Splashes In Time

by Valley Fjord

Spreader of The Red Ash Chapter 4

The rot was good. It's spread made the forest beautiful in death. It's stink turned the air delicious with decay. The rot was good, but the thing that lived in the rot was bad. A small thing that moved too fast and smelled of blood and sweat and breath was keeping the forest ugly.

Their cold eyes could see the small thing for what it was, wrong. And as they watched it move and disturb their forest, they followed. It took from the ground the roots of their dead flowers and shrubs; it took from their trees the honeycombs of the quiet bees that once stung them. The too fast thing stole what was theirs while they were powerless to stop it, and their cold eyes turned warm.

A heat that could turn their bodies soft burned in them when the wrong thing would hide itself from their eyes inside of their forests' rot. It came and went, stealing and hiding.

They hated what it was. And when one of them came close to it, the small thing would fly. It was like the birds but not like the birds; the birds left when they came but the small thing would just go and hide. They hated it.

Something new moved, it was big. It smashed down their weeds, and tore at their trees, but it did not take. The small thing that took was hiding so the new thing was watched. It moved too fast to, but it also stopped a lot. It breathed their air like the small thing, but it did not smell of blood and sweat: it smelled empty.

Warm eyes turned as the big thing looked down on something dead. It breathed again with its empty breath and the dead thing moved. Warmth turned to a blistering heat. Their dead forest was to stay dead but this big thing made some of it come alive.

One moved forward. “Make the big thing dead,” It thought in its slow way. “Make the dead thing dead again.” It came closer and the dead thing broke.

One continued to move towards the big thing – hating it for trying to bring the forest back – but when the big thing began to move too it had to stop. The big thing moved around one, but did not see it.

It breathed deep again and they watched.

When the big thing had gone to hide. It went to where the small thing would go when it hid. But they could still see it. It had broken their rot, but one was able to see where the two things were.

Burning eyes found the two things hiding spot and one felt rage for being evaded. So much rage that – when the small thing looked at one – it did not hold still. It wanted to burn the two.

“Make them dead.”

They watched one die, consumed by ones punishment, and hatred burned bright in them as they watched the things live. The big one kept hold of the small thing and moved fast from the rot they hid in. The big one swam in the sinking-grinding stuff without sinking or grinding. It even went up into the brightest place.

Their eyes could not see up in the brightest place, but they would make sure that the big one and the small thing could not come down. When the brightness fell they would follow it. They would find it, they would hate it, and they would-

“Make them dead.”

Author's Note:

yeah, short chapter.