Picture Challenge #1: Demonic

[redblood]

INFO: They say that a picture can tell a thousand words. How many can you find?

Each week a new image will be posted, and your challenge will be to write whatever the image inspires you to write. It can be anything as long as it relates to the picture. A plot, a scene, a short story, a poem, a character, etc. You can write as much or as little as you wish. It's not the length that matters, it's what you put into it. There is no time limit to these challenges, so feel free to jump in at any time.

NOTE: This is a variation (and revival) of the picture challenge Grumpy were doing a few years ago. I of course asked for permission to steal his idea beforehand. I am a gentleman thief after all. If you're new to the picture challenges, I highly recommend to check out the older ones too.

​

(Source)​

 

[Whisper]

A short story...

One moment I'd been roaming the neighborhood of my village collecting the food my mother requested and sent me out to retrieve and bring home for dinner, but before I could fulfill mothers request a dark cloth sack was placed over my head as I struggled to regain my freedom. Despite my greatest efforts I was dragged into a alleyway, I do not believe anyone heard my high pitched scream as I was taken away, for if they did I do believe they would've helped me... But now I'm somewhere where the floors are pure stone, the soft echoes from down the hall make way to my ears, and where the soft plops of water droplets facing death make their way to the stone ground. My arms are bound behind my back as the chains connected to the collar around my neck rattle with every little effort I put forth to escape.


Work in Progress.​

 

[GreatWest]

Do you want to know the story of how a man got blind? Of how he was driven into madness, insanity? Well, they say he simply broke, but others say he saw things a man could never see. Something beyond, vast. Something demonic, forbidden. Otherworldly. Taboo.

Beastly.

Something not even God was allowed to see. Within this creature there is no darkness and no light, no start, no end; no life, no death. With eyes brighter than a supernova, a fire that burns hot and cold. There is no law. No sense. Claws impossibly sharp.

Beast.


You jest, people say. You're crazy. The man simply smiles that crooked smile of him. You do not understand. And the creature lurks in the dark. Its eyes promise destruction. Its flames dancing in anticipation. But also something beautiful. Dark and bright. The creation of all things. Chaos. And a fiRE so brIghT. Darkness. A fire... Light.
​

A fire to make stars weep.​

 

[Krnon]

Within the hallowed halls of the monasteries library, I was bound to the fate that stood before me in all it's blazing glory. The neophyte that was controlling the embodiment of torture that raged in seething anger before me was not visible underneath his garbs. "Tell me where it is!" the person shrieked at me, drawing the thing closer, searing my body and causing me to sweat.

"I left it with someone else, I do not have it!" I exclaimed as the creature's flames lit the candles surrounding me in a circle.

"Pity." The hidden face began to reveal eyes in the reflection of the pain that my being would soon understand, "I thought you could be spared, I guess not. Farewell."

The person stood there, praising it's deity as this heat being was set upon me, ravaging and burning it was. I doubt those somber halls have ever heard such cries before then, but alas, they were my final ones.

This is exactly what I imagined as I looked at this image.

 

[SlamifiedBuddafied]

I had it. I had it. I had it. I had it. I had it. I had it. I knew it to be true.

The book! The book I searched for through the years finally came to me! What? Whether it be an endless search which wrought fatigue upon my weary soul or some kind bit of fate which took pity on my mortal frame. With great joy and madness did I race across the acres to the old mansion. The book wrapped tightly in layers of the softest silk, bound in leather and pages which had seen millennium. Such glory! Such transcendent glory had finally come to me so I may press it against my shuttering chest and soon look upon it's glorious pages! Oh what joy I could not express in the words my limited mind! It would soon be here, the dream of so long ago, it would be here soon for me to gaze upon!

My muscles seemed to spasm with excess energy, as if I were a child with a new toy, unable to contain myself for the pleasure which would soon ensue. I imagined the pages, written in the blood of man and demon, pages made in an ancient place and leather tanned from human hides and stitched by the limbs of something unspoken. I reached the library and found myself ripping away the silky milky cloth and let my eyes lazily rest on the decrepit tome. Here! HERE! My answers lay, the ones I searched for with many years of my life! It was in my hands, oh oh oh, it is here in my hands!

I took my time, I made my scene. Everything was now as it was supposed to be. I searched the parables, I searched the pages, I gazed upon words which had gone unspoken for far to long. Reading them aloud the atmosphere around me seemed to alter, as if light in and of itself were sucked away, dimming all things into darkness. Only the ring of flickering candles around me halted the darkness from encroaching further. I then felt it, the sharp sting of cold metal. My arms pulled back behind and shackles protruded from the dark and held me in place. A twisted figure emerged before me and spoke of the pleasures to behold within the realms described in this book. I did not resist, why would I? I searched for so long, to the brink of madness.

It spoke in words beyond my tongue, words I could not hope to understand. Then it began, something like a spark across the stone floor. The spark grew and grew, warping and screaming, growling and hissing. Great eyes formed before me, they were filled with something which shot fear down my throat. No. No. No. No. No. This wasn't what I wanted, this isn't it! But yes! It is! It is? Isn't it? I felt my very soul catch fire, yet it felt like ice shooting down my throat and turning my insides to brittle shells. I could only smile in the face of this grand creature, summoned from a world far beyond this mortal realm. The darkness began snuffing the light around me, leaving only the hellish glow of the creature before me.

With mind reeling and eyes wide open, I took this creature in.

Come now, this is your new home. You shall live vicariously through my flesh!

 

[Nemaisare]

Hunger.

It was a cold wind rushing past; an empty space across which no flame could leap. Ashes and dust and nothing to burn, nothing to bite.

Hungry.

But the fire still curled against the glass. It reached no farther than the shelf where it was kept. Flickering, fading, invisible when any lamp or well fuelled wick came near, but it still shone fitfully in the shadows. Dimming, dying, yearning. It was not the darkness that choked back the light. It was the stopper that sealed the bottle tight, keeping out the air.

Need.

When fingers curled around the bottle, its fragile sides were warm. Waiting. They set it down with a careful chink against the paving stone, the room silent beyond the pained breaths of the traitor. He knew what was coming. He could not escape it. The chains were heavy. His limbs dead weight. When the cowled magus pricked her finger and smeared the blood around the wax, they watched together as it bubbled and seeped down to eat away the binding.

Want.

It took but a moment for the thin cork to burn through. Its pale streamer of smoke disappearing in the sudden blaze of light that rushed with eager vigour into the air. Fire freed in form and faith misplaced. Intangible jaws grinned and gaped, rising over the meal so kindly offered. Searing. Crackling flesh. It swallowed the air before the traitor could use it to scream. Tendrils stretched and spread, sparks flared and drifted. Heat burgeoned and caught at the magi's robes, their books, their shelves.

The bottle pooled on stone, a useless puddle. Its prison destroyed, the fire reached for and grasped what it had been so long denied.

Want more.