The Sealed City

“Some things are best left alone,

Some knowledge is forbidden.”

That’s what the town elders would say,

Old crones and grumpy men

Who still believed in superstitions.

We all knew the truth of those fairy tales,

And loved to prove them wrong,

Even if only to ourselves.

How much smarter we were than them!

How much wiser were we to know the difference

Between reality and fantasy.

But of their ghostly tales,

None would be a greater triumph,

Than the “Sealed City,”

The ancient ruin beneath our town.

So, my friends and I stood in the darkness of that ancient village square,

Surrounded by the carcasses of long forgotten structures.

Jagged teeth of liquid rock drooped down from the ceiling,

While stony weeds of the lower jaw rose to meet them

Piercing ancient roofs and weathered walls,

As the cave slowly ate them.

But at the center of our circle,

Seemingly untouched by time and nature,

Squatted the chiseled nightmare chimera,

The source of foolish superstition.

Its smooth head looked like an octopus, tentacles dangling down its front.

Its two sightless eyes glared down at us with an anger preserved in stone.

The massive, scaled body crouched on thick hind legs upon a finely carved pedestal.

One large hand with claws like talons rested on a knee,

While the other wrapped its daggers around the platform’s lip.

Massive, bat-like wings sat folded on its back, each one as tall as us.

The four sides of its eternal throne displayed

Strange words of childish gibberish.

The orange light from our circle of candles

Created moving phantoms in the ruined buildings,

The shadows of those who once lived here.

My friends and I stood in our thick black cloaks

Purchased at the local costume shop the day before.

Their hands were outstretched as they chanted the rough-hewn words

While my hands shivered as I read aloud from the yellowed pages of an old book.

The slick surface of the library sticker on the binding provided

An amusing contrast with the leather cover like wrinkled skin

And brittle pages like dead leaves in Autumn.

Our breath came out in ghostly whisps

As our souls fed the ancient air.

I felt the excited thrill of ultimate triumph,

As well as the subtle chill of mysterious possibility

As I spoke the final words.

Did it just move?

No, it was a trick of the light,

A dancing shadow.

An echoing, spine-tingling growl.

No, just a gust of wind.

In a cave

With cracking stone

And writhing rock.

We learned too late,

That some knowledge is forbidden

For a reason.