Nightshade

kelli/ uriel - a dreadful turn

Kelli walked with hera, urie,  and the angels,  his heart beating quickly as they moved in near silence.  As they approached the cavern at the end of the tunnel, they began to hear the chanting Cody had talked about. 'Everyone stay here,  I'm going ahead to check things out' he signed.  Hera grabbed his wrist,  trying to stop him.  He shook his head 'this is important. We need to know what's going on here.' He slipped away,  and kept to the edge of the cavern,  which was larger than he'd possibly have guessed.  There was a huge congregation of green haired fools that were chanting mindlessly.  Raguel's little trick had robbed each and every one of these radicalized loners of all sense of self,  from the looks of it. He felt pity for them,  despite the fact that them and people like them had forced his best friend practically into hiding.  They were all worshiping some twisted mass of flesh in the center of the room. He noticed with an odd feeling that everyone in the crowd appeared to be male.  He continued to edge away down the edge of the room,  eventually reaching a smaller passage along the side.  It was so cold here,  he could feel his hands going numb. He stumbled into an odd chamber,  full of jars that glowed softly with the same sickening greenish blue light of the flora in the tunnels. But... it was different here.  The slight unease of the tunnels was rising to a crescendo of hatred and malice, coming from the jars. He felt sweat begin to roll down his face, he reached up to wipe away some coming down his face,  his hand coming away bloody. He couldn't help this feeling... this deep hurt and anger that gripped him,  crushed him.  He looked deeper into the jars. In each jar, he realized with a growing revulsion, was a half formed fetus, though each was... twisted.  Wrong. Horribly malformed. He felt so deep in his heart,  they were all very dead.  And yet... their presence lingered.  Pure, unfettered hatred and evil as hot as the sun.  He found himself staring into the eyes of one,  half formed though they were.  Whispers began to echo in his mind.  He was suddenly... somewhere else.  He looked around to see a deep,  sickly reddish grey sky,  horrid winds that smelled of rot cutting him to the bone.  He heard heart-rending wails on the air,  and was drawn in by the soft chittering in the distance. He wandered for what seemed like weeks,  the chittering growing and shredding at his mind. He finally saw something. A tree,  both awful and lovely.  Wood and branches made of bone,  somewhat obscured by a fleshy bark. He looked up,  seeing leaves made of fingernails and plump fruits that were still beating hearts.  The hearts beat echoed in his mind,  the pain was overwhelming. He looked further into the bark of the tree as the heartbeat pulsed so strongly it felt his skull would burst. Inside the tree were countless little spidery bugs,  like little sinews crawling,  crawling.  They slid out of the tree like sap, and something forced his hand out,  letting the things crawl onto him.  He felt distantly as his body began to scream and sob and beg for death,  but... he felt nothing,  and everything,  as the spiders began to climb into him. Into his mouth,  his eyes,  his ears.  They laid their young in him and they too burst from their eggsacs and filled him till at last,  it was too much.  The heartbeat screamed in his ears, matching his own screams as he began to tear at his own skin,  he needed out of it, he needed out of it! He tore and laughed and screamed with glee as he felt his flesh tear away like soft cotton candy.  Suddenly,  he was back in reality staring at hera, who seemed... upset? Then he was back in the hell again.  He trudged to a river,  staring deep into the muddy reddish brown waters... and he fell in.  Never to rise again.

Uriel was getting tired of waiting.  The chanting was growing deeply upsetting,  and he couldn't help the deep feeling of unease growing within him. Suddenly,  the chanting stopped, and screaming began.  Truly soul rending, completely unearthly.  They couldn't wait anymore.  He ran out,  trusting the others to follow.  He began to run to the Sound,  hera close behind him.  The sight that greeted them made uriel and hera keel over almost simultaneously, their stomachs painfully emptying themselves at the sight of Kelli, who had gnawed his cheeks off and torn away much of the skin on his arms. He was very dead,  and even as hera began to scream,  the angels moved to fight off the cultists, who moved like corpses puppeteered. They were forced to retreat,  each of them sustaining growing injuries from the crazed mob. They ran,  uriel and hera sobbing,  the angels seeming scared but keeping their wits about them as they fought valiantly. They fell back,  using the tunnel as a choke point.  Mirral suddenly stood her ground,  calling out for jophiel and the others to run,  get help.  Hera was still in pieces,  uriel began to drag her along,  grateful for his supernatural strength as they careened down the passageways till they reached the tunnel Luka and the others went down,  then charged after them.