City of Souls

He was lingering through the forest by himself, walking in between the population of burnt, leafless trees. Porter enjoyed the quiet of the forest save the few wolf howls and bird chirpings that sounded here and there. He wondered what the birds were still doing awake in the night, as if they were the nocturnal owls. “Porter,” the wind whispered. “Porter.”

The dark-haired teenager ignored the wispy voice, continued promenading on the dirt trail. When he was younger, his father always told him that the dark was dangerous and never to be trusted. Up until recently, Porter lived by those set of words. He could even remember his father’s gruff voice, saying, “Watch out for the darkness, my son. It’ll reach out to you with its claws, act as if it’s your friend, and devour you in obscurity.” Yet Porter could never decipher the literal meaning of that.

Porter wondered now, though, if his father was being literal about the darkness devouring him in obscurity as the sun began to hide behind the clouds and the blue skies began dimming into a deep indigo. Porter clung to his favorite black and white sweater for more warmth as the owls—if that’s what they even were—hooted and cooed. He wondered what his mother was thinking; he was certain that she knew he’d snuck out through the window again.

“Porter,” the wind whispered once again. It sounded like his grandmother’s voice before she died a few years earlier, on her death bed high with a fever. He deemed it as something to flout and simply ignored it again. He shouldn’t have. God, he shouldn’t have.

Diminutive and malevolent, they bit at his ankles, causing him to kick his feet irritably. He began walking the opposite direction than before and picked up his pace a bit. It was no use, though, because the miniscule red bugs burrowed underneath his skin, masticating and pulverizing. Porter halted, bent down to scratch his ankles. The itch, the pain—it was unbearable. “Maybe I walked into some poison ivy,” he mumbled to himself, pulling his pant leg back down over his ankles. It was the only cogent, yet completely illogical, reason to think of. Then, there they were again, scarring his skin and leaving their mark in the form of small, red bruises. He muttered a string of curse words before reaching down and scratching again, this time making himself bleed. Porter knew better than to yell out on a night like this, where it was evident that they wolves and foxes were roaming and dallying around, but he couldn’t help himself.

The wolves smelled it. They smelled the blood, they smelled the flesh, and it sent them running. “We tried to warn you, Porter,” the wind whispered again, portrayed in the flimsy appearance of a young girl. “But you were too ignorant and too stubborn to listen!” She—or rather It—was shouting now, buoyant hair violent raging about. “Oh, don’t look at me like that, Wells. You’re the cause of your own demise!” She moved closer to him and her resemblance to Cult was uncanny. “Oh, did you forget about me? Don’t act like you don’t know who I am! Don’t act like this isn’t your fault! You killed me and you’re going to pay hell for it!”

As if on cue, the wolves ran toward him, jumping at him, biting and tearing at his skin. He thought that they’d give him a break, show some sign of mercy, but they didn’t. He thought that maybe the ghosty would help him out, but she simply watched. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he repeated over and over, crying and choking on his own spit. It didn’t take long before he was lost consciousness.