The Cave

Marble white, eyes misted with cobwebs,
the current swirling as smoke around the robes:
There are bodies in there.

Though time is suspended,
and even the darkness is frozen,
there’s unspoken hunger
in their deadened expressions:
Is it possible they are not dangerous?

The chill will not ebb
as the boat sidles onward
towards the ghastly green glow
that casts her poisoned shadows
upon the corpses’ prisoned walls.
Something twitches within their pale faces,
as though there is an urge to settle
the inevitable fight they sense is coming on--
Then why do they not move?

The cave and her many terrors quickly dissipate
as the struggle to survive his screams for death arise,
his pleas for water echoing as he
obediently swallows the cursed potion,
all for the greater good just out of reach
on an unknown horizon.
But magic will not help,
vanishes as it hits the frigid air,
and all that’s left is the cold lake water
treacherously still by the side--
Will it save him?

Brimming with ice water,
the goblet finds its way to his parched lips,
yet an unsettling chill will not desist,
white slimy hands with a deadlock grip
wrapped ‘round the arm:
It’s an army of dead rising from the depths.

Their bony fingers claw at the tiny island,
rotted faces leering with frosted eyes,
their rags waterlogged and stiff as ice.
Magic slashes the air,
but the bodies appear from nowhere,
advancing forward with shrunken limbs--
What victory is in sight?

The blackness is fast encroaching,
the ally of these festering fiends;
they grasp with fleshless hands,
seize with a cold and heartless tenacity
with no intention of release.
Thick dark fog is now descending,
and icy depths are now approaching,
and all around, their withered bodies close in--
Will this be the end?