I'm rotting inside
My flesh turns to dust
It tried to wander. It tried to live aimlessly in the meadow, but there is a fire still burning in the pit of its soul. All else is black - dark - but for the small kindling flame of lust.
It wants that taste of power again.
It has an insatiable hunger for more.
So what leads it here, of all places? It was never a king of the Valley; it was a predator, a spectacle to them. It never controlled their hearts or their fears. They didn’t bow down to the murderous king like so many others. The Valley has a different breed than the Chamber and Tundra. The kingdom is new territory for it to poison and infect. It wants to sink its teeth into the land’s bitter flesh and taste a new type of blood.
Little does it know that there really isn’t new blood here.
Not when its father is the current king.
A raspy breath is pulled into its rotted lungs. There is no realistic way that it’s still alive, not with maggots feasting on the exposed sinew and tendons. Sun-bleached bones starkly contrast against the remnants of its black coat. But the creature still moves as though it’s truly of the living. One step, then another, then another. It’s forcing air down into its mutilated lungs until it suddenly stops near the border. Proper mannerisms aren’t what suddenly tether it to the edges of the kingdom, but consideration and curiosity. When it looks back at itself, it’s eyes a sickening green, it sees what the years have done. It changes with time, shifting from dead to living.
Unfortunately for the Valley it looks mostly like a corpse.
The odor of decay follows it. Small flies flurry to the old splatters of blood smeared across its mouth and chest. For a fleeting moment Infection considers biding time until another revolution has transpired and until its body is whole again. If it waited, the Valley wouldn't know what they were opening their gates to. But how could they turn away such a heathen, such a weapon? A gnarled pink tongue dryly sweeps across its cracked lips before inching forward into the Valley's territory. Manners have slipped from its mind because it has never cared much for them at any point in time, in life or in death.
It will be something here. Its prowess will begin to return and the world will see the return of its bloody nightcrawler.
Then fear will return to their hearts.
Then its hunger can be satisfied.
infection