Things are so different in Archer’s Glen

You know where you came from but not where you’ve been.

The searchers might come to the rescue in time

Lest another soul be cast through the veil, what a crime.

 

You look for an exit, see only a maze

A field of tall grass where warped figures graze

Hopping on slender bone blades, unreal

This stroll in the forest has turned so surreal.

 

Up ahead in a clearing, you see things have changed

The landscape is hideously rearranged.

The flowers, once gorgeous now shine pure black

Mocking and saying, “you’ll never get back.”

The trees hang like corpse hands, outstretched and near

One holding a thing that had once been a deer.

A parody of nature, you cannot describe

It has not one head but…four…five?

Don’t look anymore, turn the opposite way

What is happening here? Where is the day?

 

Last time the sky shone, cerulean peace

That map in your hand held not one small crease

But now it is charred as though eaten by flames

And the sky, reversed ocean, almost the same.

 

Leaping through bushes and sharp thorny vines

The beasts of the Glen are drawn by your whines.

The keening, the fear-sounds, like sweet, sweet candy

If you just stayed put it’d be quite dandy.

 

A deafening roar causes limp trees to flinch

And the weapon you carry to use in a pinch

Is gone, replaced with a wad of earthworms

The Glen really wants you, they’ll all take turns.

 

Snatched up and dragged to a Monster’s Den

By things never seen by the eyes of men

You lie deep underground, so still and so cold

Made passive by forces both subtle and bold

Dead? Alive? There is no way to know.

 Archer’s Glen will never tell you so.

 

A living secret, sheathed by the gloom

Warping and winning and spelling your doom.

Towering giants, stretch higher and higher

Those sickening visages had never been slyer

As they gather the dead and congealing things

And fashion them into portable slings

Made to carry the burden of exotic meat

And you the outsider, a remarkable treat.

RATE THIS CHAPTER!

Click to View Author Guidance