Curse Thy Name

A silence descended slowly like gentle snowflakes on an early winter morning.  Gradually, it built into an impenetrable force as shadows coalesced around the base of an old oak tree from which I had been restrained.  Fear held me close.  

A low murmur grew into a chant disrupting the silence as six individuals slowly formed a loose semicircle.  Indistinguishable shouts and growls added to the volume of their chant as it rose sharply.  It was hard to make out more than a word here or there as the language they used had long gone extinct.  I had never heard it spoken before, but could understand enough to know that I was being cursed.  Such a display might have excited me, if only circumstances weren’t so dire.  Just as the cursing reached a level great enough to induce physical pain, the nearest shadow hushed the gathering and began to speak slowly.  Every word was pronounced and elongated as if making a conscious effort to allow me to decipher their meaning.

“An offering for judgment.  One disciple’s eye.  May your bones turn to dust before your eyes; crumbling within your body and leaving you spineless.  A thousand tiny cuts follow the betrayal of your backbone like being drug through an endless bushel of thorns.  Madness will set in as your torment escalates.  Scavengers will pick at you until hope becomes nothing more than the distant glimmer of embers that you can never reach.  It is now that you will finally understand the true balance of the universe.  The cost of your crimes and the insignificance of your existence within the fabric of the ever spreading, great darkness.  Now, be set free.  Become one, once again.”

Surprisingly, I felt that I grasped most of what was said.  But, there was one part that left me puzzled.  The way that the word for darkness had been used would only make sense if referring to a venerable individual, so-

Beyond the six shadows, the night sky slowly unfolded as if an unseen curtain had been lifted.  I shuddered uncontrollably as my suspicion became real.