OMI

In order to properly explain the events of yesterday, I must first include a (somewhat) brief introduction to the eight days concerning rebirth. The following cites in order: Xia, Brigt, Klulu, Rót, Tere, Trogr, Thoth, and OMI respectively. These tenants are so integral to the fabric of life, they act as names for eras, names of gods, names for houses, names of parties, and even names of people, provided they desire any fashion of divine punishment.

The first day, Xia, which occurs not before dawn, spawns the constellations and their inhabitants— the sun and moon— sparking much surprise amongst the heavens. So novel is this realm, that many young deities unlawfully sweep its many corners in hopes of claiming territory, as heaven had grown too full. For one hundred thousand years they stake their claims amongst the thin fabric to little avail. Its fields bear no warmth, and the sun, no life, forcing many to starve or flee in search of new restitution. 

One of these young deities, the one we call Utu (meaning fog; life), so happened to be the daughter of a great and powerful demon. On the second day, Brigt, (which comes before the first meal) it is through greed that Utu pleads for life, and at her father’s word, gains immortality. Alone in a grand universe, she creates the winds and seas, but not the earth, for it already existed. 

On Klulu, (meaning between meals), Mother Utu pleads for neighborly company, and so, through greed, the eight Kuatu are born, each imbued with dominion over one of their respective corners of the universe. These few are also named after the eight days of rebirth, being Xia, Brigt, Klulu, Rót, Tere, Trogr, Thoth, and OMI. It is important to note that while Utu gave birth to the Kuatu, neither she nor her creations predate their existence. Thus, she attained comfort and one hundred thousand years pass. 

On Rót, (which occurs after the second meal) all the Kuatu except OMI produces offspring, thus spawning any number of creatures, such as the Takumi, foul creatures of great strength, Kepshi, civilized creatures of insurmountable intelligence and wisdom, and finally, Tyrga creatures with great… reproductive capabilities. Needless to say, those who wound up inheriting the planet were the Tyrga. Thus, one hundred thousand years pass.

On Tere, meaning great swiftness, which occurs as the sun falls, all her children should rise and greet each other with goodwill for the last time. Ninety-six thousand and forty-three years later, I shall be found dead amongst my brethren, returning to the earth and mother, for which all life was once granted.

And thus, it is through greed that life persists, and through greed dies, all the same.

***

Kaur-Kaurth, a place meaning live-lives.

The veins and arteries underneath his ‘feet’ beat like impenetrable waves rippling across the floor. Pores like potholes, breathing sweat into this cursed atmosphere, their unbearable, slimy reflections mocking his unsightly appearance. The floor he treads is breathing— alive. At times, when his mind is especially weak, it speaks to him. It’s maddening. Yes, maddening I tell you. He wipes the remaining bits of soot caught between his eroded muscles. His body, now irreparably deformed, trudges on, only fueled by his heart’s remaining pressure. The larger leg swings first, followed by its inverted counterpart, stumbling along like a wind-up doll. He wades through the bronze haze of night, deep within the catacombs’ dark, endless corridors.

Finally, he reaches an impasse— a small tunnel, just wide enough to fit his head into. With enough pressure, he figures its walls can sheathe him like a blanket for the night, but he desires no such thing. Instead, he crawls further into the cavity. 

 It is now far too late to return to your womb. The cold winds and their inhabitant are swiftly approaching.

The Shame called Pablo had been following him for five straight days, watching from creases in the atmosphere. While its distinctive arms and legs were steeped high above its head like an insect, he trots in such a professional manner, one might mistake him for a gentleman. Behind its great shadow, however, lay merely a broken thing— those of which are called Shames. Rotten, grotesque, mutants responsible for defiling, and frequently ‘de-gloving’ men of their skin when capable— Pablo of course, being exceptionally capable.

Finally, he stops. Even this deaf, dumb, and nearly blind creature is not immune to Pablo’s gaze from within the deep dark. He claws at the bits of skin smothering his remaining eye, now merely a pinhole, to get a better view. The foolish act instead tears dams of scar tissue, drowning his eye in blood. I suppose it’s the thought that counts. But yes. Yes, yes— indeed something has been watching you—and for far too long now. 

With his vision tainted in blood, he finds a trunk, just large enough to rest his shriveled vessel. When he settles down, the fleshy tissue takes a sudden shape, rapturing his body with tiny tendrils melding to his skin. This warmth— this lively flow of life surely signifies his home, the abode he had bonded with called ‘Tree’. A hideous sight, with branches like withered hands and sap-like spinal fluid, it stands high above the wasteland as a tomb for his stillborn brothers, their faces now permanently imbued into the bark. Alas, he had returned. Sometimes, when his mind is still… sometimes he could even hear—

—and he knows it’s them. Just tired. Not the kind of exhaustion that can be quenched by sleep or rest. So, so tired…

…

Suddenly, a violent explosion shakes the world around him. Like a thunderbolt, the shockwave reverberates throughout the far reaches of the universe, calling out his name from the void. Not yet. Another boom follows. It strikes his chest like a meteor, sparking a blazing fire throughout his body, before once again, quieting down. Again and again, with each quake, he feels some semblance of consciousness growing within him. His heart beats again. The cold, clammy hands which had once been of no use to him, begin to twitch. A new, unfamiliar pain stings his chest as he reinflates his lungs, gasping for air from within the stuffy, rotten remains of what once was his domicile. The bright light emanating from the nooks of the cave pierces his eyelids as he jolts back to life. 

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Your heart stopped again. You should be dead, but you’re not. How peculiar. 

He had died. A dreadful, suffocating feeling of absolute emptiness. Not like the blackness of a dark room, or the comfort of sleep, but instead merely— nothing. As a child, the man had never feared death. At times, he even felt it a welcoming reprieve from the horrors of life, but now—

“I— I don’t want to die,” the man says aloud; to God, and to himself.

He collapses what is left of his deformed body onto the loose tissue.

Unfamiliar ceiling, He thinks to himself, bouncing in and out of consciousness while the sparkling leaflets in the sky wave back at him. —Of course, there were no leaflets, and he very well knew that.

Something approached him. Distant at first, but surely, an unfamiliar voice had awoken him from death. The man clenches his cloak like a pillow as the uneven steps approach. He orients his head toward a figure moving from behind some tattered bones as if he could see it. Three footsteps— one heavier than the rest— approach the cold slab of tar he lay on. It was like a three-legged creature, advancing in a peculiar rhythm.

A rhythm like: Tap, tap, tick! tap, tap, tick!

The sound abruptly stops. The creature hovers at his feet, finely draping its garments over the patches of loose tissue consuming his appendages. He sways a bit, then plants himself in the mud at his side. The rich fluids intertwine with the soot of his exposed muscles, staining the floor like beautiful calligraphy. It was dark. So dark in fact, he might have mistaken everything for a dream. 

A small flame, a scarce warmth from the thing’s nearby lantern clicks alongside them. With a heavy groan, the strange being tosses his cane away and splashes into the mud below like a toddler, fiddling with his arms and legs as though they were newly born.

With heavy breath, the sputtering man gasps absent-mindedly,

“I— I can’t see”.

“I can tell”, The creature replies. Far too soft-spoken for a monster. Much to the man’s surprise, the beast wore a tone more akin to a child’s, which somehow managed to put him all the more on edge. 

The man downs a bit of metallic saliva lingering in his mouth.

“You’re a Takumi, aren’t you? You’re going to kill me?”

“What makes you say that?”, The creature smiles. Of course, he couldn’t know for sure, but the tone of its voice had revealed clear enough. 

“Am I mistaken?”.

The creature hesitates, furrowing the bit of skin under his nose.

“No— no, you’re not mistaken”.

From a small pouch along his waistline, the Takumi retrieves a dusty boiling flask filled with anti-coagulated blood. As none of his many appendages can wield a knife, it utilizes the cast strapped to its ‘foot’ to dig into the man’s waist, now firmly melded into the floor. As he widens the man’s chest cavity, he notices something—

It was 4cm in width, and 34cm in length; more than enough room for a proper grip, although it was difficult to be sure. The thing analyzes the fractured piece of oak, buried in the man’s abdomen, and the only thing preventing the floor from staining with blood and oil.

“Call me Ives. Everyone else does way down here anyway”.

He straightens his straw mask, a feathery bit of hay like a father’s glasses. The motion behind his vacant lenses reveals his marble-black eyes. Inorganic. While simplistic, these bits of straw allow creatures of all varieties to recognize themselves despite any damage or disfigurement inflicted upon live tissue. Furthermore, but less importantly, the quality of such attire can be used to indicate the status of an individual. No two masks are the same— a series of new faces resembling those of ancestors past. 

He scratches the meat once again.

No blood is drawn.

Again.

Nothing— but now he knows what to do.

“Y’ready?” Ives pipes up. “One…Two—”

…He wraps his appendages around the rotten piece of shrapnel. It’s hot, hot, hot. Hot beyond measure. The man can no longer hear or think. Those senses have become irrelevant throughout the prolonged pain directed toward his torso. All that remains is the unbearable heat…

“One— One… two—”

…He slowly tugs on what remains of the wooden stake, dragging at the surrounding skin from behind. Deeper than he had anticipated. He pulled like he wanted the man to taste the pain…

“One… two—!”.

A torrent of oily blood pours across his body like a blanket, only masked by the cacophony of screams echoing throughout the tunnel. It’s boiling, boiling— like a volcano erupting from within his heart, circulating throughout every rusted artery in his body. An incomprehensible sting from deep within his skull flattens him like dough, whisking and melding his brain until the sensations he once knew are left to mush. A pressure, as though some meager consciousness had been mashed into him, splits his skull with the weight of the world, until nothing makes sense anymore…

“You’ve got some nerve, coming this close to home.”

…The scabs smothering his eyes begin to peel now like dead skin. His limbs, which used to blend seamlessly into the cave, now begin to take their shape once more. Breathlessly he peers downwards toward his painted chest. In his limited moments of sanity, he could only think, why? Why is my heart beating through my stomach? Where— where did all this blood come from?...

“Don’t worry— Kaela won’t know what you did. But I do.”

… As the neurons in his skull begin to fire off in all manner of sequences, he spits out another mouthful of blood onto his chin, just now beginning to seize. Ives straightens the man’s new face with an iron grip, no less than four centimeters from his own…

“As for your word— You may keep your word, for whatever it’s worth. But your soul— your soul belongs to me!”.

…

The fluids stop as though the weak man’s body had no more to give. The artery in which blood once flowed now lay empty, pumping dust to and from his heart. As the man’s consciousness begins to fade, Ives, plops back down into the mud, smudging the floor. He snaps off a myriad of tired metal and paints from his duffle bag. Smaller Shames had already feasted on their seams, excreting hay and brittle carcasses in the rot. The firm wire connecting his two plates had vanished entirely. On each, two crude eyes gleam back at him, etched into the metal. With a bit of effort, he manages to clothe the man’s face, weaving the plates with bits of hay around his open skull. For a moment, he even feels like family. 

He now secures the two makeshift plates to the man’s head, protecting his dignity. Together Ives sits in voluntary silence, basking in the other’s presence. From within the tomb’s glossy tissue, the living earth vomits the man back out, like an amoeba rejecting its prey. Oh, how long has it really been? I couldn’t say. How long since I’ve seen another human face? Truly, what a pathetic predicament this is.

Ives gazes at the living cavern’s faux stars, while the man’s body stitches itself back together with tendrils of meat and skin, reaching out for each other like microscopic hands. Healing was notorious for being a painful and arduous process, but his skill made the craft look like child’s play. With great weariness, Ives turns toward the empty man, wiping the mounds of blood and puss from his face.

“Hey traitor— don’t go on and die over there. Tomorrow, you’re carrying me to Tuvyek”.