RE: QUIETUS [S!5] [Round 2: Krei'kii'kelriz]
06-30-2016, 03:32 AM
Hello hello hello hell yes
Are you looking for religion? You came to the right guy.
In the walls of the Krei'kii'kelriz, newly reactivated sensors detected something drifting past them, and then when the artificial gravity turned back on, sliding to the floor. Water? the sensors thought. Oil?
The water in sector 13-ф-is contaminated.
The water in sector 68-七-is contaminated.
All of the water in sectors 74-138 is contaminated.
Dry in space. I miss the earth.
You don’t trust me.
You are a corpse. You are winter. Where have I seen this before? Where have I seen this before? Are you dead, are you dead? Please don’t be …. please. Please. Not another. Where is my daughter? Where is… where is she…
I know what you want…?
Long-dead systems were engaging. It felt the electric crackle zig-zagging through it, and it heard their little cries. It folded its wings and hummed. S-O-S… S-O-S…. Calling home? Calling home?
I am not dangerous. I am not a monster.
Are you looking for religion?
She is walking to the edge of the forest, where she knows they are waiting. Her hands are scratched, her leather shoes filled with stones and twigs. It is dusk, and the nightjar is singing. prrr-rrr-rrrr. The warm summer wind howls up above.
Her daughter died, with her little one, and they wouldn’t bury her in the churchyard. Because of what happened. So she is here, at the river’s edge.
They are waiting with their soot-colored cloaks and their hungry smiles. She thinks she recognizes a few faces. Even from the church. They welcome her with open arms, and they pull her into the fold, and they give her poisoned wine. Drink from this, they weep, drink deep, and let it consume you. Let it open you. When you’re ready… to see her…. come with us.
It’s a long few hours in the woods before she goes. All the while they danced their strange dances and sang their nightjar songs.
The riverbank is cold, sticky clay that gets between her toes. She tries not to think about the bones hedged around it like fences. And she tries not to think about the voices in the water.
Are you ready to see her? Are you ready to see your girl? Come closer. Step closer. Into the water. Drink deep. This is holy ground.
I hear all the voices of the earth, of the bodies lost in its depths. I am the mother in these woods. Did you think I wouldn’t know? About her? About her? About you?
She puts her hands in the water, cups them. Lifts them up. Drinks. The river tastes like ink, and hair, and dirt.
She hears her crying, softly at first, and then more and more. The river heard her as it lay in its underground home, and it swelled with her tears. Here are your daughter’s bones. Here are your daughter’s bones. Here is her heartbeat…. Here are her bones. Come into me. Come closer. Don’t be afraid. The river rises around her ankles, around her thighs, around her throat. Listen for her. Listen for her ghost.
Are you looking for religion?
___
The call, when it came, was twenty thousand years late.
It arrived through a relay spire embedded in an asteroid orbiting a cold, dead sun. It was a miracle that the spire functioned at all; there had been no signals from that part of the galaxy for millennia, no maintenance for longer. It processed the call sluggishly, puzzling over its lack of encryption. The spire beamed it off beyond the dead sun, into the coldness of space.
In this way it was carried through the furthest reaches of the galaxy from beacon to beacon with dire speed, through the wreckage of planets and the remnants of fleets to beyond all known civilization, through the hollow shells of warships still drifting through the remnants of battlefields. These were the darkest reaches between stars.
There had been left a watcher in this long-abandoned sector, but the children in their nest-ship had had no need of her. Her nautiline body had fossilized in the orbit of a lonely star, crystallizing into a lifeless satellite. She had spun round and round in an uninhabited star system for all her life, a hollow testament to the foresight of her people.
The call reached her, and she awoke.
AVENGE US.
Are you looking for religion? You came to the right guy.
In the walls of the Krei'kii'kelriz, newly reactivated sensors detected something drifting past them, and then when the artificial gravity turned back on, sliding to the floor. Water? the sensors thought. Oil?
The water in sector 13-ф-is contaminated.
The water in sector 68-七-is contaminated.
All of the water in sectors 74-138 is contaminated.
Dry in space. I miss the earth.
You don’t trust me.
You are a corpse. You are winter. Where have I seen this before? Where have I seen this before? Are you dead, are you dead? Please don’t be …. please. Please. Not another. Where is my daughter? Where is… where is she…
I know what you want…?
Long-dead systems were engaging. It felt the electric crackle zig-zagging through it, and it heard their little cries. It folded its wings and hummed. S-O-S… S-O-S…. Calling home? Calling home?
I am not dangerous. I am not a monster.
Are you looking for religion?
She is walking to the edge of the forest, where she knows they are waiting. Her hands are scratched, her leather shoes filled with stones and twigs. It is dusk, and the nightjar is singing. prrr-rrr-rrrr. The warm summer wind howls up above.
Her daughter died, with her little one, and they wouldn’t bury her in the churchyard. Because of what happened. So she is here, at the river’s edge.
They are waiting with their soot-colored cloaks and their hungry smiles. She thinks she recognizes a few faces. Even from the church. They welcome her with open arms, and they pull her into the fold, and they give her poisoned wine. Drink from this, they weep, drink deep, and let it consume you. Let it open you. When you’re ready… to see her…. come with us.
It’s a long few hours in the woods before she goes. All the while they danced their strange dances and sang their nightjar songs.
The riverbank is cold, sticky clay that gets between her toes. She tries not to think about the bones hedged around it like fences. And she tries not to think about the voices in the water.
Are you ready to see her? Are you ready to see your girl? Come closer. Step closer. Into the water. Drink deep. This is holy ground.
I hear all the voices of the earth, of the bodies lost in its depths. I am the mother in these woods. Did you think I wouldn’t know? About her? About her? About you?
She puts her hands in the water, cups them. Lifts them up. Drinks. The river tastes like ink, and hair, and dirt.
She hears her crying, softly at first, and then more and more. The river heard her as it lay in its underground home, and it swelled with her tears. Here are your daughter’s bones. Here are your daughter’s bones. Here is her heartbeat…. Here are her bones. Come into me. Come closer. Don’t be afraid. The river rises around her ankles, around her thighs, around her throat. Listen for her. Listen for her ghost.
Are you looking for religion?
___
The call, when it came, was twenty thousand years late.
It arrived through a relay spire embedded in an asteroid orbiting a cold, dead sun. It was a miracle that the spire functioned at all; there had been no signals from that part of the galaxy for millennia, no maintenance for longer. It processed the call sluggishly, puzzling over its lack of encryption. The spire beamed it off beyond the dead sun, into the coldness of space.
In this way it was carried through the furthest reaches of the galaxy from beacon to beacon with dire speed, through the wreckage of planets and the remnants of fleets to beyond all known civilization, through the hollow shells of warships still drifting through the remnants of battlefields. These were the darkest reaches between stars.
There had been left a watcher in this long-abandoned sector, but the children in their nest-ship had had no need of her. Her nautiline body had fossilized in the orbit of a lonely star, crystallizing into a lifeless satellite. She had spun round and round in an uninhabited star system for all her life, a hollow testament to the foresight of her people.
The call reached her, and she awoke.
AVENGE US.