The Playing Rat

It watches.

A shadow crouched at the threshold, eyes burning like dying coals, caught mid-snarl or mid-prophecy. Maybe both. The kind of thing you glimpse at the edge of the firelight—half-seen, half-felt, waiting.

The moon dangles in its claws, not quite captive, not quite free. A pale offering. A predator’s prize. It’s always there, after all, pulling tides, twisting minds, keeping secrets that aren’t meant for daylight. Cycles and silence. Madness and memory.

The lines are raw, the textures jagged—like something scratched into bark with a shaking hand, like a warning left behind in a place no one was meant to go.

It means what it needs to. Some nights, it’s just a shape in the dark.

Other nights, it’s looking right at you.