Headlights

A thousand hands against the grain

Clutching thistle and damp flesh

Remember the doe on the side of the road?

We should have buried it

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Fingers entwined

Blood on the altar

An ancient spell cast

Making you mine

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The roads crunch under your weight, long since eroded and now scarred with potholes and winding cracks that lead down unpaved paths into the woods. The trees are too thick and clustered, fibrous walls of musty bark that sound of whispers when the wind struggles to breathe through the entwined branches. The stench of rot wafts in, animals are strewn across the road's edges in contorted postures of death, eyes clouded white and limbs twisted at impossible angles.

Keep walking.

Their heads sway lazily as their necks bend upwards, eyes blank but knowing. You didn't apologize then, don't do it now.

They know you won't mean it.

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