What They Fear
The rising flames licked at his legs. Flesh roasted. He screamed. The madness of pain drove deep into his senses, and his will collapsed.
“I confess!” Gaspar wailed. “I confess!”
The fire lowered, and Gaspar fell into wracking sobs. His captors hauled his body down from the wall and dragged him away.
Spiteful words followed him. “Confine the heretic.” He was thrown into the darkness. He collapsed to the floor, too weak to do anything else as the heavy door swung closed behind him. The white-hot pain of his cooked legs intensified. His scream ripped through the blackness of his cell.
1494. The end. I have been judged.
He watched the flames again in his mind, burning his legs. He thought about the flames that would come for him next, to consume his entire body. Like the rest who were broken under the crushing fist of the Inquisition, when the final sentence came, Gaspar would be burned alive. Alone in his agony, hopelessness enveloped him.
“Please, just let me die,” he whispered.
A rasping sound answered him from the dark. It was a dull, wet sound, which dispelled the thought that it might have been a rat. Within a moment, Gaspar realized that it was a voice!
It was a wretched voice, one that mirrored Gaspar’s misery. It was inhuman, but somehow, Gaspar could understand the words it formed.
“If you truly wish for death,” the voice grated, “you have only to await their return.”
Gaspar gasped. “Who are you?”
“I am what they fear.”
What they fear. Gaspar fumbled at reason, pondering the phrase. The persecution, the torture, the deaths–it was all in the name of fear, but they gave it another name.
“Satan?”
The voice laughed, a meaty, grating sound. “As you have observed, in these times, Satan is merely another word for fear, as God is a word for power.”
Though the room was black and he could see nothing of the speaker, Gaspar could envision it in his mind. The image that sprang from his imagination was vivid, awful.
It was grotesque, and resembled a gigantic baby whose insides were on the outside. Mucus and pus bubbled from its quivering frame.
“You never answered my question,” Gaspar ventured through trembling lips.
“The answer is there,” the creature spoke. “These men created their own God, for their own ends. An unforgiving God, for whom you will soon die. They believe you are beyond hope of penance, and they will offer you death. In this place, only I can offer you salvation, the only hope you will find. Together, we can make them suffer for what they have done.”
“What must I do?” Gaspar asked.
“I am weak,” the creature rasped, “as you are weak. Together, we shall become powerful. You have only to surrender yourself to me, and we will become one.”
Seconds passed in silence. A phlegm-rattled wheeze commenced, and died away.
Revulsion churned Gaspar’s senses. He tried to drag himself across the floor, away from the creature. The pain in his legs reignited, and he cried out. He laid still for a long moment, and the bleak darkness began to press in on him. Behind its veil of blackness, the creature awaited his answer. Gaspar took a long, shuddering breath.
“Do what you must, then,” he spoke quietly, and added, regretfully, “let us become one.”
It slithered toward him eagerly. He screamed when its razor-teeth crunched into his shoulder. Burning hot saliva dribbled onto his skin. He struggled against it, but it was useless. His senses went numb, and the creature gorged on him until nothing remained.
Power rippled through the creature’s disgusting body. From inside the beast, Gaspar could feel it. He stared out through new eyes–the vision of the beast.
The creature waited in its dark cell. Footsteps approached.
Acidic saliva dripped from the creature’s fangs to sizzle on the floor. The door swung open, and the creature rushed out of the darkness to devour its feast.
oo loved it
Comment by Harley — July 18, 2010 @ 12:16 pm