Astrolobe

The Cannibal, the Vampire, her Thrall, the Mael, the Princess, the Twins, the DeepCold, and the Human, stood over the body of the Cephalful. Her strangled cries were still echoing off the night sky, condensed and shrieking where they bounced off of gleaming stars.

In the sky a star shone red. It should not be that way, it should not be that way, it should not be that way-why are we here.

“Help”, she screamed, though she was only answered by the hollow sound of her own voice, falling from the ceiling of a mind punctured with shining, twinkling bullets burning pain in the Skullmetery. The Procession stepped on spongy brain to get a better view of their fallen friend. A red star was dislodged in the skull of a Mad God. It has always been that way, it has always been here, here is everything, I know why I am here.

The Human began to cry, and her frosty tears stung her cheeks and crusted her face, and the Cannibal felt her pain in her own mind, and it tasted good, sickening sweet, sticky sugar vomit poured down her throat. The presence of a crying Human caused her to shed her human skin, revealing the gleaming red scales of a demon, and she wrapped her pointed tail around the Human, pulled her flesh close, and held her while she sobbed.

Barely human sounds rattled through the air, “Help” she screamed, and her scream bounced off a spongy brain, mingled with the cries of a girl she called a friend, and back into the night sky, and when it reached the ceiling the sky demented the sound and returned it. The Cannibal cry split down her forked tongue and thudded through the air, joining her friends in the night sky once more as she held the sobbing girl and whispered, “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s – oh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, she’s gone, she…”

The Vampire and her Thrall held one another and felt a strange, belonging sadness, wishing they had known the Cephalful more than they had, but still having known her enough to feel the pale light of mourning. In the frigid air the Thrall’s skin was just as cold as that of her lover.

“And she told me that she would let me be her friend, but that she could never truly be mine. Oh, she was my friend Drasna. She was my friend!”

The Cephalful’s body sunk into the brainy bog, her Outlooks snuffling at the body they had grown from. The veins that left her wrists to attach themselves to balls of fur and teeth, the umbilical wrists with a placental leash dried up, and the little monsters that had grown from the Cephalful’s body withered and died, their fur crackling as sugar in a fire, their innards liquifying and spilling out their eyes all black and sticky, demonic in the light of the red star above them. I feel their souls leave them, and I trap them behind my left eye while a red star burns in my right. Their souls are mine now.

The Princess grimaced, and in her frosty sigh a mild discontent floundered. “May she be at peace…” She then began to sob violently, the sobs shaking her frail, malnourished form and contorting her body at angular cracks, until she finally fell to the ground and shook with the force of ten years stale blood. Her tears were red as blood in the night sky; her blood was sick and diluted in my red eye.

A span above the Cephalful’s corpse rhythmic claps of microthunder shook the air; the Mael was speaking.

“This needs to end.”

The sky drooped with red pus, and the Twins began to dance, their neck straining to split itself in two and give them room to breath.

“In the Skullmetery, Skullmetery, dreams they come to die. Dreams are better with some soul that makes us wonder why. Bringing Harm in Harmony the end is near you see; another star has burned out TORMENT NIGHTMARE NURSERY”

The DeepCold oozed a mournful gelatin, and it enveloped the Cephalful’s body, and dissolved it in mindrays, and a soft hand emerged from the chasm to sing the girl to sleep. She sank deeper and deeper into the DeepCold, and at last the red rays could no longer reach her hurt her.

The Human’s tears have left her eyes, her snot has crystallized. This moment begins to bubble up, and soon the intimacy of mourning will be broken. Broken intimacy; VULNI – why am I here?

I’m here because I’ve got no choice.

The Cannibal’s scales rattled with one last burst of grief, and I hear the Human speak:

“This needs to end. All of this needs to end. We will kill the Torture Dreamer;” she tilted her head, and a strange, delightful, melancholy curiosity tinged her voice. “Nothing can stop us.”

I’ve got no choice.

The group had decided that night had set; the sky had not changed, not for the last few years, but they needed a time to sleep. The DeepCold had already set itself into catatonic hibernation, and the Mael seemed to have disappeared from existence from entirely, so great was her need for sleep. The Twins were muttering to themselves, and though their noise was disturbing the others’ rest, Drasna had couldn’t bring herself to ask them to stop. The fact that they were only half mad was a testament to their strength, them having gone through…Drasna shuddered, her scales rattling loud and shimmering fearful black. She hated to think of what they’d been through.

“What are you thinking of?”

Drasna motioned towards the twins with the point of her tail, and the ease of that motion surprised her. Ophelia nodded, and her eyes were tinged with sadness. She spoke softly, so as to not to disturb the horrible thoughts lurking just outside consciousness. “I can’t imagine what they’ve been through.”

A wave of guilt swept over Drasna, and she longed to dowse it in self-hatred, but Ophelia was looking at her strangely, and she couldn’t bear to tell even one more deflection, one more lie.

“I can imagine it. I…I can feel it.”

Ophelia took her hand and looked at her with a deliberately neutral, soft expression, nodding slightly. Drasna shook her head. “I can feel their madness, vibrating around them. They’re saturated in emotional energy like I’ve never known. I want to gorge myself on them, I want to feed off their pain, I always… I can always feel it. Every second I want to.”

Ophelia was practically trembling with the effort she was expending to seem as innocent as possible. “So why don’t you? Drasna…there’s nothing wrong with you needing to feed. It won’t hurt them.”

Drasna’s scales crackled an orange red. “It is wrong. Taking pleasure from other’s pain makes me…” She stopped, and felt tears rushing to her eyes before she could stop herself. But she did stop herself. The tears were an illusion she created to make it look like she was crying. But she didn’t cry. Her scales turned blue, but she didn’t cry.

Ophelia gripped Drasna’s hand, and she could feel her emotions turn melancholy in sympathy. “Drasna…you are a demon. I’ll still treat you, forever, just like a person…but you are a monster, Drasna. Not a monstrosity, not anything evil, but…something inhuman. There’s nothing wrong with that; there never has been.”

Drasna’s scales interlocked to protect what was inside. “I don’t believe you.”

Ophelia nodded. “I know. You never had, and I can’t make you.”

“I hate myself.”

“I want to help you stop.”

Neither of them moved for a long while.

“This place is a cemetery; all of us feel it. The bodies are all gone, but…we can feel their absence. It ways down upon us.” She stopped talking for many moments, and then untensed her scales. “When we first came here I thought I would die. Humans hunted me, and demons…they hunted humans. Ophelia, they captured humans, and fed off of them, and when a demon feeds, it is not enough just to feed off of circumstantial pain; when you feed on pain you cause pain. Ophelia…how can you not get this!? You must have had to run from the gangs of demons; this hell is so small, you had to have heard their screams. They killed, tortured, and raped humans, terrorized them, and fed off of it. Do you know how many times I’ve wanted to hurt you?”

“And how many times you didn’t? And all the times you tried to help me, stop my pain, keep me safe? You’ve saved my life, Drasna. I don’t care if you get a bit of pleasure from my pain; Hell, it’d make me feel better if I knew my misery at least gave you a good meal. We should hold on to any piece of good we can find; we should do whatever we can to defeat Hell.”

Drasna’s scales turned green, and electric jolts zapped back and forth between her horns; her tail whipped furiously. “I don’t want to be happy that you’re in pain! I want to want you’re suffering to end, but I can’t want that if you’re suffering is good to me! I want to be a friend to you!”

Ophelia was crying. “Drasna, you can’t feed off of yourself forever. I don’t even know how you did it to begin with. Demons can’t feed off of their own misery like that; there is no way it can be healthy. You are what you are, and no matter what you feel, you need to take care of yourself. You are miserable, and it’s not just this Hell that’s making you that way. It’s you. I’ve talked to Harm and Harmony, talked to them about the old hells they came from. So much of the torture came from interpersonal conflict, from people hurting the ones they loved, and hurting themselves, because of their inner demons couldn’t let them be happy. You’re making yourself miserable to keep the rest of us safe, to try and stop our misery, but if you let yourself be happy that would make us happy.” Her voice started to quaver, but nothing could stop her from continuing. “If we could all just share a moment of happiness together, it’d…it’s be like we were defeating him. We would be defeating the Torture Dreamer, and…and all of this wouldn’t seem so bad.”

Drasna looked into Ophelia’s eyes, and lowered her tail to the ground. And they sat there, Ophelia crying shamelessly, Drasna watching.

“Inner demons?”

Tears flew off of Ophelia’s face as it bursted with laughter. “I know, I knew that phrasing was awful, but I just had to go with it.” And Drasna’s scales rattled with laughter, and they laughed together.

Eventually they relapsed into silence, and they looked up at the stars, glowing malicious and pretty.

“I want to stop hating myself.”

Ophelia looked over at Drasna, and smiled.

“I hate what I am. I hate how I want to hurt you. Feeding would feel like a concession, like a surrender to darkness…but – I’m starving. I am starving. Feeding off of my own pain is…it’s disgusting. I know feeding off of other’s pain is disgusting too, but…” She waited for the silence to chip away at the dread she felt, the dread at the words she was about to speak.

“Would you let me feed off of you? Would you give me permission?”

Ophelia knew her answer, but she needed to give the question the dignity of real thought.

“Yes, Drasna. It hurts to see you starve yourself like that. And then that hurt just goes to waste, and it all feels so…meaningless.”

Drasna nodded, and snarled in what Ophelia knew was a smile.

“Oh…okay. Then if I’m going to feed, I’d like to start with this moment.”

Ophelia frowned. “I’m not sure if you can, Drasna…I’m just, not particularly miserable right now.”

Drasna’s tail shot up in exclamation. “Demons can feed off of happiness too. It’s not as nutritious, and it doesn’t taste good…” She gently stroked Ophelia’s hand, making sure her claws wouldn’t sting. “But it feels good. If I take pleasure in any moment, I want it to be this one.”

Ophelia laughed, with each giggle emitting pockets of happiness that filled the Cannibal’s barren stomach, the girl’s empty heart.

The Mael summoned a storm, whispy tendrils of sulfur floating from her fingertips. The rain fell, and the nine remaining prisoners of the Torture Dreamer climbed into their canoe, waiting for the water to raise them into the sky. The twins helped the DeepCold get into the vessel, making sure to not let its water mix with any of that which was falling, and then climbed into it themselves. The water is rising.

They waited, leaning on each other in the cramped vehicle, and it takes time for the water to carry them to the stars, but that time is dead for me. It is passing qui – it has already passed. It has already happened.

I have already done it.

I see it now.

The demon reaches out and taps a star with the tip of her tail; they have reached the ceiling of the cavern, and at close view they can see the stars for what they are, mere gemstones shining in the distant walls of a cave. They confer with one another, and now that they can reach the stars the Mael has ceased her storm. Their forms are distorted at so close a distance, and the Human’s hand fills my vision as she reaches into my eye –

I am blind. And I would give anything to stay that way.

But my blindness is just a flash; now that my eye has been removed from the cavern, my body can take coalesce into this dimension. They climb through the hole in the ceiling of the cavern, and I will be waiting for them.

“We’ve escaped. It’s…it’s over.”

The nine survivors of the Mad God’s nightmares climb out of his skull and into a red sky. The gentle hues are beautiful to their eyes, and the Princess glances at the sun, and she smiles. The Twins dance underneath solar light, and they look upwards, and they scream –

They scream, they scream they scream THEY SCREAM THEY SEE ME.

They point to my giant burning eye, shrieking in terror, a thousand false victories returning to their memories, the recollection of the final torture returning to their minds, how escape was dangled in front of them, and then, and then-

It is too late. The run, but they fall into a vortex, and burn up into the sun. The others see what is coming, and in their dejection, they still have the strength to run; they still have the strength to cry. That strength could do them good.

It could, but it won’t.

They linked arms before I devoured them. I didn’t remember that, though I do now.

Their screams are gone now, and though I am glad I will no longer be forced to listen to them, I feel a loneliness. I know it will not last long; I know how long it will last. They must hate me, they must. Still, though they won’t think it, now they are free. They killed the Mad God; they killed the Torture Dreamer. Alkorath and Umalta’s dance is better off without him, though before he is cast into the void and destroyed forever, I take his soul. It is behind my left eye now. They are no longer his slaves. They are free, and I am not.

They locked arms before I devoured them. Perhaps it is small things that defeat the crushing void in our minds, this abyss in my eye. They died as their hopes burned before their eyes, but they loved each other still – perhaps – perhaps-

My brain is poured through a funnel as I escape from this dying dimension, and they are waiting for me.

“The Torture Dreamer has been destroyed.” At least lying is easier now. All the world’s a play, and I’ve memorized the script.

And so, with the soul of a Mad God hidden in my pocket, I plot even more contrivances in the company of a different kind of God.