// A GODS SOCK

Outside a small suburban house in the far outskirts of the city of Nacana, an onyx black sheet ripples in the windless night. Hovering meters from the second story window, it stares at the home. Brown brick, brown tiles and brown grass. A blue dot bounces off the glass of a bedroom window; the moon, full and sharp, creates a hue that rests on the skin of the fabric.

This floating mass is what is known as a “Gods Sock” by Great Wave enthusiasts, or “Consumption_Flesh” in the ancient language Blu’dric. An entity dreaded by all Monks whom have lost their Line, a sacred mark on their name that indicates a bureaucratic blessing, needed to navigate the world of the Black God.

For the Sock is a straight-shooting, all-consuming vessel for the Great Waves design.

And It floats outside Maarn and Leu’es Peperi’s home. This particular Sock renewed Its name to “It_Of_Worry_Wipsing”, after Its recent fascination with external affairs, instead of the internal dealings of life and death within the Ruination Momentum. The rectangular body is thin and without gloss, but bumpy and dappled in sweat-like moisture, oozing smells of the dark hours of winter.

Yesterday, Leu’es found a lump below her left breast. Maarn spooned and sung her to sleep earlier than usual, they had to wake early to await a phone call from the doctors. Maarn said the results would be good. Leu’es can’t believe him. Maarn gently strokes her hair as her sleeping breath calms and slows, he softly pulls his arm out from below her neck and raises from the warm covers. Taking a moment at the end of the bed, his hand pulls at his nose’s bridge and his eyes tighten.

Poking out from the covers, her foot gleams in the pale blue moonlight, his palm encases it, cooling his hand. Thoughts of a life without his newlywed wife force themselves in, so he stands to distract them. Before making his way to the window for a smoke, he makes sure the covers cocoon her foot.

Rolling the cigarette in the dark blue of the night, he admires his handy work with the thin paper and troublesome leaves in such conditions, and pulls open the window. The cool air freshens him up and dries his eyes, the smoke of the cigarette will calm him. The moon looks beautiful, when he was younger he planned to marry the big rock in the sky. But Leu’es was a far better catch than the timeless circle that hung in the air. He leans out of the glass and absorbs the liminal atmosphere. He was in limbo right with her. That call is everything now.

He eyes scan the horizon for any neighbourly action, as his fingers light the cigarette. Only ever seeing them through windows and cars, between all the souls around him, he felt a mile long distance in their lives, but he found the idea of snooping on their day-to-day late-night life dastardly exciting. Mr and Mrs Number 18 had all their lights off. Curtains drawn. No fun. And their bins are out early. Next to them is 16, a young couple like the Peperi’s, but they have a two-year-old. But tonight, it looked like it was all about them, their light is the only one on, and Maarn see’s legs lying on other legs. Naughty, naughty. He smiles and takes a drag. Clarity fills his head. Smoke to lungs.

Then there’s- wait a second.

What is that? He couldn’t quite see his neighbour’s whole house opposite him. There’s something in the air between them. Something slightly rectangular and waving in the wind. But it’s not moving in the wind. There isn’t any wind, he eyes the calm leaves of his apple tree below. It’s just hovering. What the fuck is that?

Some rubbish or run-away-rag? It looks a lot like an oddly long bin bag, but why was it so still? He felt his eyes itch. As he went to scratch them searing heat cut through his forehead and instinctively threw his cigarette to the ground outside, tapping the burning speck on his forehead. He moved inside his eye-veins thankfully stopped wiggling.

After cooling his forehead with a wet towel he returned to his sleeping wife. The breeze of the open window brought a cooling relaxed ambience that was just the needed remedy for the insomnia he was inevitably going to have. Despite this, his fire of the mind, within the early hour, he fell into a cold slumber and met his wife in dreams.

Outside, It_Of_Worry_Wipsing silently snakes towards the window. Its thin long body slips through the opening and looms over the bed, casting a shadow over both the sleepers’ faces. Maarn began to snore, they both winced their eyes. The floating black shape spent some time observing the couple. Watching them like an owl to a mouse. The moon moved in the sky as the night went on.

It moved to Leu’es and stuck in the air just three inches from her face. Her eyes fluttered as the twisting material began to move onto her. With the restlessness of inhuman patience, It snuck under the sheets and then the woman, slowly moving her into its centre. Carefully the edges of the dark rectangle folded in on Itself with the human still inside. Until the midnight skin had met above her and fully sealed. And it was done.

Maarn awoke with a foggy mind to a still room, mid dream he had heard a muffled cry, but it sounded far, far away. He looked out the open window with groggy eyes and wondered what the dream was, until he looked over to his wife.

There was nothing but a writhing black mass under the covers. He gasped, jumping out of bed. “WHAT- WHAT!?” he shouts. What he saw in the dim blue light was what appeared to be a human sized black slug jostling under the covers where his wife should be. His wife. He quickly switched the bedside lamp on which lit the room in orange, but did nothing to mark the black lump with light. He called her name to the open door, leading to the downstairs. Maybe she went downstairs. He shouted again. No response. The midnight slug jostled some more and let out a very quiet groan of pain. He screamed her name again, but it caught in his throat. He turned to the mass in his bed. Blacker than black. The sounds of a horror threshold being met came from within, like behind three layers of concrete.

“Leu’es?” he croaked as his shoulders began to shudder. “Are you-” he didn’t know what he was asking. He ran to the mass but stopped his hand from reaching out. Is she under it? Has she become a slug? What the fuck is this?

He shouted her name at it. More muffled sounds of anguish. It’s her. He pulled off the sheets to reveal the shape, and a sour clinical stench was uncovered. It is now far easier to discern that it is tight around her body as she can barely move. His legs pace back and forth, nearly moving as fast as his confused mind. He goes through so many options, trying to make sense of it all.

After a minute of quiet, he decides he needs to quiet the logical part of his mind. There is no realm of reality to this, not at least from his long thirty years of existence. His mind wants to move onto reactions and fixes but is stunted by bubbling emotions, rising from his stomach, passing his lungs, and entering his throat. He stands staring at the writhing shadow mass, his skin grows cold and tight, his knuckles go white, bones pushing against flesh. Anger is boiling over him. His blood quickens. His fingers press into his palms as his brow furrows and aims itself toward the shape around his wife.

His claws grasp the edges of the thing, it is freezing to touch and leaves black burns on his hands as he pulls them away. Instead, he covers his hands with the bed sheet and pulls at the black thing. It is no use. It feels like living elastic, like rubbery skin, there’s movement under it, veins? He rushes to grab some gardening gloves from downstairs. Shock settles by how calm and quiet the house is. All whilst my wife, upstairs, is… he pushes the thoughts away again.

The gloves don’t help. His hands itch and sting from when he had touched the creature. Is that what it is? He thinks. A creature can be killed. He runs back downstairs, to the hollow quiet, and grabs some gardening tools, collecting them in a dufflebag, he returns to to the living room.

“Stay calm honey, I’m getting you out,” he pulls out a pair of shears. He puts them to the flesh of It and presses down hard. The sharp edges give way a few centimetres, but beyond that feels impossible. When he tugs the sheers off, he finds the black mass is unaffected. So he plugs in the next instrument. A hedge strimmer. Placing both hands on the device, it activates and descends upon the Entity under the covers. The long arm connecting the handle and the sharp blades is roughly two feet long, meaning Maarn had to stand back from it. One foot on the bed frame, the other planted firmly to the floor. He made the connection between the blades and Its skin. The sound was horrendous. Like trying to cut soggy cement or melted metal, for a second he thought the shrill screeching was from the creature but a blade broke off and flew into the ceiling, flopping down on the floor. Maarn knew there was no effect.

So he does what any sane husband would do, he goes to the kitchen and grabs as many different chemicals as he can find. All over it he poured bleach, clean supplies, vinegar, something from an old jar, alkalines, acids, more bleach. The black flesh of A God’s Sock was unaffected. Before giving up, he poured oil all over the thing and flipped open his metal lighter. He quietly prayed for guidance from his future self as he held the flame high above him.

He felt no connection. No warmth from his Forthcestors. Nothing positive from his Prastist belief. He collapsed to the floor, dropping the lighter onto the carpet. 

It closed itself in the process, extinguishing the flame.

His face wanted to droop and weep, and flop into a pillow and never get up. But he started talking to her, through the sickening demon.

“You’re going to be okay.” he repeats aloud, the only response are soft groans of agony, far off beyond walls and walls.

“I love you so much. We will get through this together,” he says on the other side of the walls.

After the murmuring stopped from within the black sheet, he began talking directly to It.

“You’re going to give her back.” he pounded on it, burning the sides of his hands.

“Take me, take my body,” he begged. “Give her the fuck back. Giver her back. Take mine.”

No response from the blanket of death. He wants to get angry again, but nothing comes to him. Anger made it simple. It made each action concentrated and sure. Now he sits in his confusion again. And the confusion is sinking into a pit in his stomach. He winces at the horror of the situation. He’s kneeling down, by her bed, when he feels a deathly chill sink deep down into him.

It almost speaks to him. Saying with emotions and worry, that all of this was his fault, that he deserved this and that happiness was never truly his to own.

The memories he made with Leu’es were a lie, they only pretended to be in love with each other. These thoughts felt like a dissociation, he had felt this many times and could see it plain as day. So he reminded himself that these new thoughts were the lie. This notion was not a fix to the feelings, but a good start.

After half an hour of sitting with these binary, contrasting emotions, where he cycled through the good memories, to thinking they were faked, to telling himself they weren’t, back to thinking about other good times with Leu’es. A vicious loop that kept him knelt by her bed as her muffled voice got further and further away.

It finally occurred to him, as her sounds were almost nonexistent, he needed to focus on her. This was it. This was the end of everything she knew. It was the end of her being, and he wanted to make it to be as comfortable as possible.

He sat by the thinning material as the movements beneath it halted to a stop. And Maarn started to sing, to her, and in some respects to It. He held his hand, over where her chest must be, the alien fabric tantalised his skin with invisible spiky licks of cold heat. He ignored it.

The Entity flattens out as he sings song after song, each of love or encapsulating a memory they had held together. Between lyrics, he tells her how special she was, how much she was loved and all the people who will miss her. He spoke of restarting the Loop together, and that he couldn’t wait to see her again in the new life. He was in fact, excited to do it all over again.

Before A Gods Sock became entirely flat again, something pressed up against it, from inside, and directly into Maarns palm. He squeezed it. Tapping it with his fingers, to show her it was him and not the Entity. As the elevated part descended back, and the black fabric thinned out to its previous form, Maarn pulled his hand away and found his palm and fingers black with scorched skin.

He wept alone as the floating material flew out his window, taking with it any trace of Leu’es.

His room was so drastically unchanged, in such a plastic, alien house, that it felt as if he himself had passed into another world.