Page 60 of The Flesh Remembers
"Not yet," he said, his voice low and possessive. "You’re mine."
The courtyard descended further into madness. The boundaries between bodies dissolved. Skin melted into skin, bones twisted into grotesque configurations. Faces emerged and disappeared within the writhing masses of flesh. Limbs flailed, voices cried out in discordant harmony. Eleanor caught her reflection in the blood pooling at her feet, but it was not her face she saw. It was stretched, warped, her features dissolving into something unrecognizable.
In the distance, she saw another version of herself, already melded into the apparatus, her mouth one of the many that now whispered in forbidden tongues.
Above, the blood moon split with an audible crack. From its ruptured core spilled a mass of writhing limbs, mouths, and eyes. It descended, dripping black ichor that sizzled as it struck the stones. The cultists threw themselves into its path, begging to be consumed. Those it touched were either obliterated or twisted into grotesque, beautiful, and monstrous new forms. Some sprouted additional limbs, others became masses of teeth and tentacles. Eleanor felt the creature’s gaze fall upon her. It was not a look but a force, a branding of her very soul.
The ritual reached its climax. Eleanor and James intertwined, their bodies devouring each other. His teeth tore at her throat as she gripped his hair, forcing him closer. Her nails raked deep into his flesh, only for the wounds to glow and heal. Their union was not love but obliteration, a grotesque performance for the cultists who writhed in ecstatic worship.
The apparatus fed on their lust, its mouths chanting in unison. The courtyard began to sink, the stone dissolving into a pit of living flesh. The altars convulsed, their moans forming an infernal hymn.
In their madness, the cultists brought forth their children. Infants lie at the base of the apparatus, their cries swallowed by its hungry mouths. Eleanor watched, horrified and enthralled, as their tiny bodies dissolved into light, feeding the machine further. The cultists cheered, their eyes glowing like the moon's crimson light.
James whispered in her ear, "Let them go. Let it grow."
Eleanor wished she could weep, but she had no tears left, so she could only watch in horror as the world ended and something else took its place.
At the final moment, the apparatus pulled Eleanor into its core. Her flesh and bones unravelled into pure energy, her voice echoing across the courtyard:
"I am reborn. I am everything."
Her consciousness expanded, encompassing the cult, the moon, the apparatus, and the grotesque entity descending from the heavens. She was no longer Eleanor. She was desire incarnate, a god of flesh and will. James knelt before her, his dominance reduced to servitude.
Her first decree? The obliteration of humanity. In its place, a world where flesh and spirit were one, an eternal, writhing act of worship. As the blood moon burned brighter, Eleanor’s voice resounded:
"Let the new world begin."
Excerpt from the diary of Dr. Eleanor Ashcroft
They call me the Mother of Flesh.
The title slithers through my mind, coiling around my thoughts like sinew stretching over bone. It was chanted as I was remade, reshaped into something beyond flesh, beyond blood. I can feel it working through me, threading itself into every molecule, every nerve, an intruder and an embrace all at once.
I was afraid.
That was before.
Now, I understand. I see the truth in the darkness and the rhythm of the pulsating mass surrounding me. James has shown me the way to a new world, a better one, with us standing at its peak, untouched by the fragility of ordinary existence. My fingers brush against his, and I step through the door, surrendering myself to the inevitable.
But no. No. This is the trick, the deception, the slow erosion of self that I must resist.
I will not succumb.
I must claw my way back from this abyss before it swallows me whole.
James is still in there, beneath the shifting skin and whispered promises. The real James. The man I clung to when everything else fell apart. If I can find him and strip away the corruption that has taken root, maybe there’s still time.
Maybe we can still be happy.
Maybe this isn’t the end of us.
Yet, even as I write these words, the hunger thrums inside me, growing, twisting, whispering, "You are already lost."
A Tapestry of Unmaking
The great hall pulsed with life, its air dense with heat and scent, a mix of spiced incense, sweat, and the faint smell of blood. The flicker of crimson candles sent shadows writhing along the walls, transforming stone and mortar into something that appeared alive. Every surface seemed to breathe, the apparatus above vibrating in time with the gasping breaths of the gathered cultists.
Eleanor stood at the centre again, her body reformed and now anointed with symbols painted in a mixture of wine and blood. The runes glowed faintly, their warmth teasing her skin with every beat of her heart. Her body felt alive in ways she had never known, every nerve alight, every breath stoking a fire that burned low and steady in her core.
