The sun’s rays cut inside the feeble sanctuary of my home, lancing through the shroud of darkness I had wrapped myself in. I shivered and pulled the blanket over my body, burying my head under the pillow. A soul-sapping fatigue ached through my entire body. I desperately wanted to sleep, but I dreaded what I would see in my nightmares even more. Even calling them nightmares was a misnomer, a futile attempt by my addled brain to see the scenes contained within them as mere figments of my imagination, as if they had not been every bit as real as the hands I held before me.
It was Monday again. That dreaded day, that brought its weekly menagerie of succulent horrors. How I wished my bed would consume me into the depths of its cocoon-like embrace, trap me so profoundly that I would never again need to emerge into the light. That the rooster would never crow again, its announcement of the resumption of my nightmare perpetually in abeyance. I prayed to every god I knew for a miracle. It was already bright and the despicable bird had not screeched yet. Perhaps somehow, somewhere, a strange foreign deity had taken pity on me…
The rooster crowed twice, and that thin string of hope snapped with it. There was no God here. And even if there was, He would not come for one like me.
Silencing the screams shaking through my entire frame, I forced myself up, dragging my leaden footsteps to the patio. I might delay, but I would not - could not - forestall my emergence completely. I had already wasted valuable seconds. Take too long to start my morning ritual and there would be questions. Questions of the type I never wanted to receive.
The sun was smiling upon the patio as I emerged, drenching me in its suffocating gaze. I wiped my face free of expression, focusing my gaze ramrod straight into the distance as I placed one leg in front of the other, stretching my arms in the air with controlled rhythm. My hands, in spite of their exhaustion, followed obediently. They were no longer my own, but mere cogs in a greater machine, vessels for the exultation of a will greater than my own.
At least I could keep my eyes closed as I pushed through the motions. My neighbours were still shadowed stickmen forms in the distance, only the silhouettes of their bodies in motion visible to the rest of the street. We were too faraway to be able to see each other’s faces, so none of them would notice if I averted my gaze from this awful world, their own awful faces, for a couple of minutes. Oh, how I despised them. I despised them with every fibre of my being. They were the ones responsible for this tortured existence I found myself shackled in. How I wish they could all be vaporised off the face of the earth, their stupid faces extinguished forever so I would never have to see them again -
“Howdy neighbour!”
My eyes bolted open and my face erupted into a beaming smile. A man dressed in pristine white robes, as clean and radiant as the ones hanging off my own body, stood inches from me, an enormous smile pinned to his face. I clutched his hands in mine and shook them enthusiastically.
“Hey there Jameson! Didn’t expect to see you there!”
“Oh, you know me, up and about bright and early, celebrating this wonderful day we have been blessed with.”
“I know what you mean. I could barely wait to get to get out of bed this morning to say hello to everyone! You should have seen me - I was trembling with excitement!”
“So was I,” he smiled deeply. “We are blessed to be so same of mind. That is why we are one Community.” His gaze moved towards something in the distance and he pointed at it cheerfully. “Oh, joy! Everyone else is joining us, how wonderful!” Turning, I spotted a group of shaven-headed figures, clad in the same blanket of pure whiteness, ambling across the street towards us, radiant smiles etched across their faces. I smiled back as my heart plunged into a black abyss of dread.
“My family, how delightful it is to see all of you, bright and early on this Monday morning.” A booming voice echoed across my lawn as the villagers approached. Washington, a gangly man with features as sunken as his heart, strolled up to us, his face sparkling with laughter. “I see all of us had the same idea, to do our stretches together. One in mind, one in spirit.”
“One in mind, one in spirit.” We repeated after him like a Gregorian choir. Jameson smiled as he began unwrapping a baguette, meticulously packed inside aluminium foil and shaped in the form of a long cylinder. Washington grasped my palm tightly in his. His warm touch pierced my skin like thorns, and I resisted the urge to flinch away. “We have so much planned for you. As the chosen Apostle for this week, you cannot imagine my excitement to be in communion with all of you.”
We nodded along dutifully, exchanging excited glances with each other. The corners of my mouth were sore and chafed, aching from overuse. I felt like a marionette, smile strung up on my face by a dozen tiny strings, straining as hard as I could to not let the facade slip.
“But I’m getting ahead of myself. We will discuss this week’s communal activities at Assembly later. For now, shall we do our stretches together? Today is a day for celebration, after all.”
We nodded, perfectly in sync, and spread our legs wide in the position of a bizarre lunge. I protruded my elbows while pressing my palms against my chest, forming the shape of the letter ‘M’. As we stretched, Jameson continued unwrapping his breakfast. A large piece of the foil broke free from the baguette, exposing it to the world. I froze as its pungent smell hit me like a sledgehammer, my eyes finally recognising it for what it was.
That was no baguette. It was an entire human arm.
Its awful stench rushed into my orifices, gagging me in its suffocating fumes. The arm’s once tender red flesh had long since greyed and decayed, leaving maggots squirming out of it as the rot ate it from the inside. Jameson nibbled on it absent-mindedly as he gazed at me, tongue occasionally darting out to suck a pink maggot from its own meal.
Stay calm. You can do this. Keep your face at ease. My stomach churned like a storm on the high seas, threatening to expel its meagre contents with a violent heave. That’s how they got you, ambushing you with a moment of fresh perversion when you were least expecting it. I could not let my instincts betray me. My face remained blank, looking at the villagers serenely as I continued my stretches.
Taking another bite of the arm, Jameson suddenly smiled and looked down.
“Ah, that’s the best part. Delicious, especially when you get to the crunchy bits. If you’re patient, you can even feel them squiggling inside your mouth - delectable!” He looked up, catching my gaze that had fallen onto the putrid arm stretched towards me. “Here, try some!”
Oh god no. I grinned from ear to ear. “Oh, no I couldn’t. I know you’ve been looking forward to your breakfast all morning. I couldn’t take it from you.”
“Please, be my guest! I picked it up from the butcher earlier today. Freshly brought over from the farm.”
“I’m awfully jealous, Ming. That looks sumptuous!” Washington said, staring at the rotting limb with a hungry look in his eyes. “I would have grabbed it as soon as he offered! I wouldn’t have the willpower to say no like you.”
“Are you sure? That’s so generous of you.”
“There is no need to be so polite. Now, eat.”
Fuck. I took the carcass. The smell threatened to overwhelm me, the ugly grey flesh crawling with rot and infestation. This was worse than the bathtub of slugs. It was worse than flogging those poor old men. It was worse that using our own shit as lubricant for…. No, I couldn’t do it. This was the worst so far. There had to be another way, somehow, anyhow. I just couldn’t.
I hesitated for the slightest moment, glancing up briefly. The entire semi-circle of villagers was staring at me intently.
No. I had no choice. Before my instincts could get the better of me, I thrust my head towards the arm, my teeth plunging into the rancid flesh with a squish.
My tongue screamed in a burst of rank hellfire, but my teeth tore through the rot savagely, chewing it furiously to shove the quivering chunks down my throat as soon as possible. My throat, my lungs, my brain, all choked up, the noxious fumes trapped within the boiler room of my skull. Squishy maggots exploded in my mouth as my teeth crunched through them, writhing and seizing through my throat.
I managed to choke out a contented moan. “Mmmmmm. Absolutely delicious.”
A hearty laugh echoed through Jameson as he thumped me on my back, eyes glistening with joy. “Fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. I’m glad to see you enjoy it.”
“I would be a fool not to.” I laughed, feeling the maggots thrash In my throat. Oh god, they were everywhere. I could feel them nesting at the pit of my stomach, burrowing themselves into my skin, crawling up my brain stem towards the centre of my skull. I wanted to rip my insides apart and tear every last squirming grub out. But I remained perfectly still.
“Indeed, I am so thankful to have you with us. Too many among us have been traitors, their duplicity exposed to the world.” Washington sighed, and the other villagers shook their heads sombrely. “Our traditional values, our ways of life, are being eroded from within. Each day, I awake to a new fear that yet another one of us has turned tail, betraying the sanctity of our community. But not you.” He smiled heartily, beaming from ear to ear. “You are one of us. I know it.”
A deep laugh, one I had rehearsed endlessly in front of the mirror, echoed through me. “Of course I am. If I were an outsider, I would have had the shame to turn myself in long ago. This place is sacred, and must not be tainted.”
The circle laughed, taking me into their arms in a cloying embrace. Such sweet, velvet words. They fell like honeyed ambrosia over the villagers’ ears, bathing their souls in a comforting blanket of warmth. But each drop of solace my words brought them was bought with another bout of that sickening, acrid burn, consuming me from within. I would give anything to be out of this nightmare and leave this sick twisted village with its sick twisted inhabitants behind. I wanted to be normal again. A normal man, with a normal family, not an animal to be toyed with and tormented. I didn’t even know if I still knew what that meant.
I cursed the day I got myself involved in this. It all seemed so simple at the start. A call from the Men in the Clouds, offering us riches beyond our wildest dreams to partake in a friendly competition. A little game, made possible by the group of people the Men in the Clouds called only The Villagers, whose minds and beliefs were uniquely susceptible to complete manipulation. Anything and everything the Men in the Clouds told them to believe, they immediately did with complete fervour, as if those beliefs and practices had been integral parts of their society since the beginning of time. Their cultural practices, what they saw as normal, the very fabric of their society - all were in the hands of the Men in the Clouds.
Was it magic? Some new technology? Some ancient hypnotic trick? Just the unique characteristics of the Villagers? It didn’t matter to me. All I had to do was blend in. Join the game with other competitors, trying our best to pretend that we were and always had been loyal members of the tribe, follow the Villager’s bizarre practices as the Men in the Clouds reshaped their minds like putty. Make it to the end of the year, and all my problems would be solved. 52 weeks, 52 different iterations of a new belief and practice each Monday, for us outsiders to follow. It was that simple. I had been to drama school for a few months as a teenager - I wasn’t above a bit of acting. Even if I lost, what was the worst that could happen? My wounded pride? A bit of discomfort here and there?
As it turned out, I could barely even imagine what the worst looked like.
These fucking sheep. Could they not see the maggots writhing like convulsing corpses over what they called food? Could they not smell the profane stench of death that touched their every orifice? Could they not understand the sheer depravity their minds were shaped to accept as normal, as if those blasphemous acts had always been part of their ancient culture? Bleating their way through life, laying their minds down without resistance to be manipulated into utter perversion by the pigs of the world. I wanted to blame them for my torture with every fibre of my being. But I simply could not. For all their insanity, they were not fundamentally bad people. They, as much as me, were victims of this sick game, simply credulous enough to buy what was implanted in their heads hook line and sinker. And could I really blame them? After all, the Men in the Clouds had fooled me too.
Suddenly, I realised something was wrong. The lively conversation that had continued around me suddenly stopped. My gaze rocketed away from the sky, back to their faces. Cocking his head, Washington looked at me with a frown.
“Are you ok?”
Shit. “What? Yes, of course I am. Why do you ask?” Not good. My words had come too quickly.
“Why aren’t you eating the rest of the arm?”
Fuck. Rookie mistake. “Just got a little distracted, that’s all.” I forced my smile to widen and tore at the decayed limb, my burgeoning fear overriding the disgust that still rested foul on my tongue.
“But you just said it was delicious.”
The villagers’ eyes remained locked onto me, piercing through me with incisive precision. Lips pursed, they took a coordinated half-step towards me. The sky suddenly fell an order of magnitude darker. I resisted the urge to step backwards and continued chewing, my cheerful expression barely remaining on an even keel.
Washington’s mouth was about to open, when suddenly a tortured scream echoed through the street, shattering the tranquillity of the neighbourhood. The villagers paused. They looked at each other. They looked back at me. And we nodded. I breathed a sigh of relief. A new target had revealed himself. My carelessness would go unpunished yet another day. Turning on our heels, we sprinted in the direction of the commotion.
We arrived at the site of the disturbance four doors down. It was a house completely identical to mine and every other one on the street, down to its meticulously manicured lawn and three garden gnomes arrayed in an triangle, exactly twenty seven inches away from each other. On the lawn, its resident Philbert, clad in our community’s spotless robes, clutched his head in his hands, stamping on the ground maniacally.
“I can’t fucking do this anymore! Stop! Stop! Make it stop!”
We circled around him warily, keeping our distance.
“Maggots!” He screamed. “There are maggots everywhere! They’re in my mouth, they’re in my skin, they’re crawling up my head!”
Ah. So he was one of my people. A fellow fool thrust blindly into this sick carnival, forced to go along with each one of these revolting practices in order to preserve our miserable lives. I must say, I was surprised. He had always looked the model citizen, never flinching even when our guts were hanging out of our bodies. He had even volunteered to be part of the inspection services, leading the excommunication of both Sellian and Aru. He had fooled us all.
A growing crowd of robed villagers had formed around him, a tense murmur lofting over the crowd.
“All of you are fucking psychos. Don’t you see you’re eating human arms? ROTTING HUMAN ARMS! Sick brainwashed freaks!” I agreed. But they were never going to catch me saying that.
“Seven months! Seven months of this fucking torture! I can’t take it anymore! How can all of you not see that this is fucking barbaric! Everything you believe - it’s all a lie! Why can’t you see it! You are being controlled!”
Washington stepped forward from the crowd with clenched fists, face black as a thundercloud above his radiant white robes.
“You are not one of us,” he growled. “You are an outsider.”
The crowd nodded angrily, repeating his words in a grim tone. I found the words tumbling out of my lips before I even realised.
“OUT-SI-DER. OUT-SI-DER. OUT-SI-DER.”
The chants were echoing around the valley. Step by step, the crowd advanced towards Philbert. He looked up from his hands, finally noticing the full extent of the mass of neighbours around him. He took a step back, eyes widening.
“No, no. Leave me alone.”
The growling failed to cease, and neither did the crowd’s advance. He cowered, the tremble in his voice obvious for all to hear.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I’m part of you. I was joking. Wilhem, Mozan - don’t do this. We are neighbours, don’t you recognise me? Ming!” His eyes turned to me, pleading and desperate. “Don’t you remember the barbeques? Those nights with the pigs and the cows? Everything we did together? I am your neighbour, you must know this!”
Poor man. I sympathised. No, I empathised. I knew exactly what he had been going through. In that frozen second of his gaze locking onto me, I felt the first shred of genuine connection in months, that of a kindred spirit, one of very few who had shared this twisted hell with me. How many of us still remained? Participating in this game among the fanatics, the only ones whose minds and beliefs remained untouched by the fingers of manipulation. Sewing a tormented smile of cheerful radiance to our faces every single day, all while every pore of our beings screamed at us to stop. He understood what I had put myself through. He understood the things I had done to keep myself alive. I didn’t know if anyone else still did.
But then the excommunication began, and the time for empathy was over.
A maniacal howl ripped through the crowd of villagers, and I snapped to attention, contorting my body into a bestial form. We roared in unison and stampeded towards him like an irresistible wave, crashing onto his neck with a scream. His mouth was wide open in terror, but no sound came out. His vocal chords, his lungs, his every limb and tendon were ripped apart by our clawing hands, tearing into him like pigs at a trough.
I found my mind begging my arms to stop. I was surprised. I thought I would have gotten used to this ritual by now. It had been a nearly daily occurrence back in the earlier months, before the stragglers had been winnowed out. But no matter how much I cried out through that bleating, I would not, could not stop. For there was one thing I did not want even more than this.
I did not want to be next.
to be continued