A rap on the patchwork door, and the looming frame sits up. A quivering creak as the planks swing on their hinges, sucking cobweb lungs. The insidious echo distills to whispers in the crown of the Stormburg, the horn of the house. Many shadows you may choose to enter: the first is an empty corner; the second is a corner not so empty, and you turn from a lipless grin with hesitation. The gullet of the cellar, swallowing your steps, the maw of ceiling trap, drooling steps to take. You ascend, and another ascends: you go up, and another comes up from the bowels of the cellar with noiseless feet that resound through the spirit congregation. You pass a moving thing with a sigh, a thing with feet that are granite and blink. Rubbing shoulders with memories, clustered froth at the mouth of the grave, while the Thing snakes up behind through the press, between limb and veil and clouded eye. They all cry out to you, but you only hear them because you glance into the fated glass, and because you see It in there, It is there. Your shadow strives for you against your Devil’s match, an ancient axe precedes you out the smear-stained panes, and you drag a leg away from the jaws, where you will never again seek to reach the mystery that sits in the heart of the horn, the Stormburg, crest of swarming shades.

2023/03/09 #DailyWrittenOOM