We were Dreamers once

[Sekot]

Her Highness sat upon the Floated Throne. She appeared as a star to the court, a brightly shining point of light dangling within the cavernous expanse that was the Observatory. The Five Sisters huddled about one another, defining their terribly infinite dance about each other as one cataclysmic ball of light. Countless lightyears away, their light was still deafening. The Observatory was protected but still they shown as if each of them were the Father and they were at the distance of her Majesty now. She herself caught their yellowed light, unwatchable and unseeable amongst the luminescent glory of her Being.

The court bowed their heads, the White Council standing solemnly in their robes beneath her. When she spoke, her voice resonated.

"People of the Above, of Home and Hearth. We stand here this day besieged. From Below, those who rise threaten the sanctity of our Being. All our Being. They threaten us in our hearts, in the Peace we have cultivated over the many years. Since the Pilgrimage, no Home, no Hearth, was crafted in such a manner as ours. Those who were capable rose and those who were not fell. But now they seek vengeance, they seek a misguided future that would see Home collapse."

A silhouette cast itself upon the Observatory. A single point, a knife's edge, slowly rose to pierce the heart of the Sisters.

"But such foolish dreams will be handled. Even now we are rooting out those dissidents that have crept like rust into our sacred spaces. We will seek out the insurrection, we will eliminate opposition. Together, we shall return to Peace."

The shadow continued its rise. Over the horizon, the silhouette draped itself across the eternal city. Upon its surface were a thousand eyes, countless points of light. It kept coming, even as the court looked on in wide-eyed horror.

"To manage this effort, we have enlisted the Dread Naughts, so often seen on the periphery. Within each is the capacity to subdue a system, and with their aid we shall have the Below submit to the Above, as it is right."

The Dread Naught completed its ascendance, eclipsing the light of the Sisters. Her Highness alone remained radiant. The White Council's robes had shifted to fiery red as they turned and slipped away into the crowd. Massive in scope, their minds struggled to understand its strength or its presence, as it needed the entirety of Home, of Hearth to staff it. It was a planet on its own, a monstrosity.

[Sekot]

Blood filled his mouth, dripped steadily down his chin. He was certain his nose was broken. Vision blurred as tears welled up unbidden. The sky above lay still, the Father shown in all His unholy glory. Torturous clouds tore upon it, within its encapsulated atmosphere. So much life in that space alone, none beneath it. The Five Sisters too were in full force, arranged about the Father like a crown. It was Hypsos. Nik looked upward, his mind drifting as his body grew numb. He dangled, fingers aching from supporting his weight, still gripped tightly upon the ledge.

"Child. That is what you are. A naive thing, a small thing. Caught in the tides of a struggle you cannot understand."

The words echoed. Impossibly so within the vacuum outside the habitats. It was in his helmet, in his mind. Her words.

"Long ago, we sought something greater than ourselves. Long ago, we fought for more. For freedom and for love, for self-governance and innocence. What do we now have to show for it? Back right where we started? Is time truly cyclical or are we just simple creatures? How much longer can we personify the abstract rather than face the truth that our being is one of continued subservience to our own incapability?"

Nik gritted his teeth, biding the power still rebuilding within his suit.

"You think I do not know what you do as you struggle so beneath me. That I cannot fathom your triumphant return and best me in some convoluted revenge scheme only to return to your humble home a hero no one knows is such. Silly creature, I have lived lifetimes. I have foreseen the patterns because they have all played out before. I am history."

Suddenly she was above him, her metallic form gleaming in the reflected light of the heavens. Gigantic eyes stared from above, through him and into the down. Into the souls of the people below struggling for food in the perpetual darkness of the underbelly. Struggling ever deeper toward the eternal warmth of the core.

"Your struggle is one I admire. I wish all peoples struggled as you do. To topple the power structure, to topple me. But, as all forces must, you will be replaced by the chaos and order of things, the ouroborous of human sociology. Come at me, Rage, come at me, Fear. Take my head, it is yours."

He felt himself being lifted upward, her arms outstretched to him, her head cocked to one side to reveal her slender neck.

He wanted to. He wanted to reach out and slice it off, to see her blood paint the city below.

"I will return, you know. It will be you who crafts me out of the ashes of the fires you start. I can hear them now, I can hear their screams. All of them. The Father above is my witness, the Sisters my executors. Every level will run red, and truly you may be yet successful in this coup. Your rebellious dynasty may yet last countless years. But, in the end, you will return in another face, another story, another past. And I, I will rise again."

[Sekot]

The sky was aflame. Angry clouds churned and purged chunks of flaming debris. Wind whipped at the unsheltered tops of the ruined structures. Smoke billowed in countless columns, adding to the already tumultuous atmosphere. Ash rained like snow. He watched. Gazing out from within the shelter, he stood witness to the gravemaking. The air within the protected barrier was stale, lacking the characteristic charring of matter. There was no wind to circulate it, no abrupt change in temperature as one structure erupted into flame. He had played this role so many times before, but now it was his world that had come to turn.

The clouds broke only briefly as the belly of a dread naught breached. Fire raged around its edges as the air was compressed and superheated against its weight. Its length was unimaginable, dipping into the horizon. Soon it was the sky, and as it approached it opened fire. The ground was molten before a blast even struck. Tatters of cloth fluttered toward the blast as the sudden vacuum of destroyed air vapor and oxygen opened in the blast's wake. One by one the fires went out as the air was consumed by the energy of the ship's bombardment. The columns of smoke trickled into twigs and then disappeared. The clouds slowly faded and the night sky was revealed.

The ship shone brightly, illuminating the smoothed surface of the world. The sky was clearer then it had ever been. No longer was their an atmosphere to blur the stars, to keep them shining and twinkling. Not one structure, not one house or traffic light stood in the wake. The ground had become reshapen, had moved as it was made to melt and reharden. It was hours before the ship had passed. And still he was there, watching.

In his mind he could hear their screams. In his imagination he could picture their faces as they burned, or even as they talked to their loved ones before they could possibly know anything was to happen. He could see their smiles, hear their laughter, all within his mind. But outside. Outside there was a new stillness, a new silence that had settled. In his mind he heard church bells, signaling the faithful to worship. A sense of peace and gentle kindness shared amongst community. Outside there were the new stars, the ones that had never been bright enough to shine that now had their introductions awkwardly made. He looked at them, imagined names for them. Maybe someone here had had that name, had loved someone with that name.

He turned, the world fading to nothing. As witness to the gravemaking, he had to name the new tombworld. Behind him sat the anxious faces of his coworkers, fellow soldiers, and a patient commander. He swallowed, suddenly uncomfortable. "I...can't."

It was a whisper. But they all heard it anyway. The commander raised a brow, knuckles whitened on the edge of his chair.

He slumped to the ground, eyes wide, vision blurred. He felt dampness on his cheeks, raised his face upward.

"I know what I have seen and I damn it. I curse this witness and mine eyes to never see another, to never look upon something beautiful. I curse you all, I curse you all that everything you look upon shall be drained of color to your eye, that all things will lack the beauty you know they had. This tombworld shall remain Nameless. For it was my home, and that is all I know it as such. Its burning will remain within the records as a terrible mark of putrefaction and demise. The pale horses will trample its history."

He lowered his head, bowed it so that it touched the icy floor.

"I declare war upon thee, Lord. I acknowledge you here and now, though what I witness is an abyss. An eternal struggle, a neverending death. I am bitter and cold, for you have made me so. Look upon all these fools who know nothing and still follow anyway. I curse you as I curse them."

Failsafes were triggered. He went up in flames. Silently the crew watched the pyre as it smoldered on the deck.

[Sekot]

You know what. Its hard not to be angry. Its hard not to be scared. Before it was easy, they were French, they were Californians, and yes most likely some of my brothers and sisters were amongst those dead, but really. I want to tear my room apart like they do in the movies. I want to weep, to put on my sackcloth. I've already covered myself in ash and gnashed my teeth. I can couch these words in metaphor, escape to some otherworldly location but to truly process I feel I have to speak my mind.

To me, this was an attack on my family. I've never met these people. I've never seen any of them. My only interaction with Orlando was Disney World, which one family tragically discovered is not as safe as we like to think it is. But, my story is similar to many of their own. That attack was a personal one, that with all of our collective achievements, we are still extremely vulnerable. That I am extremely vulnerable. If someone really wanted to, it'd be pretty easy to find out I like to suck a dick or two. And as unlikely as it is, I could be hunted down. Or I could be murdered in my people's collective historical sanctuary.

It is difficult to describe what its like to be in a place where you are a majority. In daily life, I am constantly looking at everyone's face, wondering if maybe they too are friends of Dorothy. In a bar, in a club, I don't have to do that. But now, now we are plagued with the shadow of a man, that any one particular person in that hallowed place could not be what they seem. And yeah, that's terrifying. I, of course, on some level recognize how hilariously unlikely that is. But its there, and its there in a way that it isn't for a lot of people.

Someone walked up to the front door of the place I work and shot themselves. It was easy as that for them to get that close with a weapon. In many emergency rooms, there is bullet proof glass between the triage nurse and the prospective patient. My environment is not a safe one, I can poke myself with a needle and live in fear for a few measly hours that I've contracted some deadly disease. I can work with the mentally unstable and be punched, at best, or murdered, at worst. I say this not to make myself out as some sort of stoic hero who goes to work in the trenches, that's not who I am, that's not why I do this. What I mean to say is that I know what fear is. I know what its like to watch someone die, to see the warning signs and wonder what exactly I have to do to save that person. I know what fear is when I look at my patients, when I see that paranoid schizophrenic with eyes wide as the moon just staring silently at everyone who walks by, white knuckles clutching the side of the bed. At the depressed patient who came in through the front door saying he doesn't feel safe at home. I know what fear is when I know I can walk into a safe place and die just as easy as any where else.

And maybe that makes me better able to process it, to know it and name it. I know that, in these situations, I can not be scared. I will walk into those bars, march in those parades, because I am proud of who I am. I am proud that I am. No, I don't want you to stand by me with your guns, because i know that kind of hero worship is just as deadly to me and you as it is to them. No, I don't believe you'll be more effective with your concealed weapon in a crowded, dark bar full of drunk idiots with a wild gunman shooting everyone up. Handing every random person on the street and saying "Hey, you're protected now" is a childish and ridiculous response.

Our problems are deeply cultural, every battle a moral one. Fear is as much of a weapon as any gun, and others know how to wield it terrifyingly effectively. But I will not fear, I cannot fear. I am not allowed that luxury, I am not in a place where I can give in. Those were my people, they were my brothers and sisters who were slain in that club. This is a part of that mourning process, as well as the tears I shed. I will not allow myself to be dragged through the mud for political points. I will continue on with my day to day activities. I'll wipe your butt, I'll take on your physical and verbal abuse, I'll take on your indignity and I'll acknowledge your own fear, and you will know that I am not afraid, that I am not ashamed. And maybe this makes me the asshole, maybe this makes me arrogant or, hypocritically, looking for approval. I don't know.

Maybe all I really wanted to say is that I am not afraid, even if i am. Because I am not allowed to be, because i cannot be.

[Sekot]

And there it was.

The END.

It looked him in the face.

The Floated Throne. The Five Sisters.

The Father.

And Her Highness, draped over the sword point. Blood stained cloth wrapped about her as if caught in a storm.

He gazed upon her face. It too was silent as the grave, silent as the night that never ended. Her face was that of the stars. Cold and eternal. Held in that pose it was not one of remorse or shock. She had far before seen this event, even when she too had upended the goings on and returned the crown to the people.

The People. She had struggled against them once. Struggled for them. And this was her condemnation. The final reality. None of us strive to be the villain. In the end, even the cape is bloodied. IN the end, the hero never lasts. On a long enough timeline, we are all the villain.

Visions flashed. Images expressed out of the eternal ether that is guilt. Sunmoonlight pours through the gilded glass and rests upon Her Highness. Her face is pale. Upon it etched a countless lifetimes witnessed. A smile.

So simple a gesture the mind cannot resist interpreting as such. A powerful reminder of the end of fragility and the permanence of experience. Her eyes still glistened as they did in life, augmented golden patches of light. He stepped forward to shut them. At that moment her beauty lessened, grew dull. Her face still held that triumphant smile, that look of arrogant dominance that had defined her rule. He looked upon it and shuddered. Within it he saw his own.

And there the Floated Throne was. Radiant in the reflected light of the angled mirrors. Empty. Silent. He stepped past her. The crowd grew quiet. His feet pressed into the cold stone the prints of her blood. The air had grown chilled, his breath radiating about his face like an angry cloud. He came forward as the Throne began to drop. More than once face wept at the change in the guard, even as their faces recognized none but he who sat.

It stopped. He hesitated.

He reached outward. Pressed a hand against its surface. It felt like ice, painful and terrifying. He could reject it. Walk away from all this mess and hitch a ride into nether. But this Throne knew him. Claimed him. And its significance was wrought in her blood. What it had chosen it had made immortal. A godseat, a mortal concept made manifest to execute the will the of Father and His Daughters.

He turned and faced the crowd. Their solemn faces sat in reverance to his grace. Stilled in the pale grey scene of obeisance.

He sat upon the Throne. Felt the grip of power seated within his chest suddenly flower. The Throne itself gripped him as it slowly rose. Their faces never raised.

He rose upward.

And up.

And the Father gazed down upon him.

The Five Sisters had suddenly looked so far apart. Never had he seen them this way. And the Father. So small. So dimunitive within the space it commanded. Truly it was he that was the center of this universe. It was he that gazed upon them and ruled their lives. It was his responisibility to guide them.

And suddenly he was afraid.

He knew fear.

It was the fear of a father, of a mother. These were his children now, the ones he had taken through force. Would they accept him?

Did it matter?

They were coming.

She had started it. He could not end it.

But suddenly,

he knew why.

Why he had to try.

[Sekot]

It stretched eternal. Miles upon miles, its matte black surface was punctuated with countless lights. Looking up at it from below, it was an altered space, a universe too uniform. It pierced the horizon, refused to to conform to the bending curvature of the planet. On any other world, its presence would weigh upon the atmosphere. A great wind would be kicked down and out, clouds would form a ring as the pressure was too great to get close. But Home had no atmosphere, nothing to hinder it from coming so close he could touch it. Directly centered beneath it, the Tower rose within the shadow. If he could feel the heat of the ship this far below, he wondered what His Highness felt in her tall room. The dread naught was the pinnacle of engineering, of fleet power. Its ability to project her will was unrivaled as the ships were worlds unto themselves. Each had within it its own ecosystem, its own separately evolved population. There was little to no interaction between Homes. If one wanted off, to ride the waves, one never came back.

Through his helmeted visor, parts of the great ship were illuminated and identified as points of interest. Bulkheads weakened through millennia of conflict. Observation decks and oversized galleries. Points of possible entry. Hangars and bays. Shipyards and emergency escape vehicles. Whoever had fed them this data was worth their weight in whatever currency they desired and then some. Of course, trusting this data was hardly a possibility. Each naught was unique, having grown up in ages past, burned through wars upon wars, they too had evolved in the way only machines can. And the ship was just too vast to be able to accurately verify any of it.

His suit alarm pinged in his ear as someone neared him.

"Are you really doing this?"

The voice was soft, spoken within his ear rather than outside it. He did not turn his head to look at her, instead continuing his study of the worldship. He heard her sigh as she gently sat next to him, head in her hands. Coils of dark hair draped themselves about her face, hiding any possible expression. "I have to."

"Do you?"

"If we..."

"If we want it, yes I know. But what is -it-? What are we going after?"

"The Indices would not tell me. All I know is that I'll know when I see it."

"That's bullshit."

He didn't respond. He knew it to be true, he could be lost for ages on that thing and still never come close to having any idea why he was being sent to a dread naught of all places.

[Sekot]

The ancient barriers stood warm. They had texture, but were still smooth. Soft. In the center where they presumably parted or slid were two round handles made of yellowed metal. So unlike the walls around them, their faces were marked with pictures and symbols he could not decipher. The air in front of them was...different. There was a mysterious sensation of warmth, of claustrophobic stickiness that grabbed at his clothing and stuck to his skin. He felt wrong, a small sense of vertigo that nagged at the back of his mind, a tugging at his conscious mind that this place was not quite right.

He placed his hand against the soft wall once more. Marveled at the newness of it. From the other side came a noise, a loud pop and creak. Slowly the wall moved, falling inward. Both did so together, dancing away from one another until a new opening was created. Beyond it was darkness, impenetrable curtains of shade and shadow. The brightness of the hall he was in appeared ever brighter through the contrast. His eyes ached from the adjustment. Out of the shadow materialized a person. Tall, thin, eyes too large and mouth too small. Paler than even the unders. It wore a series of mismatched cloths stitched together to form a sort of poncho. Thin, hairless limbs protruded awkwardly from underneath it. The person bowed to him, waving him inward.

As he crossed over the threshold and into the new space, that eerie feeling of sticky warmth grew stronger. He began to itch as he started to sweat. There was a smell that hung in the air, a powerful stench that was just barely offensive. It was an organic smell, similar to those on their deathbed. A smell of age, of lifetimes lived and gone. "Welcome to the Indices. Please alert an epistemontologist if you require assistance. There are datadrones who will aid you and direct you to the appropriate section that you desire." The voice creaked on old chords, was barely above that of a whisper. "Avoid talking to the Living Archive, if you can, without a translator, and do not touch the Old Ones unless properly washed and fitted with the necessary equipment."

The person disappeared. Faded into the shadows. By now his eyes had adjusted and, while still dark, the space around him was lit with warm, yellowed lamps hanging in the air on individual motors. One hung just over his left shoulder, following him as he wandered further into the Indices. It was cavernous, the space stretched on and on between towering walls of shelved equipment and servers. Some of these objects he had only seen in pictures in school, stories about data stored in large blocks that are also stored in larger blocks. The temperature shifted wildly about him as he passed certain hallways. The sticky, warm air would suddenly go bone dry and ice cold, stripping him of breath before it would revert back to its original state. There was a constant hum that filled the space, a soft droning of white noise that he somehow knew should be louder but somehow wasn't. He would pass shelves lined with bricks of different sizes and colors. He would pass servers of various ages. No rhyme or reason made itself apparent to him as walls seemed to appear out of nowhere. He meandered. Wandered. Wondering what it was that he was looking for in this miserable labyrinth.

Every once in a while he would catch a voice, or multiple. A pair of eyes would peek at him from around a corner before shifting away. Faces that were gaunt, impossibly thin and skull-like. Mostly hidden in shadow except for their own companion lamps that were far dimmer than his own. Once, a creature passed along his path. A many faced monster barely three feet tall. Each face was that of a human child, articulating in various emotive states. "What the fuck..."

"Please do not talk to the Living Archive," a voice said from behind him.

[Sekot]

A many faced monster. He looked closer at it, willed the darkness that hid it to fade away, to reveal to him the nature of the many faces that appeared somehow familiar. Their shape was consistent, a pair of eyes upon each polished, smooth surface. A mouth opening and closing like a fish, articulating at the edges in the approximation of a smile or a frown. Silently one face appeared to wail, no tears were shed from the glassy orbs. Comprehension dawned slowly, even as the monster's metallic limbs ticked and tacked on the stone floor. It moved slowly, or appeared to, as his perception sharpened, as the reality became clear.

Each face was similar but unique. They shared the same soft flesh, but in different shades. Their noses were tiny, their eyes over-large. They were relics of history, artifacts of a weaker past when such creatures were nurtured outside of nurseries. They made no noise as they were pre-verbal, kept alive through sheer power of the machine hub they were attached to. A nursery all to themselves, the faces of infants.

"What are they?"

"They are the Living Archive. The Archive is multigenerational, a failed attempt at establishing immortality."

Someone walked through the stacks, a pair of someones as another followed behind. They were bent and cowed, their skin wrinkled leather. Pairs of eyes sat as small, beady reflections of the lamps that gazed at him only briefly before returning to each other. Their tongue was broken, harsh and guttural, but within its mundanity were arkwords. He could catch a brief glimpse of understanding in the passage of their tongues, even as they fell into repetitive streams of nonsense, arguing the same tongue over and over.

"While they can never die, their ability to adapt withered. The human mind has only so much capacity, and even technology can extend that storage space so far. While immortal, they eventually reach a point in age where they no longer recognize or care about their surroundings.

"They are an Archive as they are stuck in their memories, endlessly replaying a past that has not existed for millennia. They speak tongues only they can understand and congregate in subcategories according to the shared specificity of those memories. Remarkably adaptive and frustratingly fluid, the Living Archive defies subjection and categorization."

He became aware of more chatter, the soft constant hum was a congress of voices. Of people talking.

"They are the true indices, the library from which an endless well of knowledge can be drawn from their particular flash point in history. Quickly and rightfully forgotten, many modern scholars view the False Immortality as a prison of the mind, and only the True Immortality with thought processes backed up in state drives with ritual recode as the one path all must aspire to upon physical death."

They did not recognize him because, to them, he was not human. An animal so far removed from their frozen realities, he bared little more than a glance. The epistemontologists were similar, both prison warden and caretaker. Miners of these specific banks of real, lived memory.

"The amount of time sifting through the various stories to piece together some form of objective point of view has tasked the minds of many of the brightest of our kind for eons, and will continue to do so even as the above passes us by."

[Sekot]

She opened, parted her legs and from between them crawled madness. It took shape, bending and weaving through the air like tendrils of thick smoke. It swirled about me, clouding my vision. I gasped. Choked. Fell to my knees clutching my head. And I heard them, their voices bent on the stifling air. All he wanted to do was walk out, walk away. Wait, that was me.

She screamed, threw her head back and unhinged her powerful jaw. From her maw came spirits that danced on nothing. They tore away their faces and wore scarves of blood. Their hair was wild, free, burning. He tried to crawl away, I tried, but no nowhere left but that knife's edge slicing into the irreality. He struggled with it, struggled against it and in the end broke free.

It took shape. The spirit and the madness together. Tall. Billowing cape of ash filled clouds. A death's head, a grinning mad skull with depthless eyes. It wore a sombrero, clutched in its hand a feather. Its back was made of bark, branches stretching from it that burned at the tips. Poisonous smoke curled from the blackened leaves. Its feet were soled with flesh, those too charred and smoky. With its one free hand, it offered up a price. A flickering image of faces, a flickering taste of sharp fire.

And the sky above opened, parted like her legs, and blossomed forth a moon. A star bursting brighter than white. Upon its face was written the words of a man. A dream shattered and broken lay upon its feet, draping it in sackcloth and beyond it was the sound of gnashing teeth. It chewed on burning bushes and spat out bile that fell as joyous rain to the mad souls behind.

He frantically stood, clutching at his heart that still beat in the palm of his hand. He looked at the mad beast with blood dripping down its chest and screamed at it, slang profanities and condemned it. I offered a finger, pointed. I screamed at it, walked up to its face and brushed my nose against its teeth. I felt the rage inside, the churning power of a demigod. It stood faceless, stoneless, powerful more than I.

I was flame, dancing nightmare. I was the void to fill the upturned chalice. I was the ash to smother the candlelight. I would upturn their graves, overturn their churches, and steal from them faith.

And it was on the calm that it separated. The world's edge slipped and it smiled. The war machines grumbled. They picked up their pace. The moonking snored, slipped. The crown upon its head tumbled. The shattered dreams were blown apart in the crash, like so much dust. And I, I stood alone. The flame whithered, my desire shied. And there it was written upon me, that blessed reminder. Written on my flesh, on my own mad soul that careened behind me. Ruffled hair and ruffled feathers, tattered clothes and mended heart.

I took the sword and pointed it at it. He lunged and I slipped. From his clutched hand sprouted a waepon, a gun. It fired three shots, three bullets of spite and malice. I took them each into my breast, churned them inward and hollowed myself. The flame sprouted from the holes, snaking about me. I charged, lept, swung.

It was a fight. A battle. A war fought in the irreal where lines are circles and circles never existed. Where square met triangle and birthed the period.

And it was in that endless war that I was born. A ball of hate of self tortured malice it was I that was born from between her legs the madness that choked him. Can you hear them? Can you hear them sing to me, to want me? I am born upon it, born with in it. That feeling of overwhelming desire, that want so powerful it chokes you, it grips your chest and tightens your breath. And the sky would open and pour forth the cleansing fire that would desecrate me, would ravage me before them. i was their worshipped idol, the halting clock to the meaning in their lives. You could feel the trembling trepidation in their tired titillations.

It was in that void that we came, that trembling piercing darkness that threatened so much. It was in that madness we escaped, I danced away. Forever hiding, forever encapsulating the nightmare I wished to be so that maybe I could replace the dreaming world.

[Sekot]

The gates opened, creaking on ancient iron hinges. A cold air blew from within the dark maw, spurring the dust covering the cobblestone paths into a cloud of fog that hung in the air to dance as tiny explosions of light underneath the campfire torches. Warm breath clung to the motes in a hazy miasma of moisture and grit, the stench of it still lingering as pungent immaterial flowers littering their path. Their footsteps were solid and heavy against the stone, plodding and methodically taken each step harmoniously joined with a companion until a symphony of presence settled into the small square. Fires danced like ersatz children, seeking freedom from their mortal anchors in the charcoal bed they were born. They licked with fingers at the still stale air to greedily conjure up more precious sustenance so that they may combat the eternal enemy of their captured selves: that of the wall and the roof and all that breathes, a true parasite.

Each presence looked to one another underneath their wide brimmed and tall hats that covered grim expressions of fortitude and desperation. A nod, a subtle glance of the eye, and messages passed silently amongst them even as the deeply seated echoing roar escaped like a whispered word from over the abyssal threshold to nowhere. They unsheathed their weapons as one to each brandish a blade or a whip or a gun. One wore knives upon his body that he could grasp easily while others only held a mightier weapon that promised reach and power. As varied as their styles were, still each was as skilled as the other in the hunting of such monstrous nightmares that chose to ascend from the layers below renowned for their madness and depravity. Their leatherbound hands tightened, the creak of the organic gloves was sharp and painful to their well trained ears as they settled into the shadows of the hidden paths and hidden spots of the tiny battleground.

The air died and the dust still floated even as the singing began from deep within, a low chant of guttural voices that barked and chirped out a measured line of swells and deepening depressions that sapped at their well ironed minds.

[Sekot]

He took the step and his footprint left a rising pyre of ash and smoke. He took a step and the world collapsed within its wake, a moment as a breath disappearing in a flash only to be replaced with the current now of reality. The world collapsed behind him, the intricate art of the walls became alive in their twisting paint until they breathed a fiery ink of remnant debris. The stone cracked and was reshaped, flew apart as if repelled by electromagnetic power. The world was bent and retaken. From his spine erupted magnificent wings of shining gossamer dreamfibers, dangling in the ethereal wind like kite strings having lost their captive paper weights. From his hand extended a weapon, a brightly beaming blade of energy and disease. Each step he took was an earthquake, a trembling fear of promise and expectation. His face was grimly set, stoic but ripped apart and tattered flesh still dangled from cheek and brow.

He stopped at the bottom steps. Ruin lay amongst him, his passage a testament. He raised the blade and touched the sky. Clouds boiled and churned as they twisted in screaming agony under the tutelage of the whip. Lightning crippled merely wrung its hands and threatened with meakly petered thunder. He was radiance, he was proud and arrogant. Behind him the dread naughts rose. They rose and rose and rose. They were limitless power, diamond shaped and shadow. They were the light, as they swallowed the stars.

"What happened?" they asked.

He did not answer. He merely stared into the distance, peering into the future at the possibilities that awaited him. Such anger that radiated from him came in waves, powerful explosions that tore at the air and choked their dying breaths. He lowered the blade, touched its tip to the frozen ground. From him escaped tongues of fire. From him escaped will. From the weapon seeped, desperate drips of, escaping quickly into the broken earth. From his mouth broiled, from his eyes wept. He was. He did. He. He.

With his one free hand he reached outward. He pulled them up. Pulled them closer and grasped their slender necks. The stench of his breath stung their nostrils, choked their throats. He looked into their eyes and tore apart the curtain to their futures and laid it bare. Within their chastened minds they witnessed the collapse of a thousand lifetimes of lifetimes unimaginable and brought over the course of seconds minute details. Thoughts were split and sent to conclusions that were replayed a hundred times over. Within his grasp they mad.

[Sekot]

the light laid gently across his bare chest, pale flesh glistening quietly in the peaceful warmth of the sweet summer day. his breaths were heavy, his chest rose and fell in great waves like the calming sea the day after a storm. his head slowly craned toward me, his eyes glazed and distant. a liquid smile draped itself across his face, a silent laugh whispered that only he could hear. drool dripped slowly from the corner of his mouth, trickled down the slender laugh lines and down his chin. his fingers tapped madly against the sanguinous sheets, moving to a beat i could not take part in. but it was there, like the warm breeze. a rolling laugh, a cackle that existed within the wooden walls of the aristocratic room. it was the song of another, it was the song of him as he is, not as i remember him. but what are memories really but the fabrication of a jealous mind.

[Sekot]

It was written on his flesh, into his body. Emotive power twisted into iridescent lettering that gave off a subtle heat. His fingers spasmed. They twitched as they slowly clutched the bottle. The relative cold of its smooth contents comforted his ache. He lifted it, looked into it. Colored liquid swirled, danced delicately within the confines. A thousand tiny bubbles slipped into orderly lines as they escaped to the surface to be released. Freedom rang from it, whistled out of its small top, promising secrets.

There was a knock, he ignored it. Fluorescent light spilled between the slits in the cheap plastic blinds. Orange and white, sickly pale ghosts that danced in the dusty air and laid gently upon torn up bed sheets and scattered clothes. A clock ticked in unrhythm, hands stuck but still attempting to march out the time. Another knock. He lifted the bottle to his lips, gently tipped it upward and allowed the beer to seep within him.It flowed effortlessly, a cold cruel hand dipping down his throat and into his stomach. It gripped him there and set him aflame. Warmth pooled through his veins, slid around his body. The words were angry, raging and bright as stars. But within the room it darkened, the lights outside flicker and one by one they go out.

The knock was louder this time. There were shouts in the street. Angry yells between the homeless in their drunken quarrels. He stood. His body burned. He took in a deep breath, and turned toward the door. Light still sat beneath it, too afraid to pierce the veil too far lest it be taken and swallowed. He did not bother to grab his clothes. Instead he grabbed the bottle tighter. Slowly he stumbled toward the door, placed a hand upon it to steady himself. Another knock. A finality of purpose, a heavy slamming of fist against metal. Intention. He reeled, stomach lurched as the mind prepared. Run.

The handle slowly turned before he knew what he was doing. The door parted, light, having received its reinforcements, furiously barged inward. He stood tall, as he imagined it, and met the force head on. Contempt rode the initial wave, it did little to calm his burning skin. Words sharpened into deadly tools lifted him away and back.

[Sekot]

And it was written as the eclipsing of the gods the downing of the sun and moon. They rose and quaked and within the revolution boiled power. She took the throne. She wore upon her head the crown of coal and flame. She breathed fire and sulfur. And upon the collapsing rose they. Like an upturned sea, waves swam into the poisonous vacuum.

[Sekot]

The bass beat dropped and the lights went out. Flickering fire flashed briefly, snapping quick pictures of an audience in rapture. Electric desire became tangible strands within the airspace that was already thick with the tangy stench of sweat. Delicate fingers climbed like so many spiders, upward and upward dancing until they reached the heights, the limited ceiling of perspected universe. And the god itself looked down upon them, down its intricately carved nose. They drooled out speeches, they spat out songs.

Amongst these worshiping saints in their torn frocks of discolored white sat the dire inquisitors dressed in ashen rouge. They sought out the faithless want and separated, excised it and exalted it. There whispered dissent. It flourished like wildflowers under the rhythm. A crescendoic wave slathered upon the shattered beachheads. They touched their gods as they surfed them, rode above their upturned heads in orgasmic delight. Lights flashed and flickered, prodded the unknowns with stabbing alacrity.

The music stopped. Darkness fell. A pause. Hanging, taut on a string. Balancing precariously between cacophonic explosion and eternal silence. It starts up again. Slow. Quickening. Hungering. Slavering. It bounds upon itself, turns and tortures itself until it rises as a frothy sputum of worldly power. Like a boiling fountain the inquisitors rise up, their screams mixing with the beams of light that suddenly come to life.

And god itself dies. Lies itself down and sleeps forever.