KAREN GLEDSON

DOB: 09/07/1987,
Place of Birth: Tyne and Wear, England,
Residence: England,
Publishing history: Short stories at Fictionpress; no professional publications

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DECAYED

Decayed.
      Dilapidated, deteriorated and decayed. It was an appropriate reflection of the temple's purpose. Once a sacred, hallowed hall to pagan fanatics, it now stood empty after an age of isolation and neglect. Obsolete, that's what it was. From beneath his draping, concealing hood, the man surveyed the crumbling hall with cold, expressionless eyes. Just as the agonising passage of time had claimed past cults and civilisations, so too had it devoured the followers of this one. With grim resignation, he realised that the intangible predator of time would eventually consume both he and his people.
      Deftly throwing back his cowl in one, swift movement, the lone figure revealed his sombre features. His appearance was rugged and crude: coarse stubble lined his grim, firmly-set jawline and dark, ruffled hair crested a bandanna of beraggled, navy cloth. He was middle-aged, barely past his forties, but though handsome, his facial features radiated a kind of bitterness intermingled with a silent wisdom. This acrid aura was further enhanced by a hideous laceration rent excruciatingly down his face. With a piercing gaze, he once again let his resentful eyes roam the rubble of the vast hall, remembering……
      The archaic ruins were immeasurable, the far wall lost in the suffocating shadows. Above, the stone ceiling was cruelly cracked by some trauma or disaster long since past. The fissures, like giant scars, bled cascading water from the lashing storm outside. Black pools formed isolated pockets of moisture amid the aged, dry blocks within the hoary hall, reflecting the fathomless dark of the forbidding night. Looming walls were more like a ribcage, made of thick, cylindrical pillars - this unmoving, stone beast was dead, skeletal. All that this gargantuan husk seemed to contain was undying darkness.
      A blinding, soundless flash poured a momentary light into the fissures and ribcage, illuminating every indifferent rock and still stone with a ghostly, icy-blue hue. Mere seconds after the bewildering glare, a grumbling roar shook the enclosed cage of the hall, like the disgruntled bellow of the stone beast's ghost.
      The dark stranger stepped forwards with slow, deliberate movements, gazing up nervously into the foul black of the sky through the stone scars. The pounding storm was worsening - he would have to remain within the confines of the mysterious cult-shrine until it passed. Until then, he would be forced to endure the cheerless, stalking shadows that clung to this place.
      One tentative step forwards. Another. A third… the man moved with acute caution yet gained increasing confidence with every step. A forth, fifth, sixth… the figure passed huge, misshapen bulks of stone. They could have been statues once, yet the decay and erosion of the dreary place had not made any exception for them. He could only speculate of their former magnificence - their decomposition had progressed much too far to make out their previous images. What had they been? Great mythical beasts that flanked this walkway? Or human heroes or idols from past ages? Seventh, eighth, ninth tenth… now they were just ugly, wasted cancers of rock that hugged the dusty floor like limpets.
      Twelfth, fifteenth, seventeenth, twenty-first…… the careful ambling was now a brisk trot towards the far wall. The shadows revealed and then swiftly swallowed the lifeless hulks relentlessly as he neared the walkway's end. Yes, he remembered this place…
      Far into the depths of the ravenous, consuming shadows, the man slowed his fleet pace as clumsy feet groped for a firm footing on the invisible debris littering the unseen floor. Nervous hands flailed blindly before him. He needed the wall. He needed something to guide him. He needed direction in the unforgiving darkness. Hands brushed against stone finally. Tension was released as the man placed both hands gratefully on the gritty surface. Yet, it was not the wall - it was a rounded bulk, patterned with regular curves.
      Through the tranquillity of that moment, glittering light from far behind sparked from the stone scars once more. Tinged with faint illumination momentarily, the man discerned a pair of wide eyes, inhuman and unmoving. His hands rested on a bulk of scales. Below, a yawning mouth held two, colossal, grotesque fangs. Booming thunder exploded. The reverberation tortured his senses, sending his hands rushing to his ears of their own, terrified will. Another flash, not unlike white fire. Revealed once more, but clearer, stood the stone visage. A gigantic serpent poised to strike as its roar of thunder subdued the archaic ruins.
      He screamed. He reeled backwards crazily. He crumbled to the floor. The echoes of the bellowing died away, leaving only the laboured breathing of the lone man, cowering instinctively in shadow. Minutes passed agonisingly. Nothing stirred in the dusty confines of the shrine. A glance ahead was chanced. The snake stood as a sentinel, hideous to his eyes. Scales were chiselled mindfully onto the stone skin, fixed eyes stared blankly out to the stormy night beyond the entrance. A simple, mute statue, nothing more. Though the place was familiar, this depraved sentry was not. In the many years separating his last visit to the present moment, it must have been added. Brushing dust from his draping cloak with indignation, he stood wearily and shaken.
      "I thought I would find you here."
      The voice cut through the wash of the rain and the resounding of the thunder. It was strong, confident, feminine, and yet held a tone of calmness. He turned. The silhouette strolled towards him from the moonlit entryway without fear. The woman held an air of indifference to all of her surroundings, barely taking in the gloom of the abandoned shrine.
      "Though I suspect you are not surprised to see me either?" she added curiously.
      The man frowned suspiciously at her encroaching form, inclining his head to vainly attempt to discern her features. He found his own voice in the depths of the darkness, rich and raspy.
      "They said I'd be followed. So they weren't trying to scare me."
      The woman chuckled, betraying the subtle note of elderly wisdom and repose in her voice. She was old, but more in mind than in body. She halted only metres away. He shifted in anxiousness and apprehension. The cracking of rubble beneath his soles betrayed his nervous movement.
      "You seem ill at ease," she commented observantly. "This place: it holds importance to you?"
      "Yes."
      "This is where you were born?"
      A guess - her unsure tone gave that away instantly. The man paused to smell the dank air, saturated with rain. He felt the thick veil of shadows with his fingertips, and gazed at the crumbling contents of the once grand hall. He remembered this place…
      "No," he replied at length, with a deep note of finality, "this is where I died."