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The water is boiling near the shore So up out of the sea At first, I think it’s a cluster of anile monstrosity The waves crash around it as if the ocean itself were raging against this unnatural thing

The beast shakes off the water with a screaly fast In alood look at it

Laylah has outdone herself on this one It has seven heads clustered around the shoulders, but one of the heads appears dead The one that looks dead is the head of a h he was recently killed with an ax

The rest of the heads are alive with each one looking like a mix of huiant fly, and a dead-eyed shark The torso of the beast looks vaguely bearlike

‘And a beast shall rise up out of the sea,’ says Uriel in a prophetic tone ‘And upon his heads is the name of blasphemy Let us count the number of the beast, for it is the number of man And his number is six hundred threescore and six’

Each of thescar on its forehead

666

32

They’re just numbers, I tell myself

Just nu to Uriel’s instructions I know that Uriel copied his monsters from descriptions out of the apocalyptic prophesies I know this is a fake – a fake

Then why is oose bumps?

The numbers are not subtle, and it’ll scare the bejesus out of anyone who sees it I’ the nu beast roars and screah all its faces except the dead one It pauses near us before racing by and disappearing into the broken landscape

Uriel raises his arround shifts and puckers beneath round

Fingers burst out of the soil

A hand reaches for the sky like a newborn zoh the dirt

All over the old golf course, dirt-covered bodies claw their way out of the ground and cliround spread their wings and take to the air Raffe looks at me, but I understand that he can’t liftweakness A hand claws the air near et away fro I could fly too

When the bodies climb out of the soil, they’re so dirty that I can only tell they’re hu sobs

‘And the dead shall rise,’ says Uriel, his voice carrying over the wind