The Great Machine

"Wake up, meal. Your time has come." My eyes fluttered open to a robed figure unlocking my barred cell. The worn-out chains on my ankles and wrists rattled with age and echoed in the dark chamber that confined me. I rolled onto my chest on the cold stone floor, and a square shape applied a soft pressing inside my tunic. It was the journal I found under the hay that my captors called my bed with information written occasionally in English and mostly in some weird languages, with sketches of odd objects marked in square-shaped symbols.

The mysterious man viciously grabbed my hair and faced me toward the streamlined mask that concealed his face. In the dim light, I examined the expressionless slate donned under the red hood. It lacked a face, with a large painted eye being the only feature on it. Sharply cornered lines that curved upward jutted from the sides of the eye, with a row of black diamonds etched above at the base of his forehead. With unimaginable strength, he effortlessly dragged me into the air, telling the other guard behind him, "Tell Master we're ready."

The eerie person, seemingly a woman, nodded then headed to the left hall. Her robe trailed behind her as she walked like a ghost, her shadow casted on an adjacent cell by the torches. The large man pulled a large needle out, flicked the tip like a doctor testing a syringe, and slowly plunged it into my left forearm. I was too exhausted and deprived to fight back, so I let him inject whatever it was. I was already dead anyways, so finishing me off with poison felt like a more comfortable death. My vision began to narrow, as the darkness began to swallow me whole. Then, complete silence was all that kept me company.

The sound of hushed harmonized humming and the flames of candles woke me. "I.... I'm not dead?" I questioned myself, until a blunt force struck the back of my skull. I spat up blood onto the ground, while I leaned towards the floor with my arms hanging back, still cuffed in rusted chains. The back of my head and spine ached with pain as my iron bindings pulled me across the brick floors. Small sharp pebbles scraped against my knees, stabbing my tender skin and kneecaps.

I weakly lifted my head, and I saw more robed people, this time clutching candles, standing still like stones, and forming a line towards the blackened wall. A massive humanoid shape lurked in the edge of the shadows, barely visible as the candles ahead weren't lit. Every cultist I passed, their candles immediately flickered with small yet bright lights that slowly began to illuminate the large shape that sat just beyond the wall of darkness.

It was large, its shoulders were broad, and its face was blank, just like the masks worn by the disturbing cultists. Then, deep and shadowy voices began to chant, which I could only make out to talk about some god-like being that they wished to feed and free, which was followed by an unintelligible word repeated over and over. I assumed it was in one of the weird languages I had seen in the journal, as the symbols were also scrawled across the walls. To my left was one cultist seemingly reading the walls like a book. He was stroking his chin, either in curiosity of what secrets the glyphs held, or in interest of the tales that they were telling. I peered back ahead towards the statue, this time, a figure in very decorative robes stood with his arms crossed. The statue was in complete view at this point by the candlelight. Its blocky stature lumbered over me with a large table in its stone hands, and its shoulders appeared to have clawed hands lightly resting on them.

The sound of churning hydraulic pistons grew louder as I was shoved at the leader's feet. He tilted my chin upward at the table while he gazed at the statue, saying, "My lords, your next meal is here. He's a little malnourished, but I'm sure you'll enjoy his soul. It's fresh and hearty." He then laid me on the table, leaning close to my ear and whispering, "Your sacrifice will not go unnoticed, vermin. The gods will congratulate you in the afterlife." As soon as he finished his words, the rest of the cultists repeated, "Hail the Great Machine" over and over with increasing volume. The statue then began to move as a single eye opened up on its flat face. It glowed a bright green hue as its barrel-shaped chest opened up with four panels each sliding diagonally, and what I saw made my stomach shrivel up.

Rows and rows of jagged teeth and tentacles stretched from the opening, lashing and wriggling like a madman on a murder spree. The tendrils wrapped my limbs and the hooks on the slimy suckers pierced my skin, causing more blood to drench my tattered clothes. In an instant, they furled inward, dragging me into the jaws of the monstrosity that they worshiped. More teeth scratched and punctured my clothing, reducing them to rags as I fell down the beast's esophagus. All I saw below me was darkness; infinite, chilling, and unpredictable darkness, with its writhing and chaotic tentacles to welcome me to the cascading madness that awaited me.

 

A bellowing rumble that echoed in the pitch black corridor woke me. From the waist down, I was smothered in some liquid that persisted to trailed the floor. It was viscous and its fleshy contents were sloshing under my feet as I headed in the direction of the ominous sounds, presumably coming from the eldritch horror I was fed to. A small white light pierced the shadows at the end of the hall, slightly illuminating the organic vestibule. I reached the source of the light, and it struck through the large pore in the ceiling and shone on the beast's stomach floor. Corpses were strewn all across the chamber, mainly the Apostles, members of the Church of Starry Wisdom who blindly accept Father Athanasius Enoch's teachings.

It seemed that the members of the Church were primary meals for their gods, or what they thought was a god. "These cultists hate the Church," I thought as I remembered the journal, still safe in my stained shirt. I opened it and thumbed through the pages in search of anything relating to this cult and their relations to the Church. It was the fourth and third to last pages that gave me any information. On the left page was that eye symbol that represented the Great Machine and lines that indicate certain parts of the mark and presumably describe their purpose. Small paragraphs in the weird runic language were scattered across the page, with one snippet in English, reading: "The work-- who their ——————— of blood- and began to -", which was laced with and followed by more unrecognizable rambling and scribbles. It seemed to be intentionally made vague and incoherent, maybe to save me from the maddening truth of what lied ahead. The machine's stomach sluggishly inhaled then exhaled on a cycle. The ceiling was littered with more tentacles and bony appendages shaped like jaws that followed the breathing pattern of the machine.

The large pool of blood and mucus engulfed my feet and clung to me with its gelatinous hands. In the center of the stomach with the ray of light shining up above was a stone contraption, almost like the Great Machine's cobblestone husk that shrouded the enigmatic horror underneath. The stench of death and insanity wafted into the air from the noisome cathedral of sorrow and unimaginable despair. Not all bodies were dead, as some were moaning, crying, laughing, screaming, slurping up the disgusting fluids on the floor, eating other corpses, all in a malicious and gut-wrenching manner. My stomach knotted tightly, and I eventually vomited. As I ached and wiped my face, one remaining figure at my feet, clearly starved with bones visible through their skin and sloshing in the gastric fluids, began to lap up my muck like a dog. "All of this was from the cult? But, how? I thought. All of the death, disgust, and chaos in this...... thing's gut, just from these sick monsters?"

The thought broke my heart, of those that had to live here for years without contact with anyone. This was isolation in its most maddening form, and it seemed like this was my home from then on: living inside the stomach of an eldritch god worshipped by a deranged cult who feed their prisoners to awaken the power that their Great Machine contains. The Machine was the shell that concealed the true evil below everyone's feet; the god of insatiable hunger, with its servants willing to commit acts of cruelty towards fellow humans for the end of everything. Nothing matters to them, so nothing should matter to me. All hope of preventing this catastrophe is lost, lost in the vast belly of a god who will soon come to fruition. Its rebirth is inevitable, and it cannot... be...... stopped. All...... hail the Great Machine.