Short story: Chalk And Blood

A village corners their outcast on a clifftop, a dark tale in 1000 words.

May 17, 2025

man standing on the edge of cliff taken at daytime — Photo by Luke Ellis-Craven on Unsplash

Hello! It’s time for your weekly pebble of horror!

You may have noticed a lack of spookiness in your inbox last week. This is because Substack temporarily disabled my ability to publish due to ‘problems with your email list’. This newsletter was reborn from my old Matazone.co.uk email list from years-gone-by, and it’s possible many of those emails no longer work.

So, if you’re an old subscriber from those days and you’re reading this, thank you for confirming to Substack that you’re still on board and interested. It’s been genuinely moving to see old usernames and emails that I recognise confirming you’re still out there and happy to be part of this group.

It’s also been an emotional week. I want to say a special thank you to the partner of Thomas Pitchford. Thomas was a long-standing member of my old community and we exchanged messages over the years. He’s sadly left us now, but his partner is supporting this newsletter and my further writing in his memory. This kind of love and belief means a huge amount to me.

(Other paying subscribers - you weren’t charged for the last week while this publication was suspended.)

So, last week I wrote a story without knowing if I was ever going to be able to send it to you. I still wrote it, because I love telling stories, but I also love sharing them and fortunately we’re back.

I’ve a feeling Substack will be monitoring this newsletter to check it’s read by real people, so please tap the ‘like’ heart at the very end, add a comment (engagement really helps boost things), and/or share this story too. I hope that will help keep this platform working for me and I’ll be able to send you all stories for many years to come.

Chalk And Blood

I will soon take my last step on this Earth. The moment is nearly here.

Beyond the cliff’s edge, the moonlit mob approach from the village below. Flaming torches glint from the woodsmen’s axes, the hunters have bows, others have sticks and brooms—anything they could find to keep me at arm’s length. Since I was young, no one ever wanted to touch me, like my skin or my blood was too different, too inhuman to be safe. I look normal, unremarkable, but I’m not like them, and perhaps that made them fear me more.

The priest struts behind and only carries his book. He has a townful of arms to do his work. His wrinkled fingers stroke the golden cross hanging around his neck.

From my first words as a baby, I told the truth. Unvarnished, but not without kindness. Lying is purposeless. Obfuscation has merits, giving greyness to the blazing, uncaring torch of fact and honesty, allowing for softness when that has greater merit, but I never lied.

Throughout my childhood, I was beaten by my peers. Children connect with their instincts more easily and with less caution than adults. Their morality is set by their worlds—inside and out. I know they feel love inside, but their outer world taught punishment of anyone with blaspheming thoughts like mine, thoughts that could not accept the priest’s words as godly.

I left my family home as soon as I could scavenge for food, sensing this would ease the burden I brought to my parents. They tried to love me, but there was always sadness in their eyes, like they knew this night would inevitably arrive, like I was destined to standing on the clifftop above our village. Perhaps they possessed foresight. It is too late to ask them now.

Living in the woodland was easy, with nature’s abundance around me. Each season brought joys of scent and flavour. Each root, leaf, bark, and soil—along with the insects and grubs—they all have their purpose. Instinct and observation led me to comprehend them. I created words and wrote everything down, recording them in the hope others would benefit.

My book, the wisdom revealed to me, showed the divine breath that is present in all things. The transcendent is not reached only through a single path, not through a holy house, but inside trees and on the wind and in the veins of hogs and wolves and owls and crows and fish and all things living and shadowed. The stones thrum with the rhythm of the universal source, if only you stop and listen to them.

When two sick foragers came to my door, I healed them, but the priest said my medicine was evidence of witchcraft. My insight is heresy to him, and he smeared this view across the village. He whipped up terror that my blood contains demons speaking in pagan tongues.

I’ve come to the clifftop for a swift end. They surround me but keep away, even now terrified of contamination.

“I will step off,” I say. This is true.

I turn, and take my final step out into the air, over the edge of the chalk cliff.

And I soar.

The air carries me upwards, and whispers a secret to me, something I had never considered, but—when I speak it—I know it is true. “I am an angel,” I say as I rise above the crowd.

A villager screams, others mutter, one throws a knife which arcs down into the grey darkness, clanging as it strikes the cliff face. The priest’s face blanches as white as the moon. The mob hurls stones, but I am too high and too far for them to hit.

There is a gentle creak of wood, followed by the rush of feathers—cold iron slips inside me, where no metal should touch. The impact punches me back in the air. Looking down, an arrow is in my chest. Only then do I feel the pain like fire and ice blazing through my heart and lungs, clawing at my neck from the inside, freezing and tingling as my blood ceases to pulse.

I plummet.

Even before I hit the ground, I know I am dead. My heart will never beat again, its valves spasm against the arrowhead like a speared fish, futile and doomed.

My skull shatters, my left shoulder rips from its place, one leg flips almost comically out of joint, but I am beyond feeling anything.

I drift free from the bones and muscle. My blood spreads over the pale rocks.

The villagers view where I fell, peering down through my invisible spirit to the ragged remains. They proceed down the hill, barely speaking a word. The priest crosses himself as he walks, his book clutched over his chest, his head bowed. No one walks to my corpse, no one goes to retrieve it for a proper burial. They are still afraid of my blood.

They try to sleep. Something holds me there. My story is unfinished.

My blood seeps into the rocks. Unbound from my skin and flesh, it is no longer held by my will.

For the few dreamers, they only see night, ribboned with flames and wings and arrows. Most remain awake. They stare at dark walls, their busy thoughts their own. The priest slumps behind his altar and drinks the ceremonial wine.

The blood, my angel blood ripped from my body by hatred and fear, pulls at the cliff.

The world whispers to me about the sin of killing an angel.

A roaring crack signals the moment of retribution. An unspeakable weight of chalk calves from the cliff. It topples and slides like a giant stamping over the village, like a ocean wave of white rolling and drowning and crushing everything beneath it. The church’s steeple topples and is swallowed in an instant, the building shattered and levelled like every other dwelling, with no hope of life within. The village is buried by the fallen cliff and blood-stained rocks.

The village will never feature on any map. Its name will never be recorded.

My blood cools, its justice served, and the universe takes my spirit within it.

The end.

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