The child strained against the bitter bite of the raffia fastening. Small mercies were granted here, spaces devoid of blood and pain.

Of the ashen faced creature that stood above him, the boy could see little.

Tears blurred the otherwise macabre vision of the aberration as it watched him through the slope browed-rheumatic eyed regard of what had once been his grandfather.

‘Forgive me Baba,’ sobbed the boy, more for form now than reprieve.

Some innate nature, something spawned in prehistoric existence, a second-knowing, strewn beneath mankind’s eternal strife against the darkness and all that lurked beyond the fires of night told him his grandfather had long since vacated his mortal shell.

A once puerile voice―hoarse and raw after a seeming eternity of futile pleas―was now pitched with the shrill cadence of animalistic despair. A distant part of the child found morbid fascination at his ability to make such sounds. It mused idly―even as it faded―of the progenitor’s near-perfect capture of wordless terror, cradled within those chilling screams. Perturbed, it then turned to observe with curious cautiousness, the face of one who would purvey such horror.

In this, small mercies remained for by gazing upon his tormentor's pleasure, it proved a task too heavy…it fled, never to return.

In the wake of the mind’s exodus, the body remained. Unable to flee behind the dark curtain of oblivion, its tortured shell endured. Skin and bone bore witness, each taken to task.

The body screamed, each sound falling fallow against the moldy earthen walls of the lightless hut and on the ears of their hollow inhabitants. The wall demons shrieked with glee, in mockery they answered the body’s plea.

The creature that wore the body of the boy’s grandfather spoke now, its gravely voice a chilling monotone in the erstwhile cacophony of the hut. ‘The hold of your flesh on your chi would find little cause for understanding my child,’ it said with an almost somber grin. ‘What I do now, I do for you,’

A hand was lifted, it held in its grasp a wicked thing.

The thing came down and then departed. Its brief touch was electrifying. For a moment, something lived on the body’s back, a thing of liquid fire and bitter stinging venom. The wall demons laughed in delirium. Their voices frighteningly similar in cadence to that of the wailing child.

The thing came down again and the walls writhed in ecstasy. The body offered up crimson rivulets of obeisance, anointing the aberration. Although the sounds from the body had ceased, the wall demons rioted in unrestrained mirth.

For too long had they held their peace; silent watchers to a tragic play of these actors called humans, but their solemn vigil at long last was at an end.

Far away in the distant north, an ancient covenant had been violated. The dark faces once again raced across the land. The thing fell again but this time, not a sound was heard.

………………………………

‘We will find him, put your heart at ease.’

The young mother turned to watch the speaker through red-rimmed eyes, haunted to the world and worse to they that saw through them.

The fool stood, aloof to her pain, confident in his youth. Surely, here was a creature of her enemies…

‘Y-you have no business with my heart! m-my child, my boy is gone! gone!’ her face twisted into an ugly mien of paranoia. The fool had the better sense to step out of reach of her grasping claws but not far enough for the saliva that struck his cheek.

‘You crazy witc-‘

A grieving mother is not a beautiful thing.

The woman lurched forward, nails raked against the fool’s arm, splitting flesh, drawing blood. The fool was pulled into a fatal embrace.

The evil one―invisible to the world―perched upon the woman’s shoulder. It whispered more into her tunnel-visioned mind. Its words dripped heavy with the poignant cocktail of delirium and psychosis.

‘They took him from you‘, it whispered as it clutched an earlobe.

‘They did the same to your father, they did same to your husband, now they come for your child‘.

It licked its lips, savoring the euphoric harvest of her sweet despair.

Heady with the fiery wine of mindless rage, a harvest knife was found. Its path traced a silver line in the dying light, its fatal point destined for a neck. A throat was laid bare, life-blood dyed the earth.

The woman trudged on, and of the fool? Perhaps he would be found the next day, a murder just as any other, but they would be wrong. The fool would be the first of many. Unseen to the world, the evil one whispered on.

Would you who reads this understand these subtle truths? A mud-house, located right in the slum-heart of a once populous city, a dozen people walk past its cavernous maw, a dog sleeps on its side, enjoying the warmth of the evening shade, yards away a score of children play before its sinister regard. Their screams of puerile joy bounce against its mudbrick walls and children and indeed the world are both none wiser and better off to the horror that lurks within.

For the walls are sentient, and their task simple; deafen the death-cries of a child as he is beaten by an unnatural thing.

But pace your unease my good friends, there is more to come.

A dozen houses away, a mother, frantic with the blank stare of the insane roams the twilight streets. An entity sits across her shoulders now, it grows larger with every murder wrought. She walks as if beneath an unusual weight. Her enslaved mind; twisted and corrupted, in her wake trail several souls. Alone they see the thing that rides their slayer and weep for what is to come.

A blight has crossed the desert wastes.

A story of fields afire.

Beware the nudge of impish notions,

Beware the deceitful grace.

A blight has crossed the northern heights.

A tale of Kingdoms lost.

Beware the path of evil’s flight,

Beware its placid face.