wail hunt

I blundered … through the dark forest - I knew where I was headed though I’d lost the trail many hours hence but darkness had now fallen and my face and arms were etched red from my many stumbles (tripping in the inky black briars) … the scream came again though scream was not the word for it - no, not nearly the word for the night dripped a vile voice that had no definition - that moved with no bearings but those of the dark mists and the sanguine fluid let for their causes … a sound like no other that took the shadows, the dampened deep, and the rooted rot and strangled them like a jealous lover an unholy wail of heinous intensity wrapping the gloom in a terror unequaled and wringing every dream and star and hapless hope from the night like a vein … wrung of its coursings … its echo growled in the brambled wood behind me my tortured tympans aching for a silence that would not be … I glimpsed a bit of starlight ahead, hoping and the horrid yelp came again chilling my marrow as I stepped into a clearing the forehead of a crimson moon peeking o’er the eastern reach daubing the ground fog and turning the glade to bloody brume. … yet, the sound was nearer a wet, guttural tone added to it and it was clear now that it was chasing ME - hunting me … though just what and why I dared not imagine … for I was miles, still, from home cold, damp, and nearing exhaustion and this night of howling trepidation and pursuit had just … begun.