#fridayflash ~ Oh Hell, It’s Shail

The lake splayed before him with the illusion of clear blue waters lapping at a clean-cut shoreline, but underneath, hid the dirt and filth of ancient gods and abandoned second chances.

Evil lurked.

And that was why he sat atop the picnic table, his massive legs propped up on the metal BBQ, listening to the sound of his bowie knife as he stroked it across the wet stone. It prepared his mind, his thoughts, his soul - if he should loose the shattered pieces that were left.

The sun faded to a sliver upon the forest, and that glowing coal of pain, the pain that melted his stomach to the sewage it'd become, began its precursor to the hunt that would soon follow the swallowing of the slivered eye into a black sky.

He'd know precisely the moment of evening, for the frogs would not croak, the birds dare not sing, and the wild life would keep to their caves and burrows. Flames of red and hatred of fire would soon be brewing deep into the heart of the Devil's Eye, the pioneer nickname for the heart of the forest. He chanted the rhyme letting it calm his stomach, and sharpen his mind.

Swift night follows

shrink ye lake

for red oft follow

the devil's sake.

Black tarred spears

dripping with blood

spirals with antlers

the devil's flare flood.

Deep in the heart

of green and pines

they eat of the heart and souls true

mind you, you weary, o soul opine

for the Devil's Eye opens amongst you

Sharpen ye swords and knives of steel

And cut off their heads,

And crimson skin do peel

And when morn awakes and opens the sky

Silent it closes, the Devil's Eye

Shail blinked. Night was upon him. He set the wet stone aside and stood. His chest, bare and massive, inflated with furry. The red beings, holding their catches high and frolicking amongst the tree tops, fled to the heart of the forest, where their triumphs of the day would be sacrificed.

(An excerpt of the novel I’ll be writing during nanowrimo)