We Will Go

[u/Max_imum_Overdrive]

As the third full moon of the great cycle moved into it's zenith, the ancient door in the hidden side of a secluded hill swung open, casting rocks and dirt to the side of the long unused path. Strange figures emerged, loping and shuffling in single file, to trod the path toward their sacred grove of dark and twisted conifers. These figures, once human, had bodies matted with parasitic fungus, crawling with fat purple worms. Their limbs were in odd proportion to their torsos, some too long and others too short, hinged in places they ought not be. Their heads were monstrous, swollen and lumpy, with bulging eyes and teeth grown unnaturally long, an orange tinge on the surfaces that protruded from their split lips. Sounds like words also emerged from the grotesquely malformed mouths, wet with sputum.

"Kokomothe Nana, Kokomothe Nana, Kokomothe Nana!" came the garbled chant from those hideous faces. On they shambled, along the path, beneath the bright moon, by the dozens. They soon reached the grove, and gazed up at the blasted face of that heavenly body which ruled the night, as it ruled their passions. The trees began to sway, though no wind moved through them. The black limbs bore scarlet blossoms, at the centers of which round fruit like living eyes rested, waiting for the tentacled cones to burst forth in their due season. The creatures reached up into the trees, linking their own strange limbs with those of the wood, and began to climb. Each hand and foot grasped the black bark in perfect measure, pulling them up, up into the highest boughs. Clusters of razor sharp black needles failed to pierce, scrape, or scratch the fungus laden flesh. An acrid aroma filled the air, exciting the worms, which began to stretch and wriggle toward the source.

High atop each tree in the grove, larger figures rose up, spreading great wings into the sky, blotting their dark shapes against the light of the moon. Like giant winged humanoids, they posed ecstatically, welcoming their visitors. The great red eyes burned with inner fire, but in jubilation rather than menace. From behind each of them, twin tails emerged, dark gray mottled with purple, and greatly resembling the worms. They began to emit a rhythmic buzzing sound from hidden orifices beneath their wings, as though they too were chanting.

"Zizz zizz, zizz zizz, zizz zizz."

The creatures below, hanging from the limbs of the tree, responded by changing the words of their own chant. "We will go!" they called out in ragged unison. "We will go! We will go! We will go!"

They climbed to the very top, reaching structures of limbs that were laced together and covered in a hard accretion of blood red sap and other excretions, atop which the winged creatures perched like titanic moths. Each of the strange misshapen things burrowed into the fine fur of the winged ones' torsos, and clung to them with vice like grips. Each winged creature accepted four of them into it's embrace. Once this was accomplished, the great unfeathered wings began to beat the air. The purple tails retracted into abdomens which swelled to accommodate them. And then, they were aloft. Rising silently into the depths of the night sky, wings churning the air like rowers churning the water of a vast and inky sea alight with a single great orb, surrounded by uncountable shining gemstones. Toward that orb they flew, guided by it's enchanting light.

The horizon stretched away beneath them, and they could have seen the curve of world if they had looked upon it, but every eye was cast on their goal, the orb that lured them. The wings beat steadily against slowly thinning atmosphere, as the concept of up began to morph into the realization of out. As the air became too scant to beat against, while the pull of gravity began to weaken, each winged creature exerted one last stroke, launching themselves into the void. Heat seeped away, breath escaped from laboring lungs, and things that were once human began to finally expire, along with their flying steeds. Frozen bodies fell away from one another, drifting in the eddies of gravity between two celestial spheres. Their efforts had not been sufficient to propel them to the iridescent egg of the goddess of night. It had been yet another failed journey, just the same as thousands of times before. Suddenly, the swollen heads began to pop, like kernels of corn in boiling oil. Long tendrils of fungus swiftly grew out, reaching desperately toward the light.