Last Emissary: Sraosha (II)

 Day 2

‘Tis the dawn of the second day. I am Sraosha צ, last of the envoys of the Great One sent to this Earth. Diary mine –

          I was not granted the pleasantry of sleep after struggling with my dreams. I have grown conscious of the forces of Terror beyond these old, bloated walls; the rotten petrol smell of that man on the black horse invades my nostrils, carried by the old, dead wind. He is quite far, I suppose; perhaps the smell is conjured by my mind, and not truly his. I would not know.

          When I desisted returning to sleep, I decided it was time to roam – to explore this temple more, now that it was made my living-place. The main building is small and austere; a pulpit afront stained glass in rainbow-colored concentric circles, and a few rows of old wooden benches. Mine is the foremost, to the right. Upon that one I sleep. There is a trapdoor near the pulpit; beneath, a ladder, through which one can descend into the storage-room. There, along the walls, are many doors leading to rooms yet unseen.

          The first such room I visited and catalogued today faces north, small and square, an appendix to the stores. A desk sits opposite the door; once coated in white paint, the brown and black and green now show through. Surrounding it are many shelves, full of paper and boxes of ink and pens and pencils. Near the ceiling, in plastic containers, are stacks of notes on tall, white, unbound pages – the writings of the temple’s inhabitants, I assume. I have not been able to bring myself to read them.

          I left a while, returned upstairs; discovering the Bet-Chavvah’s notes invited a good deal of melancholy. My mind was set on wandering a bit through the temple grounds; on watering its flowers, on feeling the softness of the moss that grows on its walls, on lying on the grass that lines the fields around it to bathe in sunlight. Sol has not been the same since the Calamity; neither has Luna. That ancient star contracted into a brilliant, heavy, white speck in the sky, too hot and burning with an apathetic loathing for everything alive, a cold heat that burns in its iciness; the season is Springtime, now, I believe – I am in the southern hemisphere of this planet, and the end of the year is nigh. Springtime, but cold; cold, but snowless. Cold and wet, and sometimes raining – for now, short bursts of rain many times a day, periods of dwarf sunlight in between overcast skies.

          I have seen another, mounted on his red toy horse upon the hills, as I watched the raindrops fall upon my nose. Between claps of thunder I saw him; tall and muscular and nude, too built, a caricature of a man. His head was empty, except for great brass bull-horns hoisting each a crown. In my heart I know they say WRATH and VIOLENCE. The man’s face is in his chest, enormous and vicious, like that of a great cat; his blue-blue eyes rage on black sclerae with the shaking anger of a despot faced with deposition. He bleeds all over; cut, bruised, and broken, but not down. I hear him, hear his awful voice echo through the empty skies, moans and groans and screams of pain as the wounds fester and the limbs convulse in pain. He is nude, but around his neck there is an officer’s cape, and on his hips there is an officer’s belt, and in his right hand there is an officer’s saber; his horse guides by traction a large artillery piece, a howitzer of sorts. His left hand guides with iron grasp a chain tied around a million ghostly slaves, white and translucent, in uniform but torn apart, ready to die again in war. Two have assembled, and two remain.

          I have returned to the temple’s interior; my legs quake in fear. I had expected to face the Terror, but not so soon; it feels as though the Great One has sent me into a helpless mission, destined to fail. Surely this is not the case, right? Elsewise, what would be the point of my quest?

          The temple’s bell rings, now, old and dissonant and stiff. Its automatic hinges are rusted and half-broken, I believe. Perhaps that is something that I ought to fix. Perhaps I will, once this sense of a terrible fate has left me. Perhaps it is time to pray.

Night, Second Day

The early warning systems of Bet-Chavvah yet ring outside; doubtless too late to do any good, the tall soundposts blare out alarms and disturbing music tirelessly every night between calls for people to retire to their residences and remember the curfew set by the long-dissolved state that ruled this realm. They tried, they did; to not be taken by the winds of destruction that befell the world. Alas, they failed; now only the carcass of their old machinery remains, serving no master at all as the compressed Sun powers their derelict generators.

          The mission – it is my duty to assume it is not pointless. The Last War, which propitiated the Calamity, had not been a normal conflict; some manner of ritual had taken place, or perhaps their technology had been the cause, or perhaps they had simply done too much damage to themselves. In any case, Bet-Chavvah died a soulless death; they were extinguished from the Wheel entirely, their existences vanished from the Record so that not one had risen to Heaven or sunken to Hell. The Great One was overcome with a pervasive sadness, and began to wither – an illness, a depressive disorder empowered by withdrawal from the faith of the clay men that had inhabited the Earth. It began to die as well; and soon, the Garden Terra had too begun to lose itself to illness. One by one, we angels were sent to Earth to recover what the Almighty had forgotten, fragments of Its creation-words in the ancient testaments of humanity; one by one, we disappeared, moribund or torpid or blackened, until the Upper and Lower Kingdoms too had become empty. I am the last, ‘though this was not always the plan; I am neither Vav nor Omega. Some were not sent; these that have not been sent remain in the Upper Kingdom, bathing in the Principle’s fading light until their chests give out. None will survive if I fail; all my brethren have already done so, and therefore I am the last holdout of hope for all.

          There is a small amount of respite in the knowledge that the Words are surely hidden underneath this building; a small amount of respite bound strongly and surely to a mountain of dread. How many must I find? Which testaments shall I uncover in the dust and mold of this forgotten house of dead men? I would not know. What can I even do? My bones grow weak; my flesh aches and shivers; my skin itches and reacts to the slightest stimulus. I am also ill – my Light also fades. My Light, yes, and my memories; I am slowly no longer myself. How much of me have I lost just traveling to get here? My wings no longer fly; they are black and shriveled now, painless thankfully but too near to a final ruination. There is no medicine for my suffering – the Bet-Chavvah are dead.

          I shall continue my diligence in searching for the Words; I am the last hope of it all, I suppose. Sinful as it may be, however, I admit to you, Diary Mine, that I am sometimes filled with the impression that I would rather lie and die in peace instead.

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