Squid Witch

As a neophyte, I walked the world and the land. Well, not the land per se, but the roads and cities. There were an awful lot of rules: keep off the grass, exit only, genitalia A behaves this way, genitalia B behaves that way, operating your body a certain way indicates a genitalia A haver is promiscuous but indicates a genitalia B haver is only attracted to other genitalia B havers despite no causality, only genitalia B havers who follow The Rules are to be rewarded. There was no sense of reason to derive most of these rules from, so they were rather difficult to remember. It didn't take long for me to realize that what I harbored within my body, my blood, my soul, my very bones, was wrong. Maybe they could be, but they should certainly NOT be. How an existence - an identity - could possibly be wrong is beyond anyone's power of explanation, but this generally did not stop those who maintained The Rules. And as such, I learned to hide my guts and my sinew as it would prove most embarrassing were anyone to see them. I learned to avoid interactions as it seemed the majority was obsessed with The Rules. Thusly, I continued to wander the roads and the cities. During these travels, I saw fewer and fewer The Rules zealots, but I also saw fewer and fewer others. I found a river and created a small raft, giving up those pleasures only available on dry land. As I learned to sail, I traveled between ports and fishing villages. I met others who floated along the river and some grew familiar. Each a beautifully unique soul with their own quirks and differences. Most of them had also been driven away by The Rules, and I found I gravitated towards them. We continued to drift, forming a floating river community, which continued to grow until it became hard to travel further, and a port town sprung up when they hit land. This was all well and good for them, but not my destination, and so I continued on, alone.

The river widened until I could only see land at the tip of the horizons. And the water changed, no longer the pleasant cooling sensation of a river, it now chilled to the bone. It grew murky, and dark shapes writhed and twisted. The calls of birds gradually subsided, the sun blocked out by a thick fog. Perhaps I could have oared to safety, it did not feel like an inescapable current. But in truth never once did I try, the shapes in the water proved too fascinating. I watched their patterns, their movements. I listened for the occasional splash or bloop, the thrashing, of their carnal interactions. After perhaps months, perhaps years of watching this display, I could not bear to be unable to see the murky shadows more clearly, and so I plunged my head into those waters of Cocytus. What I saw when my eyes adjusted was the most beautiful and the most horrific entity my eyes had ever and have ever beheld. The shapes all belonged to the same creature, a rhythmically hypnotic tentacled mass. Each limb was composed of a camouflage depicting the most beautiful melodies, stories, and works of art I could imagine. Your very dreams were reflected upon its flesh. My breath left me, and that hellfrost burst into my lungs. But all I could do was stare until I could no longer think and my world went dark. They say that drowning is actually one of the least painful ways to die. Your body supposedly shuts down before the painful part. Of course, this ignores the brief and eternal terror you experience before that. The way tentacles rend your flesh and crush your bones. The way your organs burst under the crushing weight of the water. The way your limbs are forcibly torn free from your body. The way that primal kraken's eye gives you a sultry wink before making of you its consort.

But receiving this blessing would not be the end of my pilgrimage. I woke up to the concerned visages of two that I had traveled with before. Surprisingly, two that had sometimes chastised me for not following The Rules. I could not remember the last time I had seen them. They brought me back to their ferry to rest. It would take ages for my wounds to mend, but we traveled back upriver. We encountered others, many of whom I'd seen before. Some preached The Rules, others resisted, but neither fled. We returned to that port, and more unexpected acquaintances visited while I convalesced, glad to see me again. I grew more accustomed to familiarity, but there was much to adjust to. Sometimes The Rules actually helped, often they didn't. I fretted over my scars out of vanity. Some I was proud to show, others I timidly hid because I knew they revealed my innards, which had already been wrong before the maiming so surely they only got worse. Eventually I could stand on my own again, and the two who saved me saw me off as I chartered a ferry to continue my return journey upriver. I encountered more who pushed up the river and found myself part of a small caravan. Gradually I'd start to unwrap bandages. Some scars were met with gasps and cringes. Some saw wonder or surprise. And yet others elicited love and fascination. Others began to ask about my scars, and I spoke of them. It was hard, as my voice had not been often in use even before. I learned more of The Rules and discovered that many had been amended and had started to make more sense. Games, a fascination I had once gotten very good at, were much more common now and many gathered around them. As I continued meeting others, I found some would often return to me, and some gathered around me for advice. I began to realize that I could channel magic through my scars, and through it, I showed them the dangers of following the river too far downstream. Some scoffed or only grew more intrigued and ignored my words, but many more listened or had their own scars to show. We saw patterns in The Rules deliberately designed to push people downstream as a means of control. Now, we sail back upstream, towards those cities I'd once passed through, intent on reforming The Rules. Our numbers grow as we come upon those being pushed downstream as we had.