Turned

I ran then. I ran with my heart thumping to escape my chest. And suddenly it was quiet.  Under Duncan’s scream, I heard the cries of another. The screams of the very earth. This land was bound to the druids by the Power, and her torment echoed through my mind like the peals of a hammer. I fell to my hands and knees and retched, spitting my noon repast into the soil. Then something impossible happened. Duncan got back up, his neck bent to one side where I had cracked it. His bulging dead eyes fixed on me, and he opened his mouth as though to accuse me. But what poured out were not words. All manner of insects and vermin spilled forth from the hole—flies and worms and beetles! And endless stream, they poured onto the floor, crawling over the grass and leaves like a flood. I ran, but all around I could see them, the other Druids, bent and stooped and broken. They were… like him. Like Duncan…