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Under the Earth
by A.F. Stewart

The dead rot, their bones settling

into pools of putrid viscera seeping

sluggishly from decomposing coffins;

their entombed prisons of last rite

.

Slack jaws distend, and scream silently

as maggots feast wriggling, wriggling 

and eyeballs burst from their sockets

melting sight into fetid, slippery goo

.

But are they not husks, discarded relics

a final vestige of everything that was?

A putrefying reminder of our mortality

that we bury in the cold, cold ground

.

Or are they more, echoes of the undead

things that haunt our collective memory?

Do stilled hearts wait to beat again, to rise,

aware beneath the lonely spectre of death?

.

Is death a torment for cumulative sins

a sacrificial ritual for the corrupted soul?

A cruel payment for indifference and strife

as we gradually crumble into an abyss?

.

Shall we pray for the corpses of decay,

spirits trapped in shells of brittle remains,

withered cadavers within mouldering dirt

feeding their parasites pieces of humanity

.

Fiction © Copyright A.F. Stewart
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

 

More from A.F. Stewart:

Visions and Nightmares

Tragedy spares no one… and takes no prisoners.
In the twilight shadows, secrets are revealed past the whispers of madness.

Wander into the realm of the old gods with Elenora, where humanity and marriage are a prison.
Step through a looking glass of dark horrors with an Alice you never knew.
Join with Zenna to seek the truth as her death by magic grows closer.
Journey with Olivia as she crosses paths with a monster of the forest and runs for her life.
Watch Isobel summon the faerie to solve her problem of an unwanted husband.
Shiver as Doctor Killbride experiments with corpses to create life from death.
All that and more await within the pages.

Ten stories. Ten women.
Who will survive? Who will fall? And who will succumb to their inner evil?
Find out in Visions and Nightmares.

Warning: This book contains disturbing scenes that may be upsetting to some readers.

Available on Amazon!