Board Thread:What Would You Do?/@comment-35836714-20190527194644/@comment-36855838-20190529055232

Several nights of travel had brought me to this cave, a small hole in the mountainside.

From the roof of this hollow, a single stalagtite hung and dripped fresh water into a basin carefully carved into the floor.

I sat by this pool in the evening light, and drank frantically from the crisp, clean water.

But lurking within that refreshing pond was a taste of profound ungratitude.

There was a biting flavor to it, not sour, or bitter, instead somehow indignant.

It was just off somehow, as if the very concept of water had been defiled or corrupted, and it reeked of a palpable disrespect.

This very taste, this smell, this humming, thrumming, groaning, rumbling, grumbling sound had been echoing here since I had arrived, pervading throughout what few berries, flowers and birdsong I could recognize.

In other words, there was a great upheaval of the natural under way.

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Such an upheaval was nothing new to me, I had very powerfully internalized this feeling ages ago, when my disfigurement occurred.

A glance into the still pool confirmed the reality of my condition, my appearance was gnarled, twisted, and burnt, like a treestump that had been mauled by a dragon.

A lie, of course.

My skin waa smooth to the touch, my stubble aside. I hadn't been able to shave reliably since being cursed, and my exile had been swift once the people saw my "claws."

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