Mongolith

Mongolith

J.L Hunter


That distant thrumming
Up over the hill.
I lay awake at night
Listening to it’s awful sound
Like thunder
Though dreadfully soft
A living thing breathing in
And exhaling death all around it.
Black clouds issue from it’s jagged mouth
Steam pilings pour an inky darkness.
The air is oddly warm.
I am close to the thing that is called by some
The devastator of worlds
And ruin.
Mongolith it is.
A word from long ago, meaning one who rises and then falls
A word for Gods.
Pain, as I enter it’s realm
Nothing but my pack to my side
Half a water skin dangling like a limp bladder from my shoulder.
My temples throb as I near the black, thick smoke
That is the thing that will surely kill me
Alive I come, for dead I leave.
All around me is ash and blackened steel
That jut out from the ground like unmarked gravestones
Litter the earth for miles wide.
The sky is gone
Long ago did it vanish, within tendrils of smoke
Like grimy fingers reaching into the clear blue sky
There is a haze in the air
For along the breezy wind
Along with it carries poison fumes.
Despite the aching of my lungs
I press on for a purpose I have forgotten
Perhaps there is not reason
Why I travel onward, toward the lifeless marsh
Of dust and bone
And war torn land.