The Eyes of God

Read the introduction here.

This is not as edited as I would have liked, please bear with me in any egregious grammatical errors.

Dry, it all was dry. The leaves on the trees were crinkled and brown, autumn’s mask resting over summer’s face. The riverbed, dry. Even the puddles had given way to the now cracked and broken ground. The mud was gone—I would even pray for mud that I might drink. Here’s one reprieve, that without the stale waters the biting swarms had all died, and with them their disease.

At the thought, I remember the heat of the sores—burning like fire—which spread across my arm. I knew it was my death, as all others—my whole village—suffered so before their spirits returned to the mountain. The delirium came after the yellow blotches covered my entire flesh with their putrid bleeding lumps. Oh, they didn’t bleed blood, they oozed an unnatural slime which reeked of death.

As I lay near paralyzed upon the knotted roots of an overturned tree, the madness came. I had been there for my father, called him back with my voice, told him he was safe. Little more than three days later, he was dead, and I alone.

I shiver, remembering the strange visions: I stared at the large lump on the back of my hand, the first lump which grew from the insidious bite of the plague. A little yellow stream poured like viscous oil from it down my arm, dripping off my elbow. Knowing myself dead—beyond all recovery—I decided to take one small vengeance upon the sore. Pulling out my knife, I slit it open, hoping to drain it all at once. It opened, but instead of a deluge of blood and bile, an eye came staring out at me. Blinking, it cried its sticky tears.

I watched it awhile, and it watched me, this giant alien orb hidden under my skin.