In the House of Shadows,
There we were.
Seventeen of us,
A meeting, of sorts,
A coming together, a merging,
Of all our special talents.
Some of us able to think odd thoughts,
Some able to see between
The wind and the air,
Some of us with no particular talent at all,
Just there to even the number.
Around midnight,
There came a shout,
From outside, in the yard.
We poured to the window,
We drained through the doorway,
Splashed into the yard,
To see what it was.
Here is what it was,
One of our number,
Had ventured outside (knowing better),
And strolled into the cornfield,
Across the dirt road.
A vast field of ears,
Listening to the earth
Telling it's somber, grim story.
Into this cornfield, our member had strayed,
And had found something.
Here is what he found,
A dog, a hideous malformed canine travesty,
Relieved of it's being,
No longer an entity,
Mangled, struck through
With a sort of spear,
An ancient weapon,
Not used for war,
But for the doing of dark deeds.
Lanced through the heart,
The tip embedded in the ground,
It was clearly dead,
As dead as anything ever was.
And as I viewed the mongrel,
Filled with sadness at his horrible end,
The world seemed to turn just a little faster.
As a matter of fact,
I suddenly perceived the spin
That brings us light, darkness, winter, fall.
I became dazed with the sensation,
And stumbled nearer the hound of death,
When, in the midst of my confusion,
One thing became clear:
The hound was no longer dead.
I, having come too close,
It raised its head,
Lurched with its neck,
And sank fetid fangs into my shin.
It was in an instant, that nothing mattered any longer,
Something passed into me,
Immediately,
Something that had a need,
Something that needed me,
To fulfill the horrible need,
I turned and began to run,
Looking, hunting, the need so great,
My former life cloudy, distant,
No longer relevant,
Some sort of dream I once had.
There are people,
Back at the house,
Go get them.
Come closer, just a little closer to me,
Let me bite you.
