by Sam Richard
Not knowing where I was, I had the thought that maybe I had gotten a hold of a mammoth supply of That Which Should Not Be Named and I was immediately filled with the dread of a four-month exodus from the grips of one single use. If taken in large amounts, they say that your first two layers of skin sort of gelatinize and slip right off your body if you touch water. Your eyes go black and you become blind to this world and gain brief sight to other worlds imposed on our own. In some cases, merely from withdrawal, former users overdose on their own blood. Most people who take it are forced continued use in micro-doses for the rest of their lives, lest the withdrawal symptoms turn their own body against itself.”
A few hours of sitting on the floor had made my bones hurt, it was probably the Fireworm coursing through my veins, as well. We gently moved a passed-out partier off of the couch and onto a blanket on the floor, got dressed, and sat on a once-Ivory Victorian-era couch covered in cigarette burns, semen stains, and emitting a bizarrely cheese-like aroma. I poured us the last of the Vodka, straight this time, and was grateful of the help of the Peruvian and the Red Sea for helping my body metabolize the alcohol unusually quick.
He croaked, “Inspired by this newfound fear, I pushed on in any direction, hoping to find some water, a fix, an answer. Anything. Each step was a weirdly unbalanced leap and each landing was slightly cleaner than the last. While I was quite a mess, my eyes didn’t hurt and I hadn’t shit myself, which are telltale signs of our Nameless friend’s use. Without being able to think of another substance that might promote this kind of physical strength, I became accustomed to the idea that my last Yage experience granted me some kind of godlike status. How long had it been since I was in the jungle? How long had I been in the desert? The longer I walked the more comfortable I became testing out my newfound skills.
I tried leaping only to find myself hundreds of feet in the air; convinced that I was going to crack my skull open, I opted to roll as I landed but the speed and force of the landing sent me careening down a steep dune and, as luck would have it, caught up in a mass of sand, dust, and wind at the edge of a village full of small silver structures surrounding one larger obsidian pyramid in the center of town.”
“Initially, I saw no inhabitants of the village and felt the presence of no one. I wandered for a few minutes, largely trying to identify the materials used to construct the shimmering structures. They had a shine like freshly polished chrome yet, upon further examination, were porous and wood-like to the touch. As I turned another corner, running my hand over the unnaturally bright surface, I came upon a huddled group of beasts. Bipedal and the tallest around ten feet, I watched – unnoticed – as two circled each other, surrounded by about thirty others. I had seen games like this in Tangiers, where a group would surround two boys and make them fight to the death. A sword ceremoniously placed in the center, to put yourself at risk in the name of a more certain victory. In this case, there was some kind of cracked tusk among the fighter’s feet. I realized that they all had these tusks protruding from their cheeks, and that one of the fighters was smashing the other with a large rock repeatedly. The tusk below belonged to the wounded loser who was pouring grey ooze from various lacerations on his face.”
“I tried to remain unnoticed, but crept up on the group, hoping to score a better look. Of course, that’s when they noticed me. As the group of them turned to me, I got a full look at them: dark green skin, four arms, little mouths, hollow eyes, bumps and growths all over their mostly nude bodies. They wore raw leather straps across their impressive chests and a piece of leather as a loincloth. Many of them had dark stains on cloths and were sprouting impressive spiral erections barely concealed by the small scraps. The winner had ceased bashing the other and the crowd made a path for him to approach me. As he walked towards me, I realized how much bigger he was than his opponent, who was cowering in the sand with four bloody hands covering his face and head.”
The things Bill had told me in the past had always been pretty out there, but this was weirder than his tar-binge writing experiments. I finished my drink and excused myself to go take a piss. On the walk back, my spine was releasing a smoldering ember-like heat and I prayed to no one in particular to make it pass. Bill had brewed us Benzedrine coffee along with a jar of crystallized Puss-Moth formic acid in honey, just like Joan drank so many years ago. I sat and we drank in quiet contemplation.
The Benzedrine up distracted me from the heat that had been steadily rising up my spine, the Kundalini spirit awoken without consent. Bill’s frail fingers trembled as he dumped more honey into his coffee and he broke the silence, “The big one aggressively spoke at me. The language was unlike anything I had ever heard. It almost sounded like six or seven octaves at once, but came out in a uniformed rumble. He got louder and more agitated as I had no answer for him. As he lifted his many hands to strike down at me, I shoved at the center of his long, elegant torso with my newfound strength. He flew forward with the cracking of bones echoing through the silent sky; as this occurred, the smaller one had gotten himself up and brandished his dismembered tusk awaiting his sailing opponent hurtling towards him. With one swift and precise strike, the larger combatant’s upper spine tore from the base of his oblong skull and limply flailed in the wind. He came crashing down and never made another sound or movement.”
“The smaller fighter pressed forward, one hand covered in grey blood, proudly displaying a painfully bulging erection. With one of his hands he motioned me over and started walking through the town. The rest of the mob followed, picking up spears and swords, but maintaining some distance. We reached the edge of the village as I caught up to him and he kept walking out into the unknown Red. The group stopped at the outskirts of town and I watched them disappear as we surrendered ourselves to the ever-shifting shape of the dunes. He was the first to speak, once again the multi-octave tone and, as before, I was unable to do anything but stare blankly up towards him. Despite being smaller than the other members of his tribe, he was still looming over me, at good eight and a half feet. It must have registered that I couldn’t understand, so he placed a hand on his chest and slowly said, “Nourse.” I followed suit.”
“We walked on for a while, reaching a cluster of short, fungus-like plants. Nourse handed me his broken tusk and gestured for me to stay. He approached the plant, which started vibrating, and sending a dull hum across the evening sky; the closer he got, the louder and more piercing it became. Tired, thirsty, hungry, and wishing I had my kit; I sat in the sand and watched. The plant was reaching a fever pitch and I was forced to cover my ears, and as I did Nourse let out a multi-octave, multi-tonal roar that irregularly harmonized with that of the plant. The shaking got more violent as it tried to pitch correct to meet him and each time he offset his own, always keeping this violent harmony going. After a few seconds, the plant ceased shaking and emitting its violent wail, shrinking into itself to reveal a small pool of dark red mucous.
Nourse had finished his bizarre song and waved me over. He pooled some of the mucous in his large hand and poured it into mine. I watched him drink another scoop down in a single gulp and figured it might remedy at least one of my current issues. The taste was sweet like diabetic urine and made my tongue go raw. As it slid down my throat, I was renewed with a sense of energy and arousal. Nourse had already removed his loincloth and was sprouting a massive spiraling shaft from his groin. I undressed as he got on all sixes, exposing several pulsating openings. I obliged by putting several parts of me into several openings, in various configurations.
After a few minutes and with the force of shotgun recoil, he sprayed several arcing ribbons of yellow into many small pools, mixing with the Red into an opaque orange. His bucking and unrestrained trembling pushed many parts of me further into his cavernous trypa and extracted the jizm from the deepest part of my testicles. Upon pulling out, he stood up and gently pushed my fluids out of his various holes into the pools that had formed in the Red. He stirred our juices together into a creamsicle color
and held a finger up to my mouth, which I then licked. It tasted like lightning and sent waves surging through my exhausted body. I grabbed my pants and squished them into a pillow of sorts, letting the Red and the darkness wash over me.”
“I awoke with a mild tremble and a desire for this to all be over. I wanted bed, I wanted a push, I wanted a drink, and I wanted a tug from a nice Moroccan boy. Nourse was nowhere to be found, but as I was dressing I noticed a small shell with a bright blue spongy substance in it and an arrow drawn in the sand. Picking up the shell to inspect the contents, I brought it to my nose; as I inhaled its floral vapors, the sponge elevated itself slightly above the shell, plopping back down as I exhaled. Looks like my manic strength is sticking around. Knowing no other option, I wrapped the shell and its contents in my handkerchief and put it in my pocket, heading in the direction of the arrow.”
“Once again, I found myself exhausted, thirst, desperate, and completely devoid of any context for where I was. For hours I pressed on, occasionally stopping to catch my breath or to lay low in the occasional ruins I spotted along the way: a wall here, or these frightening trees with three inch spikes running along the bark, like a cactus and an oak mated, they smelled of sour wine. I reached peak desperation when I noticed a door in the ground about twenty yards ahead. I pushed through my fatigue and ran towards it, stumbling and panting the whole way; skin heavy on my bones. It was made of the same vibrantly shimmering, yet porous and wood-like material of the village structures. Slab like, it had carvings, almost ritualistic carvings, along the outer parameter. The center held a small, bottomless hole with an irregular shape.
Running my fingers across the carvings, my exhaustion and desperation shifted to awe. How long had this been here? What did it all mean? As I contemplated the door, and the last twenty-four hours of my life, I realized that the oddly shaped opening was familiar. I pulled the handkerchief from my pocket and exposed the contents. A dark blue light glowed from the sponge as I studied the shape of the shell. At first I placed the shell as an offering upon the altar-door. Nothing. I flipped it, allowing the sponge to fall into the forever as the shell locked into place. Smoke and dust rose forth from the tomb as it unfastened from the rock below and slid into the sand; steps lay before me, winding down into the earth.”
Drawn to the morning light, we took our coffee onto the porch. Some of the partiers had begun stirring, struggling to stay in within the domain of their slumber; a few had rustled from its grasp to make their way to the bathroom, only to find themselves succumbing back into its womblike grip. The crack of orange-red light from over the horizon started breaking through the trees and I forced my fatigued brain to focus on his words.
“Delicately, I descended into the unnaturally damp mouth. There was an energy in that pit, I could feel it in my spirit, bones, and flesh; like hundreds of death rattles droning on and on for eternity, together, crying out for mercy. It took my breath away. I reached a large cavern and heard shuffling on the other side of the expanse. Ducking behind a rock pile, I squinted to make out what was happening in the dimly lit hollow. What lie before me defies reason. A group of human-like creatures were working on tethering together the bones of a staggeringly mammoth creature. It croaked and moved; at first I thought the wind was causing the monstrosity to sway but then I realized that there was no wind in this cave. The creature, thirty-five feet tall, if I had to guess, was moving and emitting a groan and shifting various parts of its anatomy into differing shapes and formations.
The anthropomorphic creatures finished fastening the final bones to the great beast and looked on with great pleasure. I turned away in shock and headed towards the door, and as I moved I discovered that the rocks I had been hiding amongst were actually a pile of massive bones. I had been too distracted to realize that they were also radiating an awful hum and that no more than twenty feet away, behind the beginnings of another mountainous creature were again several human-like bipeds, singing as they dipped gold fabric into murky liquid and building the creature into an unnatural osteology. Without a word able to escape my lips, I retreated back as I came as nimbly as possible.”
“Hastened by terror, anxiety, and adrenaline, I took off toward the west for no other reason than that it wasn’t where I came from and it seemed as though I would no longer be atop a cave of lusus naturae. After about six brutal hours of looking behind me and traveling as quickly as I could, I stumbled upon another town. Wyrd smiled on me that day, as I wandered through the town and saw no one. Dehydrated, exhausted, and desperate, I felt my body shutting down, surrounded by empty structures and barren streets. Heavy eyelids finally closed with no protest from the rest of my being, as I allowed the restraints of dream to finally win.”
“I came to sometime later in a damp room, dimly lit by candles. There was a bowl of water to my left, which I swallowed down so quickly that I hacked half of it back up. Drawing several clean breaths, I got to my feet and wandered around the room. The contents of my pockets were laid out on a table, including my handkerchief, wrapped around something. I collected everything else and gently unrolled the contents. Once again, there was a shell with the same spongy blue inside. I gently rewrapped it and put it back in my pocket just in time to be greeted by an olive skinned, dark haired young man, he had a dark scar running across his face and down his neck. With his garments flowing behind him, he spoke with a radiant voice I could feel in my prick. He spoke a broken form of English with Latin intermixed, after some clarifying gestures and questions, we were able to communicate fairly well with each other. He told me his name, “Kiki.” I quickly blurted out where I had come from, not just across the desert, across the stars. I explained about the bone-creatures, my terror in fleeing them, and my time with Nourse. While he listened with a scrutinizing intensity, I couldn’t help but gaze into his perfect eyes. For all I knew he would try to kill me where I stood, but all I cared about was the throb in my prick and the way his words rang through me like a bell.”
“His reaction was slow and plotted, he didn’t seem astonished by the saga of my flight across the cosmos. Gently, he told me that he was the Prince of this land and explained to me how this had come to happen. He grew up with the group building the bone creatures, the Barsoom. They had started out merely a small, warlike tribe, but in recent years had come across an archaic and dark form of alchemy, which allowed them to create life from the bones of the dead. Kiki grew up in this tribe, leaving when he was only 12 after watching them slowly destroy everything that Mars had given them. After they ruined, ate, and fucked everything in their general vicinity, they turned their sights to the rest of the planet. They fired the first shots of war, and were now coming for Kiki and his people.”
“He told me that after he escaped, he wandered from village to village, begging for scraps, working on whatever he could to survive, selling himself when needed. Time and wander brought him to Goletha, essentially the capital city for the Martians – their mecca, even. Through a series of weirder and more dangerous situations, he eventually found himself before the King, the possible sentence of death hanging above his head. After telling the King his tale of escape and begging to scrape by, the King poured mercy on him and took him under his wing. After a few years of servitude, they became lovers, and lovers turned into partners. Initially there was some upheaval at the idea of a Barsoom sitting to the right of the King, commanding the second Throne. Some Martians fled to create villages unconnected to the rest of society; unfortunately, those were among the first the Barsoom destroyed, imprisoned, and killed. For a few years they kept the warring tribe at bay, and things were good. However, peace rarely lasts too long. One horrible day the Barsoom sent an assassin into the city. In the dead of night, he snuck into their room and butchered the King with a bone blade. Kiki awoke during the struggle and as the assassin was attempting to flee with the body of the King he turned his blade towards Kiki and cut down his entire body. The shock and pain caused Kiki to pass out and when he awoke in a puddle of blood,
both his own and that of the King, the body was gone.”
“His eyes welled with tears and I embraced him. Apparently, this had happened quite recently. I held him for a while until his sobs settled and he centered himself. He told me that the Barsoom were on their way. Fucking soon. They didn’t know exactly when, but the Barsoom had increasingly pushed into their territory and were killing Martian villages not far from Goletha. As best as they knew, aside from the outliers, most of the tribes had come to the protective fold of the city. They would feast each night as though there wouldn’t be another meal. All intoxicants and libations were brought out from the back alleys and everyone imbibed in those that had enhancing affects. Some made them faster; some made them see for miles in the dark, almost all had a psychic element. They ate, intoxicated their senses, watched the red for signs of violence, and fucked like there wouldn’t be another.”
“He brought me to one such event that night. The Martians stared at me, concerned that I was a spy or a mole. Kiki assured them of who I was – at the time I didn’t know why he trusted me, but I now know that he himself had been on some great Martian worm powder and saw into my soul. He knew my truth; he knew my lust. That night we fucked, rabid dogs tearing into one another. We fucked cosmic secrets back and forth into all available orifices, understanding on the inside what our ears would not comprehend. I was the Jungle of Earth and he was the restless Red of Mars, our orgone silenced our, now unified, worlds as his pearly white ribbons spewed from his member. So vast and bright, it blot out the stars; a rising column of jizm threatened to eclipse us, and filled the room with the aroma of seawater. His olive skin shone in the dull candle flickers, his body lean and tight. I felt white as paper. For the first time in years, exposed.
He opened to me and I sunk in, my whole body vibrating. He fed me various fluids, powders, and pills. I’m not sure what was what, but I fell into a trance-like state and waves of euphoria washed over me. My cock felt at one with the universe and my mind felt like it was swimming in the primordial cosmic goo. As I was cumming again, there was a pinch at my spine, and my consciousness bled back into the now while the room started spinning. And then I saw the blood. A shimmering white protuberance had sprouted out of my solar plexus and rivers of red were pouring out of it. Kiki screamed unintelligibly as he was covered in the thick liquid. I turned to face the assassin as he propelled towards me. With what was left of my draining strength, I grabbed him and squeezed his face, feeling the bones crack underneath the pressure. A fine pink mist filled the air around him as I let go of his body and fell onto it. Kiki rushed over and grabbed me. He told me to stay; I was slipping away. He told me to come back to him; and then I was gone. I felt myself lift through the roof and lumber through the darkness of the void.”