Elesh Norn - Glistening Oil

The sound resonated as she lifted her free hand, curled her long, clawed finger, and punctured her wrist.

For a moment, the pale sky seemed to darken, as if clouded by smoke, but Norn's attention was fixed on the glistening oil flowing from her wrist, her very body, the purest possible source. The crowd swayed forward as one, their eyes glinting as they watched the oil flow from the wound and onto the Mirran's head and quaking shoulders. It slicked her hair, coating the back of her neck. She thrashed when it penetrated the wound there, and screamed, the sound shrill and organic. Irritating. Soon those vocal cords would be replaced and immaculately calibrated and her voice would join the others' in reverence.

She sputtered and choked as the glistening oil smothered her, filled her, her body twitching as the oil began to flow from her gaping mouth and the corners of her open eyes.

All around Norn, the rumble grew louder.

She held the Mirran up by the scruff for all to see. "Behold perfection."

But in her grip, the Mirran shuddered, an organic movement that bubbled up from the center of her body in sudden, uneven waves. There was nothing mechanical about it, no measured rhythm of sacred alteration. Instead, the meat beneath Norn's hand bulged. It rolled and squirmed as if the bony vertebrae knuckling against her palm were trying to shove her away.

The Mirran's body heaved, a convulsion so violent Norn nearly dropped her, and a pulpy cord of organic material, a fibrous wooden root, sinuous and alien, burst from the human's belly. Blood, unnaturally thick and foul, oozed onto the dais. It pooled beneath Norn's feet, a twisted abomination of her own glistening oil, even as more roots bulged from the human's open mouth, wrenching teeth, and tongue aside, breaking through her eye sockets and squirming into the air.

***

A GARDEN OF FLESH