(17) - The Changing Poem by James Grengs

Cool air blows gently.
-He feels nothing,
Sees nothing,
Hears nothing.
He is numb.-

She has sworn
His changing.
The humanity in her
Has lost.
The hunger in her
Has won-
She is truly changed.

His vengeance,
The lust for his enemy’s destruction,
Takes control of his body.

He leaps through the window.
Glass shatters, falls inward.
The dead inside do not move.

The Hunter is blinded by his own hate.
He sees nothing.
A torch leaps to life in his hand.
An inhuman scream fills the dead air.
A flash-
Fangs glisten in the fire’s glow.
The hunter waves the torch;
The dead fall back.

She knows him-
She can sense his pain.
She speaks:
“It is I;
Embrace me.”


-Nemesis-
Can one trust the dead?

She has sworn his changing.

The torch waves again,
Keeping her at bay.

-The very flames of the abyss
Lick higher, closer.-

The thousand year hunter
Knows fear.
The flame burns for him.
Darkness,
Cold,
End.
Eternity, waking dead,
Flickers.

She speaks again,
Her dead voice free of emotion.
“Come to me,
Embrace me.”

Inside herself,
She is fighting.
Human,
Changed.
She wants to drink him.
She wants to love him.

He knows the battle within her:
He can sense it.
But he does not know
Which side will win:
Can Love transcend
Death?
Can the dead feel?

Movement-
The thousand year hunter
Pounces,
Cat-like.
But Nemesis is ready.
Tonight,
He is the hunter.
He knocks the dead to the floor.
A lightning bolt,
His arm flies downward,
The burning stake extended.

An inhuman scream.
He strikes- fangs snap.
Bloodscent fills the air.

-Her hunger stirs.-

The stake plunges.
-The heart, vulnerable,
Pierced.-

The dead falls,
Changing.
He begins to dissolve,
Steam curling from his gaping mouth.
A stench,
A thousand year ruin,
Fills the air.
He is gone,
Changed.
The circle is complete.