Santalum

Moderators: Forum Moderators, Active DMs

Post Reply
User avatar
John 8.44
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Oct 12, 2017 11:14 am

Santalum

Post by John 8.44 » Thu Oct 12, 2017 1:25 pm

There was always that low buzz, in my mouth; like flies swarming about a piece of carrion not quite fresh. It reached into my gums, occasionally so bold as to drown out my own thoughts with their incessant screaming.

It only stopped when my eyes could see, or when I breathed in the smoke of sandalwood.

Today was the eightieth day, an important day for no reason other than that it was.

I drew my signs, the signs that weren't mine but I traded and stole and killed for, so now they were mine. I drew them in baby goat's blood, I set my bowl of incense alight, and closed my eyes so that they might open.

Today on the eightieth day I saw the river, the same red river that churned and swept away the screaming damned and the sobbing, ugly dead until I could only hear them (little flies in my mouth) instead of see them. I could always hear them.

I saw the Old Empire's great, mighty splendour. It reminds me a little of the heart that shines, but without the trumpets -- instead there is a low growl, a sort of impending tick to a clock that nobody else seems to hear. I watched the flames burn it all, I watched it all and it felt like hours and hours and days and days and months and months but I knew it wasn't. That was only because I had seen it before, I had seen it what felt like a thousand times.

Hateful, black bile rose in my throat, but this was the eightieth day so this time I could keep it down.

I saw my tribe, I saw the soft touches that I had turned my back on and I saw my replacement, an ugly little man with mossy teeth and eyes like a rat. I hated him, I hated what he stood for and didn't know, but my heart knew that I had a deeper calling; one that would damn all the vermin-eyed pests as he to the void.

My eyes opened, and my hands bled little droplets from cuts I don't remember making. My signs were perfect in their imperfection, in how incorrect and defiant they were of what was supposed to be. They made me happy, because they were mine and mine alone; derived not from heaven but from my own temerity and boldness in barter.

The stone I sat upon was chilly, and damp with mold. Such was the price of defiance, of independence.

"Everything has its cost," I mused aloud to the empty, silent air. I thought of long, braided hair and the outlanders with their shiny beads and licked lips. I thought of the blood I had shed for the privilege of sitting where I sat and seeing what I saw.

The flies quivered into a still and respectful silence, for what seemed like less than a heartbeat.

Post Reply