Re: The Relentless Slaughter [Round 2: S'kkoi]
10-14-2011, 07:02 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Adenreagen.
Cool and dark. He had seen the darkness before when he was being held under the water, breathing out air and replacing it with liquid that turned the light around him to a black pitch that he couldn’t tear off his eyes even though… no, there was nothing on his eyes, he was above the water not under it and the one in his hands had stopped struggling long ago, he was blind but gave one last feeble kick as the darkness came for him. Or did it? Was he standing in the light? Was that even truly him? He couldn’t remember, couldn’t think didn’t want to think, not thinking would be the easiest thing to do, the most painful, most gentle, most most most most!
Dark and cool. Heavy. Pressing down upon him even though he couldn’t see. And yet there were things around him that he knew to be present, that had been there long before his colony was settled so many millennia ago. His eyes opened, and he saw the light amid the darkness of the leagues of water he sensed above him: water upon water upon endless stretches of water. He might live his entire life trying to reach the surface and still die down in the dark.
“Are you giving up your faith, Lieutenant Zimmer?”
The Oracle to his Creator had spoken, and he had wanted to die rather than answer, he had thrown himself into the water to be held under, slamming the man’s head against the shore until it caved in, and continuing until there was nothing but mash in his hands and blood upon the waves. No… he had sat and cried before her majesty, being moved away from her before he could answer. One shining moment to speak directly to his God, and it was torn away from him because he was to afraid to speak, too busy remembering the buried memories of his that belonged to someone else.
No. I am not. I will never.
He looked again. There in the darkness lay the ruins of an ancient city, a shadow outside the cave he appeared to be in, the entrance surrounded by curiously jutting spires that waved in the current. Current. Widening his eyes in panic, he again realized that he was, in fact, underwater. So deep that light might never reach down to where he was, so deep that the air his lungs were burning for what was impossibly out of reach. Try as he might, his lungs cried for that deadly action of breathing and he inhaled. So desperate for air he breathed and felt water rush in through all five of his…five? The rush of water cleared his head, but brought its own mystery. Five. He had gills! He would survive under the water, for however long he was forced to be here. His panic over impending doom subsided, he again felt the need to find his link to God, to ask a link to the divine his burning questions, and began trying to swim out of the cave.
Instead he fell forward, the ground rushing up to meet him and at the same time staying level. Instead of falling, he rolled, though the spires in the cave seemed to move with him and keep him trapped. He remembered an immense underground cavern, a place where one of the few Mouths dwelled, spouting the words and commands of the Oracle. A cavern filled with Teeth to protect it, and Eyes to watch over it. A dank place filled with the skeletons of the dead and the flesh of the living, a place he arrived in only to be sent away to watch, to learn, to observe. Zimmer shook his head and looked around again. Was he truly in a cave? He had gills, maybe the spires were part of him as well, considering the way they moved even though they appeared to be rock. He tried to reach out, but one arm was pinned under him, and the other he couldn’t feel at all though some of the spires seemed to move the way he had wanted his arm to reach. He knew now that he truly wasn’t human any longer, but some mix of human and creature.
Spines? What has spines? Spines and gills and cannot swim, but can walk? Oh. OH! OH GOD HELP ME!
Zimmer realized with a shock that he was never in a cave to begin with. He was a spiny creature with one of his arms and face, but the rest of his limbs were replaced with spines except one that glinted like metal off a glowing fish in the gloom. He was a delicacy among certain of his peoples, what the traditionalists called an urchin.
I’m an urchin. AN URCHIN! He tried to cry out into the sea, but only a colored ring of chemicals drifted out to show his anguish. I can’t even talk! But I can protect myself with the spines. I have to keep my wits, or else I’ll never survive like this. Oracle help me, Oracle please, please…Oracle. I must find it. Must ask her why my Lord would do this.
Resolute, he began rolling to the sunken city, reveling in the speed a tumble down the slop accomplished, bouncing off rocks and impaling small fish as though they were not even there and slowly drawing them in to the primitive mouth that awaited their flesh. Zimmer watched with fascination as some of them struggled in their death throes, wondering how fish became so small as to be impaled by a creature like the sea urchin he had become. With a start he realized that they were large fish, some reaching three feet long, recognizing them from the waters of his world, which had brought them from a planet so long lost. He must be abominably large for creatures of their size to be impaled on small clusters of spires. The puzzle of his size occupied him so much he didn't notice he had reached the city until he bumped into one of its walls. Looking at the architecture up close and comparing it to the fish he had thought small, he realized the city was massive, built on a scale for beings of gigantic proportions. Using the wall as a reference, he quickly sized himself up.
I’m almost three feet across! And that’s just my core, the spines put me at almost a dozen feet. And I can see all around me, in every direction! I’m an eye with a spear wall to protect me. Heh… hehehehehh…. I’m an Eye. Oh Gannet, would that you could see me. I’m more an Eye than you for our Oracle.
He remembered being tasked as an Eye for the Oracle, “Go and see, see what lies among the waves and the shores, see what lurks in the plains, for I am the Oracle, and he has awoken. He is the heart that beats in the darkness, he is the blood that will never cease.”
Wait…That wasn’t his memory, it belonged to another, and the end wasn’t even part of that memory, but came from beyond. Shaking himself out of his stupor, he listened to the chanting that came from within the city itself.
“…or the Bringer of Despair. The Deathless Prince, the Bringer of Night, these are the words that shall set him free…”
Looking for the source of the chant, he saw a creature with giant tentacles swim down to a temple, and it appeared to be waiting for whatever was inside to come out to it. Though the creature was unfamiliar, Zimmer felt that part of it was like him, sensed the Oracle among the beast, knew that he had to reach it.
“I am the sin and the temptation and the desire, I am the pain and the loss and the death of hope. The disciples of the light rose up against me, and bound me to this place for all eternity. I have been imprisoned”
As he watched, a giant shadow loomed from the temple, dwarfing even the leviathan. It spoke in a voice similar to the chanting, but much deeper, much more sinister, much more maddening.
“This is my darkness, child. This is my domain. You little things that live here in the dark and still die in the end are only my subjects, to do with what I will. You want me to attend you? You think yourself old, but I witnessed the birth of your race, and its life, and its death of all but you. I was before Time and Light, before the Cataclysm that sank the city of my kin and I beneath the waves. You think yourself eternal, but I have seen your cycle to its end, a thousand thousand times I have seen. What is it you think that you have to offer me that would please me?”
It was so terrible, that voice that spoke to the leviathan so great. And yet it stood before the frightening majesty of that being, unshaken by the unspoken threat it contained. But for the urchin that observed it, it was too much. The tendrils of its words seeped into his mind: the power of a being of dreams and nightmares fighting for dominance against the already embattled dogma of God and the creeping madness of the Oracle. Zimmer began to laugh, and scream, and rage against the terrors going on in his mind. Memories that weren’t his and yet belonged to him, visions of pasts and futures so terrible they made him want to gouge his eyes to stop them. If only he could reach with his spines, he could end the torment of what he was seeing in the water and what he saw in his mind. But he couldn’t, for they were made to protect him from predators, not made to bend and reach.
Instead he began to spin against the wall, trying to snap off his spines. Succeeding in a breaking a few, the local agony a relief from the torment in his mind, if only that voice would STOP. He could see the city sinking beneath the waves, watching it from the eyes of a thousand beings who lived among the buildings in this forsaken place. Could see it in the ancient memories of an Eye on the shore so high above, watching a place forbidden to them vanish as it hunted for fish to eat and bring to the ever hungry Teeth that protected the young Oracle. Hear the preaching of blasphemy of believing in the existence of beings great enough to rival the one true God, that only He was there to shield the just and the weak. That beings such as the one in front of him shouldn’t exist. There was a war going on in his mind, and Zimmer was powerless to choose a side, or even make them silent. He slumped down against the wall next to his broken spines, waiting for the shadow to leave, and maybe leave his mind. Forced to listen within, and what it said to the leviathan that had asked an audience.
He began to cry.
Cool and dark. He had seen the darkness before when he was being held under the water, breathing out air and replacing it with liquid that turned the light around him to a black pitch that he couldn’t tear off his eyes even though… no, there was nothing on his eyes, he was above the water not under it and the one in his hands had stopped struggling long ago, he was blind but gave one last feeble kick as the darkness came for him. Or did it? Was he standing in the light? Was that even truly him? He couldn’t remember, couldn’t think didn’t want to think, not thinking would be the easiest thing to do, the most painful, most gentle, most most most most!
Dark and cool. Heavy. Pressing down upon him even though he couldn’t see. And yet there were things around him that he knew to be present, that had been there long before his colony was settled so many millennia ago. His eyes opened, and he saw the light amid the darkness of the leagues of water he sensed above him: water upon water upon endless stretches of water. He might live his entire life trying to reach the surface and still die down in the dark.
“Are you giving up your faith, Lieutenant Zimmer?”
The Oracle to his Creator had spoken, and he had wanted to die rather than answer, he had thrown himself into the water to be held under, slamming the man’s head against the shore until it caved in, and continuing until there was nothing but mash in his hands and blood upon the waves. No… he had sat and cried before her majesty, being moved away from her before he could answer. One shining moment to speak directly to his God, and it was torn away from him because he was to afraid to speak, too busy remembering the buried memories of his that belonged to someone else.
No. I am not. I will never.
He looked again. There in the darkness lay the ruins of an ancient city, a shadow outside the cave he appeared to be in, the entrance surrounded by curiously jutting spires that waved in the current. Current. Widening his eyes in panic, he again realized that he was, in fact, underwater. So deep that light might never reach down to where he was, so deep that the air his lungs were burning for what was impossibly out of reach. Try as he might, his lungs cried for that deadly action of breathing and he inhaled. So desperate for air he breathed and felt water rush in through all five of his…five? The rush of water cleared his head, but brought its own mystery. Five. He had gills! He would survive under the water, for however long he was forced to be here. His panic over impending doom subsided, he again felt the need to find his link to God, to ask a link to the divine his burning questions, and began trying to swim out of the cave.
Instead he fell forward, the ground rushing up to meet him and at the same time staying level. Instead of falling, he rolled, though the spires in the cave seemed to move with him and keep him trapped. He remembered an immense underground cavern, a place where one of the few Mouths dwelled, spouting the words and commands of the Oracle. A cavern filled with Teeth to protect it, and Eyes to watch over it. A dank place filled with the skeletons of the dead and the flesh of the living, a place he arrived in only to be sent away to watch, to learn, to observe. Zimmer shook his head and looked around again. Was he truly in a cave? He had gills, maybe the spires were part of him as well, considering the way they moved even though they appeared to be rock. He tried to reach out, but one arm was pinned under him, and the other he couldn’t feel at all though some of the spires seemed to move the way he had wanted his arm to reach. He knew now that he truly wasn’t human any longer, but some mix of human and creature.
Spines? What has spines? Spines and gills and cannot swim, but can walk? Oh. OH! OH GOD HELP ME!
Zimmer realized with a shock that he was never in a cave to begin with. He was a spiny creature with one of his arms and face, but the rest of his limbs were replaced with spines except one that glinted like metal off a glowing fish in the gloom. He was a delicacy among certain of his peoples, what the traditionalists called an urchin.
I’m an urchin. AN URCHIN! He tried to cry out into the sea, but only a colored ring of chemicals drifted out to show his anguish. I can’t even talk! But I can protect myself with the spines. I have to keep my wits, or else I’ll never survive like this. Oracle help me, Oracle please, please…Oracle. I must find it. Must ask her why my Lord would do this.
Resolute, he began rolling to the sunken city, reveling in the speed a tumble down the slop accomplished, bouncing off rocks and impaling small fish as though they were not even there and slowly drawing them in to the primitive mouth that awaited their flesh. Zimmer watched with fascination as some of them struggled in their death throes, wondering how fish became so small as to be impaled by a creature like the sea urchin he had become. With a start he realized that they were large fish, some reaching three feet long, recognizing them from the waters of his world, which had brought them from a planet so long lost. He must be abominably large for creatures of their size to be impaled on small clusters of spires. The puzzle of his size occupied him so much he didn't notice he had reached the city until he bumped into one of its walls. Looking at the architecture up close and comparing it to the fish he had thought small, he realized the city was massive, built on a scale for beings of gigantic proportions. Using the wall as a reference, he quickly sized himself up.
I’m almost three feet across! And that’s just my core, the spines put me at almost a dozen feet. And I can see all around me, in every direction! I’m an eye with a spear wall to protect me. Heh… hehehehehh…. I’m an Eye. Oh Gannet, would that you could see me. I’m more an Eye than you for our Oracle.
He remembered being tasked as an Eye for the Oracle, “Go and see, see what lies among the waves and the shores, see what lurks in the plains, for I am the Oracle, and he has awoken. He is the heart that beats in the darkness, he is the blood that will never cease.”
Wait…That wasn’t his memory, it belonged to another, and the end wasn’t even part of that memory, but came from beyond. Shaking himself out of his stupor, he listened to the chanting that came from within the city itself.
“…or the Bringer of Despair. The Deathless Prince, the Bringer of Night, these are the words that shall set him free…”
Looking for the source of the chant, he saw a creature with giant tentacles swim down to a temple, and it appeared to be waiting for whatever was inside to come out to it. Though the creature was unfamiliar, Zimmer felt that part of it was like him, sensed the Oracle among the beast, knew that he had to reach it.
“I am the sin and the temptation and the desire, I am the pain and the loss and the death of hope. The disciples of the light rose up against me, and bound me to this place for all eternity. I have been imprisoned”
As he watched, a giant shadow loomed from the temple, dwarfing even the leviathan. It spoke in a voice similar to the chanting, but much deeper, much more sinister, much more maddening.
“This is my darkness, child. This is my domain. You little things that live here in the dark and still die in the end are only my subjects, to do with what I will. You want me to attend you? You think yourself old, but I witnessed the birth of your race, and its life, and its death of all but you. I was before Time and Light, before the Cataclysm that sank the city of my kin and I beneath the waves. You think yourself eternal, but I have seen your cycle to its end, a thousand thousand times I have seen. What is it you think that you have to offer me that would please me?”
It was so terrible, that voice that spoke to the leviathan so great. And yet it stood before the frightening majesty of that being, unshaken by the unspoken threat it contained. But for the urchin that observed it, it was too much. The tendrils of its words seeped into his mind: the power of a being of dreams and nightmares fighting for dominance against the already embattled dogma of God and the creeping madness of the Oracle. Zimmer began to laugh, and scream, and rage against the terrors going on in his mind. Memories that weren’t his and yet belonged to him, visions of pasts and futures so terrible they made him want to gouge his eyes to stop them. If only he could reach with his spines, he could end the torment of what he was seeing in the water and what he saw in his mind. But he couldn’t, for they were made to protect him from predators, not made to bend and reach.
Instead he began to spin against the wall, trying to snap off his spines. Succeeding in a breaking a few, the local agony a relief from the torment in his mind, if only that voice would STOP. He could see the city sinking beneath the waves, watching it from the eyes of a thousand beings who lived among the buildings in this forsaken place. Could see it in the ancient memories of an Eye on the shore so high above, watching a place forbidden to them vanish as it hunted for fish to eat and bring to the ever hungry Teeth that protected the young Oracle. Hear the preaching of blasphemy of believing in the existence of beings great enough to rival the one true God, that only He was there to shield the just and the weak. That beings such as the one in front of him shouldn’t exist. There was a war going on in his mind, and Zimmer was powerless to choose a side, or even make them silent. He slumped down against the wall next to his broken spines, waiting for the shadow to leave, and maybe leave his mind. Forced to listen within, and what it said to the leviathan that had asked an audience.
He began to cry.