Chapter Text
All events within the lifespan of common folk may be described as mundane. It is as inherent to their nature as stupidity is to a wag—coincidentally of which many are, for they must find joy in something—or blasphemy is to unprincipled Christendom. Our noble society, having strung itself upon the backbones of such licentious folk, bestows playgrounds that they may partake in and fool themselves into a stunted stupor of sorts—a snare trap of beliefs, crafted so the mind remains placated, and the hand remains bloodied by suitable labor. Rebellion, after all, is a useless thing, crafted from barren ideologies.
Still, there remains the inexplainable; the Lord’s nightmare made reality by the heretics and their doggish ways. A perfect reason for the devout to temper the rabble and steady the hand of the Church once more.
Ah, but perhaps it is an apprentice that shall stumble upon this letter first, and so, to ease your youthful foolishness, I speak of daemons. I speak of Hell, and its door, for I bore witness to it mere hours prior, and have only the strength to pen my thoughts before the gravity of damnation wears upon my soul.
Where to begin? Everything within this accursed day went precisely as was ordained by God, from the rousing of the clergy to surveying the archbishop within his mandated tasks (as I am but a traveler bearing His word, reviewing this land’s practices were essential, and thus occupied a majority of the day…). At one point a band of ribbon-thin brats helped themselves to Communion supplies; they were soundly flogged, though it pains me to admit their ilk hadn’t learned from previous consequences.
The sun had neared the horizon by that event, so I slipped away to pray. The mountains, damned as they may be from centuries of pagan nonsense, behold sceneries most emblematic of our Lord’s gracious kingdom, and this land was of note, for it boasted a peak higher than any other I have encountered.
As I neared its jagged edge, beholden to nothing but the Word clutched against my chest, an unimaginable chill carved a path through my spine and into the marrow of my ribcage. All at once, I felt an amber gaze pierce my skull, as though the Devil had willed it into existence. The heavens staggered, yet I was still as the dead, and my chest beat with the fervor of a thousand armies.
What landed upon that outcropping, and what occurred after, I find that my pen fails me, and the hands that seek to discipline its failures burn as though scraping against millions of poisoned thorns. It is as though I stand before the Lord our God, pouring out a confession that may only reach His ears. The only other explanation, blasphemous as it may be…
…May He send me to the depths of Hell, for my wavering faith is blasphemous enough.
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[SINNER, TAKE WITH YOU THIS NOTE: YOU SHALL NEVER MEASURE UP TO ITS GRACE.][1]
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The creature wasn’t alone; twelve scavengers prostrated before tarred feathers, assuming positions that, if one had the eye of a minister and the patience to walk amongst the heretical, matched a cross the latter bore in shameless normalcy. Bead-eyed beasts with countenances-stained crimson paired up ‘round four cardinal points; their cousins, black as the abyss and winged like the night, filled in the space between.
A powerful silence had held itself since they arrived, and at this moment it stifled the very air all good life breathed, for they had brought with them the grief of death, and such a powerful breed it was, calling for the land to bend and twist under its agony just as the heavens cried with their stars and satellites and pitiless mountain breaths. May the Lord God forsake me, for it felt akin to the madness that besets every Christian on that sorrowful Friday.
Perhaps the being sensed my terror. Perhaps it recognized its heretical nature, or perhaps it simply recognized the presence of a thirteenth (the reason is meaningless, anyway, yet I search for it as though it may give me peace).[2]
It unfurled its wings, and within them I saw Heaven. I saw Heaven, and I saw myself, clutched within its uncaring grasp, idolizing the fragments of my soul. I saw the end of days, and the beginning of the world as it was spoken through the crowing of flight.
I saw the creature, who wore time on its shoulders and the knowledge of eternity upon somber lips, cast itself off the highest peak in the Andes.
I heard the matrimony of earth and sky collapse into a library of ash along the forest floor.
I clung unto the decisive precipice with the weeping servants and faced the mortality of God.
Willingly did it cast itself into death; willingly did it descend into darkness.
My tears bleed for it.
My marrow calls me to its choice.
When you find me—for you will find me—take note of those who tend to my remains.
They bear the knowledge of the cosmos, now.
[1] The following paragraphs are smeared with a noxious mixture of ink, plasma and some unknown fluid. Clearly tampered with some unknown years later. Matches the tonal patterns of disposed researchers. Observation Log 001 remains the only “reliable” record of appearance; why?
[2] Penmanship is shaky, unrefined. Either this author’s exhaustion finally caught up to him, or he finally lost all connection to reality.