it surprised me not that he had been a leper. nor his ripe old age of three centuries and half more. alas, he looked not ripe at all: his skin was grayer than my hair, blotchy, and hanging from his face and limbs in patches, like the decaying fruit of a tree quite possibly found in this desolate cyclopean land. but he was strong and terrifying; a grand rotten general to those cadaver-like creatures known as the ghouls.

and not only that, he stood before me glibbering excitedly - me, not a stranger to this ill-coloured land. he waved his arms about, dead flesh swinging hither and thither, as his minions fell into rank and file around us. i had heard about the war in a past dream, heard his call beckoning and coaxing me to this wasteland beyond dreaming. so i had come, not knowing where i fell into his schemes and morbid workings, but intrigued nevertheless.

his glibberings hinted at an ambush of the krasts, whose enormous pincers could slice a ghoul in one snap. the krasts were quite different from the ghouls: smooth shiny skin which was almost metallic in its sheen; several long spiny legs, and huge bulbous eyes upon their small hairless heads. their leader was what the ghouls mostly feared: a great dragozen, which could breathe burning acid. many hundreds of ghouls had already perished at its mercy, and the one glibbering before me wanted no more loss. the next morning i found myself marching across a barren plain, my only companions those rotting bodies, who glibbered of battle and glory, and who most mortals would find sickening and grotesque. as the scouts topped a small hill, a great shout went up, and suddenly i found myself being pushed ahead as the masses surged forward with a piercing shriek.

before i knew it the krasts were upon us: pincers flailing wildly, large furry thoraces scuttling over the hill alarmingly fast for their overwhelming size. the scouts and most of the front ranks met those beasts face on and were cut down like blades of grass by those immense appendages. the ranks beside and behind me were relentless in their goal to reach their foes; i was almost floating above the ground, wedged tightly between their cold bodies.

it was not long, alas, that i was covered with the putrid innards of my allies, and i covered myself welcomingly with it and burrowed under their lifeless corpses in terror of being detected and slain myself. the stench was almost unbearable, and it took great effort to keep from fainting from the overwhelming smell of it. when the screams and glibbering moaning of the dying dead had all but dwindled, i allowed a cautious peek from my horrible cover. the sight that greeted my eyes was of utmost dread, for there before me was an awesome beast i can only presume was the dragozen, feasting on the fallen bodies of the ghouls. i was overcome with such a terror and nausea that i retched and soiled myself in all but an instant. the hellish monstrosity turned its horned and scaly head towards me, remnants of bloody ghoul flesh hanging from its jaw, narrowed its eyes, and belched forth a great torrent of viscous fluid upon me. darkness overtook me rapidly, but i could feel the acid burning into my face, like fire from the depths of hell.

i awoke suddenly and abruptly, drenched in a cold sweat, my eyes still wide with terror. and all over me the still-fresh blood of the glibbering ghouls.