Excerpt of Corruption by Lauren Pomeroy

The glare of the burning sunset hurt his eyes as he slowly rose from the bloody clay his body had been sinking in too. With his hand before him to block the rays, he squinted to gaze beyond the shadows of his fingers onto the damage of the battle. The time seemed to pass in slow motion from one second onto the next; Glorious shining armor clanging with each step across the field, the soil beneath him had mixed into an unholy, stinking clay filled with the hundreds of thousands of dead men that had been left to rot in the afternoon sun earlier that day, and the gorgeous blended quilt of kingdom and city colors, melted with individual class united as one to protect their freedom from intruders.

Trying to move his cheek, the clay mask had already dried upon his skin and whiskers and reeked with the stench of the filthy bog they had created. In the distance, the cries of living men could be heard for hours and hours, until so much time had passed, that the cries grew fewer and fewer from those that were encased and drowned inside the sinking mud. Tasting the floating dust that hung in the air and the salty sweat in the corners of his mouth, he wiped his shirtsleeve across his lips to better himself from becoming nauseas like the others. Still searching amongst the crowd, staring at his fellow knights, the wind softly blows from behind him carrying a soft whisper. Noticing it, he slowly turns around, seeing a delicate figure move among the men, and finally seeing her in view, it was his wife. Seeing her looking into his eyes, he watches as she softly smiles at him, and suddenly with a painful throbbing in his head, he kneels and carries his cranium in his hands until he is blended through time to approach the courtyard of his home. Feeling the pain subside, he opened his eyes and slowly stands back to his feet upon the pathway leading to their door.

Seeing her inside the window, he feels a sense of comfort and begins to walk toward the house. Feeling the breeze at his back again, he turns to see knights upon horses stampeding towards him, as if he were invisible. Whirling around as they gallop past him with torches and weapons, he watches as the soldiers invade his home. "No!" he shouts silently, hearing nothing immerse from inside his throat. The sounds of murder break over the wind as she moans and screams to the high heavens and is locked inside, while the remaining soldiers light his house in a wreath of flames. Suddenly, the world he is surrounded in slowly turns black, while the roar of the fire and her screams echo inside his mind.