"Crashing came from afar, like the massed roar of a hundred armies. Except this was no ordered battalion or marching sequence of troops. This was anguish. This was torture. This was the sound of the primal fear of the dark and the unknown and of something too terrible to look upon because your most basic and fundamental terrors would just eat you alive from within your ribs. And it was coming at you fast, in the dull light of dusk under the yawing orange haze cast by the dropping pitch of the sun in an autumnal sky. The ground moved. The trees barked and split. The lights died as it brushed through the upper leaves and stood towering above you, eclipsing the skies like a mountain on legs. The noise of that army returned, this time more horrifying than ever because what lived in your imagination before was not equal to the sight of the creature before you, at which point all instinct and bravery lost you as you knew your life was being telescoped down into minutes if not seconds.
It saw you and thought of you as prey.
You saw it and thought of God and forgiveness" (Howarth)
 |