I forgot the silence of sunrise when I first saw that sallow moon.
Sick. Yellowed. Sinking.
Slinking behind whispering shadows and clinging talons of dry starving brambles.
I felt a sinister baleful glimpse of an old god, felt the goosebumpy spidercrawl of spit down my parched and empty throat
and drew the slack leash of my hound tight aroung my wrist.
Bolt.
Drag.
Or barrelled down by this wicked omen
I wasn't sure.
She felt it too.
Planted still, rooted to the moment of pre-eminent fear and squelched oblivion.
I felt it like a footfall.
An encroaching and confident stranger landing softly under the bad moon's blessing.
We knew to step back.
Retreat.
Flee.
Run!
But the moment held, like cold hands around our ankles.
And the fear of knowing struck us dumb.
Another step from the altar.
Another dark divine caress against good, and humble things.
What dawn could come of this?
What light could purge such a putrid, impenetrable marsh of unhallowed night?
Creeping, licking, choking closer like cackling conflagration.
Pure
and impossible.
Yet we bear witness.
Awed supplicants to this unthinkable consumption.