text: &#x200B; Memory is a fickle thing. It twists and turns and corrupts, changing others, ruining and breaking them. It can heal yet it can kill you, slowly and easily until you are nothing more than a husk of what you were. It can be your salvation, if you convince yourself it's real, or, ultimately, it can be your greatest nightmare. \- Some think there is a God; a ruler above, all-powerful and all-knowing and all-seeing - someone that will save them in times of need. A kind creature. A savior. No. That is all fake. I saw Him, once, back when I was eager and young and happy and free. I worshipped Him, not knowing what *He* truly was. I can't remember it now - He took my ability to remember from me, leaving me as a shell who can't even recall the voice or touch of his own mother. Now my dreams and waking moments are spent seeing Him. My memory is corrupted; mind changed and incinerated and burned with Him, only Him. He wished for me to be this way and now I am. \- I met Him in the forest. I can't remember where or when. I can't remember what the trees looked like or what I was wearing or how I even looked like. I only remember being in the woods, praying and singing songs prophesying His return. How foolish I was. I remember stopping my prayers suddenly, hearing noises in the greenwood; and like the curious lamb I was, I followed them, picking through the shrubbery and trees and stumbling upon a clearing. It was beautiful. I vaguely remember that. Full of flowers and grass and life and I, the inquisitive and wild creature that I once was, bravely walked through it. I stopped a couple of steps in, head cocked to the side as I noticed a large, hulking figure covered in an off-white sheet in the middle. The figure was swaying, left, right, left, right. I, not sensing or maybe not caring of the danger, walked towards it and ripped the sheet off. The figure seemed to fall and I sprang back on coltish limbs, transfixed and horrified and *curious.* It was humanoid, human-like but not - a strange mix of long limbs and even longer fingers and joints and *rot* to be human. It was spoilt, tainted and flyblown - sharp with protruding bones that strained across the decaying body. Its chest, skeletal and grey and unearthly, shook with every rattling breath and it twitched and convulsed and jerked and shuddered in every direction. I watched, spellbound and mesmerized as it breathed, unable to tear my gaze away from it. I called out to it, shouting and asking what it was - the greatest mistake of my now never-ending existence. I remember it slowly lifting up its head, skull ivory-yellow and eyes white and gleaming. I remember it focusing on me, distorted, split irises resting on my body as it moved its head to one side. I edged back, scared now but oh so curious, always so curious. A yellowed, blackened and gnarled hand spasmed, almost following after me; fingers shivering and bending and breaking and fracturing. The thing moved, standing up on impossibly long and gaunt limbs that nearly failed to support its weight and taking one trembling step towards me. It then opened its mouth, a long, jagged line - in place where lips and teeth and skin should be - and a black emptiness now remained. “*Come here, child*.” It rasped out, voice carrying across the now-silent, wind-blown clearing as it took another step, stronger and more sure of itself now. I didn't respond then. I couldn't. I was frozen and immobile and at its mercy. Another step and it was two feet away from me; back hunched and white eyes staring, staring, staring. It lifted its horrid hand again and rested it across my cheek - deathly cold and almost loving if not for the sharp nails that punctured my skin and tore into my face. It moved its head closer, now nose to nose and grinned, having more teeth than ever humanly possible that glistened white-yellow-black with its saliva. I trembled, both in fear and sick amazement as it stood above me, unable and unwilling to comprehend what was happening. I remember it grinning, wide and unchained, as its nails tore into my face. I remember the putrid mouth opening and revealing rows and rows and rows of teeth that seemed to stretch on for eternity, not seeming to have an end. “*I am God,”* it whispered to me and I believed it. I remember shutting my eyes and praying as its mouth opened even wider and it moved closer, I remember forcing my eyes closed as its teeth bit into my flesh, tearing the skin and muscle of my bones. It was torture. The worst pain I’ve ever experienced. I remember that. I woke up in the abyss. Dark and never-ending. I could not recall who or what I was, I could only remember *God* or whatever that gross imitation of *Him* was. An eternity has passed yet I still remember its eyes. They haunt me. They follow me. It still watches. He never left.