The Wordsmiths Book 2021

The Horror

That smell is on the air. That evil diesel, That putrid odour, That vile stench. I taste metal.

I hear silence, but it keeps getting faster. The shapes in the darkness blend together, Someone has spilt water on the canvas.

Brine, I see brine. It irritates my eyes. That residual stink like the carcase of a dead animal. That stink that struggles to find the door, so it waits around. Injury. Injury sets the stage for despondence, or heroism. A righteous blow to the leg, sends one stumbling side stage. Surgical precision. Can you feel it? The walls between the sane world and that unplumbed dimension of delirium are tenuously thin here. The space between worlds is no place for mortal men. The requirements of survival cannot be met on such an empty stomach. The thing is more terrible than I can describe – an incoherent jumble of organ, sinew and bone. This scraping swine itching for a meal. Can the defiled be consecrated? Can the fallen find rest?

Oh, I beg the horror, teach me a lesson. Let me shatter the stained-glass windows. Let me break the tendrils of mud and bone. Fan the flames! Mould the metal! We are raising an army! The flesh is knit, the blood pumps, the limbs obey. Press this advantage, give them no quarter. That smell, is on, the air.

Elliot Bartley

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