The Relentless Slaughter [Round 3: Tormentorland]

Originally posted on MSPA by engineclock.

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“PROPHESY. PROPHESY FOR ME, NOW.”

“How many times … I can’t. I can’t. Go away, leave me alone.”

The salamander monster shifted its weight ambivalently. It was very visibly dying now, collapsing under the weight of its own slackening body. Its translucent flesh had paled to a clearish jelly that revealed its darkening bones and thin, spidery veins pulsing weakly through its membranes and skeleton. The skull within its head grinned at the man behind narrowed eyes.

“YOU CANNOT DENY US. WE DO NOT SEE WHY YOU TRY.”

Its bulk barely fit between two narrows shelves of Rollo-themed merchandise, mostly novelty snow globes and informational pamphlets peppered with the occasional sex toy and assault weapon. It dwarfed nearly everything else in the shop and sat squarely before him, blocking his exit. Its fat tail thrashed a feeble rhythm against the aluminum shelves.

“I HAVE YOUR BEST INTERESTS AT HEARTS… HEART. YOU WERE ONCE ABEL, NOW THE PRODIGAL SON AND I AM THE MERCIFUL SHEPHERD. YOU ARE OF MY BLOOD AND YOU WILL BE AGAIN IN SPITE OF YOUR QUESTIONING CHOICES. ”

He tried to fit himself behind a water fountain. It didn’t work.

“CARRIER. THE STAGE WILL GO ON EVEN IF THE ACTORS REFUSE TO DANCE. THE PATH I HAVE CHOSEN FOR YOU IS NOT ONE OF HAPPINESS BUT NECESSITY. THE GOD-BITCH TORE YOU FROM ME AS THE HUNTERS’ DOGS DEVOUR THE FAWNS IN THE SPRING BUT I AM THE SPIRIT OF RESILIENCE AS WELL AS TERMINAL FRUITION. PESTILENCE PREVAILS IN ALL POSSIBLE FUTURES. I HAVE SEEN IT HAPPEN.”

“Please go away,” he said from the floor. His voice was slightly muffled from his head being between his knees.

“NO.”

The salamander monster heaved itself forward, collapsing down with two-ground shaking thuds on its stubby legs. A femur shattered and he and saw its paleness splintering through the monster’s flesh, spraying a fine black mist over a grinning Rollo backpack. “JUDAS. THOMAS. SHALL I DELIVER TO YOU PROOF, TO ASSUAGE YOUR DOUBT? SHALL THE COCK CROW THRICE? LOOK TO YOUR LEFT.”

His head felt as though it was being crushed in a burning vice that someone had thoughtfully dipped in fire ants. Blearily he opened an eye and saw a somewhat beakish young woman wearing a cashier’s apron peering at the salamander from between two racks of sunglasses with a disinterestedly fascinated expression. She had the air of a person who waits their entire life to call security on a situation just so they have something to talk about next Thanksgiving.

“SHE WILL DIE TOMORROW,” the beast said musingly. Its lungs struggled to fill themselves, two great dark sacs swelling beneath its ribs. “RUPTURED ORGANS. A COLLISION OF METAL BOXES. HER SISTERS WILL RESENT HER DEATH FOR THE COST OF HER FUNERAL AND HER PARENTS WILL SWIFTLY FORGET HER.”

“S’at true?” The woman asked him peevishly. She did have a beak, he noticed. It was a lovely one.

“I CANNOT LIE,” the salamander rumbled, swinging its great head. “THERE IS VIOLENCE NEARBY. THE MEMORIES OF THIS BODY ADVISE YOU TO LEAVE, FUTILE THOUGH THIS IS. YOUR DEATH WILL NOT BE A GENTLE ONE. INSULT YOUR PARENTS.”

The cashier checked her watch and shrugged. “’M on break anyway.” She left her nametag on the desk as she left, next to a pile of deteriorating vegetation growing steadily onto the counter.

The man lifted his head to watch her leave, vicious rainbows clouding the edge of his vision. His eyes had grown in all wrong, too big for his skull and filled with colors he didn’t remember having ever existed. Wavy auras surrounded everything in the store like heat hazes. The salamander stood in a thick black fog that lay in a stagnant pool around its feet. He squinted at it irritably.

“THE FUTURE IS MANY PATHS, CARRIER. EACH IS A POMEGRANATE WITH A HUNDRED THOUSAND SEED-WORLDS BURROWED IN ITS BITTER FLESH. SIX WILL HOLD YOU IN THE UNDERWORLD AND SIX WILL YOU BRING YOU SUMMER, AND THE OTHERS ARE FORGOTTEN BETWEEN THE TEETH OF MAIDENS. I SEE THEM ALL. I SHAPE THEM. THE DOOMED AVIAN WOULD HAVE LIVED TO SEE A THOUSAND HAD I NOT INTERVENED. DO YOU SEE, CARRIER? DO YOU SING MY GOSPEL YET?”

“Why kill her,” he said. One claw searched the wall behind him for support and found mostly ancient gum.

“EVERYTHING WILL DIE AND HAS DIED AND IS GOING TO DIE, ON AND ON FOREVER, ALWAYS. THE GAME OF PROPHESY IS WRITTEN BY THE FOOTPRINTS OF DEATH. MANY PEOPLE WILL JOIN HER TODAY, IN THIS MORTAL ORGY OF SENSES. THIS BODY. IT IS NOT FIT TO HOLD MY DIVINITY. I MUST HARVEST THIS PLACE FOR A NEW COLONY. YOU WILL LEAD IT, CARRIER. YOU HAVE BROUGHT MY INFECTION TO THE SUNLIGHT AND THE WATER WHERE IT WILL SPREAD UNTIL THE EARTH DROWNS IN MY ABSOLUTION.”

He shook his head. He had a nagging feeling this was going to be important later.

“MY DISEASE WILL PENETRATE ALL IT TOUCHES, WITH YOU ITS EPICENTER WALKING AMONG THE UNBAPTISED AND SPREADING THE HOLY SACRAMENT. YOU ARE AN ORACLE NOW, ONCE-WAS-AN-EYE. THEY WILL COME TO YOU. THEY WILL WORSHIP YOU.”

“Don’t want them.”

“GODS DO NOT RETRACE THEIR WORDS, AND YOU HAVE NO CHOICE,” the salamander huffed. Blackish blood dribbled over its lips and its eyes were closed, staring at him behind translucent lids. Its body swayed perilously into a shelf and sent a battalion of Rollo snowglobes crashing to the tiles. “WHEN YOU FIRST CRAWLED FROM THE JAWS OF MY WOMB, YOU… CHOSE A NAME. A BIRD. CHOOSE ANOTHER, NOW. QUICKLY. THIS BODY DIES.”

The lights were so bright. There was so much blue in the world than there ever had been before and all the reds were too red and not enough- not enough something. He missed his old eyes. These new ones were absolute shit. “You won’t tell me my name. My real name.”

The beast grinned an apologetic smile. Flesh parted from bone like wet tissue paper, sticking to its lips in pale strings. “THEN I CHOOSE FOR YOU. EOSOS, NEW LIGHT OF THE DAY... BETTER THAN A DAMN BIRD, ISN’T IT, CARRIER? AH, IT FEELS LIKE A NEW BREATH, TO END IN THIS SHAPE. EOSOS...”

The massive body slid to the floor and died with ponderous grace, slumped on the tiles with its enormous head sinking onto its broken leg. Flickers of harsh blue light sparked behind its eyelids fitfully, extinguishing with visible reluctance. A faint smell of seawater emanated from the dead beast’s lungs.

The man stood up shakily, wobbling on legs far too long for a healthy human body. His hair hit the drop ceiling. It felt wrong. He must have been- he lowered a claw to about his chest- six feet tall before. Maybe. Far too much above that now. His skin seemed right, if paler than he thought it should be, and his eyes were a lost cause, but he could get used to that. Having talons for hands would be a problem. Would his wife like them? Did he have a wife? A husband? He scratched his head and yelped as he cut a six-inch slice into his scalp. His blood was black and glittered on his claws like diamonds.

“The ship, the Oracle,” he mumbled to himself as he left the giftshop, clumsily plucking a pair of expensive-looking sunglasses with a little plastic Rollo glued to the sides from a rack and patting them onto his head. His claws left a star of black cuts on his face. “The captain, the… ship. The Oracle. Eosos. Gannet. D…Dorin?” He wasn’t sure where the last name had come from. The plant heap at the register made no move to stop him. It seemed to be wearing the soon-to-be-dead woman’s nametag. Charlotteen.

The glasses dimmed the sun just enough for him to only wince slightly as he stepped into the daylight. The air felt cooler than he had expected, as though it might rain later. He liked that idea. Water would be nice. He wanted to lie in the ocean and breathe it into his lungs. Hadn’t he been a sailor, once? Hadn’t he had a bad dream…?

Eosos walked through the crowds, and where he walked the people fell to the ground and frothed black seawater from their mouths and noses and vomited up nonsense hymns to a broken god. “Oracle,” they gasped, “Oracle. Oracle.”

It was easiest to just ignore them, he found.

”Sir? You might want to see this.”

At these words, Dodger broke out into a sweat. That particular sentence was never a suggestion, even when it was, and it was never about something nice. It was never 'you might want to see this video of a cute animal walking into a mirror' or 'you might want to see this graph of numbers going up instead of down,' but something more like 'you might want to see this list of all the casualties we've had and all the lawsuits that are currently being filed against us oh and also here's a picture of a satanic ritual involving your mother.' (That last one actually happened too, a nightmare for PR.)

He took a deep breath for self-defense and braced himself. “What?”

“We have taken into custody an individual who claims to know something about the bombing of the InDim trains. He is currently being held in the interrogation room, and I thought you would like to oversee – “

“Wait, hold on; we have an interrogation room?”

The secretary, bless its five hearts, managed to make no significant response whatsoever to that obviously stupid question. Dodger didn't know its name at all, but it was very efficient, even if it sometimes chittered unnervingly and stared at him with carefully suppressed emotion. “Please follow me.”

They did indeed have an interrogation room. It was tucked away like a child afraid of vampires somewhere below the Roll Like a Rollo Ride. Inside the room, Dodger could see what seemed to be a young, bipedal boy, rather unfussed about the whole situation. For some reason, he had square holes in his hands. His eyes flicked about the room lazily, trying to find some detail to hold his attention, but to him, the only thing to really stare at was himself and the chair he was in.

The secretary leaned into a microphone. “We have returned. We have decided to hear what you have to say.”

The boy brightened up and uncrossed his arms, though he still didn't know where to look. “Great, okay. So how're we doing this? You ask me questions and I answer, or I just blab?” his voice crackled, clawing its way out of a nearby speaker.

“Tell us the identity of the bomber.”

“First option, alright. So, uh, I don't think I can actually pronounce his name or anything, so can I just say 'Vuul' or something? His full name's like...Vum....ramlamvul...you get the idea. He's, um, a Battlecleric? Of the 'Alvum Imperium' or something like that. Really scary. Really well-armed.”

Leaning towards his secretary, Dodger whispered, “He really doesn't sound very sure.”

“There is no need to whisper, sir, he cannot hear us as long as the microphone is off.”

“Oh.”

“I can confirm that the race of 'Alvum' exists and is listed in the Interuniversal Database as a classified sentient and sapient species. They are rigorously caste-focused and constantly seek to expand their territory. If an Alvum Battlecleric truly is here, it does not bode well for the future of this establishment. One Battlecleric is akin to an army, and we do not currently have the proper equipment to deal with one, nor are we capable of asking for it as all travel and communication systems are down.”

“Oh,” said Dodger, and he nodded slowly because he thought he was expected to do so. “That's bad. So what does some one-man army want with an amusement park?”

The secretary blinked behind its holographic visor and leaned into the microphone once more. “What does some one-man army –- “

“Woah woah, that was just a hypothetical! I didn't mean – “

“ – want with an amusement park?”

The boy in the room stopped rocking in his chair immediately. “Oh. Um.” Apparently, the question hadn't occurred to him. “I mean...he's kinda insane...? I guess...he's a real religious nut...or something. Like...always doing something in the name of whatever god he's following?”

“Interesting,” the secretary chittered, doing that thing with its tongue analog that instilled a deep, ancestral fear broiling in Dodger's gut.

“It is?”

“I would have expected the answer to be along the lines of conquest. However, this boy seems to be uncertain about the basic nature of the Alvum species. I apologize, sir, I believe this informant is not very informative after all,” the secretary said, punctuating its remarks with a tap on the microphone button.

“He isn't?”

“You are a poor liar, boy. If we were in danger from an Alvum attack, it would be made obvious.”

“It would?” Dodger repeated, and was very gratified to hear the boy say the same, in the same bewildered tone.

“The Alvum are not a species known for subtlety and subterfuge in tactics. By claiming a danger that does not exist, you seek to sow unwarranted panic during a time that does not need it. This puts your intentions under a more sinister light, and so we will perhaps require a more probing interrogation until I am convinced you have told us the truth.”

The boy was standing up now, legs tensed with nowhere to run. Dodger poked at the secretary's shoulder. “Uh. Are you really suggesting that we're gonna torture a kid? Or did I hear you wrong? Please tell me I heard you wrong.”

The secretary stood stiffly, as usual, as its holographic visor blinked on and obscured its eyes. “I will do whatever is necessary for the safety of this establishment, sir.”

“Okay, wow,” said Dodger, shuffling a few steps away, “I really hope PR doesn't get wind of this.”

“He's really here, though!” came the kid's voice, snapping both the secretary and Dodger's attention back to the speaker. The desperation was made somewhat unintelligible through the crackly quality. “Okay, I admit, I don't really know much about the guy, I think I saw him, like, one time? But he's actually here and the longer he's here, the, uh, more bad things that'll happen!”

The secretary clicked its tongue analog on the roof of its, well, Dodger just called it a mouth. “He's being more truthful.”

“So we aren't torturing the kid, right?”

The boy finally walked right up to the one-way mirror, eyes pointed squarely in the middle, right where nobody in particular was standing. “You know about what this guy's like better than me, right? So even if he isn't following like his usual alien overlord or whatever, he's still gonna find someone else to follow, and he's gonna follow that person to the letter. You can see how dangerous that is, right?”

The secretary stared straight ahead, finger hovering over the microphone button. “Sir?”

“What? Oh!” Right. He was supposed to be the top dog, wasn't he? This seemed like one of those top dog decisions that top dogs make in response to a top dog problem. To the soundtrack of an increasingly desperate sales pitch in response to their perceived silence, Dodger said, “Well, it does sound dangerous.”

The secretary leaned into the microphone. “Your concerns have been judged to be adequate enough to require an eviction of this being you call Vuul from the premises.” The lopsided smile the boy gave back was half-relief and half-'eh, good enough.' “But we do not have the resources to do so, and your claims are still questionable.” The relief drained away like water off a camel's back, or however the saying went.

“So, what does that mean?” he asked, backing up towards the chair again.

“It means we are enlisting you to deal with Vuul and remove him from the area with minimal damage to the surrounding people and property, if he really is the threat you say he is.”

Samael blinked. It was entirely possible that things could not have gone any worse than it just did. Proooobably coulda thought this through a little more.