Okay. So. This is the fic I wrote in response to shikishi's Halloween Festival challenge.

I picked H.P. Lovecraft.

Title: The Day the Darkness Receded
Author: me
Genre: horror
Rating: R
Summary: A doctor journeys to Azkaban, and the cell of the Great War's last living Seer, trying to discover what actually happened during the final days of Voldemort.
A/N: This story, if not in the exact style of H.P. Lovecraft, is definitely in his spirit. *bows down to Lovecraft* Thanks to Fire for the beta.

Disclaimer: None of these people, except for the doc, are mine. Neither are the places. As for what goes on there... Some quotes taken from Shakespeare's Richard III.

Also, there are THREE LINKS in the text as you read, if you feel the need for a more visual aid. I did not take any of those pictures, nor do I own the things they represent.

Also posted on AO3.


( The Day the Darkness Receded )

***

Happy Halloween!

Ahem...

"The Ghoul"

The gruesome ghoul, the grisly ghoul
Without the slightest noise,
Waits patiently beside the school
To feast on girls and boys.

He lunges fiercely through the air
As they come out to play,
And grabs a couple by the hair
And drags them far away.

He cracks their bones and snaps their backs
And squeezes out their lungs,
He chews their thumbs like candy-snacks
And pulls apart their tongues.

He slices their stomachs and bites their hearts
And tears their flesh to shreds;
He swallows their toes like toasted tarts,
And gobbles down their heads.

Fingers, elbows, hands and knees
And arms and legs and feet...
He eats them with delight and ease,
For every part's a treat.

And when the gruesome grisly ghoul
Has nothing left to chew,
He hurries to another school
To wait... PERHAPS FOR YOU!

~~Jack Prelutsky

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!

(Dude... I memorized that poem in seventh grade...)