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Road to Corruption
Blindfolded,
You let the cryptic whispers
Of voices you cannot locate
Push you off the ledge.
Your feet land,
Unsteadily,
In the shallow pool
Of what feels like
Fluid water.
Regaining composure,
You begin to force
Your feet forth,
Pushing onwards,
Slowly at first,
Until your awkward limbs
Gain enough power to
Plow through the water,
Scattering it behind you.
The voices continue their chant,
Leading you onward.
And the water gets deeper.
And deeper.
You’re up to your knees
When you first smell the copper,
And the pool surrounding you
Slowly begins to coalesce
Into something thicker,
More menacing,
Than the innocent water
You barrelled through before.
Your calves burn
As you press through the liquid,
Thick like oil,
Coating your torso
With the grimy tinge
Of blood.
And as you realize this,
You hear the first crack
Muffled by the thickness of the blood
Underneath your foot.
A tree branch,
You tell yourself,
Although you have
Yet to hear
The peaceful,
Swift sway of leaves
Stirred by the same moaning,
Relentless wind
That has plagued you
Since the start of your trek.
More cracks, now,
Harder to ignore,
Especially when
You feel
Your fingertips
Collide
With an
Unmistakably
Un-wooden
Figure.
More and more of them
Surround your body,
Getting crushed under your feet and
Knocked sideways by your knees,
Battering and bruising your torso,
Filling your stomach with more dread
Than any cafeteria meat.
And then you hear yourself
Scream,
Because there’s no more
Pretending,
You are death
And you are destruction
And you are crushing the bones
Of once-living creatures
Under your path.
And the voices hear your futile scream,
And they cackle wickedly,
And shove you along,
Because you are no longer,
In fact you never were,
Of your own free will.
You squirm desperately,
Wanting to escape,
To free yourself from this chaotic dirge,
But the rotten voices
Only wail louder
And push you forward
Into your whirlpool of filth and sin.
You finally feel the fire on your face,
Burning at your eyelids,
Daring you onwards.
The gleeful orange flames
Dance against the lids of your eyes,
Horrifying in their potential for
Unrestrained destruction.
You unwillingly open your eyes,
Because you know
You are at
Your final stop,
And you discover,
Your eyes are
No longer encumbered
By the scrappy cloth blindfold
That fell off long ago.
You realize now,
Or perhaps you had already known,
That you had continued,
Eyes closed,
Blindly,
Out of obedience, habit,
Compliance, fear,
Because you knew
You didn’t have the ability
To trust your eyes
To tell you the truth
Regardless.
Your eyes are open now,
And you see your surroundings,
As they truly appear,
As you’ve shaped them,
Ever since your birth in the shallow pool,
And you scream,
Wishing,
Futilely,
Fatally,
That you could close them again,
And flee from the land of the doomed.
Because now you see
The blind path
You have forged
To your immortal damnation.
“Welcome to Paradise,”
The devil sneers at you wickedly.
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This piece details the corruptive and destructive nature of untrustworthy, malevolent external influences on the life of an unnamed person, who, from birth until death (and the afterlife), follows the advice and path of voices with wicked intentions and backgrounds, to find himself eternally locked in their realm after death.