The Executioner
May 21st, 2026
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The cabin inhaled the moment I arrived.
Humid air gasped from the crevices inside.
It carried a stench of smoke, soil, and decay.
With metallic hints buried deep in the walls where bodies lay.
The crow sat on the fireplace ledge, within the amber glow.
Its eyes flickering green from shadows below.
The walls seemed to stretch endlessly in grain—
warped wood sweating black resin like rain.
The floor resembled an infected wound, deep grooves embedded into the soil-layered floorboards.
Tallies… perhaps.
....or prayers carved by splintered fingernails before life collapsed.
A pair of boots sat beneath a table alone.
Gigantic things caked in fresh mud, ash, blood, and stone.
The kind of boots that walked through graveyards unseen.
The ones that forgot they belonged to life, death, or somewhere in-between.
Rope swung from the rafters, in thick serpent coils, curling around the fireplaces in long toils.
Stretching over the table, and extending farther still.
Extended in the hallways swallowing life's will.
A chair creaked somewhere within the black.
The cabin itself seemed to shiver back.
Then silence came again in a shrill.
My ears rang with it, ached in the sudden still.
The crow clicked its beak—
just once.
Then it spoke.
“PERMISSION GRANTED.”
Then he emerged.
The hallway opened wide for his frame.
The shadows growing shoulders at the sound of his name.
A broad figure stepped into the firelight, the floorboards bowing beneath each heavy thump of leather boots.
His tattered coat hung to his knees
in damp, blood-coated creases.
Immense gloved hands rested at his side,
like violence restrained with nowhere to hide.
A hood concealed most of his face, though fragments remained visible
beneath the shadows—
the light catching deep, gaping scars running from his neck to his eyebrows.
His green eyes peered down at me.
Like he knew my weight.
My height.
My shape.
The shattering sound my neck could make against thick, heavy rope.
His jaw was rough with stubble and cuts,
his pale skin appeared like leather where his bloody lips pressed thin against broken teeth.
Above the stone mantel rested rustic tools,
arranged with a precision of practiced rules.
Axes. Hooks. Knives. Length of chain. Braided-rope thicker than his hands.
He motioned down the cavernous hallway.
The crow took off from its perch
and guided me into the darkness, only to loop back and settle onto the man’s arm as he materialized within the doorway.
He leaned against the wall—
it creaked beneath his weight.
The door groaned.
The air grew sour—unmistakably human.
In the center of the lantern-lit room stood the gallows.
The fibers strained and darkened with dried blood and age.
I stumbled backward, my hands catching my fall against the gallows behind me.
His fingers brushed the wood with tender precision as the door slammed shut behind him.
His eyes carried the complete focus and intent of someone who had done this—and would continue doing it—until the end of time.
“You followed the bird…”
His voice was low but steady.
The crow rattled a cry from his shoulder. He gave a faint nod in acknowledgment.
Then his gaze returned to me beneath the lantern’s flicker.
He approached, the tattered fabric of his coat trembling as he walked.
And for the first time since following the crow,
I understood—
The crow did not lead.
It delivered.
“I can hear you.”
The executioner chuckled softly, smiling…The gallows still swaying beside him.
© 2026 Olivia Williams