8 Cleansing

Oracle Jahitii - “He shall come. He shall come and devour our god. He shall rise from her corpse, a cannibal, a bringer of darkness. Nothing can stop him. He is a force of change, a golem of ambition. Within him dwells a monster, and upon him is an unwavering will. He is...The Darkened One.

Reaching out my hands, I grew hooked claws from my fingertips. With a savage pop, I slammed my fingers into my sternum, piercing my bone. Loud crunching with soft pops followed as dug my fingers deeper in. Before I began, I resolved myself for the endless pain that would follow.

Biting through my lip, I pulled outwards, my ribs snapping and breaking. The white of bone and slop of entrails pulsed in my chest as I growled. My heart squirmed in my chest. Even worse than torture, my hands convulsed as saliva and blood gushed from my mouth. Arteries in my eyes popped as my skin tore and bone snapped.

Worse than pain, a deep, penetrating cold leaked into my chest as the air dried my lungs. Every part of my body shook as I released my sternum and reached into my chest with my left hand. A violation I’ve never known sinks in as I grab onto a wooden cluster, digging into the back of my spine.

After a short moment, I pull at the knotted ball, and the pain invading my body recedes. After jerking the last bit, a squirming ball of roots appears in my hand. Bloody and with bits of organ and slush, a thousand limbs crawl in my hand.

I glared at the abomination with a look like death as I crushed it. I roared as the limbs crumbled in my hand. At the center of the creature existed a squishy capsule, so I threw the monster to the ground as my sternum reformed. With a howl, I stomped onto the creature with enough force to shatter boulders.

Cracks spread onto the ground as a light squeal escapes the monster. I press my heel down, caving it into the ground. I turned around and found Razor staring at me with her arms full of pine straw. We stare at each other as I gasp for air. I blink a few times before I said,

“Now that’s handled, let-” I gasped before I continued, “Let’s get rid of the chapel.”

I looked back towards the cathedral before Deluge said, “Eat that creature’s remains.”

I blinked before saying, “The one that just burrowed through my chest?”

“Yes.”

I lurched back in disgust before thinking, “Hell no. I just ripped that thing out. I will not put it back in.”

Deluge snapped, “That is a creature we do not understand. If I absorb it, we may be able to defend ourselves should we see it again. You’ve already killed it, so be a man and eat it.”

I frowned before I bent over and picked up the creature. I stared at the wilted creature before I said, “You and I both know I’m not a man anymore.”

“Then be like a beast, devour what you’ve hunted.”

I grimaced before I open my mouth and chew the fibrous and tough roots. Very, very thoroughly mind you. A bitter taste tears at my tongue while the acrid contents of the pouch at its center brings tears to my eyes. As if drinking ammonia, I gag while finishing the creature before I walked to the chapel.

After reaching it, I shouted towards Razor who stood, watching were I was, “Hey Razor. I could use a hand over here.”

The normality of my words brought her back to reality before she said, “Ah, I’m sorry. Here it is.”

She floated over towards me before we walked into the center of the squirming bunch of vines. We passed the doors made of cherrytree, the vines wilting. Around us, human corpses bonded with the walls, fused together with tumorous growths. Elegant flowers grew from these carcasses, like gems of beauty in a rough of decay.

Several bodies sprawled along the walls and ground like dolls. Several heads lodged in a plant’s mouth, vines creeping into them. Never had I seen a flower bloom so beautiful yet surround itself with carnage. These horrors gave way to a blanket of flowers hued like rainbows, surreal and captivating.

The scent pulled me in like hunger and lust, but I snapped the temptation with the will of my mind. From a satchel at my side, I took flint and steel as Razor set some crackling pine straw on the ground. In seconds, I started a fire with thick plumes of white smoke.

Several book cases lined the chapel walls, so we threw those into the fire before an inferno consumed the whole of the building. Of course, I discovered a few choice reads that I kept. We walked out, and I turned and glanced at the tower of flames.

Ashes mixed with the petals of before. Like a blizzard of flowers and flame, they flew through the air. At its center, a charcoal colored plume of smoke rose overhead, hissing and popping hungrily.

With a sigh of relief, I collapsed beside a tree at the edge of the chapel’s clearing as I watched, and while my eyes blurred from exhaustion, Razor lifted and held me in her arms as I fell asleep. I drifted to sleep before a ghastly vision flashed in front of my eyes.

Joan and Sophia’s corpses shifting as vines squirmed out their eyes and nose and skin.