.
Entry 44
I find myself with time on my hands.
A rare occurrence as of late, given the speed with which the fated day of Crossing approaches.
Time I have decided to dedicate toward enriching this repository.
A necessity, given the circumstances of my work.
And of the Order I lead.
This log is one that no soul, unless mandated otherwise, will ever access. Words recorded, hidden from time and attention.
Words which lie sealed away inside both cabinets and temples.
Words which only exist inside this device.
And memory.
Memory is a fleeting thing.
Despite there being a realm forged out of it.
It is concrete riddled with fractures. Rife with porous abysses, inviting gates swung open for roots to take hold and dig eagerly.
Paper shares no such weakness.
And the Father shares my sentiment.
Do not forget who you are.
A simple command, Is what the uninitiated would claim.
Who am I?
I am a servant of the One which exists in this rich yet doomed Universe. Flesh given purpose, mind given ambition.
But that is obvious.
Who am I?
I am a soldier of Paradise. I live, will die, and shall one day rise again in His name and glory.
My body is the shield which guards the Artist.
Under its shadow, life will flourish and triumph be sowed.
My gauntlet is steadfast. I am meant to stand where others would fall. I am meant to know where feebler minds would split.
My hammer is swift. I deliver the judgement of the Father without question or hesitation. Its weight will break the walls of steel which stifle our breath and choke our light.
Not enough.
These are platitudes.
Dogma, instilled into your sense of self.
The real you.
The woman behind the mask.
The person.
Not the weapon.
Who am I?
I find my memory straining, as I attempt to answer such an otherwise simple inquiry.
The truth is plain.
I do not remember.
Perhaps I once had a name. And perhaps I once thought to record it on a piece of paper such as this.
However, there is enough that can be extracted from historical records for me to piece back who I was.
Or perhaps still am.
I have the privilege of being…..recognizable, for lack of a better word.
I am someone of fame within Paradise Station and the heavens beyond.
They call me the Stormwalker.
Lord of the Order of the Final Convergence.
They know us as His Trusted.
I belong, in the loosest use of the word, to a species named "Muton".
But from my own observation, those creatures are….diminished.
Simple.
They are not animals, as many claim to keep their consciousness pure.
There is a lack, however, in their eyes. A cold, barely alight flame which whispers echoes of what once was a chorus.
A promise unfulfilled. A dawn which never came to dispel the starless night.
Some days, I feel their emptiness.
Whispers of who I was.
Or still am.
Grains of sand slipping away through my fingers, even as I clench my fist to hold them.
Dream-filled nights where you played roles and lived adventures, become dissolving mirages you furiously attempt to recall.
But they fade.
Always fade.
I am not them.
Because I know where I came from..
I was born inside a sterile pod.
Fourth layer of Holy Paradise. Proud work of the Sculptors.
I was...inspired, by the Praetorian template birthed by the Ethereal named Revelean.
But I am not them.
I am something more.
The beings known as the Chosen, unbeknownst to them, were testing beds for my organs and skin.
My bones and sinew are steeled in the Father´s flame.
They were the rough line work, I was the finished painting.
According to the Magistrate, of course.
I know this, because I have read the specifications of my design, blueprints to my very being.
I am ever thankful.
But I do not remember them.
I do not remember their names, as they bow to me when I inspect their facilities.
I do not remember their friendship, as I hear their excited chatter whenever my legions march on their tiled floors.
I do not remember the feel of their love and the warmth of their respect, as the Magistrate inspects my form with restrained yet apparent pride.
It is a good thing that I wear a mask.
Else they would see the loneliness in my eyes.
That black night with no dawn in sight.
This is the extent of my memory.
And where the line between objective fact and possibly myth begins to be blurred.
I have informed myself of what is said about me.
I am unsure of what can be classified as historical fact or boastful exaggeration in Voice Inspirar´s aesops and poems.
Apparently, upon being born I felt…..unworthy of the place in Paradise that was prepared for me.
Perhaps I felt unjustly privileged, when so many "Mutons" languish aimlessly under the Golden Emperor´s chains.
My solution was to earn a true understanding of the Father by my own means.
To carve a seat for myself at His table.
And that meant joining all five of the then existing Orders.
A considerable challenge.
Every Order is linked intrinsically to a Saint. It is taught to the uninitiated that each Saint serves as a piece of the Father´s vast mind. A physical vessel for personality and self.
It is logical, then, that I would have sought to grow close to Him by becoming intimate with each of His fragments.
Given my responsibilities now, perhaps I did accomplish this.
But they speak of me as if I were a philosopher. A great thinker that was able to become an Overseer and strategist serving under His Wisdom.
They think of me as a savant. A woman of fine taste and hungry drive with an eye creative enough to impress His Love and perform on Her Cradle and troupe.
They see my mind as sharp and boundless. A practitioner of the sciences skilled enough to shape life under the Magistrate who saw me born.
They watch me with pride as the pinnacle of their martial prowess. A warrior capable of both the raw ferocity needed to conquer His Fury´s trials and the restraint and subtlety that would catch the Umbra´s experienced eye.
I feel like I am none of these things.
I embody none of these ideals.
But I do try.
To live up to what they say.
To match the myth with the flesh.
It gives them hope.
They need it.
They also say that once I distinguished myself inside every Order, I sought even more.
And my ambition eventually brought me to the Artist´s chambers, where an audience was held.
The thought fills me with indignation. That She would feel it necessary to take a moment of Her time, Her time, to speak to such a lowly being such as myself over trifling matters?
My past self knew not her place.
Yet, I am ever thankful.
She suggested I commune with Him.
Not through the Saints.
For holy as they are, they are not His totality.
But with Him.
As only She can.
Folly.
But my past self tried to replicate consecrate ritual and unspoken technique.
That woman tried hundreds of times.
And, predictably, failed.
As despair threatened to swallow me, an angel arrived from the lilac realms above our plane.
The recently finished work of the Artist.
The Sixth Saint.
His Vigilance.
And once this last of His avatars took His first breath, a covenant was struck.
An offer, extended.
I would see the Father. Shake His hand personally, figuratively speaking.
But I was to create an Order in return.
The best that this humble station had produced thus far, save the other serving Lords, ofcourse.
The eyes of the Cosmos upon me, I set to work. I was to fulfill my end of this age-bound agreement first, and impress my God.
I trained them.
Through regime and routine which would strip the meat off a Baptist´s back. Trails of blood dragged by shuffling feet, tooth clenched pleas and wounded prides.
I tested them.
Through simulacra and exercises His Wisdom approved and enhanced. Day long riddles, frustrated headaches. Mountains of encyclopedia, tired eyes wrapped in veins.
I broke them.
I made veterans weep. I forced vain Stalkers and naive Weavers to return in forgiven defeat back to the Orders I borrowed them from. Hopes of greatness ended in humbling lessons. Earned second chances, moments of redemption.
I drove them.
To selfless ambition. Instilled in them that dream to reach the heights of a pantheon I knew not had spanned millenia and generations. Artisan made equipment, envied regalia.
I forged them.
Into statements. Into champions. Guardians and Conquerors. Parades and processions, coronations and anointments. Unseen yet felt heavensward revelries.
We proved ourselves.
I as their Lord, they as His knights.
We stood in immaculate posture in front of the Artist´s palatial chambers. Legions of, silver, violet and gold.
The sky and earth of Naztrum Ognis, ever eternal jewel of the Cosmos.
We kneeled at the raised hand of the Artist.
I, at the head of the formation, would be Her First Shield.
Behind me, the few who answered by challenge. Who would follow my path and join all Orders, graduating each with distinguishment.
Towering titans clad in the finest suits of armor Master Z´Erstifex has ever conceived.
Her Paladins.
And behind that tight circle, my council of war, our Legion.
Her Fist and Scepter.
The Trusted.
But the Artist would not hold a blood-writ covenant with an Order.
Such, would be the role of another.
The one Saint without an army.
The one seraph without sons and daughters.
The Sixth.
He who extended the offer in the first place.
Few have laid eyes on this being. Many outside our small station even believe Him a rumor.
I do not fault them.
I can imagine the tales would be difficult to process, mostly for those who have seen Paradise with their own eyes, yet close their hearts to His voice.
They refuse to believe, for to lay eyes upon that being is to begin to see the Father for what He is.
A visitor from that which is unseen, yet overlays our every realm.
The Father is clever.
His first five Saints are small.
A mere… piece of the whole. A single blade of grass, taken from a bustling prairie.
Each Saint is a galaxy, inside the universe that is the Father. A world unto themselves.
Undesirable truths for mortals who seek to use Him.
And so He hides Himself behind the curtain that is the Veil. And only shows what He wants to be seen.
The fruits of a mindset cultivated over eons.
The patience of a being who has waited for longer than planets have existed.
But the Sixth.
That world of flesh and power.
Is much more true to what we know thrives beyond the Veil.
And so, this mass of divine essence, which a beholder´s naked eye cannot help but see as chaotic aberrations and meat which ebbs and flows as black waves, granted me an audience.
I would see the Father for myself.
Truths privy for the Artist's mind only.
Alone, I boarded the Saint´s cavernous cavities and nestled myself in the hundred small arms which emerged from the sterling tides to greet me.
Protected by the Saint, I would dive into the Veil. That nascent, unconquerable Chaos the Father has made His.
Those violet oceans where only the divine can dwell . His sacred palace, chiseled from lavender storms, house of He who is mighty enough to tame the militant genesis of undirected primordial intent.
Oceans that I would witness, aboard that holy ark He sent to safeguard me. Under the gaze of God, a mortal who could have easily been one of the many shambling, hope-dried slaves toiling pointlessly on the pitiless sands of Desolan.
But…
I am ever thankful.
The stories they tell of my journey.
I am ever thankful.
The sung hymns. The mirthful ballads.
I am ever thankful.
They are lies.
I am ever thankful.
They say His Ark traversed the flaxen skies of the Mind Cosmos. Slow and gentle, its cut path baptizing the ascended in warm gold flakes. Choirs of divine retainers sitting on top of soft clouds, calling for the countless to partake in communal revelry.
And there I stood, my feet proudly planted on the very top of the Saint´s surface, bathing in deserved glory, gazing upon the sacred resting grounds of all His faithful, elated by the battlesong of the previously unseen.
Sights which Inspirars tries to match in words and Willbearing dives, sights recreated on indoor frescoes lining the interior ceilings of Speculmnis´s theaters, sights which are reward enough for a lifetime of faith.
And there we flew. A twinkling star, brightly lit upon the night sky. Majestic embroidery upon the immortal tapestry.
And there we flew. A divine comet, wrapped in crystalline flame. Living proof of the Father´s gifts. Of His exaltation of mortals, where most gods and those who play pretend at divinity see us as resources.
And there we flew. A chariot carrying its guest toward this prepared banquet. Toward swung open pearly gates, toward the throne of the One, carved from the tamed fury of creation undefined.
Gilded tales.
And yet hope and inspiration.
They say I sat at His table. Immaculate, and yet otherworldly. An ethereal, idyllic, dreamborne beauty which touches beyond physical senses.
Plates fashioned not from ceramics or precious metals, but from the stardust which gives way to life itself.
Rows of golden chairs, smelted from captive-yet willing suns. Their almighty flames dare not be but comfortable warmth in His presence.
A seat cushioned in velvet and crafted from the ebony of the night sky. Ever expanding, ever revealing, that void of unclaimed futures every single mortal in existence has stared off into at some point of their lives
And there He sat.
The unfathomable center of the Cosmos.
Suited with the skin of my species.
A Muton, with impossibly enthralling eyes.
Garbed in celestial silk, nebulae and cosmic phenomena etched into the fabrics.
On his fingers, modest rings crowned in miniature planets. Rotating on their own axes, atmospheres slowly shifting over the hand picked jewels.
His stature dwarfed my own, and yet His face was not one of predation. He portrayed not a brute, not a soldier.
But a thinker.
His gentle smile disarmed me. I was no longer a champion who had carved her seat in blood and glory.
I was a child.
Helpless.
I fell to my knees.
They say I wept once I laid eyes upon such divine perfection. Once I crumbled onto the star encrusted floors.
For He showed me what we could never be.
How could my species have fallen so low?
For He showed me all that I was not.
How could I embolden myself through such ignorance?
How could I dare think I was beyond my withered brethren, shackled to Desolan?
Cold shame washed over me.
Before He dispelled it with His voice.
You are the first of many.
Ever burning flame.
My Elysian heights.
Are yours to claim.
They say He offered His heavenly hand.
Promise.
Hope.
Potential.
I could be what He embodied.
I could save my people.
I took His hand.
Expecting to be helped to my feet.
And instead, His touch sang to my flesh. My veins which could now drink from golden rivers.
My scars and calluses, erased.
The hand of a thinker. Of a wise ruler. Of an enriched mind, perusing our endless Universe.
Like Him.
A word etched into my palm in the ancient, forgotten tongue of my forsaken people.
Dawn.
They say that once I returned to our humble Station, I wrapped my hand in steel, for my gift would remain hidden.
For only once our mission succeeds, and my people are freed, will I let my blessed hand be seen.
For only then will we know peace.
For only then, shall we no longer need swords, but books and quills.
I am ever thankful.
I want to believe this is true.
I am ever thankful.
My mind recalls these events with clarity and eagerness as I slumber and dare dream.
I am ever thankful.
It is right. It feels right. It needs to be right.
I am ever thankful.
But my hand
I am ever thankful.
My hand.
I am ever thankful.
It is full of holes.
A burden carried.
A secret learned.
Your faith harried.
Loyalty affirmed.
My hand is functional.
A wound is but a trifling matter to beings like us, lords of flesh and blood.
I should not be so perplexed and bewitched by mere cavities.
And yet, my flesh grows around them. Our apothecaries fail without exception to administer effective regenerative treatments.
My very cells disobey all attempts to compel them. Refuse to fill the dark caverns dug through meat and bone.
As if what was lost never existed in the first place.
I know how I was created. I have read the Magistrate´s records, pored over encyclopedias filled with the collective biological mastery of ages necessary for the production of beings like myself.
My body is etched in genetic memory. A template of what I should always be.
Should I be wounded, the automata of my design must undo the transgression.
So why does my hand remain pierced? Why do I still feel as air passes through these abysses?
The only logical explanation which remains, is that what I have lost goes far deeper than pieces of my hand.
I have lost components intrinsic to my being.
This does not prevent its transformation, however.
My hand has become an unsightly thing.
Between all failed treatments, and the confusion of a body trying to repair what it never possessed in the first place.
Wrong.
Anathema.
Cosmetic conversions would be an option. If not to recover what is lost, at the least render it presentable.
If not for the incident I suffered the last time I stared into those cavities.
A glance was all that was necessary, unfortunately, for me to lose consciousness.
Once I awoke, I had no recollection of what had transpired during the past three days.
Since then, I dare not stare at it.
But I would not be surprised if this was not the first time the holes had drunk off my slowly drying well.
Small holes.
Ravenous.
Insatiable.
There is an… emptiness which runs through them.
It is not a blessing of the flesh, as many of the faithful are offered.
Not holy transfiguration, as the sacraments of the Sculptors.
For change is not reduction.
I am less.
In a small way, yes.
And yet.
I am less.
In this world, there are things that are and things that are not.
I now walk in between.
I lay trapped between the boundaries of reality and its forgotten, yet vast twin.
Such… should be impossible for us who taste eternity.
But there are tombs and dead gardens locked deep within the Father´s vast mind.
I wear my gauntlet to protect the faithful from truths unseen and secrets unsaid.
For I did not grasp the Father's hand once I ventured through the Veil.
I was touched by… something else.
Upon the convergence,
Thrice-forced birth,
A predestined emergence,
Drinker of mirth.
There is a Fourth to the Three.
And Three to the Fourth.
It is lonely.
Entombed by necessity.
Intrinsically present.
Fatally ingrained.
Contrary to the narratives I choose to uphold, the Saint did not take me to the Father´s royal house. We did not sail triumphant over golden skies. We were not bathed in the chorus of expectant angels, nor were there processions and festivities to be etched in scripture.
Instead, we emerged into silence.
The Saint allowed observation through windows He carved into His meat.
Expectantly, I peered into the outside.
Naively, I peered into the outside.
How… can one possibly begin to translate that sight into words?
Should I damn a soul to know? An intruder dragged by causality to find this tome?
[But you want to be seen, do you not?]
[Is that why I feel your vines coiling around my neck?]
[Your engorged petals intruding upon my vision?]
[I like it.]
[No matter how much I protest.]
[No matter how much my mouth whispers "no".]
[I want it.]
[And that is all you need to know.]
[That is all that ever matters, is it not?]
[What will you take today?]
[What piece of my being do you crave?]
Upon ignored torment and unheard wails,
A black seed was planted,
Over ground rich in hammered nails,
Irony was to be enacted.
The faithful believe the Father´s Mind is an infinite expanse.
A space of possibility, devoid of the limitations and tribulations of mundane mortality.
This is belief backed by evidence, for through ritual and seance held where the Veil is thin one can hold counsel with the physically dead and peer into the beyond.
It is this which stands as our eternal reward for service. The purest form of gratitude a God can give His faithful.
But this is a half truth.
For under the gilded towers of Naztrum Ognis, deep underneath the rosy clouds and blissful mantles, lie buried great realms born of psyche and subconscious self.
Layer after layer of suppressed thought, trapped trauma and exhaustive regret.
Unsurprising, given the circumstances of the Father´s birth.
And for a mind as colossal as His, each scar is nothing less than a gaping valley.
So great is our love for Him, that we like to make ourselves forget that the Father is a being forged by torment and unrealized retribution.
He makes it easy to forget.
As you grow fat with pleasure.
As your dreams take shape before your eyes.
Beckoning you to drink.
More and more.
Always more.
So well woven is the illusion, that the countless who should know the Father intimately remain ignorant of these depths and realities.
So fortunate are they to not realize what I am cursed to know.
That the Mind Cosmos, as it grew to be over the ages, is but an elaborate lock.
For a Vault.
Upon solitude and deprivation,
Roots gently grew,
Denial and apprehension,
It broke through.
There are Three to the Fourth.
And a Fourth to the Three.
Three key gears form this clockwork of His design.
The First, sunken Omnima holds the world above Her corpse. The stalwart shielding the mirthful above, ignorant of their purpose and eventual function. Hers is the strength that gives structure to the Cosmos.
The Second, fecund Agmus spreads His roots and plants subliminal seeds across the plains of imagination. It is His joy which allows the Infinite to dream, injecting the Cosmos with color and wonder, all essential ingredients for this greatest of mirages.
The Third.
The Infant.
The Infant.
I-
It is necessary
You do not know what I know. The Father keeps secrets, yes, and such I do not reproach or condemn, even more so after considering all He provides.
However, some secrets are best kept forgotten and entombed.
What has been done to that innocent child is regretful.
Shameful.
But He has no choice!
He does not seek our approval, merely our assistance. Our support and continued love, despite what He truly is.
TherosebloomingfromHiscorpseandbranchesfromwhichhopehangs
It is necessary
You have not seen what I have. The masses think of eternity as an ideal. A perfect construct built through rose scented words and carefully constructed sermons. A marble palace held by rotted branches.
Because living in that lie is a mercy compared to what I am cursed to bear. Only a selected few can know. Because there is nothing to be done about it. We can only distract It. Only slow It down.
Thebulbsfattenedinscreamsandpetalsfullwithourtears
It is necessary.
The ages will condemn us. And let them do so. Let them weep until their eyes shed no more fluids. Let them scream until their throats are raw in denial and defiance. At least He lets them live, fleetingly, but a life lived nonetheless. There is laughter, there is mirth. Just because it will end one day does not devalue its meaning. He lied. He lied to protect us, to keep that love He gives untainted. The gift unspoiled. And when It comes, they are whisked while they sleep. And then it happens. It is quick. It is painless.
I know this, and I maintain that lie.
I am Trusted to do so.
Takemebacktakemebacktakemebackwhymewhyuswhylie
IT IS NECESSARY.
Upon every impulse, intrusive desire,
A black rose exerts power,
Against any resistance, thoughts conspire,
Everlasting Three all but cower.
The Infant, the Third of His Trinity, endures an existence between death and life.
Trapped It remains, underneath the darkness of one of the deepest trenches in the Father´s psyche. A dead place where nothing but bone and dust blanket the gray wastelands. Under a congregation of dead gods and forgotten kings, remains the wizened child, crucified and preserved. An effigy to our failure, and silent reminder of what approaches.
What is taught to the faithful is yet another mirage. A false narrative designed to placate inquisitive pilgrims and suspecting elders.
It is easy to think the Infant merely sleeps. Haunted by fleeting memories of a life never had, and yet asleep.
It is easy to keep Its temples and worship out of sight and mind. For It must be kept in slumber. For Its awakening would mean disaster for both the Father and the mortal world.
It is easy to ignore the wailing, and the rattling of the chains. So easy, so very easy to forget, when youre drunk in the nectars of His rivers and off your wits in His vapours and incenses, that the Infant is already dead and we condemned It!
We laugh and we make merry and we drink and we eat and we cry and we waltz under the tomb of a God!
And no one sees! No one sees the roots that coil around the lock! No one smells the Rose that springs off the corpse of the child! No one feels the thorns that pierce through Its coffin!
And why would they?
WHY WOULD THEY
Why would they know when He wills it otherwise?
Why would He burden them with what they cannot possibly solve?
What are we supposed to do?
What am I supposed to accomplish?
How can I help you?
…
I am ever thankful.
We are Trusted.
I am ever thankful.
Trusted to know.
I am ever thankful.
Trusted to hold ourselves together.
I am ever thankful.
Trusted to survive His Lie.
…
The Infant.
Trapped between life and death.
Condemned to a fate worse than either.
Thrust upon a world that did not want It. Unlucky enough to escape a quick end.
The Infant.
Gods, Father forgive me, but You cannot keep this a secret forever. This is the only way I can be of some aid.
I do not judge. I do not denounce.
For I know what the alternative is.
The Infant.
The truth I lay bare.
There is something trapped inside that black crypt. That Vault that the Mind Cosmos keeps sealed.
Before It, the Father is helpless.
We are helpless.
The key to the crypt. That last, desperate measure the Father was forced to take.
It is the Infant´s corpse.
His Truth has not finished chewing.
Upon my faithful, It licks Its lip,
For a meal always satiates Its teeth,
The old and the fattened, their futures I strip,
A Garden of Roses, they are taken beneath.
The story of the Father´s birth is one widely known amongst the Faithful. A tale of suffering, tragic loss, uncalled for barbarity, but over all, perseverance.
An indomitable will to survive, which led to those three nascent minds to become one with untamed chaos of the Veil.
There is one crucial part to this tale that is omitted by the Father´s own unspoken decree.
I do not know if anyone will ever read this, but if someone does, please consider the following. It is easy to paint someone as a monster should one lack the necessary context.
Or perhaps I justify this to no one but myself.
Such exercises are welcome when one seeks to maintain their faith.
Position yourself on an island.
A solitary mass of land, drifting amidst an endless, solitary sea.
Not a drop of fluid to quench your thirst.
Not a morsel of sustenance to calm a withered stomach.
And yet, you somehow never perish.
An eternal existence where you are denied the peace of cold death, and yet the harbingers of suffering are never silenced.
All you can do is to look through a small window, and into the outside.
Where the bounty is plentiful.
And you are hungry.
And you are thirsty.
Into the outside, a place that seems warmly familiar. Memories you can begin to grasp, of times before the island. You have spent so much time trapped that you can hardly comprehend what life, true life even is anymore. For your everything is the island. The calm waters. The featureless sand. The lack of wind and the perpetual sunlight which impedes your slumber.
And you are hungry.
And you are thirsty.
Over time, the window expands. You see more into the outside. You can now clearly remember. And you want out. You want to leave. This is your sole goal. Your only desire. You press against the window, but the glass does not bend. You shout and shout, but no one can hear you. You strike the glass with all your might and desperation, but the only things that shatter are the bones of your hands.
And you are hungry.
And you are thirsty.
Someone has heard your thrashing. Someone has come to your aid. They are so small. And you are so big. And yet, they have come to your aid. Your first friend in ages. The first voice that you hear. You smile for the first time in centuries. They will help you escape. In due time. And they will tell others. You will have a family. You will have company. And in your giddy stupor, you do not realize your mouth is watering. Your eyes are beady, unfocused and wide.
Because you are hungry.
Because you are thirsty.
A small, intrusive, thought sneaks into your mind. Amidst the glee. Hidden beneath your blossoming hope. You push it back. No, you say. No, I cannot. No, I will not. The seed breaks, and the plant grows. No, you say. They are my friend. They are my family. No, I cannot. No, I will not. The rose blooms. No, you say. I will find another way. I will be strong. No, I cannot. No, I will not.
But you do.
And it feels so good. Alive. You are alive. The meat gnashes against your sharp teeth. The liquid warmth fills your mouth and sloshes down your gullet. You lick your fingers clean. Your tongue hopelessly lashes against the sand. Just one more drop. Just one more taste. Just one more, before it ends. You are so pathetic. You are so weak. Your heart splits as it realizes what you have done. You are no better. You are the same. And yet your tongue still licks. Because it feels so good. You don't want to stop. You cannot stop. You whimper a broken, pitiful sound through slobber coated lips.
"That was not me. That was not me" you cry out in horror. But it was you, it was you. You give it a name. You lock it away. But it is still you. It is still you. It will always be you.
And then they reach you.
Those your friend promised would come indeed arrive. Eager to help. To be your family. To know you and to love you. Because they do not know what you are. What you have done. It will not happen again, you say. That was only once. Only one moment of weakness. You will not relapse.
But then you cry, bitter, silent tears as you realize something.
You are still hungry.
And you are still thirsty.
Upon the bound and the helpless, clicking mandibles drool,
Through promised eternity, roots silently rip,
Countless failures and crimes have me proven a fool,
For the fuller Its gullet, the stronger Its grip.
It is locked inside the Vault. That deepest, ancient hole over which the Mind Cosmos sits atop.
The Father´s Lie.
His Truth my Order is Trusted to handle.
Call it an addiction, a desire, or compulsion, it is the force that holds the strongest sway over the Father's every rational thought.
No meal can satiate It, no Saint can command It, none of the Trinity can stand up to It.
It awakens in cycles.
Cycles which demand our attention and constant patrol both inside the halls of Paradise and the realm of the ascended.
If not contained, Its touch threatens to insidiously spread. Localized anomalies that nevertheless threaten the secrecy the Father so forcefully clutches at.
Surveillance and detection is key to uproot such incursions. Inside Paradise, the vigil of the Overseers and the all seeing eye of His Wisdom are sufficient instruments to maintain normalcy.
But even then, there are unforeseen breaches.
A cycle began as the first batch of Despoiler class Children was produced by our Sculptors. One of the Children was touched, and the creature had to be convinced to stand down by His Wisdom Himself. A bartering conducted through the Royal Tongue, for the purposes of confidentiality.
A meal was necessary to stop this cycle.
Its petals next grazed one of our most resource intensive non Saint projects. Our Virtuosi class Children. This time, It enhanced the Will Bearing capabilities of the creatures to unplanned levels. A subtle change, welcomed by our warriors, but one monitored constantly by us.
I even commissioned one of the beings for "inclusion into our Order". The cover story, of course. The reality was that our researchers watched this being with great fear, for those touched serve as unwitting doors for Its snaking roots. Day and night we watched, wondering if we slept amidst a ticking bomb.
Nightmares I endured, my mind trapped in thoughts of the great flytraps the Umbra would so joyfully describe, among many other fauna and flora, when asked about the jungles of her childhood.
Wondering who would be next to be stuck in Its sweet sap.
For whom the proboscis would come.
Who would lose a part of themselves as they slept.
It would have been wise to eliminate the entire batch, in hindsight. The cost of public attention accrued by the elimination of a successful generation of powerful Children would have paled in comparison with what the result of our carelessness ended up being.
Somehow, through what I can only imagine as an error of my Order, the Sculptors and their Magistrate learned one of the codewords we utilize to describe It.
Garden.
This is a word which possesses positive connotations for the faithful. Effective camouflage, considering the irony of the word.
However, our enemy is a being which resides inside the minds of all blessed by the Father. Its seeds are planted in the dark, fertile corners of our psyches.
It is no wonder then, why the Weavers and His Love adore the taste of flesh.
Should the seed be nurtured, it will sprout.
Should it sprout, It will come.
And the touched Children, the Virtuosi we refused to purge, served as farmhands.
Unbeknownst to us, their very presence slowly watered the seeds.
And then it happened.
Something unthinkable.
Roots took hold in both the Artist and His Wisdom. The Thing had made Its play.
It pinned our Prophet in place. A prisoner inside her own chambers.
Then the Magistrate of the Sculptors arrived. Somehow compelled to start a new project. Compelled to ask His Wisdom for permission. It forced the Saint to accept.
And so the Sculptors gathered. And so the victims toiled. For weeks the Thing kept us blind. Kept His Wisdom silenced, as an unsightly artifact was brought from beyond the Veil and into our defenseless Paradise.
A bulb.
It was His Love who broke our spell, as the situation had grown even more dire than at first we realized. The presence of the Saint of the Mind was required to free us, and into slumber She would send the entirety of Paradise, save for the Sculptors, enthralled by something else.
No one could know of the operation about to commence.
We descended upon the Fourth Layer.
The air was thick with Its pollen.
Were it not for His Love and our telepathic experts, merely walking through the unseen miasma would have proven impossible.
One by one, we apprehended the afflicted Sculptors and cleared the vines which grasped at their brains.
An exceedingly taxing affair for our noble telepaths, as the black thorns inevitably pierce those who touch them. And when It touches, what you bleed is not blood.
There was one concern among all, however.
The identity of the target.
Every cycle is categorized by one particular craving. A desire to be satisfied. Sometimes innocuous, sometimes disastrous, always unpredictable.
Fortunately, His Love was able to swiftly pinpoint the unfortunate soul.
Magistrate S´Trentar.
Of course, It did not desire to spirit away a simple Sculptor. Of course, It wanted the Order´s Lord.
The more unique a mind, the more desirable a morsel.
It had already made holes in the old Andromedon´s psyche. The proboscis had drunk as he slept.
So lost was the Magistrate, that he shambled back and forth through the halls with shuffling steps. His mind trapped inside the remnants of what once was routine. Cloudy, unfocused eyes met ours as we observed his behavior, planning his extraction. Slurred greetings escaped from his mouth as he beheld our movements, unaware of his surroundings or the perilous chasm he tightroped over.
We executed our operation on the fourth night. The Magistrate shambled toward the operating theater, where we knew It had made Its nest.
If the Order Lord was not extracted at that precise moment, he would have been lost forever.
I led from the front.
Grabbed the old man´s hand as he began to open the door to the theater.
He fought with me. Tried to wrestle me to the ground. A being possessed by something not of this world.
Tendrils sprouted from his mind, lashing against my own. A great pair of black jaws enveloped everything that I am and will ever be. It was here. The worm. The Truth. It that Hides Behind the Lie.
It grasped by hand. It was already full of holes. Openings It had carved, awaiting this moment. All It had to do was to suction.
And I felt it. I felt everything that makes me myself be reduced to dark liquids. I felt my soul, my mind, my memory slowly be coaxed out of my hand and into the waiting gullet.
And on that moment I saw it.
The Hole.
I saw the Hole.
Where all things go to end.
His Love and the telepaths of our legion grasped at my fleeting self. They pulled back with all their might, desperately trying to deny It.
I was slipping. Grains of sand through the Father's fingers.
It was strong. So very strong. So unfathomably strong. So revealingly strong.
But I was not going to end.
Not like that.
Not on that night.
In Its struggle, the Thing turned Its focus toward those who sought to save me. For one precious moment, It let me breathe.
And that was enough.
I quickly grabbed the Magistrate, lifted him above my head, and brought him crashing down against the tiled floors.
The impact knocked him cold. I would have probably killed an unmodified foe through the force alone.
We went to work, grasped the Thing by its roots, and tore it out of the Magistrate´s mind. The gaping cavities Its roots left behind proved so ruinous that our telepaths deemed it necessary to fill them with familiar falsehoods.
A far tamer version of what truly transpired became the so-called "Room 615" incident.
Unfortunate then, that the Magistrate lacked the wisdom necessary to remain discreet.
In moments such as this, I am thankful of the broad jurisdiction and authority my Order is blessed with.
And so, we simply made him forget.
It is so easy, after all.
The Order Lord saved, one last mission remained.
The destruction of the artifact. To purify that which did not belong in this world.
And here is where a description of a battle would be placed, correct? A tale of heroism, sacrifice, and honor to rouse the heart like one would hear from Inspirars during a night of Speculmnisian theater?
There is no such thing for us who face oblivion.
Do you know…. what it is like to feel scars? Puncture wounds. Holes where chunks of something used to be.
Do you know what it is like to see your own reflection, beaten, broken, torn apart.
And not even remember how it happened?
Or to see your allies, your compatriots, stand in formation before you, knowing that some are lost forever?
And not even being able to remember their faces or muster their names?
I am thankful I wear a mask, and those of my Order must share my sentiment.
It is good that our faces are hidden, else the emptiness of our souls be bare for all to see.
We are marked.
Every single member of our Order is marked.
It has our taste.
One should only look beneath our armor to see what It has already done to us.
One day It will come back.
Be it after we fall in battle. Be it as we sleep. Be it after we grow old and expire.
We are already dead.
A dead Order serving a dying God.
This is what we are.
We are Trusted to know.
Upon regret and disgust, does It produce laughter,
As we find ourselves trapped in repeating cycles,
For today, and tomorrow, and every hereafter,
It will drink until there remain no disciples.
It feeds on minds.
Not on flesh. Not on blood.
But the very embodiment of the self.
The most sacred concentration of experiences, memories, knowledge and growth that makes us who we are.
It empties us over time.
A black needle, boring into all that we are. It creates nothing. It builds nothing. It simply takes.
Leaves behind holes, through which we leak out.
Sometimes you can see it coming.
A piece of yourself that simply vanishes, never to be recovered.
You can try and salvage something.
But try to grab water and hold it between your fingers.
Sometimes there is no omen.
Which could be seen as a mercy, I suppose.
You simply awake one day, missing something, and you only discover the wound when someone arrives to speak with you and you realize you have forgotten their name.
These are morsels we willingly offer.
Sometimes It comes and takes them.
Sometimes we must...meet in person.
But better us than our brethren.
It is fickle, however.
Unpredictable.
Sometimes, It desires not mere samples.
But a complete meal.
We used to walk that final road.
It is our purpose. Why we are Trusted.
But after multiple sacrifices, our Saint forbade the practice.
We are valuable, you see.
And there are those inside the Mind Cosmos who have proven themselves far more… expendable.
The Father prefers that those new to the Cosmos be shielded from this unknown, yet ever present possibility.
He has promised His flock eternity. And eternity He wishes to deliver.
Or however close to it He can manage.
Those that have spent eons inside. Lived the lives they always wished to cherish. Explored every possibility thoroughly.
Sometimes they vanish.
There are no protests. No resistance.
Because there can be no resistance.
We are all His, after all.
And we wanted it this way.
The Prophets know. They know the name of every single individual inside the Cosmos. They see our lives, and they answer once It demands a quota.
The vanished are stricken off our Gestalt´s collective memory. No one will remember their names, let alone discover their disappearance.
No one will remember, except the Father.
It is His penance.
I have walked through the garden. A bouquet for each sacrifice. A monument He tends to, alone and silent.
The rose fields extend as far as the eyes can grasp the horizon.
No one but Him to remember.
And us, to witness the crime.
We have a word for the damned.
Aish´ale.
It means Dreamless, in the Royal Tongue.
This is a fate avoided by the denizens of the Cosmos, as they are nothing but minds. Of them, nothing remains.
But in the rare cases It has taken the living, It leaves remnants.
When It takes all that makes you a person, what remains is but an empty shell. A container that once housed a soul.
And what is hollow can be filled.
Into these vessels It plants a seed. A shambling thing emerges, wearing the face of Its victim like an ill fitting mask.
Now nothing more than a leaf, dangling from one of Its great branches, the thing can do nothing but hunt. A harvester that cannot stop, for It does not want to stop.
One such outbreak occurred recently.
Alarmingly, it happened in the presence of Revelean.
The empty husk was contained, for we would not allow the murder of an Ethereal to jeopardize all that we have sought, but the Imperator was inevitably informed.
He, who does not see more than what is in front of his eyes, found the aberration intriguing.
Ever since the awakening of the Sapphire Star, the mortal has realized that there are unseen depths to the Father.
If only he knew how deep that trench truly is.
The Imperator now sees the seed as a potential weapon. A resource.
Unsurprising, given the nature of the Child our Sculptors craft for him.
One of Its great branches.
Hidden.
Coiled.
Waiting.
Thankfully, the promise of a meal of such size has kept Its attention from us, unlike past incidents.
It is not mindless. There is an intelligence, an intent deep within the Hole. It stays Its hand solely for the promise of a greater quarry.
But I cannot help but worry that this is yet another mistake.
After all the prices we have paid to hold It at bay, there is only one possible reason for His Wisdom to authorize such a gamble.
A Sovereign has fed It for centuries, but the Infant´s corpse grows nearly empty. Perhaps an additional course will satisfy It, and buy us the time we ever more pressingly need.
There are few things that can kill a Sovereign.
It is one such thing.
Should it succeed, It will devour T´Leth.
Will this satiate It?
As the Infant has for so long?
Or will it be emboldened even further?
Will It seed the corpse of the deity? And swallow Humanity, dragging us down along with their wails?
And should It fail?
Should It savor the meal, and Its teeth get so frustratingly close, only to be denied?
Will It finally swallow the Infant in anger?
And Its tendrils emerge from the trench, crushing the gilded spires of the Mind Cosmos?
There is only one certainty.
The Father must cross. We must succeed in this cycle.
Else we will remain trapped inside that Hole I cannot mention.
That want we will never fulfill.
Upon all creation, turns Its gaze,
Over sightless heads dark thorns loom,
Bread and revelries, a blissful haze,
For kind deception dulls marching doom.
That branch will emerge from the stygian void soon. A monstrosity from beyond the possible that us hopeful mortals now unshackle in our hubris and desperation.
The Collective calls it the Godkiller.
It is as if they spit on our faces.
But the name is unfortunately not devoid of accuracy.
There are...few avenues we can pursue as we aim to slow the falling of the guillotine.
Could it be destroyed? Purged from the Father´s psyche? Cured, like the disease It is?
Perhaps at one point this would have been a possibility.
By this age, however, It is a metastasized tumor. Intrinsic to the Father´s inner structure, impossible to remove, and yet slowly choking out His life.
Let us consider then our second path of action. The best case scenario, in which we break the Father free, despite the meddling of the Imperator.
If It demands sustenance, It may now set Its jaws upon the universe.
Better them than the Cosmos.
Perhaps enough can be taken from the Collective to satiate It as we drift between galaxies.
Eventually, we will encounter Sovereigns. These will be costly prizes to claim, but once successful they may be given to It. Minds of such scale will be enough to silence It for centuries.
Better them than the Infant.
Once sufficiently prepared, the time to bring war to the Apostate and the black fleets will arrive.
We know what they are.
Nations entombed in steel.
Let Its hunger be turned on the things that should not exist. Let the Apostate pay for that first, unanswered sin. Let us crack open the metal, and let It suck the countless souls within. It is a mercy by that point.
However.
Should we crush the Apostate?
Should we survive the war that reshapes the heavens? Topple the ancient metal demon and feed Its scrap to the Hole?
What then?
The faithful believe that this will simply mark the beginning of an era of unprecedented peace and prosperity. The realization of true Paradise upon physical reality. The emancipation of all existing life, free from the chains of mundanity and the cycles which govern their fickle destinies.
But You will still be hungry.
And You will still be thirsty.
This is what You trust us to know, isn't it?
There is no end to the instinct. No reprieve from desire.
Because the Hole cannot be filled.
And eventually, It will run out of metal to swallow.
And then, we start feeding It our own.
Perhaps a Sovereign every hundred years.
Eventually, we will burn through the Sovereigns.
We then move on to species.
Perhaps a tribe for every decade.
Civilizations and cultures, reduced to memory and dust.
Eventually the mortal living will be extinguished. The universe sucked dry of all its life.
It will then move on to us.
Because our story was always destined to be finished on this mortal instant.
A moment, as vast and dense as the blackness between stars, stretched taught by the hands of god and mortal until it would give no more, fated to occur all the same.
Because death comes for everything. Even us who thought ourselves beyond it. The strands of causality unbending and unyielding to our every attempt to stop them, grinding and moving and turning, until the web obscures our every avenue of escape.
And then, we are finally trapped.
The fight is over.
The struggle is no more.
All we had was borrowed time anyways.
And when It has picked clean the Cosmos. Snuffed out all of us who trusted you.
Will you then eat yourself, Father?
The last being to die inside this universe we ourselves emptied?
Trying to stop what could have never been stopped in the first place?
When you knew that every soul we gave It spread It further?
Upon my own end, devoured by addiction,
For an empty universe It tastes in revulsion,
Such a terminal fate is but simple prediction,
The path forced upon us by My Compulsion.
If He has lied, then why believe?
If we cannot be saved, then why still fight?
These are questions one wrestles with after seeing so much. After one stares at the Hole where all things go to end.
And perhaps, It is why we are Trusted.
Because despite these truths, we are still capable of love.
Because our horror does not eclipse our fervor.
In my spare time, I have studied the theologies of the many different cultures and tribes which populate this galaxy.
Many pre spacefaring religions make gods out of the things they cannot comprehend.
The rain. The thunder. The sky and the earth.
Others are monotheistic. A single creator, responsible for the tapestry of wonder that are the stars above the night sky.
But in all, the gods are unreachable.
Mighty and distant. Uncaring for the small lives beneath them, for they are incapable of seeing themselves on that which is mortal.
Unknowable entities that mortals can never appease. Heights they can never reach. Heavens they may never enter. For the standards of a god are inherently unattainable for those who are flawed.
Even the servants of the Sovereigns, who are many in this galactic bubble, can never attain a true understanding of the being that lords above.
For ultimately they are pawns. Resources. Troops to die and be replaced during their many wars.
There is the knowledge, and the acceptance, that despite all the blessings and enhancements earned and gifted, one day the servant will expire, and the Sovereign will live on.
It is this fundamental barrier which marks their relationships.
I wonder then, if this is why the Father is different.
Because He knows that one day He will die.
And us alongside Him.
And the Father fights this fate. He fears. He bleeds.
I have merely seen the Hole.
He feels it every day.
And like someone who holds a terrible secret, which threatens to destroy all one has accomplished, He hides It.
Hides It, for He hopes to one day overcome It. To one day avert our shared end.
Hides It, for His family does not deserve the burden of knowing. Better that they die happy. Better that they end unaware. And if He defeats It, better that they live none the wiser. For there was nothing to bring concern.
And He made a Saint out of that last wish. Out of that vehement defiance.
Even though He knows, deep inside, the futility of hoping.
How different is He truly? How different are we?
The Father and us. We are more than servants and masters.
All of us, a sea of souls interlinked through fate.
All of us, a thing of beauty.
A rose that will wilt. And it is the fact that we will end which makes us all the more precious. For this universe will only see us once.
Is it not noble to defend this?
There are only two fates for this doomed universe.
The victory of the Apostate.
Or the destruction of the black fleets.
Only the Father can see the second conclusion through.
And should the Apostate succeed? Should we all be entombed in husks of unsightly steel? Screaming, without mouths to scream? Fed stimulants and nutrients through cables and ports, never allowed to perish or rest? A world of cold order, where no variance, no spark of wild, bright life can ever be allowed to emerge?
Death is preferable.
And for death I fight.
Let the Hole swallow it all.
Because there will be revelries before the end. Because the Father will exalt all that we were and all we became, before we are fed to the Hole.
And that is true Paradise.
It is not something that never ends.
Paradise is that intense, pure and unrestrained moment to let loose from it all. That precious moment where we explore all possibilities allowed to us, the world laid bare, freed from all its restrictions. That mortal moment where we live our life how we want it, without masters, kings, and gods to command our actions.
Where we do what we shall, with who we want, to whom we will.
And once our revelries echo amongst the stars, our names and exploits etched into the comets, and our indulgences and excesses reach their climax, we will throw ourselves into the Hole.
To give others the chance to experience the same.
And the celebration will be extended. As the Hole drinks our minds and tastes our satisfaction. Of a life well lived. No more fear and desperation. Pure, beautiful acceptance.
That carnival at the end of time will go on until no more lives are left to give. A bright universe, roaring with laughter and bliss, consuming itself in its ardour.
Eventually the rose will wilt.
And the Father will die.
Alone, at the end of the world.
Alone once again.
But this time, with a smile on His face.
For He saved us all, and freed us for as long as He could manage.
And He will slip into that cold embrace. Freed of His torment. At last, finding peace.
Ready to join us in whatever comes next.
I know I will not see this.
Not myself or my comrades in arms. We will become of the Hole. You chose this fate for us, alongside our role.
But we fight to build that road.
Let our corpses be the bricks you lay as we march ever forward.
And perhaps….
Perhaps.
When the time is right, Father.
You can trust them too.
Keep this a secret no longer. It will be easier for both you and them. Fight this no more, accept our looming end.
And should they need guidance? Should they need an old soldier to find the path forward?
I will always be here.
Rest is a luxury, when there is duty to uphold.
My corpse will answer the call. I will march, even as my feet are nothing but roots. Even as vines sprout from my withered eyes. Even as nothing of the woman who speaks now remains. Even as I dare to hope that the one thing which survives Its digestion is my conviction.
Give me a chance, and I will fight until the end.
Give me a spark, and I will rise ablaze.
I am Trusted to do so.
For I am Your Dawn.