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Blood splattered against the pavement forming a harem of violently red stars huddled against the grey of a concrete bed, resting between its cracks for some semblance of comfort and warmth.
The pointed tip of his moon-dagger would have been dull if not for divine intervention; it was abused against the bodies of the corpses beneath him, just as he had abused those corpses.
Their dull eyes would have been invoking guilt if not for the morals he had, left and abandoned at the doorstep of a God’s temple years ago, left to rot in the sweltering heat and flaming sand. They were buried beneath dunes of sand, left to never be uncovered lest his fidelity and loyalty to his patron, the God, began to object and writhe in disagreement.
He dropped the moon-dagger. The robes that wrapped around him so tightly had tightened even more, as if suffocating all his thoughts out of his own mind. They were wound around him so compactly as if for them to be undone would unravel his sanity, his mind, his being.
He was nothing beyond a fist that was garnered by a God who directed him with no room for deviation.
He was a weapon.
A weapon does not feel, it does not hurt. A weapon does not dispute its wielder. A gun does not object to being fired onto an unknowing mother, or a newborn child. A gun does not object to robbing the life of a being that was so young, it never experienced any. A gun is a weapon, and so is Marc Spector.
Marc Spector is a weapon of vengeance, and his wielder is the God of the Moon. His wielder is the mighty celestial being, the mighty God, that spent his years warring against Ra, spent his years besting Ra in every battle. Khonshu, not just the God of the Moon. Khonshu, the God of Time, Khonshu, the God of Vengeance.
He says his name like a slave does its master.
Khonshu does not have past times. A God does not have entertainment beyond those they choose to puppeteer. A God does not have entertainment beyond fellow Gods they choose to battle, to spar, to flyte with. A God does not choose a weapon, a fist, blindly. They choose those they can gain dominion over.
He was a weapon, but Khonshu was everything.
The God was not anything, yet he was everything. Marc Spector is in his thirties. He doesn’t know how old he is anymore. Khonshu is ageless. A sovereign of time does not follow time at all.
Age is the passage of linear time. Age directs the story of a life that is limited. A non-mortal, a God, one that is endless, they do not follow the passage of linear time.
They are not restricted to their time. Khonshu may have been known for millions of years, but his age is not credited to his existence.
The God was not anything, yet he was everything. He was everything because he could be whatever he wanted to be. Khonshu could be seen as a cat, a star, a pharaoh, as he had been, or he could not be seen at all. He could be anything he wanted to be, and so he was nothing. There was nothing that could confine the idea of Khonshu, the God of Time, the God of Vengeance, the God of the Moon.
Gods do not have forms. Gods do not care for the non-celestials.
Gods need fists. They need weapons.
He was a weapon. Marc Spector was a weapon.
He turned his eyes downwards and looked toward the shriveled and disfigured corpses of once mortals. People. They were not weapons; they were not governed by Gods. They were governed by morals, by appearances, by other mortals. He stood above them, and yet he bent down, feeling a crack in his knees, feeling an air of mortality, to pick up his moon-dagger.
It was as sharp as it had been when he first started to rain it against their malleable flesh.
He wasn’t as sharp as he had been years ago when he was enraptured and enthralled by Khonshu. He wasn’t as seamless, and so cracks had started to form.
There were cracks in him, the weapon, that had started a downpour of mortality, of humanness, of guilt, of regret. They leaked out of him as sewage does a drain, and they left him feeling human.
He was a mortal. A person.
People object. They disobey. They rebel. They fight. They rage against their captures, and they rage against what pushes them beneath the soil and leaves them six feet underground.
The harem of violently red stars that lay in the grey bed of concrete beneath him did not look like a harem any longer, instead splattered blood against a pavement. It looked like life, taken, against innovation.
He was angry. He was furious. He was furious with himself, with the God. The God of the Moon. Khonshu.
He threw the moon-dagger across the alleyway, watching it entrap itself into the brick walls that were laid there by the hands of men.
A weapon does not plead. A person pleads. Marc Spector will plead.
He turned towards the moon. It was mocking.
“Khonshu,” he gasped, “Khonshu. I can’t do this. I can’t do this! I’m not – I’m not a weapon. I’m not your Moon Knight. I am Marc Spector, I am Marc Spector, not the Moon Knight. The Mr. Knight, the – whatever! I’m not a knight! You’re not – you can’t ensnare me. You can’t use me to do whatever appeases you. I am not your worshipper. I do not believe in you. You are not my God.”
The moon was silent.
“You’re not a God, you’re – “
The moon pulsed. There was a whisper of sickly wind as it washed over his shoulders, he could feel the bandages tightening against his writhing form. He could feel them trying to conceal what he had become again: human. He wanted to be rid of them, he wanted to rip them off as one does their skin in disgust. He wanted to be rid of the poison that had seeped up his naïve walls and infested them with moss that imprisoned him in his place. He wanted to be rid of it all. He wanted to be rid of him, to be rid of whatever he was. Marc Spector, Steven Grant, Jake Lockley, he wasn’t even one anymore. He was fragmented.
A harsh tap. There was the smacking of a staff against that concrete pavement
the concrete pavement splattered with blood –
it smacked again, disciplinary. As one did a child, as a parent did –
as his mother did when –
(he would’ve still been ALIVE)
as he did –
as he battered –
as he mutilated them –
as he ripped the skin off their faces –
as he –
“I’m not your PROPERTY! I’m not – I’m not a WEAPON! You’re not a GOD.”
“Watch your tone, Marc Spector.”
Khonshu.
He lifted his eyes when he saw the tip of a staff lay inside a hole in the pavement, concrete shattered by the God’s staff.
He saw what a child does when they look into the void between their closet at night. What he saw as a child between the pupils of his mother’s eyes. Something monstrous. He was a joke of everything real, he presented himself in something that looked like bandages. Like wraps. They looked as if they were made by people, wrapped around a form that wasn’t there, around a form that could dissipate and evaporate. There was a joke of a crescent ensnared to his chest. The crescent looked metallic. It wasn’t metallic. It wasn’t real. Khonshu made it. He made it.
He was a mockery of everything real. He was a mockery of everything real to him. The bird head that floated above the abyss of his neck. A mockery of everything natural. He was not a bird. The skull wasn’t real. It was worn. It was yellow. It was stained with the blood of millions. It was too large to be real. He was a mockery of everything Marc Spector, a human, knew.
He was not a God.
“You’re not a God.”
It was barely a whisper.
“Am I not?”
“Am I not a God? Can I not speak –
‘inside your head?’
“Get out. Get out – get –“
‘I can whisper in here. I can see everything you see. I can – ‘
“I said get out. GET OUT!”
Hands smacking against the side of his head.
Human hands.
His hands.
‘I can shout in here. I can see your mother.’
“No.”
‘Yes.’
He said it like a snake.
‘Yes, I can.’
“You’re not a God. A God has worshippers. Nobody worships you. Nobody believes in you. A God is considerate. A God doesn’t – a God doesn’t enslave people. Humans. It doesn’t – it doesn’t turn men into weapons of – of – of MASS DESTRUCTION!”
A skull in his vision.
“You know nothing of Gods, Marc Spector.”
No.
‘You’re just a weapon –
– after all.”
No.
No.
“You can’t – “
It is in the blackness of the mind that the absence of life is present. It is in the blackness of the mind where the void is born and fragments. It is in the belly of the void where the alters were birthed and it was in the belly of the void where Gods reside. They bask in the darkness of morale; they bask in the darkness of the absence of life. They, the Gods, are novae of anti-life.
It is in the blackness of the mind where the man finds the inner light with ease; it is a star upon a clear sky. The only star in the blackness of the mind is the inner light. It contains joy, feeling, pain, hurt, belief, love, hate, and tenderness. It contains everything that grants light to a soul.
It is in the blackness of the mind, when it overtakes him, that he swims toward the speck of whitish-grey charcoal in hopes of finding his inner light.
It is when he arrives in the heart of his body, his mind, his soul, contained within the blackness of the mind, hoping to find his inner light, when he sees that it is not there.
There is no star in his washed, clear skies.
Instead lies Khonshu.
It is in the light of the day when he awakes and rises as Moon Knight, fist of vengeance, weapon of Khonshu.
Marc Spector floats in the sea of his consciousness.
Marc Spector is not here -
MOON KNIGHT is.