Phs ssss, glug, spert, gllop, tic Blooop!

  In the gray half light there was no wind nor breeze, the air was heavy, leaden and befouled. Rotting moss, draped over dead trees. No animal or insect stirred in this benighted place.

  There was decay, mold, filth and death. Toxic fumes arising from the putrid water and muck soaked landscape accounted for the only movement in this cavernous bog filled grotto.

  Abysmal mist and fumes abided, rolling accost black waters and while what lay beneath it all something twisted virulent and malevolent.

  Waited, straining its perception, ever seeking, always listening and never slept.

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  Ril sighed, not really noticing his surroundings he trudged along the lane leading back to the village from the mill. He wasn't paying any attention to anything. He was day dreaming.

  Nothing ever happened here, happened to him. He was stuck in a morass of self pity, loathing and angst.

  It was a normal, nice day, it was always a normal day. No muss, no fuss, just the boring same-thing - then with out warning. His breath caught in his chest.

  A swirling black cloud stirred up by his own feet and the cart he pulled slowly billowed around his legs and up to his face. He coughed and sneezed.

  He waved his hands in front of his face and wiped his hands over his eyes and nose to brush away the perceived insect's or dust. He took a look at his surroundings.

  The Aspen glade was gone...........................?

  He had walked though it hundreds of times, going to and from the mill and the farms around this side of his village. It had always been there, it was there when he pulled the cart of grain through it to the mill this morning....Now.

  There, there was nothing now. Just black ash, no stumps no charcoal, no burnt ends or pieces of burnt wood. Just ash as far as he could see. A rolling carpet of mounds of ash. There were no sounds, nothing moved, all was still. No smoke just ash and deadly quiet.

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  In a panic he pushed and pulled the cart back up a slight incline he had come down. Pushing the cart up and away from the ash field around a large rock that had sat at the edge of the Aspen glade to brace it. He was about to run down the hill away from the road to warn the village of the -?what?- he thought, what had happened.

  'A oh, I siis hel' ......

  Ril heard a noise, a weak voice close, very close. It was around the other side of the large rock. Something, someone, had choked out something unintelligible.

  Ril was startled and hesitantly peered around the rock. A shamble of a figure lay on the

  ground against the rock. Its feeble twig like arm and hand extended, a small ash covered bag held in its blacken death like hand.

  'Take it . . . S save it . . it must not be t ta taken...' The unreal thing said.

  Ril, stood still as a statue, frozen in fear, unable to take a breath let alone move.

  'Take it!' commanded the wizened voice.

  Ril, of no volition of his own, he saw his hand reach out and take the small ash covered bag from the 'shamble'.

  As he did, It; the thing. The shamble, just melted away in to another mound of ash right in front of him with small swirls of ash rolling and tilting away.

  Ril sucked in a breath of air and a cough racked his chest. He looked at the thing in his hand and stared wide eyed as the ashen bag like wise melted away, leaving a small creamy white oval stone in his hand.

  Ril's mind finally caught up with it's self. With a squeak of suppressed terror he turned and ran in a panic for the village. Instinctively with out a thought he put the small stone in his shirt as he ran. He would not remember that nor how it later ended up in his right shoe.

  A minor servant, of a un verified deity who had lost its corporeal form by a mote of chaos and was presumed to have failed in its task.

  Back in Ril's world the alarm had been raised, the story told, some even went to look. Nothing really came of it.

  Three days later all of the ash had blown away or seeped in to the ground and a green fuzz of sprouting grass covered the area where the Aspen glade had been. Suppositions were made, theories were porpoised (by a local fisherman), and then nothing.

  The whole affair was so far out of the normal flow of things that the village just pushed it out of its collective thoughts and went back to the every day tasks.

  The village settled back down to routine.

  Tho there were still minor annoyances, noisy birds, fish bones, barking dogs and a pebble in a shoe.