Lingua Serpentis

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The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. Red was its light, shining with the blood of innocents, forever locked inside another's skin -- a skin that did not succumb, but peeled, blackened, decayed just the same with every moon, smelling of soil and rot and ashes.

The crimson flames swayed from the wick, tangled in a waltz like a lady of high standing and her courting partner twirling on the dancefloor, chins held high and wandering fingers not inching past the unspoken but well known limits. But, the flame was but a beckon of darkness, you see, and it called out to its prey with every breath it took. Outside the mist of the woods stood a castle, shingles reaching high into the clouds, and inside, guests gasped, violins halted, champagne flutes fell to the floor and shattered to pieces. Pairs of dilated pupils, glued to the glass-stained windows, gazed upon something intangible.

It was back.

You could feel it in the air. The dread. The pain. The despair. Crawling its way into lungs like mold. Impossible to stop. It could consume, this darkness. And soon, it would begin to take lives once more.

Within the forest, the figure stood low, dressed in layers upon layers of robes made of discarded and sewn pieces of cloth that had once belonged to another. The hood laced itself around its hairless head, and the mask, sculpted out of heavy white clay, hid the unforgiving beneath the shadows. Its back was arched as it walked, skin pinched together over bones, past emaciation. Mushrooms grew atop what had once been moles and freckles, blisters leaked out tar, thickened lids blinked over dried eyes. It coughed, a deep sound that made its ribs vibrate much like fingers scratching at organ keys.

It was starved for touch. For emotion. For life, any sort of life that would cross its path would do, if it would grant merely the briefest moment of relief. Its heart ached as much as its joints, cracking under the pressure of time that could never be seen through.

It was starved for a taste.

When next it found a victim, a lonesome man with golden hair who squirmed and wrinkled around its grip, the sky was dipped in ebony ink, and the moon as bright as the mask it bore. From its depth, a tongue inched out, slithering across until it reached the warm, pink flesh of humanity. It whispered in the man's ear, crooked words which held meaning one could not understand beyond the sickening sounds. It licked, leaving a trail of death behind. It ate, biting and chewing until nothing was left, nothing but a scatter of bones and a puddle of blood that would soon become one with the earth, swim into the forest's veins and breathe with it.

In harmony with the flame as it, too, breathed, and the figure coughed.

The pendulum chimed. Villages lived in fear of what waited at their doorstep, brooding. No one was safe, not even the children. One by one they all went. Churches, once filled with disciples and non-believers praying for mercy hand in hand, began to empty. Dust accumulated, food and supplies ran thin, diseases spread. And in the end, when the figure pushed the door open with a whine of wood and stared down at you, you embraced it like a lullaby at bedtime.

It coughed, and the sound of your name escaped its lips.

No one would remember it. No one, but the earth beneath its feet and the skin that stole your soul. A skin that did not succumb, but peeled, blackened, decayed with every cry it tore from human throats.

The candlelight turned to smoke, but one day, it would burn once more.