by Josh Shiben
Chapter 12
The Flayed Man
David shuddered as the first prophet stepped forward and opened his robe, shattering the uneasy stillness of the chamber. It appeared to be a normal man, standing nude before David. Then the being stepped out of the robes and David could see its arms and legs in the gloom. They had been sliced lengthwise from fingertip to elbow, and from toe to knee, swinging apart as he walked, each half seeming to function on its own accord. The man stood still and extended his arms and legs outwardly, splaying them open to give the impression of a nightmarish Vitruvian Man. The prophet looked at David, and David felt his soul wither under those lifeless eyes. They were empty, black holes gazing through him into oblivion. “Behold,” he said, “I am the Divided Man.” Before he could stop himself, David felt his mind reach out to touch the figure before him, and recoiled in horror. There was nothing there. No soul, no life. Just a husk of a man. An abomination.
“Krck’ron grunsntch’tak rl’ynoq kllnsh. Iä! Iä! Shub-Niggurath! Koln’grth! Grnr’urck kngg’urn fth’ok!” The figure screamed Sullivan’s gibberish, but somehow Burfict understood it. “I who have nothing have gifted the seeds of oblivion, and so have become immortal! Great Shub-Niggurath, the Black Goat of the Woods! Your spawn! I have drawn you into this world to make it your own!”
The second prophet then opened his robe and stepped forward, revealing a skinless body. He moved silently, and then peered into Burfict with similarly empty, bottomless eyes. “Look into my eyes and see oblivion,” he whispered, “for I am the Flayed Man.” David felt the same emptiness inside this being, and as his mind groped through the darkness inside this form, he trembled.
Again, the prophet spoke the mad words of Sullivan, and again Burfict understood, although the translation was different. “This mockery of being has performed his master’s task, as has always been written in the web of nows! Great Shub-Niggurath, She with a Thousand Young! Your gate! Your life has been forever added to this tomb and you have forever become entangled within it!”
Finally, the last prophet opened his robe and let it fall to a heap. The man’s stomach had been slashed open, his guts pooling on the ground about his feet. They dragged as he soundlessly shuffled forward. It wasn’t until Burfict looked up to the prophet’s face that the true horror set in. “Gaze upon me, for I am the Gutted One,” whispered the face of Doctor Kaspars. David plumbed the depths of the being before him, looking for some vestige of the man that was once there, but found nothing. He was staring into Kaspars’s eyes and saw only an abyss.
The last prophet spoke the gibberish of the madman, and David understood – the words meant many things at once. “I have with jubilation ensured our fate, and have begat our purpose! Great Shub-Niggurath, She From Beyond! Your doom! I have welcomed you to this space and time to begin your reign of agony!”
“Y-you’re Alan Kaspars! Doctor Alan Kaspars! You skinned your patient and slashed your own stomach! I worked on your case!”
The Gutted One peered at Burfict through the gloom, and then spoke. “I am two beings, the dead and the dreaming. In one, I am the unborn dead thing like yourself. A f’thagh. A blind, meaningless existence, given purpose only through Her needs. In the other, I sit aside the strythgk’lt, the lair between spaces, and read the web of nows. A fhtagn. Dreaming dead given life through purpose and terrible expectancy.”
“You’ve only been dead for six years! How have you been haunting me since I was a child?”
“Here, we are beyond time. Past and present, order and disorder are irrelevant in places beyond time itself.”
“I don’t understand. What are you? Why are you in my dreams?”
The Flayed Man answered, his deep voice echoing through the windowless room. “Your gratsh’klnsh approaches. Your time of purpose is at hand. We are your shepherds through this moment, to guide you to your destiny. To ensure, that when the stars are right, the trap is sprung.”
“Are you Kaspars’s patient? The one he skinned?”
“We three are tied to one-another through our agony and purpose. We are puppets of the same thread.”
The Divided Man shambled forward, and David tried not to cringe as the being brought his mutilated hands to David’s face. Two fingers and a thumb rest on each of David’s temples, while two more fingers held each of his shoulders. “The time is upon us. The stars are right! Shub-Niggurath’s birth is nigh. You are the key to your peoples’ salvation. Draw her into the web so that our Rog’nshgnak, the creator, might consume her.”
