The shaft of reddish light illuminating the night sky reflected through the peering eyes of Reverend John Hale as the crimson moon laid behind the dark threatening skies. Hale ghastly gazed towards the horizon overcast by blood- curdled shadows of voluminous trees consuming the horrendous terror of the night. He frantically gazed towards the embarked trees with fallen leaves that screamed in utter fright. The darkness cradling him as black as liquid water on the sea that is thick and quiet. The leaves gnawing in tears concealing its gore from the bloody moon as water droplets dripped onto the dirt-patched ground.
He dismounts his horse where the ominous rattle of a snare drum echoing through the freezing night, swallowing the sound of horse hooves shaking the rocky ground. Reverend John Hale is an intellectual man, tightly-skinned and eager-eyed of 40 years of age. The horse wailed in exasperation being fatigued as Hale had reached the dense ground where he frowned and screamed in exotic pain from his stiff body. The chilly breeze harshly roared sending towards him trembling vibrations from the spines to his feet. Hale clambering heavily among the creepers and broken trunks, disentangled the sharp fallen branches that stuck to his clothes as if alive. The sound of leaves wailing in screeching cries as he walked through the wooden twigs where he smelt the earthiness of the muggy ground surrounded by dead leaves mirroring a sense of impatience in Hale’s mind.
The ghastly sound of owls screaming had echoed ringing in his ears a sense of urgency as they were raucously hooting in the tree tops. Hale hastily bents to retrieve a wooden bark through the shivering of his bones from the growling wind that swept dragging him back towards his horse. The damp leaves from within the ground encircled rustling back and forth surrounding him as he constructed a fire place to rest.
He took shallow breaths trying to move, his eyes feeling gritty and throat being dry to swallow the saliva within his mouth. Hale swiftly hid within the cloth as he lay within the dirty ground solemnly listening to cricket’s singing. He observed the fire dancing as if alive glowing throughout the night where he felt the warmth radiating his body where slowly he drifted into a deep sleep. The bloody night surrounded within Hale as a vicious serpent circling around him as he is twisting and turning rapidly in disturbance.
Pain as a liquid fire within his body wakens him: a searing with gnawing agony in the head. He is throbbing his arms as confronting images of past events screened like a shot in a film within his mind.
