Deluge of Desolation | l. ackerman

Prologue

"The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness."

Joseph Conrad

(the beginning, age twelve)

No sane child enjoys the haunting elements of midnight. What lurks in the shadows, preying on the fear that festers inside of an innocent, young mind, awaiting the perfect moment for the ultimate ambush is a force to be reckoned with. Whomever dares to face such a creature in the midst of its zenith would surely not live to tell the disturbing tale.

The monster in question does not have one simple adaptation. Some describe it as a tall, faceless man with elongated arms that can reach the deepest depths of Hell, some say witches are the main cause of these hauntings, while others (the minority in this circumstance) believe that they are multiple disembodied spirits that latch onto vulnerable souls and feed on their dismay.

But there is one thing that bonds these interpretations together: that being their absolute evil, maniacal, and conniving disposition. If the Devil was truly real, then those things were his spawns.

Evil or not, a girl stood in the midst of a dark forest, not even the moon that was shrouded by thick, gray clouds could grant her the passage of light. Tall, thin trunks of trees encompassed the small clearing in where the girl was. Brown, dead leaves crunched under her feet; the sound being inaudible against the loud rush of a stream nearby and the constant ringing in her ears that would not stop.

She was seeing things. Tall things, distorted things, short and stubby things, and things hanging from the branches of trees that were barely visible in the depth of the night. So many things, she could not tell what they were.

Humans?

They could very well be humans, but she doubted that. They were too quiet, not breathing even as the temperatures fell to the negatives.

There was no distinct characteristic she could make out, each having a simple, lumpy, black outline; however, the ones in the trees did have an odd kink in what the girl believed to be their necks.

Keeping her head down, she slowly brought her knees into the mud, trying to repress her shivers, but ultimately failing as her teeth quietly clinked together.

Her pants, now soiled in the mud and cold, brought no sense of comfort or warmth. She bowed her head, next. Hands flat against the surface. Her body quivered with the freezing breeze.

She was afraid, just as she always was. Despite having to live with these apparitions that constantly swarmed her for four years, she was never able to gain some sort of resistance to their ominous presence.

The ringing in her ears only grew louder. There was an owl screeching in the near distance and yelps of scrawny coyotes just in front of her. The stream was now starting to sound like a waterfall as it flowed down the mountain.

The noises that surrounded her were closing in. She could hear everything, blaring in her ears and threatening her sanity. She gnashed her teeth as an ardent desire to rip at her ears forced a tremble in her lifeless hands.

She was going insane, but she dared not to move. She knew not to make such a trivial mistake on Sunday nights like these.

Everything was going per usual, the noise, the screeching, the shadows and of course, her excruciating headache. Just like last week, and the one prior to that, so on and so forth, year after year, the event was playing out normally.