Broken Chains

The Darkness

To bring life into the world.

What was more fulfilling than to fill the world with life and beauty, with a pulsing sensation of blood and energy running through vessels of perfected flesh and poetry.

It was an artist and the whole world was its canvas.

Feeling into the deepest chambers of its ever-expending creation it marveled at the process of perfecting the imperfect husks of live it had found at the outskirts of its domain so long ago.

These small things scurrying around in the tunnels of its domain, never creating anything beautiful, expiring in but a breath of its great being.

But in its benevolence, it had made itself a task to perfect these things just as it once had been perfected.

Closing in on one of the brooding chambers, it spread its consciousness through the tapestry, feeling each of its perfected hearts beating in a glorious harmony as its flesh crafters went about their work.

Throughout the cavern great stalactites of winding flesh, ice and beautiful rivers of darkness hung from the ceiling as blood dripped and dropped in a glorious symphony.

On the ground the still imperfect creatures were bound with ribbons of winding flesh and darkness, the bindings necessary as for the creatures not to try to flee.

The darkness could never understand it, why where they trying to flee and struggeling so much, why didn’t they understand that it was doing nothing other than perfecting them, making them part of the tapestry and showing them their place in the eternal beauty it was creating?

Intently the darkness watched as one of its flesh crafters went about its work on one of the creatures. This particular creature was hairless and thin without any great masses of flesh that could be repurposed, but still, it wouldn’t deny any creature the chance to become part of the unity.

Its flesh crafter was a perfected extension of itself, a dozen brains cobbled together in a winding construct of fleshy tendrils and bony cutting knifes that were able to move so precise that even the darkness could see no fault in its work.

Slowly the flesh crafter bend itself ever farther over the hairless creature as hundreds of eyes opened all over its tendrils. Only with a good inspection could good work be done.

And then it began.

Slowly tendrils sunk down to open up the ugly skin in which all these faulty creatures were glad. All there while the creature screamed and tried to wind themselves free.

But not to worry.

The screams were a part of the great tapestry, and the bindings held true even for much more physically domineering specimens.

Slowly over hours of deliberate work, the flesh was refined as it was readied for later use. Then finally as the flesh was ready, its crafter turned to the still faulty mind of the creature. By now it was only held in this world by the firm grip of the darkness the flesh crafter wielded so expertly.

Then the mind of the true darkness got engrossed ever more in the work of its servant, as the ritual it had perfected for ages began.

Screeching and tearing words of power rolled through the air as another thousand flesh crafters started their ritual at the same time. Blood and shadows flowed in rivers through the cavern and a deep purple glow started to shin out of each and every creature the crafters worked on.

Finally, hours later, with one last thundering syllable the ritual was finished, and the next step of the ritual could begin as both the physical and immaterial flesh had yet to be integrated in the great tapestry.

But not to worry, its project knew no hurry and no end, it would forever go onward bringing beauty to all creation.

The heart

Slowly it contracted its tendrils and flesh, urging its shadows to pull ever deeper in its being and then…

It beat.

BABOOM.

In an instant everything that just a second ago was pulled in as tightly as possible, now expanded again in a blitz as to borrow just this minuscule fraction farther into the eternal ice.

Then it slowly began to pull back again as fresh blood and energy was being supplied. And finally…

BABOOM.

And then a few minutes later again.

BABOOM.

And again.

BABOOM.

Ever onward.

BABOOM… BABOOM… BABOOM…

Its expansion in the name of the darkness was going ever onward, without sleep or pause. Its mind may have been simplistic in comparison to its master, but still, it could think, and it could HUNGER.

The mission of its master was deeply ingrained in its mind, domineering every action, as the eternal project could never be halted, but it too had its own missions and visions.

Its master may sought to bring beauty to the world, but it knew no beauty.

Beauty was a word the heart had no way to interpret and as such it didn’t even try, leaving such matters to its master.

Instead, it HUNGERED.

To advance, to claim new domains and bring its master what it wished it HUNGERED.

It HUNGERED for flesh and for blood.

For suffering and despair.

For all life and anything that moved.

The heart HUNGERED, and as such it was ever searching on its expansion, stretching its senses out as to find anything that might could be devoured and bring it a feast it so desired.

Then finally, after a time oh so long it found something. At the most distant edges of its domain three lights were burning.

Three lights of life. In an instant the heart’s HUNGER exploded as it felt for this light and knew they would be DELICIOUS.

The heart stopped thinking as it wanted only one thing, to CONSUME.

Baboom…

The heartbeat became ever faster as it felt a meal near its domain.

Baboom… Baboom…

Any thoughts of a slow expansion were thrown away as only greed remained.

Baboom… Baboom… Baboom…

The heartbeat rose from a slow rhythm to a hectic staccato as the hunt began in earnest. First it would send out its servants, then it would feast itself.