The Accused - By Jeran Brown

I woke from a nightmare of torment serene
The sweat of my terror rolled down.

With wide open eyes I searched for a light
Though nothing but darkness was found.

Frozen in horror, my jaw unhinged wide
I lay there as if in my grave.
And when I came to I screamed out in pain

As my bound-body quaked from this scathe.
There in the black I could sense, I could FEEL

The color of blood flowing red.
The stench of decay over powered my senses

As I rustled through mounds of the dead.
Fashioned in Hell was this womb whence I rose

Glistening wounds all around.
The bodies, they jostled and gurgled in death

A necrotic hymn from the ground.
With gnashing of teeth and crunching of grit

I made my way out of this pit.
And when I broke free a new agony awaited for me to submit.

Crosses of Iron, swords brandished forth
They waited for me to arise.

They knew I was there and desperate for air,
Anxious to be my demise.

“Lo, comes the filth of our enemy’s loins!
Let God be the judge of his crimes.

Seize, now, this Demon and open his flesh
May his cries be unhinged across time.”

Though bones were exposed and jutted through meat
No mercy or kindness divulged.
Shackled and broken towards my inquisition

These men of God soon would indulge.
Bloodied and beaten, they tied me to steel

A table of pain was my bed.
In procession they marched and encircled my body

Reciting the lies they’d been fed.
“I am not he who you seek for the crimes
Against your all-loving creator.

I am a child of truth and of earth
To which I shall NOT be a traitor.”

Behind rancid breath came the voice of their leader
His teeth and his tongue oh so foul.

“Thou wilt be branded with red glowing iron
The Mark of the Beast on thy jowl.”

Searing in agony, smelling the burn
As the smoke of my flesh rose on high.

Curses I offered to these men of Christ
These bastard-born herdsmen divine.

“Take me away to the gallows! Take me away to the Stake!
For in Death and beyond I will haunt your foul spawn,

To the Devil your souls will I take.
You are the downfall of man.

The blight of this earth and this plane.
And when I am dead I will see that your heads

Are eternally forced into flame.”
They stopped and they stared off in silence.

A moment of mercy, perhaps.
Too quick was my hope when they brandished the rope

That would bind me before my collapse.
Dragged to the square, the peasants looked on

And circled around me as crows.
“Praise be to God!” did they shout without doubt

As louder and louder it rose.
Tied to the ground…chained, gagged and bound

The snarl of dogs now did harken.
Tearing my flesh to bleed me to death

Till the world around me had darkened.
Into the realms of the dead I descended

Adrestia's hand did I take.
She laid me down gently in waters of peace

So sweet was her voice when she spake:
“Sleep now till the time I come back unto thee
and from thy slumber awaken.

I will give you a sword to wield your justice.

Forever their heads will be taken.”
I speak to you now from dimensions beyond

Forever I wade through the shallows.
And wait for these tyrants in the grand, great beyond

To carry their souls to Hells Hallows.