ForJusJoJan24, on Jan 28, 2024, prompt = CONGREGATE (My observation: WTF did this come from?!)

A thin wind blew through the break in the old growth of Whittler’s Forest, a steady sussurus to accompany the rustling of dark wool cloaks and hoods, and the occasional clip of leather boot against loose stone. None dare speak aloud as they wait. Even a muffled cough – for this had been a wet winter and many suffered the wicked catarrh that had carried off so many of their loved ones – was glared at.     

They congregate in this clearing, rheumy quarter moon overhead, that they might be taken up by the Ones Who Survive Time. The waiting villagers are feverish, almost hallucinating in fear and desperation, their tension mounting to a sharp, thin line. The keening in their heads has not yet broken through and shattered the otherwise frozen forest.

One of their number, regretting, breaks away from the crowd of men and women. She wants to go home to hearth and kirk, and die among the familiar rather than give herself up to the strange. Slipping around the group, she approaches the darkness of the treeline, and spots the thin path that leads away from this place and back to the relative safety of her village.

A frigid, dark blankness unfolds from a rustle of leathery wings, and blocks her way. Behind and to either side of it appear two other dense hollows. Before resolving into a trinity of ageless human forms, red eyes stab the night, sharp wet mouths glinting with rows of teeth.

The one who would turn back groans. She had already pledged herself when she’d heeded the call and arrived here with the rest.

She would be the first turned.

© Liz Husebye Hartmann (2024)