Canticle - The Backrooms

Canticle

A Devotee Most Pious

A woman of average beauty, intelligence, and skill knelt before a mangled cross. Jesus Christ himself had been ripped from it, leaving only hands and stigmata. It was the only one she could find. She looked dismayed, perhaps devastated. What had she lost?

She prayed.

O Father in heaven, why am I lost here? I am a slave to shifting halls and indefinite misery. Guide my hands, my feet, my heart. Grant me mercy from this penance.

The echoes of her orison fell flat, her cross unmoved. She prostrated harder, pushing her wants deeper into the ether as her knuckles whitened.

O Lord, please. Please reveal your most holy light unto me, before I am smote by the hand of another.

She had been heard, heard by a being far superior.

Three angels, beings of horrid perfection, descended from the heavens. Clad in shining, ornate Damascus armor, they flapped their luminous wings as they sparkled with glory. Faces obscured by the finest cloth, they greeted the average woman with a gentle touch.

"Who are you?" The woman asked, her normalcy amplified by the presence of her current company.

The first angel offered her a slender, perfect hand, which she graciously took in her own.

Their voice was a deafening choir of whispers, "I am the Archangel, Lucifer. These are my siblings, Michael and Gabriel." They gestured grandly to the two, whose ghastly beauty and perfection outweighed even their own.

"I am so blessed!" The woman cried easily, joy welling into her eyes. "To be greeted by such incredible, holy beings. Has God finally heard my prayers?"

The siblings chuckled, amused by her simplicity.

"Yes, and, for some reason, our beloved Father has a request for you. Revel in your serendipity!"

The woman wept, her prayers finally answered. "Yes! Yes, I will go!"

The three siblings gripped her, pulling her into their warm embrace. The foolish woman wept at the touch of greatness.

The Nails Which Cleave

For a long time they flew, easily phasing through twisted corridors and strange, anomalous lands. They finally alighted, a place akin to that of the surface of Mars. The soil was red, barren—the air an acrid copper miasma. Small foothills lead to great plateaus far in the distance with dark thunderstorms rumbling across their surface.

A humble house sat in front of her, not more than twenty feet away. It was shockingly mundane, a home made of crumbling wood and weathered red shingles. There was no front door. The house began to rattle violently.

A great hand of impossible proportions and holiness lifted itself from the hovel, an arm trailing behind it. It brought with it an oppressive silence that deafened the storms roiling behind it.

Godhand; Granter of Strength

"God?" The perfectly unexceptional woman watched the hand settle on four fingers, the index pointing directly at her. The skin at the tip of the finger unfurled like a blooming flower, revealing an eye with a glowing crimson iris.

Its voice penetrated her mind, an intrusion. It wiped all thought, pouring into her like blood-red wine into a decanter.

"YES, CHILD."

She blushed at its mention of her youth. "Lord, I have prayed and prayed to you, then I prayed some more. Will you answer me?" Her devotedness continued to blind her to the sanctimonious abominations she found herself in the company of.

The hand quivered, the flesh twisting even farther. It revealed glorious red veins, which fed the iris.

"YES, I HAVE CALLED YOU HERE TO GRANT YOU SELFISH DESIRES. YOU WISH TO BE FREE OF THE SHACKLES OF THIS WORLD, BUT FIRST YOU MUST CLEANSE YOURSELF OF SIN."

Michael giggled behind her, "You must accept him through communion, bathe in his holy light."

"STEP FORTH."

She stood below her holy god, holding her arms high, deep into the storms, and accepted the communion. Blood flowed lavishly and freely from His holy eye and embraced her form. She opened her mouth, drinking deeply as she filled every part of herself with His sacred ichor.

The siblings howled, scratching at their glorious Damascus armor in ecstasy.

"I BESTOW UPON YOU MY BODY, MY EUCHARIST."

The skin of His pinky, both sickly and most holy, undulated violently. It slackened, peeling from the eye and folding over on itself like the rind of a long-forgotten fruit. The flesh beneath glistened and pulsated with wicked vitality.

"I accept, Lord," she cooed as she ran her fingers through the thick blood coating her body.

A fold of skin detached, floating gently to her. It landed upon her shoulder, where it began to slide and tighten around her throat.

"L-lord?"

Her breaths came short and desperate as the fold began to spread upward to her jaw and down to her breast. Ragged gasps sucked the skin tight against her face, suffocating her in a most holy elation. From brow to navel, she was quickly covered in her fleshy veil. The taste of iron flooded her senses, her heart raced, and the derma writhed in rejoice. It molded to the curves of her face with an obscene intimacy.

The great Hand shivered in joy.

"I AM CAEDES. ABIDING. THAT WHICH CONQUERS. MY HANDS SCORCH THE BATTLEFIELD, TILLING ALL INTO DUST. I AM THE SHEPHERD OF THE BLEEDING FLOCK."

The woman, no longer average, began to claw at the flesh wrapping around her face.

"I WILL GIVE YOU ONE MORE GIFT, A NAME BEFITTING ONE OF MY PRECIOUS CRUSADERS. YOU ARE ABADDON, AND YOU WILL WATER THE EARTH WITH OUR ENEMIES."

Abaddon laughed, fully embraced by her beloved God.

"Deuscaedes. All will become one with you, or they shall perish. We are living death, the nails upon your perfect hands that will sever the arteries of the universe itself."

The great hand retreated into its homely nest, pulling the very fabric of reality in with it.

The extraordinary woman, Abaddon, laughed as she joined her new flock on their first conquest.