Fiction: Harbinger

By Ly Faulk

The dreams were getting more intense. I twisted and turned in my cotton sheets on a warm autumn night while horses ran through fields of pale lilies in my mind. Their hooves beat on the ground with hollow thuds. They had been possessed, I knew in some strange dream logic, by devils or demons. Hell horses they were, tongues of fire wagging as they champed at their bits. They crashed into one another, sparks flying as they collided. I prayed for it to stop but my crooked prayers went unanswered. The hooves, the infernal hooves, echoing in the emptiness.

I woke up drenched, shocked to be in my home in bed. I had gotten stoned, as usual, and the gentle intoxication lulled me to sleep. In the waking world, the dreams were just an enchanted terror. I got up to get myself a glass of water. My lover stirred beside me so I moved quietly. Staring at myself in the dirty mirror, I shook the memory of the dream away. Some ghoul had taken up residence in my blood or I was cursed by a witch or something. Sleepily, I stumbled into the living room littered with empty beer bottles and dirty clothes. Cleanliness, as a philosophy, had never been for me. I clicked on the TV and there were, I swear, hell horses with tongues of fire racing down a beach. A choir of children sang the most ungodly melody as they ran. With a shudder, I turned the TV off again. 

When I closed my eyes, I saw guns, coffins, and doom. I could hear the hooves, and smell the sulfuric stink of hell mixed with the sweetly corrupted smell of the stables. Every stamp of hoof on dirt marched us closer to Armageddon. I sat, paralyzed, gripping the arms of the chair as if they were the hair at the nape of my lover’s neck. Forcing my eyes open, I stared at the stars. I made a wish on the brightest one and realized too late that it was probably a planet. I tried to shake off this gloom and crawled back into bed beside my lover. Her deep, sweet breaths and the sheets that had cooled in my absence lulled me back into something resembling sleep. In my dreams, the sound of hooves echoed.

Ly Faulk (they/her) is the Editor-in-Chief of Eco Punk Literary. They are the author of several chapbooks and her latest, I Don’t Think I’d Make A Very Good Borg Drone, is available from Back Room Poetry. They can be reached on Twitter: @whismicalraven.