There is something evil that peers out of the mortal consciousnesses, that yearns for a feast of shame and obsession. A sickness with little hope of relief – death or otherwise – fanatic panic brought upon by a distant and malignant being. Those stricken cling onto a impossible freedom from imagined vices, make-believe wrongs. It is all they know.
The thought is rot, and the infected spread it through gospel, sounds of love and desire. Those untainted are drawn to the filth like flies onto corpses. What love! It is joy, until it is insanity. The thought of resistance is a sin – denial through disobedience. Any defectors wilt away when abandoned by the whole, severed by the strand.
Even the uninfected are given scars, perhaps to remind them of their place. “Nothing is above me,” it bellows within and without. The sounds of hell is the ecstatic response. It reaches the ears and hearts of the lost, dripping through cracks in the foundation. The floor is stained in green and red, blood with blood. It remains hard to sleep.
Excursions up above are dangerous and vital.
The skyline is unsightly, brownish and dark, along with everything and everyone else. Clothes of grandeur stained by piss and vomit. Cliques of men and women roam around. They are all indistinguishable, even through their paper-thin personalities. The 'leader' is a merely symbolic position. All of a group can gleefully partake in a conversion. After all, they answer to only the oblivion above.
Some seem to take pleasure in the hate. Defiling corpses, sabotaging settlements, torturing their prey. It isn't enough to put us into the shadows – living in the dark and damp sewers... they only desire submission, enthusiastic or not.
Patrols are hard to upkeep. Stress kills more of us than suicide. The screams of prisoners and God alike reverberate night and day. Is this something we asked for? Is this what we desired? What of us? What of me?
I've existed only here and only now. I run, I sleep, I write. It is all I know.
They've become whole, a society in lockstep and perception.
Thusly, I am alone: a life of short understanding and imperfect perfection.
Return.