When a bone splinter splits the silicone chip

…It was all around, the red. Yes, it infused the sky, it seemed that was where it started, but it only seemed to start there. The color of it was thick and roiling, it choked off the blue and the silver that would flood this valley any other time of year. The red sky set down hard across the jagged mountain peaks, fingering down the valleys, washing over every piece, coloring every rock, tree and villager.

These red days, these were the days the villagers crouched around, quiet as mice, or sheep. I would too, were I a part of their puny tragedy. I am separate from them, for they know me to be one with THEHE. There is nothing for them from me.

And these red days, THIS red day, especially, my duties lead me to mingle with them, at least for a few hours. They expect me to come down the mountain when the red days arrive. After all, I have visited them on the red days for generation after generation. When the red days come, I am there. I am there, this is how THEHE wants it.

It is THEHE that purges a thousand years gluttony red into the clear mountain air, it is THEHE that spews the noxious scarlet fountain into the atmosphere where it dissipates into billions of confetti crystals, red and redder. I would keep guard on THEHE, watch THEHES vast bulk, resembling nothing so much as a block squatting in the clearing where THEHE fed. THEHE, at the time of purging, was even more massive than- I cannot explain. THEHE tucked THEHES body, rolling it into a blocky globe, face of THEHE hidden. THEHE would allow me to watch and learn, for there would come a time when all the brutalities, every fear and terror and sickness of the human spirit I had ingested would have to be expelled this way as well, THEHES way. This is what THEHE taught me.

I watched yes, but THEHE, in all of being, is not omniscient. THEHE does not understand what different creatures we are. It is amusing to me how the accumulation of THEHES power has led more and more towards THEHES complacency and undoing. That story is yet to come. For I feel that no matter how invincible THEHE believes to be, and there is no doubt within me that THEHE could withstand any assault by mere mortals,,THEHE is still vulnerable when he purges. I know, also, of another time.

As THEHE vented the pent-up scabrous emotions and horrible human feeling, the very air around him would shudder, the frequency of THEHES vibrations would catch the atmosphere and worry it as a terrier would a rat. THEHES broadness flexed and quaked as THEHE reached down deep inside to bring forth. THEHE brings what THEHE purges from there, from where it is stored after being collected from the prey, from where they have been crushed and swallowed whole. THEHE would bring the waste of their terrors, the parts of them there was no use for, all thru the body back to the outside. THEHE shudders and groans, groans as deep and as gutteral as the comets I hear parting above me- and as THEHE pulls this to the outside, I can see it welling thru THEHES surface, the color of human intensity, the red beads boil up thru it, until THEHES frame pulverizes this scarlet veil, shooting droplets into the air where they start to spread out, scorching the sky, jumping black and thick from what THEHE has for skin, emanating outworks, viscous and fogged, shedding and spreading, coating the green glen maroon with the human ages suppressed agony.

I guard THEHE and I watch, and I disbelieve. I disbelieve THEHE is weak at this time and I thoroughly disbelieve that this will be me, that this will be my fate, for I have fed many times over what THEHE has found to be limiting before THEHE evacuates the remnants. The very air is fouled as THEHE practices purging, until even the lesser, fairer, simpler deities cannot stand their natural habitats any longer, blights take over forests, fields and crops, rock is loosened and tumbles down the mountain, murders and ghastly human tragedies increase, madness spreads thru all the animals, people congregate in fear and suspicion and lo, wary be the poor traveler who comes across the mountains during these dark days, for the whole of the atmosphere is charged with a red glittering destruction.

The purge happens once every 500 years or so. This is enough time for the mortals to recover from any catastrophe, and even to flourish and prosper after their own way. And so, generation after generation, humans stay and learn, they generalize away fact as myth, and vice versa until the view is skewed to such an extent that there are few, if such a dim generation is lucky, who retain the stories that have come to them and know the traditions, the story and the law.

It is to these people, these people who understand what is required of those who live under THEHE, that the other mortals can find solace and sanctuary when the skies turn red for a month. Destruction comes vast, and there are some who expect me to stroll down the mountain. Indeed, it has been arranged thus. It has to be, for THEHE has to feed, and THEHE feeds on humans- yes, but THEHE needs a special sort now. THEHE has become so adjusted in strength and arrogance that THEHE would have it no other way. So, we import. It is my task to fetch these little men home to THEHE. This takes awhile- to you, what would be a long while. Why should they not know me? I come every year to collect these men, and have been for thousands, but when the red days come, ALL the people in the village know that what has come thru their skies has nothing to do with them, what has blitzed across their skies, releasing all sorts of tragedy has not any mercy, and I am its agent. An unsteady sort of alliance has formed between myself and a certain family, years and years in the making, where I have full advantage, and the reason for this is because I am the monster. They have not any idea of how to touch me. Here is an example of how they see me, which I gathered from a clipping of one of their informative tomes- read it and laugh, if you have a mind to, for this is what is done...for I am veiled always, you can only just stand my eyes, watch you block out and nothing on me you shant shine you on me my beauteous form, thus----

{ there is a tavern, a cabin, thick and blocked solid inside a cut formed in the side of the mountain. It looks like the slowest lunge as a shadow reaches past the last lips of the sun-hot boulders. The cabins heavy jagged roof accepts the purple sky. It breathes. The sun is going to come around later. We dip to dark. We all of us dip to dark.

A girl drops from somewhere. She is cloaked feminine, hooded and invincible. She darts with an alien quickness and lites in the shade of the oak tree frame that rings the cabin. Lanterns pop, hurried into place, frantic and blazing in every window. Spot. Spot. Spot. The dark quick girl spit herself into the cabin. As usual, no one notices this. The meat still roasted, the waywards and the wild shepherds were there, the women and the men alike, all just rousing to drink. She sees them, all of their heat reflect from the skins and the heart pumps it out to her. Every movement, from the countless particles of dust, she feels it, sure as a ripple in water. Every lick of light shed shrouding to her lidded eyes and her tongue sticks out once. She watches the parody, tho it is a lazy, cautious one this evening.

She never knew this, nor why they came here to- congregate. The patron, a thin mustachioed length of a man, felt anxious, and she smelled the dread leak off him and coat everywhere he went, everywhere his eyes touched. She allowed his eyes to cross her and she lapped his reaction. He started and stared, gutted himself with his fear, and she strode in the cold shiver that shook into him. She tasted that cold luscious stab, sucked it from him just a second, then lit to a seat in the corner like nothing, and lowered her spiny gaze beneath her hood. She waited his approach.

The man scuttled and sweated towards her. She was patient. While he came on, she felt his being accent itself into a paralyzing fear. He paused behind her, stooping and collecting himself. She felt him gathering a scattered reserve of reverence and abhorrence. In fact, laterally, he owed her his life, in that she spared it. They both knew it, for death walked even in the pretty gardens all that day.}

scraps of stories like these would come across my path from time to time. I could take everything from their minds that I wanted, being what I am being, but these printed words always amazed even me with their strange mixture of superstition and fact. This writer even knew somewhat of what I could see in them. It was from stories printed out like these that I knew to alter the situation so that as I brought the outsiders in for THEHES feasts the people who populated this place for the rest of the year must depart for a period, and I made it so.

It was only after THEHE had his fill and had retreated to digest would I bring the people back to the place riven in the crevasse from the mountain. It was from these stories that I learned of the incredible weakness and puniness inherent and developed by themselves unto themselves, and that I would have to hide my own true power from them, else they would literally tear themselves to pieces with the beauty of me all.

it was THEHE what sent myself to that place to escort the victims to his feasts. THEHE had reared me in this remote mountain wilderness, and brought me up in ways unknown and forgotten by man, as befits beings unknown and forgotten by man. THEHE also provided me as an intermediary twixt THEHE and mankind. My pride will allow me to say that I gave myself over to being a lure, for, to humankinds eyes, I am a beautiful. It was thru THEHES influence that over the ages this place has become a midway point, an oasis in the midst of a craggy black mountain pass. It has become a home for some who live off the income of entertainment, sustenance and lodging they can provide for the weary traveler. THEHE has seen that it was made manifest so.

In this place, THEHE first built the massive oak hotel. As THEHE was cutting and removing stone from the mountain for the construction of the cellar, the cut revealed a crevasse leading into the very depths of the mountain plate there. When THEHE came back to me later in the day, THEHE picked me up in one hand and shewed me all of it, fast, chamber to chamber. THEHE whispered the history of it to me, the collision, the pressure, the angles and the forces beneath the earth, and THEHE told how WE came thru to the surface here. It was a secret I wont tell you, as it was taught FOR me. Later that night, THEHE winked as he laid the massive roof down upon the cabin.

I was so very young. “I built this shell,” THEHE patted the oak hull and it trembled, “men will fill it. I will build what they will call a runway, and I will build a road leading down the mountain to the road they have built, connecting them to us, to our gullets,” and THEHE allowed me to see, for the first time, humankinds. THEHE then spat out a road and a runway. THEHE placed me inside the shell and told me to wait there.

I matured in that place while I waited. I inhabited every bit of rock and scrub, every tree, bush, speck of dust, rode the winds where they come and where they blow to and replied in kind. Sometimes,men would come, and either myself or THEHE would feed on them, keeping our strength by making sure that all seemed to be in a suspended state.

Until a family arrived, we never stopped the slaughter. THEHE instructed me to grow with these humankinds and released me. everything I had been indoctrinated to fell away unfastened, and my being was as helpless as before without the harness of my masters restraints. I was quite small, and resembled the humankind. It was unpleasant becoming cold in that oak hotel. I gather from the stories I was told growing up that it was a shock to the man, woman and their family who found me there, a babe, apparently the only heir to to a solidly built, bloodstained way station.

I know how THEHE surmised that this was the man who would found this place and bring us meat, but you do not, and you never shall. I will tell you this, in my seventeenth human year, I quit the place my fatherman built up and returned to THEHE. The place has seen scores of generations and no one questions my coming there once a year, ever. I can know the stories they make up about me, and I know how to smile at the thoughts they think they hide from me for I am vain and I have humor. They know I come there once a year to collect the sacrifice and all goes according to THEHES plan, every time. A terrible vengeance waits if the system is trifled with, and this knowledge floods every living soul, even if the humankinds harbor it not directly.

It took many years for the hotel to become self-sufficient, as THEHE desired, and permitted. We, of course, in our elemental and baser ways were able to bless and influence the rise of the hotel owner, his family and his descendants. The hotel owners financial rise was especially precipitated by my presence there. In 17 years, he had discovered a derelict place and transformed it into a lovely, and, tho he never knew it, protected nest.

When I disappeared, it was a tragedy for the man and his family. Reappearing once a year reassured them of my existence but again the man grew terrified as every year I remained ageless as he and his family progressed towards death. Eventually the mans family grew wise enough to see how I was a talisman for their luxury and the health and wealth of their descendants. THEHE, in all wisdom, I think, had no regard for this history and I keep hidden the effect these humankind have had upon me. And I do not hide from certain of the lineage of the first man, and in each generation I take aside and instruct one of them from the reservoir of knowledge I have at my fingers.

And once a year, I come to collect the harvest, the sacrifice, the bodies that contain the blood that the master requires. The bodies never come from the descendants of the man, no, they are always culled from those of humankind who slake their thirst only with violence, those born to ferocity and slashing retribution, the men who are drawn to combat, only those such as these could now satisfy THEHE, what men call monster.

Taking the bodies away from these beings who had themselves taken human life multiplied the layers, enhanced the moment, and ultimately gave THEHE a measure more of power. THEHE seemed to crave this feeding day more and more, in THEHES infallible thirst and monstrousness. When I first noticed this, it occurred to me that it concerned my own existence, but it also pleased me greatly to see my masters form trembling with want, desire, perhaps a NEED. For THEHE was a most formidable being.

when the day would come, THEHE, in a voice cracked and huge, sent me to fetch the prey. a plane had dropped off the men and they stood watching it clear the mountains tops. I slipped into the hotel, which stood empty for this occasion, as it did every year, and took up the role of hostess, wearing my most welcoming smile to the doomed men as they congregated in the foyer. I addressed them to a man.

“this is the beginning, right now, right here where you stand, every decision you make from here on in could result in your death.”

“show me my goddamn room first , at least,” spoke a voice from the crowd, and the men received this, some with laughter, some in other ways but all in agreement they murmured in the backs of their throats.

“as you wish...i GAVE you this as a warning,” I weighed the word warning as much as I dared, given the all-frail human condition. A few of these men wilted under that, but were resilient enough to recover quickly and to tote their belongings into the receiving room.

I followed them, “this place is vacant for your convenience and for the safety of others,”my voice hit them as a wave might, rocking the assembly, “your reputations have insured that you will be most inaccessible during your stay, until your... departure, should any of you ever leave this place.”

I modulated my voice structure and accent so as to be foreign to any one of them. I spoke to them in a tongue none of them spoke, yet each of them understood implicitly. Some of them were trying to be distracted with the understanding of this phenomena, alas, I overrode that desire.

“your benefactor, my master, has seen to it that everything is paid for, the larder is full, feel free to empty the cellars of drink, let no one disturb tonights revel and relaxation...or tomorrows test,” here I allowed them to see my smile, a stunning rhapsody of beauty. The men looked a bit ill, many of them wheezed and had to sit down, but a few of the stronger wills managed a lusty cheer as I finished with my teeth show. I saw these few, and noted them.

There were fires roaring in many places, inside and outside, for the end of the world would come before this place would want for wood, and the humankind are not immune to the cold. I left the men make themselves comfortable as I unlocked the doors of every room and every cabinet in the rooms so that everything was made available to the men. I then returned to the room where the men were still gathered, drinking and boasting.

I entered smiling the room here and there, had their eyes catch me coming thru a doorway or a shadow before actually entering the room. This gave these warriors a sense of deja vu or precognition and it is fun to play with these one dimensional forms at times, as I cannot help but to laugh at their arrogance concerning their existence. It pleases me for they knew not what an absolute slaughter this would be. These were men used to winning battles, seasoned, these warriors knew they were to be victorious. And so, by their reckoning, would this next adventure end with a few casualties, perhaps many wounded, but this adventure would end, and for the most talented and skilled of them life would continue and there would be other kills, other days. But no, never did any of them think they would enter into the mouth of a gargantuan abbatoire. For this was not to be a battle, twas a feast, and these humans were chunks of fat for THEHE. Alas, vanity and arrogance.

Tho the humans have more imagination than either of the previously mentioned attributes, they still choose to apply this vanity and arrogance to more of their endeavors than imagination. Just for instance, when as they entered the abode and I warned them of the imminent dangers and incredible peril they were already in, and told them to be attentive starting from this moment...this was not a deception on my part but a true admonishment, for there had been occasions when THEHE, ravenous as this being is, would inhabit every between place in the big oak building and when I would take my leave, the very structure would splinter and crumble down into all the space that looked to be a huge rock wooden mouth, clashing and thudding together, grinding men into morsels small enough to suck into the spaces between the innermost part of the wood where THEHE dwelt for the moment. As soon as THEHE had absorbed them, THEHE would again manifest and quit the cabin, coalesce and rest after the gluttony beside the stream behind the grove the house rested in. this must have been hard for THEHE to do, for I have not seen this particular form of feeding for a three centuries or more. Still, I feel that I must warn the warriors faces. Even if THEHE has no sense of their “fair play” ideals, I do, and I would have these humankinds put into my charge aware of every obstacle to their now-shortened existence, even if they, like unto as babes, cannot grasp what is right in front of them. And so, I had warned them. THEHE was not lurking within the long dead veins of crossbeams, planks and floorboards that night. As I have said, I reckon it was too strenuous a feat for THEHE. All the better to have this knowledge.

All the mens eyes were on me as I began the preliminaries. Slowly, as I talked to them, I brought every sense of theirs towards me until, tho standing 20 steps away from the nearest one, they could feel me as tho I were the tissue beneath the skin. Never before in the millions of moons had I ever brought a group of men so far into the intention, and it was not without a purpose, for in order to accomplish the annihilation of THEHE, the diversion and glamor I set out before me must be dazzling and powerful. I am sure the reader of this tome understands how easily malleable a clay they have become and know that they are under the thrall of a grand deception, self-perpetrated frauds, all of you, stripped to slaves by mere mortal force and tradition and loving it.

Imagine now, human, how I, with the merest twitch of my other-dimensional muscle, was able to cow and lick these killers of men into my vice and hold them there transfixed, as I told them that they were to face and dispose of THEHE. Never before had I ever revealed to any warrior the exact form of the foe they were to face. To reveal this would be detrimental to the way the meat was to be enjoyed. THEHE wanted the food to be red, ripe and bursting with fresh energy. Too much terror or agony of the psyche was a sour, bitter lot. Better to taste outrageous surprise and righteous anger, these were crisp heady tastes for THEHE. All other times before, even unto the last year I had brought a congregation together, were times I enjoyed trifling and toying with these category of humankinds, lying to them to get them ready and pumped up the mountain, plump with valor and adrenaline, juicy tidbits for THEHE.

This time, I TOLD these warriors of what stupendous and ethereal absolute strength of the dragon they were to face, and they had no choice but to believe me. It hurt them. They were aghast at this picture of the truth I projected into their beings. They all cowered and, “you cannot induce us to do this.”

I reminded them, captive as they were, that, indeed, once they had crossed the threshold and had been warned, I controlled their actions with just a hint of a whim. Furthermore, I pointed into them, they had chosen to stay in this human vessel even after they had accepted in early adulthood that they could loosen their mud and be set off, they had chosen to stay it until death itself dealt them the blow they had so often given others.

My smile erased all other sensation from them, a clear wipe in which no other vision was as singular and encompassing as mine, and myself. These killers were mine to empty as one would a cup of odorous stagnant muck.

“watch and feel this, “ I said to them, and then stepped into the one of them I felt most fit my purpose and entered him all self and ate away til one and the same remained, injectioned my complete self, absorbing what scant essence was his and voiding it, completing the glamor so successfully that not even THEHE would be able to tell the difference.

And so, guised in one of their companions I came again into their awestruck presence and guided their dumbfoundedness into focus once more by clapping my hand once. Every head swiveled in my direction and they recognized this man I had entered and I pantomimed this role as only I could.

I ordered them to gather up all their weapons to slay this monster, and they had no words, for I had made them dumb, and they only could move when I took the numbness from them. At that time, they were what the village children call puppets and it was easy going as I led them up the black mountain towards the labrynthical grotto what housed THEHE most of the time.

Did I thrill at what was to be a culmination of all my centuries of servitude and observation and planning, was there a tingle or a twinge of anticipation, did I level out any forethought of what was to come towards the one enemy I had ever known , did I blink and salivate, broadcasting my intention of filling my belly once and for all, signaling to THEHE what knowledge was mine? No, I did not, THEHE would be surprised to find me soon enough.

The men I led followed what they psyched to be their man straight into the jaws of THEHE, yes, and THEHE closed all their bodies, including the one I possessed, within him, and THEHE swallowed us all to a man. I tumbled headfirst among them, thereby gaining as close an access as I could to the monsters heart, for we all have hearts. And THEHE did not know me and was as confounded to my identity as the humankinds I had led. HARK!

To be preternaturally quick is something one must be in a situation such as this, for mans flesh vaporizes almost instantly at the touch of the baser elements that comprise US. As the body I was cloaked in windied down the esophagus I slit a passage to and latched my essence strong into THEHES heart, draining him of all vitality, satiating myself near to bursting as THEHES heart jumped and bucked, and I could hear THEHES claws rip and rend, into THEHES own body, straining to find the source of his extinguishment. My being blastocysted into the dragon, and out again, full of every fire bit of the mass of THEHES heart, and I rejoiced at provolving into THIS creature who pens this missive to you now. One could hear the gurgle of the creek as I rested after my rebirth, and laughing animals licked me clean.

Let me to tell you humankinds that you....be thankful that THIS creature knows what you are feeling when you plead mercy, for there are sources more powerful than you can ever imagine who have not this empathy with you, and you have sorely aggrieved them, and know that you still cannot do much in the dark you think you know, where we dwell, and where we do much.