Richard Colby left his home on Bartleby Lane to try and enjoy a stroll. He looked up to the overcast sky and muttered about the possibility of rain.
He considered simply going back inside, but decided against it. This was something he needed to do. He'd been shutting himself in, not long after he returned home from the war.
He rubbed his right shoulder where his arm used to be, taken off by a machine gun in the last few days of the conflict. It was still sore. Had it really been a year already?
He began his walk and things seemed well. His home was near the edge of town, not as many people around. It worked for him, after getting back he found it harder to be around people.
The way they would stare bothered him. Was it the missing arm? The fact that he had fought in the war? It was funny, he thought, that when he left for combat he was heroic.
But then when the war ended, all the nasty little details of war's true nature come into the light.
All the horrors everyone back home doesn't want to hear and just try to remain ignorant about. Then all of a sudden he's a monster.
They called his unit "The Butchers of Bahn". It was a town in enemy territory that they had to pass through on their march towards the capital.
The story that got spread around was that his unit was frustrated by the long slog and looking for revenge.
Sure, the invasion had taken longer than initially planned, but nothing horrid enough to make them want to slaughter a whole town! That's not what happened!
Everyone in the town was already dead when they arrived! No one believed them, of course. They had reasons not too, he supposed.
None of his fellow soldiers seemed to be able to give an account that was consistent with the others. Richard himself found it strangely difficult to recall as well.
Just vague feelings of horror and panic. He remembered them getting out almost as soon as they arrived.
Units that passed through after reported that the town had been razed, nothing left but burnt out buildings and charred corpses.
Destroyed evidence hardly argues innocence in the public eye.
He got further into town and could feel the eyes beginning to fall upon him. He wore his service jacket out. Stupid! He picked up his pace.
He couldn't stand their stares boring into him. His shoulder throbbed and he looked up at the ever darkening sky. It was going to rain soon.
He didn't want to seek shelter indoors and risk being around more people, so he instead opted to head to the nearby Ruttiger Square.
It was a large public space used for various local activities, and had benches under awnings for protection on days such as this.
He took a seat on an empty bench, again rubbing his shoulder. He watched the people around him begin to scurry about as rain drops slowly began to fall.
As he looked around one man caught his eye. He was a shabby looking man, dressed in rags and tattered cloth, wrapped in a mangy cloak.
A crueler person would call him a wretch, what with his hunched posture and disheveled appearance.
As Richard watched the man slowly pass through the square, the man turned his head to look around and met Richard's eye.
The man tilted his head quizzically and began to make his way over. Richard's heart began to pound as the ragged man got closer and closer.
The pounding in his ears became deafening until the man sat beside him, and he felt an eerie stillness. The man stared at him for what felt to Richard to be a long time, before he finally spoke.
"Excuse me, good sir, but I do believe you were able to notice me." said the man
"Well yes, you stand out a bit." replied Richard, sheepishly
"Oh, you'd think I would, wouldn't you? But no. I'm really only noticed by a certain kind of person."
Richard wasn't sure how to take that.
"What kind of person?" he asked.
"Well," the man began, "in this world, I've found that there's a small number of people who can still see what lurks beyond normal perception. Either naturally or through and encounter with it."
Richard rolled his eyes.
"Lovely," he thought to himself "of course I'd get stuck next to a loon in a rainstorm."
"You see," continued the man, "there's much more to the world than people understand. They just block it out."
"And why is that?" Richard sighed
"Because they couldn't bear it." said the man with a hint of sorrow, "Most of mankind could never conceive or understand the idea that the world is full of unseen dangers they could never comprehend.
They learned to unconsciously block out any traces of their presence. Self preservation, you understand?"
"And you think I've encountered some of these unseen dangers then?" Richard asked, slightly amused
"I think," the man leaned in, "that you've witnessed the work of a God."
Richard froze. The man's words rang through his head. After a moment he let out a loud snort and hard laughter.
Some people turned and stared for a moment, but quickly returned to their own business.
The ragged man simply gave a small smile as he waited for Richard to compose himself.
"Forgive me, sir," said Richard with a slight wheeze, "but after all I've seen I'm certain there is no God in this world."
"Perhaps not the one you're thinking of, and certainly not in this world." replied the man. "The Gods reach in from their own domains. Neither intentional or unintentional. Neither benevolent or malevolent.
It is simply their way. They influence this world, unseen. Well, mostly. As I said, some can see their works."
"I'm sure I'd remember seeing something like that."
"Would you? Or would your mind simply shut it out like so many other people? Tell me, my friend, what do you remember about Bahn?"
Richard tensed up. How did he know about that? This was some vagrant, how could he? Was he in his unit? Driven mad by the war? Richard didn't like it one bit.
"I..." Richard stammered "I don't like to think about it."
"Well of course not. You can barely understand what it was you saw. It's only natural that you don't want to. But try anyway." the man said warmly and placed his hand on Richard's shoulder.
Suddenly, it was as if a fog lifted in his mind. Memories became clearer. He could remember that day. They met no resistance as they approached the town.
It wasn't of any particularly important strategic value, it was just on the way to the capital. They figured that the enemy forces must have just pulled back rather than waste resources trying to hold the town.
Richard and a few others were sent to check the area out while the main forces stayed back, ready for any surprise that might have been waiting. As they neared the town's defense perimeter they found it abandoned.
The truly strange thing, however, was that all the machine gun emplacements had been swiveled around to face the town. They began to survey the perimeter and soon they started to see the bodies of the citizens.
Many had fallen forward, as if they had been heading towards the guns. They examined some of the corpses and found that they all had cancerous growths on their bodies.
As they were examining the dead townsfolk, they heard a scream from one of their comrades farther down the defense line. They quickly made their way over and found him white as a ghost.
He pointed and they quickly saw what had frightened him. Slumped over one of the machine guns was a man-sized mass of flesh. It looked as though it had grown over part of it and become adhered.
Even worse was that it pulsated, as if breathing, but the soldiers couldn't find any orifices on it. Then again, no one wanted to get close enough to check thoroughly.
They completed a sweep of the defense perimeter and encountered similar corpses and a few other flesh masses. It was time to head into Bahn and see just what was happening
The men saw more corpses as they headed into town. Some with more growths than others. They soon noticed a man sitting on the ground, slumped against a building.
Or at least, he used to be a man. His entire right side had become hideously engorged. His arm and leg lost their shape, becoming little more than hulking tendrils of meat that had burst out of his clothes.
They rose and fell the breath like pulsation they had seen earlier. The side of his face had grown and swelled up like nothing any of them had seen before. There was no sign of his eye, no folds of skin.
Just...flesh…
Beyond the cancerous masses he was motionless. That is until his remaining eye opened and he reached out for the soldiers. He began pleading in his native language, or at least they thought he was pleading.
The translator wasn't with them at the time and the men panicked. Before anyone could really get a grip on the situation, a loud crack rang out and everyone froze.
They turned to see Richard holding his rifle in trembling arms, pointed at the man. He had shot him in the head, which now flopped down lifeless.
As the soldiers began to turn away the man's head snapped back up as he began to wail. The hole in his head filled with viscous blood that shifted into new flesh and grew his head further.
The soldiers were quicker this time. They unloaded their weapons. The man didn't wake up again
They could hear the main force rolling in behind them, attracted by the gunfire, but Richard and the others couldn't wait. They headed further into the town towards its center, hoping to find answers.
They found more bodies as they continued, in various states of deformity. Some were like the man they shot, and others like the horrid masses they saw at the perimeter line.
They checked inside the windows and saw even more. Richard saw a slumped mound of flesh adhered to an easy chair. As if its occupant had changed while they were lounging.
Some of the townsfolk began to notice the soldiers and began their wailing. Richard pushed on further. He heard the shouts and curses of the men behind him as they discovered the poor people of Bahn.
Soon they panicked and shots began ringing out. Richard broke into a run. Getting closer and closer to whatever it was that was behind all this. He could feel it. He reached the town square and stopped.
The sounds of the growing panic behind him seemed to fade away.
In front of him was a massive mound of flesh. I was like the others he saw, but so much bigger. The size of a building.
Sinewy tendrils crept outwards along the ground from its base, some reaching neighboring buildings and proceeding upwards like ivy. It heaved with unheard breath.
Bubbles would form on its skin and burst with thick, congealed blood that would turn to new flesh. More meat upon the pile. He was transfixed by the horrible creature.
Was it even a creature at all? Could it possibly have a mind? His thoughts were halted as he watched a portion of its mass quiver and then tear open to reveal a toothed maw.
It let out a great, gargling groan that reverberated through his own body. It was almost as if it was reaching out to him.
He took a step forward. Then another. He kept walking, getting closer and closer. It's mouth opened wider.
He was broken from his trance by a thunderous boom and an explosion of red from the foul thing. He turned around to see a tank rolling down the main road, its treads caked in blood and gore.
Richard scrambled out of the way as the tank fired another shot. The creature's wounds were already healing and the mouth resealed itself. The tank rammed into the cancerous mound but made no real impact.
Its treads tore at the ground as it tried in vain to push forward. The creature's flesh began to stretch and creep forward, slowly enveloping the tank into itself.
As it began to be pulled in, the crew quickly scrambled out and watched their armor get swallowed up. Richard sniffed the air and smelled smoke.
He looked around and saw dark clouds starting to rise up from the edges of town. Men with flamethrowers arrived and quickly began to burn the horrid mound.
It swelled as if in protest, undulating and convulsing. An officer came and told Richard and the tank crew to get to work. They were burning everything down.
Whatever this cancer was, they were eliminating it.
Richard gasped and he soon found himself back on the bench next to the ragged man. He was covered in a cold sweat and his head was pounding.
"How?" Richard asked the man, "How could I forget that?"
"It's not that you forgot," said the man, "it's that you didn't want to remember. You simply couldn't handle it."
"But you said I saw the work of a God!" Richard exclaimed with confusion
"You did. Gol Tothsis, the God of flesh and unchecked growth. He conferred a blessing upon the town."
"That was no God! It sure as hell wasn't a blessing either!"
"Well," the man started with a smile "how would you describe a God, then? A higher being of great power, perhaps?"
Richard paused, he wasn't really sure
"The whims of these beings aren't for us to understand. Gol Tothsis especially. I think it's safe to say that it has no whims or motives.
It only wishes to grow, occasionally reaching into our world to spread his growth among the people."
"Like in Bahn..." said Richard solemnly
"Like in Bahn." nodded the man
"But how...?" asked Richard, struggling to think straight.
"It could have been sheer chance. Or perhaps someone summoned his power. It's impossible to know, now." said the ragged man with a shrug
"What kind of mad man would summon something like that?!"
"Hard to say. Those rare few who can handle this knowledge could make use of it, with enough willpower and control."
"And what could such a person get out of it?"
"It all depends on the God. With Gol Tothsis, an immortal body perhaps. Or even just replacing a limb." the man said, casting a side glance at Richard's shoulder
Richard glanced back, only for a moment, but it was still too long.
"You've seen a portion of the truth my friend. I'm certain you can handle it. After all, you've been through a lot." the man said with a grin
The rain stopped and the two gazed up at the sky for a moment.
"Well, I should be moving on." said the ragged man "Please, accept this parting gift."
The man handed Richard a small box.
"Good luck my friend, and welcome to the new world." said the man before shuffling away out of sight
Richard opened the box. Inside was a syringe filled with a viscous, red fluid. He stared at it, and rubbed his shoulder.
Could he really get it back? Be like he used to before? He survived the war, survived Bahn. Surely he could handle it.
Right?
He took the syringe.
He stuck his shoulder.
He pushed the plunger