I looked at the shelf that was carved out of the cold stone wall. Only one cold object lay on its surface. The old human skull no longer looked human. The lower jaw missing, the rest was a sickly green that was emanating a soft but creepy glow. Several deadly spikes poked up from the top of it's sticky head, But they didn't look like they had been stabbed through the skull it was more like they were growing from the boney head itself.
Gooey liquid dripped from it's surface, not knowing what it was I gave it a little poke. Bad idea. My finger felt like it was covered by hungry fire, burning eagerly through my flesh. I let out a scream and wiped it on my pants but it quickly ate a hole through them too. The story behind this mutated bone was an interesting one, at least it was to me.
This skull, when full of blood and covered in skin belonged to Kilabe. Curiosity was part of him. He was curious about everything and always went to new places to discover new things. Sadly it also caused the way he died. Stories have it that one day he decided to take the journey to the nearby village where his sister lived, but on the way there he stumbled upon an old path that was overgrown with moss and ferns. He took that path.
The path ended at a cave opening. Being Kilabe he went in. Supposedly he found a skull much like the one I was looking at, and he was curious enough to pick it up. By the time he got to the village the acid had eaten away at both of his hands. It looked like they had been stripped of their skin and most of the tendons and muscles so the bones were showing.
Through ought the next few days he was a crazy man. Huddled in a ball in the corner, quivering and whispering about voices. He claimed voices were infiltrating his mind telling him that he was going to die. He said there were burning creatures crawling under his skin. He would take his long, ragged, dirty nails and rip the skin off of his face and neck to get rid of them. Long spikes started to grow out of the top of his head. He was a freak, a crazy mutant. Some villagers claimed it was because of a curse that he somehow put upon himself.
I snorted in disbelief as I walked away from the skull. I started to feel a burning sensation in the side of my neck. Almost like a hungry fire creature was crawling underneath my skin. I paused for a moment to itch it violently, then with little crimson rivers flowing down my neck I continued out of the cave and back home. The only sound accompanying me were the voices whispering in my ear, “Death is coming your way”.