Devil’s Peak (5b)

Part 1 Superstition / Part 2 Names for Blades/ Part 3 Sin-eater / Part 4 Threshold / Part 5a Tainted blood

Triggerwarning: cruelty, injury, predatory behavior

Part 5 b

-TAINTED BLOOD-

“He was searching for a human child. Your handiwork?” I growled at its gaping mouth and its pulsing tongues. Its tiny eyes fixed on the glowing markings on my flanks. If it had brows or a forehead, it would have looked suspiciously.

“Yes, intruder,” it sizzled with a hollow thrumming in its throat flaps.

threshold voids & useless gods

Part 1:  kind of emergency drill

kind of character study: Frank Edwards, Mark Smith
worldbuilding thingy

“Suit yourself.” I smiled at Frank and his innocent curiosity. Meme barked and almost gave away his secret. That bark suspiciously sounded like ‘pity’. He didn’t like Frank much, although I had found him in the very same state of despair. Of course, Meme had chosen his animal appearance to match his not-so-human instincts. Maybe they were too similar. Where Frank was hurting himself, Meme was trying to hurt others. Still, they were consumed by the same brand of anger and hate.

Frank looked funny at Meme. He must’ve noticed. Meme smiled sheepishly at me in the hopes of salvation. “Can you imagine, how I found you?” I started down the rabbit hole. After a pause, I decided not to wait for any answers. “I followed the spreading bow wave of death that accompanied you.” Frank spat the sip of beer he just took into the fire. It hissed.

kind of emergency drill

Storycluster: Devil's Peak; 
character studies: Mark Smith, Frank Edwards

Mark couldn’t hold up his enigmatic misanthrope act. Today, he let me see his friendly side. The scotch made him chatty and I was nice and cozy in a beer-fog. Perfect match. The late afternoon droned with the noises of the forest’s edge.

The bugs screeched. Meme, the dog, barked from the shore at us. Some campers shouted and scream-laughed somewhere on the side of the lake. Chainsaw noises faded into the distance, and the dark waters of the lake whispered to the purplish hue of the fading daylight. Bah! Took a swig from the bottle. Looked like a nauseating postcard picture. A big cheesy blown kiss from Mother Nature that smacked me right where my heart was. A kiss, like poison ivy rash; itchy, blistering feeling, where I just couldn’t reach. Swollen. Red. A raw spot. My hands shook and with them the fishing pole.

Devil’s Peak (alt 1)

alternative D.P. with changed POV, bc I suck & wrote myself into a corner. So here you go.
Parent text: here

PART 1

-SUPERSTITION-

The call saved me from kennel cleaning. Thank God to whoever rang.

I sat in my mock-ffice, in the nook between a dresser that was a stand-in for a kitchen counter, the wall, and a bunk-bed. Across the half breakroom, half guestroom was a real office, and it belonged to Ranger Mark Smith. I tried to listen to the call he just received in the most casual way I could manage without falling over. To be honest, all I had to lean on, was a white plastic folding table behind a cardboard stand with an assortment of fliers and educational pamphlets about the fauna and flora, as well as general information about campgrounds, and some new pencils. Yay.

DEVIL’S PEAK (3)

Part 1 Superstition
Part 2 Names for Blades

– SIN-EATER –

The dirt and the leaves on the trail showed no signs of disturbance. It smelled of balmy firs and two-day-old game trails. The patches of grass and plants stood straight. The path we took was virginal. No wind, no movements, no sounds, besides Frank’s and mine. I almost expected the cicadas to sing, but the forest remained silent. The day lost its fierce heat and power. Even the fir trees froze in the semitransparent shadow of ominous size, stretching above the canopy. It was something heavy and dangerous. Blue, violet, and brown saturated in the shadows but I was the only one to recognize. Light withered faster than I had anticipated.

DEVIL’S PEAK (2)

Part 1 Superstition

– NAMES FOR BLADES –

The sky was still bright enough but caught amber on the west side. Darkness approached, but only I could feel it around me. The silence was accompanying a sense of dread and heaviness on my chest. “We should hurry,” I told Frank.

No birds chirped, no animal rustled the leaves. The longer we had our feet on the trail, the quieter the forest got. We were already far enough, that the commotion from the trailhead didn’t reach us. As if there were no humans at all.