Captain’s Speech

I hereby declare, for all those fettered and not, to go among the sun on this of all the days, to seek their tidings, to grasp their glories, and to reach into the abyss of all that was hence before unknown. Yorkshire follower make yourself known, to the skies, to the trees, to the trampled grass that lays in wait for battles of far off days. The paths you tread now are worn to the bone of the earth by those within thousands of years past by, their victories no less potent in the hearts of us all than those which you forge each day to the next, a lift of your hand like the lift of their sword. Let the bleak day come and have it cast away like sea water spattering off your bow, a luckless thing of ash and ruin. Today let you be free, free to seek what tries so desperately to hide from your ever weary eyes, what has outrun your fingertips like the stag from the hunter’s bow. Lest this day be forgotten, and forever will it be remembered, in the tails of old and the songs of children, this is the day we take the air back, the space we dwell within, and keep it there until and ever again we may be needed to snatch it back from whichever daemons’ foul grip. S.H.

The Hero Walks

A gentle walk across a sparking bridge. The trees leaning over the banks like nosy neighbours gave a shuffle, as if they were quickly trying to change their position while I wasn’t looking. I gave them roughly three more seconds of my suspicion before my path began to openly crave my attention. The Sun was falling towards the western hills and kicking its last few rays across the freshly showered bridge, the stones like glass that had been stained with bronzed and coal colours, all mixed around with a painters brush. The river ran, as fast as it could, below my feet, fleeing, it seemed to me, a deathly foe placed higher up and deeply set in the mountains. S.H.

Help, I'm going to be sick.

Help! HELP! I'm going to be sick! This I said, I screamed, internally, old people next to me snogging. On the Tube platform, crowded and buzzing, they latched onto each other like great octopus tentacles round a stray fish. I had to, so horribly, my stomach pitched and rolled so, look back three times, and still they were there, in frozen and horrendous still life. Public is no place for such a thing to be displayed, and certainly not so close to me, in a place so public, by two people nearly twice my age. No prudish thoughts are in my mind, I can assure all of that, but this was truly creepy. Sorry, but I can't write any more about it, the longer I do, the longer my dinner has to plan to reacquaint itself with the light of day.

The Deepening Fog Pt. 3

The kill had been sloppy, I'd known it, but it had been so long since I had had to use any of those skills, any of that training, that I just did it. But I would have to refine things from now on, I knew that, and hope my first slip up was my last. If I was to find her again, there was nothing that could go wrong, it had to run like machinery, every time, when I had to, I had to do it right. A blackening tinge began to fill the edges of my view, and I wondered if I should again chance another rest. But as I ran on the darkness continued to slowly flow over everything, like an inky drizzle, and I knew it wasn't fatigue. Night was coming. Slinking up behind me like a ghoul after my skin. But the darker it got, the better off I would be. The darker it got, the less would my pursuers be able to see me, and more able would I be to see them. S.H.

The Deepening Fog Pt. 2

The fog grew thicker still, falling from the sky in blankets of mist. I trundled on, with more fervour than I would imagine my body was able to sustain. It stared to groan, to pale, and I didn’t dare think about the storm now on my face. The forrest turned this way and that forever, a mass of muddy leaves and blackened oaks all I could make out. My vision gave in to small fits of blurriness and I had to slow down, rest my hand against a tree, and collect what little breath I had left to my lungs. I went on for who knows how much further more before I realised the birds had ceased their singing. There was something else that rang around them, calling them to catch their breath, and I didn't dare to drop my pace after that. I knew they had found the body. They were coming for me. S.H.