Nighthawk
Almost as if it were speaking, as if it were…..intelligent.
It knew. It knew that the fox had seen its ugliness beneath the mask of beauty it proposed to all nearby wanderers. It knew that the smogs of putrid gases it produced no longer veiled his eyes. It knew. It comprehended. It tried to reason.
Tearing its eyes from the malevolent plant the fox ran, his feet leading him anywhere but there. A rustling sounded behind him and he could have sworn he felt the thin wisps of the shrubs roots try to wrap around his back feet and drag him back under to compress him against the pulsating….thing.
He dug his claws into the ground with the desperation of a frightened rabbit. No matter how far away his legs carried him he could still hear the desperate screech of that small bird, crying out for help, not understanding what had even happened to him until he was at his last breaths. Those bright orange eyes...shaking with unbridled fear as death stared him in the face. and the fox had come close to being just the same as the bird.
So close.
He’d felt the texture of the fruit against his tongue, a death so sudden he wouldn’t feel it until he was already on the ground wrapped thinly behind a fragile berry skin..
The fox ran until it collapsed from exhaustion. Its energy was completely sapped, leaving an empty husk laying in the mud. From his position on the ground he could see the roots of the trees around him sprouting a sort of black mold that seemed to be siphoning the life beneath the bark of the tree. They were small, infantile spots but they seem to squirm under thin rays of light that flitted through the heavy clouds.
Could it be that shrub? Was it ever spreading? Ever growing? Was that why all the morsels had vanished? Because of that...monster?
The fox shuttered and crawled away from the suspicious mold until he could move no more and fell asleep.
When he awoke the rain had stopped. The mud beneath him had dried and crusted onto his fur and his snout had specks of dirt as well. The fox opened his mouth wide in an extended yawn and stretched his paws out before him.
What was that?
A single, black fleck on his leg. He used his claw to try and peel it off, thinking it was a tick but the fleck didn’t budge. He began the breathe rapidly when the thought arose in his mind that the shrub wasn’t just going to let him go. He scratched at the fleck ruthlessly, pulling up clumps
of dirtied red fur as he desperately tried to remove the mold.
It wouldn’t come off.
The yipped loudly in fear, gnawing and nibbling at the speck with a ferocity that could have taken his whole leg off. And yet, it remained, it had burrowed deep beneath the skin, hooking its poisonous tendrils into his bones and rooting itself there.
The next day it spread to his stomach. The next week, it covered his face.
The next month the ground claimed him, crushing him with it’s embrace just like it had done with the bird.
Even when the dark claimed him he could still hear the beating.
Ba dum, ba dum, ba dum, ba dum.
Even when his body had been eaten away he could still feel the tendrils wrapping around his body. And sometimes, when the wind blew, he could hear the faint jingling of black fruit.
Ro
Rochelle Salgado