Conversations with the Light Bearer (Religious Satire)

CHAPTER XXI - The Mother of Monsters

CHAPTER XXI

THE MOTHER OF MONSTERS

Everything was aglow, swallowed by white light.

"Wake up, silly." There was a girl's voice, and everything felt warm.

"What?"

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"I'm. . . I'm tired."

"You can't be," she persisted. "You can't."

"But I am. I am tired of it all."

"No, you're not."

"But—"

"No buts." She giggled. "You're such a pussy, aren't ya?"

"Still haven't given up on me?"

"Me? Never. You still owe me a box of chocolates, okay?"

A smirk fell on my smudged face. "Fine."

"Good. Wake up now." Bright hands brushed my face. "Wake up, dumb-dumb."

The white faded into black, and once again, I was sitting alone in the forest, surrounded by earth and wood and the shadows that lurked beyond them. I pulled myself to my feet, staring at the full moon above. I paced forward, wending through the narrow path, treading past the wild outgrowth and the tangling tendrils, the weeping faces and the grasping hands, toward salvation from the threat of the woodland and the peril of the unknown. I sprinted forth, the night growing darker as the shadows made their pursuit. The damned creatures were still hungry, their appetite for belief insatiable. A legion of deformities barked and screeched and howled behind me, closing in with every second. I ran as fast as I could, my heart galloping like a horse. Almost there, I said to myself. Almost there. Then I saw it, a faint light out of the damned forest. Almost there, I hoped. Almost there.

When I finally reached it, I found myself standing back on the very spot I had left Father Henry buried in the ground. The hex! I cursed to myself. I almost forgot about the bloody hex! In that moment, I knew what had to be done. The only question was if I could handle her, but then again I did love to improvise. I shouted a word, a name long forgotten even by the most ancient of creatures. "Echidna!"

And then it happened—something hard hurled at me from the back, the earth slamming me hard on the face. As I tried to raise my body, I felt a heavy beast pinning me down, its massive paw over my shoulder. I couldn't move. I was trapped. More creatures approached; some hissed, some rattled, some moaned—a pack of wolves growled, wolves with the head of a woman and the tail of a snake. Cocking my head, I found one of these monsters right in front of me, only a finger away from my face. It snarled and threatened, the woman's sharp yellow teeth biting at the little space between us. She was barely living, the poor creature, and in a second or two, so would I.

"What a bore," I uttered. "Letting your cronies do all the work for you, eh?"

Silence found the creatures. All shadows are born from something else, pale imitations cast by the original form. With a blink of an eye, the pack had vanished. I stood again, picking the dirt off my suit. "Good riddance."

A woman's voice boomed from above. She spoke in legion, a mass gathering of souls absorbed into this one being, trapped forever beneath the shadow of the spider. Men, women and children cried and moaned, all answering as one. "My, oh, my. If it isn't Lucifer Morningstar, the Devil himself."

"Former Devil." I looked around. She was nowhere to be found. "Mammon's the one in charge now, but I guess you already know that, serving as his guard dog and all."