322
So. Dreams. They can get weird.
German troop movements were making it hard to cover much distance, so the partisans decided to camp out for the night in a barn. I was worried about putting the owners at risk, but they seemed perfectly happy to shelter us from the Germans, even if they could be killed for it. Can’t thank them enough for that.
When I went to sleep, I was back in the desert. Except this time, I wasn’t alone. There was another woman in the desert, with a shaved head, gold eyes, and wearing a form fitting green dress. I would have called her gorgeous, if my instincts weren’t screaming “A FEAR! NO! BAD! AVOID!” at me. The woman smiled, showing two sharp fangs.
“Hello, I-330.” It said. “Welcome to my realm.”
“Who are you?”
“The humans call me the Mother of Snakes.”
“That’s a long name. Could I just call ya Snakes?”
It chuckled, ivory white fangs flashing in the desert’s light. “No.”
“Alright. So whadya want with me?”
“I only wanted to meet you. You are a curious individual; in spite of your nature, your mentality remains remarkably human. Still clinging to your Puritan moral codes, still denying your inner nature with the trappings of civilization. I have been watching you with great amusement. What you have done, what you will do… the hypocrisy of you touting your morality even as you degrade into degeneracy worthy of your progenitor. The cruelties you inflict are delicious. If only you were a human, then I would have offered you the chance to become one of my children.”
Ya know, I’m starting to develop a pet peeve with Fears talking down to me. “Shut up. Not in the mood for this.”
It waved a hand, causing a man sized mirror to appear next to it. In the mirror, I could see the New Jersey docks, with Grendel and his cultists standing guard. “Do you remember this day? How quick you were to label a massacre as a ‘victory for the forces of justice.’” The mirror showed me appearing, Grendel making his exit, then… I can’t call it a fight. Not after seeing it from this perspective. Snakes was right; it was a massacre. The cultists never stood a chance of offering any resistance against me. I gunned down everyone in my way without hesitation. Hesitation? Hell, I was fucking laughing as I did it.
The mirror focused on one of the cultists. He had thrown aside his gun and was trying to run away. I teleported in front of him and blew his brains out. “Poor, poor Derek.” The Mother of Snakes said. “Before you arrived, he had been thinking about his girlfriend. Their relationship had been through some difficulties recently. He wanted to make amends, and was trying to decide what type of flowers he should get her. Because of the CIA’s cover up of the incident, she never found out what happened to him.”
The mirror switched to another cultists. Then another. Then another. Then another. Each time, showing me kill them, each time narrated by the Mother of Snakes. I closed my eyes, but could still see the mirror in my head.
“Stop it stop it stop it stop it!” No matter how loud I shouted, I could still hear its voice telling me about every person I had murdered.
Finally, I opened my eyes and punched through the mirror. The shards of glass tore gashes into my hand, but I couldn’t care. The images had stopped.
“Why did you show me that?” I said.
“To show you the monster you really are. And because I know it won’t stop you. You may promise that you will become better, you may try to become the hero, but you will never veer from the path of destruction. It’s who you are.”
“Let me out.” I whispered. “Make me wake up, or send me away, or whatever. Just let me leave.”
“But I’m not done with you yet. I still want to talk.”
Another mirror appeared, this time showing a familiar scene from history classes. Adolf Hitler stood before masses of people with their right arms extended and roars of “HEIL!” coming from them.
“This is such a wonderful period of time.” Snakes said. “Some archduke gets killed, and the humans spend the next three decades thinking of inventive ways to slaughter each other. It takes scarcely any effort to lift the veil of ideology from them and make them see the monsters they have turned themselves into.”
The image in the mirror changed to that of the SS officer who had been with Grendel. “This is one human who I have been interested in. He will be the next to join my children. It’s a shame about his security.” The image zoomed out, showing Grendel and the Burning Bride walking alongside him. “And of course, I’m not the only one in pursuit of this human.”
Now the mirror showed an eye, somehow seeming both tangible and intangible at the same time, watching the man from the sky. Then it showed a massive black dog with bright red eyes stalking the trio from the shadows, snarling quietly. “Of course, they won’t succeed. He is my prey.”
“So what do you want me to do?” I said. “Help you get to him or something?”
“No. I don’t care what you do here; your sibling rivalry with Grendel isn’t any of my concern.”
Took offense to that sibling part, but tried not to show it. “Why tell me any of this, then?”
“Entertainment. The more you know, the harder it is to hide in your ignorance and put everything into black and white. And without the starkness of your black and white views to protect you, it becomes so much harder for you to deny what you have become.”
The only response I gave to that was a glower. Snakes didn’t seem to care. “And now it time for you to wake up. I will see you again in Warsaw.”
Then I woke up. And the first thing I noticed was fuck my hand is in horrible pain and covered in blood.
I gave the partisans a cheap excuse about cutting my hand on farming equipment, which I’m pretty sure they didn’t buy. Oh well. I asked about the guy who had been with Grendel.
“He’s Ernst Damzog. He runs the Chełmno camp.”
By their tone of voice, I already knew the answer, but I still had to ask. Just to hope that my intuition was wrong. “What type of camp is that?”
“The type where the train rides are only one way.”
Fuck. Grendel, you sure know how to pick friends, don’t you.
“We were planning to kill him when that Grendel and his followers appeared. They’ve been protecting him since.”
“Wait.” I said. “You said followers. Plural. Who did he bring with him?”
“There was that fire woman you saw earlier. There’s another woman, and a man. They’re… Damzog was bad enough, but these people… they’re just monsters.”
Well doesn’t that sound just lovely. Four supernatural beings I have to deal with. Plus three who are stalking the guy my enemies are protecting. And I still haven’t heard anything from the Archangel since the ambush. This is all just starting to sound like a mess.
And usually I’d make some witty comeback here to express confidence in the situation, but no, fuck it all. Not in the mood. Especially since I’ve had to type this whole thing with just my left hand. I’ll report back whenever something happens.
I-330
No comments:
Post a Comment