Pride before a Fall
Flash fiction. Pavel scrambled up a muddy riverbank, his jewellery jangling against his chest.
Pavel scrambled up a muddy riverbank, his jewellery jangling against his chest. Thick clouds obscured the moon, and the only light came from the houseboat he had stormed out of.
“This is not the sort of treatment I expect, no sir, it isn’t!” Pavel yelled once he reached the path.
“You wished to know your future.” The diviner chuckled and slouched against the doorframe. “Charlatans may exchange sweet lies for coins, I merely tell the truth.”
“Truth? What was that thing, in there, coming out of the teacup? That thing wasn’t truth, it was monstrous.”
The diviner frowned, glancing inside the houseboat and then back at Pavel.
“Monstrous? What did you see?”
Pavel shook his head and gave a rude gesture. He was not interested in the man’s games. All he wanted was to get back home to his wife and a warm meal. He stormed off down the path, unable to even see his hands in front of him in the darkness. After a minute of walking unsteadily and fearing he could slip down the riverbank, he contemplated going back to the man to ask for a lantern. Then he decided he’d rather risk breaking his neck than have to deal with the diviner’s smug, all-knowing smile.
The man had claimed that his pride would kill him. A preposterous idea, followed up by some cheap magic trick that made a plume of smoke rise from the divination cup, and form into a snapping, bulging beast. Or perhaps the man had put something strange in the drink to ensure such a vision would appear before him.
After getting a little too drunk at a tavern that night, he had overheard someone talking about a seer and insisted he be led to him. The diviner claimed that to truly see the future, they needed to be away from the polluted land. Thus Pavel agreed to travel down the river as the man read his future in the tea leaves.
All he had wanted was confirmation that his new watchmaking business would be successful and that his wife wasn’t cheating on him. He had been in a melancholic mood all week, after his brother had fallen ill just before a vital meeting with a potential patron, then his wife had complained about him barely being home.
Now he was stumbling around in the dark, adjusting his direction whenever his outstretched hands touched leaves or his foot met a slope. The hoo-hoo of an owl felt far too close, and even the rustle of leaves seemed to be unnaturally loud. He squinted in the hopes that the path in front of him would become visible. He turned sharply, believing that the path was navigating away from the river and through the woods. Clouds drifted, and soon moonlight revealed the path.
A figure blocked the path. A beast with shifting limbs that melded together, and a jaw that creaked as it sank down. Where eyes should be, only a single void existed. Despite this, Pavel felt pinned down by its gaze, frozen in the moment. Its hooves - paws - feet - whatever they were, prowled towards him, and finally he wrenched himself away and fled back down the path.
His feet found the slope of the river bank and he toppled to the ground and then splashed into the freezing water.
Wiping the slime away from his face, he looked back towards the beast. It slouched towards him at a languid pace, unperturbed by his attempt to flee.
Pavel barely knew how to swim, but now he tried his best, flinging his arms into the water in front of him and kicking as best as he could. His clothes clung to him, and then something else began to cling to him as well. Something thick began to coil up one leg, and when it did so, the beast on the riverbed stopped in its tracks.
He yelled for help, despite knowing how slim the chance of rescue was. Even the diviner’s smug grin would be welcome now. But all around him was silence. The deep down thing wrapped itself around his other leg and tugged. Pavel slipped beneath the water.
I swear, tomorrow I will write something longer.
Again, writing was a struggle and I wrote this last minute. It doesn’t really come together as a cohesive whole. Death by pride is such a tedious concept. Also there isn’t really any reason for the beast to exist, or for it (or a version of it) to only be visible to Pavel when in the houseboat. Still, let me know what you think works and could be salvaged and repurposed for a different story.