The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!
Nextlahualli
by Nina D’Arcangela
Pain, muscles protest the need to move. Blind, she’s dragged into the glaring light. Vertigo, the edge of the frustum too near. Thunder, the sound of blood slamming through her ears. Clarified, a feather plucked from her hair. Disrobed, slaves paint her with blest symbols. Cold, her flesh upon the altar. Splayed, her arms and legs tethered. Wet, the tears that run from her eyes. Revered, the shaman that will take her life. Fear, the sound of naked feet slapping stone. Hot, the blade that opens her throat. Froth, iron-rich gurgle that feeds the trough. Panic, the struggle to pull in air. Chanting, her people revel in the sacrifice. Silence, the body is left as an offering. Drought, the wind scrubs the plains of seed. Famine, no crop will grow. Blame, she did not appease.
Fiction © Copyright Nina D’Arcangela
Image courtesy of Pixabay
More from Nina D’Arcangela:
Mental Ward: EXPERIMENTS
A dank basement, shadow filled hallways, the deep echo of a metal latch being thrown while faint screams are heard… These are the things you might experience in a place where the unspeakable happens, where conscientious action and moral turpitude turn a blind eye in the interest of advancing one’s own personal pursuits in the most deranged and unjustifiable manner. The type of place where power corrupts, and depravity runs rampant among those imbued with it. A place where the unfortunate are abandoned to the devices of those who convince themselves their actions are in the best interest of science.
Mental Ward: Experiments is a collection of ten short stories that demonstrate the worst of humanity’s ambition in the interest of ‘civilized’ advancement. Step into a world where sanity is left behind, and horror is what the doctor ordered!
Spreading the Writer's Word 
That is masterful – the terse prose winds the tension tighter and tighter to that tragic ending.
Thank you, Alex! It was a fun piece to write! ❤
Isn’t this uniquely marvelous? Tight, vivid, it seizes the reader’s attention like an ever tightening noose around the neck; you find you’ve been holding your breath too long. Just at the end, you gasp and swallow. D’Archangela has triumphed again. Brilliant!
I love this form of almost ‘sketch’ writing. Yes, there’s a story, but the piece is primarily about building the visual, not the narrative. Fun stuff. Thank you for the kind words! ❤
A darkly fabulous story.
Thank you, A.F. It was a very engaging piece to write, and highly enjoyable. ❤