Utterly Mad

It slithered between the buildings, a hulking serpent of bone and metal with the skull of the great temple wolf upon it's head, in so far as it had a head. In truth, the skull was simply the centerpeice of it's adornment and the teeth with which it bit and tore. Beneath it was situated a variatable hedge of broken bone, horn, and the shattered remains of the various weapons brought against it. "It" was a demon. One of Gulgatha's tainted residents, and though you wouldn't know it by looking, beneath the rows of scavenged bones and broken armor, there was a mass of tangible darkness. When the city had flooded, it had been little more than an imp pulling small objects from the pockets of drunks. Afterwords though, he had drunk in the resulting energies. So many dead, so much to consume. He had grown large on the cities dead. He dipped beneath the water for a moment, long enough to ambush one of the large birds that nested on the sunken walls, but had come down for food. It had almost escaped him when it noticed his approach, the waters had recceeded in recent years and hiding beneath them had become more difficult. He considered going outside those walls today. Perhaps he would find one of the living looking for treasures in one of the farm houses again. The thought of the ones he had found the month before would have made him smile in fondness, had he a mouth that could smile. They had been dressed in clothes decorated with feathers and wearing skulls like the one he had adorned himself with. Perhaps they had done so to disguise themselves? Or maybe to appease him? Either way, it had not helped them. Among them had been a woman, her screams as he dealt with the others had been as music to him, and he found it a great shame that necessity required him to squeeze the wind from her lungs and in so doing deprive her of the air needed to create such a sweet sound. He consumed their fleeting life force, and later had watched as their bodies rose from the murk and wandered off into the foggy swamplands. Thinking of eating brought his thoughts to the tower. It galled him. Something was in there, he knew, he could feel it. Something old and powerful and oh, how he would gorge himself if he could only gain entry. Alas though, the tower was sealed to him and his ilk. Someday though. The demon drifted on towards the shattered eastern gate, day dreaming of what might dwell within the tower or what he might find out in the flooded countryside, and the sound of screams still ringing in his memory.