Standing before the behemoth, Carl straightened and shouted "I am not yours, demon! My soul is my own before anyone, or anything, in this universe claims it!"
The monster rose from its crouched haunches, looming fifty feet above Carl's puny body. It looked down with its massive eyes and spoke with his mind: "Mortal, I am Mu'Fkutraeion, the Great Priest of K'lgtaa-Phkrom. I am older than time immemorial and am capable of administering pain and death to you a million times over until the End of All Things. My power is not to be disrespected and I will not be insulted by your ignorance. Instead, I will bestow upon you the gift of knowledge. Knowledge of my incalculable power. Observe a droplet from my ocean, human:" Where Carl stood, the air in front of him seemed to rip open violently. Carl looked at the tear, dumbfounded, and saw nothing but blackness, galaxies, and fire inside. He saw a shape take form in what Carl perceived to be hundreds of feet away, inside the tear. As it grew closer, the shape grew humanoid. As it came into focus, Carl gasped. It was the body of a man, lifeless, held by smoky tendrils that whipped about it. The dead man's stomach was split open and his entrails were gone, leaving a void like the inside of a bloody pumpkin. The corpse's arms and legs were burned into nasty stumps only a quarter of their original lengths; his nose and ears removed. As Carl looked over this body, the mans eyes shot open in horror, focused on Carl, and expressed a pain that made Carl sick to his stomach. The now alive corpse began screaming a guttural, bloodcurdling scream that increased with wild intensity. Carl backed away, almost stumbling, and covered his face with his forearm as he struggled to keep his footing on the ground and food in his belly. Carl watched, with mounting terror, as the missing ears and nose began to grow back as if they melted in reverse, blood spilling from the wounds. His arm and leg stumps split open like over-eager flower buds that permitted new limbs to suddenly burst out. Bloody hands and feet formed, flexed, and shuddered violently. The man screamed like an animal, nonsensical and primitive, and bleated out words that Carl didn't recognize. However, the tone of the words was more than enough to understand. The mans gut suddenly heaved as his skin started to ooze over the gaping maw of his stomach. The man's skin moved over the wound and Carl could see organs growing from nothing; blood issuing forth like a babbling creek. Within seconds, the man was whole again and his maniacal screams subsided. His breathing stayed quick as it rattled. For a few moments, he spoke clearly but Carl still couldn't understand. The man looked right at him and Carl knew he was pleading to be rescued, to be saved. As the undead man spoke, his voice rose higher and higher then was further strained as if he were lifting something too large for his body to carry. His straining voice became wild and soon devolved into screaming fits once more. Carl watched while his eyes filled with tears as the man's nose and ears started to melt away; blood tricked down his face and neck. His new arms began to smolder and smoke then suddenly burst into flames while his gut ripped open and his innards spilled out. He convulsed wildly, flopping like a screaming fish on fire. He bellowed until the breath of his lungs had extinguished and his eyes rolled back into his head, which flopped forward upon death; chin to his chest. Carl fought to keep himself conscious as he watched this unbelievable display. The lifeless body began to withdraw into the blackened fire whence it came when the man's eyes shot open and began screaming again. As this process started anew, the undying man disappeared from sight and the hole in front of Carl slowly sealed. The screaming was, at first, muffled then could be heard no more. He looked up at Mu'Fkutraeion and was unable to conceal his horror. "Was he familiar to you, human? He should be. He is the ancestor from which your entire race was sprung. The progenitor, the precursor, the Alpha. Do you see now, human? Even Death bows his rotted corpse to me. I am time. I am space. I am eternity. What I am not, however, is your end. I am the beginning of your suffering until time itself grows tired of existence. Heretofore and hereafter, I remain to provide my order and judgment in this and every one of the infinite universes of the cosmos. They are all mine." While the beast laughed, Carl was washed in the most horrible cacophony he had ever heard. He shot up out of his bed while screaming at the top of his lungs. He looked around frantically about his apartment and knew he was home; free from the nightmare he was trapped in. It was the middle of the night and he was alone. He calmed himself and then buried his face in his hands to weep. |
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