The Mourning Hall

The stench was the worst part, it hung thick amongst the desiccated remains and the hollow eyes, it was the stench of meat that had been defiled so fully that rot couldn’t touch them. Anterion wrapped a tight gauntleted fist around the hilt of his blade, letting it rest within his grasp to comfort him as he averted his eyes from the Forsaken, those broken, gurgling shells that reached for him, fingers gliding over his silver armour unable to grasp, unable to hold. Robbed of all strength, of all light and passion and grace.

“Be still, my brothers, be still. Your piety will be rewarded.” Anterion chanted as he trudged through the muck, the blood, and bile that drowned the chamber waist deep. The Forsaken writhed in their filth, rasping in futility at the argent figure, staring with soulless voids at the steel feather design of the blessed silver, a light that shone even in this fetid pit. “Your piety will be rewarded.” Anterion repeated, placing one foot in front of the other and shielding his face with his free hand. What had Marron done?! His mind ran with the possibilities, the awful madness that can possess a man in the throes of grief. The stench was not of meat rotting, but failing to. This was not the reek of spoiled flesh or viscera. This was reality itself, sundered and left to fester like an infested wound.

“Your faith…” Anterion started. “...Our faith, will be rewarded.”

Stone was the chamber, a hundred foot high and tenfold as wide. Intricately carved pillars like the trunks of a great oak held the defiled cathedral high and each one seemed to creak and crumble beneath the steps of what awful wrong Anterion had come to right. They seemed to tremble, as though the hewn figures themselves could sense, could feel the awful weight of the nightmare bearing down. “Oh my brothers, what have we wrought?” He sighed as he drew his blade from its sheath, in the fetid black the argent silver blazed phosphorescent in defiance of the gloom, Anterion drew the blade before his face and closed his eyes. The last light in the baleful black, a prayer better left unanswered.

“Old Father, hear me, amidst this desecration; grant me strength and bless this blade. With this blessed silver, your will be done.”

Anterion’s eyes flashed open! Lit from within by a blinding, burning fury!

“Your will be done.” Anterion stated solemnly as he pointed the ornate blade into the black, piercing it and tearing it away, parting shadows to light his way. The Forsaken scurried, slithering along the floor to tear themselves from his light which boiled their tight colourless flesh upon their shrinking bones. Anterion watched them retreat, feeling a deep shame settle within him to see those that were once his brothers brought so low. Surely when this deed is done they can be redeemed? Though it occurred to him that perhaps the only redemption such beings can hope for is a quick and expedient release from the unending torment of their new existence.

A shriek tore Anterion’s eyes to the stained glass of the cathedral’s window as the incandescence of his blade illuminated the skulking shadow of what once might have been a woman. Not anymore. Its long taloned fingers etched awful trenches into the thick glass, limbs arched high and legs fused together, her eyes were lidless and bulged with a glowing sickly yellow milk that seemed to curdle with an unholy malice. It chilled him and Anterion immediately leapt into an offensive stance as it pressed itself against the window and reared its awful head back to the sound of groaning, whimpering and mewling, distorted by the buzzing of fleshy wings on its back, something no human ear was ever meant to perceive.

“Forgive me, tainted child.” He said to himself as the window shattered! The beast careened squealing to the floor as the shards of shattered divinity lacerated its frenzied fleshy limbs! It dragged itself into the shadows, covering itself with its elongated and inhuman branches as Anterion pulsed closer. “You are not welcome, not anymore.” The creature raised its mutilated yet still distinctly feminine head, the bulging compound eyes fixed him with horrid intent as the jaws unhinged, and a pulsing cave of warm swollen flesh spat a rigid, jagged protrusion that jabbed at the Knight!

Anterion had less than a moment to sidestep the attack before dragging his blade through the gore at his feet and cleaving the appendage in half causing the creature to wail, a banshee cry that frenzied The Forsaken! The wretches fell to their knees, clutching their desiccated heads with willowy, wiry fingers. “MY CHILD! PLEASE! MY CHILD, MY SON, PLEASE! MY SON! OH MY SON! RUN! HIDE! CAN’T FIND ME! CAN’T FIND YOU! CAN’T FIND YOU!” It cried and wailed as it writhed in the gore, coating itself scarlet in the viscera and ruin!

Anterion grasped the appendage from beneath the goretide and examined it in the light of his sword. “By the Old Father…” he gasped as he dropped the distorted fused human spine back to the dreadful depths. The creature wailed and flailed and clawed at its face, black blood spewing from the remnants of its bony proboscis. “MY SON! MY SON! MY SON!”

“I know not what madness has made this of you but by my light, it shall be unmade!” Anterion yelled as he lunged for the beast and drove his blade into its bulging throat! The flesh parted, cleaved, it spewed forth a viscous black oily desecration that boiled upon his blessed armour as the creature rattled, buzzed and clicked! Beneath the unmoving compound eyes, Anterion connected with two blue orbs that wept a single solitary tear as they begged him. “You...you live?” Anterion asked as the eyes blinked twice! The Insect abomination seized the momentary distraction and grabbed the knight! Anterion felt the pressure around his abdomen and immediately began to thrash as his world was flipped and then came back all too suddenly to greet him as he was plunged into the goretide! The impact drove the wind from his lungs, he gasped and swallowed a mouthful of the putrescent blood! It slid, slimy and viscous over his tongue as Anterion forced his jaws shut and held it there! He fought the urge to vomit as the impossible strength of the abomination forced him deeper than the stone would allow, forcing the air from him! Deeper! Deeper! It pressed harder! HARDER! “MY SON! FIND! HELP! BLOOD! BLOOD! SO MUCH BLOOD! TOO MUCH BLOOD!”

Anterion reached for his sword but it was still buried in the monster’s throat! The Forsaken rose from their agony and shambled, crawling and sliding through the red and the black to the sound of writhing prey.

Anterion felt his vision blurring as his strength waned, he fumbled to reach his scabbard before finally pulling it free! The Goretide blazed to life as the creature recoiled in agony! A jagged, ragged wound bled black bile from where its twisted hand used to be and Anterion scrambled to his feet! He doubled over and heaved a lungful of the bile and blood from his mouth, it slid out of his mouth in a glob of fetid rot! As he regained his composure, the shining silver now tarnished by wretchedness. Anterion looked at his hands, the gauntlets run black with sin, the knight reatreted back and held his dagger low blade pointed across the length of his arm, the wasp’s sting, ready to thrust at the beast which struggled to stand with its new mutilation, it craned and crooned buzzing randomly and without harmony. The noise was causing The Forsaken once again to frenzy but this time, without his holy blade, Anterion could do nothing to deter them.

“My brothers?! Remember yourselves!” They scrambled, beneath the tide, beneath where his eyes could see. “Remember your oaths!” He felt a hand around his ankle and he thrashed at it, kicking his leg and bringing a crumbling hand with it. The Forsaken lunged from the goretide, a new fury in their wiry broken bodies! Anterion struggled as they came for him! He only had one chance! The Knight punched and kicked as their rasping voices began to coalesce, now forming words.

“Take...his...light….his light...take his light!” Anterion drove his gauntleted fist into the walking corpse’s face, shattering its brittle skull and twisting its neck at a 90-degree angle, another he stomped on till it stopped moving as he scrambled towards the heaving, shuddering abomination.

“By! The Old Father! I will NOT be taken!” Anterion leaped forward as more hands rose from the Goretide!

“His light...take his light...take it...take his light...take his liiight.” A forsaken rose in front of him, rising from the tide with slack jaws and empty eyes, its slack jaws widened to reveal a great yellow eye within the mouth at the back of the throat wearing lids of palate and teeth, inverted and blocking the oesophagus with the infectious growth!

“NO!” Anterion roared as the eye began to glow and peer into him! The voices grew louder!

“TAKE HIS LIGHT. TAKE HIS LIGHT. TAKE HIS LIGHT! LIGHT! LIGHT! TAKE HIS LIGHT!” They howled, blood dripping from their defiled mouths as they came for him! Anterion grabbed The Forsaken between its slack jaws and held him tight as he grasped his shoulder and spun the creature in its spot, wrenching its spine free from its pelvis, The Forsaken’s knees crumpled and he fell into a writhing heap on the floor. Anterion tossed the head aside, it floated along the Goretide still rasping for the Light it desperately craved!

“You are banished from light, all of you! Please, don’t I can still help you!” Anterion howled, voice cracking, splintering as he tore himself free from the throng of grasping limbs and sprinted for the rising abomination, it reared its head to howl as Anterion grasped the pommel and then the hilt of his sword which again blazed to life! With a cry of what might have been sorrow but was mostly rage Anterion tore the blessed blade from its resting place, tearing the wretched thing’s head off with the ferocity of it. The abomination’s decapitated body scuttled and collapsed, writhing on its back as the severed head, half-obscured in the goretide released a sickening shriek that shattered the remaining windows of the cathedral! “MY SON! MY SON! MY BEAUTIFUL SON! HOLD HIM! HOLD ME! HOLD! HOLD! HOLD! SOMEONE! MY SON! SOMEONE HOLD! HOLD!”

Anterion stepped back as its body tried to right itself, failing as the wounds took their toll. It rattled and gyrated, like a drowning insect. “HOLD! HOLD! SOMEONE! HOLD…me”

It lay there, unable to move, but whispering still. Whispering and moaning, weeping. Anterion felt no victory, his sword was heavy in his hand. The weight of the black oil running slick down the perfect steel, boiling before dripping into the fetid scarlet waste was too much to bear. He looked into the tide beneath him, down his gore slick armour. “Hold me….someone…please…my son. My…my son…my. I…tried. Please Old Father.”

Anterion turned his back, it took all he had, it took every ounce. He wanted to make it stop. He wanted to lift his sword and hack and hack and hack until it stopped. Till it lay still. Till it never moved again.

“Someone…hold me.”

Anterion breathed deep as he drew his hand over his blade, removing the black oil and dropping it into a green vial that hung across his tarnished golden lace belt. Perhaps some experimentation can reverse this curse. There may yet be peace for this broken woman.

“Don’t leave me alone.” It whimpered as Anterion left, the last light. Gone. And with it, all hope. She wailed as the black swallowed her whole.

Anterion continued, he had to, with pitiless crashes of his blade he cut through the throng of The Forsaken, coming to the Mourning Hall. The place he knew the truth would be found, the solution to this madness, his last and final hope. The door was warm to the touch and through every crack and seam in the aged massive wooden timbers that served as its frame, a foul rotten yellow light shone through.

Anterion knew, he knew what might await him on the other end. The possibilities piled high in his head like walls of doubt ready to collapse and smother his resolve at a moment’s notice. There was only one thing, one certainty to be known beyond this door;

Marron, The Unfettered. As Anterion placed his hand upon the door and grasped the handle he kept the memory of his mentor, his father in his mind. His strength, his righteousness, his unshakable devotion. The man whose legs never trembled, who could turn an army from cowardice to resolute determination with merely the mention of his name.

Anterion held that image, clutched it like a child might a toy as he threw the door open and the bloated, festering, beast dragging its sword along the ground turned to face him. Half his face was now riddled maddeningly with yellow eyes that forced his jaw slack and his head lopsided. It had burst from his armour, the protrusions of flesh ending in grasping, arms. The flesh was warm, tanned and painted…like hers was. The arms that had burst from his armour wrapped around him, groping and molesting his body with feverish lechery and he gurgled, moaned and wept.

“My Master, what has grief driven you to?”

The thing that once was Marron took a step forward, the sound of Marron’s great black sword scraping along the stone filled the Hall as Anterion slammed the door shut behind himself, taking a moment to ward the old wood with blessed magic lest The Forsaken follow him in.

“Had…to be…done.” He wheezed, his words were his own but his voice was different, as though another was trying to match him beat for beat but not quite keeping up.

“What did you do? What madness have you wrought upon us?” Anterion asked.

“I…needed, her. I need…her back…her. Just…all my…fault.” It stumbled, the great blade clanking across the ground with every step. Even it had changed, the black oil he’d seen earlier lashed across its surface like veins pulsing with inky corruption. The blade itself had always been impressive, less of a sword and more like a slab of jagged metal, it was a source of bewilderment to many how Marron was even able to lift the thing, never mind swing it with the grace and swiftness for which he became renowned. It’s what had earned him his name. The Unfettered.

“It…was just…a prayer.”

Anterion backed himself away from Marron, afraid of just how quickly his old master might still be able to lift and use that sword. The pair circled each other, the beating of Anterion’s heart counterbalanced by the “clank, schhrrrrrrr, clank, schrrrrrrr, clank” of Marron’s blackened steel.

“WE…we were…we tried. We tried. It was…just…a pray…prayer.”

Anterion’s stomach felt hollow from the pit that blossomed. Marron fixed Anterion now, his slack jaw struggled to straighten into a scowl and his human eye wept with boiling hatred. “You…should have…protected.”

Anterion hung his head.

“You…should have…died…it should have…you. My…child…my…love my love my…It was just a prayer.”

“Marron…this Hall, you have to give it back. The Hall of Mourning, you can’t keep what must be released. To deny death, it’s not natural. It’s n-”

“NATURAL!?” Marron slammed his blade upon the stones, cracking them, causing the room to shake and Anterion to gasp, recoiling as he did.

“I won’t…”

“There is no life so beautiful that mourning and hate cannot make of it a foul and unloved thing!” Anterion spat! Fear clouding his words. Fear of his master, fear of what he’s unleashed, fear of what he may have to do to stop him. “Your agony is become plague and all the world suffers for it!”

“Let…them…burn.” Marron wheezed.

His heart shattered and Anterion’s withered, boil-ridden arm lifted his gargantuan sword from the floor, the bulbous limb breached and ran black with putrescence as he hefted it.

“I’d burn…a thousand worlds…a million stars…a billion heavens…I’d burn them all…for…her.”

Anterion readied his blade. “You were right, I should have died in her place. Were it that I could turn back the stars and take that blade in my own belly, I’d have already made it so but the Gods are not so kind as to undo the fates we’ve wrought with cruelty or with kindness. We are each the jailors and the makers of our own Hells and if I must damn you to yours to undo this nightmare…” Anterion’s blade erupted into brilliant argent white. “…then so be it.”

“Hell…is reserved…for traitors…and usurpers. I pray that you…enjoy yours…”

“I betray no oath I have ever sworn, Marron. You betray yourself.”

Marron’s human eye bled a scarlet tear and with grief in his voice, the fallen Knight cried and struck with his cumbersome sword! The metal lunged and from its great breadth, a thousand limbs spread forth across the floor like oily webs! Anterion leaped out of the way, rolling across the floor as the corruption lashed at his limbs, catching his ankle as he rolled and throwing him off! Marron swept the calamitous cudgel across the Hall, unsettling stones and causing Anterion to leap again, dodging the furious and vicious assault that the ungainly beast released! He had to get close but Marron had trained this righteous knight, made him strong, made him quick. Anterion dodged an upward strike way too close for comfort and slashed Marron’s arm, cutting not half as deep as he ought to, he dodged under his mentor’s arm but before his blade could pierce Marron’s back the boils upon his arm winked open and the yellow eyes fixed him!

“Bollocks!” Anterion cursed before bringing his own sword up in front of him to block the vicious swipe but the force hurled him across the room and into the pitiless cold stone walls! The wind was forced from his chest as he crashed coughing to the floor!

“You…still…fight like…a child. Too brazen…too angry!” Marron stomped across the room, his bloated size belying his terrible, blinding speed.

Anterion groaned and heaved his body from the floor, sword flickering but still aflame.

“I fight, like you taught me!” He spat.

“I taught you…better…than this.”

Anterion gritted his teeth as Marron lifted his weapon high and brought it down! The besieged knight planted his feet and caught it with his sword, deflecting it to his side and then catching it again as it threatened to cleave him in two! As both swords connected the brilliant light of Anterion’s sword burned away some of the black, it seemed to retreat. “Marron, I don’t want to kill you.”

“You…already…have!” Marron spat as he pushed against Anterion’s block knocking the knight to the floor! He struck again! Anterion blocked it! Again!

“You!”

He struck against the blinding white blade, Anterion’s armour buckled beneath the force of the blow.

“LET!”

Again!

“Her!”

AGAIN!

“DIE!”

Anterion’s armour gave way and his bones faltered, the black blade cleaved through his defense, the young Knight yelped as the armour and then the limb collapsed and fell! Anterion shrieked and rolled away, curling into himself as Marron wheezed! The bloated Knight’s feet stomped across the stone! Anterion vomited onto the floor as he, trembling, clutched at the cold ragged stump where his arm used to be. He kicked his legs and writhed, tucking his head into his chest! Trying with all his might to be as strong as he needs to be to do what he must do next. The arm had been cleaved above the elbow, blood spurted in twin streams, thick black and rapid with the racing of his terrified heart!

“Old-Father…grant me your st-strength.” Anterion mumbled, with his free hand he grabbed his dagger and put the scabbard between his teeth. Marrion leaned down and wrested the cleaved broken blade from Anterion’s severed arm. The light of the blade faded to nothing and the tarnished steel reflected for Marron the truth of what he had become. In the corner of the room, Anterion wailed as holy fire cauterised the stump on his arm and burned away the corruption! Eyes stained with blood and tears begged Marron who stood frozen in the sickly yellow light of the Mourning Hall. Beyond the reflection of his monstrous face, Marron saw his mutilated student, using all that he had left not to become what he had so easily allowed himself to embody.

“An…terion.”

Anterion opened his eyes, almost fused shut from the blinding white pain in his arm, he expected to be crushed, to die knowing he’d failed but there Marron stood. Marron stared at Anterion as he sat there, like a frightened animal, teeth bared, eyes wet and wide and terrified beyond reason and yet, a dagger between his teeth, burning his own mutilated limb, still resolute, still everything…that Marron no longer could be.

“My…my boy…I…I…by the Old Father…what have I…done?!” He clutched the blade and his own great burdensome beast of a weapon crashed to the deck as the eyes on his body began to change from sickly yellow to a more neutral, even human white. Marron grasped his face as Anterion, shaking, tried to stand. In the eye of Marron’s mind he saw the approaching Knight as he’d been all those years ago, in the streets of Reavern, a scoundrel waif fighting off seven larger boys for a loaf of bread he’d stolen fair and square. As an apprentice that matched him, blow for blow and never tired. As a man who’d held his hand on the worst day of his life and told him that he was sorry.

Reality crashed down upon the old master. “My apprentice…my boy…I…I’m…I” Marron stammered as he crashed to his knees and that little boy strode up to him, clutching the ragged black stump that used to be his arm. Marron’s human eye wept red tears and his wailing collapsed into crestfallen despair and in the throes of his anguish, as he bowed his head to await the vengeance of the boy he’d mutilated Anterion clasped Marron’s bestial face and softly laid his head against it.

The grasping limbs of Marron’s deformed body fell still as a simple warmth, not a holy one, flooded his broken body. The inferno of rage dissipated, leaving only charred grief in its wake and the ashes of regret. This was neither a holy fire nor a profane one. This was human, just that. In a world of nightmares and madness, for one brief moment, there was kindness and there was mercy.

Marron lifted his beastly hand and, as he had done barely a decade before, handed Anterion his holy sword. The two shared a glance, stony and resolute. Both knew what was about to happen. It was easy, Marron’s body had outgrown his armour, his chest took the jagged broken edge of Anterion’s holy blade to the hilt and as it blazed to life once more the holy flame burst from his eyes, boiling his flesh and burning the profanity from his body! Anterion stumbled back as a flash of brilliant white light illuminated the walls of the Mourning Hall and surged up, up, and through the stone ceiling! Anterion’s eyes, wide with wonder, beheld a miracle as the white flash of the Old Father’s flame burned the murk and shadow away but it wasn’t done. Anterion knew, a prayer tainted by grief and hate is not a thing that dies when the sundered heart that bled it is silenced.

“By the Old Father…grant me strength.” He chanted one last time.

Marron’s teachings echoed in his head. “A prayer is more than a wish, more than a dream. It is an idea, a living, breathing thing and this hall is where ideas shape the world.”

Anterion remembered the rain-drenched, frost-bitten nights. The nights he felt so cold he thought he’d die if he closed his eyes for even an instant. The hay beds of his first dormitory at the Reavern Academy, the way they’d itch and scratch at his flesh but he was just so happy to be warm…to be safe. His one good hand struggled with the clasps but his armour fell away all the same. Clattering to the deck, tattered and tarnished. He’d been so proud the day he’d earned it. He remembered the touch of Marron’s hand upon his head, ruffling his black hair and telling him of the responsibility he’d inherited and the dangers he would face.

“Whatever shape the world takes, it is your duty to keep it sane. Whatever the cost.”

As Anterion removed his righteous armour, the twisted limbs of Marron began to twitch, her limbs. The mutant eyes blinked and watched Anterion with an inhuman fascination.

“This place will allow you to say goodbye to those we’ve lost but beware, Anterion. They are shadows on the wall, ideas projected from the memory of love. To grasp them-”

The arms became more animate, clutching at the broken blade buried in Marron’s chest!

“- to force them to be anything more…is to give purpose to a fateless thing.”

Anterion’s dagger reflected the brilliant light of his sword but did not glow itself and as the boy knelt before the raised, polished black stone altar of the Mourning Hall he raised the dagger high.

“And that which knows not fate, can not be destroyed…merely transformed.”

Anterion let these thoughts fill his mind, he let the memories of kindness and strength and order and discipline drive his hand as he plunged the blade into his own chest! He choked, a ragged ugly breath but focussed his thoughts as tears streamed down his face! This was it, this was how he remade the world!

“Just like you taught me, Marr-” His breath caught as he glimpsed the mutant writhing arms wrenching the broken sword free from Marron’s chest! The light vanished as the blade was removed and his mentor’s corrupted face met his own with an ashen expression before being overcome with inky black and crumbling!

Anterion shrieked a bloody cry through red black teeth as his mentor dissolved into wretched corruption! The Knight dragged his broken body across the floor of the Hall! Each inch taking more and more of his strength as his body, the body that had never failed him, his humanity began to weaken. His breaths were ragged.

“No…Ma-Ma-Marron…No…I…I..” He balled his fist and pounded the stone! Shrieking a ragged curse as he pounded it till his fist bled. He couldn’t drag himself any further, his limbs were numb and heavy and that numb heavy feeling came with a foreboding cold. He cursed his humanity, his failing body!

“DAMMIT! Dammit…d-dammit n-no…dam…” He coughed, choking, wheezing as thick black blood curdled in his throat, it greedily swallowed up his air and bulged and bulged and grew till it spilled out of his mouth and down his bare spoiled chest! Anterion fought for breath, he clawed and raked at his failing body, demanding more of it! His legs kicked feebly and his eyes bulged in their sockets as Anterion, despite his best efforts, died choking on his new world.

His last thoughts were jagged and thorned, choked upon and as peace settled upon the Mourning Hall Anterion’s eyes flashed open!

The sky, scarlet, boomed at him, like a horn as high as the mountains and deep as the sea had been blown. Across the scarlet heavens, black flickering lines like pulsing veins etched themselves across creation! The world wasn’t angry, it was livid. The heavens bled, the sky parted and the black lines pulsed till they split and from their bulging awfulness misjointed, howling things rained down and were aborted upon the jagged spines of the Earth. The wind was like the breath of something ravenous upon the nape of your neck, it snapped your flesh, it whipped at your bones and gnawed you, it gnawed you raw. Anterion’s armour was gone, his body was naked and from his belly, a long fleshy tube protruded, thick peristaltic bulges traveled its length and forced themselves out of his twisted trunk of an abdomen and down deep beneath the rubble!

Anterion’s eyes raced from one nightmare to the other and as he realized he couldn’t even move he screamed and as his voice bled in his throat the sky parted and warped, flickering red and black and black and red as the lines of black flesh rearranged themselves! The wind became the buzzing of insects! An incessant drone without relent! The frigid earth scraped and lacerated his body and the more he tried to move the more his body ached and cramped!

The Hall of Mourning was gone, rubble and broken pillars surrounded him, and at the bottom of the hill where Reavern had once lain he saw shapes that were too large to be human, standing, flickering and buzzing, staring back at him. The heavens boomed again, the force of the blast caused Anterion to crash back into the stone! Anterion tried to die, to fill his heart with the pure and better memories that could abort this aberrant world he’d created.

“This is wrong. THIS IS WRONG!” He screamed in his head! The world was loud, so loud, the air was toxic and it poisoned his lungs to breathe it, it smelled like something rotten, like spoiled meat left to bake in the noon sun. This was no longer a world for people, this was not a world for people. This was a world after people, a world beyond us. A world that did not need us. That resented ever knowing us. The world was angry! It was so angry! The world was so angry!

The memories he tried to conjure, every one of them was cloudy in his mind, they fell through his fingers like sand! The world tainted them. They melted in his mind’s eye, filling with yellow pus and dissolving into fluid that drowned the emotions into dull Hellish numbness.

“STOP! I CAN FIX YOU! LET ME, LET ME DIE! LET ME FIX YOU!” Anterion cried!

The Scarlet heavens boomed again and the black lines rearranged themselves into a shape resembling a mouth, with jagged black veins for teeth and from the blood-red rage the skies melted into a great yellow eye.

"I will not know death,” It boomed in a voice that was as much thunder, as it was the scraping of metal on stone or the cracking of bones. “...for death will not know me but you, you shall know me. You shall know me better than any.” The eye fixed Anterion, lidless and unblinking.

“For you are my father and I am the world."

Anterion tried to move, to fight, to bite his own tongue but found his mouth bereft of teeth, his eyes without lids so he could not blink as the salt dust of the air bombarded his eyes and filled his nose to choking. “PLEASE! I need to…I need to die.”

“You shall not know death, you are my father and I am the world. A world that shall not know death.”

The heavens boomed and the ground began to pulse, to churn and writhe! “I am the world!” It boomed! “You are my father! And I am the world!”

“You will love me, you are my father! And I am the world!”

Anterion tried to pound his head against the ground but still, he couldn’t move, he couldn’t scream and in time he couldn’t gasp. The dust filled his nose, his eyes and his mouth! It drowned him in ash and biting things that burrowed into his flesh and dug tunnels into his agony with clicking mandibles!

“I AM THE WORLD! YOU WILL LOVE ME! YOU ARE MY FATHER! AND I AM THE WORLD!”

The world was raw, like an exposed nerve. It boiled and bubbled with the agony that it was birthed from. A world after people.