(Guided Tours) A Walk to Remember

Sleek citizens of slick caverns;
blood pooling for tomorrow's wash.
Low momeraths on the trail,
a sticky fullness for the boot treads.

Among the nevergreens, a sense of exposure -
quick glimpses of the Alices
and everywhere the sound of breathing.
Some say the King is sleeping there, but
none have dared approach...
Sudden violence. Titillating,
but too near.
White Knight takes Pawn. Not to worry.
Churning underbrush, blaring dissonance:
a thousand species foreign to the living sane.
Nonsense shuffling and heavy, overpowering,
unseemly.

Into a damp forest.

A rising mist,
chilled in barren wombs and thickened with bonemeal.
Bleak lights in ultraviolet,
sentient and sudden:
pathological play.
A snapped twig and a rush of silence.
...
Stampede of fauna! Quick flight! Scamper!
Black Bishop! Men to arms!
The left! The right! Above! Below!
Surrounded by the roar of judgment!
Divine emptiness -
solid righteous malice -
howling alien gods -
DEVIANCE!

...

Lull.

...

Long hike to shelter, keeping to the safer trail,
haggard and speechless.
A new disturbance:
fundamental,
eternal,
inconquerable.
A stain for every survivor.

Not all return,
and none return complete.