Today’s story is “The Sacred Cross” by Friend of the Fireplace  Pascal Farful, who spends much of his time as a fursuiter and musician, but is occasionally known to pick up a pen and paper, and you can find more of his stories on his FurAffinity page.

Read for you by Khaki, your faithful fireside companion.

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You’re listening to The Voice of Dog.

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I’m Khaki, your faithful fireside companion,

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and today’s story is

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“The Sacred Cross”

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by Friend of the Fireplace Pascal Farful,

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who spends much of his time as a fursuiter and musician,

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but is occasionally known to pick up a pen and paper,

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and you can find more of his stories on his FurAffinity page.

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“The Sacred Cross”

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by Pascal Farful

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It was a cold and foggy autumn night

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and Samantha was tending to her laboratory.

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It was located in the rural outskirts, somewhere where there was no light polution.

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Her equipment contained various tools and devices, but chiefly contained a light magnifier,

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capable of reaching a significantly high temperature.

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She was a grey wolf with thick long, black hair

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and was clad in a jacket,

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gloves, a skirt and knee-high boots, all made of a skintight and shiny black rubber,

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due to the level of mud

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and other unpleasantness around the sight of the lab

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meaning these were easy to clean if needed,

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plus she found them very comfortable as well. A quiet, certainly

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shy one, she cut a short, slender figure, the all black writing cheques for mystique that her manner couldn’t cash.

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From the window by her desk she could see lots of stone ruins,

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various rocks coated in moss

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and deep in the soft marsh land.

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And as she looked out of the window that evening, something caught her eye.

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All of the tablets were moss-ridden,

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wet and vaguely rotting.

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Except for one. And out of the corner of Samantha's eye she'd always see it.

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A large cross with a circle around it's spokes.

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Something just looked...

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wrong about it. Sure, she was no expert on architecture but it seemed to fit thematicly with the others

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but... it seemed brighter...

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clearer than the others.

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But again, she was sat fairly far away and couldn't see it too close.

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The wolf had decided to keep it out of mind and focus on her works.

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As she had done for the past month or so now.

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Her tests were nearing completion,

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when once, while she was working,

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she heard a knock at the door downstairs.

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She got to her feet

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and went down to check.

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Samantha opened the door a crack and peered out,

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but nobody was there.

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She looked to the left

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and the right,

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up and down. But nobody could be seen.

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She closed the door and went to go back upstairs again, but to her bemusement,

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the knocks came again.

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With a humpf she returned to the door, this time opening it wide and taking a deep look.

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Her eyes noted grass patches,

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wooden fence, a gnome,

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back along the fence

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and down to the pa- The gnome was gone.

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Her heartrate doubled.

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It was there. She saw it with her own eyes.

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But now it wasn't.

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She looked down beside her

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and there it was.

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It's posture had changed.

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It had moved while she wasn't looking.

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Samantha gulped, knees knocking together.

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She didn't know what to do, but she kept her eyes on it firmly.

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After a minuet or so of deliberation, she nervously reached down with her rubber gloved paws

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and picked it up,

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holding it permanently in her eyeline.

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It had sunken eyes,

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red ones. It didn't look the least bit "jolly",

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it looked vicious.

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She closed the door with her foot,

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bolting it, keeping an eye permanently on the gnome.

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Samantha moved it into the small makeshift kitchen

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and placed it down on the sideboard.

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Once it was placed down,

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she took a few steps back.

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Instinctively, she looked behind her,

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squeaking and looking ahead again when she realised her mistake.

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She couldn't see the gnome again,

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but she could see where it'd gone,

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to her mild annoyance,

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it had landed right in a large vat of washed onions she was preparing.

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The bowl was deeper than the gnome was, so it was trapped in there.

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Even when she looked away

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and she could hear it struggling and battering at it,

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it didn't have the mass to tip it over,

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not the ability to climb out on the slippery, smooth and wet sides of the container.

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With the gnome under control, she nervously moved back to the door,

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the sound of the gnome's fighting growing weaker.

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Looking out the door,

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her eyes fell on the cross.

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Her heart filled with dread as it seemed to look different again.

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Brighter... almost. She moved across to put a lid on the gnome in the pan

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and locking it down, not bothering to look at it,

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just making sure it couldn't escape.

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The knocking had stopped on the sides, but she didn't want it to jump out at her.

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With every form of fastening and fixing she could find,

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she opened the door and slipped outside,

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opening the door for the smallest amount of time as possible

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and the smallest amount open as possible,

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closing it immediately afterwards

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and locking it. The air outside was cold,

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and it bit at her knees and her thighs and loins under her skirt.

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Her eyes scanned the forests and the marshes around her as she moved,

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minding her footing

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as she approached the cross.

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It seemed... clean, almost brand new perhaps.

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It was made of the same sort of dark rock as the others but...

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lacked any form of growth.

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But... more than that...

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the area surrounding it seemed to repel any form of life from it like

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antibiotics in a petri dish.

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She could see algae trying to reach it

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and just dying within a sort of circular area around it.

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Samantha made sure not to get too close,

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just in case it did it to her too.

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She stepped back from the cross,

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convinced it had something to do with the gnome.

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Upon spinning around to go back inside, she jumped

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and clutched her hands to her chest,

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fists clenched, discovering a field of more gnomes,

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at least ten, maybe more like twenty had assembled before her. With nowhere to

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go but straight ahead, she ran back through them to the house, locking the door behind her

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and cowering against the wall behind it.

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She could hear the thundering sound of their little feet on the ground outside.

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She could hear them battering at the door, but,

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she noticed, without the ability to batter it down.

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They were weak, but they were numerous.

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Samantha quickly remembered the one in the saucepan,

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grabbing some tongs and flinging the lid open.

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To her amazement,

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the gnome had practically dissolved into a sludgey liquid inside the bottom of the pan.

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It was then that she knew what she had to do.

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She took a knife,

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a vast one and one of the onions she hadn't cut up yet,

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She sunk the knifeblade into the onion, coating it in the juice,

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then returning to the door.

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She threw open the door

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and began the attack.

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The knife wouldn't cut the gnomes, more knock them down, but it was the onion juice which did the job.

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Once even a drop touched them,

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they began to scream in agony and melt, howling and withering in pain until they became puddles of matter,

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soon burning to embers and ashes.

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It was difficult to fight something so small without being toppled,

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having to jump around briskly and catch them unaware,

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striking one down,

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jumping to the other side, striking another and jumping again.

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But soon, the gnomes were dead and their screams faded into the rustlings of the trees.

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She checked that none had escaped inside,

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then locked her door

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and looked up the path to the cross.

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And she knew what she had to do.

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The cross had started to glow

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and had a certain stench of death about it.

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She reapplied the onion juice to the blade of her knife as she approached it.

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Once stood before it,

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she raised the blade over her head,

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clutched in both paws

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and plunged it into the neck of the cross.

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The blade sunk all the way deep and out from the depths came a thick,

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boiling purple sludge.

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Before it could touch her,

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she released the knife

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and jumped aside.

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She was startled to a scream by a bolt of lightning striking the top of the cross.

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At this point, she began to flee,

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running back towards the house, stopping when she reached the door

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and looking back up the hill

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at the bleeding cross.

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Lightning continued to strike it, before one bolt made a constant hit at the top ebb,

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then another to it's left point

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and a final one to its right.

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The cross emitted a banshee-like howling scream, before exploding in a shower of

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dust. Samantha recoiled her form against the door,

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having no time to get inside and

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once the dust settled,

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looked up to see that the cross had been obliterated.

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She stood there, heart battering at her ribcage,

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eyes darting around for any consequences to her actions.

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The fog began to lift

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and the dust from where the cross once stood

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began to evaporate off,

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lifting up into the sky,

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revealing a small metal plaque

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under the pile of ash.

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Curiosity consumed her.

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She shouldn't, she knew she shouldn't.

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But she had to know.

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She started to step forth again,

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leaning down to read the plaque.

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"Here lies Joanne Miles,

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keeper of the Sacred Cross" it read.

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Beneath the plaque

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was a small box. No...

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no no none of this could really be real...

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could it? Mystic bleeding crosses,

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gnomes that attacked her...

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and now some little box.

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She started talking herself out of opening the box as her paws held it

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and flicked the latch.

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The box sprung open...

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and reeked. She dropped it and fell to the ground, believing, nay, fearing it to be poison.

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As her body remained...

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shaken but operational,

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she finished opening the box.

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Within was little more than a mouldy onion...

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explaining at least,

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in some mystic but nonsense way

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why her trick with the knife had worked earlier.

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She wrapped the box in cling film,

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all she had to hand,

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took it inside and encased it in the safe downstairs.

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Finally, she locked the door and took a final look out to the graveyard,

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where that cross used to stand,

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life used to rot.

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If there was any magic left in this place,

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Samantha would have to face that

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in the morning… The End.

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This was “The Sacred Cross” by Pascal Farful,

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read for you by Khaki, your faithful fireside companion.

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Thank you for listening to The Voice of Dog