One of the Fallen

Afraid to succumb,
She was pulling herself through,
For succumbing meant death,
And fear of death was nothing new.
Death, death is dark,
And dark is forbidden,
Monsters rest in the dark,
And they keep your children hidden.
She found resisting useless,
She fell, she bled,
Down into the deep she went
Because she’d followed where she was led.
When the black blood was gone,
She looked into the eternal night,
Red light shone from the effervescent moon
From where it drips far out of sight.
Black, black, still, she could see,
Shadows of the fallen show,
They’ve fallen much farther than she

They’ve been down so long, so low.
She glanced down; her skin was gray,
A cold, deep, seductive hue,
Her wispy hair the blackest day,
Not unlike the shady view.
And, all around her silhouettes
All of the them the same
Their intense eyes shining
Looking for someone to blame.
Without gestures, without words,
They beckoned her to come,
The figures stood silent
While her heart pounded like a drum.
Deciding to explore,
Deciding to remain,
She walked through the alluring gloom
From which she could not refrain.
Some walked, some glided,
Still others stared standing still
As she made her way
Up onto an enormous hill.

Atop the peak
Raising its branches to the sky,
Sat a tree of black obsidian
Tinted red with the moon’s dye.
The twisted appendages
With sad, weeping foliage,
Radiated a stiff, sharp beauty,
And called her to its edge.
The figures near her smiled,
Their teeth the only white around,
And offered her the reddest fruit,
So plump, so juicy, so round.
With eyes gazing with hope
She ate of the red fruit
And quickly lost her sense
Her mind no longer astute.
Awakening soon thereafter,
The fallen took her hands,
She would stay, she would live,
Against the time of sands.