Mushrooms

I went there once, the place you should not enter.

The place where even the damned dare not roam.

I followed a path of luminescent mushrooms

crawling on hands and knees,

nails digging at the dirt as my tongue danced across the shimmering tops,

magic pooling in my mouth.

Then I heard them,

wailing banshees of the night.

Wiry women with amber eyes

and lips upturned to wicked smiles.

They writhed beneath fallen leaves,

naked bodies blood-smeared,

their witch song piercing the veil.

Luna noni mensis.

Luna noni mensis.

Revela occulta.

Okto Ber.

Okto Ber.

Locus mortuis et viventibus.

The earth rumbled so violently my eyes shook in their sockets.

A sharp pain ruptured through my eardrums.

Acid coursing through capillaries.

My chest cavity tore open as tendrils of decay roped around my body,

binding,

constricting.

I watched flesh bubble and melt from bone,

as piercing amber eyes were branded on my soul.

And with every rasped breath of the thick October air,

I hope you heed my warning:

Only enter if you dare.