Yesterday, up in some of the moderately tall yet not too tall mountains on he darkside of the moon lived some moderately strange space-lemmings. They were strange becuase it isn't all that often that one encounters space-lemmings on the moon...they usually inhabit the canyons on Mars or the methane clouds in Jupiter, yet they were only moderately in their eccentricity because they were, after all, lemmings and how strange can a lemming be, really? Now, these particular space-lemmings had large, bulbous, glowing eyes with tiny pupils, the better see the little tiny stars where dwell the extra-strange space-cats that are the ultimate predator of space-lemmings everywhere. Thick, pale, orchid-shaded fur covered the bodies of all but the eldest who had matured to a vibrant pink in their old age, and the normal complement of four and a half legs jutted from their bodies (really, only three legs are necessary on the moon, but the other one and a half made for some fun frolicking in the great sand dunes at the feet of the moderately tall yet not too tall mountains on the darkside of the moon). One of the space-lemmings, Max, was especially curious--a characteristic so like that of the infamous space-cats that he was constantly derided for it by his family, teachers, relatives, and all but three of his friends: Bob, Joe, and East Asia--and so Max liked to explore the vast recesses, ridge lines, valleys, and peaks of the moderately tall yet not too tall mountains on the darkside of the moon all the while training the tiny pupils of his large, bulbous, glowing eyes on the distance and trusting in his specially honed space-lemming instincts to warn him of any dangers well in advance of actually approaching them. Unfortunately for Max, his friends liked to call him "Maxentius the Polydactyl" because his half leg had six toes on it instead of the usual four. Also unfortunately for Max, the extra two toes on his half leg skewed his specially honed space-lemming instincts just enough that, while skipping joyfully through the ridges of the moderately tall yet not too tall mountains on the darkside of the moon, as he bounded some six feet into the air with each one and an eighth strides (the extra half foot, remember?) he totally missed the edge of a cliff which, again unfortunately (Fortune doesn't particularly like space-lemmings) adjoined a vast canyon in the middle of which was a deep hole.... Splat.
Bob, Joe, and East Asia were hopping happily through the moon dust comparing the various shades of their orchid-colored coats with their large, bulbous, glowing eyes when Bob began to wonder where Max had gotten to: "Ubi ivitne Maxentius Polydactylis?"
"What sort of gibbering is that?" screeched Joe. "Speak proper Space-lemmingese!" (Space-lemmingese, by one of those quirks of the fickleness of the universe, is exactly like common American English, except for the word "defenestrate" which means "to jumb back into a window"--the exact opposite of the English meaning).
Bob repeated his question in proper Space-lemmingese: "Where has Maxentius the Polydactyl gone?" As Bob and Joe were wondering on that point (space-lemmings aren't very quick), East Asia spotted Max's footprints, so the three went on their way to look for their friend, skipping along joyfully. Unfortunately, (Fortune really hates space-lemmings), they didn't watch where they were going (space-lemmings are extremely stupid) and followed Max's footprints right off the edge of the cliff. Splat. Splat. Splat.
After a few hours, when Max, Bob, Joe, and East Asia all failed to come to dinner (space-lemmings eat dog food), the whole space-lemming community sat down to eat anyway and really enjoyed their meal. Then, on a full stomach and slightly sleepy (that overwhelming space-lemming intelligence showing through again) all forty-three of them (it was a small community as space-lemming communities on the darkside of the moon go) set out to search for the four prodigal splats...I mean children. Some minutes later, the forty-three space lemmings happened upon the tracks of the four and skipped joyfully along (joyful skipping is one of the three great blessings of incredible stupidity...the other two being few worries and an unaccountable fertility). Now, although they were incredibly stupid (the brains of space-lemmings are actually the smallest working brains in the solar system...even half a spong is smarter), the older space-lemmings did know to look for the edge of cliffs as they went joyfully skipping along. Unfortunately for them (Fortune's absolute disgust for space-lemmings is truly legendary), as they approached The Cliff of Eternal Giddy Laughter--for so the space-cats watching from on high thought of it--a bright comet sailed past the darkside of the moon blinding those forty-three stupid space-lemmings long enough that they all simultaneously skipped joyfully off the edge of the cliff. SPLAT.
And the laughter of the space-cats did echo throughout the black night on the darkside of the moon.
11/22/96
As the dying evening sun rode its well-traveled circuit slowly and inexorably toward the distant, flat horizon, a worn, lone boy, who appeared to be in his mid-teens, could be seen walking slowly but steadily down a gently sloping soft, green hill as one can only do when one is finally heading to a warm home after a long day's drear toil. Indeed, he looked as if he was tired beyond all belief, nearly completely drained of all his great strength and redoubtable vigor, and slightly distraught, but more or less in good shape and health. After a lengthy and arduous journey from the immense indigo farm on which he worked and belonged to the Sheriff* while he was beaten as a lowly paid hired hand, which was proven by the fact that tell-tale blue dye was stained in excess upon his blistered fingers, he was finally approaching his welcome home and could see smoke rising in thick, silver, voluminous billows in the not-so-distant distance and could just barely smell the faint, sweet, and heavenly, scent of baking bread.
As his aching, groaning midsection reminded him, "There would be more for all to eat if that godforsaken Sheriff didn't levy taxes on everything and anything that we have. That devil and his deputies take everything we've got and then come back for more the next day. It won't be long before they want more than can be given," worried the anxious traveler. "When that happens, something truly disastrous will undoubtedly take place," was the unknowing black and ominous omen. Yet, with the ardent hope of youth, the boy expressed, "One day the town'll rise up against that dictator and those two dolts in training, then we'll be lorded over no longer!"
When, at last, the lone figure came upon the tiny, but homely, isolated hovel he called home, his weary eyes were cursed with the stark images of two inky black stallions, that seemed birthed by the dark shadows themselves, tethered to the fence at the front door of his parent's house which hung upon broken hinges, attached solely by the bare threads of the topmost leather hinge and swinging idly in a gentle breeze that had just sprung into being. Blatant, brilliant scarlet-red circles quartered by inverted crosses of the purest gold shown boldly from the powerfully muscled necks of this unique pair of equine animals; the blasphemous mark of the Sheriff and his men!
At that deciding instant, Samuel Ross seriously considered running for his own, dear life. After all, it would certainly be so much easier and simpler than having to con¬ front both of the infamous deputies and give what little he had along with a great deal that he did not, possibly in the forms of extensive bloodletting, black bruises, and great pain, not to mention the likelihood of his own death. No one in existence should be forced to survive, for we most certainly cannot call it live, under the acrid, iron fist of such a tyrant, and no one could possibly blame the terrified boy for wanting to live in peace away from such horrendously unimaginable monstrosities. However, a terrible screech tore through the air and ripped into his tender head and weak psyche with the force of a tremendous lightning bolt and immediately stripped away all thoughts and semblance of indecision.
"My parents!!" feared the well-worn, afflicted Sam. Samuel comforted himself with the thought that the scream meant nothing, after all, wasn't his mother continuously jumping and letting loose an earsplitting trumpet at the least little provocation? A miniature, grey field mouse, a furry little fruit bat, anything might, and would, give definite cause for the most bloodcurdling of screams. If only he had some way of knowing! As Sam entered the home where he had spent the fifteen joyous years of his happy life, the life that now seemed so very fleeting, his once jolly heart froze ice-cold and stone solid. Lying in a sickeningly prone position in a pool of his own still warm, coagulating, red blood on the oaken floor was his father, bleeding extensively from a gash in his side which extended from his right arm, along the length of that side, to the base of his hip, from whence protruded the hilt of a broadsword and a small portion of its shattered blade. Across the overheated, sweltering room, for the fire had rampaged out of control with no one to tend to it, was his mother, backed into a tight, dimly lit corner and deathly pale from the fright and horrors theretofore, with the two accursed deputies slowly nearing, each grasping a deadly sword. One grasped his broadsword, untouched save for a few minuscule nicks along the double edge of the tempered silvery, steel blade, and the other held aloft his freshly drawn short sword glinting with a hint of the blackest of iron. When his white countenanced mother's eyes fastened upon her only son, the deputy nearest him whirled about with an expression of mingled fear, anger, and madness on his scarred face that would most certainly have killed any small animal that came within its smoldering glare. Feeling the intense anger and all-consuming rage from his father's unjust death and the sudden fear for his mother's safety well up within his overcharged heart, the mortally fearful farm hand sprang to the hearth with a speed that belied his thin, though agile, frame and snatched up a red-hot poker that lay buried deep in one intensely blazing blue-white log. With this instrument of doom and destruction in his clenched, white knuckled hand, Sam lunged ahead toward the foolhardy deputy that turned to face him, the one who had most obviously committed the heinous, foul deed that caused the demise of Samuel's precious and beloved father. This was proven by the short sword enclosed in his opponent's two handed grip. As Sam faced him, intent upon finding an outlet for his limitless ire, the deputy was taken aback and had not time to jump clear before the searing spike was jammed recklessly with unbelievable strength through his armored midsection, opening a gaping rent, and burning a sizable hole, while cauterizing the incredible wound all at once. On hearing the dying scream of his foolhardy companion, the remaining deputy turned, meaning to flee in terror from this vengeful angel of death. Unfortunately for him, Sam was in a maddened frenzy and would not allow his vengeance to be denied, nor the escape of a man who was involved in the decimation of his irretrievable family. "This evil cannot be allowed to live!" rationalized the enraged Sam who therefore turned a vile murderer, wrenched free the red-hot poker from its refuge in the smoldering, blackened skin of its first victim, and flung the devil's pike with all of his not inconsiderable might in the direction of his fleeing foe. The scorching projectile caught the cowardly deputy across the side of his well-formed face and doubled him over in burning agony. Before the afflicted one had a moment's chance to realize the grave danger in which he had been placed, or even to cry out for the mercy he so desperately wanted, Samuel tore the broken broadsword from his father's side and plunged the once mighty weapon's shard deep through the back of and directly into the beating heart of the helpless man who had wielded its fellow.
Weary from his extensive fight and the psychological trauma that surely follows such foolhardy ventures, Sam turned to find comfort in his ailing mother. When he finally gathered the strength to raise his eyes from the gory bloodbath on which they were locked and look toward her after what seemed to be painfully long hours, she had not moved an iota from her previous position, and all he could see was the acute horror in her eyes. Not the horror of the death of his father, may he rest in peace, for that had been at least half-expected, but the horror at what he had done, he who had once been so good. He had murdered two men!
She uttered one word in a whisper so low that it was nearly silent, "Run!" then collapsed into an unmoving, lifeless heap in the nearly impenetrable shadows of the corner.
"Escape...run...flee!" the words echoed through the few remaining pieces of the broken mind of this murderer as he turned and ran with the adrenaline that can only come with pure, unadulterated terror from the one the place he had known as home. "Where can I possibly go? What can I do? What have I done? How could I kill another human being?" the wild thoughts flitted and flew through his fragile, cracked mind. Suddenly, a recollection that seemed a godsend, struck, "The lake! Wasn't there a cabin at that an¬ cient, creepy lake that father always warned me away from?" The thoughts of his father lying, drained of his lifeblood, on the very floor he had built with his own two hands only years before, mixed with elation of the seemingly lucky remembrance, and plunged Samuel's torn soul deeper into the immeasurable depths of the truest, dark despair. He ran faster, not giving a whit of thought to the branches that scratched and clawed at his bare arms and unprotected face; paying no heed to the rocks and roots which reached up to ensnare his bare feet. Mile after endless mile slipped away with feet pounding hard upon the bone dry earth which gradually changed and softened until it became the consistency of a boggy, marsh land with diaphanous mist eating away at all in sight, and finally to the rough, grainy texture of sand sticking to one's soles and grinding underfoot. At last, after what seemed many long hours of muscle straining running, Samuel Ross saw a glimmer of the red sunset peep through the multitudinous trees as if at a clearing, and, sure enough, an answering glare reflected back from what he thought to be beckoning water.
"The lake! But I don't see the cabin! Where is it? Could I possibly have been mistaken? NO!!" these horrors echoed through Sam's tormented brain. He glanced warily about and approached the enticing lake. His frigid heart was pounding fit to burst, and his labored breathing was harsh and ragged in his ears, forbidding any sound but its own broken, lifeless pant, as he came skidding to a halt at the pure, white sandy bank of the large, still, glassy lake. The boy had small, stinging cuts and large, burning abrasions all about his beaten, battered form as a result of his extended flight through ghostly woods lit only as if during twilight. Steaming sweat beaded and bubbled on his forehead and ran in thick rivulets down into his suffering eyes, there to blur Sam's increasingly troubled vision. The farm hand's mouth was parched and his dry lips cracked from the lengthy run he had just endured in his fruitless escape of the black, predestined path that Samuel Ross had just laid for himself. For these reasons, he bent down to take a greatly needed drink from the calm waters of the mirroresque lake. He pulled his singed hand back and howled in burning anguish when the steam he had mistaken for mist scalded his azure fingers. It was then, as Sam felt a cold, black wind begin to blow, that he first began to take notice of the unusual characteristics of this oversized pond.
This farmboy turned murderer noticed first, the fiery arc of the setting sun glinting a deep crimson upon the reflective surface of the lake as if it bled profusely from wounds unknown. In the northwest corner, a mass of rotting, green-brown algae hung suspended, floating near the slow, steady waves that lapped the shore gently at his blistered feet. It was partially cloaked in the undulating swirl of a fine, grey silt, dredged up by things unmentionable from the inky depths beyond measure. As Sam gazed across the lake, his raw eyes met a swirling, pulsating greenish mist that was borne to life upon its own fell wind. The stench that emanated from this fog was a putrid, malingering odor that was reminiscent of weeks old decomposing bodies left there to rot by things beyond memory and best left to the imagination. It filled the air all about, penetrated the nostrils, and brought a feeling of knives stabbing deep into his suffering brain. He closed his bloodshot eyes tightly against the lingering sensations, but when Sam reopened them, he found himself still staring directly into the vile, clandestine fog. When the murderer concentrated on the tumultuous mist, he seemed to imagine that he could just see within the fleeting forms of people long dead, and those yet living, hovering just at the edge of his clouded, tormented sight, the demonic presences of his life past, never once abating, but haunting him yet and through all of eternity to come. Slowly, before the pitiable boy's steadily maddening eyes, an oddly familiar shape began to coalesce in the foul, fetid air. As it came together, and became more substantial, recognition came slowly. It was a lone, solitary figure with a long, thread bare hood pulled over its bowed head, blanketing the malevolent face beneath in dark, depthless shadows, a vaporous cloak drawn tight about its slight, lank body, and from its partially concealed fingers flashed bits of deep, blue flame. Suddenly, as Samuel peered deeply into the secretive, cowled face, it dawned on him, the distorted countenance that graced his beleaguered vision was none other than that of his very own. He could see the contorted features of his weathered face, all planes and angles in the half-light of the mist, a hawk nose, bent like a talon raised to strike, pursed lips, a thin line that was barely evident, short, close cropped sandy brown hair plastered about the angular face, and hollow, lifeless eyes that burned with cold, green flames fueled by a hard fury that was colder still.
"Look at me, and through me, see yourself!" it cried in a toneless voice that re-sounded in the core of Sam's very bones and left him feeling chill as if he had been touched by the deathly hands of the Grim Reaper himself. Thick, red blood dripped in a slow, steady rhythm from the apparition's hands. As this, the icy madness of who he was, what he had done, and what he had become, swept through the body, and spirit of Samuel Ross, he began to slip, as if down an endless pit, into the black depths of his own personal abyss, to the frigid embrace of the unforgiving netherworld. He fell slowly at first, then, gaining speed, more rapidly. Until, at last, the boy could hear naught else but the piercing sound of his own maniacal laughter, blocking even that of his madly pounding heart. He could no longer even feel the slicked, sticky arms of the psychotic wraith as this ghostly doppelganger claimed Sam for its own, closed itself about him, and dragged his crazed mind and shattered soul into the murky and final calm of its uncannily heated watery abode. Finally, as the sanity of life slipped from his battered body in large, slow gasps for air, it took him to meet its lord and master, the all-powerful vaunted lady herself, the eternal, Mistress Death.
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Background by Morion.