Bodies Are Disgusting (6 page)

His words drip with fake politeness, and you
find yourself taking an involuntary step back. As if drawn by an
invisible string, his feet shift in perfect mirror of yours. Before
you're aware of it, the stranger has you backed up against one
shelf, hands resting to either side of your shoulders. You fight
down the urge to flinch: some part of your hindbrain recognizes it
would be a possibly fatal mistake to do so. Instead, you meet his
eyes.

They look almost like your eyes at first, a
sort of dull gray-green flecked with brown, but they shift even as
you're looking at them until they're almost like the inverse of
Ori's. They're large and glassy like Ori's, but rather than being a
dead black, they're a strange milky-white that reminds you of
advanced cataracts or creatures whose eyes have atrophied from
living in the depths of caves without light. "What the hell?" Your
voice shakes only a little.

The stranger leans in–he's taller than you,
and can press his nose to the crown of your head–and sniffs. "You
reek of the Lightless Realms," he says, breath ruffling your hair.
"One supposes that shouldn't be surprising, since you wear It's
mark, but it's almost like you've bathed in It. How...
entertaining
," and the way he spits out the word tells you
that he finds the situation anything but. He grabs your left hand
and pulls it up above your head, fingers brushing the silvery band
Ori gifted you. It burns.

He shifts his weight and drops his head to
rest near your ear. "Were I you, precious pet, I would abandon this
trinket, return to your petty concerns, and forget entirely about
the Sightless One. I can personally guarantee that will
significantly improve your quality of life before the
end."

You jerk your hand out of his grasp and shove
him back with a firm push to his chest. The ring on your index
finger glints as it makes contact with his shirt, and he stumbles,
milky eyes widening in surprise. A half-smirk, half-sneer settles
on his face. "Cute," he drawls, but he makes no move to close the
distance between you again. "You're adorable. So precious. When
I've ascended, I'll remember you. I want to tear the flesh from
your face and wear your bones. They are so
darling
."

"The
fuck
, man!" The words come out in
an angry huff, despite the curling feeling of dread that's pooling
in your gut. "You can take your fucked up cannibal bullshit and
shove it. Who the fuck
says
shit like that?"

The stranger's expression remains unchanged,
but he shuffles back to sketch the parody of a sweeping bow. "By
your leave, I introduce myself. In other tongues I am known as
First Harbinger, Breaker of the Seals, and the Taloned One. You,
delectable little lamb, will know me as Lucien. It is a most
laughable moniker all things considered, but I wear it as well as I
can." His earrings jingle as he straightens, and he takes another
step back. "I hope that you give some thought to my words, precious
child. While I wouldn't
hate
to ruin you so soon, it would
hardly be sporting of me."

Before you can respond, he slips back around
the corner that you'd been about to turn when you nearly ran into
him. All you can do is stare after the stranger dumbly, blinking
twice. It occurs to you to follow him only after you've been gaping
in his wake for several seconds, but when you turn the corner, the
aisle is deserted.

A part of you isn't sure why you expected
anything different. The stranger was far too over-the-top to
possibly be real, you rationalize, and you still have at least one
more visit with the neurologist before you're in the clear.
Admittedly, you're pretty sure that will change when you mention to
her that you've been hallucinating without the assistance of the
co-codamol.

You heave a relieved sigh and adjust the
shoulder strap of your laptop bag. The lack of people amongst the
shelves suddenly feels oppressive and unwelcoming in the wake of
the stranger, so you head back toward the cafe to set up your
computer and take advantage of the free wireless
internet.

The cafe is not yet packed, but you find it
difficult to locate an unclaimed outlet and end up sitting at a
small, round table near the middle of the room. The furniture has
been arranged to accommodate a clear area where you know the models
will stand once the drink-and-draw begins, which leaves little room
between tables in which to move around. You end up stuffing your
laptop bag under your chair once you've set it up.

You spot Simon behind the counter, and he
brings you a small iced cappuccino. Evidently, it's his revenge for
your earlier shenanigans with the sushi, because he knows you hate
coffee when it's cold. You pull a disgusted face, but you nurse it
anyway out of spite.

Gaming takes up more battery power than you're
willing to sacrifice when you don't have an outlet, so you content
yourself with passing the time browsing a few forums and news
sites. The tsunami that nearly obliterated parts of coastal
California is still hot news, which is only to be expected, but
your favorite forum (an imageboard with an entire sub-forum
dedicated to horror stories, conspiracy theories, and urban
legends) has exploded since you last felt well enough to stare at
text on a screen.

Most of the chatter, unsurprisingly, is
apocalyptic in nature: hypotheses about the end of days, the next
natural disaster that will wipe out humanity, the collapse of world
governments as you know them, fairly standard fare all things
considered. It's all largely overreaction in your opinion, but
somewhat entertaining to read (and most of the users have posted
amusing cartoons or cute, unrelated cat images).

One apocalyptic thread in particular holds
your attention, set apart from all the others by the quality of art
that the user chose to post alongside their text. The images all
seem to be original work, small digital paintings rendered in
grays, browns, greens, and reds, depicting Lovecraftian horrors of
all sorts, each signed in the corner "SilentHarper17."

"The end of the world IS coming,"
SilentHarper17 writes in their initial post, "and it's not going to
end the way you all think. I know what's going on. I know why that
earthquake happened. SHE told me. But I'm not gonna listen. I want
to fight back. Ask me questions. The more people who know about
this, the more likely it is we can stop it." It's accompanied by an
image, lovingly rendered, of a girl: she appears likely no more
than seventeen or eighteen, her face is ashen and cast in sickly
greens and yellows, her eyes are like smouldering holes burned into
the digital canvas, and her smile is not unlike the bared teeth of
a wolf. You can't help but shiver while looking at it.

Quickly, you scroll past the post to the
string of replies. In the spirit of many pseudo-anonymous web
forums, many of them are sarcastic, skeptical, or just plain
threatening. Few people seem willing to take SilentHarper17's offer
seriously. After five posts, one anonymous user responds, "all
right i'll bite. enlighten us o wise silentharper, what da fuck is
goin on?" Attached to the post is a picture of a pug puppy with its
head cocked to one side.

The response is almost immediate, leading you
to believe that this one, at least, was likely pre-typed and simply
copied into the reply box as soon as someone asked the question.
"Before I start," SilentHarper17 types, "let me disabuse you of a
few pretty gigantic misconceptions most of you probably have.
First, the Judeo-Christian god as Westerners know him either does
not exist or does not give two shits about what is happening.
Second, this goes for pretty much every common deity I can think
of, actually. Third, and here's the big one, folks, JUST BECAUSE
THESE GODS DON'T SEEM TO EXIST DOES NOT MEAN THAT OTHER GODS DO NOT
EXIST.

"The universe is really fucking old and really
fucking big, and Lovecraft was half-right about the idea of elder
beings that are so far beyond human understanding that they may as
well be gods in their own right. And those things have been moving
across the universe for aeons, taking whatever they want and
twisting it. It's become a FUCKING GAME to these...
THINGS.

"And that's what's about to happen to Earth.
These 'elder gods,' for lack of a better term, are coming. That
earthquake in the Pacific wasn't natural tectonic shifting, it was
one of the first shots in their sick game. Things are going to get
a whole lot worse before they get better. IF they get
better.

"See, here's the thing, the game has RULES;
SHE told me. They're pretty complicated and I don't get them and I
guess I never will because they were made up by consciousnesses
more foreign and older than anyone can really imagine. But the
point is: when they find a new planet they want to play with, they
have to follow a protocol before they can take it. (inb4 "what if
they cheat?!": they don't cheat because cheaters get eaten, and not
even elder gods wants to spend the rest of eternity in the belly of
another.)

"Anyway, there's a bunch of rules, but the big
one is this: in order to claim a planet, they need an avatar. In
order to get an avatar, they have to send a tiny shard of
themselves down to the planet to court someone into AGREEING to be
their avatar. The key thing that works in our favor is that THERE
IS A TIME LIMIT. Once the countdown starts, SHE said, we have a
little over two months before time's called. All we have to do is
make sure no one volunteers, and we're safe."

The subsequent responses are predictably
vicious, some accented with "cool story, bro" image macros, others
with more colorful epithets. One user scoffs, "Pretty short-sighted
of you to assume that you could reach all the potential avatars by
posting in English on an American-hosted message-board."
SilentHarper responds, "At least I'm trying, which is more than
could be said about YOU."

A few users ask questions, and SilentHarper
answers them. You find most of the information uninteresting and
derivative; it's pretty obvious that SilentHarper17, whoever they
may be, is a fan of Japanese horror and Lovecraftian stories. You
have little use for either, though the thread manages to keep your
interest based on the reactions of the other participants, and the
increasing anger SilentHarper professes toward the
non-believers.

About half-way down, a new user posts under
the handle "Marionettestrings." "That's Alena Flesh-Stealer, isn't
it? Mine told me about some of the others. He told me about what
they do. He thought it would make me want to accept his offer, but
it doesn't. It just makes me want to ruin everything for them. For
him."

SilentHarper's response comes a few more posts
down, accompanied with another picture of the girl with burnt-out
eyes. "You're not alone. Did he tell you how many more of us there
are?"

Marionette, you guess, walked away from their
keyboard to make a sandwich, because their reply doesn't appear
until almost half an hour later, "Hikaru showed them to me. There's
more than I can count. I decided I'm going to kill myself tonight.
Probably don't mean much but I don't want to be alive when the
others come."

The anonymous response to the declaration is
strikingly mixed, with equal numbers of posts arguing for or
against Marionettestrings taking their life. SilentHarper17 does
not reply to the thread again. The last post in it is dated
yesterday, around 9:00 in the evening.

On impulse, you close the thread, return to
the main page for the sub-forum, and hit the refresh
button.

Before you get the chance to see the updated
page, a hand falls on your shoulder, startling you enough to cause
you to yelp. Simon laughs and sets a plate with a large puff pastry
in front of you. "Why do you read that garbage? It's going to rot
your brain."

You roll your eyes and pick up the pastry.
It's cream-filled and has been warmed in the toaster in the back.
"I just needed some mindless entertainment, dude. You on
break?"

Simon snorts and perches in the chair across
from you. "No, Dougie, I am shirking my duties so I can chat up my
roomie in the middle of my shift." You snicker and take a bite of
the pastry, making sure to lick up any filling that escapes out the
other end. It's delicious, and the filling is not too sweet or too
runny.

"Yeah, of course," you say. "When's this
mysterious handsome fellow supposed to show up? Is he already here
and I just have wildly different tastes in men from
yours?"

This elicits another snort from Simon, who
then cocks his head toward the landing of the stairs. "He's been
hanging out in that corner," he says, voice barely loud enough to
carry across your table. "He's a little early tonight, usually he
shows up right after I take lunch." Your eyes track toward the
corner he'd indicated, glossing over each individual in turn: there
is a pair of teenaged girls, obviously not Simon's potential beau;
an older gentleman with wrinkled brown skin and a bald head; and
then, there is Lucien.

Your stomach clenches as you meet his eyes,
but they are merely a dull gray-green. He gives no indication of
recognizing you, though his face lights up when his gaze lands on
Simon. The change is almost profound in a strange way, because it's
like all of the carefully cultivated disinterest melts and Lucien's
expression grows... fond. He stands and picks his way through the
crowd to claim the remaining chair at your table. He raises a hand
in greeting. "Yo."