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July 2022
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Lomek and Yiel The crusty soil they marched upon was foul. Their voracious mouths were coyotes upon the morsels that came along the way. Their flesh was of a dark discoloration, similar to what they had regurgitated on the way down. A cold dram was shared between them, upon a black bottle that refused to spill, by a trunk that twisted on a whim. The restless sea they had traversed was as shallow as it. In the distance, where their abandoned cask lay you could still hear the gallows. As for them, they shared two heads. One was that of a bloated one eyed simian conjoined to that of a mammoth that bore a single pea plant organ, shaped like a scorpion’s stinger that swept across the ocean floor. Their twisted body was a block of meat, similar to an elephant’s foot. Grayish still was the smog that drew out of their every step. And forward where they trotted, a stole of crows that worshipped the very air they darkened, quickly followed in their path, whereas they stilled their descent so that the flock may have something to be fed on. Given their very contorted nature, the two heads did not concern themselves with who gave the orders. They let nature follow its course. For they carried the remnants of old diseased cows and bulls on either side of their body, attracting cotton beaked carrions that cleaned the trail they left behind. Because of their mere presence there, the air became infested with pesticide bearing spores that swooned about. Time itself had been so distorted that the passing of days could not be made at all. Clocks were broken and midnight passed along the way. The embodiment of the shallow sea came upon the nearest side of the shore it could find. It had been another leper that left its pile. Men gathered around it. Men, who were bowing low with crude gestures, with painted faces, which were in possession of primitive tools that helped them understand the thing. Flutes were being sung as toxic gas was released from its nasty warts. Unfortunately for the men, none managed to understand it, since they were more preoccupied with the suffocation that entailed. In turn, some of them, in the distance spoke as such: ‘We’re still mourning for our losses since the last one’s visitation. As for our brethren’s deaths, there’s little we can do about it now. For centuries we’ve buried our young and old until the day he had been washed up on the shore, asking for our children in return. And we cowardly submitted to its demands.’ ‘There goes their fading teeth, their tawny brawns and little feet. For what’s demanding we shall submit. Otherwise we’ll end up kilt.’ But the leper did not hear their sermon. Nor did he answer their call. Instead it waited there in silence as a king inside his court. To be solicited by the same servants who served him. Albeit a different kind of king, one that would try breaking the monotony of his caste; trying to release the others from the feudal system they had been born into. This was a decaying monarch who was incapable of standing on its feet and instead crawled. Whose face was fused with a fleshy harmonica, capable of producing only crude speech. Its sharp appendages were interconnected to a pair of smaller arms it kept hidden inside its chest. Quench and starvation had long begun for it and the other lepers for the greater part of a year, since there was a shortage of fish in the sea. The creature was dragged towards the village. Their masks allowed them to carry it so without being affected by the toxins it released. These unthinking bolder men who had arrived upon the scene somehow thought it fit to bring it home. Their judgment was clouded. And they felt little to no remorse endangering the lives of their children and those of other men that stumbled upon it. Yet they were not alone. For what resided in the village alongside them was not human either. Instead, it was a pesky chariot-sized bloated tick. A lumpy giant they could see-through filled with boils and black-turned tawny bubbles rising from its insides. With an orange beady heart-organ that occasionally pumped in and out. That was covered in mold at the top that diverged into many gradients of reddish grays. That gave the impression of it being in possession of a brain, which was now partially exposed. A murky mush had eaten most of its retained whale-fat it had been fed with. Merely being in its presence suffocated the people who got too close to it. The house it resided in was partially guarded with the help of a poisonous gas it released out of its body. From beneath it, a few animalistic limbs could be seen as prodding around, in search of a release that would not come. It crawled upon them, despite being all lumpy and swollen. And contempt only came with the food villagers brought to it as tribute for its blessing and protection. The four of them met there, once the gas dissipated in the air. They had been driven there as if by sheer instinct. The leper’s hunch made it difficult for him to rise, but he attended the meeting nonetheless. Yiel and Lomek had crawled out of nowhere unseen by the villagers who had retreated to the cliffs. A poisonous cloud had formed above them. Its emergence had been signaled by the falling of men who dropped on the ground like flies. They had been punished for being in the presence of a spoil of meat that was well-beyond their tastes. Some of the masked men spoke as thus: “We’ll be running out of sacrifices if this runs any longer. Out of men capable of letting go of their sons; out of men that fled away at the sight of their fallen crops.” “What else could we do about it if not wait? Wait until they leave, in hope that many of them won’t return for many summers such as this.” But the answer to their whispers reveled in its belligerence rather than acceptance. “Let them suffer in their own skin for a while. They deserve it. Plus, we have as little regard for those beneath us as we could possible hope to harbor. Have we not?” Asked one head to another, which in turn began deliberating about the other problem at hand: “How about we focus on the lump instead?” Yiel moves its part of the body closer to the few grains that had been stored inside the house. Some of which looked puffier than the others, because of the drought. Not that it made any difference for them. “You shall share with us what little is there to have, no?” At the expense of which, the tick could no longer hide its excitement, putting out a show for the three of them to react to. While wildly trailing a path to the right side of the room, which converged in a squiggly line, it squirmed like a rattle snake before leaping to the other side of the room in a wild uncontrollable arc. But it stopped within the act right before the ground could be touched. Where it levitated for a moment, or hovered, before driving itself into a strange incline. After which, it quickly dashed around the room, managing to hit a tiny spot of air where it went around as to discover a curvature that had not been noticed prior. Then it leaped back twenty or so feet, as to reveal just how spacious the room had been. Flying to its right side again where it stopped within two meters or so, where it droned back down. It went up upon a slope before eventually stopping in order to regurgitate one of the town’s people it had yet to digest. Quite a few of its limbs had been thrown around the room. Yet they seemed to belong not to a single man but of many. ‘Have you come to notice it yet?’ ‘Draw back your trunk, Yiel! If your desire is to see much clearer, you should start puffing out some smoke again.’ As bothersome as it had seemed, they relented to bother the slime instead of chasing another one of the blind men who had been spared by the cloud. Whereas the leper showed excitement to the sudden display of mild-aviation it had been presented with. They continued. ‘Vile fiend, where is the location of your promised lair?’ ‘The honor you shall bestow upon us shall deeply be appreciated. For as long as you take us to your kin and their exquisite deliverance we shall hold no respite nor grudge against you. And after all, I know you shall do as asked. Since you are a most austere kind of gelatin as I have ever seen. To which I may afford to add, the top of the aristocracy of slime.’ ‘Do not attempt to frighten it, brother. As you may find yourself in peril of degrading the spoil of rotten grains before we even get a chance to have at them. Unless we allow him to partake in the process of making up his mind in that regard, he might find himself fleeing back to its lair alone and with us uninvited.’ Their behavior before the hour of compliance came had been utterly wretched. They had been wildly squirming and lashing out in boredom, treading back and forth like chicken plucking worms, or a pendulum that would not stop. The stinger served as a kind of beak. Their conjuration was picked apart at their hands and feet. But finally the decision was made. When the gelatin encased one did as he was asked for. Suppliant to its new masters, the blob took a simple leap before plunging itself straight into the floor. Leaving behind a hole they all descended into. Silent was the leper during the fall. An unfathomable depth seemed to await them below. Despite how disgusting the walls were, they could not take their eyes off it. Arms now slowly ascended by their side. Some of which had been wreathing in place, failing to properly grasp them. Nevertheless, they were lowered down with precise care. Cast into the lower side of the well, they satiated neither hunger nor thirst for the many days that passed them by. Wailing now were the oozing creatures that awaited them below. For this was no ordinary hive but an actual den they had all resided in. Unclean, filthy, derailed and filled with stinky musk. They had now seen the large coiled rope that had been wrapped in gelatin, leading all the way back to the tick’s house. In opposition, where they had arrived, they were met by four great tunnels. Two of them were caved in. One had been occupied by members of its tick-kind, whereas the other was partially obscured by a dimly lit shade. The general area they had been led to bore a distinct miasma as that of a finely aged old wine and of a strongly scented rose garden. Their inconclusive knowledge of the place led them to believe that it would be better if the blob led the way. ‘We shall follow within its footsteps and not a single step off the road.’ ‘If that is the case, which one are we to follow? Since I feel rather displeased with having to concern myself with the effort of distinguishing them from one another. At the very least we should make a coherent pick.’ ‘I disagree, Lomek. Despite their manifestations showing up in various shapes and forms, I confer that they are all distinct enough for a conclusive differentiation to be made. And with that in mind, we might easily discern who our host might be even if we were to be lost and then reunited.’ Within a moment’s resignation, Yiel appeared to agree. And his approval was positively met by that of the leper. Whose apparent mild blindness did not interfere with the recognition of a few types of ticks that lay amongst them. The tunnels themselves bore the appearance of elongated cylindrical bulbs. They were similar to hoses which had been intertwined as if melted together that way. Although it could faintly be seen, their interior was coated with a protective layer of resin, undoubtedly done so by a pair of maladaptive working ticks. Since the surface was rough and imperfect. A plant-like sphere covered in organic bulbs, bearing a pasty yellowish eye rested on top of the tube they were lead into. But that could not be seen. What they were met by, instead, was a room, in the distance, that had been depressed in the ground. Hardly anything could be made out of it. Other than the fact that it was a cyst-filled nest, filled with many moving figures. Light came from a system of uneven corded pipes. Its beams protruded out of their cracks. This was how they made sense of the room in the first place. Their only flaw being that they were misaligned. Twisted and contorted in every direction, but at the very least they reached both ends. Gelatin was leaking through some of them, whereas others were folded like fortune cookies. A mound the size of a water silo leaned against a wall. A few of them of different sizes lay here and there. They held hot boiling liquids inside of them. In addition to the light coming from above, they were in possession of dark-seeded, deeply rooted, growth filled, eruptive firefly-like structures who acted like secondary sources of illumination. Now they approached the colony and its inhabitants, amorphous beings that were split into various roles, as if they were ants. Split into workers, leapers, stone-mincers and various others. Contrary to the initial belief, their lot did appear to have a particular easiness when it came to their recognition. The main difference coming from the differently colored gradients their organs appeared to produce as well as their appearance. The more one was chipped or calloused, the clearer it became who the stone-mincer was. But they were an improper colony, as there was no recognizable matron or patriarch. This was their work room. The place where all of their resources were stored in rested a sprawl of cords that lead into a singular light-bulb second ground depression that had been corkscrewed in. Their arrangements had been queer, and for the time being they appeared to bear no purpose whatsoever. As if their arrival there disrupted their concentration. It appeared that the tick they had been accompanied by had served its purpose and was now replaced by a larger, more mammalian one, a vanguard of oozing lumps that was clearly higher in rank than their host. Albeit it was by no means disagreeable, it did stir some feelings of reservation in both Lomek and Yiel, whereas the leper had remained as prudent of an observant as he could be. An upward view revealed a plain domed ceiling in possession of some unknown contraptions. The vanguard, upon having been temporarily relieved of duty, allowed for the pseudo-heads to be lowered down from above. They opened their mouths, allowing their incisors to droop for a few seconds. Slowly but assuredly, a few appendages revealed themselves as having taken the place of their tongues, which were ill-equipped with narwhal-horns as well as other tools that had been put out at their disposal. The workers now carried on their activities around them, with hard-felt indignation. In contrast to them, the creatures did not display any sign of worry at the expansion of the limbs which continued their unparalleled growth. Upon reaching the softness of the artificial floor, they revealed a solid goliath-like body they were supposed to perform surgery upon. There was a certain diligence to the place which gave the impression of it being created by a man of some fine craft. But, judging by the lack of polish, the drones must’ve had a colloquial hand in it as well. Nonetheless, the appendages seemed to be of an alien device, rather than being made by humans, as their immaculate, dexterous movements betrayed that aspect of theirs. And the general impression this place gave was that of a burial ground belonging to some ancient Pharaoh, whose revival was meant to come. Other appendages, different from the rest had just been lowered. Unlike the others, these were half-segmented, were in possession of sharper ends like scalpels and had been covered in spine-pieces they had been grated with. Albeit it was hard to fully make out what was going on in that chaos, being improperly lighted, a tiny amount of bones had just dropped alongside them. That were picked up by the ticks, undoubtedly liquefied and licked clean by them. Their coating was that of some hardened alloy, though that served as a non-deterrent when put against their appetite. Upon returning their gaze back up, they could finally see the device that had been actioning all of the heads and limbs, being lowered down a few meters closer to the source of light. Some organic claws were attached to the platform that hosted them, which was partially obscured by a dark cloud of swollen smoke that came from beneath Lomek and Yiel’s one foot. Their every function was still unknown to them since some of them did not move at all, being kept hovering above the grave. Even the leper’s patience ran out, as nothing else happened which would stir up their interest. So they moved with calm ferocity, while avoiding any other interference that might be had. The platform which had been lowered in front of them had just stabilized. Their advance was stilled again by the discovery of a few other rooms they’ve yet to explore. One of them was composed of a wild stretch, tiled completely by pieces of bone marrow placed there indiscriminately. Neither of them considered getting nearer the ramp. But they slowly did walk towards the stretch. Their departure was waited for. Despite no clear arrangement being struck by the two parties, they were both perceived as being together and were mutually regarded as being intruding organisms that did not deserve to be there in the first place. The ticks were incapable of effectively communicating with one another, hence the confusion. A lot of harm could be sustained by either side if they decided to push it too far. It should be mentioned that outside this intricate set of tunnels, things did not look particularly well. They were somber, even. Since the villagers who had fled their homes found them uninhabitable. It went as far as setting up a distance of at least fifteen miles or so they could not walk in. In turn they surveyed what was going on there from the safety of the cliffs. From there, they had not only gained a better view of what was going on but of the broken house the beasts had entered. ‘We should’ve never let those bastards enter our fine village. Look at what they’ve done. They’ve turned the work of countless generations into complete ruin. It reeks of the same foul filth as the one they brought with them from the abyss. Now the very soil underneath our feet is spoiled. Our crops and meat lay ruined by gas. Our corn destroyed, the blood of our nephews spilled, their bodies abandoned on this foul ground. And what have we done so far to aid our people who are still trapped inside? We’ve done nothing for them. We haven’t raised a finger so far. We’ve only watched them from the distance as their fates unfolded.’ At which another man reprimanded: ‘Lay low and drop your head before you arise hunger in our assailants. This line of events was expected to happen in some way or another. And you know it in your soul to be true. We were all aware of what would happen if we allowed them entry into our land. But we did it anyway, since there was no opposition to step in and stop them. We also should not allow ourselves to become forgetful as to what happened the last time we allowed them entry and safe passage, at a time when we were still armed with torches and pitchforks of iron. They have crushed us with ease. Not to mention our losses, that had been infuriatingly high. Forced into hiding were our ancestors as well, just in the same way we are now. We are forced to live on coal and filthy cobs while cowering in fear, rather than put on a fight. As far as our knowledge of them is concerned, we may not have enough force to do harm upon them either. For reasons we are not even aware of up to this day. Although this time might be different. There’s still hope that they might never escape the hole inside that ruinous house they had been welcomed in.’ ‘Then, should we not at least attempt to cover up the hole with a boulder? There’s plenty around us to spare. It could even raise the morale of our people, knowing that we’ve rid ourselves of these pests which should trouble us no longer.’ ‘Do not dare underestimate them, as they might appear to be brutes in appearance, the three of them are responsible for bringing in the plague with them. And might be prepared to deal with whatever we might throw against them. But that is not all we might take into consideration. As I have seen lepers die by their poison, afflicted by the same fumes our people have died to. As such, it would come as no surprise if they ended up dying underneath the bowels of the earth.’ ‘But how can you be so certain about it?’ He said before their conversation being cut short. Beneath the earth: The great divine being known as Beguile showed itself out of nowhere before them. He was drenched in faces. All of whom were joined to his great bulk and form. He was enormous. With a long down-pointing arm that was partially melted as if it had been burnt to crisp. One of his legs bore a great bulk, the size of an inflated barrel, whereas the other one was elongated beneath the knee. Each toe was bore the sharpness of a talon. Whereas the head was larger, almost three times the size of its body, albeit it folded to allow retraction into its chest. A tiny rounded face was stretched as if drawn on a balloon, pulled back with the rest of it. From its back you could see a twisted horn that seemingly erupted out of him. It was accompanied by a few ‘coils’ that held the head of a human attached to the rest of its body. This wretch was as hairy as a Sasquatch, but hairless from the neck below. There, a chattering pair of teeth could be seen as having been implanted into its belly. His hands lacked opposable fingers since they were all conjoined. But that was mildly obscured by the robe we wore. He also bore a body bag filled with pseudo knees, wild arms and other body parts he fancied himself wearing. He drooled as he walked. The faces he had carried didn’t belong to the body bag, but had been finely removed from the faces of strangers it had encountered on its way. Instead, they happened to crawl around its outline, oftentimes heading back into hiding. As for the human head, it had an opening in its forehead. Out of which a black bolt had emerged in order to float around the room, scanning it during the process. The bolt had been used as a lantern in order to guide him through this Heavenly Abode. Beguile appeared to have trusted only Yiel in council but not Lomek. And in turn this favor of his was returned for better or worse, just as he had treated either. Many ticks turned around in an attempt to eavesdrop on their conversation, only to be interrupted by the four of them having found themselves on another ramp that had taken them beyond the room. Safely out of distance they began exchanging knowledge of evil days as well as their individual maliciously contorted rites that did not concern the leper at all. Henceforth their speech was hushed. They spoke about how they were to return back outside and how safe passage would be achieved. And about how they would be greeted upon their arrival by the villagers. ‘Men will be forced into subservience by the power of our will alone! And we shall have thousands of generations bring us homage just as their forefathers did to the lepers.’ They said in unison. It was their voice which aroused the limp nodes to erupt from beneath the ground. With varying designs and shows of craftsmanship, these machines worked on robbing the earth of its various life blooded minerals. One of their riders decided to come out for air. He came out of the mound with a coal-blackened faced. He opened the hatch, throwing up in disgust. He motioned for them to approach. And they did, until the very scent of plump dry olives betrayed his provenience as a citizen of Athens. ‘We have been driven out of our land by a giant boil of skin which had popped off. Releasing a spray of acid upon our grains and men, who had been killed immediately by the happening of it. Albeit most of our men had been instantly vaporized, we had been given a crucial moment, before the eruption happened to escape with the help of our machines. And with our radars which had warned us of what might happen if we decided to stay.’ He went on to say how the mighty peoples of Greece had chosen to face their demise, whereas a few managed to escape through underground tunnels, surviving solely on what earth had to offer to them. They had been travelling ever since until they reached this very spot they found themselves in. Unfortunately for the others, there was none that escaped the acid splatters and waves that followed soon after, casting them away and among the ranks of Myths and legends. A fleet of bones still sailed upon the Mediterranean Sea. Having left behind a sea-grave made out of land and burial sites that reached the reef. But they showed little interest in these men and their plight, and had merely dismissed them as nuisance. There was yet an unexplored tunnel, which had been far more bizarre in appearance than the other one. Life had barely been discernable in it, with the exception of some puckers on its walls, pumping in and out before going into hiding. Out of the four of them, this and the one that had housed the ticks, these were the only ones not locked up by the cave-ins. But, if seen from above and if the dirt was transparent, their alignment would give one the impression of a female spreading her legs and arms. Her neck being the pit they had descended through. Back to the unexplored tunnel, one could see it ending up in a simple cubical room, whose edges had been significantly rounded up each and every corner, and had been dulled by an unearthly inorganic matter. Everything inside it was either segmented or fractioned. Some tiles gave the impression of it being completely checkerboard patterned, where every square had been a trapdoor waiting to be opened. Beneath each section, there was a booth-sized depression that measured a few feet in below. Threads had been attached to them, in order to keep everything from falling apart. These hidden corded wires often came out to form wildly stretched arches that rose high enough to cast shades upon the rest of the tiles. One of them in particular suddenly ascended only to reveal a simple barred prison with a figure inside of it. A few more of them followed soon after, only to reveal many maw-filled distorted bodies that still squirmed inside of them as if they had still been alive. Their prisons now exposed to the light had made them violently trash their bars in an attempt to escape their capture. The corpses were unrelenting. They would ceaselessly chase their own tails in order to find any imperfection in the contraptions that kept them safe only to find themselves disappointed in what they found. No escape. A defense mechanism was laid in place which forced the wires to compress into much thinner versions of themselves. And the same thing happened to the cages as well, which also became more angular and sharper on top of that. They began to spin in place until the corpses got a sense of what vertigo felt like. What had remained of the stony substance that formed the tiles had slowly disintegrated during the process, right before they were once again lowered into their initial positions. During their entrapment they found themselves forced to levitate inside their tiny prisons beneath the ground, still very much incapable of escape and no longer capable of any movement at all. But it did not last for long, as their stillness was brought to an end and they were forced into becoming constantly spinning ellipses, being spun at a speed that was unfathomable to the human eye. Incapable to fully convey the atmospherically changing motions as well as the air fluctuations that occurred inside the room, one would have no other option than to flee from sight, driven by instinct alone. A few of them had already been turned into beams of light that were now released from their prisons as well as from beneath the ground they violently burst out of. Others joined soon after, following in some kind of strange ritualistic stretch and contortion, instead of being finely released. And this process continued until they had all been brought up to a single spot. They had been attracted to it by sheer force of magnetism, as the bodies carried elements that contained nickel, iron and some alloys inside of them. The echoes of their stifled voices still reverberated in that room and while the process neared its end, a door just loosened its hinges. A party of men accompanied by a hound had just entered. Differentiating between them and their facial features had been extremely difficult because of their outfits and masks. One of them stepped forward and yelled: ‘I am the dog. I am the almighty dog, crowned by a leashed halo, I stand before you now!’ What followed next was unexpected. A cast of black iron had been formed out of the united bodies, which drooped black goop on the ruined floor. It was salivating as if out of an overly spilling cauldron or leaking like rainwater out of an unfixed roof. It was fully armored but shoulder-less. Despite it being wingless it kept on floating, but remained still until the head finally revealed itself as a deformed, contorted and an even rounder blob. And it was the way it was because it had been resting inside its shell for too long. Now, as it came out, it awoke fear inside the men. With its little worm beneath it and the strange pair of wings that were the size of an elephant’s ears, it waited for the other parts to come together. Two elongated pseudo arms in the shape of cones connected to its wings and the rest of the box. When the head fully drew out, it could not be distinguished from a machine, with its coils and springs delivering a strange liquid to it. That did not prevent its back-and-forth motions, driven by the excitement it felt once being met by these guests. Its wings quickly jerked into tapeworm circles that continued to outline the entry into the neck area as well as its armor cast, out of which it refused to come out of. The vastness of the space inside this black-armor it hid in was barely signaled by the boils that dropped and dripped beneath it. But the deeper it advanced, the more comfortable it became. Multiples eyes could be seen adorning the now revealed chest. Two legs as well as two tails sprouted out of his behind, slowly connecting to the wings. One tail as segmented as a crab-foot, whereas the other like a puffy limb with its ends being ill-equipped with a flaccid syringe. Now the eyes began departing from its body, becoming floating globes that almost gravitated around its great body. Another limb emerged from the armor, more rounded than a coil, from beneath its left wing. Same color as the rest of the body. Crimson over encompassed it. Shades of egg-yolk followed not far. Both white and green, bearing signs of disease. The flesh covering it spread into a sheet of ooze that resumed keeping everything in place. Squirming around as every limb, wing and eye departed, contorting into some ooze that hid inside the cast. It was rosy, pink, full of magentas but still predominantly red. At this point it almost looked like a deformed Cubism abstraction of a goat. Bearing a melting chin filled with melting maggots. Two unseen hands drew its ears back. They were limp, leprous and filled with warts. The cast was a machine meant for torture. It pulled every spinning corpse and body inside of it, proceeding to torment them further. It settled on moving slowly, approaching in a malicious kind of manner. Its mere presence there was frightful and as it drew attention to the oozes that resided in the nearby area. It began bowing them one by one. This self-inflammatory tenderness began liquefying them from the distance. Meat dripped from them, revealing their finely exposed coal turned into organs. Granted for him alone, that he may pick up whenever he desired. Their congregation had been interrupted by some noise propagated behind the room. A whore of coiled filled growths arose just then. Beneath it laid a trench of air-held scrapes with blue patches. Wide-spread as well as lightened, it held within its reach hundreds of leaping shards of glass. The light leaped from one shard to another in a spectacular show of lights. All until it digressed into glowing red particles that could barely be seen. Many curved scythes enrobed with golden earrings began dropping. On top of them, fell jewels of broken cysts, cocoons that began erupting once they met the ground and various figures that were held inside its grasp while refusing to touch the ground. She was a peculiar thing with a lamia tail that pointed in front of her. With the body of a worm, chested but armless, with its trunk projected forward and a human chattered that was devoid of life out of which a burst of many lights began being produced. And it was not alone. Eerily grayish figures with her in front drew forward towards the goat. Her children were filled with bile, accompanying her by flight. And the ground itself had become a cradle of sand filled with many sticking out bars that had not been drawn out properly, with many crevices, outer rims, dunes and rifts making the floor. It had been trashed completely by the feeding process, which even managed to destroy the entire area. Now that she was fully illuminated by the far greater lighting system that adorned the great side of the ceiling, they reveled in her ugliness. Her great chitin-covered hear, similar to the body of a sea-ray, but fatter and more mantis-eyed, whitish and dripping with blood, revealed its fangs. A giant shattered hole could be seen inside her left and middle side of her one great eye. Out of it drew a flashing wormy horn, which was as flaccid as one could see, flinging itself back and forth, while oftentimes unmoving in front of its spectators. It gave the impression of it being alive, being as hard and sharp like the wing of an engineless plane’s wing. Her brain had sprouted out of its hiding. It was a stony globe covered completely in a flashy veil of teal dust. Similar to the other room, the devices were being slowly lowered, revealing crane contraptions and long eely maggots that grappled the brain with their many forked tongues. The cranes and the maggots gave the impression of a great system of roots underneath a great tree. A humanoid body could be seen inside of it, which was limbed by a single arm, similar to a mantis that was devoid of its blade. Two segments made it, all pointing down, away from its tiny open mouth. It was a crimson-mouthed jackal that had been startled by its observers. A black-spreading cancer had rotten away much of its body, leaving many hollows that could be seen through, as to make up the musty organs. Many of these black spots began appearing on every hidden cocoon, each body of dog, and the shiny particles as well as on the dust. The goat figure had been unaffected, yet the rest seemed to have befallen to this infection. Many have not lasted long. But they were not alone, as it was revealed by the underground galloping of steed corpses, beneath the cage foundation, racing into tunnels that were yet to be explored. Beneath which there was a black pool where the roots, the roaches and the corpses mixed with the parasites that swam inside that liquor. Albeit the phosphorescent shells that encased and protected it were now falling apart, its two colossal protectors were not. Two great figures, opposite to each other churned it like a witch’s cauldron. The pool was not completely sealed in that chamber. As there were tunnels that lead to an underground valley, the size of a canyon that was yet to be touched or seen by man. The two figures, albeit partially dead, had not been completely absorbed by the pools. Instead they succumbed to the girth of the black soil, where they had built nests of their own, in which they rested. It was near the point of the impact, inside the great formation of rocks that served as a labyrinth between the tunnels, that ringed and golden braced, spoiled bodies laid in. They were kings and knightly beings, now adorned in gold, bearing marks from the unknown kingdoms they were taken from. A hunch-back mermaid, with a head wider than its entire body that had been completely maimed by the very jewels that once befitted her face remained alongside them. Her tail was as gloomy as a human spine. Out of every segment sprouted an ugly tooth, which could be taken for a Cetacean giant’s claw, within a tail that ended in a giant human jaw formation. She stood there alone and immortal like some decaying Saint, guarding the treasure from befalling into the pool or that might be taken by some passing chariot. And it was not alone. Another figure stood solemnly by it side. His giant crown alone dwarfed her in relative size. White puffy hairs and spores came out of it. A great rodent sulking skull chained to its hinges. Its teeth were reframed to point of pointing and thrusting inwardly, causing great pain to the user, who seemed almost as damned as she were. His robe had been a giant carpet of mush that crawled on top of him, granting him warm in his solitude towards her. He was adorned by many bars of iron that even came out of his eyes, hollow on the inside, only to shoot little pea-bulks of iron that were stored inside his body. That had been a treasure trove, and not a single human soul lived enough to bask in its magnificence. In the distance: A great dislodged and uneven body was being kept eight hundred miles above the ground by a great angular pole. Its outlandish back bore great fat filled cardboard-box protrusions that had been hid from the hollow frame that had deformed it. They curved inwardly like moist and ruined parchments, wrapped as if they were cotton dresses pulled into a crevice. Stuck in an upward motion, it lodged itself to an elevator that was slowly pulling it back to where it belonged. Its deformed shoulders formed plates of clouds that were recognizable growths. Many of which were instantly drawn into its utilitarian belt, bringing slight discomfort to that damnable face that bore it. Not only them, but so were its many appendages, all kept in one spot which prevented its escape. They wreathed in place. They squirmed in anger and beyond it. Blocks of hardened carnivorous plant-like forms refused to be put in their place. Tiny slugs adorned the pole itself. Breathing in and inflating after taking gulps of air. Together they almost made a tree out of the fleshy beam whose tendons fed them. Capricious formations such as domes and deformed rounded and squared houses that came into view as prison blocks drew and expanded themselves before being pulled back in like curtains. On top of the changing mass there were two horns. One of them was simple, whereas the other horn was curved like a scorpion’s tail. Both of them belonged to a triangular, fortune cookie folded head, with two swirly and ugly knot eyes. Its inverted pyramidal cranium stood out among the folds. From the distance it could be seen as bearing a giant incisor close in semblance of a broken tip. That tip shot out a series of growths which in turn formed a curved elongation of visceral fat upon which it rested. A demonical tiny child, dreaming of nightmarish things was contained within its long horn. Out of it, the many conquered people materialized every so often as to taunt and disturb everything in sight, including the child. A man came before it, once the elevator stopped. The surface on which he stopped was completely oozing with shades of men; figures that touched the tip of the see-through crystal-floor that could not escape their suffering. They were incapable of escape, despite the open lid that led away from their great coffin. Their soulless husks still surrounded them even after their morbid deaths. In turn, they formed upwards leaping altars of crimson and blue, shining as deform stars followed in their ghastly footsteps. Their very light shone brighter than the figures surrounding it, revealing instead their worn out clothes, their wretched boils and the ones that squirmed in pain in the distance. Beneath them the soil was barren. Some fell in darkened holes in their attempt to push the floor out of its hinges. Cuts on the others and signs of abuse. Road-like accidents, sharp on each end in the form of pits prevented them from overstepping. They were accompanied by strange writings on the walls, runes and hard to follow symbols, out of which spiked coffins came out of. In turn, they painted a horrendous picture by constantly spraying everything with their debauchery. That led the impression that their souls suffered for no reason whatsoever. Had the dark altar been known to them, they might’ve been freed from their torment. Corpses had been lodged in the coffins, covered in enough tatters to be unrecognizable. They were indistinguishable from the figures as well; secretly being the embodiment of the spirits themselves. The spirits had interpreted the falling boils and the squirm as their longed for moment of release. As it followed, they drained themselves of the blood they still had running in their veins, in an attempt to appease the demonical figure that threatened them with various blasphemies to follow. Voracious beasts had been amassed in the shapes of flying balloons he had released out of its one horn. For them, in turn, there was a chance for the eventual release they yearned for. In the dark, they taunted them upon ascension; ever so slumberous as to achieve hibernation. But that release was yet to be indulged, as their rest was disturbed by the simple echo of a song. It came from the throat of a strong peacock, headed and winged by a blue collar, which resided in one of the black holes. Such was it that the song was taken as an opportunity to seek escape from this hell by one of the first man who had ventured this deep into these wasted soils. He saw something the others had failed to notice. The darkened flashy coils of light had submerged into the glassy floor. Before the immersion into it happened, he was forced into a slumberous walk. His body being propelled by the unspoken whispers of those trapped in their bloody spheres. As he woke up from his walk, he was met by an altar of corpses. While he was still coming into grips to reality, out of the altar stepped a most visible apparition. Its fragrance might’ve been alluring to a living man. But there was no such thing out there. Their fight was surreal. This upheaval was lost to him. A loss of triumph followed no soon after. A loss of words followed as well, which was accompanied by a morbid cut of the lips, a swollen bow taking him back into a place of inexistence. To his surprise, he had found himself trapped into the very altar he had seeked to avoid. The poor creature dreamed of being in another place. Having only now become aware that he had been encased in a dream-like cell from which he would not escape. Besides him, there were other forces that did not reveal themselves immediately. Nor would there be a chance for it to happen if they silently vanished into obscurity. Whereas the one trapped outside the elevator and the being facing it were somewhat natural to the place, she was not. She bore an outside organ that slowly puffed wild colors such as pink, violet and red. They were reminiscent of the days she had madly run on top the hills and on top of farmer’s plot, where all the curved flowers swayed the stench of violence that had filled her nostrils with. And of the many arms that had carried her away from where she started at the beginning of the lane. The onlookers had been silenced for the first time in centuries as attention was drawn to her. Above them they warranted the falling of a few pilots, outside their cockpits, who had been hanging there since the days of the Great War. Despite their ships being lodged into the ceiling, not a single man had made it out alive. They had been carried here from the looks of it. And from a single observation it could be said that there was something wrong with their eerily jerking bodies, despite the fact that they were long dead. All of them one eyed. They wore their ships like hives in their backs. Reverse parasitism, giant stumps of metal swinging them back and forth. Entangled like beasts. Faces torn out from reality; they seemed like dreamlike dreamers that refused to accept their final state of being. No disease or poison could put their suffering to a stop. Not a single bothersome looker accepted their fate or pretended they were still alive. But she madly ran as if well again. Driven to madness by what she had seen before: ‘I’ve come and stumbled upon a shiny maze, a shiny maze! I saw it with my own eyes. The bubbling thing spoke to me before the time!’ Yet her echo died instantly before being devoured. It swung itself closer to the others in order to make itself heard again. Deafening the noises the machines made was no easy task at hand. It spread its spores slowly while waiting for a sweet release. Their simian brain could not compute what was going on around them any longer. They carried with them food and water, the sustenance of cattle, but it was never revealed where it came from. Meanwhile, Shiel spoke: ‘My assertion of them has not come without deceit. Albeit I have come to understand the reason behind their gravitational pull towards us, I had not the time to properly study them. And I seek no propagation for either you or them.’ ‘Speak your mind then. I shall hear what you got to say before dismissing it entirely. Then, we’ll be done.’ ‘You’ve already wretched your every chance to dismiss me, yet you find yourself invigorated by such attention. I think we’re made to suffer together until their growth is complete, until we’re offered a chance by it to retreat.’ ‘And for what reason might that be? Have we come here without reason, only to be treated with deceit?’ Said the great Lomek in return, while its pudgy eye began tearing because of the gasses released from one of the mounds. It could still be seen. Even with his great and ugly simian head that somewhat obscured it in the plight of shades, the boil that had been his eye as well as its twitching. Hunger still lingered about them. None of them made any sudden movement either. The workers were just as diffuse as the leper had been. They were struck by some unseen force whose knowledge was imparted onto them. A shiny hinge that seemed to be yearning for released had been spotted by one of those trained eyes. A hinge that contorted every single word that passed their lip, which thrust itself forward from where it had been. It was prodding about for a response that didn’t come. Had it truly fallen from atop the machinery? One of them wondered. They had lain in silence for a while, until it was broken by Shiel’s trunk, which jerked and swung about, lopping here and there, avoiding swinging about the wrong places. One could see it now, that snow-globe arched arm, covered in dust mice. It bore children that had been starved in spite of being kept alive. Stone-flooring made its body, yellowish-brass from the looks of it. Appendages coming in two’s, but fearful it was to approach the light. They were aware what the presence of this ugly Goliath meant. An ugly truth followed by a pair of empty eyes jerking back inside its body. The fat that covered its mouth reeled back in as well. This was the messenger. He initially paced around the room slowly. He had made his way through the slightly lowered arms and the ticks that stood in his way. Echoes were being lost in the distance as another door opened, at his command. Now he was come into view, presenting itself to the leper, the tick and the conjoined feet. ‘I must ask of you to wait a moment longer.’ The messenger said. ‘Then we shall bear it in silence until you’ll have readied yourself.’ After for the door’s full release, a giant tube began flashing in the dark. A cluster of blocky limbs holding the most questionable things had been reeled back in. Put in their place. Among other miserable prisoners of some abhorrent callings that refused to stay in line once exposed to the other side of the row. And while it happened, many other cells were being lowered from the ceiling. Whose prisoners were still stuck in a psychotic dream haze they weren’t capable of escaping from. Now, Lomek and Yiel’s patience grew thin once again: ‘Your presence here is unwelcome, Messenger. And you’ve yet to display abhorrence to this place of spite. Only the most relinquished of prisoners are allowed to bask upon our sight. Let alone trifle where they do not belong.’ ‘I seek not to stay here any longer than you might, nor to interfere with their plight. I’ve come to deliver a message to the man in charge and to seek extraction after being done. Where has he gone?’ To which they answered. ‘He’s indisposed, I’d say. Worrying his gaze by looking upon the bastardization of the very land he had created, upon every nightmarish flower bed that’s been spoiled, upon every arm torn apart, hand in toil.’ Many such creatures as he had forsaken it. Some who had survived the old city’s fall. Quarrelsome, nasty and in twist appall. This broken replica of the world was their last means of survival. In it they doused their senses upon its liquefied flagrance. This strange liquid granted them life. It had sustained them for this long. And its absence meant complete destruction, even for them, as its very essence kept everything from falling apart. Yet the architect was not alone in his absence. He had been accompanied by a shade of a former self, a doctor that had been put back together, limb by limb. He’s been pulled from there. He had been placed in an emergency room, on a cotton bed that brought him no satisfaction to rest in. An operated on - basin lay in the distance. Near it there was a small hill and a small booth. Both of them abandoned. They were surrounded by a forest whose trees were of many different sizes and colors. Planks, bridges, strings of iron attached to hinges, screws and bolts all made this fort that separated them. His most successful work had turned the floor into an uncanny trap that could not be touched by anyone other than him. Not even by the doctor. ‘Your resistance to this very point in time is reassuring, dear companion. But from this point on you are on your own! And there’s a good reason behind it, since no man has escaped my valley of sinew unharmed and whole. Many such as you would find themselves flinging their bodies against mine, in desperation, only to find out that I’m not as harmless and frail as I appear. Since I would leap, trash, slash and do everything within my power to tear them apart. Until their very blood reddened my hand would I find myself fully satisfied in morose finality.’ His companion found himself dumbfounded yet again. This time he silently looked away. He reflected upon the land. There were too many bolts and too many things that did not make sense to him. Not far from them: ‘I knew this would happen again.’ The seas of red garnished some of the least occupied areas underneath the polished sand. They were defended by no strict surveillance. That allowed a scout to be sent there in order to run into circles before sending false rapports about what’s been happening underneath the crust. It is unknown what went in his mind when they were written, since the drivel itself alluded to strange savages that had been drowned by the crimson river’s last wave. The wave that swept away every single hut they made. That was followed by a blazing trail made out of the most inscrutable growths to have ever emerged from it. That bastardized the swollen suns. And brought destruction upon the legacy left behind by their ancestors. Who’d be remembered no more. The man took another cigar out of box. They were some fine Cuban nasties, contraband stuff but good enough to satisfy him. A single look was enough to stir something in him. That trapped thing made his whole stomach churn back and forth before shuddering. Another inquirer arrived this morning. He asked a lot of questions but had yet to ask about what was going on behind those closed gates. The hanger was already full. They were incredibly secretive about what was going on there. The workmen could barely find any more places to put the beast in. It started making nose again. Whenever pleading, whenever wonting, whenever it was annoyed by what was happening around it, the creature would begin wriggling, thrusting, halting, then start again. Far more viciously this time around, far more furiously than it did before, until they figured out what was going on inside its head; when the instincts kicked in. It wanted out. It slowly wasted inside the frame. The frame was good, though. It would last. The frame it was encased in prevented it from crushing everything underneath the sheer amount of weight its body had. It did a reasonable job in distributing its weight equally in such a manner that prevented the rapture, a crackling stroke that would, in one fell swoop, drag everyone into the abyss on top of which it stood. Hundreds of different types of alloy as well as industrial steel had been used to harden the frame it was trapped in. Its enormous body was turned against itself, since it made the entire bulk of the prison. Another rectangular see-through frame was attached to it. As well as a third one, that was much thinner, beneath them. They almost gave the impression of an incomplete ant-farm when put together. If it were not for the strange angles they were all in. That permitted it to move back and forth from one end to another, like a wagon between two rails, or the motion of a book being inserted back within in its shelf. Its movement was restricted to simple actions. The beast inside was a puffy, almost foam-like being. It bore a compounded giant eye instead of a head that gave the impression of being deformed, which could not be stopped from jerking back and forth. For it wanted to get away from this indescribable trap, in order to be reunited with other members of its race. Its upper body appeared to be made out of solid matter, albeit a bit frontward curved. Its one foot looked as if it had been purposefully deformed by some Chinese ritual in order to prevent its flight. It had been turned into a block of oozing meat, partially shifting between liquid foam and solid. The frame was put on top a system of rails, leading to where other creatures like it were stored. Not a single man moved a finger to attempt putting it out of its misery. These things, as they knew, were not meant to be kept alive, especially not for this long a period of time. And many other prisoners had been added to this hall of stored paintings. Vastly reducing the space they depended on to self-inflict pain upon their bodies, in varied attempts of ending themselves on the spot. Or so they thought. But that death-inducing shock would never come. ‘From what we have observed, they seem to be immortal.’ Proceeded the doctor after analyzing the data he had been presented with. ‘Despite their numerous attempts at their lives, there seems to be nothing out there that could topple down these buggers. At best, they could be attempting to escape by severing their limbs in the same way lizards do when met by predators. So far, we managed to cut of its wings, antlers, antennas, many of its appendages, primordial legs, pincers and the smaller out-shown tendons before trapping it in one of the frames. Luckily for us, it won’t be escaping any time sooner, despite signs of re-growth being shown. We should reconsider allowing them to return to the same hives they had sprouted from. It would be the sensible thing to do, after this much suffering being inflicted upon them. For these traps seem only to slow down their rejuvenation, not completely stop it. And we have trapped too many of them already.’ The Architect refused to speak on the matter regarding his undoing. There was something out of order with every being propagated upon their bed of destruction. Somber was the postulating darkness which allowed the gut-bulbs to prosper. They had been allowed entry into the world by secret passages born out of the wild mandibles that were in the possession of their shades. Thrust forward by these giant crude-like demonical figures that had been feigning death for whole centuries that passed undocumented. Space disease was carried along through these tunnels of air. Through which they crawled on their knees onto a tandem of broken jewels. Many pesky teeth infested with disease, obtruding through their corrugated rust while covering their ring-like armors as they displayed sings of lust. An almost boisterous fire was felt by the intruders. Inside the Citadel of Candle, flame burnt bodies of wax. The ones that had not escaped through the ruffian tube of ghastly mass. But instead witnessed the body of the angelic leviathan, whose wings had melted, whose body was still tended by a great brazier that still continued punishing it, despite being petrified in this unfathomable cast of meat. With a tornado and a swamp being caught within its heap, it swerved in pain while waiting for that sweet release. While the plague passed yonder. Through the darkness of absinthe, into the light that fell, through the quiet of the taking, of putrid green bones and shells, they appeared. Many wails and many liken, come-alive mourning for their brothers. Many who had come in heaps, filled with parasites at their feet. Birthed again, there were hundreds standing by the shore. Joining in the lands to ask, countless passages found at last. All these Lomeks and Shiels hardly counted as the real ones. What they felt together was an incomplete feeling of obtuse existence, which was indistinguishable from losing a loved one. They allowed their hearts to rot in a field of rusty leaves. Allowing depression to leave an impression on them, such as a widow would feel after being separated from her husband after a long period of time that stretched into years. Unmatched! Like a false errand to the moon, that was in reality met by razor sharp blades cutting them up. And whose remnants ended up being delivered to the basements of Candle. This inconsiderate supply of putrid cadavers led to the destruction of the wax-filled wagons. That was taken as a sign of insolence caused by the overwork of the servants who delivered them. The many Lomeks and Yiels that had neither been cut nor wrung had been conditioned by the number. Over time they lost their yearnings and desires upon the brow of broken leverage they might’ve had against the red gods. The lower citadel and its giant decaying mollusks had rotten the skin and temple of those that dared approach it. They lay down, unfathomably destroyed. Wretches who had been paranoid met the same fate as them. And the ones that had been cast down, of joy had yelled and shouted for him to be returned once again to life. One of the stifled voices: ‘There is a visitor knocking down upon the barred gates. He says he’s journeyed on for longer than we could imagine. He says he needs to be granted safe passage through our halls; that there’s dread in his veins, tenebrous even. That he came here only to be presented with his untimely demise since he had failed to gather what he promised to the pile. I’ve beseeched reason and have found as such, only to be left dissatisfied. I seek not to allow him to make it to his journey’s past, striking down this ghoulish fool dressed in a leper’s drag, and drained the life out of him while he’d subside.’ He announced right after the deed was done. ‘Then allow his body entry that I shall carry him to the other side. So I might carry on a lesser order and have him flung into a pile with the others. To bring his satisfaction’s end, that he might not rise once again.’ ‘Will it be known, bemused? And what of the others that stand in line, obtuse?’ The ground beneath them that reddened with boils and growths was mostly pale. Their abhorrent king had stepped forward through a pucker in the dark. Inside of which the kingdom hid. Whose fore-front hinges slightly intruded upon the ground, where the halls were laid. Slightly it protruded out, whereas, at the tip of its toes, an aerial component stood out, above a stony ford ridge. Wax pouring out of it while flying. Beneath them, many stones, crooks and almost stalagmite formations sprouted out of a sea of white. Where the ledges lay, at the end of the cliffs, there were thousands of similar stone ridges as well as plastered stone-walled ends that seemingly came out of the quarry. That neighbored the sea. They had been smoothened by chisel, yet their masters were unknown. But their contribution was rivaled by time. Facets of clean rock appeared, along diamond-like sedimentary formations of geological clusters that were somewhat refined by the weight of a fall. Wax had become their graves.