Darkness.
Sudden darkness.
Good Lord it was dark.
And suddenly, light. Blinding. God?
Was I dead?
But no, purgatory would be better than this.
Sudden, searing pain, stabbing through my eyeballs.
Am I dead? Dying?
I hear a noise, a faint chittering.
It grows louder, and the light pierces deeper.
Cicadas. Thousands of them, belting their mating calls.
Oh fuck. Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck.
Why was this happening. Why to me?
I could not remember where I was before.
A voice spoke to me, through the venomous miasma of sound and light.
I did not know the voice, but it spoke and I remembered.
"I walked to the house in the woods, chief," said the unknown voice, "I found it, real hidden away. Gruesome place, chief. I walked into the house, but no-one was home. Gun drawn, I headed to the cellar. Nothing there, but there was a carpet with that symbol on it. Red and gold, I remember it. Red thread and golden cicada. I walked down and pulled the carpet, chief, I pulled the carpet. And there was a trapdoor, yup, just like you said. I opened it and—
The voice cut out because I told it to.
I don't know if I could bear it.
I remember that voice, one from a past life.
But that doesn't matter.
The chirping continues.
I die to myself.
And the spirals continue into my skull.
And doors slammed in the twisting, turning hall. And it was good that they slammed shut, since the things behind the doors were terrifying. But he knew, he knew the horrors already. Fire erupted from the floorboards, and in the fire came bugs. Thousands and thousands. They encased him in a tomb, and threw the casket into the fire. The doors opened, and he saw the bodies full of maggots again, down in that hole.
But there was one who did not have maggots. The one behind you, the corpse of a man reanimated and all too bug-like. You remember him as some sort of distant relative but you do not remember his name. He pushed you into the pit of corpses, which was horrid. But more horrid in that moment was the betrayal, though you do not know why.
Trapped down there for seven days, I waited.
I ate the juicy maggots for hydration.
But I did not eat those bodies.
I did not eat those bodies. I did not eat those bodies. I did not eat those bodies. I did not eat those bodies.
I did not eat those bodies. I did not eat those bodies.
I did eat those bodies. I did not eat those bodies. I did not eat those bodies. I did not eat those bodies.
I did not eat those bodies. I did not eat those bodies.
I did not eat those bodies. I did not eat those bodies. I did not eat those bodies. I did not eat those bodies.
No, not all of them.
Surpirsingly, not all of them.
The hole stank of death and piss.
And I was dead.
But alive again, once the light hit me.
Now that light kills me.
AND THE GLASS CICADAS SCREAM OUT IN VENGANCE FOR THE MURDER OF THEIR FATHER
Detective Lorenz Barron: cannibal, desecrator, maggot, corpse-liver, grave-robber, paranoid psychotic, amnesiac, sleep-deprived Barron wakes up for the first time in a long time crying over an upturned floorboard in the Library. His terror-stricken friend Yusuf over him, checking his vitals, a newly met Theseus standing aloof some feet away, plucking at his wrist-device.
Barron sits up, and vomits cicadas. He had been eating them, stuffing them into his mouth.
And he suddenly knew, yet again, exactly what they were dealing with.
The second coming, prophesized.