King of Worms: For Her

Escaped from my living grave I felt the cool air upon a fresh face, the sounds of the woods whispering on the wind, the weak beams of sunlight breaching through the clouds and sparse canopy. I felt their warmth - and my heart sank.

I knew not the time which I had taken among the soil. How long was she without me? Did she find shelter? Warmth? Was she even still alive?! My newborn heart raced with unnatural rhythm as fear crept into my mind, and I began to run.

The place of my birth was not at my death, I had no reference, no direction. I felt as the worms did for movement, for footsteps, and chased each one. The beings constituting my legs pushed to their limit as branches and shrubbery crashed under every reckless footfall. Animals, ferals, men, women, all things I ran towards and past in an effort to find her. Hours passed like years searching for her among the woods, but I thought again. What if she was not... moving. I had to find her. So again, I used the worms. As I had made the eyes of my form, I commanded them to gaze out with newborn eyes, from every mossy hole and knotted tree I commanded them to stare and find. This command I felt my grasp on the body breaking, the finely crafted pieces of muscle and offal struggling against eachother within my chest.

But from their thousand-thousand eyes, I saw her. The faintest of breath moving her frame gently against the cold ground, her breath indistinguishable from the air. And I wept.

I had to reach her. I had to be there, wherever this was; I chased the worms in my mind to find their start, to follow them to her. But on this strain, I felt the last measures of control over my form slip away. I yelled in agony as my organs broke free, tearing against writhing skin and flexing muscle. Flashes in my mind of toil slipping away into the soil.

And then I awoke. I awoke elsewhere, with a body newly forming, and ahead of me lay ground I recognized. She was close.

At the time I cared not for how I came to be here; what it meant that I reformed from dissolution. I knew that I cared for her, and that I had little time.

I commanded the worms to drain the wet soil, and quickly they drank, the cold wet ground replaced with a bedding warm and dry. The trees I commanded be felled and exsanguinated the same. They cracked and popped and the living tree quickly became brittle tinder at their touch, the splinters and chaff I took to make a fire at her side. But heat would not be enough to help her.

I traced the worms through the woods until I felt their influence upon another mind. A deer in the woods, the parasites in its body and mind similarly twisted by the plague, I commanded them and the beast answered. I felt its twitching footsteps approach from far off on the distance, and until its arrival I tended by her side. Coaxing the seeds of the ground with twisted soils I grew herbs and flowers to fix a remedy. Their distillation within cauldrons of wood and stone which I would not allow the worms to feast upon.

This strain though greater than before felt of little nuisance, I needed her safe. And my mind adjusted to the business of managing the infinite words each worm spouted. There was no task of more importance than being her keeper, the hopes that one day she would be mine.

On the beasts approach I saw the fear in its eyes. I had controlled the worms but the deer had not lost all senses, it was trapped within a body controlled by forces outside of itself. For a moment I paused... a strange kinship found in its fear. But it was needed. I commanded the worms to to kill it, and leave the body; the grotesque sight of the brain case bursting revealed the poor beast riddled in the mind. It crumpled to the ground, limp in an instant while the worms returned to the ground.

I hauled the carcass to the fireside, starting to flense the body and clear its cuts; but as I did so the worms peaked their voice. "Food" they moaned, echoing in my ears. I silenced them time and time again but their hunger sought to rise above my desires. I grew angry at their persistence, began to chase the ones which spoke so out of turn, yet at their ends I found the mouth behind me. I turned to my love, my dearest for whom I sacrificed my life and would do so again; and from her body which struggled for life I felt the worms call.

She was ridden.

I know not the time, nor if it happened before or after my death, but I knew that it quickly did not matter. At the hint of bleeding flesh they roused from their stupor, threatening to rip through her to satiate their thirst, their hunger. Just as starved as she was, or maybe the only reason she still lived.

I ran to her side, placing my hands to calm the worms, using all my will to command their cessation. Their hunger drove them mad, I had to sate them. To remove them so hastily would surely kill her. I brought them the deer carcass, flinging it about in panic as though it were a ragdoll. But they threatened to feed with gluttony, they wanted to tear forth and consume their prize. I had to restrain them.

All my fear, all my panic, my anger, culminated in a wave of overwhelming stimulation in my mind that all went still. So overloaded my mind took the reigns away entirely, and gave them to something else. That thing, it knew what to do. I rose her to her knees and sat beside her, no resistance in her weak frame. I took her hand in mine, and commanded the worms to ready. I felt them rile and stir within, prepared to feast, but it halted them. Commanded them with words and knowing I could not know at the time, but would later come to understand. I placed her hand upon the carcass, feeling them writhe within her arm, weaving between the bones, and slowly I commanded each one to feed.

I watched carefully as each lithe form emerged from her palm, prepared to dive into the feast before them. Multitudes carved through the hide as a white film grew from within the body and emerged through each place I had cut. Each worm gorged and slowly receded into her hand again, which I still held tight in my own. Not a drop of blood was wasted until the worms had their fill.

Once each one had returned, calmed and sated, I felt their cries diminish and the call for blood had ceased. I kept my watchful gaze over them, but they heeded my warnings. Slowly they began the process of rousing her stupor and healing her wounds, but that would take time.

She did not change as I had, she was not reborn by the worms only infected with them. But their presence meant I knew how to heal her. Only present in her body while her mind remained untouched. A fortunate touch of fate that allowed me to save her.

Then and there.... I thought I knew home. Peace. Those chasing us were dead. Resting by the fireside we were recovering. I had the power to defend her, and with that might I wanted only respite.

I thought this would be our chance to be happy. Together.