It is always dark as I wander through the wood. The wind itself wails as if to lament my passing. The pines throw their needles down at me as I stride past their trunks. I smirk; to think that they are naive enough to try and hurt me. I am the Master of Hell! I know a thing or two about the art of torture, believe me. Now that’s a topic I could discuss at length. It’s a pity that it’s such an undervalued art, you can tell so much from a person from their style. I always seem to associate it with a box of chocolates; rich and irresistible, each one so different. Everyone has their preference. Do you favour the chocolate truffle, filled with congealed blood and the faintest hint of disembowelling? Or perhaps the chocolate covered toffee, so stretchy you can almost hear the tearing of muscle? Maybe the milk chocolate covered hazelnut with the same hollow crunch of a skull splintering or the frosty minty chocolate, as cold as the extremities of the victim before they are snapped off? It’s such a glorious expression of emotion, creativity, imagination and passion! But I digress.
I stride through small copses, the cracks within the forest, leaving cloven footprints in the snow. Everything is hunted in this region from the deer to the trees. Even men are prey in the forest– my prey. Their naivety is amusing. I would laugh but to be honest smirking is cutting it close to the line as it is; there is a thin boundary between sadism and pleasure you know, and while the foremost is advisable, the latter is to be avoided at all costs.
I tread among the leaf litter as the chill of the night sets in. It is the winter solstice, my favourite time of the year. It reminds me of home for although it is a common misconception that hell is hot, in actuality it is as cold as the hearts of those that are imprisoned there. I come to a cabin along a small dirt track with an icy stream flowing at right angles to it. I prefer crossroads but this is good enough. I smirk again and the moon itself seeks refuge behind a cloud. A man and a woman; oh, and it’s their wedding night! I relish the opportunity and I see to it that the man steps out to relieve himself. I scrape away the clouds with a chilling gust of wind to reveal the face of the reluctant full moon.
I stand beside him and as we piss into the stream together we have a chat inside his head. He is nervous, terrified even, of the future which leaves him vulnerable, open to temptation. I offer him the choice– though hark my words I never persuade or coerce. There is no need. Simply give a man the opportunity to do wrong and he shall take it. It is in his nature.
“Hasten,” I whisper “for you shall never have the chance of eternal freedom again. You will look back at this day and wonder what could have been, should you not take me up on my offer.”
So he accepts and I seal the deal with a kiss, passionate and frenzied. I draw back and rub the ointment into his genitals and legs before working my way up to his torso and face. He grasps my horns to steady himself as I do so. Within minutes of the frosty lotion touching his skin it begins to boil, blistering the coating, as thin as an egg shell, that cradles the true man within. He plunges into the snow to cool himself and I fondle his hair as we lie there together. It is silent, but for the sound of his sizzling skin. He moans as I grow tired of canoodling and gently rip out chunks of his hair and scalp. I run my talon down his chest, and peel back the flimsy skin to reveal the pelt beneath it. Beads of sweaty blood dribble down his face as I unwrap him, stripping the man bare to reveal his true self. Soon great swathes of skin as soft as old leather come apart, cracking, splitting, fragmenting. They cluster around the man reborn as carnivore incarnate. Now my faithful slave lies shaking in the blood soaked snow, quivering with tense excitement, amniotic fluid steaming off his lean pelt. I have removed the splinter in his heart that has held him back for so long. It shatters as I clutch it. And with a chilling scream its eyes open; two jewels of solid moonlight gleaming at me. Now it is perfect. I send it back into the cabin, towards the kill it has been yearning for since the beginning of its pathetic miserable life. I set out into the night, leaving only curls of torn leather tossed onto the crimson snow as evidence of my passing, pausing only to hear the sound of sweet screams echoing around me.
