Burning Soil

~ Nina D'Arcangela

The ground below your delicately formed feet begins to shift, sending you tumbling to within a breath’s width of the insanity you know awaits should you ever truly fall. You struggle to maintain your grip – a hold that for eons has treated you so kindly, so reverently, so graciously. You suckle and gasp for that earlier delight that still echoes through your now destroyed body.  This gaping new view of the emptiness you see leaves you wondering which part of this horror-scape is to be accepted as a revulsion of your own making, and which part is far too heinous to be allowed to exist.  How does one go about choosing their individual nightmare without having a grasp of their own tenuous reality? A reality stroked so gently, consumed so fully; torn to pieces in such an eloquent display of cruelty. Naive, silly girl, you never did pay attention to anything other than your own wants. Why did you not heed the danger when you still had the chance?

Existence in this newly scorched realm is – other. You breathe in the foul air, retch vile fluids from your own rotting organs while desperately clutching for handfuls of once moist, rich soil. You weep for a blanket to shroud you from the view of your newly exposed self.

Can you no longer feel the gentle caress of the sun’s offered warmth? Have you, like the insignificant creatures that feed from your lush womb, begun to shrivel under his now harsh and ever seeking glare? No, not you; for you will offer yourself to this beast who brings searing pain only to weep at its feet while its brilliance burns you from within; laying to waste the wretched thing you are.  You will seek to undo this cruel fortune that has been bestowed upon you, but in that seeking, you will yourself be undone. You are a creature of will, one foolish enough to forgo turning your face from the ever increasing blindness the searing light brings, you are a creature that believes yourself to be the worst of all things… worthy in his eyes.

This all consuming brightness, this overwhelming luminescence, this addictive, abusive wave that pounds its putrid nourishment into you – how you will suffer for it – begging for mercy, a mercy that he does not pretend to offer, but you will beg for nonetheless. And in doing so, you will try to rise up, to grow closer to the light believing yourself to be his equal – this giver of all things; this taker of pure souls. But your soul isn’t pure, is it?  Your soul is tainted by the ecstasy of being. You, who have fed off the offal that has been lain down upon the altar before you. You, who have sipped from the chalice with the proffered blood of those baring no shame, the untainted; the yet to be ripened. You, who have ripped the meat from the bones of small bleating sheep with your bare teeth and ragged claws as they lay staring up at you with trusting, unknowing eyes. All the while, glorious creature that you are, you felt nothing; not an ounce of remorse for each gluttonous act of satisfaction, feasting on the dying embers of the slowly dwindling soul before you.

She who tainted the sweet nectar – the devourer of forbidden fruit – the selfish wretch who cannot exist without consuming the flesh of the gentle, the deserving; you are these things and more. You are the speaker of lies – muttering those sacred and meaningless words while they are being whispered every so seductively into your own arrogant and self-indulgent ear.  You are the reason the soil shall burn; you are the reason the soil is burning.

You are a thing not worthy of worship, though you have had much of it, but now the beast has come to set you to rights; your penance shall be to worship him with the blind devotion you once commanded for yourself.

skull_fangs2~ Nina D’Arcangela

© Copyright Nina D’Arcangela. All Rights Reserved

Published by Nina D'Arcangela

Nina D’Arcangela is a quirky horror writer who likes to spin soul rending snippets of despair. She reads anything from splatter matter to dark matter. She's an UrbEx adventurer who suffers from unquenchable wanderlust. She loves to photograph abandoned places, bits of decay and old grave yards. Nina is a co-owner of Sirens Call Publications, a co-founder of the horror writer's group 'Pen of the Damned', founder and administrator of the Ladies of Horror Picture-prompt Monthly Writing Challenge, and if that isn't enough, put a check mark in the box next to owner and resident nut-job of Dark Angel Photography.

17 thoughts on “Burning Soil”

  4. I have to say that I follow a lot of writers around the globe… I have a few favorites that I look forward to reading ~ an even smaller number that I stop what I’m doing to read. You’re on that list, Nina. This is fantastic! Thank you for sharing.

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    1. Thank you, Christopher! Those are very gracious and flattering words, and I’m extremely grateful and pleased to be included on that list! I’m very happy not to have disappointed with this piece – its shriek comes straight from my soul. Thank you again, Christopher! 😀

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    1. Hunter, ‘You’ + ‘Rock’ are two of the most awesomest words I could earn from you! (yes, I make up my own words – and it’s okay because … no one said I couldn’t) LOL

      Thank you so much, Hunter! My inner Angel once screamed much louder than she does now, but I have hope that she’ll come back to torture and lament again sometime soon. Thanks for making me feel whole again, Monster Man! 😀

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  6. Such a wonderful story on so many levels, Nina. Dark, yet instilling a message, a visual in the mind of the reader. When that is accomplished, an author has done her job. Job well done, my friend. Your soul delivers on all accounts.

    Blaze

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    1. Thank you, Blaze! This is less a story than an angry spew… Shouts into the dark of ugly recognitions that linger all around us – those shouts formed into a cohesive image, or set of images. Though from a fictional POV, I suppose its a genesis story for the DA – the birth of a new world, the rebirth of a narcissism that blinds her to everything she shouldn’t feel a right to, yet she does anyway. And the ending? A warning of things that come to those who don’t respect boundaries. And we know the Dark Angel doesn’t live within anyone else’s boundaries. (Not THIS Dark Angel, but the one of tales I hope to pen again one day.)

      Thank you again, sweet-pea! Many hugs!! 😀

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