Intermission: Abandonment and Apotheosis
“So you see, Mandy, you can be one with me. One forever when I become one with It. Defeat is inevitable. You know that. Not like the rest of the chittering fools you associate with. Kill them! Kill them! Then you may join with us and survive!”
***
They were… All dead… And she was bleeding deep. From where the Skinless One’s knife had stabbed. Oh Mandy… Oh Mandy… How could you do its work… Mary wept, hopelessly overwhelmed as Amanda, Ursula, and Harvey attempted to push more things in front of the door.
Mandy shrieked and stabbed through the wood. The mask of sanity gone. Her mind devoured and replaced by Nyarlathotep.
“It won’t hold!” screamed Ursula, “Use the key Mary, or she will kill us all!”
“I can’t! I can’t!” Mary sobbed. “It won’t work. We’re all going to die here! God has abandoned us!”
A deep disembodied voice spoke from the center of the room. “I have not abandoned you. I simply desire a little piece. A little piece for a little peace. You destroyed so many of my bodies, I required more flesh to weave them again. But I am satisfied with your gifts to me. I need no more death. No more than I have already given you. I am satisfied with your blood. All I require now is a little piece. Just some flesh. And I will leave you to your futile struggle.”
“F-flesh?” whimpered Mary.
“Yesss. It needn’t be much. Just a toe or a finger. I too wish to live. I too wish to escape. And I must have some of the Key to do so. Feed me of your flesh, and we both may live. For a while. Well, woman of God? I too am a God, serve me of thy body.”
Mary trembled uncontrollably, “D-do it…” she whispered from her strangled throat. She stretched out her pinky and howled as Ursula hacked it off. In excruciating pain, she regained control of herself. In a firmer tone, she spoke to the voice, “It is done. Now take it and leave us.”
Tentacles began swirling down from the ceiling, a vast mouth opened up in one of them, Mary placed the pinky in her hand and lifted it up towards it, a great bloody tongue snaked down and grasped the finger, pulling it into the maw of Nyarlathotep.
“Thank you for the gift. Now it is time for me to wish you children goodbye. I hope your deaths are pleasant ones. I however, shall become one with It and endure.”
Mandy began to laugh, then hacked through her own head so her face and half her skull slid off. Her corpse thumped on the floor. The Maskless shrieked in triumph. And then again in horror.
Mary and the three survivors left the world immediately.
“No! No!” The Maskless wailed, “You gave it to me at last! I have her face now! Don’t leave me!” But Nyarlathotep was gone as well.
***
“Don’t worry Mary,” said Ursula, “I’ll find more. There are always more who are willing to fight. I have contacts all over the world. Besides, a few of the others still exist. We’ll stop this thing. Where there’s a will, there’s a way!”
***
“My will. My way. And what an awful cliché. Regardless, the story goes superbly. Despite its actors insisting on improvising and altering my manuscript of flesh, we finally near the end. The coming doom shall make a worthy conclusion to the tale of existence, but there shall be no encore.”
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