#vsshorror

Years that one can tell a story about.

A lifetime one would say is too young, but another would say is enough.

As days turn to seconds, and Seconds feel like a year.

I walk to the light for warmth, but feel the emptiness in the air, and the heat of the fire, is but ice on the wax that's lit.

Another year, another day...

And same like always...

Nobody stays...

🎩

Happy birthday to myself, I guess...

The people use chainsaws on the forest to widen their reach. No amount of acreage is enough. In a world of plenty, for them, only domination will do.

But swamp witches don't abide by the desires of men. This is their place, their domain, and theft is a crime punishable by fury.

As sunlight shines on corners of the world it hasn't shone on in centuries, shadows recede, as do the waters, taking moss and lichen and critters with it.

This simply will not do.

The coven scratch their rage into symbols on tree stumps with talon fingers, hurl promises into the wind, cursing the world of the interlopers and all they hold dear.

'Flood it,' they whisper. 'Drown them, every last one. Filthy stealing scumlords.'

Then-

The rains fall hard on Gaia. They endlessly lash the cities and towns on the outskirts of what had only yesterday been the darkest, most beautiful swampland.

'Wait, now, sisters. Wait...'

The witches eat their lumberjack broth, pick their teeth clean with bone splinters. They sing songs of vengeance to one another. The sweetest music of all.

Beyond the last of the trees, the waters rise. Green things unfurl out of saturated ground. Tendrils seek out cracks, make slow passage through concrete, incrementally splitting it wide.

People run screeching as buildings crumble and fall, and previously trustworthy ground turns to perilous sludge, swimming with growth. The air creaks and groans. Shoots turn to saplings; then to mature, vine-draped oak and willow and yew.

The witches saunter across the dense marsh that has sprung up like a wildflower meadow to encircle the newly desecrated town. They survey their work with pride.

By now, they meet little if any resistance. The city folk are dead or dying, or have scurried away like the land rats they are.