The raindrops fell upon the darkened window of Vincent’s writing room. Vincent, an old Venetian man slouched in his creaky wooden chair. His desk, a handcrafted masterpiece from his nephew, is starting to show damage. He had not cared for it much, why would he? His poem is what he needs to focus on! He had spent so much time locked in his writing room trying to perfect it! He could never get it right! No matter how many times he had tried, no matter how much paper he tossed aside, he never gave up! His quill, a beautiful ebony black feather, was like a sliver of midnight in his fingers. Not even the ink could match its dark visage. He had inherited this from is grandfather before his departure, God only knows what happened to that sad man.

As Vincent brought out another sheet of paper from the drawer he began to write again. Perhaps about the ferns that grew against the walls of his home? No. The moon that glowed an eerie blue? No. He will write about the owls. The ones he kept seeing as a child. Looming in the tree by his bedroom window every night. They’d stare at him like silent guardians. He didn’t know how long it took for him to come up with this idea, had it been days? A week? A year? He hadn’t heard his wife knock on his door for a while, she’d usually remind him how long it had been. No matter, he finally knows the perfect poem to write!

Oh how he wishes he had noticed before he dipped that quill in the ink. On his arm he could see a feather, much like the one he dipped. Black, like midnight. His mind usually played tricks on him late in the night, but this was no trick. What he also did not expect was to see his arm move on its own. It started to write on his paper on its own! He was shocked but could not scream! His voice coarse like gravel, it had been so long since he’s had a drink! He shuts his eyes in horror only to feel the sprouting of another feather! And another! He squeezes his eyes tight, tries to use his other arm to stop writing! He can’t!

He opens his eyes to look around and find something, anything to stop! The only thing he can focus on is his arm! His entire forearm black like midnight! What was happening to him!? All he could do was witness his arm write on its own, but he could not read it! A language foreign to him appeared on the paper, the letters shaped like swirls within crescents of countless sizes and positions. The title, the only thing in his native tongue, “Vincent’s Sheol”. He closes his eyes again, begging for God to wake him from this nightmare, the feathers bursting through his arm like maggots from meat! The rain seemed to grow in intensity as his whole body began to painfully undergo the avian transformation.

It felt like a whole month had passed! Whether it truly was that long he could not be for certain, but a stack of 25 pages filled with the strange esoteric letters taunted him. He could not stop writing! The ink had run dry long ago, his quill arm dipped in a bleeding orifice in his now useless leg. The red letters of swirling moons and arches almost seemed to stare back at him. His black feathered body feeling weaker and weaker. It’s only a matter of time, but his perfect poem will be over soon. What will he do when he’s finally free from this hell? He did not know. All Vincent could do right now was lean his head back and shut his eyes.