Sherman,

News has reached my ears that you've been asking about my whereabouts
and I know that last time we spoke we didn't part on the best of terms
because you wouldn't listen to my account of when I first saw the Darklings
or that any of what I told you was the truth, yet I held firm!

Well my dearest Sherman you may now eat your words
I want you to feast your eyes on the wonder of Mount Krell,
it was taken the night before All Hallows Eve so have a good look
at the photograph I have taken of a Darkling and please observe.

She is just as I told you......... like a creature from the other side of hell
and bigger than a bat although at first I believed she was just that
yet she looks very much human at first sight but don't be deceived
because she's as viscous as a man-eating, throat ripping mountain cat!

I spent two months combing the forests of Krell
and I can tell you I've seen some of the gloomiest holes on this planet
while looking in all the caves the Darklings would most likely dwell
I saw time and again the carnage these creatures left behind.

I shudder now to think of the headless bodies I observed,
some birds, woodland creatures and even a few poor men
all left to rot because they're only interested in the heads
and the soft matter of the brains of which they do feast.

And the smell...........
oh god help me to forget that stink!
even now whenever I think of it I gag from the memory of it all
it made me lose everything I ate and I fell to the floor.

I captured this Darkling quite by mistake.............
I woke up one night with a furious ache in my head
and disturbed this creature just starting to bite
and jumped up knocking her off her feet.

We both tumbled to the floor and my knee knocked her out
yet at first I thought she was dead and I was distraught
but her chest was moving and I felt a light pulse so I locked her
in an old tavern I'd found, made in the past by some forgotten race.

When she awoke she started an incredible screeching wail
I tell you Sherman it nearly broke my heart to hear her,
never in my life have I heard something so wildly pathetic
as that sound that froze the blood in my veins.

She may have been a creature from the dark pits of hell
but when I observed her anguish and her fright .......
my wild captive Darkling from Mount Krell,
I had to set her free and she vanished into the night.

Rumours around here talks of creatures from Hades itself that
arrive at midnight on Halloween and with wings like bats who
scare the hell out of anyone silly enough to venture out
but only I know the truth of the wild Darkling from Krell.

By: Janine Daniel

Author's Comments

This is a Oct. topic challenge at PCLA Writing Community where we were shown the picture and had to write something about it. This is the art of Tara Upchurch also known as rockangel, her art gallery resides at http://www.rockangel.com and I have her permission to post it here.