by C Ross
horrified at something.
I seeing further and further into the near future and whatever was there seemed to horrify me. The distance between the reflected future and the present was growing. I watched closely into the prophetic mirror, witnessing my face become suddenly blank. I tried to calm myself as it became obvious that I was scaring myself. There is nothing to fear but fear itself, the mantra calmed me down.
I was about to walk away from the mirror lest I work myself up into a panic again when I couldn’t help but take one little glance back. It was greedy of me and I have paid dearly for that greed.
My reflection was staring intently into his own future reflection, his face went pale as he gasped in horror. This wasn’t simple paranoia, something had happened. I watched and waited as the tension gnawed at my insides. What could have possibly caused me to have such an extreme reaction?
My reflection rushed at the mirror with a terrified expression petrified upon his face. The image projected from the mirror suddenly was tilted. I must be moving it, but for what purpose? A view of the outside cliffs came into view and then the ocean. Another violent tilt through the world into a blur, the image shattered showing a variety of fragments of the seaside. Slowly from the edges of these fragments blood dripped down the surface. There was no doubt this was my blood.
A wild panic took over my body I could no longer stand having this evil creation in my presence, I ran over and grabbed the mirror while being careful not to look into its image. I would throw this horrid thing off the cliff, dash it against the rocks and into the sea.
Never again would I lay eyes upon this miscreation. Running down the sloping path to the cliff my foot fell under a loose rock, I tumbled down the hill with an almighty crashing the mirror shattering around me. I tried to get up to complete my task only t0 realise the mirror had been shattered. A trail of jagged shards led from where I tripped to where I tumbled. I tried to get up but a sudden shortness of breath caught me off guard and I collapsed back to the ground. I looked down to inspect myself and saw to my horror multiple shards sticking out of my bleeding body.
I can taste rusty nails under my tongue. I’ve been screaming for help and if there was somebody nearby I would have been rescued by now. Instead, I am hopelessly writing my last thoughts into this journal, a last testament to the madness I have witnessed. I struggle not to look at my wounds, not because I scared of gore or blood but the shards of the mirror are still projecting their magic despite being broken. I can’t help but look to see if perhaps I can see a prophesied future in which I am saved from the cold grip of death I can feel tighten over my body. But to no avail, the reflection has reached further and further into the future and there is no light at the end of the tunnel. I see my face go pale, the glimmer of life leaves my eyes as the bugs enter. The maggots burrow into my eyes and then skin which has turned into a brown husk as the cretins feast. My sickly pale corpse bloats my chest cavity inflating like a balloon, faster and faster I see into the future of my inescapable fate.
However, watching my own body decompose was not the only disturbing vision I had to suffer through. To say I was in a panic is an understatement, I desperately tried to remove some of the shards out of their wounds but more reflections came into view, namely from shards that projected the past events. They too seemed to increase in power, looking further and further back into the past. The vision became worse shards from both sides of the mirror reflected off each, past and future. I saw infinite versions of reality stretching into both the past and future.
Day and night flashed by, the sun rising one second and then the moon, until there was nothing left my but my ghostly white skull. And even my skull turned to dust but in another reflection the flesh rebuilt itself upon my bones simultaneously. I saw a great bomb drop to the east then several more to the west and all was still as the sky sickened. I saw the great fires of a volcanic eruption that created this cliffside a millennium ago while in another vision the ocean eroded the jagged rocks to sand in a distant era. The cottage fell into the ocean in a silent catastrophe. The sun grew in size and becoming brighter and brighter, until finally it went dark.. The stars rolled out like a rug across the night sky and then eventually turning off one by one until finally there was nothing but darkness. I saw a great flash and the world came into creation. I saw it all the Judgement Day, the Rapture, Ragnarök. Before the great flash or after the great darkness, perhaps both, the hydrogen mists parted and I saw a huge figure, his entire being seemed to be made of light. He was crouched over as if deep in work at an anvil, he raised his hammer for a final strike to his grand creation but instead went still, he knew he was watched and began to turn to my direction. But I covered my eyes before I saw his face, I couldn’t bring myself look into those eyes. I feared what I would find there. When I looked again I found only a dark abyss staring back and a deep hatred of myself. I will never know but perhaps those eyes would have held mercy. I doubt it. If there’s anything I have learnt in my craven life, it’s that God hates a coward.
The Hound and his Man
The man stripped off his wet fur loincloth, the last of his clothes. Tenderly he added it to the fire, it burned for a few moments of ecstasy. He sat starving and naked. Outside a dark swaying forest battled with the ferocious blizzard.
His hound leant against him conserving what little warmth they sustained. The man cradled him like he had so long ago when he was but a sniffling pup. Another twig crumbled to its fate among the dying coals. Their stomachs had long stopped grumbling and now screamed for food. His dog sniffed the air and went deep into thought. Now with death looming the man reminisced of the beginning of their friendship, which was the bloody affair of cutting the pup from its mother’s womb. He wrenched up the pup and brought his spear point to its throat, but something stopped him. The same spear which pierced the mother’s womb now sat idle and frozen against the wall, long icicles hanging off its shaft.
The man often wondered after all this time if there was an ancient grudge that the hound held deep inside. His dog whimpered and shook off the man’s weak grasp. The man attempted to pat him. He shot up with a guttural growl and paced the room. Without the fur his master had the scent of a stranger almost forgotten. The freezing man shouted angrily. The dog bared his fangs in terrorised delight and paced faster- warming his aching muscles. A terrible realisation came to the man in a flash of innate instinct. He went silent.
The man stood exposed, and it became clear to him. Only one victor would leave the gloom to meet the morning sun. The man tried the spear but hadn’t the strength to pry its frozen place. Their eyes met with cold isolation, both slowly circling. There was no more room for rational thought; fantasies of hot flesh being clenched beneath their jaws were the only occupants in the minds of both the wolf and the man.
The man imagined slipping into that warm fur once again. Within the wolf vengeance plotted against the monster that ate his mother and wore her skin. The man leapt, the wolf pounced. He sank his fangs into the sluggish thigh with glee. The man grasped a nearby rock and beat down with it. A brutal blow impacted on his paw. The man kicked the wolf off him.
He knocked into the spear, shattering the ice. The man despairingly reached for his weapon, the wolf pounced again. They tumbled and turned over the long dead fire pit, flinging soot into the air as they shouted and snarled.
A moan cut through the screaming blizzard.
The dust settled.
A single silhouette panted.
A figure emerged.
A warm breeze blew across the bloody fur on his back telling of the coming spring. He limped out with the broken spear jutting at his side, his gullet filled and his heart emptied.
Leaving a track of three prints in the snow with every step, he went out into the lonely wilderness.
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