Nestled within a tangle of bones

Of blackened trees engulfed in thunder

Is a home where monsters thrive and demons laugh

And spirits are ripped asunder

It is here I found myself one eve

As the sun sank below the ashen hill

I crept toward the door of this old green house

On pines and needles I slithered until

A white mist burst through the cracked glass

And screamed past me into the smoggy air

A tale of torture on makeshift wings of smoke

A heart squeezed and torn beyond repair

Despite all this my courage grew

As I pushed open the rotten wooden door

I stepped through the crooked threshold

The door closed, sealed shut forevermore

I walked the halls with my vision consumed

By choking clouds of unfinished burnt-out dreams

I coughed and spat to clear my mind, my lungs

Of this air stained with the smell of gasoline

While tip-toeing on crying floorboards

I passed a door ajar and heard the hinges whine

Suddenly I was dragged backwards by a

Lock of brunette hair and strong fingers intertwined

Seconds passed while my panic peaked

As I was pulled along with no escape in sight

Oh why I wondered to myself in disbelief

Had I traveled to this house this very night?

"Because my child," a two-toned voice

Hissed behind a veil of silver woven thread

"You wish to view your soul this eve,"

A second disembodied voice had said

Knowing they had spoken the truth

They led me into another room

Their skeletal fingers turned the latch on the lock

There stood me and my demons in the gloom

On the dusty floorboards danced the shadow hands of trees

Through the glass the moonlight shone.

The shadowy figures secured me to a rickety chair

Winding 'round me chain linked with hollowed bone

"To see your soul, you must see the light,"

The second voice breathed through lips so pale

As the demon behind me hoarsely snickered

Draping my face with its silver veil

As the fabric touched my porcelain skin

Sensation left me numb to the devil's grip

Only pressure could I feel on my stomach

As its claws traced a line from hip to hip

So I rested blindly under this cloth

When suddenly something seemed much awry

I shook off the veil and glanced down at a river of blood

Rushing in sticky waves down my inner thigh

Horrified, my eyes moved slightly north

To where my navel should have been

But in its place was a gaping bloody hole

Attached, a tongue of paling skin

I screamed in shock as my gaze returned to my keepers

With blisters bursting across their stretching cheeks

As yellow pus dribbled down through their evil grins

The white mist reappeared with its painful shrieks

The pitch crept higher and higher as thousands more

Joined in on its haunting songs of despair

When finally the mist exploded in a bloody shower

Turning red, this dusty stagnant air

My lungs now heaved with terror

As that wretched infernal insanely smiled

And pushed its blistered nose to my face and cried

"It's time to see your soul, my child!"

With that the other reached forward with emaciated hands

Forcing its grimy nails deep into my laceration

It clawed and dug through my intestines

As a pain came upon me beyond imagination

In half a second I felt as if each of my limbs

Were being ripped off one by one,

As if I was lying naked on my stomach

Forced to endure the scorching surface of the sun.

I felt the wiry fingers exit my wound

Dragging with it an organ from within

And gazed down upon a red gleaming lobe

Emerging from my torn exsanguinated skin

Flames were born from the sunken eyes of these soulless beings

As my eyes rolled back into my head

The fire circled round my legs, round my chains

Boiling brown the blood once red

The inferno consumed the old green house

Each timber turned to red embers and choking smoke

But with this destruction grew new life

A blackened branch appearing on a long-dead oak

Its arms reached towards the darkened sky

For the potion to make its contents whole,

For the thousand silenced voices within its limbs

Wishing to find their soul.