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skonen_bladesConcurrent untraceable harmonicas coursed through his bloodstream. The stiffening of his legs from being kept in such a cramped space reminded him of ways to bring confessions out of alleged witches in the thirteenth century. Or was it the fourteenth? Either way, it’s disturbingly easy to create agony in a living body when time is not an issue. Simple tools will suffice. The beggar’s chair, for instance. A regular chair with for mushroom-shaped knobs evenly spaced around the seat. A person strapped into that chair would scoff at its effectiveness.
But then a day would pass. And another. The metal mushrooms would force the muscles of the thighs to adapt. To reform. The split and fray their muscular threads in an effort to recreate themselves, to adapt to their surroundings. It was like being stabbed through the legs in slow motion and it didn’t even break the skin. Four days would have anyone screaming incoherently, driven provably insane by the agony. It takes six months to walk again after something like that and even then, that person will never dance gracefully again.
It’s dark in his little crawlspace but luckily that’s not a worry for him. His eyes are tuned in and turned up. Mice crawl over him like he’s a piece of driftwood. He gives off no heat signature. In the past, he might have been called an angel. Further back, maybe a demon. More recently, a vampire or a witch. A hundred years ago he would have been referred to as a robot.
The truth is that he’s not from around here. He’s a synthetic alien built to last for millennia and built to look like us. Built to look like his creator.
The creature known as God to the humans built several hundred of them to police the Earth, to colonize it and keep it tidy. They’d failed.
Humans had evolved from single-cell organisms. They’d gotten footholds. For thousands of years him and his kind had kept the humans in check but recently they’d exploded across the globe, too fast to control. You can’t corral butterflies. You can’t herd cats. Even all-out war only seems to spur them into a rutting phase that doubles the population.
He is in a sunken ship with thousands of tonnes of nuclear submarine on top of him. The rest of his brethren are in similar situations. Under buildings, trapped beneath avalanches, resting in the foundations of cities they accidentally fell into. You see, a few hundred immortals are as prey to time as anyone. Not super strong but definitely unable to die. All of his friends are trapped now.
The human race runs amuck.
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But then a day would pass. And another. The metal mushrooms would force the muscles of the thighs to adapt. To reform. The split and fray their muscular threads in an effort to recreate themselves, to adapt to their surroundings. It was like being stabbed through the legs in slow motion and it didn’t even break the skin. Four days would have anyone screaming incoherently, driven provably insane by the agony. It takes six months to walk again after something like that and even then, that person will never dance gracefully again.
It’s dark in his little crawlspace but luckily that’s not a worry for him. His eyes are tuned in and turned up. Mice crawl over him like he’s a piece of driftwood. He gives off no heat signature. In the past, he might have been called an angel. Further back, maybe a demon. More recently, a vampire or a witch. A hundred years ago he would have been referred to as a robot.
The truth is that he’s not from around here. He’s a synthetic alien built to last for millennia and built to look like us. Built to look like his creator.
The creature known as God to the humans built several hundred of them to police the Earth, to colonize it and keep it tidy. They’d failed.
Humans had evolved from single-cell organisms. They’d gotten footholds. For thousands of years him and his kind had kept the humans in check but recently they’d exploded across the globe, too fast to control. You can’t corral butterflies. You can’t herd cats. Even all-out war only seems to spur them into a rutting phase that doubles the population.
He is in a sunken ship with thousands of tonnes of nuclear submarine on top of him. The rest of his brethren are in similar situations. Under buildings, trapped beneath avalanches, resting in the foundations of cities they accidentally fell into. You see, a few hundred immortals are as prey to time as anyone. Not super strong but definitely unable to die. All of his friends are trapped now.
The human race runs amuck.
tags