Words Prayed to Abaddon
In your name, Lord, I plead. I have nothing left to believe. We have given you the ash you sought and their death screams. I have nothing more to give but my flesh, which is all that remains.
So hear me, O Lord.
We seek your mercy, your love.
The light betrays us, for we just wish to be, so we embrace you, O Abaddon. Take us from this rot, I plead. I give all and just ask, let me see, let me be whole and free.
Where are you, Lord?
She saw you! She saw you! So why are you not with us?
Please answer me, Lord.
—A lost prayer in a sea of ash and rot.
Hours after the town burned to ash, he still could not see.
But he felt it—the gentle, silent rain of fine ash upon his carapaced skin. A grim snowfall born of fire and death.
He moved through the devastation, clawed hands outstretched, searching among the cooling shapes that littered the ground. Bodies.
He found one, its form not yet consumed entirely by flame or decay. Desperation, cold and sharp, drove him. He rubbed the cooling flesh against his own hard plates, seeking to feel something. Anything.
Was the sacrifice not enough? The ash, the screams, the death he had walked toward in blind faith—was it all for nothing?
Had they come to the wrong place?
Was it all a lie?
He could not see. He would never know what truly happened beyond the screams and the roar of the inferno that had briefly warmed his face.
All he had were the words of the strange, tentacled creature he had blindly followed and the fading whispers of a seer long dead, promising a god here, among ash and ruin.
Abaddon.
The weight of it crushed him. The hope, however faint, that had driven him forward snapped.
He sank to his knees amidst the ash and the dead.
For the first time in a life defined by rot and darkness, he prayed. Not a ritual chant, but a raw, silent plea torn from the depths of his scarred soul. A cry into the void left by the absent god.
The rot slug watched him, passive and patient.
While he prayed amidst the ruin, she moved slowly among the cooling forms. Not all were ash. Some bodies remained whole enough, preserved by the speed of the plague or the suddenness of flames.
She found these pleasing. Gently, almost tenderly, she pulled them onto her massive form, where they settled against her decaying flesh like strange ornaments. Future meals, but pretty too—their texture different from the gritty ash, cooler and softer.
She hummed softly, a chorus of contentment from her many mouths. The screams had been glorious. The ash was fitting. The bodies were a bonus.
She did not like that the Lord hadn't shown Himself yet. But surely, He would. Give it time.
The screams, the ash, the death they had wrought together—it had to be enough. A worthy gift for a god of the forsaken. She knew it. They had traveled far. They had faced the dwarfs. They had made the ash where none had been. They had killed those who stood against Him, who lived in the hated light.
What more could their Lord possibly want?
Satisfied for now, she settled deeper among the piled dead she had collected. Their cool weight was comforting.
She listened to the blind one’s silent prayers drifting on the ash-laden breeze. Such a soft, earnest sound. Not as thrilling as the beautiful screams she had cultivated and savored, the screams she had known since her own blighted birth.
But it was enough. For now.
As the ash continued to fall like a benediction of decay, the many mouths of the slug curved into faint, contented smiles.
She slept, dreaming of spreading more rot, dreaming of more screams, for their Lord.
And even if not? She had her friend.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIUIYPfr7g9
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