CONSUME
It was the only thought. The only thought there could be. Slay the flesh. Unhinge the flesh. Consume the flesh. Gorge on the rotted skin. Slay it. Skin it. Slough it. Peel it. Pick it. But above all, consume.
Until the grenades happened.
The force ripped through Lev, his body, through the...thing. Its claws were wrenched from his mind. It was not an easy withdrawal. Like a hook sunk deep in to the gill of a fish, it was a process that would normally take time and care to make the transition painless and smooth.
This was not painless, nor smooth.
Lev screamed, collapsing to the ground and raking his fingers across his head. His very mind was on fire. Hooked claws ripped at his very brain, his heart, what felt like his very soul were being split and ripped. Suddenly his body was the one that was ripped asunder as the hooks came unwillingly free. The pulses battered against him like a typhoon, harsh winds ripping out strand by strand of that which possessed him. He felt parts of his mind being ripped away, loosened by the tethered holds now forced from him There was no understanding. No reasoning. There was only pain.
He crumpled further, body going limp upon the fetid soil below him. His eyes rolled back in to his head, blood filling his eyes at the claw marks he has put across his head. Wind rushing, pulling even more from him bit by bit. The pain threatened to end him. And then...
Silence.
Dark. So very dark. So...cold? There was no light. Nothing to betray what the dark hid, but under his writhing form he could feel metal. A steel table below him, cracking leather straps above. And...cotton. A large swathe of cotton filled his mouth, robbing him of his ability to speak. All that escaped was muffled sounds which were quickly eaten up by the blackness.
Echoing footsteps. The closing of a metal door. Hard shoes against a concrete floor echoed closer. Still black. All black. Still the footsteps came closer. They stopped mere feet away, and were quickly followed by the clatter of small bits of metal upon metal. There was rustling. The flick of something. And then the loud whirring of a saw shattered the silence.
It deafened all. Obliterated all. The shock of noise jolted Lev, ripping the thread away from his eyelids. It wasn't dark. It had never been dark. His eyes had been shut for him. Someone had taken his sight away. But what?
Light blinded him, blood from the thread ripping through his soft tissue obscured his vision. And still the saw came. He could not wipe the blood away, could barely see what was above him. The only thing he could make out was the horrifically fast blade spinning away between both eyes, pausing for the moment before it came down.
Memories ripped themselves away. Everything he had ever known became slush, became gore and kibble as it mixed with fragmented bone matter. The hot nights on the African plains splattered across the lab coat of the saw's owner. Lev's burned body crawling through a mass of tangled limbs from a mass grave spun across linoleum floor before coming to a halt. His entire life flashed before his eyes, replacing the saw, and then found itself upon the wall. And then it went black.
NO. NO. PUT IT BACK TOGETHER.
Gargantuan skyscrapers of polished steel tickled the sky. Angry swirls of red and grey and yellow and brown swirled among the towers, whipping around one and then curling off to the next. The wind followed close on their heels, screaming hell and fire as it followed. This place was strange, foreign. At the base of each tower ran a pillar connecting them all to a central disc. The disc was everything. The disc was all. Everything rotated around the disc. The steel towers, in all their height and might, were forced to turn by these pillars between them. Structures incomprehensible in size bent as slaves to this center object, swirled among the colors, cut swathes in to them. The roiled, angrily separating then coming together again. First as strands, wisps, then cords and finally a large cloud before being churned again. The funnel whirled faster and faster, and everything became as one blur, one motion, one movement of speed and matter.
YOU ARE NOT DONE.
Darkness again. Pressure. Choking. Water, countless amounts of water pressing down on top of him. Eyes attempted to adjust to the burning saltiness invading them. Still, he could see. He could see them all. The darkness now was no barrier to his eyes. An eternal graveyard of battered ships, all broken upon the floor of this unknown ocean lay before him. Battleships, junks, skiffs, everything that had ever carried man across the unknowable depths that now housed them. There were too many to count. And though they numbered infinite, the corpses reaching upwards for salvation numbered more.
NOT THE RIGHT ONE.
Bones. Vast piles of bones. They stretched as far as the eye could see, and further still in to the yellow haze. A trio of suns beat down, baking and bleaching the remains. The air rippled and was disturbed further still by the sentinels that guarded this unholy place. They made long strides upon impossibly long skeletal legs, bones upon joints upon bones upon joints that disappeared somewhere to the unseen ground below. The legs then bunched and connected to small cages of ribs and clavicles that once again bent upon themselves and attached to larger portions still. As each cluster of legs finally connected to each other via a central grouping of bones, these further still connected to a spine that could only be described as colossal. The spine dominated the entire structure. Smaller ribs hung downward, not quite connecting, but the spines themselves dominated. As the spine grew larger to the front, it was ended by a large hand of bone. But the hands were wrong. Too many fingers dangled down at odd angles. They moved like pedipalps on a spider, making clicking sounds and odd scrapes as they rubbed together. The 'creatures' moved with a shambling grace, as the sheer scale of their movement made them seem both slow and swift at the same time.
NOT THIS PLANE.
Wet. Clammy. Blood. Lev removed his knife from the back of his head. His blood spouted freely from the wound. And then...it stopped. He eyed the knife as if it might come alive and bite him. Was this real? Was this like the others? Was...was this real?
His surroundings were barren. Concrete walls, battered with age and breaking from time. Spattered blood marred the floor. A large, olive green metal door hung from a single hinge in front of him. Beyond it was a dim hall in even worse shape than the room he occupied.
Shaking steps brought him forward. Whispers followed, licking at his heels and sniggering at his quickened footsteps. They became louder, catcalling and jeering as he pressed on. He finally gave in, fear overwhelming and consuming as he began to run. Blind panic set in as he became lost. Twists and turns, hallways doubling back in on each other. Whispers became open calls that became intelligible screams and calls for violence. The shouting grew louder, overtaking his mind as he stumbled forward, shoving a door open so hard it fell from the hinges.
THIS ONE.
And before him they all stood. Looking every bit the worse for wear. Dante. Thomas. Diogenes. Everyone else. And one more.
The angel.