As if I needed an excuse to write something Lovecraftian.
Thanks for reading
Stars
Henry was third in line to get his throat cut.
The stone at his feet led to a cliffside that led to the sea. The sky pitch, torchlight from one of the two robed men at the cliff’s edge was the only means he could see.
What he did see was Monte and Christopher from town. Christopher first, between the two robed men, blubbering. His head shook at a request from one of the robed men, but the crash of a wave below masked the words so Henry couldn’t hear.
A swift movement from the robed man on the left and Christopher was gone.
Henry was second in line to get his throat cut.
Monte stood firm as if he were between two men who weren’t about to kill him. Taller he was, even. He stared hard into their hoods. The left one first, the right one second. His hair looked afire in the torchlight, hotter than the normal strawberry he donned. It was fitting.
The same robed man who had spoken to Christopher spoke to Monte. A wave crashed again, but now closer, now able to also see the movement of lips within the hood, Henry could make out what he said.
“What do you see?” was the request.
“There is nothing,” Christopher said. “Blackness. Emptiness. A void I am incapable of seeing because it does not exist. But I will exist after, eternally, in the Light, and I will watch you burn. I will watch you—”
A flash of steel and a dagger was drawn across Monte’s neck. Fleck’s of his lifeblood spattered Henry’s hand. He went to wipe it, then stopped.
The robed men didn’t have to push Monte over the edge. He looked at them both, neck spilling with blood, his hair still afire, as were his eyes, before walking to the edge, hands pressed into what Henry could only imagine was prayer. And then he jumped, arms spread. Like the wings of an angel.
Henry was first in line to get his throat cut.
He stepped forward. Monte’s blood had dried on his hand. It itched.
Wind howled up the cliffside, knocking him back a few steps. The robed men caught him. Steadied him.
Henry waited for the question; if they would ask it at all. No one had had the answer. Why would he? He saw what Monte saw. Nothingness. His eyes might as well be closed in a dark room. If not for the torchlight in his peripheral vision, nothingness, emptiness, would be truth.
He smiled, knowing Monte would have put a capital T on that word. Christopher, too. Hell, all of them, the devoted lambs they were.
He swallowed, knowing he wasn’t worthy of the question. He was only worthy of an open throat and an ocean grave. They would all agree.
His suspicion was correct. Something colder than the wind touched his neck, held his Adam’s Apple at bay, because he wouldn’t need to swallow again.
Then, he saw it. A pinhole in the black. It multiplied into a many-armed spiral. It was ancient, eternal. Older than the Light Monte had threatened upon these men. Older than the darkness that surrounded it. Henry knew this. Somehow.
“He sees,” one robed man said.
“He sees,” the other said.
Henry did. With his mind, his soul. They knew this, so the robed man lifted the blade from his throat and brought it to Henry’s cheek, resting the flat of it on the ridge of his eye socket before plunging it deep. Henry did not resist, because he did not need eyes to see.
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