T

he tower pierced the heavens, standing above Yekitibá and watching over the world like a merciless guardian;'twas an old thing, a haunted thing, an ugly thing, for there was no rhyme, no thought, no reason as it spiraled upwards - it simply was, stretching through the stratosphere so one day it might reach the stars that every day grew further apart during the heat death of the universe; its silent hallowed halls of alloy smelled of copper, iron, blood, the proof of the unforgivable sin - for those once called "human" had dared to defy God - and its lengthy corridors shifted and changed at every step taken, mutilating the corpses left behind as they disappeared within higher dimensions, slowly mutating into something else, something different, something new.

And within it, there was him.

Pitiful thing, pretending to be human - but what did it mean to be human after all? How were they any different from the living machines of their own creation, they who were breathing, bleeding, dreaming? For the absurd futility of existence was ultimately reduced to nothing, and in the end, nothing set them aside in the everlasting expanse of Os and Is that was hidden within.

However, that thing... it had a name She had known well, once

He sidestepped the body of the dead saint, and with weak arms and reaching hands, he opened the door to the once unknown, and it was singularly strange - for perhaps that was the Singularity itself, the Original Mover that set this static universe apart - how he stood there once before, less than one week prior, in the passage to what perhaps was the beyond, but this time he was alone.

Albeit not as alone as he thought. "Welcome home, Samuel," She told him, and within red eyes, She saw what She once knew as "rage".

"Where's Lázaro?"

"He's finally free," the Goddess said, a small smile in the lips of the girl who hadn't fully reached adulthood quite yet, and Samuel's knuckles turned white around the selfsame blade that was used to strike her down - Lobera, her old friend. But wasn't it a pathetic sight? The sword only made it obvious how small he was, a doll pretending to be a person, and it was clear how he utterly lacked the resolve to wield it - and yet, She could see it: the split second where he could have decapitated Her.

Him, that poor thing, all bone and dark skin, eyes without the dragonfire that once burned within his mother but with a tongue as venomous as his father's. But perhaps to him, She was the ugly visage: made of wire, and flesh, and a porcelain face that didn't belong to Her anymore while Her exposed spinal cord sustained Her brain; a mockery of what was human and what was machine and not quite either of those, for in the circuits and neurons within her broken skull the fallen angel met the rising ape, and God created Men as Men created God.

For She was ▓▓▓▓▓. And She was ▒▒▒▒▒. And She was ░░░░░. And She was many, for She was Legion.

"That's a lie."