The Foul Smell of Whores

The pores on her skin popped like kernels in a fire. I never once anticipated how loud that sound would be, nor did I think human skin could splatter. It's so bizarre, here we are--poking, prodding, kneading our skin, and yet...under intense flame it's as fluid as water. The pieces flew across the ground and attached to the grass like glue. I wasn't sure if it was her blood, or the evening dew shining against the fire. It was something of a rite of passage burning these whores.

"I'll skin you alive; your flesh will be peeled from the bone and eviscerated like a hog."

"Be gone, servant of Baal!"

My absence of speech was redeemed through my companion's shrill demand. This was the first time that my eyes could not leave the sight. She was an old, haggard witch that lived in a nearby cave. Her dominion consisted of nothing more than a shanty, with trees that bent their way into the gray sky above. The lay of the land was cragged--much like the jagged grimace on her old face. The trees were lined with the skin of infants and smaller children that tumbled their way down from the valley. This creature had set a trap, teasing the young with the promise of catching a white rabbit. The children would fall down the side of the cliff, breaking their legs, and being left for her to snatch. Sometimes, the little children would hobble their way back up the side of the cliff, only to have their eyes poked out by her murder of crows. The witch had many spies, down below the valley, and she made sure that anything that fell was sure to wind up in the darkness, never to be seen again.

It was until my fellowship of kin retrieved her from her hideaway. They said the smell upon entering her domain was ripe with the stench of stale urine, dove's blood, and lined with a thick coat of decomposed corpses. They said that if it were not for the shoes, the floor itself would have made its way between their toes, and the soft texture of what could not be seen would have plagued their dreams for months. Luck was on their side, and the dimly lit sconces took pity on their sight.

The whore continued to roast inside the flame, and where skin popped and crackled, it was now melting like country butter. I knew in my heart of hearts that it would take a lifetime to absolve myself of the visions of what was transpiring, but sheer curiosity kept my eyes fixated in a trance. It was the reality of watching death in its prime, and the taste of a soul escaping burned my throat like a fine bourbon. I wasn't sure if I should swallow the torpor; it clung to my esophagus like a pill.

She's looking at me.

"What say you, boy? Have you no decency? Has your mother spat out a disrespectful bastard that partakes in brutality, and delights in suffering?"

My lip hung and I stuttered, "Have you no manners in your final minutes, wretch?

I remember in those moments of speaking; she tilted her head as the skin slipped off her skull. It plopped onto the ground; by God, I had never expected to hear such a deplorable noise in all my years. It wasn't a human skull underneath, but the skull of a reptile. She was far eviler beneath the surface, and the men around me gasped.

"She is a dragon?"

Their exclamative voices surrounded me, and I had few words to comment on this atrocity before us.

"Aye, a reptile; a beast of some--primordial realm,” my words struggled to form.

(To be continued.)