Wolf Hound

Silently, I watched my father’s hound rush off. Bouncing through the grass to get the goose. Giddy. Proud to make his master happy.

“Why don’t you make yourself useful and collect the geese Holt?” my brother asked, not an ounce of venom in his tone. “You’d be faster than Finn.”

My dad hit him lightly. Smacking him gently with the butt of his rifle as the words floated and sank, digging into the earth.

“Don’t say things like that to your brother. He’s a werewolf, not a dog. It’s a legitimate condition,” Dad snarled.

My brother didn’t mean anything by it. Not at all. It was a suggestion made by a young mind. Someone who doesn’t quite understand.

But…

Still.

I think about it all the time.

Inferno

It was dispassionate.

People lived their lives, moving like ants. Robotic, focused. Standing in line, following orders, doing what they were instructed. Moving wholly and completely within the confines of what was created for them.

As I said:

Like ants.

Moving through an ant farm.

This world created falsely. A controlled environment.

Fake.

The world isn’t like that.

Not at all.

The world wasn’t meant to be so dispassionate. So hungry.

Man was not mean to be so greedy.

And when the skies fell?

When the earth shook?

The mountains flowed with bubbling, roiling rage?

They realized that.

Or:

They perished.

We were not meant to be so dispassionate.

We were meant to be more.

We weren’t meant to watch for saviors, or wait for hope to be delivered on a platter. Weren’t meant to be idle, or vacant.

We were meant to be heroes. 

Beginning

I cleave the building.

Split it in two.

It crumbles, the giant skyscraper. Creaking like an ancient door, cracking like lightning. All of its stories falling, echoing thunder. The building roars as it falls, and people run from it. Completely terrified.

But I don’t stop.

I don’t stop.

I throw another bolt of lightning. Shake the earth with a kick. Yell, and the foundations all shake.

I am not done destroying, not yet.

I won’t be done for quite some time.

This must all come crashing down, you see. These terrors and raging beasts. The creatures that carve out destruction, that lay waste to each other and the beasts of this earth.

I won’t stop until they’re all gone.

Until all this ends.

Until there is nothing but a clean slate left.

This all must end.

Spill

The river runs, and it runs, and it runs.

Right through the building. Washing over every floor. Coating all the walls, and filling every hall.

The river runs.

Black tar, river runs.

It builds on the walls. Closes off the doorways. Makes open and shut impossible for them. For us.

For you.

Time is running.

Running river, black tar.

Run from the river. The river is running for you.

It runs for you.

Run, run, run from the river.

Run.

Magic Is Not “Mine”

There is a root to selfishness.

It’s a knowledge. A knowing. When you reach out and push away, or grab at, or break. Looking at something and thinking to yourself “I want that” or “I want that away from me” or “I want to destroy that” and for no other reason than simply because you want to. Selfishness is being fully in the know about what you’re doing. Yes, you might deny it to yourself, but you know.

You know.

That’s selfishness. True and unfiltered selfishness, cut down to its root.

Knowing what you’re doing is wrong, and doing it anyway.

Knowing that getting what you want will hurt someone, put them at a disadvantage.

Knowing.

And doing anyway.

That’s why I can’t forgive them. Ignorant as some may be, they’re not all that way.

Some of them know.

Four Rise In Direction

I did not raise a family.

When the earth was born, it was born chaotic. Churning endlessly. A depth that swallowed, and swallowed, and swallowed. Greedy selfish beasts rose up from the ash and muck, traipsing about with hunger, with lust, with blood on their hands. They cared not for life, nor for death, but wandered endlessly in between. Mouths that chewed and spat, ate but did not swallow. Creatures that wasted, over and over and over again.

What was I to do with that?

What is expected of me?

You think I should raise glory? That I should bring forth morning? That I ought to bathe them in light and wonder and power?

No.

Creatures such as these did not deserve such things. Would only waste them, as they did everything else.

So I did not raise children like the others. Traditionally, the gods’ children would bring wonder and glory and knowledge to the creatures below.

But not mine.

Not mine.

I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

So I did not raise a family.

I raised hell instead.

Twisting Woods

This land used to be full of magic.

Well… good magic.

But man has a way of twisting things. Of corrupting the natural good of the world.

We used to have good magical creatures.

Not these monsters.

These beasts.

This is not the natural way of things. Not how they were supposed to be.

This is not how they were supposed to be.