The golden peaks of the desert sun drained from the scorching earth, before being dipped into the chill of the night. My feet trudged through its grainy jowls as I watched the scarlet sky turn to a dark abyssal shroud. Days have long since passed since my final moments in the zealots' camp. Since then I have made my escape out into the fractured wasteland. I had been captured from a trader town far east of the cracks and spent many days with a dusty wool sack around my head. Loaded and unloaded again and again. Like the weak to slaughter. Finally I was released into a large expanse with hundreds of others like me. We traveled toe to toe, chain linked together in perfect rhythm. We learned fast what happens if we faltered, for hundreds of bullets rang out as vagabonds fell from weary bones and tired muscle. They were soon nothing but corpses that the rest of us had to keep dragging. They weren't just examples, but punishments for the rest of us if we began to get ideas.
We traveled like this for hours, not fully understanding where we were going until the shape began to form along the width of the horizon. From its first peak, I couldn't tell what the shape was, nor it's meaning, that was until we got much closer to the relic. By the time we arrived at its base, there was but few of us. Our fleshy vessels burned from dragging our dead companions, and we were exhausted from the pelting heat that reigned upon us. We were halted and then brought to our knees in front of the obelisk. It was foreboding, and the rays of the desert swam around its onyx frame. There was an ancient language that scrawled itself along with the faces of the pillar, and they seemed to wriggle as if the words were trapped within the obelisk itself.
We gazed in awe at its magnificence, entranced by the words that rung in our ears. Silent whispers of dreams, hopes, and pleasures that we so desired. Yet with all these lustrous thoughts slipping in and out of my consciousness, there was an etch starting to form along the back of my head. A nagging malevolent hush. The more I focused on it, the louder it became. Its evil grasp ripping away at the magnificence of lustful pleasure. It started to scream louder, its abyssal embrace suffocating my will. I bent over in the sand and cried, clawing at my temples. The sound was too great that I never even heard the words of the bishop ring out until his hands caressed my cheeks and lifted my face to his. I could not hear him, but I read his words. "Do not scream brother, for it has chosen you. You are the vessel for something greater. Let it gnaw at your fear, devour your cowardice. Open yourself to it, and let it bring itself into this world from your stomachs gouged womb." He stood, his muscular frame draining the light, almost as if it absorbed the suns beams. Then he turned to face the obelisk, and only then did I notice the many cuts that littered his body. Markings and gashes that bore deep within his flesh. Ones that showed the ivory flavor of bone. His arms raised along with his head towards the towering structure. Then, and only then, did the screeching subside, and I heard his voice for the first time. "No more shall we suffer! No more shall we hide along the dunes of reality! No! We shall rise above this waste, and conquer the filth that claims to govern in peace! Let them know power! Let them FEAR what true potential beholds! Great one, bring us into the final age!" The soldiers put one of themselves at the beginning of each line, all except for mine. I turned my aching head to see my own companions, and it was only then that I saw I had only been dragging corpses. The moans of fulfillment still bellowed around me, louder now, as if hitting a climax. "Let the crimson summer never fade!" The bishop sang as a crescendo of gunfire split the air. "Let us bring this broken crater to a new era!" Bodies hit the ground as their orgasmic song finished. "Let us become one." The smell of sulfur stung the air as all became quiet. I lay my forehead along the grainy rocks, tears forcing their way out of my bloodshot eyes. I cried there till the sun's heat became nothing more than a distant kiss.
When I raised my head again, all that remained were the once condemned. I hoisted myself to my feet and slipped the rope around my wrist to the ground. Now I travel far east again. Back to the trader town that I so lovingly called home. Back to a world, I know. One I didn't fear. But as I walk, I can feel something churning inside me. Like hands gripping the walls of my belly, trying to claw its way out. Suddenly bile spills from my pursed lips. An inky chunk of empty acid hits the soft grain. My legs wobble, but I stand, until the second round of chunder greets my throat and it pours on top of the sand again. I hit the ground and grip the desert within my palms as my stomach ripples. The blobs begin to slither, splintering their way towards the bottom of my stomach. I watch in horror as large tendrils form from the chunky frame. It pierces my skin, ripping through it like cloth. My screams are drowned out by the black clot that stains my throat. I can feel my stomach lining finally tear as the tendrils connect with whatever is on the inside of my body. I look down at the remaining parts of my figure before finally the rupturing of bone pops in the air. I now lie here, my legs tore away from my body, and have long since been consumed by the clot. It's gone now, but traces of it still remain. Swimming in the sinew of my intestine that lay bare along the sand. The night time is so dark now, and how I long for my bed, but I guess the sand will make do for tonight.
