Short fiction: 092823-121525

Dread was the start of the Show. Intricately dark and spun with old horrors invigorated, the Chorus heralded the beginning of what once was and what would be again.

The patrons shrank, the audience reeled, the Ushers left speechless and torn. Companies of extras flowed around a finite point in an infinite darkness. The player rose among them, a yellowed form stooped as he rose from the dark.

Confident in the loathing around him, shifting left, he lowered a hollowed eye toward the Crowd before him. Beckoning. Calling. Letting them accept the darkness already seething in their souls.

Spinning through a gabled flame, he stretched higher atop the gathered throng. None looked up as the flow of men moved inward towards the outflow of others damned to the infinite.

The ancient cotters raised their hands towards the rising foulness, wanting to ascend but denied the right.

The rising hands stopped. The flow in and out halted. All looked up, turning to the halting bastard on high. As it looked down on the damned it screamed, “all must fall. None shall rise. Let the blood fall, and reign anew.”

 

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Copyright 2025 Russell Dickerson. All rights reserved.