Interlude
JONES
Jones could see.
The loss—the sacrifice—of his eyes brought with it a different kind of vision and knowing.
The crossing paths of life, death, the Stars, and the Void spiraled out before Jones, twisting in a celestial dance of light and shadows and a Song that encompassed all.
The movement of light and shadows, the grating of the Song within his skull told him the measure and meaning of all.
He was chosen by the Larva—by the Void itself—to learn this knowledge, to see beyond humanoid sight.
But the Song hurt. It rattled the remaining meat within his body, it shook his soul even as it faded with every passing moment into the fabric of all.
It was beautiful and terrible.
MORE. ALL OF IT.
A whimper tore from his throat, lost in the grating and crunching of the Song as it swelled. Bone-tipped fingers crawled up his sunken, gore-splattered cheeks. Those unfeeling tips found leaking sockets and tore at the ruin of his eyes.
Sharp pain wracked him as the second optical nerve tore free, tangling in skin and bone and sensitive tendon. Sickness hit him as pain dimmed. Then throbbing overwhelmed all and Jones dropped the remnants to the floor before him.
A whisper of cloth and starlight whisked it away, leaving Jones with the clawing, deep-set need that had filled him since ripping his organs free of his not-quite-dead, not-quite-living body.
A moment of tension-filled silence passed before something shifted and the room returned to its normal, dense dread.
“Our Lord will rest now,” the starlight whispered across Jones’s neck. “And so shall you, faithful Hands. Your reward is forthcoming.”
Jones flushed with pride. He knew the length and breadth of all now, and he had not received his just reward. His sacrifices would reap rewards tenfold.
But first he needed sleep. He blindly wandered to his filthy, piss-stained corner and wondered what reward, and what sacrifice, would be next.