Shit!

  I have been summoned by the Amorphous Tricephalus.

  Until now, I considered myself a fairly lucky “man.”

  Once, only once, I saw it with my fleshly eyes. Unlike the countless times when, with a distant syllable, it infiltrated my brain, observing me as I crawled on the ground, venerating its every word.

  But I find this latter method safer and more pleasant.

  Compared to my first encounter, this is idyllic.

  Imfiror is the name I was given that day, along with my new body.

  But how I arrived at the sacred temple of distortion is a story of coincidences and luck.

  I was born in the kingdom of Kosta and grew up in a small noble family without a fiefdom. My home was a palace rooted in the heart of Lukka, the capital.

  My parents educated me properly, but there was something strange and distant about them, as if they weren’t truly showing themselves to their son.

  But on my eighth birthday, everything became clear to me, though nothing could truly be clear to a child.

  A grand party was hosted in our home, tables filled with delicacies and exotic wines. Luxurious carpets and colorful fabrics hung on the walls. Incense and perfumes filled the air, as if it were the entrance to a mysterious and unknown world, where every sense was delighted.

  I felt truly happy that day. I sensed that something was different about my parents. They seemed to truly love me.

  I don’t remember the guests, but they were all noble or wealthy families. Many brought their daughters to “introduce the children.”

  I’ve always had a gift since I was young: the gift of rationality and reason.

  I saw and felt the world outside those golden palaces. The world was sinking, and we were dancing on the edge before plunging into the abyss.

  But my joy was greater than anything, even greater than the guilt I felt for the hungry and poor.

  After the usual hour when guests would leave, some still remained.

  Shortly after, my dear mother, with a radiant toast, announced that it was time. Time to begin the ritual of my baptism.

  I was confused. I knew nothing about this. Moreover, they weren’t churchgoers; they had never visited those bare temples.

  My confusion grew when all the curtains were drawn, the lights dimmed, the music ceased and turned into whispered chants, and the incense became intense and dizzying.

  But my biggest question was why everyone was undressing. Not just the nobles and the wealthy, but also the waiters, cooks, and scullery maids.

  My eyes were wide, and my mind was immobilized. I didn’t understand.

  Then my mother placed a hand on my shoulder and whispered in my ear:

  “My love, it’s time. I know it might scare you, but Mommy is here beside you. Today is the day you begin to know and love a true god, of flesh and not of words.”

  No words came from my mouth. I had never seen her so loving, and her words were incomprehensible to me.

  So when she slowly began to unbutton my clothes and remove them piece by piece, I did nothing. In fact, I helped her in her task.

  My garments were scattered like flowers at my feet. I felt penetrating gazes from every angle. Everywhere. But my eyes were glued to one point: my mother’s face.

  She picked me up. It was perhaps the first time. She placed me on the table where the dishes had been. Now I was the dish to be devoured.

  Then there was chaos. All my senses were overwhelmed.

  I heard veiled moans brushing my ears, acrid smells mixing with the smoke. Heat, hands, caresses, and grips.

  I was the eye of the storm. My mind placid and frozen, while around me a cornucopia of writhing limbs.

  The end, and how I arrived the next morning, is unclear to me. But from that day on, I belonged to a cult, the one that would eventually bring me here today. To what I am now.

  My parents became more affectionate and more “real.” They preached the creed of the religion to me: life was pleasure, and the highest pleasure was devotion to the God of Flesh, the Amorphous Tricephalus.

  The years passed. Parties and rituals followed one after another. But I felt like I did on that fateful day: trapped inside a mirror. I saw and heard the world around me, but I didn’t perceive it as real. It was distant and detached.

  Then the increasingly unstable kingdom of Kosta, torn apart by conflicts and inequalities, came to an end.

  Our chants called its children. They came from beyond the sea. Beautiful flying Horrors fell from the sky.

  A symphony rose from the sky to the earth. Their screeches joined with human screams. A vibration, a tremor.

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  The royal palace was inseminated by something. Tentacles of flesh, like roots, spread through the city, and with them came the distortion of the people still alive.

  I saw my father become a mass of eyes and mouths, while my mother melted like a candle. Her beautiful skin dripped onto the floor where she lay. Her eyes were full of glory and passion as she became a carpet of flesh.

  She looked at me and spoke in a strange voice: “You are the chosen one, my son! Look at yourself—you have the blessing to walk in the flowering garden of our Lord! Do not cry, but rejoice, for your fortune is great!”

  I stood there, feeling my mind being pulled by my flesh. But they were separate. It couldn’t cross the mirror and grab me.

  Some eyes or small tentacles sprouted from my body, but nothing extreme. Tolerable.

  I saw it from the top of my old home. The city was covered in pulsating roots that dug into the earth and into minds. A slimy red moss covered the stone, and flowers of bizarre and fetid colors sprouted where humans once were.

  A creature with six white wings descended before me. It was slightly larger than the other horrors, but its body was similar. The difference was in the wings and the perfect female face it had on its abdomen and torso. Above, its head was like a closed flower, a sharp bud.

  “What a fine specimen. Such a spirit. You are fit to be blessed by the Amorphous Tricephalus. Come, I will take you to Him.”

  I stood still, enchanted by such mellifluous words. I didn’t even notice when two white arms extended and picked me up. I found myself in another embrace, her smooth, marble-white skin enveloping me.

  A flight. The dead but pulsating city left behind. A temple, fallen into the earth beyond the ocean.

  I slept like a child in Kayeta’s embrace—a name I learned later and now disgusts me. The sun rose and set several times before we arrived at what I must now call home.

  An island. Psychedelic plants grew everywhere. Everything seemed to crawl and pulsate, as if it were the body of a creature.

  At the center was a chasm. Pieces of iron were embedded in the cliffs carved by the object at the bottom. It gave the impression of something old but superior, an object of ancient splendor.

  We plunged into the fallen temple, passing through steel walls and red roots. In the deepest place, I was deposited by Kayeta, who said, “Go forward, and you will meet Him,” before flapping her wings and disappearing from where we had come.

  Suddenly, panic and fear overwhelmed me. I was beginning to understand. Everything suddenly hit me: the city, my mother’s words, the flight with Kayeta, where I was now, and WHO I was about to meet.

  I stood there, clutching my head in my hands. I wanted to disappear, to become wind and blow away into the sky.

  I breathed and slowly came back to myself. I began to look around.

  It was a tall, shallow room. Walls of black iron with roots like veins covering them. A red and yellow light pulsed from bulbs growing throughout the structure.

  All of this filled me with a certain disgust, but I was finally returning to the other side of the mirror. My mind, isolated and protected.

  I turned my gaze toward the door. It was the only thing separating me from IT. It was my last shield. Once I opened it, I would never return. What lay beyond was unknown.

  An inscription in the ancient magical language was written above it. In large, cold letters, the word VILITRIUM was engraved. As a young man, I had studied it as a subject and understood its meaning in broad terms: Triumph of Truth. A beautiful name, like an omen of what I would find beyond the door.

  Every step was like a stab to the heart. Irrational fears invaded my mind, as if every thought I had came to life in my head, each one screaming and demanding to be heard.

  There was no lock, only a long black line of darkness.

  Cold and merciless, my fingers sank into the crack.

  I slid my fingers into the crevice. I was the key. I pushed in opposite directions until I managed to cross that portal.

  I was beyond. I had passed through. But I knew I wasn’t ready. No one could be.

  The voices in my head shouted over each other, and then other voices began to arrive. Feminine, young, old, hoarse, and shrill. They weren’t mine.

  I raised my head toward the top of the enormous circular atrium.

  It hung like a fruit from a tree.

  A mass of flesh clung to the ceiling, veins and roots branching out everywhere.

  Silver light radiated in an unknown way from that mass.

  The three heads hung upside down, but with mouths, noses and eyes as if they were straight.

  Their hair hung downward, and where the forehead was, there was also a mouth. It seemed unnaturally correct and logical.

  One was a girl, the one on the right an old man, and the one in the center a man with an ordinary face. So common it was forgettable.

  They stared at me.

  And they spoke without mouths because their mouth was in my head.

  They overwhelmed me, and from standing still, I collapsed to my knees, face to the ground.

  The mirror was cracked.

  My body was reshaped by their syllables and murmurs.

  I fled into the shards of glass in my mind, pursued by more and more voices.

  Then, at some point, they diminished until they almost disappeared. Not even my own voice remained. Only three distinct voices resonated, united and discordant.

  “YoU aRe IMFIROR. YoU aRe OuR ChOsEn OnE. YoU hAvE PaSsEd ThE ReBiRtH. NoW YoU aRe OuR ChIlD. YoU wIlL ObEy OnLy Us.”

  I did not respond because I had no mouth, but I could not refuse Its gift. Slowly, I returned to my body. I felt it again.

  I was a mass of pulsating flesh. I was a fetus in formation.

  Slowly and inexorably, my body formed. Until a hunger enveloped my mind. With the claws I had instead of hands, I tore the placenta. Fluid and blood accompanied my first breath. A growl spat from my throat followed. My jaws opened wide, down to my lower abdomen. I devoured the thing that was supposed to be my mother.

  The hunger subsided. I examined myself.

  I was different—not just physically. I had changed in unfathomable ways.

  A reflection of myself on a shiny wall allowed me to examine myself better.

  I was tall, 4 or 5 meters. A massive, muscular body covered in yellow-brown fur. I resembled a hyena. My snout was similar too. But I had bat-like ears and eyes without pupils. They were just a black background sprinkled with silver cracks.

  Then, my jaws could open wide. From the corners of my mouth, I could split down to my pelvis. My entire torso literally became a bite.

  Strange patterns were drawn on my fur. I felt they had a purpose. Moreover, many things were unclear to me. I sensed there was much more.

  But from then on, I had plenty of time to discover and explore it. But now I must go.

  It calls me. They call me. I must return below, to the door.

  This time, I don’t know how I will return. If I will return.