A Rock in the River

14- A Rock in the River

"See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him." - 1 John 3:1

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What sensation could have matched this?

Drip.

What horror? What...magnitude of godliness?

Drip.

...Ungodliness.

Drip.

Sammy heard the demon at the end of the hall, the loudness of the streams of ink rushing from the ceiling giving no hint as to if the beast himself was nearing or if it was only his darkness.

But what did it matter when it meant he was here all the same?

Indeed, that was true as with each lurching, dragged step, the ink demon approached from the end of the hall, light from the next room streaming onto his back. That horrible grin bleeding black from its teeth was barely lit by what made it past him, clearest when the wall sparked as his shoulders nearly brushed into exposed wires with his ragged, unstoppable march.

Even without sight, Sammy felt his eye sockets clench like they had lids to close shut. His melting spine threw itself against the wall behind him as his lord embodied everything his prophet feared about him instead of revered.

And so, despite that spark of a past life revitalized, Sammy knew all he could do was pray.

"My lord!" he choked out that well-worn plea. He had always pleaded for him in time of need, just one way or another. "Ink demon!" He didn't even know what to ask for. What could he have, even? Francine was gone through the floor- evidently where he could not as he stamped his feet where she was surely was and only found solid boards. Alice- he had hated her for decades and yet cared for her even longer- a long lost friend lost all over again, and for what?! A world falling apart in the clutches of a man that had known everything about him without sharing a single thing about himself.

...And yet he had shared all. The ink demon was always watching.

These things Sammy contemplated as somehow the shreds of meaning he had through his god were torn from his hands, left bleeding and empty. This god before him now, who had never given his seer the courtesy of even a single word, leaving him to find on his own all that he wanted...This being that Sammy could feel envelop him, dread and goosebumps like fingers clawing down his back, like poison in his lungs that made it hard to breath. A gasp, a gasp, and a gasp. Sammy raised his hands to his face, feeling his glasses skew with his desperate grasping- bouncing as his fists shook with each shallow bit of hyperventilation. He laid in wait, in the nightmare of a martyr, waiting for his deity- his cause- to surely kill him once more. It was then, wide-eyed and so, so afraid, that Sammy Lawrence finally asked himself something that had creeped upon him like the looming shadow of his master, step by step.

...Was his faith gone?

He fell to his knees, kneeling before a god that was there but that he didn't know if he wanted to believe in anymore

Was his faith gone?!

The well was run dry, the everlasting flood of hope and dreams for something better, all dashed away as the one with promised came forward with none.

What else did he have left to do but rot away?

And it was like this, a man of ink so distraught he melted right onto the floor as he curled upon it and sobbed, that the creature he adored and despised stood over him and listened.