AsherDavian
Demigod
He had no twisted limbs, no angry blisters, no ashen skin, no new eyes.
He had no choral voice--the whispery, discordant voices of the Afflicted.
He was in perfect health, walking with a walking-stick from affectation rather than need.
He had on a bowler, a suit, and a sort of metal mask.
The Afflicted watched as he passed by. He was doing the unthinkable. He was going to speak to Her.
He reached the outskirts of the sad town and discarded his mask. The bitter air stung his eyes.
He continued walking up the path to the cliff. There She sat.
She may have at one time been human. She had become the Pestilence.
A hundred gnarled arms. A hundred bloodshot eyes. A hundred drooling mouths that breathed out clouds of black that dissipated in the air, settling upon the town, bringing her to others. Bringing the Plague, the Pestilence, to the town.
"What have they done?" he asked.
Her hundred mouths made reply.
"They are innocent. Undeserving of this." he asserted.
Her hundred arms clawed at the air.
"It is I you have your quarrel with. If it weren't for me..."
Her hundred eyes focused cruelly on him.
"You wouldn't be suffering like this. So please. Take me. But release the town."
The Afflicted never recovered from their illness, but that day it did stop progressing. Children were born healthy and grew normal. And all because of that man, in a hundred-armed embrace, feeling splintering, bony limbs erupting from his own flesh, eyes peeling from his own face, fell into the cleansing surf with her. Pestilence and her father, gone forever.
And so the world was cleansed. For a time.
Flowers grew a hundred years later. Flowers that looked like tiny hands. Other flowers looked like tiny eyes. Others like tiny mouths.
They grew as weeds on the side of the road. Then in the flowerbeds. Then on the rooftops.
Then one woman woke one morning to find tiny roots under her skin, and sprouts greeting the sun.
It had returned.
He had no choral voice--the whispery, discordant voices of the Afflicted.
He was in perfect health, walking with a walking-stick from affectation rather than need.
He had on a bowler, a suit, and a sort of metal mask.
The Afflicted watched as he passed by. He was doing the unthinkable. He was going to speak to Her.
He reached the outskirts of the sad town and discarded his mask. The bitter air stung his eyes.
He continued walking up the path to the cliff. There She sat.
She may have at one time been human. She had become the Pestilence.
A hundred gnarled arms. A hundred bloodshot eyes. A hundred drooling mouths that breathed out clouds of black that dissipated in the air, settling upon the town, bringing her to others. Bringing the Plague, the Pestilence, to the town.
"What have they done?" he asked.
Her hundred mouths made reply.
"They are innocent. Undeserving of this." he asserted.
Her hundred arms clawed at the air.
"It is I you have your quarrel with. If it weren't for me..."
Her hundred eyes focused cruelly on him.
"You wouldn't be suffering like this. So please. Take me. But release the town."
The Afflicted never recovered from their illness, but that day it did stop progressing. Children were born healthy and grew normal. And all because of that man, in a hundred-armed embrace, feeling splintering, bony limbs erupting from his own flesh, eyes peeling from his own face, fell into the cleansing surf with her. Pestilence and her father, gone forever.
And so the world was cleansed. For a time.
Flowers grew a hundred years later. Flowers that looked like tiny hands. Other flowers looked like tiny eyes. Others like tiny mouths.
They grew as weeds on the side of the road. Then in the flowerbeds. Then on the rooftops.
Then one woman woke one morning to find tiny roots under her skin, and sprouts greeting the sun.
It had returned.