Cascading down from high and simmering mountainsides that rose steeply from the valley floor of which, their brambled layers bore nothing more than the marks of charred and blackened scars, these winged creatures soared, the magenta glow dripping from the sky illuminating the ugly and mutated curves of their horrid shape. They fed on souls lost in the nakedness of those woods without warning, swooping through black, leaveless branches and gliding through empty spaces where one could try and hide from the core of their voracious hunger and hate. Piercing all ears with terrible shrieks, fear tore furiously for that hour, and those caught by claws were taken to unknown places where the unimaginable occurred. In one corner of a burnt glade, two of these creatures fought over a preyed upon soul while in another, obscured from view by a tree barren with soot, a soul would quiver and shake within the hope of one more day’s escape from frightful capture. Another space away, and the heart chilling screams of a soul could be heard, where the clawing and clamping jaws rending tender flesh animated beneath the bony sockets of cold eyes that fired stares of sheer evil, eyes no living being could look upon and live without enduring inexplicable pain.
When the end of the hour came, the shrieking frenzy could be heard to fade slowly into the distance of the red skyline crags, and once again the souls would seek to sit out the darkness among the embers and the ashes, hoping for relief that could not come, and knowing, knowing that all too soon, the return of dread and terror would strike to carry off the others until they, too, would suffer the same.
ESSENTIAL 