GhoulsGalore: Damnation

This week's entry to Lady Antimony's GhoulsGalore challenge.

Clawed fingers caressed the black rock; it was alive, heat emanating from the red veins. Fire ran through the walls, floor and the arching roof. The blue sky was unknown here in the chthonic realm.

He could hear the damned begging for mercy while his servants shepherded them onwards. Their pleas would quickly change into the beautiful music of screaming. He hurried on, eager to witness his loyal minions at work.

Slowly he walked past the pits were the sinners burned, and the sight he most enjoyed watching: his favourite demon hunting down and eating the damned. The demon would later regurgitate the poor souls and eat them again.

Yes, life was good in Hell.

Before he fell there had been Hell, but none to rule it. Demons fought each other while sinners ran amok. He cast the sinners down. He defeated the droves of demons. He became the overlord of the underworld. He might have fallen, but he rose as a master.

“What does God have but wisps of air, placid happiness and feeble servants?” Lucifer folded his leathery wings around himself. Loud snoring filled the air.

GhoulsGalore: Presence

This is my first entry to Lady Antimony's GhoulsGalore challenge. For every week in October, there's a word and a being, and you write a story of 250 words. This week the word was 'boustrophedonic' and the being a poltergeist.

The slender fingers ran across the words written in boustrophedonic fashion. From right to left, then left to right, the archaeologist read them in her mind. The site had an otherworldly feel; it belonged to another era, its inhabitants long gone. She could almost imagine whispers on the faint wind.

Speak. Speak the words, it seemed to say. A rock rolled to her feet. She whispered one of the words, a tremor of excitement running through her. They had deciphered some of the meanings. It seemed to be a guide or a map, but a symbolic one; it spoke of stars, darkness and signs left by the gods.

Speak the words. I need to find a way out.

Another rock rolled down into the ruins. Were her comrades playing a joke on her?

Please don’t leave me here!

She walked back out into the humid air and tangle of strange plants, but the chill of the shadow cast by the wall clung to her. One of her colleagues ran up to her, his face distorted by disbelief and anger.

“The bloody idiots cut off our funding! We’ll leave in a couple of weeks.”

“Maybe it’s best,” she whispered. Upon entering the site she had felt dread. With every day, the feeling had grown deeper. There was something amiss in this place, something stamped its presence here.