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Gerard had known of each pinnacle of fear by name, each word that meant something greater had been taught to him at an early age by his mother. She had told him she belonged to none of them and taught him to devote himself to nothing, to feed on the fear he inspired in other people from simply being instead of the fear orchestrated from the very universe itself.
But he had only been half listening.
He could not have known what it would feel like to be marked by one–or many–of Them Beyond, and he knew well that Mary could not have explained it to him either. So he had not asked, not told her of the crawling in his gut that riveted him at an early age. Not told her of anything, in fact. Not the spiders in the corners of his eyes when she smiled at him sweetly over the book he brought, not the fog when he was alone in his room feeling like there was nothing for him, not the stirring of the cords in his heart when he burnt something wretched for the first time. She had only known, only seen his tell of It Knows You when the crescent eyes littered his fingers and throat.
He had been eight at the time, and seen much of the world through visitors of pinhole books. He had lived with his mother for long, and known her ways and words well. So he hadn’t refused when she took his hand.
He had trusted her. But he was a child who was molded by words and children are taught that they are loved by their mothers, their fathers. And love doesn’t hurt.
He had thought he was loved by his mother.
He had run away that night, hands still burning and feeling like their molecules were folding in on themselves and popping each nerve in his knuckles so that he wanted to scream in pain, though he didn’t. He cupped his mouth and howled when his lips and cheek burned as well, and had fallen over, crying into the sodden earth and rubbing the dirt over his hands and tangling his auburn hair.
And that is when he felt it.
A wriggling between his fingers. A scuttling over his forearms. The hum of the earth and its tidings.
He sat up, still clutching a squirming creature, and opened his fist.
It was a worm. Soft and pinkish, crawling around his fingers.
He looked at the ground where his forearm had been set.
There was a small beetle, a simple shade of brown and itching to cling to his arm. He let it, entranced by the two small creatures that desperately seemed to want to hold onto him.
He smiled and cooed at the small insects, gently wiping the tears from his eyes and whispering small little words to the bugs.
“I’ve got you.”
And in that moment he knew they did too.
~
He learned more about Them Beyond as he got older. He learned of the crawling rot, and on his tenth birthday, he decided to give himself over to it. He had thought it was a simple thing.
He had never been more wrong.
His knowledge, as a child, was little, so when he visited his critter friends, he thought nothing of it when he picked up a small cream-colored worm and let it slide down his throat. And then another. And another, and another until he felt a wriggling in his chest that stopped abruptly.
He thought it was done. He woke up the next morning feeling the same, Mary leaning over him with a cold smile on her face. There was a growing pit in his stomach and he tried not to cry.
~
It went on like this for years, and his little friends only grew. They grew in colonies underneath his mattress, their cocoons lined his walls, and their husks and tusks mixed with his things and the feeling of love only grew.
They crawled into his pockets and bit at his skull, soothed his worries and whispered traces of melody into his ears, his soul.
He learned at the ripe age of 16 that stomach acid existed, and cursed himself internally. Looking back at his desperate, childish attempt, he laughed, wondering why he even thought that would be anything close to devotion. Maybe it was. A part of him fretted at the thought that the corruption wanted nothing to do with him, but the song of his friends, his hive, was droning and sweet in the hearth that existed within him.
~
When the day he came home to fishing wire tacked to the yellowed walls and the smell of bloody viscera wafting through the air, he knew. His ants and locusts thrummed in the walls and told what Mary had done. What she was trying to do.
So he left.
He heart was beating, and his mind was screaming at him Go back Go back she’s your mother, your sweet mother who loves you but only with that one word, if you leave you can’t come back you know you can’t go back because she will be here and oh god she will be here with that look in her eyes and she’ll smile but it is cold and you.can’t.go.back.
He jumped when the door clicked close, and ran down the street, thinking where I am going what am I doing no no no
But the flickering of wings behind his ears and the crawling in his coat calmed him, filled his mind with that tune of What is Alive and his heartbeat slowed and gave away to the pulsing of the home he was now, the home he always would be.