Venom

13: The Man Known As Venom

My world was one of no words, no man-made creations that made the day easier, entertaining. What was there, was and what was not, simply did not exist. There was no future in my world. There was only every breath you took until you could no longer do so and then like the earth, we returned from where we had been birthed. Sounds and actions were our communication. The steps we took shook the ground and those vibrations warned all those who were friend or foe of who we were. 

Earth piled higher than mountains hid creatures with skin of lava and eyes of fire that left caves in the ground whenever tears would fall. In those newborn holes, blinded crawlers with cracked scales would dig their way further, stretching and morphing their bodies over the span of time to ease their way further in. On the flat surface, two-legged creatures with claws on their feet would travel through hoards of the slowest groups and wound as many as they could. As the weak laid there, hurt and struggling, only then would a feast break out and all those who were not killed would watch as their young were devoured. Sometimes others would drag them away and only the wails, the tearing of muscles and limbs being chewed, slurped, could be heard.

In my world, there was no future. There was only the breaths you took and the breaths you didn't. Nothing was cruel, no one was a savage and blood was as vast as the sky.

Trees grew so large that those who could climb would see the morning when the rest believed it to be night. The branches intertwining and birthing new branches which in turn did the same. When rain did not fall, roots would wiggle from out of the ground and drag the forest forward until new nourishment could be found. Sometimes land would split and water would rise, other times the slow would become apart of the forest, their horns and bones patterns to be found by those who lived within the forest. Flowers of various shades, colors that bleed from the petals if frightened, harmless when on the flower but deadly when spit out at its enemy.

A sky that glowed during the night and dulled during the day. With a sun the color of blood washed out by water that was covered by clouds at times that rained ash and heat, coloring everyone who did not seek shelter black. A color that hid those who hunted, blending them in but poisoning them if they did not remove the sun's tears. From the outside in, skin would harden and soon movement would become impossible. A living statue that starved.  

The moon was as bright as every other star, but the skies that turned different shades of purple, blue and green blended together during the night, only becoming one singular color when the sun was back in its domain, in front of the moon. But when night reigned, those colors would swirl in the sky without any real direction, but twirling around one another as if playing around. Rarely did those colors fail to show, but in their place would be a sparkling of small fires in the sky that did not move, did not burn but simply flickered for hours before disappearing.

The smart knew to follow those with signs of ash, to wait until the third day to break them free and devour those who could not fight, who had forgotten how to see but could still feel.

The eath birthed many creatures and from those creatures, others were birthed, roamed together and hunted together. For every hoard that traveled in pairs, young and their creators, there was a smaller group to rip them apart for meal or play. Watching, stalking and developing a taste. Those who had no strength to hunt, ate what did not fight back, but for all their bulk and build, they had only horns for decoration. 

There places I knew of that changed overnight. Sand covered grounds by day and mud by midday, capturing those who believed the ground a safe track. By the time nightfall came around, their bodies would be half-sunk as they were sucked into the ground and only when they lost total mobility, only when the cries grew anguished did those in the dark who had watched them with quiet hunger, only then would they lower themselves from the trees that could not be seen from creatures from different lands, trees that were made of sand so light of color it was practically nonexistent, and as a non-existent tree it dissolved when no one wondered.