Wordforge 8-12-14

SONG: "Every Planet we Reach is Dead" by The Gorillaz

THEME: Onward




The end of the world didn’t arrive, it awoke.
It happened on a Sunday early in the morning as the sun was dragging itself lazily into the sky, preparing to take the journey it had taken since the beginning of forever. Father Bastion sat at his desk in his tiny apartment behind St. Jude’s Church, the shades drawn and letting in only the feeblest, watery fingers of light from outside to play across the faded, floral wallpaper as the aging priest cradled his head in his hands, kneading his temples with blunt, calloused fingers. The fingers of a man who had seen a lifetime of work, a lifetime of hardship met with faith and perseverance in emulation of his chosen lord and savior.
Passages and parables warred with an insistent migraine. They’d been more frequent of late, staggering in their ferocity, in the way they would obliterate the world and reduce it to white hot pain trapped inside of his skull. He could tell this would be a bad one. He questioned chasing a few pills with a slug or three of scouring whiskey...weakness was so tempting. A shaky sigh rattles its way out as one hand falls away from his head and lands atop the open bible on the desk before him, rasping against the worn, thin pages. He flinches at the contact. A spike of pain lances between his eyes and he shoves the book away.
“A bit of mercy would be fine, lord.” The words are strained, almost strangled, as he pushes himself up out of his chair and wobbles, finding his feet. He looks at the little cot shoved up into the corner of the room and winces, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth as thoughts of whiskey war with snippets of poetry and the words of saints. “Downward. Downward to darkness.”
Beside the bed in the sparingly furnished room is a small, battered dresser inside which all of Father Bastion’s worldly possessions are contained. The top draw grinds open on rusted rails as he sways before it, pain raising a wall of white noise that strangles out all other thoughts but those of oblivion. Lying on a cushion of linens and undergarments rests a flask, the plain gunmetal finish polished by years and years of use and care and loving, desperate hands. Those hands reach for it, palms already sweating, nerves prickling. The cap is flicked away in a practiced, careless motion as it is raised to lips that all but twitch in anticipation.
And a mere heart beat before the precious, burning amber liquid can splash into his waiting mouth, reality collapses in upon itself.
A shattering roar of thunder splits the world in half, ripping the floor out from under Father Bastion’s feet and jarring the walls. An explosion of colorless light tears through his skull as he hits the ground and the sound becomes his whole world. It goes on for an eternity, the death throes of the universe. It is only when he chokes and convulses, throat gone raw from screaming, that Bastion realizes the sound has ended. That he has been screaming, and screaming for quite a while if the coppery taste of blood in the back of his throat was any sign. Everything was dark. No light crept around the shades and only static filled his ears, the ocean-like hiss of absolute silence. He was lying on the ground, curled in around himself and clutching at his knees. Something wet was on his face. Tears.
It didn’t seem wise to move just yet, so he didn’t.
The echo, the thought, the memory of that sound was everything. There was a hideous realization that the world had changed, that brought with it a terrifying question.
“God?” The priest asks as he lays upon the ground, gasping and clutching at himself. “Where are you now?”
Only silence.
He spreads his arms out, across the rough carpet of his room, stretching old muscles and aching joints. What if...it wasn’t some horrific, existential catastrophe? Something more personal, but no less final. 
Maybe something in his brain had finally gone and blown. Maybe...
No.
With no small amount of struggling and grunting, Bastion pushes himself first into a sitting position, his head swimming all the while, and then precariously, slowly, he stands. The room tilts. His arms reach out, swinging through darkness lest he crash into his desk or bed. One hand brushes briefly against something wispy, there and gone in a heartbeat. He gasps and freezes. “What?” The whisper is harsh, a ragged, ugly thing in the darkness.
Nothing.

One foot forward, cautiously. Another. He moves step by fearful step forward, until his hip thumps into the edge of what can only be his desk. Hands reach out to skim across it and run over the familiar shape of his bible. He clutches at the book, brings it to hold tightly against his chest where he can feel his heart thudding erratically, stuttering like a frightened thing in a cage. Slow breaths. A deliberate, desperate attempt at enforcing calm, as he turns his head towards the window and the light beyond.