37/100 — Daily Writing Challenge ‘25

Atheya Lür, Pt. X

by Gustave Deresse

Amid the spectral flames, a prismatic motif of forgotten symbols, bounteous feasts, wildflowers, and precious jewels unfurled, and in harmony with a great wind, the villagers’ chant rose steeply in pitch and intensity, and their arms flung sharply skyward, their ragged garments billowing with the force of their movements and the aetherial currents hailing from the planes, none aware of their own actions, their thoughts smothered by the spell having begotten them, until a baby alligator, scarcely twice the size of a shrew, scuttled innocently onto the scene, wholly unaffected by the magic at hand, and — without hesitation — bit a woman’s big toe.