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Science Fiction and Fantasy
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| Journey | |
| By MessiahDave | ||||
| 22 January 2006 | ||||
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A strange body in a strange land observes two extremes. I stumbled out into the world, not entirely sure of who I was or where I happened to be. All around me a grey sky loomed, filled with thousands of tall, spindly black towers topped by gigantic platforms. I wasn't sure how I got to be where I was, and the details of the world that surrounded me were all new. I took a moment to assess my situation and to try to sort my thoughts, and I realized that I had no memory of anything beyond my past few seconds. Looking back I do not recall the form I had taken, save that it was one that was completely alien to me- composed entirely of strange limbs and other odds and ends that I could discern no use nor name for. Further, it must have been capable of flight, as that was my primary means of locomotion. Hovering anxiously at the spot where I had just materialized, I decided that it would be best to explore my surroundings. Strangely intrigued by the sinister towers that seemed to populate the sky for miles, I flew to the top with a sound like a cross between billowing leather and splashing mud. The tower itself seemed to go on for miles, twisted up and contorted into bizarre, complicated shapes. Its cool black metal was covered with fine lines of crisscrossing red circuitry. Eventually, I made it to the top of the platform. Instinctively I gasped in horror, letting out a low-pitched screech like an angrily played bass. Before me lay hundreds of hideously pale men and women, all lying face up a few feet off the surface of the platform, propped up by evil looking spikes that poked into their flesh, stretching it out from their bones in taut strips that looked a breath away from snapping. They were all completely bald and naked, though it was impossible to tell one gender from another. Not because they lacked genitalia, but because each person's sex seemed increasingly vague and ephemeral; the longer I tried to focus on them the more the details boggled and hazed my mind like an optical illusion. As unnerving as this was, their eyes were worse. They had constant, gaping, screaming stares, and as near as I could tell they had no actual eyelids. Further, a thick, clear pus dripped from their eyes at all times, streaking their face like gooey tears and gathering in thick, high piles below them. Occasionally their eyes would shift quickly to take in some new bit of data, and when they did this pus splashed out from them into the air and splattered whoever was near them. These eyes focused on me now as I flew across the platform, and though they betrayed no emotion, I could tell from the rest of the people's faces that they were in utter anguish. Their mouths twisted in distraught grimaces, and their postures atop their horrid perches seemed especially depressed. As far as I could tell, these perches were what sustained them and kept them alive- indeed, judging by their atrophied muscles and the layers of dust covering each of them, it would seem that none of them had ever had any actual physical stimulation in decades. Hastening my flight across the platform so that I could escape this grim spectacle as soon as possible, I noticed something that had eluded my senses up until now. The air I was flying through was thick, and with a slight off-white hue, like nigh invisible oily smoke. Further, this smoke seemed to issue forth from the heads of the people below me, gathering from each of them into a great cloud. It was as if the people's thoughts and ideas themselves were so great in magnitude and potency that they'd actually gotten to the point where they choked the air itself. This phenomenon grew especially troublesome when the people, seemingly angered by my brazen show of physical virtue in flying above them, turned these thoughts against me. The smog emanating from their heads became harsh and stinging, and I felt horrible pain all over my unfamiliar body. It sapped away my strength and my will, and I crashed violently onto the platform. I landed messily in a pile of the pus from their eyes, and skidded moistly forward and off the edge. Tumbling to the ground, the second part of my journey was now upon me. As my sinister body twirled downwards to the ground below, I tried desperately to take flight or slow my fall. Slimy, spindly wings and glands that puffed out with every manner of odd, buoyant gasses both flexed and stretched in my attempt to keep from striking the ground that was rushing for me. My efforts were only marginally effective as I felt my body all but shatter upon impact. No longer concerned with the ground itself, I looked around. My eyes swiveled about on odd appendages, as the rest of my body lay completely immobilized. I appeared to be in a large, filthy clearing in the forest of obsidian towers. The ground was filled with odds and ends of every colour, shape and texture I could imagine. There wasn't any obvious pattern or logic to how the objects were placed, and I was reminded of a landfill spread out thin. Like a landfill, the place had a wretched stench that was part sour milk, part semen and part rot. It was a stench that came from every bodily function of man, beast and monster mixing and mingling in endless rivers and streams of grotesque soup that ran and bubbled through every crack of the landscape and condensed on every surface in a noxious film. The primary source of this nauseous alchemy was quite evident. All across the landscape, strangely shaped simian men lumbered awkwardly, dragging their feet and knuckles across the rough and painful texture of the ground. Their aggravated flesh would rip and tear, smearing blood from ever-growing orifices. As painful as this looked, however, they never winced. In fact, their faces were almost completely slack and expressionless, moving only to chew whatever morsel came next in the constant stream from the litter at their feet to their lazy maws. They ate viciously, not even pausing to engage in their wild (and often seemingly painful) acts of fornication. They were filled with a burning hunger for all things physical, one so acute that it had purged their minds of all other thought leaving them effectively soulless. No matter how much they ate, however, they didn't seem able to sate their hunger. The feasting didn't seem to do anything to sate their hunger, as they never appeared to digest. Rather, their arms, legs and faces remained gaunt and starved, while their stomachs swelled and bloated. Occasionally their distended guts would explode open, and chewed but undigested and slimy food would spill out at their feet. The true horror of this was amplified when they would then dine on the glistening foodstuffs. I gazed on at all of this for only a moment, before realization struck me. I spied the starving ape-men shuffling my way, moments away from picking me up and pulverizing me with their nasty teeth. Straining to lift my crippled and bizarre form from gravity's slimy tendrils, I flopped against the ground flaccidly, only further twisting my skeleton and tearing my flesh. Meanwhile, the ape-men drew nearer. Taking ragged breaths into what could only be vaguely described as lungs, I gave one final desperate attempt at flight before being completely grounded. It was then that one of the pitiful men hefted me up, strained his muscles against my body, and ripped me in half. For a few brief moments I felt his teeth dig into me, before my body failed me and I dissipated.
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