Day 6: The Paraclete

Despite the prior day’s revelations, at the time we had entered the Caldera, I admittedly had not completely placed Moth’s enlightening words as being beyond the force you and I may call fate. 

During my time aboard your vessel, I’ve begun to consider that violence be that which takes root within any living creature. I see amongst the crowds of prisoners (who by great hospitality, you have separated me from) the eyes of killers and thieves, held back by the vague line of physical punishment. Though as I can observe them from afar I can investigate the subtle movements within their eyes. I now see within them mothers and fathers, sons and daughters. This I had been blind to as Moth and I entered the Caldera. Had you seen this in me, dear Reverend?

With my mind shaken, I walked with Moth to the township that sublimely stood suspended inside the perimeter of the Caldera and upon looking back at those who looked at us, I had forced my mind to set itself still. They’d looked at us, though despite our appearances, continued along with their day. Resembling the Hylics of Moth childhood, the people of the Caldera lived in crowded homes made of scrap wood and metal. Sheets sat on blocks of scrap instead of roofs and wires hung scattered and twisted above our heads all connecting to the single common point (that all could see from anywhere within the township) that was the still standing Pylon. Gazing upon it as something I had only once dreamt of, prayed to even during my time enthralled to a battle with an enemy we had never met. Had it never fallen in the first place? Or had its fall rendered the land unworthy, barring all from entering the Caldera ever again. 

An alarm rang across the millions of kubus bunched together along the perimeter, followed by a raspy and irregular rhythm of clicks. The people walked, slowly as there were so many of them, down to the lowest level of the Caldera. As the Hylic cleared off from the various busy common areas and town centers, exposed now were the myriad of corpses that lied scattered on the streets at various levels of decomposition. Instead of bushes, we walked by bunches of hands tangled together by time and instead of flowers was the drooping expression of one whose face had been preserved (by who knows what) its jaw turned to bone, unhinged and unsaved by the chemicals. Moth told me not to touch any of the bodies as we ought not disturb the longstanding system of the peoples that surrounded the Pylon. 

Moth found a vantage point to where we could see the ceremony below. A not so difficult task given that all the homes were left empty as if no one had lived there to begin with. Below us, the Hylics stood behind a noticeable distance before a man draped in robes that depicted stars. The discordant notes kept blaring, the noise seemingly getting louder, though admittedly I may have imagined it. At that point I removed my helmet (as perhaps iyt had been causing an echo that exacerbated the issue) and though my facial features had not completely recovered from their original scarring, I felt comfortable amongst the Hylic who by comparison, did not look or seem so different from myself. In fact, they looked worse off. Moth grinned and told me to keep watching the ceremony, as it would be important to my first proper task as her syzygos. 

The man in the robes approached the Pylon on an extending platform and holding a glowing orb, knelt down before it. He embraced the orb and exposed his spine through a tear on his back. His spine locked and forced him to remain in his lowered humble posture. I’d realized then that this was not an act of punishment, but of penance far beyond anything I’d seen before. I stood up, thinking the ceremony over but Moth grabbed me by the shoulder almost immediately and turned my head back to the Pylon as an opening had expanded on its side facing towards the penitent. Exposed was a mass of flesh, covered with eyes I could not be certain were real or false. It dangled and stuck to the inside of the Pylon as if a mass of people had been trapped within, turned inside out and expanded to a density that conformed to the internal shape of the cylinder they were housed in; relieved only by the Pylon’s opening. A metal tube found its way to the thorax of the Pylon’s exposed inner workings and hooked itself onto the fermented creature. It exhaled (at least it seemed like an exhale) and a kind of smoke exuded from its body. As the smoke reached the penitent, he collapsed further, limp. His hair faded from his scalp and his flesh began to melt out the back of his robes as if an invisible hand had ripped it from below. All that was left when the smoke cleared was the ragged robes of the penitent as the door of the Pylon closed. The smoke receded further down into the pit of the Caldera and the blaring clicks vanished as the lights of the township illuminated to prove that life existed within such horrid conditions. 

It was then that Moth finally told me that the thing housed within the Pylon was the Paraclete himself. When we could no longer witness his form, we had both (almost instinctually) dropped to our knees in reverence to the Pylon.

After some conversation (and admittedly some eavesdropping) on those other missionaries aboard your vessel, I’ve come to finally understand the mysteries of the Pylon. Though it’s all you ever hear aboard this ship! I doubt you’d be interested in hearing more of what you already know, or entertain my speculations.

I’ve come to appreciate the company of you and your scribe, dear Reverend. Should you come back tomorrow morning, I would be more than elated to speak to you more. I worry however that, if I were to continue on, the memories of the other lost children of Nerys within my memories could misconstrue or overlap my memories of Moth. I’m afraid there’s a possibility that it may have already been the case. So I request now for some solitude so I may string together, only the truth.