WARNING: Explicitly morbid fiction
German Version: [DE] Das Puppenspiel (originale Kurzfassung)
It seems that everything in my life had its sights set on this moment. Every experience, every step of my journey, focused into one purpose. This place at this time. It seems I am exactly where I ought to be.
In the eye of the storm.
Color escapes the world surrounding me. Everything becomes ruin. Above me, grey-black clouds are undertaking a hasted effort to flee the firmament. Horror remains. A hiss is clawing through the air.
My body has recognized the seriousness of the situation and knows how to act accordingly. Confident, unflinching, without compromise – absolute control. He is directing everything he has against his greatest enemy.
Me.
This insight quickly arises as my body is changing into a stiff doll. My will to move is still present, but is overwritten by an indomitable intent of foreign origin. Everything in me is put in its place.
I'm withering from the inside out. Burning, drying up, ripped open. Deep within, the puppet master works its magic. The fanfares sound. The puppetry of hell is about to begin.
I can hear bones splintering, bursting and breaking, while joints harden and become immobile clots of lead.
My skin bursts open, veins leak under me, while my body is tumbling forward in twitching, jerky movements, yet with murderous will. Behind me a scarlet trail.
The brushstroke of God.
Like a death-defying soldier, my body faces its opponent.
I.
But I'm just a thought.
Entranced, pain separates me from my body. I am only a rotten fruit in a sac of peeling skin.
A caterpillar that dies in a cocoon cannot gift itself a new life as butterfly.
It just rots and encapsulates a terrible stench.
The last act.
Prestigio.
The creature, that my body has become, is rearing up one last time as I am witness to an inhuman cry escaping my lungs.
The decrepit flesh collapses.
The curtain falls.
Someone is applauding in the distance.