4

In the murky billow swelling at the broken section of road Destra hissed. Her narrow, segmented tail swung to and fro, stretched and rose as it bowed, ending with a venomous stinger. Her eight hard shelled legs dug into the pavement as her grasping claws opened and closed. Looking over the ledge she stared into endless fog that rolled and obscured what might wait below.  Taking a step back, a smell circulated in the air. Her decrepit face twisted.

She hissed and a forked tongue slithered over her lips and tasted the fragrance of him as it rushed over her.  She butted her horns against a crumbling wall of a flower shop and retreated a few inches. The smell was maddening. And madness was a gift she favored. It opened eyes and closed doors that offered escape.

The lies humans breed compounds even the most brilliant mistakes. Their actions are governed by greed and the worship of. There was no finer example than the one imposed by their so called governments. Perhaps only despair may free them, but she doubted it. They were arrogant creatures with bizarre ideas about "god" and divine relationship with a creator.

She cocked her head to one side as she examined a bloody trail wrapping about a bend ahead. Humanity was such an epic fail. Real corruption gave birthed to them. There was no denying this. She clenched her teeth, her jaw stiffening.

What was more important? What drove them to consider one another as a superior race? If only they knew the truth, but then again their puny minds might not be able to understand truth.  Wrath, greed, sloth, pride, envy, and gluttony defined those lowly specks. It was time to challenge those who wore the titles well. It was time to revise the twenty-one sacraments.

Nightmares asleep for only a moment, a maroon orb peeked out from behind blackened clouds. One might think it had two craters for eyes and a chipped slant for a mouth. Nothing was unseen by its high placed view. Every corner and break in the road remained as they ever had yet change was just an infrequent charm.

Slowly Destra emerged. A bleak pool rippled around her. As beads of the water fell, sores opened in the pavement. They groaned as emitted a rotten stink. She slithered onto a sidewalk. The store neighboring it withered like a dry rose. She flicked her tongue out then.

There was no time like this to rebuild, she thought. The time was nigh. She paused. Pavement stretched, writhed as bubbles popped to the surface. String by string the black tar peeled away. Exposed beneath was rusted steel. Her nostrils flared and lamp posts melted like candle sticks. Soon the avenue was bathed in rich darkness. Fog rolled back, came in short waves, but never fully retreated.

With the death of one reality another is born, she thought.

She hunched low. A course of scents waft to her. She wasn't alone. With her back arched she clenched her teeth. Shadows bled together, lengthened skyward and bore glowing jewels within its mass.

"You have tried again to capture the essence of hell," Krosnos rasped.

It was rather a silly statement. She gazed at it through slits. The thing Krosnos was not easily defined. Like most brethren it was truly neither a he nor a she. Sex did not design them. Nature did not order their existence. They were products of themselves.

"So what does this have to do with you," Destra hissed.

"You summoned chaos, did you not? You long to introduce him again to horror, do you not?"

"I think you choose to judge me based on your own inability to establish hell."

Krosnos unrolled two shadowy arms. "Lies," was its thunderous reply.

"Well, then let's prove to one another who is the rightful master of this realm.  The art of murder is something to appreciate. It gives the world a new platform. Of course only a true artist at the craft knows how to manipulate time and space; bend the laws of nature.”