She fumbles first by protest, through forgiveness, and on to sacrifice.
She bellows of history and life, of future and death, and still cannot see that she will never change the outcome. Defeat was assured the moment she answered with that one word, a whisper in the hurricane of darkness. “Yes,” she had said.
“Yes, master, “she had cried. Down in the depths the tentacled flesh shifted only slightly. Another soul for the depths was all it was. No pomp. No circumstance. Just another misguided soul believing they were actually someone important, and finding they were nothing at all.
It is not the twist of knife, the swing of the bat, or even the swirl of tentacles. The pebble that starts the great avalanche of destruction is only a simple hint of failure. Without a drop of blood or battering of body, absent an attack at the physical lies an attack on the soul. It is not the twist that kills her, it is in a reckoning of one simple thought that it somehow might.
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Copyright 2025 Russell Dickerson. All rights reserved.