Spunk Tales! (The Godbeast)

  


M83 - Skin of the Night

    Within an increasingly iridescent glade amidst a slowly decreasing woodland not too far from the reach of humanity’s gaze, there resides a creature best left unmolested; for just as mankind plays games, this beast entertains itself with activities best left unspoken. The godbeast once labeled Hati Hróðvitnisson resides in this morbidly sacrosanct tract of land, though to say that it basks in solitude would be a misnomer of sorts, as there is more, or perhaps less to this glade than Life, Earth, and Progress would have an observer believe. The godbeast is not, by any means suggested, alone, and yet the living need not be counted amongst its company.

    Beside the creature of a thousand stars, countless scars and its faded, bleached mange stands a stag with four legs broken in several places, bones jutting through the fur of a body partially decayed, both eyes long since devoured by maggots; the putrefied deer watches intently as the godbeast runs a gaunt, clawed finger across the body of a felled raccoon. Wherever that finger traces, therein lies an orange akin to florescent paint, for this is the godbeast’s favorite shade of reanimation; this way and that, the wandering finger infuses just enough vivacity to disregard the roadkill’s predicament and the animal begins to stir, its shattered spine disobeying the laws Nature once decreed.

    From its one azure eye, an eye devoid of pupil, iris, and ephemeral grace the godbeast exudes placation while from that other place, a jagged crevice from which a second eye once gazed upon the world, lies a wound that forever bleeds; beast, much as man, suffers the insufferable burden of incurable ailments, the difference being for a creature which is neither, that which does not heal scarcely kills, yet what the godbeast secretes is not blood but, rather, the stuff of dreams, the materials which lead men and women alike to insatiable cravings. This, the godbeast’s cervine companion feasts upon with lacerated tongue.

    Within this increasingly iridescent glade amidst a slowly decreasing woodland not too far from the reach of humanity’s fate, there resides an expanding coterie of servile parasites eager to embrace their oblivious executioners, those who steal vitality along the interstates, highways and byways that breach the land itself. The headless, limbless, and lifeless yearn for what has been taken from them so callously, yet the godbeast has other, albeit not entirely divergent plans from its septic legion, for the creature still referred to as Hati Hróðvitnisson effortlessly savors what fleshly constructs cannot fathom; that is, if not the future then the enduring zest of inevitability.

    They, unbeknownst to all save the godbeast, approach this site of unnaturally vibrant hues and artificially infused wildlife with the unbridled curiosity befitting of easygoing children exposed to something categorically bewitching; before long, that ragtag group of unsuspecting youths shall discover something best left unseen and soon thereafter, any flicker of life, love, friendship, and hope will be devoured by what awaits them.