BlogFestivus, Day Eight: Seasons Change

Thanks for coming back to this year’s BlogFestivus writing challenge. Nine stories that are supposed to take inspiration from the nine reindeer on Santa’s sleigh. Today is Day Eight– Blitzen.

Previous chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

8

She was so frickin’ clueless…

Professor Cornelius had joked with her about A’renndur and the legends surrounding it…

…them, whatever.

…but he didn’t know how far gone her mom was. Clarice hadn’t really known either until she’d come home and the man was there. She’d ran, but he’d caught her easily. And now she was tied down in the kitchen. Her mom knelt beside her, looking doped out, cradling the stone hammer. The man watched the western window, a small sliver of sky showing the setting sun beneath thickening clouds.

“It’s time,” he said.

“Please, Mom!!” Clarice struggled as the man knelt and began a rhythmic incantation.

The man chanted, his eyes closed, the words coming faster. Clarice couldn’t understand them but a buzzing started in her brain making her wince more than her mother’s rough hand on her shoulder. He reached crescendo, letting out an exultant cry.

The light changed, focused around the man. Inside its corona, his cry rose to a howl and Clarice shielded her eyes as with a crackle and flash, he incinerated.

Clarice screamed and looked at the husk of the man had been there only seconds before, now a sculpture of packed ash, his face a rictus of both triumph and agony. Behind him, the light shifted and shimmered and what had been Herman broke and crumbled leaving behind what her mind could only think of as a “hole” in the room.

And then she saw them.

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