Fable

The beast froths at the mouth, snorts and wheezes through flared nostrils. His jaws snap in time with the sound of immense paws pounding the earth in a steady, unrelenting gallop. The landscape is monotonous as if you were tied upon a treadmill on high, running on stop towards the mirage stitched upon a rippling tapestry inches from your reach. The setting sun penetrates the layer of dust caked upon your eyeballs and renders you blind, and then an inch feels as distant as the horizon itself. Yellowed fangs gnash and pluck a stray hair from your tail as you fumble over a rogue rock in your tracks. You cough and sputter and spit dirt from your parched lips. Heat as aggressive as the beast himself kisses away the tears from your eyes, and peels the skin from the pads of your feet like a thin orange.
The bones of your legs are well past the point of beginning to feel like sticks of cheese held above a fire. “This can’t...” you wheeze between gasping breaths, “go on much longer.”
As the fear begins to fade to more of a self-pity, a voice within your ear interrupts.
“What hope is there left? You can collapse now and rest once last, and let the beast devour you, as I’m sure you know now, would be your inevitable fate. Or, you can pray, pray to the Mother Grisell, in Mother’s name command the beast to leave.”
You do not waste time in contemplating this.
“Beast.” You breathe. “Leave.”
The beast persists.
“In the name of Mother Grisell, command the beast to leave.” The voice insists.
“In the name of Mother Grisell, beast, I command you to leave.”
From the corner of your eye you catch a glimpse of black smoke, a plume that then dissipates as suddenly as it appears. Your burning limbs give way then, collapsing in a heap, and scraping your chin upon the chapped earth. You roll to your side with a heaving chest, open mouth gasping and inhaling, then choking on the dirt that you had stirred. As a blurred figure approaches fatigue prevails over any urge to flee once again.
“Mother saves you.” The voice coos as a skeletal hand presents a vial of clear liquid. Your first thought, hope, water, but it tastes sickly sweet as it is then poured down your throat.
You close your eyes.