The Melting Mind of One Fictum Ernest

Cycle 5: Amongst Equals

The first thing I notice once I'm finished being dead is that I am falling, after that I notice I have landed in a puddle of fresh blood still warm to the touch while saturating my clothing.

"that was quick" (tIMe Is BroKEn HeRE) "sure... whatever that means" I look around and see the room empty at least it appears so until I follow my splattered blood, it goes past the wall onto a pitch black surface, there were no walls, not even a room to begin with, I looked up at the vast abyss before me, up there I saw Issigmth. It stretched across the infinite expanse above me, like a living sky I could see miles upon miles of what could be called flesh. Every inch the endless mass churning in and out but also through itself in an impossible third axis. The thing was illuminated by the absence of darkness rather than a light of any kind, every detail was further crammed with detail as though a living Fractal, indescribable forms bathed in unearthly colours flooding my primate eyes with scale I was not made to comprehend. Every sense was white noise, I could taste static cutting my throat. I give up, I look into a sky of churning flesh to find only more flesh folding. It had eyes like stars in the night staring down at me with apathetic malice, canyons of teeth ripped open the mass with more glimmering shards than I could dare to estimate, there was no shadow to shield me from what I am forced to see. (Ernest!) a noise was made in my head, but it didn't matter, none of this matters. my veins go dry, my heart stops beating in my chest, I am dying.

My arm felt warm as it shot up to jab me in both eyes, I yelp because I am an animal, working on instinctual fear with no greater consciousness "What!" I scream and blink rapidly, hoping to soothe the squidgy pain balls in my skull (you are flesh, that is flesh) I feel nothing, in the scale of the world, of humanity and time since we first sprung from the tree of life like mouldy fruit, I have never felt anything. (so why falter to an equal) "are you stupid?" I ask with my aching eyes once more drawn to the living eternity I am below (what's the worst that could happen? You can't even die!) "I am not equal to a god... I'm just not" my voice was brittle; everything was brittle in comparison. My arm grew cold as if wrapped in layers of frostbite, the arm flicked out with the little revolver held in it (face me now filth) a tendril of mulch slips out of the mass that comprises Issigmth, it stops short of eviscerating me. The tendril's end was almost flat containing large empty eyes and a toothless hole, the thing was twice my height in diameter at its thinnest, when it spoke my soul shook from the thunder of its presence.

"this failure of a corpse beckons me? Deluded in it's mind to think itself more than dead" (you are necessary for a demonstration) in a clean motion Herod pulls back the hammer before letting off a shot, where it struck the meat there was a short burst of ichourous liquid which quickly ceased. Issigmth was quiet as the ichor continued to trickle for a moment of deathly silence "ha-ha­ HAHAHAHHAHAHA" the noise it made was maybe laughing but it could also have been the noise of a star being sucked into a black hole. It writhed in the sky seemingly overtaken by alien emotion as it continued to tear at reality's fabric with every screech of laughter, every time the tendril contacted the floor it was like atlas had dropped the sky. (god's don't bleed Fictum) Warmth returned to my limb, and I found myself laughing breathlessly.

"I guess they don't" the tendril stopped, their eyes looking into me while the hole below them remained contorted into what my mammalian brain read as a smile.

"the dead do not define what is a god, I alone do" somehow, I manage to become arrogant, perhaps my mind has finally snapped and is defaulting to what I know best, or maybe I have a plan.

"well, what's your definition then Izzy?" my attempt at fraternization is not viewed positively, as a fold in the upper atmosphere split like the lips of a bloated corpse to spew out another tendril of the same metallic gore. It had three holes on its flat front that I read as an expression of disgust "I am greater than mortal words" it hissed like a boiling pot of pork; I fail to contain a snicker.

"well as an immortal myself I find them more than satisfactory" that bit of commentary appeared to be the final straw as both tendrils clapped with me at the centre, in an instant of blurred motion my entire skeletal system and my insides were ejected like used toothpaste, but he did it way to quick for it to hurt than more than a fraction of an instant after which I felt nothing.