Last week, we asked writers to create a story based on the above photo and the word “trapped”. The results were creative, funny and interesting in ways we didn’t expect. We appreciate everyone one of them and we hope that the writers enjoyed the challenge!
Our winning entry comes to us from G. N. Boorse, who’s wonderfully descriptive tale describes a mythic encounter between man and demon.
Check out his winning entry below!
Trapped
By G. N. Boorse
The people of the village gathered round and prayed for the Matha ancestors to come down and take the great spirit of their leader, but secretly they hoped he would stay.
Sa-fengen, the witch doctor, lit his candles and sprinkled blood on them as was the custom, but he burned sea grass and not palm fronds in the hopes that the gods would reject the great Matha’s passing, that the incense would displease them, that the chief would be sent back, found lacking in the afterlife. But he had no such luck. The gods were not angered, the mountain did not rumble in the distance, and his clam-shell divinations predicted the Matha’s death as clear as day. He cast down his ceremonial turtle skull and knelt on the sandy ground inside the cave. A group of small boys who had been watching ran out to spread the news: there was nothing they could do.
Matha-Soy was dying.
The people gathered in clumps outside the cave, whispering, leaning in, eyes darting around. Beside them, there was a tremendous yawning cavern like the tunnel left by an ancient worm. Its black depths sucked in the light and the sky and dragged them down into an abyss thousands of feet below. Heavy, iron bars thicker than a man’s arm covered the dark entrance, and as the boys exclaimed their news, describing the weeping shaman, the village people watched the bars, prayed to Shagat, god of Justice, that they would hold, hoped the Matha-Soy would pass quietly.
But in their hearts, they knew better.
In his anger and despair, one of the warriors—Lhem-Ahn, named after the first of men—held out his bone-tipped spear and cast it down into the depths of Hawm, the prison-pit, despite the entreaties of his neighbors. He gave the ululating cry of war-against-beasts, pounding his bare breast with both fists, and the god of Wind whipped Lhem’s ponytail behind him.
“Do not anger Zakhri!” implored the villagers, but the blood-rage had descended on Lhem-Ahn. He stood at the edge and squared his shoulders, straightened his spine, steeled his lungs.
The mountain of the gods rose adamant in the distance, looming overhead like the head of a beast, glowing orange in the oncoming twilight. Beetles clicked as they crawled from their burrows in the sand, and over all things roared the sonorous thunder of the ocean. But otherwise there was silence, a heavy, overpowering soulless silence.
And then Zakhri-Tha stirred and peered at the darkness with one lidless eye. Hmm, hmm. How long had it been? Oh, eighty years at least since the miners had woken him in the bowels of the earth, pried him from the solid rock—and never lived to regret the decision.
They named him Zakhri-Tha then, greatest of the Lower Demons—but he called himself simply Ula, for that was his war cry. The people had sent their greatest warrior against him: Matha-Soy so tall and broad and strong, and they had torn the roots of the mountains with their combat, whirling and clawing and screaming and bellowing for all of the gods to hear. It had been a battle for the ages, man against beast, hand and arm versus tooth and claw. The Matha had been strong, but Ula was stronger and bested the mortal man, for Ula was the strongest of the crystal demons. But out of respect for the man’s bravery, Ula allowed Matha-Soy to live to the fullness of his days as the leader of his tribe by the sea, and suffered himself to be imprisoned beneath the ground—for a time.
Ula looked up to the tiny white dot of sky above, crisscrossed by tiny bars. The sides of Hawm spiraled up and away from him in gray swaths of stone and sand. He turned himself in the darkness, paced the cramped area of his cave, waited and thought and sensed the stirring unquiet of the souls of the dead.
And then he smiled, for Matha-Soy’s body was empty. His promise had been fulfilled.
Oh, he gave a triumphant roar! A primordial roar that extended out beyond the frequency of mortal hearing, out beyond the realm of baser thought and knowledge. In his infinite power and omnipotence, he screamed the scream of a thousand angry gods and clawed his mighty way up the sides of the pit, snapping the iron bars like leaves of grass. He stretched in the sunlight and leapt into the air. The promise had been honored. Now it was time to feed.
The villagers screamed and ran.
Zakhri-Tha had not been trapped.
He was only waiting.
Want to read more? G.N.Boorse created this story as a companion piece to his previously published story titled, “ULA”. You can read “ULA” in the Haunted Traveler Anthology, volume 2.
Also, you can check in with him on Twitter at @asotherswere_me or visit his website at www.asotherswere.me to find his latest works, including his recent book, Don’t Touch The Glass.
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