Page Two of Five
warped, while the birds fled from their sanctuaries in the grass. The man started to run, stumbling over roots and shrubbery constantly. He was heading back toward the clearing in the grass where he had left his Offering to the night.
The pain was still increasing, but the determined man kept pushing onward through the tall grasses. The roar that had pursued him was now so unimaginable, so tremendous, it was as if the air were tearing and falling down upon him. Then, after many minutes of pursuit, the blast caught up with him. First his feet were pulled back out from under him. He braced the fall with his outstretched arms, but by then it was much too late to escape the fate that had befallen him. With unprecedented force, the shockwave hit him, crushing his bones and organs. In the last moments of the torment, he could feel his body swelling with warm blood. The pain abruptly halted, and darkness prevailed, when his obliterated and contorted body grew still. The cold that had surrounded him earlier had now increased a thousandfold, and his grimacing corpse was instantly frozen in an immortal reminder of the suffering he had experienced.
The ground around the cold mass was also freezing, stopping at exactly a ten meter radius around the icy pile of flesh. Another shockwave, slightly weaker than the first, hit again, striking from above. The plants and rocks shattered as it hit, as well as the carcass. The entire area was crushed and kneaded in a whirlwind of heat. All the previously frozen objects were now thawing, as a crackling sound filled the air. The ragged lump of entrails and flesh was not only thawing, but melting with the ice. It continued its rapid decay, until it was no longer definable as a former human. the ground collapsed into a sinkhole, and the few remains that were left were now discarded forever.
The Offering
About 100 meters from the newly fabricated sinkhole, another devilish spectacle had been made. this was a small clearing in the vast ocean of grass in which nothing lived. It was exactly 10 meters in radius, 20 in diameter. It was as if a pillar of fire had been called down upon the field, for the precision of the circle was quite transcendental. It was apparent that the peculiar camouflaged man had been there before his untimely decimation, for the results of his gunfire and knifework were strewn about the barren ground. Several terribly mutilated corpses were thrown and piled about beyond any recognition of their former identities. The stench would have attracted flies, but a supernatural heartlessness hung low in the air. The dirt was no longer black or brown, rather it was a dark crimson mud. Not a drop of blood was to be found outside the circle, though. the only break in the perfect disk was a small trail of broken and trampled grass that lead to the darkness where the prominent tree once stood, and where evil will always linger.
2: Progression
With a bloody knife clutched tightly, a figure enshrouded in a black overcoat picked its way through the tangles of brush that surrounded the south end of the plain. The moon was full on this night, but local cloud cover obstructed its light. Half of the silver sphere was still visible to the entity in the cloak, but it seemed oblivious to any stimulus in its determined state. Its long coat occasionally snagged on one of the thorns that were grouped in the bushes, and the being’s