Grave

Chapter 1

Evil gently beckoned, and

I succumbed to my fated web.

Long I'd held it- foolish, blind

To ferine pleasures of the mind.

---

Lorcrar heard the gargantuan beast that was his father drifting slowly out of however it dreamed on its bed of stone. It made his flesh prickle. He stepped carefully, making no sound as he headed for the wooden door standing firmly in its old frame. The gateway to his freedom. Lorcrar's movements were patient and well-rehearsed, for he was approaching his eleventh year of the ritual. But he could not ignore the panic stirring in his weak heart, which, as habit demanded, began to pump at an alarming pace without fail at the moment of escape.

Shivering, Lorcrar reached slowly for the handle. His bony hands lingered on its rusted knob, the risk of causing a disturbance nerve-wracking. A faint thread of light pierced the darkness through the rotted keyhole, and Lorcrar's eyes widened in concentration. With a jerk of his shaking arms he attempted to open it.

The sound of his father's body shifting in the darkness echoed through the empty room, and Lorcrar froze where he stood.

"Son."

The voice reverberated through the floor.

"Yes, father?" There was a pause.

"Are you going to school?"

Lorcrar cleared his throat, keeping his reply free from tremor so as not to reveal unease.

"Of course, father."

Lorcrar's polite yet insistent tone seemed to cause confusion. Then the silhouette retreated clumsily back into the deeper shadows. Lorcrar's breath came back to him, and he pulled the knob, this time with all his might, and held it ajar for his thin frame to slip out.

Even that dull morning light seemed a startling contrast to the dark house he had emerged from. Lorcrar picked his way through the thickets and onto the path to Melbury School. He pointed his gaunt face to the ground, and stared intently at his cracked black shoes, kicking up the dust with the effort to keep balance. The birds sang irresistibly from the treetops, out of his reach, and his stomach growled at him. Their sweet music caused his ears to throb and he grimaced. A strand of saliva trickled on the corner of his mouth, but he ignored it and kept his head down solemnly, eyes half closed in defense of the glowing sun.

He was quite early to school. For some unknown reason his father had spared him  idle conversation on the incubation of centipedes – but there were already enough students around the grounds to make him feel nervous.

Lorcrar reached his usual resting place: a lone gnarled tree that had ceased producing leaves. He pulled his bag down from his shoulders, leaning on the trunk. Waiting for the school bell in the fresh air was much more pleasant  than a ten minute lesson on insect mutilation, even if he did despise the judgment of the other students. The way they often stared at him with half sympathetic, half laughing eyes.

His temple pounded with fatigue, but his tiredness threatened to overcome it, to let him drift off with exhaustion. Just as his eyelids began to weaken he heard footsteps in his direction.

"Look! It's Sebby the freak!"