Faerie Blood: Awakening

Turn This Meat Suit Around

Tentacles slammed the door and shoved her fists into the pockets of her hoodie. She muttered as she flicked her dreads out of her face and over her shoulder. Stomping across the grass and beneath a venerable oak tree, she headed for the graveyard on the other side of town. As she walked away from the house, her anger ebbed and she began to see the beauty that night held secret from the fearful world of day dwellers. The bells in her dreads jingled quietly as she picked her way across gravel roads, her bare feet finding sharp stones every now and again. Her cloth sack, filled with what she would need for the rite, bumped against her butt as she walked between shadows, the moonlight gliding over her as she let her more primitive instincts take over. She stalked silently, her hips rolling to keep her balance as she walked upon the balls of her feet, her deep green-gold eyes penetrating the darkness—daring the shadows to strike at her. She relaxed her mind and reveled in the thrum of energy, of life all around her. She took a moment to stand in a patch of moonlight and honor its full and watchful beauty. She stepped easily through the misaligned gates and into the cemetery. She paused and her brow creased as she looked around. She couldn’t see a single healthy guardian tree within the boundaries of the graveyard. She frowned and summoned a protective shield around herself to ward off trouble making spirits. As she flitted between the shadows cast by the bigger headstones she slowly wove her way to the grave she had been seeking. The grave was raised, the coffins entombed in concrete due to the high water table of the small, sleepy Louisiana town.

“Hey Doc, long time no see,” Tentacles murmured, laying her hand over her great-grandfather’s name she briefly imagined him standing before her. She set her bag down and removed a large container of salt which she poured into a circle on the concrete grave. Taking her compass and a lit candle she stood at each of the four points and whispered an incantation. When she had walked the circle three times she returned to the center and sat within the salt circle facing East. She held the lit candle and stared into the flames as she chanted. As time lost all meaning she heard a whisper of movement just outside the protective ring. She looked up and saw her calmly puzzled ancestor. He looked younger than she remembered, but his face was still as wise as her faded memory recalled.

“I’m sorry to summon you like this, but I had a few questions for you,” she said as she set the candle down in front of her and held her hands in her lap. He nodded quietly and sat down in front of her on his own grave. “I was wondering who else in our family had this—who could do stuff like this. There had to be someone before me,” she said studying his face as he regarded her. He shook his head, he opened his mouth right as the skies opened up and the wind began to howl, extinguishing her candle and erasing her protective ring. The spell was destroyed and he disappeared—in his place, shrouded in night, there stood a being with a grin that paralyzed her. Its mouth was wide and black. It’s face as pale as a corpse. The hooded cloak it wore covered the top half of its face and its black robes proved any effort of height or build estimation pointless. It crooked a finger at her, and she robotically stood. It walked away and she was alarmed to find herself following, mechanically, after it. She barely had time to grab her bag as she followed the creature into the night and she began arguing with herself,

What is the first thing we learn from watching horror shows? We learn not to follow the obviously magical, evil-looking hooded figure with a mouth big enough to fit my head in into the dark of night, that is what we learn from the time we are young. Now if you could please regain control of your faculties and TURN THIS MEAT SUIT AROUND it’d be much appreciated! She continued to argue with her puppet-like actions, creating a constant stream of dialog to cloak the mind numbing fear that wasn’t far beneath the surface. The inner dialog eventually devolved into some rather creative insults aimed at the back of the mysterious monster she was following—a small part of her couldn’t help but chuckle at ‘frog raped face of a goat’s ass’ in reference to the creature’s face. After an indefinite amount of time it took her a few moments to realize she had stopped marching and the figure had disappeared. She rolled her eyes at herself as she realized how idiotic she was not to have realized this sooner. Her rain soaked clothes clung to her and the wind whistled past, eliciting a shiver that racked her whole body. She took stock and realized she was in a dead clearing, she looked down and froze. She stood in the exact center of a faerie ring. Looking around in panic she attempted to leap from the circle only to jump straight into the cold body of the robed figure.