The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Phoenix Arise
by Amanda Worthington

Phoenix rises and stretches

Damnation made flesh

Glistening in the low light

Of the flames that birthed her

The dying world of men lain at her feet

Like a meager offering

After mass murder

.

She must do better.

Their faults are her own

For did she not hold them in her heart

And grow them in her bones?

And tear them apart with her absence?

.

When she multiplies this time

After her union with forces unseen

She will present the void not with offspring that are the strongest and fastest

But ones designed as architects of restraint and peace

.

Now, she is not yet strong enough to breed

Though Chaos has yet to voice his complaint

.

The holy fires turn her skin the color of promise

And she knows that when they go out

She will be the only light that remains

.

Then she will let the dark in again

Heed that ancient god’s call

And they will speak

Of the life and the death

They each in their own measure contain

.

And the new cycle will begin

The sins of the fathers forgotten

In the heat of renewal

And something new will crawl from the soot

.

The goddess of second chances breathes in sulfur and ash

And the scent of approaching fate

Stills her still-liquid core

Centers herself

And waits

.

.

Fiction © Copyright Amanda Worthington.
Image courtesy of Pixabay