by Joe Stanley

5

We found that the shadows would not pursue us there. The strangest notion gripped me but I could not say from where, that we stood within a monument, an idol of despair. Nothing more than void in stone, rising up into the air.

So long as we could rest here, frankly, I didn’t care.

And when we sojourned deeper, bringing torch to bear upon a forest made of toadstools which spread before us there. Ah I knew it’d not be long then before the lack of care sent one more poking at the fetid fungus there.

Was it worth your life to draw that vengeance on your square?

It was a gentle poking that set one of them to smoking and the man began then choking as the spores filled up the air. The rest of us moved back so we might miss the attack, and we saw his face turn black with mushrooms sprouting there. And they kept on sprouting so that none of us were doubting as a wheeze replaced his shouting death had made another fare. We would not let him linger, so on trigger we placed finger and that mighty mercy bringer brought him peace in lieu of care.

And deeper on we went but this time with more care.

Now in this vaulted chamber there was something made of stone. And for uncounted eons it had waited there alone. But as we stepped up to it something chilled me to the bone. For something deep within it hummed with deep and steady drone.

From this wide but squat stone tower rose a deep and steady drone.

Was this place a temple or a castle or a tomb? And what unearthly creature had sought refuge in its room? Oh what awful monster was now rising up from doom, made of writhing tendrils spewing up as from a loom?

It struck down upon us like a living lightning bloom.

All the screaming and the burning quickly set my heels to turning and nothing could sate my yearning but to speed myself away. Though it all seems madness it is here I cheer in gladness for the cowardice that had this man shrieking all the way…

Back through fungal forest past the shadow apes with no rest through the forest haunted, devil-blessed laughing all the way.

There were simply things we were not meant to see is what I say.
As I floundered on the sand I saw the ship sailing away.
Well try your hand at it, then, and I will try my way
In the long boat you’ve forgotten I will row myself away.

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