torpid zodiac
CW sad and gorey
The Aching Maw is on the move. You can feel it in the subtle, a tad too sudden changes of temperature; the chicken's unrest right before dawn; the eyes of fish are they are taken out of the water; and the brittleness of newly felled wood.
High above ground, rows upon rows of teeth are gaping and snapping, seemingly at nothing but clouds and the few erring birds capable of reaching such heights. As the fangs grate against each other, a gloomy tune is played to which the Earth answers at its core. The huge, wingless body extends behind its mouth into a short, fin-like tail, the lack of abdomen contributing to an unnatural, stubby form. Lighter than air, the atmospheric chimera propels itself forward with unknown purpose, but unspeakable power. As it floats there, defying gravity, currents louder than the sun course through the air and stone alike, imperceptible to human ears, reshaping the world.
Somewhere a child watches a flower sprout and bloom within seconds, its petals bleeding gold, thorns springing forth from its stem, detaching and flying away like butterflies. A river bends, contorts, boils, then settles again. The sky puts on dreamscape tones that dissipate as one blinks.
Somewhere a hole opens in the ground. The mud around it turns putrid. Insect-like abominations emerge, their body surrounded in myriad deformed legs that struggle for control over the creatures' movements. The aberrant swarm makes its way out of the pit in jagged motions, rustling with the effort of too many crooked limbs. Occasionally the monsters devour each other out of the way, and the half-eaten unfortunate ones continue to move, somewhat less erratically. The puddle of corrosive blood they leave behind dissolves the shell of the other bugs that walk over it. Pretty soon, just a handful of the creatures are whole still. At nightfall, those survivors will burrow, be born anew, and fight again.
Somewhere a girl crouches with her arms around her knees, stroking her purring kitten that is about to leave this world. She tries to feel the fragile soul of her beloved pet underneath the soft fur. She watches the tiny chest moving up and down, dreading with strange expectation the moment that it will cease to do so. The cat's closed eyes seem relieved, the expression of a burden finally put down. From the steps to the house, the girl's mother watches, distancing herself as if from a ritual. When the child stops stroking her cat and wipes her eyes, the mother enters the house, pretending to herself that she will tend to the chores – but she only stands there, thinking about death and the words that she will say to comfort her daughter. She does not hear when the girl's quiet sobbing turns into a single gasp, then nothing. She is absorbed in her thoughts when a cat walks by the house's entrance door, limping but invigorated, licking blood off its mouth. The mother thinks about death.
Somewhere, a volcano erupts. Lava begins to flow down the sylvan slopes, crowning the mountain in a ring of fire. The red river turns purple, blue, green. Where thick lava had flowed, now rapid streams of molten rock serpentine into the plains like scorching water. After a while, they no longer flow down, but sideways, or upwards. Winding worms of liquid stone intertwining, weaving a mineral fabric that soon clothes the peak in eerie shapes.
It is said that even mountains were once born from the songs of the Aching Maw. Perhaps life, too. Now it is on the move, reassembling the genes of the Earth, twisting everything familiar. An era rich in superstitions and religion is coming to account for the changes, though the reasons for them will be lost to time.
gray canopy