OLDER THAN BRAVERY

lays on the blog. mine now.

        Copper on the air. The S T E N C H of ichor flooded its tongue,       sickly sweet. Festering in the air, it threatened to amalgamate                   and BURST in the intestines of its willing host.            The smell of death always attracted scavengers.

                 Fear did not appear. It was always there.                           Lips pulled back in a sneer,                          ❝ You are not looking ... WELL. ❞                    This is what happened to those that strove for godhood.         Cyrus bit off more than he could chew. There was no stomaching             what the man had swallowed. Fear planned to RIP OPEN his belly                  and taste celestial flesh. Molten blood pumped                              through those paper veins. He would burn.     It was an opportunity too perfect to ignore. All Cyrus had to do was die.                  Fear could wait. It had waited longer before.        A fledgling god was a d e l i c a c y worth waiting millennia for.              It had waited longer for saccharine humanity to flood                    over its gullet. It had tasted the MANY flavors.                                    It craved something new.                 Maybe Cyrus could have found godhood within reach,         if he had only been less ambitious. Fear had never attained that status.                  Demon whispered on heavenly tongue. It had limitations,                        petty things that kept it c h a i n e d to a status. Still,             it had accrued power over time. It sat fat on a heap of potential.             Cyrus could have done the same. Taken his time. But no,                                greedy, he had drank from the goblet.                                         He had bitten into forbidden fruit.                          Jet claws shifted invisible under human guise,            another form beneath faked flesh. Its true self was lain bare                    before Cyrus if he only chose to see it.             A thousand eyes all around him, teeth gnashing.            THERE WAS NOWHERE WITHOUT FEAR.

The scales were GONE from Cyrus’s eyes,                               

                Dull recognition CLAWED its fingers         over conscious realization. What was this?             That slight of the unknown bared its teeth,          a hiss fogging the room -- beneath a breath. SILENT.       Leaning towards her, eyes narrowedbeneath lenses,                 scrutinizing her from across the room.                It stalked towards her, a  l i t h e   hunter.             A smile flitting over its lips. Maybe proximity           would help with what focus could not -- knowledge.

          Fear’s teeth clicked together,               rolling its head on its shoulders.                  The movements were practiced --                     unnatural in their fluidity. It was a guise                maintained through the ages. It was an illusion.            Nothing more.  Born to ease mortal suspicions,    yet it did not drop the disguise in the presence of this one.                        Devotion was like a CHILD to it.                      No longer a toddler left to breath in naivety,            the awful truth of the world collapsed upon unready shoulders               and trembling, Devotion pretended not to know better.                 So many h o r r o r s lurked hidden in his chest.           Fear could not wait to gut them from this youth                                  and hold them in its claws.                Extending upwards towards him, browns rose.             The mask shifted into a form of pity,         all directed at the newcomer. Once human,             now something entirely something new.                        Fear had NO disillusion.                  There was no heart to claim as its own. But--                      there was semblance of one.            A ghost of mortality hung on Devotion’s shoulders.                                        And that was all Fear needed.