left her disgusted. But she felt increasingly convinced that it wasn’t really her body burning, but rather some obsolete mask that desperately needed and deserved destruction.
The men-she’d-thought-were-torches led her into the tower and up a flight of stairs.
She looked back to see if René was coming with them. She could only make him out in
silhouette. He stood on the other side of the threshold, repeatedly bowing at the waist.
Making the sign of the cross. Uttering praise: “Haweh. Haweh. Haweh.”
During the trio’s ascent, they came upon a dozen pudgy, naked, blistered, half-
human things. Some trotted up the stairs on all fours. Some giggled. Some screamed
vulgar threats. Some ignored the procession entirely and used the stairway as an arena for orgies. “Who else wants a piece of this?” a pig-man said after shooting his load into the bleeding ass of a scorched, cackling, masturbating crone. Two of his kin trotted forward and squealed with delight.
On closer examination, Ellie saw the crone wasn’t masturbating. Rather, her index
finger had been forcibly attached to her vulva by a nail that had been driven through an arthritic knuckle. And, upon further reflection, that cackling might have been weeping.
Should Ellie have been shocked that such an obscenity was being committed in plain
sight? A vague sense that she should be shocked rose to her consciousness, but quickly passed. The fire was purifying her. Melting away her mask, exposing the brokenness
underneath. Old ways of thinking drifted away from her, like the smoke drifting from her head.
Ellie and her guides found ample room on the wide stairs to slip past the spectacle,
but they couldn’t avoid the puddle of blood and shit that had seeped from the old woman.
She tread carefully, so she wouldn’t slip. But she felt not even a twinge of guilt or
revulsion when the filth clung to her feet, and she could tell that such emotions never
even occurred to her guides.
She was on her way to becoming more like them.
She felt strange sensations deep inside her head. Maybe they were growing pains, as
new physical structures developed in her brain that would enable her to better understand how this realm worked. Or maybe, old parts of her brain – the parts devoted to the
preservation of conventional morality – were simply dying. In any event, she sensed she
was mutating into something better-than-human. Wiser -than-human. She became more and more convinced the events she’d just witnessed were beautiful.
How could she think otherwise? The creatures and their mate (victim?) were
arguably even more broken than she was, and God wanted everyone to be as broken as
possible. She couldn’t remember how she’d first learned that God wanted everyone to be
as broken as possible, but the important thing was she knew it. She knew it in the boiling marrow of her bones. Therefore, logically, every single one of these creatures should be envied, not scorned.
What was this place? She still didn’t know, exactly, but felt certain that it was a holy place. Yes, of that she was sure. Only one thing could make it better.
“Where’s Lori?” she asked.
Her guides responded by pointing fiery fingers upward.
The trio climbed five additional flights of stairs, with similar sacred perversions
sporadically unfolding around them. On the second flight, a pig man moaned ecstatically
while a charred figure used a hot spike to pry out his eyes. On the landing between the
third and fourth flights, a pig-man with tits (or, a pig-woman with a cock?) hung by the neck from a rusty steel chain tethered to a rickety, improvised gallows. Still alive, the creature screamed curses and violently jacked off. Below the gallows, a man-sized worm
wearing an executioner’s hood wriggled on the ground as globs of thick cum rained down
on it.
The last flight of stairs led to a battlement. Here, in the open air, the fire raged as it hadn’t on the stairs. All manner
The men-she’d-thought-were-torches led her into the tower and up a flight of stairs.
She looked back to see if René was coming with them. She could only make him out in
silhouette. He stood on the other side of the threshold, repeatedly bowing at the waist.
Making the sign of the cross. Uttering praise: “Haweh. Haweh. Haweh.”
During the trio’s ascent, they came upon a dozen pudgy, naked, blistered, half-
human things. Some trotted up the stairs on all fours. Some giggled. Some screamed
vulgar threats. Some ignored the procession entirely and used the stairway as an arena for orgies. “Who else wants a piece of this?” a pig-man said after shooting his load into the bleeding ass of a scorched, cackling, masturbating crone. Two of his kin trotted forward and squealed with delight.
On closer examination, Ellie saw the crone wasn’t masturbating. Rather, her index
finger had been forcibly attached to her vulva by a nail that had been driven through an arthritic knuckle. And, upon further reflection, that cackling might have been weeping.
Should Ellie have been shocked that such an obscenity was being committed in plain
sight? A vague sense that she should be shocked rose to her consciousness, but quickly passed. The fire was purifying her. Melting away her mask, exposing the brokenness
underneath. Old ways of thinking drifted away from her, like the smoke drifting from her head.
Ellie and her guides found ample room on the wide stairs to slip past the spectacle,
but they couldn’t avoid the puddle of blood and shit that had seeped from the old woman.
She tread carefully, so she wouldn’t slip. But she felt not even a twinge of guilt or
revulsion when the filth clung to her feet, and she could tell that such emotions never
even occurred to her guides.
She was on her way to becoming more like them.
She felt strange sensations deep inside her head. Maybe they were growing pains, as
new physical structures developed in her brain that would enable her to better understand how this realm worked. Or maybe, old parts of her brain – the parts devoted to the
preservation of conventional morality – were simply dying. In any event, she sensed she
was mutating into something better-than-human. Wiser -than-human. She became more and more convinced the events she’d just witnessed were beautiful.
How could she think otherwise? The creatures and their mate (victim?) were
arguably even more broken than she was, and God wanted everyone to be as broken as
possible. She couldn’t remember how she’d first learned that God wanted everyone to be
as broken as possible, but the important thing was she knew it. She knew it in the boiling marrow of her bones. Therefore, logically, every single one of these creatures should be envied, not scorned.
What was this place? She still didn’t know, exactly, but felt certain that it was a holy place. Yes, of that she was sure. Only one thing could make it better.
“Where’s Lori?” she asked.
Her guides responded by pointing fiery fingers upward.
The trio climbed five additional flights of stairs, with similar sacred perversions
sporadically unfolding around them. On the second flight, a pig man moaned ecstatically
while a charred figure used a hot spike to pry out his eyes. On the landing between the
third and fourth flights, a pig-man with tits (or, a pig-woman with a cock?) hung by the neck from a rusty steel chain tethered to a rickety, improvised gallows. Still alive, the creature screamed curses and violently jacked off. Below the gallows, a man-sized worm
wearing an executioner’s hood wriggled on the ground as globs of thick cum rained down
on it.
The last flight of stairs led to a battlement. Here, in the open air, the fire raged as it hadn’t on the stairs. All manner
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