Rolling Weekly - February 28th - March 6th - "Bone"

To The Bone

He didn't know how long he'd been alone. He had no sense of time anymore. The silence was palpable -- an organism that reverberated with a life of its own.

Hunger had become a detached entity, an exacting termagant that demanded satisfaction on a regular basis. Sometimes, he thought he could see it crouching by the water, just within his field of vision. The drooling mouth and slack jaw frightened him.

It had returned to claim its pound of flesh once again. He looked at his hands. The bony fingers were gone but there were still a few sacrificial knuckles remaining.

The Meeting

His face was bone. Skull, teeth, sockets. It was all there, bare and pristine. I swallowed the rising terror and remembered why I’d come. To kill the Master of Nightmares. But he was already dead. I lifted the bottle and pulled the cork out with my teeth.

"I assume you don't drink," I said. He didn't speak or move, just stared. Can empty sockets stare? "Does bone burn?" My thumb stroked the flint wheel of the lighter hidden in my palm, the little spokes dug into my skin. I threw the bottle, the acid green liquid splattered across his robes.