The Evil Eye

The night was still.

All around, the dark had swept in like a shadowy tide. The path ahead was illuminated only by a small, round ball of light that glimmered dimly against the black.

In the distance, an owl let out a chorus of hoots. A shadow cast by an old witchtree slithered across the woodland track.

It was... tranquil. A peace so deep it was like the dark.

Radgold of Astora took a deep breath.

The autumnal air was thick with the aroma of chestnuts, pines and browned leaves, crinkling underfoot. A faint residue of fog trailed across the floor in front of his feet. A church bell pealed a nocturnal chorus.

He was almost home. The walk through the Bagdell Woods, guided only by his luminous orb of sorcery, was always such an invigorating trek that he was almost sorry to be done. Almost. The warm sizzle of his hearth, and the sweet smile of his beloved were enough to speed his step.

A branch broke beneath his foot. The wood splintered as it was split down its middle, like cartilage in a bone.

The noise startled him out of his steady pace. He hadn't been expecting it; hadn't prepared for it. In the immediate aftermath, he realised that his hands were actually shaking.

"Just a branch," he chuckled, the tension lifting like hot air. "Silly me."

His laughter echoed through the clearing, pinging off of the twisted tree torsos and disappearing into the boundless night.

Then, he felt the breath on his neck.

Every vessel of blood in Radgold's body froze, his limbs pumping full of ice. He turned his head the slightest of angles, feeling the pounding red glow on the wall if his skull, and sensing his courage literally leaving him, flooding through the ends of his fingertips like a burst dam.

The creature of the night opened its long, piranha-like jaws, hissing, and showering the back of his neck with hot, frothy saliva. In his fright, Radgold spun round, coming face-to-face with his aggressor.

The monstrous beast was cloaked by the night, but he could make out its physical shape. It was humanoid in build, but towered over eight feet tall, with its chest contorted forwards and its spine arched like a bridge, giving it the semblance of an old hag.

However, there could be no mistake.

This was a monster, not a man. And that was made clear by its most distinguished feature.

Radgold cowered beneath the burning red glow, but in spite of his strongest efforts, he could not blot it out. It was inside of him, clawing its way out of his skull.

The beast reared over him, its arms snatching at him, and enveloping him into the nightmare.

His cries were swallowed by the silence.

The man had died only a few hours previously, but he was already a skeleton.

There was not a trace of flesh on his body. His ribs, once bound by muscle and tissue fuelled by fiery blood, were now just pale white bones. The bones weren't even fresh. They were ancient, discoloured by the advance of time's armies, and dried as though they had been soaking right next to the sun.

The best way of describing the body was 'drained.'

Any semblance of life that had once rushed through it was long extinguished. Like a barren and fertile ground, parched by the summer and frozen by the winter.

It was as though his life had been stolen from his body.

"I've never seen anything like it."

The physician, a small and withered man, removed his plague doctor's mask and inhaled deeply, parting with a sigh.

"I would have to diagnose... a cold."

A death sentence, by all means. Catching a cold was the end of you. But it was your own fault - the precautions were always made clear. If you failed to carry pomegranate seeds in your satchel, you had only yourself to blame.

"The demon passed through his weakened nasal cavities, moving up through the brain until it found his soul. And then... it ate it whole."

The physician folded his arms as he finished his report, nodding all the while as though his words were a matter of fact.

"Well, that solves that then!"

The man who had spoken stepped out of the crowd and took off his plated helmet, holstering it at his side.

"Now we can all go home!"

The crowd broke out in a unanimous sigh of relief. Silently, they had all been fearing the worst. A new epidemic; a terrible blight. But the common cold was nothing new. As long as you took precautions, you would be fine.

One man, however, saw it differently.

"Don't you think it looks more like a creature attack?"

The Physician and the outspoken knight both looked despairingly at the new voice in their midst.

"No such creature exists," The former said, scratching at his scraggly grey beard as he spoke. "Nothing on Gwyn's earth could do this."

"Nothing that we know of," the young voice quickly replied. "But is it not so that over half of the surrounding lands have been charted. Most of our distant neighbours are a mystery. Like the mountains, in the east, or the valleys of the southwest!"

The physician let out an exasperated groan. "Do I look like a cartographer, son? Don't waste our time."

He started to walk, but his interrogator called out to him again, even more eagerly than before.

"What if there really us something out there in the Bagdell Woods?"

The man with the helmet responded to him this time. A physically-imposing gent, climbing to the height of six and a half feet, he wore a face that, although barely escaping its fortieth year of living, looked thoroughly weary of the world.

"Well, quite the anarchist, aren't you?" he mumbled, his voice carrying the weight of woes untold and undated. Even the physician had sounded more youthful. "Why are you trying to stir up panic, boy?"

The young man who had posed the question could hardly be described as a 'boy', even if the older man who had described him as such could've easily been mistaken for his father. He was tall, around six foot, and built like a body of rock. He wore a slight smile as he pressed the older man once more.

"I'm not trying to cause panic. The panic is already here. I'm trying to rationalise it."

The older man snorted, and started to approach the boy. "By conjuring up tales of bloodthirsty beasts? You have a warped philosophy, boy. What is your name?"

The boy smiled. "Why? Are you going to tell on me to my mama?"

"No, but I will hand you to the guards if you carry on with that insufferable cheek. Your name?"

The boy beamed indignantly. "Matthew."

"And what is my name, Matthew?"

"Abacus."

The older man snarled. "That's sir Abacus to you, boy! Watch your tongue; I am a knight of the realm!"

The boy did not retort, but a small, smug smile flickered across his lips. "Sorry, sir."

The man, now identified as Abacus, puffed out his chest. "You're best to run along home now, boy. There'll be no more trouble here today."

Matthew bowed his head.

"Yes sir. Of course, sir."

"And he just let you go? Just like that?"

Matthew laughed at his friend's enthusiasm. "Yes, he did. I think he was afraid that I would beat him down in a bout of fisticuffs!"

Micia giggled, brushing her long brown around around the back of her neck. "Oh yes, I'm certain," she replied, nodding knowingly to her companion. "Do you think there could really be something out there?"

Matthew snorted. "Micia, the physician has spoken. The common cold has struck down yet another man."

Micia rolled her eyes. "But what do you think?"

"I think that the poor fellow sneezed off his skin."

Micia's mouth curved wide. "Are we safe?"

"As long as you have a handkerchief!"

The pair fell about laughing. Their joyous cries swept through the still night air, and the candlestick left upon the window ledge flickered under the brunt of their spurious breaths.

Eventually, Micia caught herself, one arm resting on Matthew's shoulder, and her other reaching out and clasping the wooden flagon sat in the centre of her crossed legs. Without a care in the world, she took a momentous chug. When she was finished, she passed the vessel to her friend, who took it gratefully.

"So," she whispered, curtly tracing her finger around her friend's chiselled face and observing with great interest the manner in which he drank, with droplets of mead dribbling down his cheek.

Noticing the tonal change almost immediately, Matthew set down the flask, and smiled warmly back at his companion. "So...?"

"So why did you really invite me here tonight?"

"I was worried about you. I wanted to keep you safe."

Micia tutted and drew closer. "That's bollocks."

Matthew raised his eyebrows, but relented. "All right, I wanted to get you drunk so I could get a feel of your magnificent breasts."

"Oh?" Micia lips twisted seductively. "I'm not as easy as that, pal."

"No?"

Now face-to-face with her companion, Micia fluttered her eyebrows, her eyes twinkling with specks of soul-blue shade.

"No."

Matthew opened his mouth to greet Micia, receiving her kiss with an insatiable energy. His hands darted around the sides of her dress, feeling for an opening. Just as he felt the chords of her skirt giving way, Micia broke the embrace, and frowned into Matthew's eyes.

"Well," she scorned. "You're in a hurry."

Matthew grinned. "Just seizing the moment."

Standing up, he tore his artisans robe off of his chest, revealing his heavily-toned, muscled torso.

Micia shivered with delight as she followed his body from his pecs to his abs.

"Irresistible," she said, softly purring.

She in the midst of reaching for Matthew's 'titanite slabs' when an enormous, spear-like claw thrust its way straight through them. His blood, still toasty warm, shot out across Micia's face like a volcanic spurt. It took her several seconds to process the events she had just witnessed, but when the moment finally came, she didn't hold back, releasing a banshee scream into the night.

Matthew, as dead as corpses come, slid off of the end of the dark creature's claw, and slapped to the ground like a chunk of bloody meat. His attacker stepped on top of his back, raising itself nearly half a foot as it let loose with a primal screech.

Flailing like a beached fish, Micia flung herself across the room and away from the monster. Unfortunately, as the room was so small, she found herself unable to usefully manoeuvre in a particular direction, and bounded through the glazed window besides Matthew's bed.

Descending to the ground in a downpour of shattered glass, Micia saw and heard very little. She didn't even blink as she wrenched out her own vocal chords, piercing the night with one last feeble cry. The earth welcomed her, the soil rising up to cushion her fall. Mud and rainwater cloaked her eyes, her nostrils perked by unidentifiable, but putrefying smells.

She tried to wriggle her way forwards, but her brown blanket clung to her tightly, weeping for her plight. The colours of her grave flooded her vision, and its soggy tongue consumed her. It was almost a welcome relief when a forceful pair of hands tore her from her crypt, spinning her over for one final look at the starry sky.

In that single moment, Micia realised just how beautiful it really was. Every light was unique, a bright-burning beacon in an eternal sea of dark.

If she could only live just that little bit longer; what she could accomplish!

Then, the chaos swamped her vision. The searing palette of unrelenting red clamped around her; extinguishing her, wiping her from memory.

In less time than it takes for a heart to beat, she was gone.

"An attack within our walls? No, two attacks?"

Abacus flinched under the officer's stare. "I'm afraid so."

"This is unacceptable."

The physician coughed for attention. "We are yet unsure that this was the work of a monster, my lord."

Snarling, the officer turned on the old sage. "Cut the horseshit. No volume of snot and phlegm could have reduced these two bodies to skeletons in under two minutes."

The physician cowered. "With all due respect my lord, you haven't seen anything until you've dealt with an outbreak of the sniffles in winter."

"You're fired."

Bowing his head, the physician skittered away. The officer turned his fury unto Abacus once more. "Anything to say?"

Abacus was struck dumb. "Double the patrols?"

"Forget the damned patrols! I want men out there, searching for the beast that did this. Take as many as you need, but I want that monster's head on my wall!"

Abacus nearly scowled, but at the last moment he regained the focus of his facial muscles, twisting the expression into a warped sneer.

"Yes, my lord. Of course."

Abacus was surprised when, on his way out of the barracks, he had his arm grabbed by the physician, who had apparently been patiently awaiting his arrival ever since his own departure.

"Let me come with you," he pleaded.

Abacus was taken aback at the very idea, but he wasn't about to let it show. "Why should I?"

The physician cowered, seemingly prophetic about the reception of his alibi. "This job is all I've ever known. If I get fired, I'll end up squatting in a pigsty in the lower town. Please. I need to prove my worth."

Abacus wasn't really listening, as he was already picturing the old man with large lumps of bloody red meat hanging around his neck.

"Well... I suppose you could be of some use."

The physician's withered face grew youthful with energy. "Oh, thank you! Thank you!"

Abacus nodded hurriedly, wincing as the physician shook his arm excitedly. "Meet me and my men outside the walls at the strike of one this night."

He awoke to the sound of scratching.

The wooden panels that comprised his humble home were being raked up and down by some nocturnal creature. Most likely a badger, or a fox.

Regardless of its breed, the lumberjack was going to chop its bloody head off.

Arising from his bed in a storm of white linen, he pulled on his deerhide and ratcheted his hand axe from its rest upon the wall. The rusty red and grey head was already stained in the sanguine of various other nuisances of the night; one more would not make a difference.

Thundering across his shack, the lumberjack practically threw the door off of its hinges, sweeping the surrounding area with his axe poised to smash.

However, to his surprise, the night was clear. The side of his house where the scratching had originated was coated with a thin layer of newly-hollowed markings, but there was no sign of the beast that had created them.

"Come on out ya bugger!" he yelled, picking a stone from the earthy ground and tossing it into the bushes.

Nothing stirred, save for a growth of green leaves that were parted by the trajectory of his projectile.

A furious fire raging behind his eyes, the lumberjack began to circle his house, topiary, toadstools and any other floral fiend that dared stand in his way.

It was only when he reached the old oak tree that hung across the southern section of his house when he stopped.

And heard the dripping.

He raised his hand to the back of his neck, drawing it back stained with a smudge of blood. Frozen, he craned his neck to follow its angle of descent, and subsequently, received another spatter across his eyebrow.

Slumped across one of the higher branches of the tree was a dark shape. In the blanket of the night, it was hard to identify it at first, but the proud antlers atop it its head soon revealed its true identity.

It was a dead deer.

The once majestic-creature had been gutted from its neck to its spleen, a cavernous, bloody hole left gaping in its carcass.

The lumberjack stumbled against the tree, a feverish nausea entombing his body. The slender shapes of the trees around him began to spin as his vision flurried. His ears perked at the sound of a soft, guttural growl from behind him, but by then, it was too late to react.

He was split straight down his middle, blood and bones crumbling from his broken body. Snarling, his killer dismembered him like a sack of flour, tossing the two halves of his torso aside with utter disregard. The left side of his face, now aware of a new sensation of separation, fell into a frown just moments before a glaring red light fell across it, and scorched it to oblivion.

The right side could only watch.

"Have you ever heard the tale of the Furtive Pygmy?"

Abacus froze in his tracks, turning to the old physician with a coiled eyebrow.

"Are you really going to tell me a fairy tale?" he grunted.

The physician tutted. "Tis' no yarn or fable. my boy. The pygmy is the progenitor of mankind. It was from his dark flame that we embers sprung forth, bounding into the light like vultures, and making our conquest."

One of Abacus' men started to bawl with laughter. "Progenitor of mankind? Don't you mean old Nate here?"

Fingering a particularly-round member of the hunting party, the man beamed wide, flashing his greenish gums at the physician. "One night at the tavern, and this guy will foster a whole new generation! Pahaha!"

Suddenly, one of the men at the front of the group went deathly still, strangling the hilt of his halberd with both hands.

"There's something huge in that shrubbery," he announced, shakily gesturing to the crests of grass a few feet in front of him.

"At arms, men," Abacus boomed, bringing his own Straight Sword out in front of his face.

Seeing the glimmer of the blade gave him a bolt of courage. The sword had been in his family for generations, and it had never once let him down in a scuffle. There was no greater friend that he would rather have at his side.

"It's coming towards me," the man squealed, bringing the halberd over his head in order to strike his attacker down.

The bracken bustled, and a feral shape pounced forth.

"Miaow."

"Awwwwwwwww."

A simultaneous cry of adoration swept through the crowd at the sight of their foe, a small ginger tabby with white-flecked ears and short, wiry whiskers.

"Quite the monster you got there," one of the men chortled, stooping low in order to pet the kitten.

"Yeah, whatever," retorted the man who had been panicking, now scowling at the turn of events.

"Nice kitty," the soldier soothed, brushing his fingers across the cat's fluffy muzzle. "Good kitty."

Suddenly, there was a snapping of a branch.

A flurry of dark overhead signalled the arrival of a much less-cuddly antagonist, and one who immediately speared the man and the cat's heads together like a shish kebab upon the end of an enormous, spiky flagella.

The monster, an inhumanly large arboreal creature with two arms, legs and a spear-headed tail withdrew its murderous totem pole, leaving its two victims to drop to the ground in a surge of blood.

Abacus froze as he saw the creature's head. Where you might expect there to be two, normal-sized eyes was one enormous, bulging red eye, and next to it, a contorted, shrivelled counterpart, flickering with a dim green glow. Below the monster's ocular dysfunction was a pair of snapping, grating teeth so sharp it actually pricked Abacus just thinking about touching one of them.

"Good miracles of mercy!" The physician exclaimed, wobbling with awe. "What fearful symmetry is this?"

The man with the halberd swept his polearm ferociously at the beast, but the creature intercepted it, yanking from the man's hands like confectionary from an infant. Drooling an unthinkable black goo from the corner of its maw, the creature bit the halberd clean in half, before tossing it away.

The man who had been holding it tried to flee, but the creature whipped its tail around like a lasso, latching onto the man and leaving a gushing cut around his neck.

Abacus started to advance, but the old physician caught his arm.

"He's already gone," he informed him.

Looking at the constricted man's eyes, still flashing with increasingly-dimming hope, Abacus couldn't help but disagree.

However, before he had the chance to move, the monster tightened its hold, forcing a furious flow of blood to explode from the man's neck. Eventually, the pressure caused his head to pop off like a wine cork, and the monster let go of his now headless body.

Gurgling with maniacal glee, the monster leapt at Abacus and the physician, its claws extended and bloodthirsty.

Abacus brought up his sword, and the beast was stabbed straight through its gut by the holy blade. It continued to bellow in throes of agony as Abacus pushed at the creature's writhing frame, eventually pinning it to a tall tree off to the side.

"What now?" Abacus cried. "Why isn't it dead?"

The physician shrugged tiredly. "Do I look like a doctor to you?"

"Oh, fuck it!"

Acting on impulse alone, Abacus withdrew his gilded dagger from his buckle, and plunged it straight through the monster's giant left eye.

The creature's screams flayed the night, but after a few minutes, it went still, the light fading from its bulbous oculus.

Abacus exhaled so hard he nearly knocked himself back. "Oh lords... it's over."

Suddenly, the creature's head began to spasm. Horrified, Abacus saw that it's left eye socket was vibrating violently. With a sickening lurch, the eyeball prised itself from the dead creature's head, and floated into the air in front.

"Catch it! Catch it!" the physician yelped.

Tentatively, Abacus curled his fist around the disembodied retina. He was immediately stunned by how much it struggled, emitting an enormous surge of strength to try and escape his hand. The strain became too much for Abacus' hand, which finally broke open, allowing the eye to sprint for freedom.

"Not so fast!" Abacus yelled, reaching out with his other hand.

A sharp ping brought his attention to his index finger. Upon it, where his marital ring sat peacefully, was the eye, now emblazoned upon its surface in two-dimensions.

Repulsed, Abacus scrambled to remove the accursed jewel, but found that was fused to his finger, silver to skin.

"It won't budge!" he wailed, drawing the morbid curiosity of his companion.

"I've got it," the old man announced.

Abacus' eyes lit up. "Really?"

Smiling thinly, the physician nodded. "Oh, yes... Not to worry."

Abacus breathed a sigh of relief, closing both eyelids as though to erase the horror from his memory. He was so tired, he wouldn't have minded if he never opened them again.

But, as it happened, he did.

Just in time to see the old physician bring a cleaver straight down upon his finger.

And that was my Terror Souls entry. Thank you to alone in the blight for helping me organise it, and a huge round of applause for the enormous rate of participation this year!

I'm on Half-Term Break now, so I'm going to try and find time to write. I hope to continue Denizens of Darkness soon, so stay tuned!

Happy Soulween everybody!