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English
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Published:
2024-05-10
Completed:
2024-05-10
Words:
3,260
Chapters:
3/3
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2
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39

small town rapture

Summary:

It shuffles toward you
Awkward to move in such a small space, its massive limbs crumpled into itself to fit
Its huge, horrible wings collapsed tight against its body
It stops in front of you, too close, the smell of blood is oh so sharp and warm
You close your eyes tight
It will all be over soon

~

Eleven years ago, Lucifer Farmer was exiled from the tiny, conservative town of Jacob's Ridge, Tennessee after a string of disappearances were connected to him. Now, at twenty-three, the same family member who cast him out calls him back, forcing him to face the people who once thought him possessed and the mysteries in the forest that he's spent the years since trying to forget. Lucifer, his partner Rip, and his dog Stevie return to Jacob's Ridge and the old mystery resumes almost immediately when an old enemy vanishes. The townspeople suspect Lucifer, and he only has a few days to prove his innocence before they burn him at the stake -- before the thing that really took her takes every last one of them too.

Chapter 1: Prologue

Chapter Text

*crunch*

Hot, heavy breaths choke the air

*crunch*

Skin like wet leather stretched over bones like trees

*crunch*

Eyes, too many eyes, flashing like huge opals in its face

*crunch* 

Screams and groans fade into a whimper, its prey is nearly gone

*crunch*

Almost over, almost over, it will all be over soon

*crunch*

A cave of a mouth, huge, filled with incomprehensible teeth, it was made to destroy

*crunch*

Gone, the prey is gone, it is over

It is over

It is over 

It shuffles toward you

Awkward to move in such a small space,

its massive limbs crumpled into itself to fit

Its huge, horrible wings collapsed tight against its body

It stops in front of you, too close, the smell of blood

is oh so sharp and warm

You close your eyes tight

It will all be over soon

It drops something warm and wet and heavy in front of you

and it turns away

Shuffles back to its nest, sleepy, ready to digest

You open your eyes and stifle a scream

It decided to share its meal

An arm 

Is on the ground in front of you

Drenched in blood

You know that arm

The one that held you

beneath the surface of the water

While they sang and sang and sang and prayed

For you to be made pure

You could never be made pure

You stood

You did not look back at it

You left

And you ran.