WnW 7.a – Memory 7

The cathedral bell rang inside my head, swinging from side to side, striking my skull and producing a head-aching sound that coursed down into the rest of my body, sparking a fire in every cell.

It spread into the rats that covered every inch of the inside of the cathedral and they pulsated as well, waves rippling through their masses, some of the rats losing their grip on the walls and ceiling as the power rang through them.

I growled through my throat warped by my bestial transformation.

The Marquess was leaning on the altar, clutching his side, and sweat shone on his brow where a gap in the scrambling rats let the light through the stained glass windows.

He sucked in a breath and spoke, “All this fighting, Cecily. All this suffering at the hands of one another. You see it as conflict, an opposition of wants and desires, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. We are united, aligned in our desire for pain. We hurt each other because we seek to be closer to God. We enact and receive punishment all in the name of alignment. A mashing together of bodies and minds, grinding away at the impurities in our souls until only God remains in us. This flood is the perfection of that alignment.”

Each pulse brought with it a vivid imagining of the Marquess being torn to pieces by my hand. But it wouldn’t be enough. Past bone and gristle I wanted to reach something deeper. Something that would stick.

So I broke my promise to myself that I wouldn’t speak another word to him. I let my face shift back into a more human one, with a throat that could form words. 

“I felt your sense of betrayal when I turned against you, Marquess,” I said, flashing a sickly sweet smile. “All your posturing about knowing me and you didn’t see it coming. You were a fool. You believed that I had sided with you. So much for that alignment.”

The Marquess chuckled. “You’re right. I felt a new kind of pain. But it was all a part of God’s plan. That pain of being hurt by someone you love. That feeling of loss. I hadn’t before felt true betrayal and I needed to. That was the final push that allowed the flood to begin! So I thank you, Cecily, my love. You were everything I needed you to be. We were aligned in the end.”

“You are a sick, cruel, delusional man. Every waking moment of feeling your thoughts weighing on me was a bitter one. I would never align myself with you, not for a single second.”

“We were connected from the moment I met you in that cell. We were to bring the people closer to the perfection of God.”

I lunged forward, only to crash against something hard and immovable. Despite his wounds, the Marquess could still wield his powers to keep me at bay. For now. 

My hair spilled forward, wrapping around the invisible sphere of protection, blotting out the remaining light.

“How long will you last, Marquess?” I called out with satisfaction. “How long before the poison takes you and the barrier falls? I will enjoy breaking each and every one of your bones.”

“Perfection,” he repeated reverently.

A scream tore through the tolling of the bell in my head. A desperate cry, dashing aside my thoughts of vengeance.

I realized with a lurching heart that it was my brother’s voice, pain and terror turning his voice raw. That scream made it feel like my very soul was trembling. 

I abandoned the Marquess and raced outside of the cathedral. The mob of people were still here and they had my brother.

They surrounded him, a hundred hands grabbing him, pulling every which way. His hands were stretched out to the sides, putting his unnatural fingers on full display. The fingers that my brother used to play his haunting, beautiful music. I knew how much my brother loved his changed hands, how they brought him closer to his music.

The people moved like they were a single living creature, waves of motion rippling out. Each wave stretched my brother to his limit.

Then an iron cleaver rose above the heads, wielded with two hands. It hung like the moon, then fell.

Up and down. Up and down in rhythm with the ripples of rage.

They were cutting off his fingers.

“Stop!” It was Hammond’s voice, shouting over the din. “Stop, I say! The true enemy is inside! The one who caused all of this. Cease this cruelty!”

I spotted him trying to push his way into the mob to no avail. He seized one man’s shoulder and hauled him out of the crowd. The man turned in fury and began to hit Hammond, interrupting his plea. Every time Hammond began to speak, the man struck his mouth. Anger flashed in Hammond’s eyes and he roared as he tackled the man, disappearing into the throng of people. 

Like a torch thrown onto dry hay it ignited the crowd into a frenzy of violence. People turned to their neighbors and no matter whether they were young or old, friend or family, they attacked.

My brother lost another finger.

I screamed and began to throw aside bodies, not caring for anyone but my brother. My one last bit of family remaining in this world. The bell rung and the crowd turned on me, stabbing, bludgeoning, biting. Eyes flashed with malice from all around me.

Another finger gone, another heart-wrenching scream. How many had he lost?

“Suffer! Suffer!” a woman clung to my back and screeched into my ear before I threw her off.

“Monster!” a man shouted, his mouth flecked with spit. “Demon! Die!”

Another woman was contorting as the black sickness boiled on the surface of her skin. She screamed her rage at the sky.

Suddenly, she began to rise into the air, as if pulled slowly upward by invisible strings.

Others began to follow. The most heavily afflicted with black rot were first. A man clinging to my leg began to drag me upwards as he rose. I tried to shake him and he sank his teeth into my leg.

Some of the people holding my brother began to rise as well, pulling him into the sky. One of his hands, dripping with blood, hung down. I lunged and for a moment, his hand was in mine and I met his eyes, so full of pain and hatred. My grip slipped, too slick with blood, and he rose out of my reach.

“Why?” I sobbed. “Why are you all doing this?”

People rose into the air all around me.

The Marquess answered me, speaking into my mind, “They’ll always see you as a monster. Something inhuman. Something to hurt without guilt.”

The bell struck inside of my head once more, eliciting a peal that drowned out all else. 

I hated them.

I hated these people.

Turning to the man clinging onto my leg, I ripped him to bloody shreds until there was no distinction between cloth and meat. I was stronger. Much stronger. He didn’t stand a chance and I was left standing over his remains, shaking the blood off of my hands. It felt good. Like I’d finally been relieved of a great weight on my mind.

I began to ascend as well, howling at the sky. Seizing the people near me, I used them as stepping stones to climb faster, leap higher.

My brother was up there somewhere. But there was something else above me. A cloud of writhing mass. It shuddered like a heart beating for the first time, given life. I could feel who was at its center. It was the Marquess.

I climbed towards it. People clung to me and I hurt them. But there were always more of them, anger contorting their faces into caricatures. I broke free and spun, without anything close by to grab onto. 

As I rotated, I saw the land below. 

We were already so high up, the very land looked like it was curving away from me. People everywhere were ascending. They rose in clumps from the cities, attacking one another in anger. The horizon was filled with the shapes of humankind leaving Earth, like specks of soil floating to the top of a glass of water.

I reached the floating mass and realized that it too was made of people, pressed together by some invisible force. I sank in, drawn towards the center where the Marquess awaited. The bodies crushed in around me as the air began to grow cold. I wasn’t sure if the sky had grown dark or if there were simply so many bodies that they blotted out the light.

I felt huge and bloated, like I was a part of everything. And I felt a part of everything. The singular pulse that rippled through us all. Anger. Rage. Spite. Hate. The emotions that swirled like carmine in my father’s dying vats.

I could feel the Marquess more than anyone else. He was delirious with pain from the poison. It was melting his insides and yet he was singing a hymn.

My throat was bleeding on the inside from the endless roar I had become a part of.

This was his creation, but it was my hell.