The sun vanished in the west, leaving the sky bruised and purple in its wake. The faint glow shriveled, a wilting rose giving way to a lifeless husk. Darkness encased the ruined city. The colossi standing voiceless watch over the courtyard faded from view. Still and silent, the city lie enveloped in blackness.
From some hidden recess deep within the crumbled corpse of the city, a faint pulse emerged. Slowly at first, it was more to be felt than heard. With excruciating hesitance, the low sound of a drum began to grow. It reverberated along the battered stone faces of hollow buildings, following the crooked tangle of streets as blood through the arteries of a great suffering beast. As the stars gazed balefully down from the cold void above, a second thumping call joined the first. Yet another emerged from some distant corner of the night, and in moments they were met with a chorus of followers. The dreary pounding rose to thunderous height, echoing wildly back upon itself as it throbbed through every dark recess of the city. Further and further it spiraled upward, the furious hammering growing to deafening levels as it built to a rapturous crescendo.
They stopped. For a few moments the mad recollection of hideous pounding echoed through the streets, and then silence. Interminable minutes passed before, somewhere in the distance, flapping sounded briefly from a pair of heavy wings. A fetid scent rose, hanging palpably in the deadly still air. Not another sound was to be heard for the rest of the night.
No comments:
Post a Comment