Perched atop the crumbling precipice, the last gargoyle watched and waited, yearning for the freedom it could no longer attain. Forever secured to the stone by forgotten knowledge and long lost rites, its eternal mind could only dream of escape, of liberation, of stretching its body once more.
Knowing all too well the futility of the motion, it tried to spread its marble wings and groaned an internal sigh of despair. It had been constructed to commune with the Gods! This was an unfitting fate for a beast of worship, forced to endure centuries of mindless torture by an ancient people who had not the intelligence to set it free before they came to their pathetic end.
It did not have much longer.
Bound by a magic lost through the decaying bones of the dead and seated upon a temple subject to the winds of time, each century that passed was an inch closer to eternal demise as the depths of the great beyond beckoned for it to fall from its ledge and embrace the shattering that awaited.
Its gaze forever fixed to the swirling mists, the glare that was carved into its snarling face was incapable of piercing through the dark clouds that taunted it from below, clouds that flashed a familiar shade of crimson for a brief blink of a fleeting moment, a crimson that returned old memories to the forefront of its thoughts.
The blood-red call had been a daily affair as those who once prayed at the temple, begged for the beast’s attentions, sought concerns beyond their scope. The gargoyle; born for divine communication, instead instructed to spy and murder… the self-serving tasks were not what it had been created for but it had performed them well. Perhaps it would again.
A low hum rose up from the mists below, inaudible to the ear though perceptible through its stone-encased talons, a trembling rhythm that bade a single claw move in an arc before finding its position once more. It had moved!
The clack of its marble claw against the eroding stone had been a satisfaction beyond compare and a hunger swarmed its every desire as it peered into the depths and sought that which had caused the smallest of delights, its stare as intense as the glare of the midday sun as it listened through the vibrations and at last heard the soft voice of a young human emanate from the nothingness; a child mumbling words she did not understand at the base of the ruined temple.
Her pronunciation was imperfect, but that did not matter… a glee unfelt for far too long danced amidst its craving, the misspoken words the avenue it required as its mind soared through the darkness and found the small girl, the freedom it yearned for within a thought’s reach as it imbued itself into the child’s brain with ease, wove itself about her innermost beliefs and dreams, and prepared for the day it could unleash its knowledge upon her puny soul.
With the age-old ritual and flawless incantation performed and spoken, the crimson clouds would shroud the temple and the gargoyle would fly free again. After thousands of years of longing, its wait was at last nearing its end.
This husk would serve it well.
This is a (very) short story written by @kaelci for @mctiller's #twentyfourhourshortstory challenge! It's a whopping 549 words in length but I enjoyed what came out of my mind today. :)
The prompt for this challenge is: "A gargoyle, from a top an ancient building, plots its coming escape into the real world."
You can find the challenge at the following link -- https://steemit.com/twentyfourhourshortstory/@mctiller/writers-win-5-steem-twenty-four-hour-short-story-contest-for-june-5-a-gargoyle-from-a-top-an-ancient-building-plots-its-coming
The photo used is a CC0 image courtesy of JB Stran on Public Domain Pictures.
