Tomb

I awoke to a Tomb,

Not of my creation

I stumbled from the sanctum, and noticed the path that snaked itself across the hillside.

Enveloped in cruel canopies, that would’ve swayed even the dullest of imaginations on this cool summer night.

I walked, Forgotten through and through this seemingly vast and desolate Forest.

A Great Hollow, stretching as far as the eye can see. Thoughtless I roamed with naught acknowledgement of time itself, nor a companion of any length. The Forest breathed with nightly life as thunder beckoned in far off hills.

The scent was memorable.

Thunder [[*followed by its usual twin*]], revealed streaks above through the canopy, and a more fair glance at the fog ridden trail just below.

A rugged and worn path it was, with a matching sign post just ahead. Worn through by time, and weathered beyond legibility. Gripping my cowl closer through the rain, the winds began to take on a more aggressive approach, creaking the trees, making a mere moan among the already dead forest sound.

Not panic, but more instinct brought me from my daze moments before a limb, bigger in size than I, came crashing just behind. The first of many widow-makers tonight.

As if by the Gods touch, gift, or the like, a cave bearing the warmth and dryness from such a storm protruded out from a great mound of a mountain.

Rock stackings covering the top most rim in a symmetrical fashion, ancient looking on its own.

Once inside it seemed uninhabited, yet lightly dressed with furnishing for one. The trees outside seemed as if to bleed black ichor, shadows from the new lit fires light.

The walls of this cave, the color of rust, and dripping of the rain made the cave seem to weep alongside my decayed form in this bright darkness.

With fire lit and coals a plenty, I sat with my back to the wall watching the rain. Until my traitorous eyes gave in to the taps all around. When I awoke I heard faint and familiar murmurs crashing along with the steady drops of rain still coming down in its mourning.

These murmurs, distant yet feeling in grasping range, echoed harder and louder than the rain itself, like an insistent pressure, bouncing from one current of thought, to the next.

As I stood, willing to study these familiarities, a soft neighing added into the chorus of newly found sounds.

There in pouring rain stood the Blackest Steed I’ve ever had pleasure to lay my eyes on.

Saddleless, it stood majestic to the lighting being cast still behind its silhouette.

The Murmurs broke through once more, as I willed myself atop this great steed, who stood twice my height, and seemed to still be growing in size.

To my surprise it knew its apparent purpose and began galloping off towards the very echoes that seemed to be growing from afar.

To a great meadow this steed brought my breathless corpse, for it was, and quite early now and I could see the steed’s own breaths in slight fog gusts, but not my own. This meadow, clear of debris but a small outcropping of rocks for a fire, held no weeds, nor flowers. Ankle high grass, as if frequent to a mow as a small town’s lawn, lay in this ten foot circle of what could be considered a perfect spot of forest. The echoes would grow quite here, then gain volume and drop again throughout. The fog also seemed to have breathed, it would grow so much to where I wouldn’t see the other tree-line, not far at all from myself, then wane as to let me see my own two feet.

Leaving the Steed as free as it had found me, I wandered toward the pit. Fog enveloping my entire person, like an air mistress of many arms, all grasping and tugging and caressing me every which way. The fire at the pit had been long ago burnt out, for the grass growing inside proved enough.

Beginning its take back of its once inhabited innards of the pit.

In the stillness of camping, when all’s done, and the calm comes over, you feel a usual acceptance, or an immediate disallowance.

But only in the stillness, as if the wood itself is allowing your stay or not.

Once I had set the camp about in this meadow, and all the stillness came about, a sublime melancholy took hold.

Only to be ripped from my reeling grasp almost at once, by the red-orange of the fire now lit. Growing to a pure Green, it danced as if waiting for my acknowledgment.

To and From the sides of the pit, locked in its own trance.

The voices grew to an almost guttural yelling, and multiple of them stacked atop one another, till one was cleared than the rest. As the flames began to whisk with the winds of the evening, the familiarity came back.

And oh the familiar, such as one can drive you mad.

These Green Flames danced on, till eventually one sprang from the pit. Leaving the rest to bask as it landed with still a light.

As i began to attempt to smother the flame outside the pit, a voice came to crackle,

“smother out such an old friend so easily would you?” To my surprise, “Always were one for solo outings huh?”

The voice of a long departed friend spoke out in the meadow’s clear silence. As I stared at the source the green flame flared, took man’s shape, shimmering green against the black of the twilight backdrop.

Grotesque features lined its glimmering green face of fire, as I watched it steadily move to the other side’s stool. True bewilderment took hold of me in that instant.

An Old Friend it was indeed, standing as a mere fragment of his older self, right in front of me.