Skin of the Sinless (Part 5)
Chapter 5: Devoured by the Sands of Time
Requiem rested his claymore against his shoulder before walking over to the crumbled beast. He scanned the chamber to see a vast emptiness accompanied by the mountain of corpses and himself. Requiem turned to the mountain seeing it was his only path.
He spent days climbing the mountain of bodies with the hope of seeing something from the top he had failed to notice before. He scanned the chamber once again from the top until he felt the bodies under him start to slide down. Requiem staggered on the top of the mountain trying to catch his footing, but the bodies were being sucked in straight down the center of the corpse mountain he stood on.
Requiem reached for anything as he was engulfed by the bodies of the mountain. He was passed through a tunnel of corpses for what felt like hours, maybe days with his arms stuck above his head. He caught glimpses of the garden chamber as he saw it before, and for what it truly was. The little girl watched from her swing while more children played in the garden until he could see them no more. The bodies gradually turned into orange sand until he fell into a desert chamber from a small hole above.
Requiem plummeted below, bouncing off the sand. A glass bubble appeared around him that protected his body from the relentless sandstorm raging throughout the chamber. He laid there covered in orange dust until his body healed enough to continue his journey. Requiem was taken back when he watched a wooden tube grow out of the sand next to his head.
He stood up to look around, but wasn’t able to see anything due to the sandstorm hindering his view of the outside of his bubble. Requiem then looked up to see that he was in the bottom half of what looked to be an hourglass. Bodies and sand fell together to the ground from where he had entered the chamber. Requiem placed his free hand against the bubble to have it passed right through, so he walked out altogether.
The pulsing sandstorm ate away at his flesh as he looked out into the distance for a path of some sort to follow. There were thousands of bubbles spread throughout the chamber without pattern. A large mound of sand in the distance with a large cloth perched on the top that flowed in the wind of the sandstorm. He made his way in the direction of the mound with the sandstorm tearing away at his skin. Requiem stopped at one of the bubbles to check what was inside to be greeted with more heresy.
There was an engorged man on his hands and knees with his mouth around a wooden tube. The tube was filling him with an unknown substance that slowly enlarging him before Requiem’s eyes. Requiem went to end the man’s suffering, but was halted when he tried to enter the man’s bubble. Requiem used the tip of his claymore to pierce into the bubble and into the back distended man inside.
The man popped covering the inside of the bubble in his remains as bile continued to flow from the tube left behind. The sandstorm pulsed, shredding a good portion of Requiem’s flesh while another sin was added to his body. A tear fell from under his iron mask instantly turning into a streak of mud. The storm was getting worse making it harder for Requiem to push forward, but he persisted. Sand poured out from the bottom of his mask while he made his way to the next bubble to see a woman residing inside with both of her legs broken.
She was still fresh compared to the man in the other bubble he had come across for she was not bloated like him at all. She looked over to see Requiem standing on the outside of her bubble with bile falling from her mouth. Her eyes were filled with tears as his presence gave her a new hope.
“Oh thank the Lord!” She cried in praise. She crawled out to embrace Requiem to be instantly obliterated by another pulse of the sandstorm. Requiem looked to the mound to see the cloth get taken up by the sandstorm as remnants of the woman blew from his feet.
Requiem continued onto the next bubble to rid another soul trapped in eternal suffering. He was cut off by the cloth riding the sandstorm that presented itself before him. It was a naked man, like himself, with a blanket of skin flowing behind him. “Why must you ruin my food?” Asked the slack skin man standing before Requiem.
He stood voiceless with his claymore resting on his shoulder. The slack skin man continued. “Do you lack a tongue to speak, or do you choose to ignore Gluttony?” Requiem stepped towards Gluttony with his claymore down at his side, gripping the handle with both hands.
“So be it,” finished Gluttony. Like that, he was taken by the sandstorm just in time to evade Requiem’s swing of his blade. Gluttony rode the storm reappearing behind him. Requiem felt his presence, and swung his claymore wide while using the flow of the sandstorm to quicken his swing as he turned around. Gluttony used his excess skin to catch and wrap around Requiem’s right arm. He lifted Requiem’s body into the air, then continuously slammed him into the sand before throwing him against another glass bubble.
Requiem used his claymore to get to one knee. He tilted his blade back to pierce the bubble behind him, bursting another trapped soul. A tear caked with orange sand fell from his eye as another scar appeared on his body. Gluttony was sent into a rage. “LEAVE MY FOOD ALONE!”
He charged Requiem, engulfing him in his loose skin. Requiem’s arms were bound to his sides as Gluttony constricted him so tightly it left an impression of his iron mask and body in his skin. Requiem’s bones fractured until they protruded from his skin. Gluttony felt his body fall limp before dropping him to the ground.
Gluttony stood next to Requiem to look over his next meal. He expanded his mouth to the size of Requiem’s body until his jaw rested on the sandy floor of the chamber. Requiem’s body began fixing itself without catching Gluttony’s attention. It started with the bones in his right arms snapping back into place that was still gripping his claymore. He leaned over, making his broken ribs pierce his lungs, and sliced Gluttony’s bottom jaw off. Gluttony recoiled back to retract his loose skin in a panic.
He scooped up his lower jaw that had fallen flat in the sand into his gaping mouth. Requiem’s body jerked as it mended his bones while rising to his feet. Gluttony wrapped his skin around Requiem’s head before he had a chance to fight again, and rode the current of the wind. This time he was dragging Requiem through the sands whipping his body into the glass bubbles every chance he could.
Requiem had his scarred skin and muscles scrubbed away from the bone while his claymore dangled behind him. Requiem used all his might to pry himself from Gluttony, but not in time before his neck dislocated from his spine. His paralyzed body was rendered useless for the time being. Gluttony whipped around one more before letting go of Requiem, making his scoured body skip across the sands.
Requiem laid there waiting for his discombobulated body to regenerate itself with Gluttony nowhere to be seen. He stared up through the never ending sandstorm at the faint hole in the middle of the hourglass shaped chamber watching bodies fall like grains of sand. Those that were dead simply bounce off the sand before settling in. Others that weren’t so lucky fell in like himself, but did not have the luxury of regeneration. Therefore, leaving them battered and broken with the only thing keeping them going was an everlasting source of food. So much suffering.
The sand gradually falling in the direction of his feet caught Requiem’s attention. He sat up to see the glass bubbles start to roll down as the decline increased by the second. Requiem rose to his feet before making his way to the closest wall as quickly as he could, but it was fruitless. A glass bubble was cascading down in his direction.
Requiem dug his feet in the sand before using his claymore to split the bubble in two. The damned soul inside ruptured, covering Requiem in bile and viscera to the point of blocking his vision from seeing the other behind it. Another soul, another scar and a tear for the damned.
The second bubble smashed into Requiem making him tumble down the falling sand. The ground he was standing on was now in front of him with nowhere to run. He grabbed onto a wooden tube, but it just pulled out from the sand as if it wasn’t attached to anything. The rotation of the chamber continued to speed up forcing Requiem to think fast.
Sand swirled into a vortex as it funneled through the hole to the other side of the hourglass chamber. Requiem let go of his claymore before roughly landing on a glass bubble. He hugged into it to keep himself from sliding off with his claymore hanging at his side.
He climbed up on the bubble to stay above the orange vortex below. The cyclone of sand still tore away at his skin while he looked for the Sin who inhabited the chamber. Requiem rode atop the swirling bubble until he was close to the wall.
He leapt from the circular prison, and dug his claymore into the wall of the chamber. Requiem held himself in place until the last of the sand trickled down. It was then when he was able to see Gluttony sitting on the bottom of the other section of the chamber, ingesting all that fell through.
Gluttony was now an immense mound of flesh that filled up the entire bottom of the hourglass shaped chamber. His slack skin was no more. The sand and glass bubbles fell into the abyss that had become of his mouth. Requiem pushed off the wall with his foot to free his blade, plunging feet first into the lower portion of the chamber where Gluttony fed.
Requiem fell with his claymore overhead. He brought it down on Gluttony’s face who wore a surprised look on his face. Requiem’s blade continued to glide through the disgusting mountain of flesh, severing every organ and bone in its path.
Requiem’s legs snapped on impact when landing in the mess in the sand. Entrails and the remains of those from the glass bubbles were all that was left of the splayed Sin. Requiem sat with crumbled legs watching Gluttony spew blood from a laceration on his massive heart. Requiem stood as soon as his legs allowed him to. He used his blade to sever the arteries holding Gluttony’s heart in place. He then cut open Gluttony’s stomach before placing his heart inside.
He watched Gluttony’s stomach acid boil over until his heart disintegrated in a sludge. The word ‘GLUTTONY’ illuminated all over his body, and disappeared as a dirty tear fell from Requiem’s eye. He looked at the top of his dirty hand to see scarless skin for the first time in centuries. Requiem looked down at his feet after feeling the contents of Gluttony’s stomach start to eat away at them.
Bones were beginning to show, and the sandy ground he stood on started to give. The stomach acid had eaten through Gluttony itself, dropping Requiem into the labyrinth once again. Requiem was in another stone corridor with identical rooms spread out evenly on both sides. He looked up to see the opening in the ceiling he had fallen through was gone.