u/H4V30N1YH311

Something that has kept me clear from the modern titles is having to save 1/3rd of my storage for one game. Why do I need to have parts of MW2 to play warzone or have another totally different cod run properly. I have already given you money for MW4 because it looks very cool and I hope you guys learned from your mistakes.

If you have any power help them understand I want to play one cod not 16 at the same time, genuinely a very dumb thing that I don’t know why you people started doing.

Pulling forward the paper into my lap, the smooth parchment was raised at key points to reveal to a wondering finger words without lips. Tracing them with my index, tears leave my eyes. My wife all too soon, she was taken. I was told to open this in the event she passed. Kept reminding me where it was so I would be able to retrieve it without issue. I remember her words clear as day. Within my mind her lips that I traced many times appeared. Soft and smooth, the voice of doves.

 

“Honey”

 

I tilted my head in her direction. My eyes focused on nothing, in my hands her pregnancy test. Although I could not confirm it with my own two eyes I believed her, I could hear it within her voice. She was sincere as the summer wind.

 

“I told you I’ve been feeling off”, she spoke and placed her hands over mine.

 

My mouth hung open, “pregnant... I. I’m going to be a father?”

 

She sat within my lap, and I pulled the test closer to my chest, “Yes”. She spoke with such love. We kissed as I held her closer to me. I kept the thing on me for days after. At work when hours walked for days, I tapped over my pocket hitting it and tracing it with my fingers. Weeks stretched to months and all we could speak about was the babe.

 

“You don’t think that...”

“What”, she spoke while I waited to think of a proper way to ask. Not figuring out how to word it I placed my fingers over my eyes.

She lunged forward and pulled my hands down. “Of course not. Even if, there’s nothing wrong with you nor the child. Even if, I would love it just like I love you”. Still holding me she moved my hands over her belly. The babe kicked.

 

She spent some hours every now and again away from me. I was able to brew some tea for her, and I met her in her office. “Hey”, shoving in front of her the cup. “Thanks”, she places her lips on my cheek and then continued her work. I could hear the pen scribble on paper and I asked curiously. “What are you doing... I thought you didn’t have to work for a couple more months?” The scribbling stopped, and the seat squeaked slightly, I can only imagine she was looking up at me. “This is for you”.

 

“What... It sounds like you’re using a pen”.

She went back to scribbling as she spoke, “yeah, this isn’t but it still is, I’m making you a letter you can read later”.

“Why? Can’t you just tell me?”

“No. Not this. You’ll understand later”, she kissed me again and shooed me out the room.

 

It was a couple days after she came to me again. “Finished”.

“What”, I looked in her general direction, confuse as to what she was referring too.

“The letter... the one from last week, you remember?”

“Oh, yes, can I read it?”

“NO”

“No? what’s even the point then?”

“It’s not for now. It’s for when I leave”

“Leave? Honney what are you talking about”

She sighed. Waited for words to fill her mouth. “I won’t be here forever”

“Babe. What are you talking about?”

“Promise me you won’t read it until I go”

“Go where? Literally what are you talking about”

“After I die. I need you to promise me you won’t read it until I die... Do you not trust me?”

Filled by a beating heart desperate for answers I swallowed my fear and answered, “I promise”. After that she told me where I could find it. We had many nights that we sat together. I enjoyed a book without ink, and she would sit and watch her shows. Every now and again I would imagine what’s going on in my head, I can only image the show isn’t as ridiculous as my head recreates them.

 

After her show she would kick at me with her feet, “hey”. “Yes”, answering her.

“You remember”

“What”

“The letter... where to find it”

“Oh. Uh, yeah”

“Good”, she would then stand and do her stretch, grabbing my collar and pulling me to bed with her.

 

Now it was time, I had retrieved it from its hide. Threw it on the table and made some tea. Once it was hot I went back to my couch in the lounge. I waited for the tea to cool slightly before taking a deep sip. Placing the cup back down I pulled forward the letter. My fingers traced it and I whispered as the words came to me.

 

“John. Thank you for waiting to read this. I love you more than anything. Honestly, I’m sorry. I was supposed to give It, you. When I didn’t it demanded a child. When I said no again it demanded me”

 

I paused from tracing the dots. “What the fuck is this”. What was she talking about. For a strong moment I thought surely I grabbed the wrong paper. I dropped it next to be and took another sip of the tea. Standing up I moved back to where she constantly reminded me. Slapping around the nook my hand touched nothing but the wooded walls. This paper, this is what she wanted me to read.

 

“This must be some joke”, I sighed and sat back down. She wasn’t known to joke much, not after getting pregnant at least. I fingered at the cushions till the paper met again with my fingers. Pulling it forward I whispered again as I traced the page wondering to where I last was.

 

“I fully know you don’t know what I’m talking about and for that, thank you for trusting me. Do not go to my family. You should be reading this after I die in childbirth. Our babe should be in her little bed, I’m sure she has your nose. I wish I could see her. You have no Idea how much I wish that. Please, please don’t go to my parents, they know of It and when they find out I said no, they will take you and the babe and give you both to It.”

 

Taking a break, I shifted forward grabbing the cup and taking another sip. The tea was getting cold and I sought to finish whatever this was.

 

“I was able to seal it with a sigil. Liber. This is the word you must never say aloud”

 

My finger hung at the period. I traced back and read it again. “This word you must never say out loud. My fingers found their way to the paper once more.

 

“If this word is uttered by you or the child it will be free. In order to seal it I needed a fair trade. I let it take me on the condition I would leave you with a way to free it. Of course you must never do this. It will come to you as people you know, it will whisper to you in your sleep, all to get you to say that one word. I have no idea what it will do to you or the child. I love you. I love you so much. Our child, raise it properly. I love you both.”

 

I sat in the quiet not knowing what to do. I said the word. Whispered it aloud to the empty room. How loud would be considered saying it. Was this even real. Why would she even try to scare me like this, we never spoke of her parents, she had always avoided it. Who was this It, what was It. From her room across the house the babe sounded from her sleep. A little whine that echoed through the house. I stood and made my way to her room. Traced the cold wall as I came to her room. All the while she cried from her crib.

 

I fiddled with the door and entered her room. I could hear her as plain as day. Crying out loud. Wishing to be soothed. I gently reached into her crip to grab her, my hand found nothing. My hand felt around the crib and all I found was her blanket. “Where are you”, she was left in her crip where did she go. I could still hear her. It sounded like she was fading, but I could hear her. I rushed to where in the room I thought she was, my head hit the wall. I felt around it and met the corners. My hands scrapped the wallpaper for a hole or something. What’s going on, where is she. I could hear her in the wall, her cry on the other side. I placed my ear and heard as her voice was carried further and further away.

(This is an older story of mine but I think you guys will like it)

It came to me in my sleep. One leg over the other. Slow. Methodical. All eight eyes locked onto mine. Its fangs rubbed on one another. If it had lips, it would probably lick them. It was over me. Over my body. It dropped its body onto mine. It laid on top of me. Hugged me with its arms. It wrapped me in a warm blanket. It kissed me good night.

 

I woke in a sweat. Grabbed my neck and held my breath. This vivid dream wasn’t on its own. Every night I’m hunted, stalked. Sometimes when my eyes open to the dream I’m already in its web. The sweat causes the sheets to cling to me as I step from bed. I have the thought that something may be under my bed, but I push the thought aside.

I continue my day without issue. Get dressed, go to work, eat lunch, and clock out. When I get back to my house, I park the car outside my garage and wait for a reason to step out. Last week I saw in one of the corners a web. Small and out of the way. Nevertheless, I stay for away from it. Couldn’t see the thing. It was hunting. Last I checked web ones don’t hunt, I didn’t feel like taking the chance.

 

My legs shake from the thought, and a piece of my pants rubs my calf ever so lightly, my body freezes, my eyes well with tears. It takes me a moment to realize what happened. I step out the car and walk to the house. I keep my eyes up away from the floor. When I get to the overhang above my door, I close my eyes and fumble for the handle. That nook might not have something, if it did, it would be best not to know.

 

I open the door and close it fast. Only a small amount of water got out, nothing that I can’t fix. A couple weeks ago I saw one on the floor, it was looking for me. Now the floors have a half inch of water. Now if they want to get me, they have to risk drowning. I don’t know how much longer I can keep going outside. If I ever saw another one in my car I’d have to call off work again. My boss could tell I was lying when I called in sick, I just didn’t know what to tell him. I sold that car. Got a new one. I can’t afford to do that again. I’ll probably be fired soon anyway.

 

Placing my clothes in the washer I get naked and take a shower. Each step is calculated. One leg over the other. My eyes keep to the walls and the ceiling above me. I don’t dare check the corners though. They can have those. I get to the bathroom and slowly open the door. One night in a dream, I was in my house, doing nothing, not a care in the world. Like it used to be. I really had to use the bathroom. Once I stepped through the doorway from above me it fell from the ceiling and wrapped me in its silk. I struggled against it, but it was too strong. I yelled and kicked, its silk was too strong, it legs were too strong. It spun me on the floor of my bathroom, covered me in its silk, then it grabbed me in its fangs and dragged me up the wall. It placed me next to several other bodies. I watched for weeks as it ate them. It placed its fangs into them and drained them of blood, I watched the bodies squirm and scream, some begged. It didn’t care. It was hungry. We were just food. It drained them all before getting to me. As it slowly approached me, one leg over the other, I woke up.

 

This room I hate now. I look up at the ceiling as the door swings open. Sometimes I even swipe my hand past the doorway to see if anything jumps at it. I step through the doorway with a silent prayer and step into the shower. Something about the tub makes me feel safe. Like I can hide in it. Maybe it’s the water, I think they hate water.

 

I step from the shower and walk past the mirror, one time out of the corner of my eyes I saw one. For a second, for a second it was there. When my brain registered its shape, I snapped my eyes to it, and it scuttered out of sight and into the vent. I sealed all the vents after that. My days are boring now. I think they always were but especially now. I just stay in my bed mostly, I have to rip the covers off and shake them several times before placing them again.

 

I feel like one of them. In my web. Waiting for something. I wish they saw me as their own so they wouldn’t bother me. I wish I could talk to them, beg them to leave me alone. My phone hasn’t been charged in weeks. The outlet is just under my bed, and I swear I saw one crawl under there. I just lay there, in my web, looking at the ceiling. Eventually I fall asleep.

 

A dark hallway, in my hand a candle. Its light only flickers off the walls next to me, the flame isn’t strong enough to hit the ceiling, it’s not strong enough to reach the end of the hall. The hallway is lined with several openings that vier off into different directions. I hold the flame close to me as I pass them. I don’t know what’s worse, seeing what’s at the end of the halls or not. The sound of pitter pater behind me. Swerving around and holding out the light to the darkness the sound stops. I swallow hard. Was I being hunted again. I hear the same sound behind me again in the direction I was headed. Turning again and holding out the light it stops. Again, behind me again. Again, gone once I turn the light to it. Again, behind me once more. I turn the light. Just where light turns to dark, I can see what looks like lines in the dark. Like a giant’s hand past the shadow. The sound echoes behind me and I turn the light to it. The same hand past the dark, barely visible. Tap tap tap. Slow footfalls behind me. Turning to it from first the corner of my eye it comes into full view. The light stops it, legs up ready to pounce. Behind me more skittering. Its close behind me. If I turn this will animate. Come to life. Pounce on me. The pitter patter behind me stops, my eyes are locked onto the one in front of me. I feel something heavy land on my back and move about. The next thing I know I’m on the ground, the candle falls too and rolls on the floor. My vision spins as I’m wrapped in silk. It drags me into the dark out of the candles view.

 

I practically jump from my bed in a heart attack. My hand balled in a fist on my chest, my heart feels like it’s going a mile a minute. The clock on my dresser lets me know it’s time to go to work. Odd how dreams always end when it’s time to wake up. My clothes smell but what can I do, water can only clean so well, the detergent is in the garage. I walked out to my car keeping my eyes closed until I thought I was past the overhang. I double checked the handles to make sure one wasn’t hiding behind them. I checked the seats five times before getting in. I feel like I’m getting worse. The dreams are getting worse. It doesn’t feel like they will always be dreams.

 

My boss was mad at me for being late again, yelled at me for smelling, I kept telling him I washed my clothes, but he didn’t believe me. He yelled at me to go to his office, so I followed behind him. I had completely forgotten about my phobia with the amount of embracement I felt. When I got into his office I turned to his desk. It was behind it, crouched. It was odd. Like a statue but I could tell it wasn’t. It had its abdomen in the air like the back of a chair. Its legs were put together making four stable pillars. It eyes were closed as to not reflect the light. I watched with cold blood as my boss walked over to it. I tried to stop him, but I was too afraid to speak. He walked to the back of his desk and sat on it. I thought it might come to life, that it might wrap him in a web. It just stayed like that.

 

The whole time he was yelling at me he sat on the back of that giant thing. I blacked out the whole time, I was too focused on it. I came too as he was yelling at me to leave his office. I stepped out and looked around. Were there more. Other ones pretending to be things they weren’t. I walked around the whole office. I only saw two more. One was pretending to be a desk. Its hair was a shade of brown, it sat completely still like the other. The individual working on it had no idea her mouse went back and forth on the hairs of a giant eight-legged thing.

 

The other was pretending to be a plant. A giant clay pot sat at the front of the building doors. This one was green, stripes of a lighter shade ran from it to create the look of leaves. It was standing vertical as if doing a handstand. Its back was to me and its abdomen stood as far up as it could make it. It looked like a bush. I was the only one who could tell it wasn’t. Some people stood next to it, talking about this or that. One of the two stopped talking and dumped their coffee out on it. The thing opened it eyes and slowly lowered itself. The two-standing next to it didn’t notice it getting ready to pounce on them. For some reason it noticed me, its eyes moved onto me, once it realized I was looking at it, it went back to mimicking a plant.

 

I rushed outside and to my car. I didn’t care if there was a small one or hell even two. I did a quick check to make sure there wasn’t a big one pretending to be my driver’s seat, or my steering wheel. I got on the road and began driving home. My eyes danced from the rear-view mirror looking behind the car and behind me at the back seats. I moved my eyes on the road and the buildings I passed. They were everywhere. Billboards, stop signs, I even saw one pretending to be a streetlight. They were adapting, changing. They didn’t use webs anymore. They used camouflage.

 

Once I got home a ran into my house and tuned on the tv, I checked every news station but nothing. No one could see them. Only me. I had the sudden realization that I hadn’t checked the house. I froze and became aware of everything. The tv, the couch I sat on, the dresser in the corner. Everything seemed to be normal. I left to the rest of the house. Everything was as it should be.

 

I went around the whole house and made sure every door and window were locked. After that I moved everything I owned into the garage. I still couldn’t stand going in so I just opened the door and pushed everything into it. Everything from the tables to the paintings. I wasn’t taking any chance. Not one.

 

I was night then. My bed was pushed into the garage with everything else, so I just curled up in the tub. I felt save there. Like nothing could get me. It was now the only place I could hide anyway.

 

I woke up in a web. I wasn’t stuck though. I was sitting in the middle. There weren’t webs covering me. It was too dark to see past the web, the ends just reached into a fog I couldn’t see past. The web shook. Once it settled it shook again. I looked around to find what was doing it, to my right stuck on the web a think wrapped in silk was desperate to get out. The shaking brought the attention of not just me but the maker of the web. It hung above the web, a long string attacked to an unknown ceiling. It dropped several feet then hung in the air. Waited for more movement. The thing trapped in the sink squirmed again. It took this as an invitation and dropped onto the web. Whatever was in the silk felt the web shake. It stopped struggling, hoping it could wait out the thing. It was wrong. The eight-legged thing was smart, it knew it was there, knew it was alive, it jumped on it and two the shook the web violently. Whatever was wrapped in the sink was screaming and crying. It ran its throat ragged before dying down. It didn’t eat it. Once it killed its pray it grabbed it in its mouth and turned its body, turned it to me.

 

I jolted awake. I was cold but I was safe. I didn’t know what time it was. I wasn’t going back to work anyway. Wasn’t going outside. Not anymore. I stayed in my tub for hours. When I was thirsty, I wrapped my mouth around the fossit and turned on the water. Sadly, there was nothing to eat, but that was something I didn’t want to worry about right now.

 

Several days passed like this. Staying in that tub. Dream after dream. I got tired of it, so I finally left the tub. It wasn’t due to boredom, not curiosity, it was hunger. I stripped naked. I opened a drawer from the kitchen and took out a knife. I used the knife to cut off my hair. When it was all off, I used it to cut my clothes into very, very small stands. Then I sat in the middle of the floor. I was hungry. So hungry. I couldn’t leave. Not out there. Not with them. Here I was safe. Here I could hunt. I started in one corner, I laid out the strands. I connected them into a spiral. They lapped over each other. Made a formation. A circle around me. A web. I sat in the middle, cold, naked, hungry. I waited. Waited for something to enter my web. I was tired, from all the work or the hunger I don’t know. I closed my eyes and fell asleep.

 

I was on the web again. So was it. I was hungry, it knew. It brought me the body. I sunk my fands into it. I drained it. I was bigger than it now. It was smaller than me. It was on my web. Normally I would eat it, but I already ate. It came close to me, touched me with its arm. I knew what it wanted. I let it. I put its seed deep into my womb. It felt so good. I loved every second of it. I was happy, I wanted to say thank you to it. Sadly, my babies would need something to eat. Once it was done it knew what would happen, it didn’t stop me. Perhaps this is what they wanted, to teach me how. How to be like them. I wrapped him in my silk. In my web. And I waited. Waited for my babies. I rubbed my stomach with a smile. I could feel them crawling inside me. I could feel them desperately trying to get out.

 

I woke up in the center of my web. I was so worried I would lose my babies. My hand reached down and felt my stomach, swollen. Good. I still had my babies. I looked around for their father. He wasn’t there. They would need something. I looked around but there was nothing here. They wanted to get out. I could feel them digging at the walls of my womb.

 

My babies. They would need something. I would love to feel them on my skin. To feel them crawl on me. To take from me. I want to be a good mother. I want them to have me. They broke the walls of my womb. They were hungry. They dug with their fangs, and they sucked up the blood. They didn’t leave through my vagina, they dug holes through my body. I could feel them crawl inside me. Under my skin. In places where nothing should be. I loved it. I was made for this. They chose me for this. I could feel myself slipping away. I had one hope left. When my eyes closed. I want to have eight-legged dreams.

A whisper from the grave. Blood mixed with rock. Lungs filled by metal. The husk of our old selves lost to time. Still air pumped through pipes that stretch along the walls of our complex. An old mine, over the millennia it was dug deeper and deeper. Old lamps set to extinguish at any time, not that we could tell. Most of us lost our sight, the ones who keep them lit must enjoy the sound of flickering flame.

 

Hammers fall and picks join. Wider the holes in the earth get. The surface abandoned before our time. Wires pull from our arms and wrap along our legs. They get drawn up and dangle from the pipes along the walls. Long enough to get around but a pain to get tangled. The wall cracks upon a swing and faint light shines through. We stood around like primitive being seeing fire. Lightning striking a tree on a hill, sun whips lashing forth from it. A brave one stepped forward. A gem stuck to rock.

 

The green gem was too hard to break with our tools, we had sent forward a runner to send back one of the old machines. The old tech used much power to activate. We dumped inside its mouth a couple drops of our ever-reducing supply of black blood. We were told through stories when the earth was still alive it would bleed more often. The black blood was drained long ago. The blood alone not enough to wake the beast. We placed before it several candles made of earwax and dried skin, Its favorite offering. Gods anger took to the candles and the machine whirred to life. Its guttural breathing echoes through the old mine.

 

It cut through the gemstone like stone knife through cave mushroom. The gem fell to the floor and the beast took its rest. Fighting over who was able to bring it back we eventually offered it to the grand magus. A king of nothing who ruled over dust and metal. The fuel source to supply us for generations more. The reward for the finder, the great honor of being the machines sacrifice. They covered him with red from the dust bugs. They crushed glow bugs and mushed their fluorescent innards on his forehead. Sigils and shapes drawn on his body with blood. He was placed on the altar.

 

The heart of the machine god. We stood before it. All the people of the earth. They opened the god’s mouth. They stuffed him in. They lit the fire, his screams were a song of glory. Begging for the fire to get hotter, but we could only give it so much blood. The heart was opened. The grand magus slipped the gem inside. The machine came to life. We stood in awe, the great machine took its first breath since the dawn of time.

 

The machine prophets came before the congregation. Men bowed and swayed, they hold hands with one another and chanted in our mute language. The prophets spoke for the machine, its mouth still full of charred bones. “Our God demands more”. Back to the mines my people went. Pulling our wires behind us.

 

Generation after generation, my people dug the earth. A hope of one day seeing the green life that clung to the ground. Seeing the sky. Having the sun grant its warmth once more. A hope not for us, but our children.

 

He was born three thousand and thirty-one years since the decent. The mineral mixing and exhaust fumes that filled the caverns of our home led to disastrous mutations. Men born with one eye. Woman born with no legs. Nevertheless, we clung to our god. To our machines. The rocks that mixed with our blood and the metal that replaced our lungs.  Artificial hearts made from the flesh of fungus and bugs.

 

We stood around him. A youngling that cried. Cried out with a hope. A hope that its pain would one day end. He never stopped crying.

 

It was too long since we had a full body born to our people. The higher had him dissected for resources. The obsidian knife dove into him, split his innocent body in two. As they begun to pull from him, the body begun to put itself back. Branches of red from the edges of the wound grabbed one another and stitched himself back together. The assaulters of innocent flesh still held within their hand’s parts of him. The baby on the alter yet cried out.

 

Again, they dug into him. Took from within him. The body sticked back again. Still within their very hands new pieced taken before he repaired. Again, and again. They kept harvesting from the babe.

 

They brought what they learned to the grand magus. Broken lips twisting into a smile. He summoned the people of the earth. We all stood before the heart of the machine. Before the mouth of our god, sitting on the altar, the babe. The prophets looked out to us. “Our god gets his last meal”. They fed the babe the black blood, he tried spitting up each drop. They used much more than ever before, the distinct smell of it filling the chamber. Men held hands. They chanted in our dead tongue. To a god with an open mouth. They pushed the babe inside. The fire had already been lit. Immediately the room filled with the screams of an innocent child and the smoke of burning flesh.

 

Our god came to life once more. This time he did not slumber. The heart begun to pump the black blood. Finally, a sated god. They opened the mouth and pulled form it a small bundle of black. Placing it back on the altar we stood and watched. A cooked thing with charred skin. It begun to kick, flakes of black fell off. Skin underneath perfect as a newborn. His screams back to that of a precooked babe.

 

A new smile on the face of the grand magus. One worse than before. He whispered to his prophets and then sent us away. We waited for an order to enter the mines, but one never came. We sat around new lamps form before us. Lit with the new energy from our god. A blessing never yet felt. The warmth of its love on our skin. We could hear his breath through the pipes. Our metal lunges tasking air that was fresh for the first time.

 

The grand magus and his people and placed the child into a syphon. They put beneath his skin needles that sucked on his blood. Like a sponge with no water the child was bone dry, deflated like a sack with nothing left inside. One-hundred full vials. Red and beautifully. If any other of our species would be drained one three would find home to our grey lifeless ichor.

 

He watched with bright eyes. Looking to the child like a god among men. A sponge given water. The child became full once more. The grand magus used the machine till he had thousands of vials. The child drained of his innocent blood a thousand-fold. The king of nothing took one of the vials within his hands, he reached it above his head and poured it into his mouth. He swallowed. A mouth wet for the first time. A tongue familiar to the taste of iron. His skin became like the babe.

 

The wires too deep to cut, they no longer had their use. The people from below found their new god. Before the heart of the machine once more. The prophets gathered the people of the earth. The babe on the altar. Sigils and symbols absent. Instead, the grand magus held high a wire. It connected to the heat of the machine god and he spoke. “My people. Behold. God in the flesh”. He stuck the wire into the back of the babe. The wire dug deep into the babe’s body and merged with his flesh and blood. The wire sucked blood and used it to power the heart directly.

 

The machine welcomed the new source of power. The machine given autonomy. Their god given form among them. The babe crawled on all fours. The wire stretched for eons, we followed. The first among us to bear witness to the sins of our fathers. The first of us in thousands of years to step foot on the surface of our lifeless rock.

 

Our new god looked with soft eyes to the dry dust before him. He placed his hand on the ancient dirt. Blood from his palm soaked into the skin of the earth. It absorbed his gift and gave birth to the green life. The child cut himself and bled forth the oceans. The new life took away the fog that hung in the sky. A deep smog that terminated the sun's light. Warmth, light. We saw as the first among our people, the sun.

 

Not all of us took pleasure in our god. A hunger crept into their mind. A deep unsettling to the promise of death. The sins dug deep into them and spoke forth with voices of deceit. Blasphemous thoughts that twisted their wishes. They left the surface back to the mines. The machines of old given new life. They used them to dig deeper. An insatiable desire to find what isn’t hiding. What has yet to even be known. A thing lost to time. A thing unknown to even our fathers.

 

It clung to them like a sickness. Perverted their thoughts. Hugged them in their dreams. It didn’t let them go, not like they fought it. The whispers of the dross reached out to them in the dark, they reached back. They cracked open a wall deep beneath the earth. The whisper from their dream burst forth in reality. A breath from something older than them, than their fathers, than humanity.

 

A voice scratched their brain. Fingers gripped their mind. Like on a leash they were pulled into the chamber. The blasphemous fools stood at the edge of a city. Towers of rectangle shapes jutted out of the ground vertically. They were met at the tips by another segment of formation that did the same from the roof of the ancient cavern. Dots of illuminate mushrooms lit the cave brightly with the help of glow bugs.

 

Before those who dug into the earth. The ones with twisted thoughts. A city older than dirt lay sprawled before them. Through the jagged teeth like spires, at the far end past the light, the men can grasp a faint shape through the twisting bugs and clumps of mushroom.

 

Etched into the side of a monolith, faces of beings incomprehensible to human eye. Their real forms hidden by invisible light. Their body hide within the stone. They look up, ten on each side. With faces of tendril, they look to their god. He sat above them. Greater than the beings greater than the men. It like them had the face of a cephalopod. It’s true shape hidden by the eyes of mortals.

 

They bowed like those on the side of the stone. Lower than them. They took part in worshipping the worshippers. Being as little as men. They had no place on this rock. Had no place among the gods. Demons danced in their heads. Pulled forward thoughts. Wishes. A demand from the old god.

 

They ripped out their wires. Gave their very being to the stone. The idol that sat on the monolith wished to eat. Its mouth carved in the stone was opened. They fastened massive chains with the parts of the old wires and machines. They hooked them within the spots where the wires once hung from them. Their machine god promised eternal life, the old god promised eternal death.

 

An anointed among them. It led the thralls by barbed whip as they pulled the monolith to the surface. Set by step, whisper by whisper, by the crack of the whip the thralls marched by the power of the old ones.

 

The surface had returned to before our father’s sin. Blue skies and things that flew. From the bowels of the earth their chant echoed. Through the mouth of the earth, they stepped forward by shadow, thrall beckoned by whip dragged the monolith by chain.

 

We had welcomed our brothers with open arms, unaware to their sin. They let go of the chains when met with the child. The old one whispered to his thralls the wish. They came to us with crazed actions. Ripping the wires from our chests. Gnawing at our flesh. The child, or new god tried to help us. The idol of the old one animated through the stone. Stepping down from his throne with a thunder. The new god didn’t last against him. The old took forth the child from the machine, separated the avatar from the heart. With the power supply gone the machine god fell silent.

 

The face of the old one twisted and morphed. His body swung from recognizable to incomprehensible in the same moment. Our new god was placed within his mouth. The god then covered his mouth with his hands and took a spot on his throne. The thralls danced around the old one. The anointed placed a flame under the mantle. The whispers came forth from everything and nothing. The ten gods on each side of the king sways to life on the rock, praise to the one. The men and beast cheer as our new god was burned in the mouth of the old. A chard husk. The old one swallowed.

 

Our god, burning for eternity in the stomach of an old one. Its life drained for eternity by a thing older than time.

 

The gift, the promise of the old. Death, it was placed back into our hands. The ocean boiled once more. The green life left. With both gone the thick fog returned drowning our rock in an ocean of smog from an ancient machine. Our god was gone, his new life had left us. Our bodies returned to their mutated forms. We had a new god now. One older than any before. Our metal lungs used now to breathe prayer to a monolith. Our mutated blood formed us into the shape of our god. Twisted forms no longer recognizable. Lesser beings, thralls. The old one sat within his kingdom, deep beneath the earth. He waited with his new worshippers, waited for new life to spring up and repeat the cycle.

A whisper from the grave. Blood mixed with rock. Lungs filled by metal. The husk of our old selves lost to time. Still air pumped through pipes that stretch along the walls of our complex. An old mine, over the millennia it was dug deeper and deeper. Old lamps set to extinguish at any time, not that we could tell. Most of us lost our sight, the ones who keep them lit must enjoy the sound of flickering flame.

 

Hammers fall and picks join. Wider the holes in the earth get. The surface abandoned before our time. Wires pull from our arms and wrap along our legs. They get drawn up and dangle from the pipes along the walls. Long enough to get around but a pain to get tangled. The wall cracks upon a swing and faint light shines through. We stood around like primitive being seeing fire. Lightning striking a tree on a hill, sun whips lashing forth from it. A brave one stepped forward. A gem stuck to rock.

 

The green gem was too hard to break with our tools, we had sent forward a runner to send back one of the old machines. The old tech used much power to activate. We dumped inside its mouth a couple drops of our ever-reducing supply of black blood. We were told through stories when the earth was still alive it would bleed more often. The black blood was drained long ago. The blood alone not enough to wake the beast. We placed before it several candles made of earwax and dried skin, Its favorite offering. Gods anger took to the candles and the machine whirred to life. Its guttural breathing echoes through the old mine.

 

It cut through the gemstone like stone knife through cave mushroom. The gem fell to the floor and the beast took its rest. Fighting over who was able to bring it back we eventually offered it to the grand magus. A king of nothing who ruled over dust and metal. The fuel source to supply us for generations more. The reward for the finder, the great honor of being the machines sacrifice. They covered him with red from the dust bugs. They crushed glow bugs and mushed their fluorescent innards on his forehead. Sigils and shapes drawn on his body with blood. He was placed on the altar.

 

The heart of the machine god. We stood before it. All the people of the earth. They opened the god’s mouth. They stuffed him in. They lit the fire, his screams were a song of glory. Begging for the fire to get hotter, but we could only give it so much blood. The heart was opened. The grand magus slipped the gem inside. The machine came to life. We stood in awe, the great machine took its first breath since the dawn of time.

 

The machine prophets came before the congregation. Men bowed and swayed, they hold hands with one another and chanted in our mute language. The prophets spoke for the machine, its mouth still full of charred bones. “Our God demands more”. Back to the mines my people went. Pulling our wires behind us.

 

Generation after generation, my people dug the earth. A hope of one day seeing the green life that clung to the ground. Seeing the sky. Having the sun grant its warmth once more. A hope not for us, but our children.

 

He was born three thousand and thirty-one years since the decent. The mineral mixing and exhaust fumes that filled the caverns of our home led to disastrous mutations. Men born with one eye. Woman born with no legs. Nevertheless, we clung to our god. To our machines. The rocks that mixed with our blood and the metal that replaced our lungs.  Artificial hearts made from the flesh of fungus and bugs.

 

We stood around him. A youngling that cried. Cried out with a hope. A hope that its pain would one day end. He never stopped crying.

 

It was too long since we had a full body born to our people. The higher had him dissected for resources. The obsidian knife dove into him, split his innocent body in two. As they begun to pull from him, the body begun to put itself back. Branches of red from the edges of the wound grabbed one another and stitched himself back together. The assaulters of innocent flesh still held within their hand’s parts of him. The baby on the alter yet cried out.

 

Again, they dug into him. Took from within him. The body sticked back again. Still within their very hands new pieced taken before he repaired. Again, and again. They kept harvesting from the babe.

 

They brought what they learned to the grand magus. Broken lips twisting into a smile. He summoned the people of the earth. We all stood before the heart of the machine. Before the mouth of our god, sitting on the altar, the babe. The prophets looked out to us. “Our god gets his last meal”. They fed the babe the black blood, he tried spitting up each drop. They used much more than ever before, the distinct smell of it filling the chamber. Men held hands. They chanted in our dead tongue. To a god with an open mouth. They pushed the babe inside. The fire had already been lit. Immediately the room filled with the screams of an innocent child and the smoke of burning flesh.

 

Our god came to life once more. This time he did not slumber. The heart begun to pump the black blood. Finally, a sated god. They opened the mouth and pulled form it a small bundle of black. Placing it back on the altar we stood and watched. A cooked thing with charred skin. It begun to kick, flakes of black fell off. Skin underneath perfect as a newborn. His screams back to that of a precooked babe.

 

A new smile on the face of the grand magus. One worse than before. He whispered to his prophets and then sent us away. We waited for an order to enter the mines, but one never came. We sat around new lamps form before us. Lit with the new energy from our god. A blessing never yet felt. The warmth of its love on our skin. We could hear his breath through the pipes. Our metal lunges tasking air that was fresh for the first time.

 

The grand magus and his people and placed the child into a syphon. They put beneath his skin needles that sucked on his blood. Like a sponge with no water the child was bone dry, deflated like a sack with nothing left inside. One-hundred full vials. Red and beautifully. If any other of our species would be drained one three would find home to our grey lifeless ichor.

 

He watched with bright eyes. Looking to the child like a god among men. A sponge given water. The child became full once more. The grand magus used the machine till he had thousands of vials. The child drained of his innocent blood a thousand-fold. The king of nothing took one of the vials within his hands, he reached it above his head and poured it into his mouth. He swallowed. A mouth wet for the first time. A tongue familiar to the taste of iron. His skin became like the babe.

 

The wires too deep to cut, they no longer had their use. The people from below found their new god. Before the heart of the machine once more. The prophets gathered the people of the earth. The babe on the altar. Sigils and symbols absent. Instead, the grand magus held high a wire. It connected to the heat of the machine god and he spoke. “My people. Behold. God in the flesh”. He stuck the wire into the back of the babe. The wire dug deep into the babe’s body and merged with his flesh and blood. The wire sucked blood and used it to power the heart directly.

 

The machine welcomed the new source of power. The machine given autonomy. Their god given form among them. The babe crawled on all fours. The wire stretched for eons, we followed. The first among us to bear witness to the sins of our fathers. The first of us in thousands of years to step foot on the surface of our lifeless rock.

 

Our new god looked with soft eyes to the dry dust before him. He placed his hand on the ancient dirt. Blood from his palm soaked into the skin of the earth. It absorbed his gift and gave birth to the green life. The child cut himself and bled forth the oceans. The new life took away the fog that hung in the sky. A deep smog that terminated the sun's light. Warmth, light. We saw as the first among our people, the sun.

 

Not all of us took pleasure in our god. A hunger crept into their mind. A deep unsettling to the promise of death. The sins dug deep into them and spoke forth with voices of deceit. Blasphemous thoughts that twisted their wishes. They left the surface back to the mines. The machines of old given new life. They used them to dig deeper. An insatiable desire to find what isn’t hiding. What has yet to even be known. A thing lost to time. A thing unknown to even our fathers.

 

It clung to them like a sickness. Perverted their thoughts. Hugged them in their dreams. It didn’t let them go, not like they fought it. The whispers of the dross reached out to them in the dark, they reached back. They cracked open a wall deep beneath the earth. The whisper from their dream burst forth in reality. A breath from something older than them, than their fathers, than humanity.

 

A voice scratched their brain. Fingers gripped their mind. Like on a leash they were pulled into the chamber. The blasphemous fools stood at the edge of a city. Towers of rectangle shapes jutted out of the ground vertically. They were met at the tips by another segment of formation that did the same from the roof of the ancient cavern. Dots of illuminate mushrooms lit the cave brightly with the help of glow bugs.

 

Before those who dug into the earth. The ones with twisted thoughts. A city older than dirt lay sprawled before them. Through the jagged teeth like spires, at the far end past the light, the men can grasp a faint shape through the twisting bugs and clumps of mushroom.

 

Etched into the side of a monolith, faces of beings incomprehensible to human eye. Their real forms hidden by invisible light. Their body hide within the stone. They look up, ten on each side. With faces of tendril, they look to their god. He sat above them. Greater than the beings greater than the men. It like them had the face of a cephalopod. It’s true shape hidden by the eyes of mortals.

 

They bowed like those on the side of the stone. Lower than them. They took part in worshipping the worshippers. Being as little as men. They had no place on this rock. Had no place among the gods. Demons danced in their heads. Pulled forward thoughts. Wishes. A demand from the old god.

 

They ripped out their wires. Gave their very being to the stone. The idol that sat on the monolith wished to eat. Its mouth carved in the stone was opened. They fastened massive chains with the parts of the old wires and machines. They hooked them within the spots where the wires once hung from them. Their machine god promised eternal life, the old god promised eternal death.

 

An anointed among them. It led the thralls by barbed whip as they pulled the monolith to the surface. Set by step, whisper by whisper, by the crack of the whip the thralls marched by the power of the old ones.

 

The surface had returned to before our father’s sin. Blue skies and things that flew. From the bowels of the earth their chant echoed. Through the mouth of the earth, they stepped forward by shadow, thrall beckoned by whip dragged the monolith by chain.

 

We had welcomed our brothers with open arms, unaware to their sin. They let go of the chains when met with the child. The old one whispered to his thralls the wish. They came to us with crazed actions. Ripping the wires from our chests. Gnawing at our flesh. The child, or new god tried to help us. The idol of the old one animated through the stone. Stepping down from his throne with a thunder. The new god didn’t last against him. The old took forth the child from the machine, separated the avatar from the heart. With the power supply gone the machine god fell silent.

 

The face of the old one twisted and morphed. His body swung from recognizable to incomprehensible in the same moment. Our new god was placed within his mouth. The god then covered his mouth with his hands and took a spot on his throne. The thralls danced around the old one. The anointed placed a flame under the mantle. The whispers came forth from everything and nothing. The ten gods on each side of the king sways to life on the rock, praise to the one. The men and beast cheer as our new god was burned in the mouth of the old. A chard husk. The old one swallowed.

 

Our god, burning for eternity in the stomach of an old one. Its life drained for eternity by a thing older than time.

 

The gift, the promise of the old. Death, it was placed back into our hands. The ocean boiled once more. The green life left. With both gone the thick fog returned drowning our rock in an ocean of smog from an ancient machine. Our god was gone, his new life had left us. Our bodies returned to their mutated forms. We had a new god now. One older than any before. Our metal lungs used now to breathe prayer to a monolith. Our mutated blood formed us into the shape of our god. Twisted forms no longer recognizable. Lesser beings, thralls. The old one sat within his kingdom, deep beneath the earth. He waited with his new worshippers, waited for new life to spring up and repeat the cycle.

A world without hope given life through him. Our world was without light. Our sun had burned out many generations before me. The seas had mostly dried up, without the green life that crawled on our surface the atmosphere no longer clung to our rock. They stated to die shortly after our waters polluted. It contaminated the surface after the rain turned to acid. The green life retired from the surface and left us before my time. For the past millennium my species had resorted to living under ground. We recycled our breath with automated machines that mix our exhausted lunges with old rock found deep beneath the crust of our dead planet. We had to mix our blood with another old mineral found deep in our caves. Over generations we developed genetic mutations due to the mineral mixing. Despite this we continued, a hope burned within us. A hope of better times. One where our children could know the light.

 

Genetic mutation after genetic mutation eventually He was born. Unlike all the rest he was born with a power. He healed us with his body. We reverted our blood mutations by syphoning his blood and replacing it with our own. We cut him open and placed pieces of him into us. We connected him with old machines long before us. We thought his blood and body would replenish for eternity. Each cut healed before the next. Each drop of blood from his body was replaced with two. Our god. He was born to us. Born deep beneath the earth. Like an egg, a womb. Our earth gave birth to a new god.

 

The old machines drew power from him. They began draining the oceans of pollutants. He placed his hand upon the dry, ancient dirt. Life came forth from him. The green life that was told through lost stories had returned to us. The sun that was hidden for generations had begun shining through the thick fog. Heat. The love of life. Not one of us could claim knowledge of it. Yet, here, my people become aware. We had grown hungry.

 

The more we saw him. The more we wanted to take. Our species wasn’t unanimous. A group saw him not as a god. They had gone back to the caves. To the deep underground. They dug deeper than previous. The old machines given new life through him. They used it. Dug into caves sealed by whatever created us. An old god. He was placed on the mantle of a massive cliff. He was watching over a damned city. They clung to him. Their new god.

 

They grew angry with us. Thought our new god was a heretic to the old. They wished to crush him and his machines. To drown our world in another endless dust. To stop the sky from turning blue. To take life from this world once more. They dug though the earth back to the surface. Machines older than ours. A power hungrier than ours. The machines overpowered us. The old god was carried on a pillar. Thrall beckoned by whips pulled on it with thick chains. Our new god didn’t last. They cut him from his machines. They placed his body within the mouth of their old god. They placed a fire beneath the mantle. We watched as our new god was sacrificed. With him gone the hex placed on the renegade group had been dispelled.

 

They realized what they had done. We watched as the green left. We watched as the sun retreated behind thick fog. We watched as our new skin fell from our body. We watched as our blood corrupted our body back to our mutations. Those who had come from the ground, they looked at us with pleading eyes. They wanted forgiveness. The hope we had for ourselves, for our children. Burned in the belly of an old god. No more could we live. We dropped one by one. We tried the machines, but they no longer had power. The minerals had been dried up. Our breath could not be filled by fresh air. The gift of an old god. A promise. Death. Decay. We could not refund it.

(Warning, and sorry. I don’t want to spoil anything. You have been warned.)

 

 

From his small living room, he sat. The sun was sleeping but he was still awake. His cramped room was small, sure. He didn’t mind. He didn’t have a job. No hobbies. No friends. The man knew there was more to life than this. As a child his mother would remind him of his predestined fame. He was supposed to be a star. People were supposed to love him. To look up to him. The man gave up on all that. The only thing the man looked forward too was his show. He first found it a couple weeks back. Ever sense laying eyes on it he was transfixed. Never leaving his house. Never leaving his cramped space. He didn’t even leave to use the bathroom when the show came on. Just went were he sat. An old cushion used over many years. The smell on it alone enough to kill a family of roaches.

 

It was set in a dark room. Massive lights that shinned on the wooden stage. A bright blue background. The curtains pulled back. Nothing at first. Silent for several moments. Then a song. A faint melody. The bells from an old rotating music box. In the center of them a ballerina. The song played for a couple notes. Then she appeared. The doll. She was pulled on strings. She did a well-practiced routine. Swung around on her tiptoes. She bowed and spun. She hopped from one side to the other. Then when the man though nothing could make this better. She opened her mouth. A crack on the porcelain. Her voice. She was divine.

 

The man became addicted. Nothing in life could compare. He though himself like her. When the show wasn’t on, he practiced like she did. More and more time went on, and the man’s addiction did not better. He began to fall in love. Relieved himself on the wall as he watched her dance. He tried singing like her, but not when she was on the screen. He began to hold his breath for as long as he could. Any moment away from her view, from her voice, it was an abomination to the man.

 

He saw himself like her. A rising star set on a wooden stage. He practiced her song when she was gone. His pitch was near perfect. He began to gather a sense of rhythm. Her movement more angelic, his more like a jester. He though he could be a better performer. He wanted to be on the stage. He wanted to replace her. As he watched her, he took in her perfect features. He didn’t have her voice. When she sung all on earth rejoiced, God and his angels would give her praise. Her legs were slim and slick with zero imperfections. Her face. Like that of God if God was ever in the form of a woman.

 

He waited long enough. Practiced her dance long enough. It was his time to replace her. To take her features for himself. The TV turned on. She began to dance. He watched her. When she moved, he moved. When she swung around, he did too. The held his tongue. Dare not interrupt. Her voice was all that held him back. He began to enrage at this realization. He watched eyes stuck to the screen. He never blinked for the whole show. Then it turned off. She had left the stage. The show was over. She had gone to bed.

 

He continued to watch her from the slit in the wall. Waited for her to completely fall asleep. He wanted to hear her soft breath. He stuck his unclean fingers through the slit in the wall and widened it. Slowly. He didn’t want to wake her. Bit by bit he broke a small bit of wood from the wall. The blue wallpaper peeled off to the side. He stepped through the opening.

 

With him, his smell followed. Piss, shit, bile, human seed. The combined force wafted around the room to assault any that would find it unjust. The sweeping smell of unclean wafted over the little girl’s nose. She had taken in a deep breath in snore. The smell woke her instantly.

 

“Hello?” The little girl opened her eyes asking a vague question to an unknown response. She smelled what woke her and pinched her nose. She felt something watching her. For weeks now she kept telling mommy she could feel eyes on her when she changed. When she danced. When she slept. Her mommy never believed her. “Who are you?” She only saw a shape in the dark. “What’s that smell?” She never got an answer.

 

Her eyes focused on the thing before her. Sunken eyes in a shrunken head. Red veiny eyes, black pupils. Skinny arms. Skinny legs. A large pot belly. She saw the sheen of the knife in the dark. The one the man held in his dirty fingers. The little girl threw the sheets from the bed and bolted to the door. “MOMMY MOMMY HELP HELP”. The man had moved to block her. The exit now on the other side of him. “W-what do”. The man cut her off by shoving his fingers in her mouth. She wanted to gag. Immediately the smell made whole with a flavor. The amalgamation of shit and rot on each intruding finger. “You do have soft skin.” The man gave a gentle smile to the girl. She in turn bit down as hard as she could. Iron replacing and washing out the previous.

 

The man just looked at his hand. He looked at the doll. He saw her strings. He no longer liked them. He could use her face. He could use her legs. He pinned the little girl to the floor. Dug the knife in her temple. The sudden shot of warm pain made the girl faint. A mercy. Moving and sawing at the small muscle, the face slipped off. He lifted it up to heaven. “PERFECT. PERFECT. PERFECT. PERFECT.” Just like on the show. Just like on the TV. Then he went to her legs. Sawed at the flesh just the same. Placed both pieces on the bed. The man then moved back to his living room. The small space in the walls. He grabbed a sharp bone taken from the rib of a rat. He went back to the girl and took from her hair. He gripped her head with his gangly fingers and pushed against it with his foot ripping stands from her. He threaded the makeshift needle with her hair.

 

Stitch by stitch. The man sewed the skin to his own. Streams of red down his face and legs didn’t bother him. All he could think about was the skin. The face and the legs. That’s all he wanted. All but the voice. He studied the girl’s body. Couldn’t for the life of him figure out how to take out the voice.

 

“H-Hunny. Are you okay? I called the cops just in case. Can you open the door please?”

The man had flicked the lock on it in case the little one ran past. Now though was the perfect time. He had now the legs and face. Now he could practice the voice. “y-YeS. iTs Me MoMmY.” The voice from the other side went still. Then all the sudden something began to slam against the door. A male voice joined in with the woman. “WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU? I SWEAR TO GOD WHEN I GET IN THERE IN GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU. YOU BETTER NOT HAVE TOUCHED HER.” Then the voice of the female. “HUNNY TALK TO ME. WHERE ARE YOU?” The little girl could not answer. She fell asleep. The man watched her do that.

 

The door swings open and crashes against the opposite wall. The man stands at the other side and over his shoulder the woman. The man from the walls was on his tippy toes with his hands out like a ballerina. Seemingly mid practice. The two look to bed and the floor next to it. The woman falls to the floor. She covers her face with her hands and shrieks. “AAAAAAAAAA.” The man drops to his knees and looks to the girl. “W…what…” It was all he could get out. Perhaps he was enamored by the dance of the man. He had now begun doing the dance he saw the doll do many of times.

 

The man stands and rushes the man from the wall. He grabs around his neck and takes him to the floor. “IM GUNNA KILL YOU. IM GUNNA FUCKING KILL YOU.” The man begun to froth at the mouth. His eyes practically rolled back in a blind rage. “YOUR GUNNA FUCKING DIE. IM GUNNA SEND YOU TO HE….” The man had stopped. He sat up from the man he was assaulting. He placed his hand to his neck and then peeled it back looking at it. “W…what…” He fell over. The man beneath him pushed him off and stood in the center of the room.

 

The woman began to vomit. Her dinner on the floor, next to her sleeping daughter. Next to her sleeping husband. She screams out to the man who had begun practicing his dance once more. “HOW FUCKING COULD YOU. YOU’RE A MONSTER.” She stood up nearly slipping on the mix of blood and vomit. She put her hands on the man and shook him from his dance. “W-w-whyyy-hy-hy.” Why? The man thought. Why, why, why, why what? A lightbulb in the head of the man. “OOOOOOOHH, your sad you don’t have a baby. I’ll be your baby.” The woman began to hit him with her hands. She used all her energy on her tears and she didn’t hit hard. “My mommy would hit me too. We are perfect for each other.”

 

The woman slumps to the floor over her husband. “If you’re my mommy then you have to give birth to me.” The woman didn’t respond. She was preoccupied with tears. The man ducked down and looked at her crotch. “Here I come.” The man had shoved his head into her. An attempt to put himself within her womb. The woman begun to react, she slammed her feet into the man’s head. “My mommy would kick me too. We really are perfect for one another.” The woman crawled on the floor. Dug her nails into the blood-soaked rug. “This needs to be bigger.” He grabbed the woman’s leg and pulled her back. He sat on her and used the knife to cut off her clothes. Then when she was nude and kicking, he cut her crotch wider. The woman stopped screaming. She was happy now. Happy she could give birth to a new child. He crawled in. Laid inside of her for some time. Then crawled back out. “YAAAAAAAAA. I have a new mommy.”

 

The man was happy. He continued to celebrate. He used what he thought was a good impression of the doll. He danced as the doll did. On the nightstand, the rotating music box. The soft chimes. He hit every note. Every swing of the arms. He had been practicing for some time now. He had the legs. He had the face. He had the voice.

 

He felt the string come to him. The stage was set. He waited for the curtains. Then the lights came. Red and blue. The curtains pulled. The music box chimed. The strings pulled the man. An audience of two men. They clapped. The man jumped from one side of the stage to the other. The two men echoed their cheers. The man went on his toes and spun. The two men cheered. The man begun his song. Two the men had enough. The show was too great for them to witness. They became enamored. They wanted to be on the stage too. They climbed on the wooden steps to reach him. Then they were there. On the stage with him. They could see his splendor face to face.

 

“What the fuck.” “What the fuck did you do?” The red and blue lights kept flashing. The man wasn’t done. He still had to finish his dance. The two onlookers watched as he finished the routine. They were kind enough to shine on him spotlights. The soft bell of the music box all the way to the end. He did it. He could feel it. He was the rising star. He became better than the doll.

(second half. Sorry again it had to be split in two.)

He must first shed his fangs-

 

 

What happens when a wolf finds a sheep. Gnashing teeth and yelps of pain. What happens when a wolf grows tired of hunting sheep.

 

An old wolf walks his path. The wolf finds what they were sniffing. A beautiful sheep. The sheep was captured by another pack. The old wolf was supposed to kill the sheep. Instead, He fell in love.

 

The night is dead, black, and cold. In the still abyssal plains of old, wind carries screams and songs of the dead.

 

Black, dead, and still. The slight whisper of sand dragging off the sea and carried in the air. The moon casts the world in a silver sheen. More dark than light. The moon blinks and the light fades. Again, the light leaves the world. And gain, and again. Several things cross the moon and cast their shadows on the sands of old.

 

Several lights flash in the distance. Small and in quick succession. Then more join. White and yellow. Then red.

 

The twin pair of soldiers had made their way to the outlaw encampment. The outlaws put up as much of a fight as they could. Their shots hit their mark but flied off upon contact. BANG. A shot from one of their revolvers ring out. The bullet flies in the dark. CLUNK. It meets the soldier’s helmet and bounces off hitting the sand next to him.

 

The two stand side by side, each with guns aimed at the camp. The outlaws had ran for cover, those who were caught in the open were cast down. The ones who weren’t lucky met their backs to rocks, boards of wood, and anything they could put between them and the soldiers. The soldiers with each pull of the trigger take a step forward. The outlaws are being overran by two men. Their pride takes hold of them, and they resort to the Donation. An opportunity. To give back to what gave to them. A chance to be seen by their god. A chance to give birth to its offspring.

 

One stands from his cover. Immediately the soldiers target him. A round pierces his body and a hole forms where is body once was. Blood spills from the hole. The moon is high and the world is black and white. Shinny rivers of silver shimmer. Fire bursts from the barrels of revolvers and the silver shows hints of red. The outlaw pulls from a sheath, a crescent moon blade. Along the sides of the blade broken, bloody wings. The silver of the sharp edge reflects the silver light of the moon. The edge of the blade is placed on the neck of the outlaw. He pulls it to the other side, and the silver mixes with a shinny gray. In the light of flashes, the gray turns red. The knife gets dragged along the outlaw’s neck. He staggers, shuffles in place. Tears leave his eyes and the dagger is held to his side. The blood of new. It falls to the sands of old.

 

Like a smile along his neck the wound opens. The outlaw smiles alongside it. Tries to mimic it, or the other way around. The dagger falls from his hand. The outlaw looks to the sky. At the moon. At the stars that twinkle in the dead of night. At the eye of his god. Handing high in the sky watching over them. The outlaw lets his head fall back, more, and more. His body stands upright, yet his head is hanging back. A tight piece of skin and tendon hold the head onto the body. The knees buckle and straighten. His body twitches rapidly in a seizure. He falls forward into the sand. Red leaves his stomp and mixes into the sand.

 

The moon looks on his dominion. HE accepts the sacrifice. The body lays in the sand in a pool of blood. Echoing around the sounds of gun fire. The neck twitches. Small bursts of blood from the neck shoot out. Something at the base of the neck is stretching through it. The hole. The entrance to the stomach. It opens. Slowly slithering out. It flicks at the edge of the hole. It then traces the edge. A finger.

 

It rubs on the rim of the hole. Loops in a circle. It bends and curls, reaching out farther. From one finger to two, then three. The virgin neck gives birth to a hand. It flails and squirms in the stump. More of it yet trapped deeper in the twitching body. The hand sinks its fingers deep into the blood kissed sand. It claws at the sand and another hand bursts from the neck. The fingers dig at the sand, and the other hand pushes off of the head. The hand twists itself out of the hole. On the bloody sands of old, a god is born.

 

Of twisted arms and broken wings, it lays in the pool of blood. The other outlaws see their god bless them. They too take part in the ritual. Curved blades take to their necks. Things that come forth. Arms reach from their neck and out their mouths. They dig into their skin with blood caked nails. The bodies fall and give way to a sea of blood. The things twist in the sand. Like newborns they learn to walk. Broken wings and twisted arms all connected. They sprawl out and gallop towards the soldiers.

 

Little things that dace in the night. They turn, they twist, they howl at the moon in song. Hand over hand, broken wing over broken wing. Twisted abominations unknown to man. Twisted things that dance in the night. The soldiers focus their attention on them. The soldiers are quick, but the things are quicker.

 

The soldiers holster their guns and pull knives of their own. As the blades pull from the encasing, a maelstrom of energy along the surface. Lighting crackles on the blades. The terrible things swam them. One winds up and pounces. The soldier cuts through it like wind on smooth plain. It falls on the floor. Black ichor from its wounds. The soldiers cut. With each cast to earth, two crawl from hades. The black blood bubbles with hate and hunger. The wounds of new heal. The things that hide in the dark they wait for the souls of men to cross the boundary. They eat what they can, they convert what they can’t. The souls of wayward men. They reside in hell. With each cut black ichor spills on the men. With each swing black feathers fall from the angels. They stick to the blood and cover the men.

 

They overpower the two men. Beating on the suits with black ichor covered wings. Rubbing the seams of the suits looking for an opening. They raise their hands, they raise their broken wings. They slam them onto the two. Over and over. The soldier’s struggle. Their curl into a ball on the floor. The things of the night twist and dance around them. One of the dammed things fits its fingers under the helmet of one of them. The head exposed the things don’t take long to notice. With black shinny fists they mix their black blood with the red of the man. They smash his skull on the sand. They rip the flesh from his body and rub it on their wings. The things shove their selves into his mouth and crawl down his throat. The other soldier watches.

 

The body swells with many things stuck within. With too many than the body and suit can contain the body bursts at the seams. Red blood fills the sky like a cloud of iron. The things dance in the rain. They swarm the last.

 

The soldier flicks a button on the side of his arm. A pulse rings out like a drum. The things stand back and vibrate with the sound. They fight against it. Their movements are slow. The soldier stands and turns from the camp. He places one foot in the bloody sand and slips. The sound from his suit stops and the things return to their speed. They jump on him and pull from his suit pieces of him. The things slam onto him with their bodies. The soldier can no longer fight back, and he reaches through the sea of black blood and wings and fires a flair into the sky.

 

The light raises into the heavens. The red glow bringing life to the dark. Hundreds of little things crawl in the dark. The sand vibrates. A low hum on the surface of the earth. In the sky a boom. Two lights descend from the sky. They come joined but separate. They dance above the twisted things. They watch using the lights. Casting the things in dark with light. The wiring of metal. The beeping of electronics. The ground crumbles. The gunships unleash a rain of death on the things below.

 

Cutting them down, one by one. The two gunships hover in a circle around the camp. BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM. The guns go off, a round a second. It tears through the earth and things alike. They stop when the things are no more. The two ships hover in stillness. They land. The hatches open and more federation soldiers swarm the camp. Guns drawn and heads on swivels.

 

Then he must wear his old skin as a cloak that all may see-

 

It ate their very souls. Teeth like mountains. A tongue like sand. Of its 9 pieces that were cut. The head was saved for last.

 

The Dragon. Of it many children were born. Each clung to the pieces as The King formed them into new. 9 Pieces. 9 Places. The last was saved for The Great Fire. Like what came from the lips of The Dragon. A Great Fire. Now it was here forever.

 

14 billion years lay in wait. Every second cross their eyes. Every waking moment on their skin. Souls of the wayward. From these they ate. From these they sated. Each was devoured. But only the Fire could destroy. When the souls were devoured seventy sevens. The souls were readied for Fire. For him. To sate their god. The one that slept. His head on a stake. His breath a Fire.

 

Their god didn’t answer. But another in his place. He stole his eye. He stole his hunger.

 

Ovukin. The god of hunger.

 

 

The Fool walks along the edge of the earth. He smiles and laughs. He mocks the god of this world. He looks, out in the vast space beyond the edge. Things that twinkle in the dark. The Fool looks over the edge, not a care in the world. The god of the earth pushes him off.

 

 

The soldiers survey the camp. In the dark they rely on night vision. An overlay on the inside of the helmet. They move in the dark. They assume dominion over it. They are fish in a small pond. A bigger fish watches from a bigger pond.

 

Kicking up the sand with his feet. He swings his arms wildly. Head tilting with the weight of his body. His hands swing to his side and he snaps his fingers. His knees bend and face each other. Then they swing out at opposites. One hand stays on him and the other snaps at the night. He raises his hands above his head, then throws them down. He picks up his foot and slams it down. His hands swing across his body in a hug, and he places one foot behind the other. He spins and repeats.

 

In the dark. In the sea of sand. In the moonlight. A man. He is the dominion of night. He is the bigger fish. In the night he is king. In the night he dances. In the night he sings.

 

Closer and closer, the man walks.

 

The soldiers identify the bodies of their men and the outlaws. They scan the Things of dark. The system beeps back at him. LEVEL 5. HUMAN. The system identifies the bodies as he swings his arm across them. The soldier folds the screen back into his arm and looks up past the sand. In the distance walks a horse. Trotting gently in the whistling wind.

 

He blinks.

 

The horse is gone. In its place a man walking towards the camp. The soldier watches the man. The Man sways in the dark, he’s too far to see him clearly. The man walks at an odd gate. Like he’s holding something back. Like his eyes wont process something.

 

He blinks.

 

The man is closer. Still a ways a way, but far closer then could be in that short time. The soldier thought the man held his head low. He couldn’t make it out in the man’s silhouette. The man continues his gate. Swaying more than walking. Dragging his feet behind each step.

 

He blinks.

 

The man was gone. Swept away by the dark. Like the wind had carried him to heaven.

 

He blinks.

 

Still yet, nothing in the dark. The Man was gone. The soldier takes several steps forward. The oddity of the soldier brought the criticism of those around him. They called to him, but he ignored them. The soldier keeps his path into the dark. A fog in his head. He stops once it leaves. His mind had come back. He can process the calls of his fellow men. He turns and faces the camp. The mountain now in front of him. The dead of night at his back. Its tendrils wisp at him. Its breath tickles his ears. The mountain. He blinks. Its gone.

 

The giant mass of rock and dust. Gone. Literally in the blink of an eye. Again. He blinks. Its back.

 

“When you stand before an empty throne. When you confess your sins to a hollow god. Do not be surprised when you find yourself in hell”.

 

Jack had recovered the horse. It wasn’t far from the downed ship. He whistles. The horse had been kicking at a dried pond in an attempt to bring forth water. It trots over at him. Jack rubs its side. The horse kicks at the sand and Jack pats at him. Mounting the beast, Jack sets off. Outside the maze of rock, he stops. To his left, the town. To his right, where he knew the other soldiers would be.

 

He digs his fingers into the reins of the thing. WHIP. The horse takes off into the dark. The moon hangs low. Its eye was set at an even plane with the horizon. Between it and the ocean of sand. A horse and its ridder cross the desert. The moon to all of this, a faithful bystander.

 

Jack welcomes the night. The dark around him. He uses it to shroud himself in the moonlight. He approaches the camp. Silent. Bodies in every place. Dead things accompany them. Twisted among black wings, fallen feathers. Arms that reach to the sky. To the moon. The soldiers lay on the floor. They seem more asleep than dead. Like they all just fell over. The ship they landed in was untouched. The only sign of anything, the whistling of wind.

 

“Jack”. The whistling of air. It turns to a voice. “Jack”. A hint of the night. The moon hung high now. It kept its eye on Jack. The fog returned. “Jack”. The voice of nothing was carried by it. It surrounded him. Whispers of many voices entwined by one wind. Jack turns in circles in the fog trying to find a way out. The voices of the wind came with a greater volume. They screamed at him. “DIE”. “RUN”. WHERES YOUR FATHER”. “JOIN US”. “EAT WITH US”. The voices stopped. They were taken wherever the fog had retreated too.

 

With the fog. With the voices. The dead bodies had retreated too. Jack had found himself inside the camp. Blood-soaked pools of sand. Splotches of black ichor. Burn marks from gun shots. The camp was in ruin. But the night was ever young. Ever silent. The moon hung low again.

 

Jack saw it. Its eye watching him. Pulled his focus from this world. It was on the horizon again, hiding its full self. “Jack”. A voice broke his trance. It wasn’t the wind. The moon had no lips. The voice sounded grounded in reality. Jack turned to where he thought it came from. The open plain. In the distance. A man walked to the camp. In his place in reality the moon traded. Again, the moon hung high. Something was off about the man. He walked at an odd gate. He was waddling. “Jack”. The man called to him. The voice was hard to tell. Sounded familiar. The wind stole some of it.

 

The fog had returned but not full. A mix of sand. It hung to the ground. Jack watched the man as he walked. The wind had come and flown the fog up covering his line of sight. The fog obscured his vision of the man. When the wind died down the fog retreated to the earth. The man had gotten closer. Closer than he should have within that half second. “Jack”. The voice carried to him.

 

Demons danced in his head. From toe to toe, they hop in place. They swing their arms widely in the air. Every other moment they get a funny idea. They pull memories once thought lost in front of Jack's eyes. Visions of his past. Of his father. “Jack”. His father was calling him.

 

No. Jack knew better. He silenced them. Silenced the voice. His father was gone. Something deep down told him that. The fog had returned. Broke his vision once more. When it left, the man was now within his sight. The fog was still lingering. It covered the man’s face. He could see his hands. Dark like the night. The moon shinned off them like dancing bugs. Light flickering off their back. Like things twinkling in the dark.

 

Jack knew this thing before him wasn’t his father. The fog had left and so did the voice of his father. “Jack”. The voice of the sheriff came forth. His face was there. On the man. The fog blew in the wind off the floor and hovered in the sky above them. It clouded the sky and pulled away the moonlight. A dark cloud now hung over Jack.

 

“Ar-is that you?”

The sheriff didn’t answer. Just gave him a pitiful look.

“Take my hand Jack”.

 

The sheriff reached out with his hand. With the light gone the hand was just black. No shimmer. No hope.

 

Jack was hesitant. He didn’t know to trust it. He was conflicted by the thought of the men. Of how they were left. Of where their bodies disappeared too. He turned from the man. It wasn’t the Sheriff. Jack didn’t know what it was. Jack looked to the mountain near the camp. The fog emitted from it. The voice spoke again. The demons pulled another memory.

 

Yeah. “It is you”. Jack turns to the Sheriff. He sees his father. Together as one. The man reaches out his hand again. The face of the sheriff. “Ja-. The fog comes and covers his face. Ck”. The fog retreats and the face of his father over him. Jack blinks. They shift again. He reaches out his hand. Out to grasp his father. To be one with his father.

 

The feather around his neck begins to glow. It breaks away the fog hanging over the man. Behind the man Jack sees a figure dwelling in invisible light. Its likeness to that of a mountain. The man touches Jacks hand. The low light from the feather breaks the shroud on the man. What hid in the dark can now be seen by eyes. Jack’s hand was met with an amalgamation of broken wings. Dark feathers that oozed a black ichor. They shimmer in the light. Twisted arms wrap around the wing. Broken fingers sit at the end of his hand. Red and black mix and mark Jack. Jack looks up from the twisted flesh.

 

Vision still obscured from the fog. A thing in the night. The wings of crows, massive in size. Their ends stand on the earth. They extend up to their main body. Jack lets go of the thing pretending to be a man. The ichor sticks to him and pulls in long strands from where they separated. The wings twist in shape and bend at wrong angles. The center of it is hidden by many hands. They hug the center creating secure ball of flesh. The wings sprout forth from it, eight in all. The creature moves its body, and the fog entwined with it. The man appears again and the thing becomes hidden in dense fog.

 

Jack looks at his hand. A black ooze slowly falls to the ground. Thick and oily, the blood of a god. The blood of a beast. “Jack”. The man takes a step. Jack takes a step back. He readies his hand over his gun. He moves it past it and grabs the new one. Unlatching the holster he pulls the massive revolver. He steadies at the man who takes another step. Jack steps back again and pulls back the hammer. Shaky hands. The thing before him wears the skin of the sheriff. He aims it up to the fog and pulls the trigger.

 

The night erupts in light. The silent plains of sand echoes with a bang. The voices return. Screaming in pain. “WHY”. “HELP”. “HELP US”. “IT HURTS”. Voices of many. Hundreds. More than before. Like all the souls of hell released  in one moment. Screams of the damned. They torment Jack. He drops the gun. The fog falls to the floor, no longer stuck to the sky. Tendrils of smoke writhe in the sand. They dance on the floor and spill out filling every space. The voices echo. Not form the fog.

 

The angel of death. Of hate. Of hunger. The fog hides it no longer. The arms twisted and clung to its center, they begin whipping out at the air. They open at the center. A massive hole in the things body. The inside spills out. Bodies and an ocean of blood. Black ichor with it. It swings its body through the area. Its arms scratch at it ripping pieces off of itself. The parts fall down and Jack dodges them as the main body dances in the night. The thing screams the voices carry with it. Hell itself within.

 

The ripped pieces of flesh squirm in the sand. The blood leaks from wounds and covers them in sand and ichor. They spring to life. New arms and wings spewing from the center. They charge at Jack and he runs into the camp. The things are close behind. A humming enters the sky. Jack falls not to may steps in. He swipes the sand desperate for the gun. His fingers trace the frame, and he lunges putting it within his hand. He pulls it up. Aiming at the main body. His finger hits the trigger. The hammer falls. The gun begins to kick. The twisted ones get to him. They lunge pushing him off balance. The gun gets thrown off its mark. The bullet misses the main body. The bullet pierces the moon.

 

The twisted ones reach inside Jacks body. They get one wing in. Their hands hold open his mouth. They drip into him their black ichor, their blood.

 

The voices stop screaming. The demons stop dancing around Jack. The main body of the beast stands still in the moonlight. The night is still. Quiet. Empty. Jack sees the Fog become still. The things that twist around him stop moving. They stop trying to feed him themselves. The moons light becomes brighter. Jack looks to it. To the moon. It hung in the sky.

 

A small black dot in the center of the moon. From it black lines along the surface. Like a web of lies, the lines form a pattern along it. They don’t stop at the edges. The crack on the moon spreads to the surrounding sky. The crack widens covering the entire night sky. Like glass the sky shatters. Like glass the sky falls to earth. Piece by piece. The moon was first to fall. A black abyss in its place. From the cracks spilled a black liquid. It covered the earth in a flood of ink. The twisted one’s twitch and shake in place. They shriek in pain. More and more of the sky turns black. The things of wings and arms twist on themselves and fall on their backs. Their wings reach to where the moon once was. Their arms rip themselves apart. They die in the sands of time. The sky turns black.

 

The death of a god. With it the world crumbles. The formless black fold on itself. A primordial hunger made manifest. It pulls within itself everything. The 9^(th) Abyss is consumed. The hunger of god responsible.

 

Jack sleeps on a bed of flowers. Black velvet petunias. He opens his eyes to a field of dark flowers. A sky of nothing. An earth of nothing. Separating him from the nothingness the flowers. He steps into void. Under his feet the flowers appear. Jack walks aimlessly in the dark. Death. I’m dead. Jack walks into the afterlife. The heart of time. The fullness of hunger.

 

Jack feels something behind him. He turns, no one. Nothing. A void. Swinging his head back he takes a step, but he stops. There was a presence before him. It whispered his name. It reached out with its hand. “Jack”. It whispered with a hunger. With a certainty. A promise of death.

 

Jack accepted this. The angel of death came to great him. From his back wings of gold. They illuminated the dark. Jack opened his eyes. One of the things had finished squirming down his throat. The demons had danced in his mind. They put before him memories that were not his. A dream to keep him still.

 

They were with him. He was with him. Forever now. It had hold of him. Jack found himself within the fog. A dark realm. One with nothing. An endless void that wanted to be full. Jack was still conscience within the void. He wasn’t alone. A primordial before him. A concept. Something that was older than anything known. Its presence too great to be fully known. Jack only knew it by one thing. One trait. Something he could feel oozing from it like a black ichor. Hunger.

 

The Tongue of the Dragon. It found the god of luck. It wasn’t enough. It needed his son. Now it had him. It ate him. Jack saw within its presence his father. Jack was no more. When he opened his eyes on the sands of time. Something else looked through them.

 

He gave a single command to the tangible space. One that it could not disobey. Something that would change fate. A whisper from his lips. Like death. Like a certainty. He spoke, empty, hollow words yet to be filled.

 

Eat

 

Only then, may he bear his horns.”

 

 

 Wormwood. It fell. It came not to destroy man. It came like an egg. Of what fell. Of what was inside. Wormwood wasn’t to destroy man. It was to make it. Man would destroy man. And of he who came from it. A tongue. It slithered on the floor like a snake. Like the kin of dragons.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://preview.redd.it/4aigacn5tizg1.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7215ad18e3cad025288210658f2d2cc9b8ec928f

-Edited version. (Please read the original. There is only on more post after this.) (Not talking about the second half)

(Parts combined. Of Gods, Men and Beasts, chap 6- 8)

(sorry if that photo isn't good I drew it myself) 

 (this post is too big to submit in one go so I will break it in half, I will post the other half tomorrow.)

 

 

“A wolf may become a sheep-

 

Many wolves surround a field. Their pray eats within. 5 in total the wolves step in. 2 sheep eat grass, a little lamb laying in the grass. 5 wolves step in. They surround the sheep. A half circle pushing them against a cliff. The 5 prideful. The 1 calm. The 3 sheep back to the cliff, the little sheep and her little lamb. A sheep with horns bears old fangs. The wolves stop for a moment. They thought they only smelled sheep. Now they smell a wolf. The sheep with horns peals back its skin. Old and tattered. Sins of old. The largest wolf stand to the sheep. The sheep in turn lowers its head. Eyes of an old hunter.

 

Dead. Old. Cold eyes. They watch the wolf sing. They watch the wolf dance. The wolf lunges at the sheep. The wolf has never met a sheep with horns. The sheep pushes its sharpened horns into the wolf’s stomach and then pulls them out. Deep red drips from the tip and covers the floor. The wolf falls and kicks at the air. The light slowly leaving its eyes. The blood runs down the sheep’s horn. It crosses down its face. It drips past his lips. The sheep sticks its tongue out licking his lips. The old taste of crimson.

 

Two more charge. Strength in numbers they think. One grabs onto the sheep’s neck but the other was taken by the horns. The sheep turns its head dropping the wolf and then turns to the one on its neck. Its fur is thick, but the teeth are thicker. The sheep pierces the neck of the wolf, but damage is done. The two wolves stoop down. Life leaves their eyes. The sheep bleeds from its neck. It watches the last two. It puts its head down bearing its horns. It kicks its foot back kicking up grass and dirt. The wolves saw the blood. They saw the bodies of their brethren. They look back at one another. They look at the old sheep. They look in its eyes. They see a wolf. A wolf no longer.

 

A sheep with horns. A fangless wolf. A protector of innocence. The only thing a wolf fears.

 

The two decide on blood. One takes to the air and the other ducks low. The sheep only has two horns. The sheep rases its head. Its horns pierce the stomach of the wolf. It shakes its head violently. The stomach of the wolf is ripped open and its blood and intestines litter the floor. The wolf from below got to the side of the sheep. It bites down on thick fur. The sheep kicks the wolf, and it lets go. The wolf stands back and the dead wolf still lingers stuck to the sheep’s horns.

 

The wolf back up. The sheep lowers its head allowing the dead empty carcass to slide off its horns. The sheep stares down the last wolf. The wolf in turn hesitates. It thinks. It thinks of hunger. It thinks of death. It choses blood. It lunges at the sheep, and it dies like the rest.

 

The sheep looks at the field of blood. He turns his head to the 2. They are safe. He looks to the edge of the forest. Little wolves. He looks to them with kind eyes. It’s not their fault they were born of wolves. But it was their fault for hunting sheep. The sheep with horns. The old wolf. It feeds on the dead bodies.

 

 

A massive dragon sits on the top of a mountain. Its scales are brown and along its sides are patterns of black and gray spots, perfect camouflage for both the night and day. The scaled beast raises its head to the heavens and opens its mouth. Its purple tongue lurches from its metal jaws in an attempt to swallow the sun. In its failure it swings back and hits the lizard’s eye. It sticks there and the thing seems unbothered.

 

The small lizard is basking in the sun. The fiery yellow and red that fill the sky churn and make love. They combine to pinks and orange. They mellow out to a gold and then back to spots of yellow with the odd brown and white. In the distance the heavens are stained by a murky orange. The sky opens to a small black dot. It warps the colors around it, and they twist to a bright blue. The portal closes and the sky calms. A massive star ship exits deep space hyperdrive at low orbit.

 

A sonic boom echoes across the sands. Several dust storms and quakes emerge. The wave of energy hits a pod of sand whales. They jump from the sands and take to the sky. A single shuttle leaves the star ship and races across the sand. Startled the sand whales veer off course and enter the sight of a waiting monster. Its eyes blink. Hungry and filled with the joy of a hunt, it too takes to the sky. The thing chases the whales through the sky. The shuttle is now leading the pack of whales. The giant spike crested sky hunter sees the craft and sets its eyes on it.

 

The demon in the sky’s ducks and twists through the whales edging closer and closer to the ship. The crew noticing it on their sensors ducks closer to the surface of the desert planet. The craft booms past the basking lizard and it flies off the rock. The demon close behind, catches the lizard while still in chase. The crew of the craft notice the thing gaining on them. They shut the thrusters and swing the hunk of metal to the side. The craft turns in the air while falling to the ground. The engine starts again right before the ship hits the floor and it shoots towards a distant mountain.

 

The sky beast swung its head down as the crew shut the engines off. Its jaw slams against the side of the craft and the beast shakes its head and flees to softer prey. The craft now thrown from its straight course spins in the air, the crew scramble clicking buttons and shifting dials in an attempt to straighten the ship. The small vessel slams into the side of a rock tower and one of the side engines break. The ship sways uneven. It dips and jumps back up.

 

The ship flies over a maze of rock. The crew desperately steer the ship over and under, through and around massive rock pillars. The ship clips another tower and spins crashing into the side of a rock pillar.

 

 

 

 

 

On the other side of the mountain. A Beast stalks its prey. Its face is without life. Around its eyes a thick line of death that pull any onlooker to their grave. Its pupils are that of a dead fish. Two more beasts stand with it. They watch as their prey moves about. The Beast signals to the others and the lesser ride into the den of sheep. The Wolves surround the camp. They make guttural sounds, both to intimidate and mock. The sheep run around their camp, some carry goods and money while others carry little lambs.

 

Some Wolves dismount, others stay on steeds. The Wolves chase them in sport. They pull guns and knives. Some skin while others eat. One of the Wolves does nether. He tackles a sheep to the floor. It pulls off its wool. Around this many sheep are cut down. Their young alongside. The Wolf touches the sheep and when she resists, he scoops mud in her mouth. The mud is earthy with a hint of piss and copper. The sheep squirms as the Wolf enters her. Some of the other Wolves watch with smiles. They gather other sheep to watch before killing them.

 

The Men of War sing and dance.

 

The sun sets on a hellish land. The sun steals the light. Along with it, the heat of hell. The night is still, dark, and silent. A wind crosses the plain like the breath from the mouth of God. On his lips a whisper of death. God gives life. Places it on earth. The souls of wayward men wonder into hell.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clanking of wooden cups. The occasional metal mug slammed among them. The bustle of tired old men and those who hate the light. Piano music brings the inert sounds together in celebration. In a place like this, every lived day is equal in celebratory drinking as fifty lived years. Men, both young and lucky to be old drink as though it might be their last.

 

Drifters and wayward men sing and dance. Piano music accompanies them. Laughter. Cheers. A well-endowed woman walks from table to table. She brings drinks and slaps to wandering hands. The door swings open and for a moment the commotion stops. The secret party had an intruder. The dusty men and pompous money bought woman turn to the doors. A young man with brown hat and browner boots. The party booms with the entrance of a new participant.

 

The young man walks across the room. He dodges stumbling men and woman looking for coin. Slumped over the bar the man he was after. He places a hand on his shoulder and shakes him to life. The drunkard opens his weary eyes and studies the young man.

 

“jjJJackkyyyy. What Are YIU doin here.” He hiccups as the words leave his face.

The young man swats away the smell of liquor and speaks to judge the man.

“You told me to come here”.

“ii Donh.. Mender that”

“How long have you been here, your even drunk after sleeping.”

The sheriff thinks for a moment but he’s too drunk to come to a conclusion. “I hund know.” He pauses looking at the kid. “Your dunk”. The young man rolls his eyes.

 

The woman walks form table to table, her chest bounces with each step. She makes her way around the room spreading food and drink.

 

“Why’d you tell me to come here”. The young man spoke with an assertiveness. He wishes to sober the man with his words.

The man looks at the boy finally thinking before speaking. He opens his mouth but turns his body to his empty glass avoiding eye contact. “After we found you. After your father left…. You were going to be put somewhere but. I still don’t know why.” He stops, thinking again. In his hand he now holds the glass, swaying it within his palm. “Your like a son to me”. Jack doesn’t say anything. He can tell he isn’t finished. He takes a seat next to the man. Both keep their eyes to the full bottles on the shelf in front of them. The barkeep seeing this many of times with other men, mostly telling those who were bought by the hour they loved them. He walked to the back to give them privacy.

“They come in tonight”. He sways his head to Jack. “The federation.”

Jack listens quietly. He looks at his hand. Nothing better to look at.

“They sent a message. They want us to help them hunt both on that list. That means-“ Jack cuts him off “I know what it means”.

“People might die-“ Jack cuts him off again. “People always die here-“ this time the man cut him off. “I don’t want you to die.”

 

They sit there, listening to the commotion behind them.

“You know I care about you like my own.”

“I do.”

“Then you understand why I don’t want you to go.”

“I am”

“No you’re not”

“AND WHY THE HELL NOT” Jack balls his hand to a fist and slams it on the table. The sudden outburst loud but the sound of drunken men louder. “I can handle myself. You know that.”

“I do”

“Then why the hell not”

“He’s not like anything you come across.”

“He’s not the devil.”

“That’s not what I heard.”

“Fuck what you’ve heard.”

“Jack I.” He looks down at the glass and then turns to the boy. “Fine just. Be careful.”

“I don’t need to be careful... I’m lucky.”

“Sure.. But for how long.” Jack didn’t know how to respond. “For as long as I need to be.”

 

The two settled on that. They continued to sit there. Saying nothing. The barkeep came back and poured them both a drink. They bonded for a little over it.

 

The door swung open. The party fell silent once again. This time it didn’t kick back up. A cop stood at the door. He looked across the room. At all the mute and inanimate faces looking back. He spots two at the bar.

 

“Sir”. He approaches Jack and the man. The man turns his body and looks the cop up and down. “What”. The busty woman continues with her duty and as she crosses between them the man places his glass on her tray and the cop’s eyes linger on her longer than they should have. He stammers his attention back to the man, “They are here”.

 

The sheriff shoves his hand into his coat and pulls back out a metal tablet. He looks it up and down before placing it back inside. He pats his body before reaching back in tossing out coins on the table. Jack and the cop head towards the door and then stop. Turning back the sheriff is still in his seat. Jack speaks to him, “uhh.. lets go”.

“My legs are still drunk”. The two help carry him out the tavern.

 

“Yall are early.” The sheriff takes his hat off as he enters the station and he places it on the coat rack. The room is dark. The candles and the lamp in the back have been turned off. The back of the room is cut in half, the darkness too strong to pass with your eyes. From the black three federation soldiers in all black robotic suits emerge. Behind the sheriff Jack and the local enter. Jack lays his eyes on the three. He’s never met someone from off planet. Never seen a suit like theirs. From toe to head he studies them. A thin purple etching makes a dancing pattern that twists along the surface of the black suits. On each of their hips a gun far different from the ones here. On the top where irons would be a black cylinder, and on the inside a slit of glass. One of the soldiers meets his gaze as he examines them. Jack swallows his curiosity as a shiver of cold mixes with his blood. The one in the center speaks through his helmet with a robotic voice. “Where are they”.

 

The sheriff swallows and then answers. “We think they are at the mountain.”

Jack looks between them along with the others. Each trying to gage some emotion past the steal and polymer. The one that made eye contact with jack razes his hand to his helmet. He places a finger on the side hitting a button. The one in the center reacts with the same gesture after the first. (1) “Are you positive”. (2) “Affirmative. Twice checked.” (1) “Stand by for confirmation”.

 

The one in the center raises his arm in front of him. He bends it at the elbow seemingly to examine his forearm. From the suit a small screen pops from his arm and the glass is pointed to Jack. The screen drops back into the suit and the one in the center drops his arm. With his other arm he takes the gun from his holster and fires a shot at Jack.

 

Jack doesn’t react, it all happened to fast. The flash of the barrel and then his vision turning sideways as he fell to the floor. Jack lays there as the local pulls his revolver from his holster and fires at the three men. The bullet breaks through the darkness and hits the soldier’s helmet. The black glass on the helmet is undamaged and the bullet bounces to the floor.

 

The soldiers focus their attention to the local and they unload on him. As their shots ring out, he lets off the rest in his cylinder. Only their shots pass through a body. The local slumps to the floor. The sheriff reaches out with a bloody hand to Jack who was still on the floor. “run.” He could only get out a whisper. Jack realized in that moment. He wasn’t shot. The man had pushed him out of the way taking the shot for him.

 

Jack looks to the man. He looks to the soldiers. They stand there. Guns ready. Pointed at Jack. He attempts to stand but they fire. He closes his eyes and accepts death. “run.” The man took his place again, and he stood between Jack and the men. “RUN DAMMIT”. The man pushes Jack and he falls past the door. Jack lays in the cold dirt. He eyes focus on the dead sky. Small white dots litter the dark space above him. The dark of night is stolen and replaced several times in rapid succession.

 

Jack stands and grabs a near horse. The men burst through the door and step down the stairs. One of the points his gun at Jack who is already on the outskirts of the town. His finger tugs on the trigger and the hammer falls. The metal joint gets jammed halfway and the gun doesn’t go off. The soldier looks down at his gun and then points it at a nearby street sign, and blowing it to straight hell upon pulling the trigger. He looks at it again before holstering it.

 

Jack through the sands of time clutches his necklace. The feather with a faint glow. He holds it to his chest as he curls into a ball on top of the galloping horse. Jack lets out a cry and the wind of death takes it away. The horse without direction runs to a distant maze of stone.

 

The horse found its way to a puddle of murky water. Jack looks up from the horse at his surroundings. The stone maze. He mutters to himself. He’s never been here before. Too close to the mountain. The horse sifts through the mud with its lips and sips at whatever clean water it can. Jack finds his back to a wall and slumps to the floor. The looks back to the sky. Black with dots of white. He wonders to himself at the world beyond. At the marvels of other worlds. He was told in story of worlds of water and plants. Of a thing called grass that clung to the dirt. Jack wonders if he’ll ever be able to witness such a beauty. The red and yellow. The white sands. The dust of day and the cold of night. This is all he’s ever known.

 

Jack had closed his eyes in thought but he opened them to the sound of a swooshing through the wind. A metal ball hovered just over the sand. It stopped ever couple of feet and scanned the ground with a red laser. Jack slowly stood from the rock and moved to another hiding behind it. He watched as the metal ball approached the horse. The gentle beast was still sifting for water. The ball scanned it and then dropped to the floor. Jack slowly rose from behind the rock but then ducked down quickly when he noticed a shadow approaching. From the desert a federation solder. The solder hits a button on his suit and the ball jumps from the sand, and it startles the horse who then runs off.

 

The ball hovers in the air and then folds into itself attaching to the back of the soldier. He stands there. Looking mostly at the ground. The soldier pulls from his holster a gun and levels it at his waist. The soldier speaks through his mask in a robotic voice. “Little lamb little lamb. Come out and play.”

 

Jack stayed low behind the rock. The soldier raised his arm and clicked several notches along his arm. From his back the drone rose. It wandered around the area and behind it the man followed. It approached the rock Jack was behind and he jumped from behind it and grabbed the drone. The soldier fires his gun. Jack uses the ball as a shield and the bullet bounces off the metal and hits a nearby rock. The bullet annihilates it and it explodes and spews fragments of rock and dust into the air. Jack uses this to escape.

 

The soldier follows Jacks shadow through the fog and fires aimlessly. Boulder to boulder the soldiers round chase. Each round gets closer than the last. Jack doges a round and it hits a softer rock behind him. The rock spews sand and dust in the air acting as a cover. Jack uses this moment to get out of sight of the soldier. Jack thinks to himself that he is running out of time. He doesn’t know how much longer he can do this. He pulls his revolver from his pocket and looks at it. Cold steal. Six shots. He remembers what happened the last time one of these was used on them. He doesn’t know what to do. He rests his head back and closes his eyes in a long sigh. When he opens them, his eyes are still pointed up. Up at an inverted catenary. A rock that forms a natural ridge above them.

 

Jack holds his revolver steady and peers around the rock. Jack tightens his grip on the revolver and then spins it. He’s now holding the barrel. The solder and his drone move from rock to rock. The soldier is getting close, his drone closer. The drone swoops in around the rock and spots Jack. It emits a low boom that echoes in the formation of rock. Jack with a low crouch swings the revolver butt at the drone. At the same time the soldier spun around with his gun ready. The drone gets swatted and spins as the soldier pulls his trigger. His round bounces off the drone and into the sand in front of them kicking up sand.

 

Jack uses this cover to get closer. He raises the butt of the revolver and slams it into the helmet of the soldier. The soldier flinches and pulls the trigger. The round pierces the side of Jack and they wrestle for the gun. Jack gains the upper hand and in the commotion points the gun up. Jack then shoves his hand into the trigger guard and forces the gun to go off. A shot rings out and it hits the rock above them. Jack spits on the soldier’s visor and then swings his hand low cupping sand and tossing it at the face of the soldier. The sand sticks and Jack jumps to the side. He lands on the floor with a thud, and the rock above them crashes onto the soldier killing him.

 

A massive cloud of dust, rock, and sand fill the air. Jack stands in the fog. He limps to where he thinks the horse ran off too. Blood drips with each step. He peals his hand off his wound and looks at it. The moon casts the night in white and black. Jack’s hand is caked in a shiny gray. He groans and places it back on the hole in his side. Jack walks around a massive stone pillar, he places his hand on the wall to stabilize himself. Apon making it to the other side he stops. Black, scorched, still with a tinge of fire. A small cruiser ship is balled on the floor. An area of stone several feet above the ground black and blistered from an impact.

 

There is an opening on the side of the ship. Jack thoughtless walks in. Jack wanders into the dark. Every now and again a red light flashes the room. Jack still wounded trips on the wrecked floor. He falls on his face and lays in the dark. As the red crosses his body he slowly pulls himself off the floor. His eyes open to two federation boots. A federation soldier stands before him. Jack closes his eyes. He thinks of softer places. He can feel in him the soldier holding a gun to his head. As he anticipates the pulling of a trigger, the fall of a hammer. Nothing but a red light crosses the area.

 

Jack opens his eyes and looks at the boots. He traces them up the body of the soldier. As he gets to the stomach, a large pipe impales the soldiers stomach forcing his corpse into a standing position. Jack finishes tracing the body with his eyes. The visor was set to clear, but the face was still hidden. On the inside covering the clear glass a large splat of red and brown. Along with it several small ones. Jack looks down at the man’s waist. In his holster a gun different from the ones the others carried. A large silver like revolver. Jack unclipped the holster from the man. He fitted it to himself and then pulled the revolver from it. Jacks barely dried hand had smeared the handle. He holds It up looking at it closely. The red light takes away the dark for a brief moment. The revolver reflects the light, and Jack closes his eyes and turns his head.

 

When the light leaves Jack opens his eyes. Sier dumb luck. A med kit laid on the floor in front of him. He holsters the gun and pops open the lid. Inside was black foam, a cutout in the center holding a black cylinder. Jack takes it from the case and inspects it. It’s unlike anything he’s seen before. Jack fumbles with it and the slickness of it and the loose grip from the blood on his hands cause him to drop it. He swats at it as it falls and he slaps it. It clicks and from the tip a small blade. It lands on the floor. Jack looks at it and then at the box it came from. With nothing left to do Jack picks it up and sticks it into his side. A blood rush. Jack begins to hyperventilate. He sweats. A deep pain from his side. He places his hand over his wound. Underneath his hand he can feel the hole closing.

 

Jack stands. He shakes his hand and jumps in place. A chuckle leaves his lips. He pulls again the new gun from his holster. Opens the cylinder. Pulls a round from it. The red light takes hold of the place. Jack doesn’t look away. The light doesn’t reflect. The deep black tip seemingly eats the light.

 

He must first shed his fangs-

 

(End of the first half. Sorry it was cut in two I wanted this to be a big one but now I have to post it twice anyway. 😞)