The Gates Open
She took hold of my long hair, and yanked my head back. I gasped.
Trembling, eyes shut tight, I expected to feel the vicious sludge pouring over my teeth, dissolving them.
Instead, I felt spongy, amphibious hands pull my arms out straigh
(more)t from their grave-clasped position over my chest.
Through a cracked eyelid, I saw two of the fluttering Cthulhus holding my wrists stiffly in their webbed paws.
Don't writhe. I will cleanse you, She said.
The flat white scars crisscrossing my arms turned livid under Her eyeless gaze, as she tilted the jug -
You bear the Mark of the Beast. I will cleanse you.
"That's not what this is!" I shrieked.
Your body is defiled, She replied.
"How? I did this to myself."
I know, She said. I saw.
She gripped my right ankle in her exquisitely manicured hand, lifting my leg, bending my knee, to examine the scars there as well. The jug dangled from her other hand, nearly forgotten.
A dry snort, maybe a laugh, from the nasal cavities of Her skull.
You flayed yourself. Deep. Wide. It's the Mark.
"It wasn't a sin. It wasn't wrong...at the time..." I pleaded.
Her lipless mouth seemed to curl into a sneer. She fingered the edge of my rustling dress, and yanked it up, exposing every blade-pocked inch of my legs, and the word, like a flashing sign, carved into my belly.
Whore.
I screamed as the drain cleaner seared the skin of my arms, legs, belly, and even my feathered lips.
H.P. clamped hands over his ears. "That's the Fourth Trumpet."
A dark voice answered him, "No, Venus is still gleaming"
Beyond the open door and the flowing caustic liquid, I saw a banner unfurl in the sky -
"Abandon hope, all ye who..."
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