A corpse in the marshes

Prologue

Prologue

Harsh winds sliced across the marshes whispering long lost secrets to the open air.

No-one heard them. No-one advanced towards the marshes out of curiosity; wives tales and legends had assured that. No-one was near except the long forgotten man lying near the canopy of the trees, yet still out in the open, in full view.

In full view of what? Of the sky, of passing predators, of the baron land around him, of death.

Death clung to the man like a child unwilling to leave their mother on their first day of primary school. Around him the trees appeared wilted and limp, the air smelt of decaying plants and the colour was dull.

A lonely cloud was visible on the horizon, around the place of settlement; obviously he was too repulsive to look at, even for something so inanimate. Perhaps it would rain? Worsening the effects of the quicksand, that's for sure, but clearing away the pack of wolves who persistently attacked the dying man.

A single tear leaked from the eye above and rapidly it became harder to see him.

He was shrouded in quicksand. No aid. No hope. The man lay dying, a helpless fly in a Venus fly trap. Life flowing out of him as fast as the sand in an egg timer.

Death was the best way; living would mean being a freak out of injury: a curiosity in a travelling circus perhaps. But he couldn't live, a walking corpse.

His ragged hair, dragged into the sand was only sign of him, not even his claw-marked face was left. He was gone.