Drowning In Silt - The Worshipper's Tale

Welcome to another edition of our spin-off series "Drowning in Silt", set in the same universe as The Silt Verses. 

(Note - we're opening this up to the high-and-mid tier Patrons - we're going to try and make sure we're offering more cool stuff for everyone! As ever, if anyone has any suggestions, please don't hesitate to let us know.)

What if the Gods could unzip your flesh and mind, and wander in at a moment's notice?

Warning: contains scenes of abandonment, body horror and mutilation.

When I was born without eyelids, the midwives had to force my writhing body - covered in mucus and blood - into the arms of my still-screaming mother.

She would tell me this story later, when she felt like reminding me that loving me was harder for her than most mothers.

I grew up, as all children did, and grew eyelids, which few needed to do. But that was the first indication of my state of being. Of my difference.

I was born open. Vulnerable. Prone to Gods slipping inside my body, settling under my skin like water settles after being disturbed.

At first, I was unable to stop them. I would wake at night, screaming with horror as the Gods’ poured their memories into me. I could feel every action they took, how casually they treated us humans. Flaying worshippers and tossing the debris of bodies aside after they took what they wanted.

When I slept - if I slept - I lived thousands of nights at once, feeling the shudders of my earthly body even as my mind was swallowed up whole, decaying and thriving and churning at once.

Flesh, sinew and bone melting together. Anger and hope turning me inside out.

Somewhere inside the Gods, I was screaming myself hoarse, even as they were inside me. Even as I was a passenger, along for a ride I couldn’t stop.

I was a bridge, a mouthpiece, a gate through which the Gods could play pretend at being human.

My days were spent with the knowledge that any moment, some thing could open its eyes inside me, shake off it’s slumber and casually decide to take control.

Once, I blinked and came to, found myself sat in front of my mother, as she struggled with pulling off the nail of her smallest toe.

Her lips were moving without sound and yet she kept up a smile, eyes watering freely. In front of me there lay a bloody pile of nails to which she added this last one.

Then she carefully folded her legs, sat back on her haunches and placed her forehead on the ground. Just in time for the vomit to hurl from my throat.

I was a month from my twelfth birthday.

I never knew what happened in these gaping yawns of abject darkness I was thrust into when a God was bored, and until I was older I never knew what I was.

But I knew those Gods who had chosen me. I knew their scent, their moods, their names - even if those names were gifted by humans and meant less than nothing to the Gods themselves.

When my mother disappeared after my sixteenth birthday, I woke up at the edge of town just before dusk, covered in blood and with long streaks of the flesh of my arms scored away. My throat was dry, bone dry, as if I had eaten dust and dirt. I brought one shaking hand up to wipe at my nose, and more blood came away.

I was scared as I limped home, knowing I wouldn’t find answers. That darkness was at the edge of my memories, and my thoughts scuttled away from it like cockroaches did from the light.

Inside the home I shared with my mother, there was no sign of her, no sign of anything out of the ordinary. Tables, chairs and blankets. Cups. Wine glasses. Beds and baskets.

All the signs of human life, except those you’d find in skin, sinews and bones.

I walked from room to room, knowing I would never see my mother again.

Finally I noticed the dirt on me, so having run out of rooms to search I washed my hands in the sink, then my arms, wincing as the water sluiced over the cuts. Bruises were forming already, my skin purpling before my eyes.

I drank deeply, held each sip in my mouth for long moments before swallowing, leaning back against the sink and looking over my kitchen.

Beyond the door, the house was holding its breath. Silent. Waiting to see what I would do.

What could I do?

I had no one left, my father having fled the first time he was compelled to worship whatever was in me at that moment. I was without sibling - and now without mother.

In the years since that night, I convinced myself she had left and was living peacefully elsewhere. I didn’t hate her for leaving.

She had done the best she could, having given birth to the abomination I was. It was almost a miracle that a God hadn’t sucked the life out of her, masquerading itself within my flesh.

She had raised me as best she could.

I had to finish raising myself. So I did. I scrabbled a living on the edge of town, hiding from my neighbours - which was simple enough.  I would lie awake at night, avoiding sleep so I could keep my distance from the Gods.

I ate what I could find, sometimes rodents, sometimes plants.

And little by little, I learned to hold the gaping edges of my soul together. I learnt that avoiding other humans meant the Gods wouldn’t be tempted to pour into me, hungry for worship and prayer. I learnt I could dampen their holy call.

A decade later, the first red envelope arrived.

***

I’m already tired when I wake up, but that same feeling I always have when Summoned is already waiting for me, strumming through my veins. An anxious skittering, coiled electricity desperate to be unleashed.

I know when I walk from my bedroom to the kitchen, I will see a red envelope in the hall. A Summoning.

I wait until I have had my coffee, slowly eaten a bowl of porridge, sitting in the sun at my kitchen table, before I can bring myself to open the red envelope.

Written in a scrawl are the words:

We have a new God. Rejoice!

Grower of Crops

Reaper and Grazer

Rejoice!

It’s signed, “The Council of Badley".

I am an Eternal Worshipper, and I am Summoned to Rejoice.

And so I waste my day, knowing what waits for me. Later.

A ritual of human habits, each of them clinging to the spectre that I’m alive, and wholly human.

I tend my garden, the one my mother loved. I cook myself lunch, slowly savouring the carrots, broccoli and broth.

I write a letter I will never send.

And when enough time has passed, and dusk creeps in, I know it’s time.

After all these years of Worshipping, I have a few small habits, Each of us does, from burning incense to shaving our whole body clean after every Worship. Whatever cleaves you asunder, without giving up too much of yourself.

My habits are small and inconsequential, but they are part of what keeps me human. A small flame at my feet, a pot of fresh earth from the garden. Life to ground me.

I sit in the smallest room, windowless and almost airless. That is important.

I take a deep, cleansing breath, and slowly reach inside. Past my guards, into the deepest, quietest part of me. I sink into myself, and peel away every protective scab I have grown. All my senses widen, strengthen. I can hear the smallest slither of the worms deep beneath the layers of house and dirt below me. I can sense the sun crawling along the sky.

I can feel myself, fading. Fading away. In the darkness behind my lids, the outline of Mark glistens alive.

Now the sound of the rushing of my blood, back and forth, pouring into my heart chambers, pushing itself out to every limb. Now the taste of wetness of the earth, now the clenching of my stomach once, twice. Three times, and the Mark crystallizes in my mind’s eye and -

Something snaps open inside me, and fear, roiling and viscous and cloying rises up. I open my mouth and the words that bring to life the Mark of this God, come tumbling out of me:

Lord, i call upon you

As I shed this skin

As I peel myself apart

Unpick my bones

One by one

Unlock my teeth from their seat

Lay the sum of me

As an offering

A gift of sacrifice

A funeral pyre

By your feet

For your gaze, so you may use me

As you wish

So I may Feed you

From blood and bone

From my soul

This passing death

Is yours

The fabric of the world I know, the world I was in just a few moments ago, rips open - and there He is.  I can see Him.

Walking forward from the depths of a darkness so profound colour has never touched it, dragging acres of soil and borders behind, smelling of molasses and pomegranates.

For a moment, I can tell He’s fighting me, but I sink forward, taking hold of the words inside me, pulling them out, spilling my blood into the soil in front of me, the soul He is anchored in.

My tongue falls still, feeling crippled in my mouth, struck dumb when He lashes out.

It’s an anger, an overwhelming anger that slashes through me. And I am scared, I am more terrified than I have ever been.

But I keep praying silently, the words peeling from me, over and over, submitting myself. Somewhere back with my real body, I can feel my fingers scrabbling across my skin, tracing His Mark over my face, my torso, every part of me I can reach.

May You take from me what you need May You take from me what you needv May You take from me what you need May You take from me what you need

My eyes remain dead to the light- but I can see him where my spirit is, I can see he is hungry.

He’s clamouring to be Fed, so I gape open myself, crying all the while.

Somewhere far away I can feel the tears fall from my face.

The Reaper and Grazer inclines his head, his walnut skin rippling as he accepts my sacrifice and rushes forward, swallowing me in one breath.

***

The next day, I wake with the long strands of my hair scattered across the pillow.

There is always a price to pay. The Gods are fed from body and mind, and some are hungrier than others.

That yawning darkness lies at the edge of last night’s Worship. But I have learnt new tricks in the years since I took up my career.

I sit up. Swing my leg over. Walk to the small bathroom. Wash my face. Drink water. Deeply, avoiding the small mirror at the side of the sink.

I cling to my human rituals, waiting for my spirit to settle fully into my body. I keep my thoughts carefully neutral. My own set of prayers.

Open the window. Make the bed. Add the hairs from my pillow to the blue box. Gently place it back atop the wardrobe.

I  am sluggish as I reach the kitchen, filling the kettle. I keep brushing at the air around my ear, but there's nothing to push away from my face. The tea tastes fresh and dark, and holding the mug gives my hands something to do while the bread warms.

Judging by the yawning gasp of hunger inside me, it's been at least a day since the Feeding.

I sit quietly by the table, the other chairs askance, the sunlight glinting across the floor stones. The toast burns at my lips, sliding like a hot stone down my throat. Somehow the warmth doesn’t expand as it movies down my chest, instead it stays tightly knotted, making its way into my stomach.

It has been countless Feedings, countless nights and days spent Worshipping. Those of us who can call down a God without a Mark are pariah and prize at once.

But I have no knowledge of how to bend a God to my will. All I can do is Feed them, offer my prayers, my very self and hope they don’t burn us along with our offerings.

I try not to think about the recent increase of red envelopes. Last month it was the Saint of Salvation. Before that Our Lord The Shepherd.

I am thrust from one deity to another, and despite my pleas to the Council they have ignored me in favour of more demands.

The last dredges of a malty taste of wet earth sit at the back of my teeth, somewhere between my gums and the roof of my mouth, where my tongue lolls around every few moments.

It’s a small annoyance, a small reminder that some part of my body may not be mine any longer. A little of me may still belong to the Reaper and Grazer.

I drum my fingers on the table, sunlight warming my skin as I drain the last few sips of tea - and make a split decision.

Outside, it’s much warmer than I expected, so I’m only a few steps down the street before I have to take off even the slight cardigan I’m wearing. But there’s a freshness to the air, and although I’m certain it hasn’t rained I can smell the petrichor as I inhale.

A deep scent that is somehow alive.

I like it.

A few turns and twists of streets and I come upon my first neighbour. She’s watering a flower pot hanging beside her door, balanced carefully on a step and leaning attentively forwards.

The lilies have a brilliant orange hue about them, and there are a few new shoots amongst the stubs of fingers in the soil.

Clearly she’s got a knack for her flowers, with such healthy growths. Her headscarf is just as brightly coloured.

She barely notices me walking past, and I don’t announce myself.

I’ve learnt the hard way that my neighbours are best ignored as they work through accepting their new Saviour.

I walk on, a small cloud of dust settling over my shoes. Everywhere I can see my neighbours flit about their houses, pruning, watering. Standing - man, woman and child - in their front gardens, hanging living wreaths on their doors, and busily pruning their hedges.

They all seem cheerful, waving to each other and carrying on conversations over gates, though their hands are always busy with a flower, a pot, fingers sinking into soil.

He's here. He's here, influencing them all.

Something unclenches inside me, and I breathe a little easier. I will have more to do soon, but for now I feel relief.

My steps bring me closer to the few shops lining the street. Outside the only small restaurant is what looks like the chef scrabbling at the pavement with his bare hands.

I can hear his grunts as I near him, his fingers digging into the cracks of earth, where the smallest green springs have appeared. He has a small pile of dirt he reverently adds to. His forehead is gleaming with sweat, he’s obviously been at it for some time.

I know I shouldn’t, but I stop and gently ask him if he’s feeling alright. If I can help. I have to repeat myself before he looks up at me.

Instinctively I take a step back. His eyes are filled with the same earth he was digging at, crammed into the sockets. He gapes at me, and without looking scoops up the rest of the dirt beside him and crams his entire fist into his mouth.

Then he turns back, his bloodied fingers scrabbling again at the cracks. Scoops up more dirt.

I swallow the bile in my throat and quickly step past him, knowing the Reaper and Grazer will be his caretaker in just a few moments more.

Further along the street, there is a throng of more bodies facing the butcher’s shop. Neighbours, other retailers. Even a Council member.

I can’t stop myself, I step forward, then push into the group.

It takes me long moments to get through the silent group of bodies, pressing limbs apart as I do. They don’t make a sound, even when I tread on feet and slam my shoulders.

Not even when I have to viciously pinch the wine-shop owner while forcing myself past him.

Then I see what they’re all staring at.

A group of three standing over a body on the ground. One is holding a small barrel of earth aloft, one carefully watering the dirt.

The Mayor lifts a shovel full of earth out of the barrel, and pours it gently into the wide opening of the butchers’ chest. His limbs look full to bursting already, the skin having cracked under the strain of being stuffed.

But there is room yet in his torso, so another shovelful is lowered again. And again.

It is the only sound I can hear as I look around.

Then I see his three children ahead, the tallest hugging the other two to her. They, too are silent, watching their father’s eyes try to follow the shovel as it is raised, and lowered.

Raised and lowered.

His mouth hangs open, as if even shutting it was too difficult after hours of agony.

The shovel is raised and lowered.

Raised and lowered.

I didn’t know a human body could be stuffed so full.

The butcher’s skin cracks further. His blood oozes out and bathes the soil.

I don’t know how long we stand there, but at last the shovel is raised and lowered for the last time.

The Mayor turns to his left, marching into the throng of bodies which part almost immediately.

Behind him, the other two lift the butcher’s body, the strain evident on their faces as they stumble into the gap in the crowd.

Then the butcher’s children follow.

And one by one, others do as well. Their steps are measured, calm.

They don’t speak a word as they filter past me and wander off down the street. Some alone, some in groups, all moving as if this was just a normal stroll out on a sunny day.

I know where they are going. There is only one place to bury an offering in town.

But I have no wish to join them. I’ve seen enough.

The sun is a little higher in the sky. 

It’s almost time for lunch.