[The Answered Prayer] [Religious] [Heresy] [Sci-Fi] [Horror]

[The Answered Prayer] [Religious] [Heresy] [Sci-Fi] [Horror]

 

“Blood for the blood god!” the kid said with a snicker, warped cleaver in hand. He was smacked by a larger calloused hand. 

“Hemolin, slit the throat already.” Shaking himself, the teenager grumbled but let the cleaver fly. The chicken bodies were hanging from the ceiling in a sack with a hole in the bottom so that only the head and neck were exposed. He grabbed each of the heads and hacked them off, putting the heads aside. He let the blood pour out into the blood pan. He looked back to see if his father was there. He then whispered to himself, “Blood for the Blood god.” He continued smirking and giggling. Hemolin eventually took the chickens from the bags hanging from the ceiling and put them in a big bucket. He took the four to the next room with the dad shaking his head. 

“The mason Scaper?” the son asked. 

“Yea, it’s the mason again.” He took the chickens and started walking outside. “We are a good butcher place, sell high, but not that high son.” He walks outside to a stone shed. The teenager opened the door revealing the machine in the building, and the father dropped each chicken in. The machine whirrs, processing the birds. “That mason fixed it up, but he is demanding a hundred thousand quiddles.” 

Hemolin stared at his father in disbelief. “We make that in a year!” 

“Yes, if we don’t eat, sleep, or live, we could pay it. In a year. Bloody Scaper wants it paid next month.” 

“This is stupid. Why did that stupid thing smack us?” He pointed at the floating island, with chunks of the original shed dangling on the bottom of it.  

“We live in a land of floating islands, son. Sometimes an island will take out a building.” He thumbed behind him to the same island. “That’s part of living in the land of three powers. Did you throw out the blood yet?” 

“No.” 

“Look, we got to get rid of it. Can’t sausage it. Wanna toss it to Mason’s fence?” 

“Really?” his face lit up, a grin forming.

“If you haul it to the mason’s pretty perfect stone fence. Scuff it up a bit. It would make me feel better. I must go to him tomorrow to pay off part of the ripper.” The machine made a deep dinging sound. “Speaking of which,” the father said, grabbed the four plucked chickens, and put them back into the bucket. “I’ll work and smoke these for our other neighbors. You go and pour out the blood.” 

“Will do, father. Will do.” 

“And don’t invoke that power! The last thing we need is for that one to listen!” The father shouted. 

“Ok!” Hemolin shouted behind him. 

The father shook his head and said, “That means he will say it one less time.”

Hemolin grabbed the blood pan, put the lid on with a click, and began to haul it. About 2,000 steps later, across the grassy plains and weaving between floating boulders, the kid finally could see the new stone fence. He wiped the sweat off his forehead, and his expression soured. “Just because masons are sweat jobs don’t mean he is better than us.” His eyes rolled, “Tears, the purest of the liquids, how stupid.” He clicked the lid off the large bucket and saw the blood beginning to thicken up. “Blood is obviously the best.” He grabbed the bucket and readied himself. “Blood is meat, blood is life, and blood never told us that we are the bottom of this floating rock.” He heaved the bucket, and it splattered over the rocks, releasing a stench. It flowed on both sides and began to pool on the ground. “Everyone gets to eat meat around here because we butcher. The rich get their bacon from our smoker and steaks from our ripper. We put up with their weird ground meat requests, come on, half goat, half pig fat, what the spit?” Hemolin shrugged and was about to turn and walk away but stopped himself. The temptation was resisted a few times on the walk over. He turned around and looked at the crimson paint job. With a smile he said, “Blood for the blood god.” 

A streak of red lightning shot through the sky, and he saw it strike the blood. The force of impact flung him back. Splattered blood turned green and hissed like acid. It ate away at the fence, melting a massive chunk before the liquid began to come together and turn red. He could see through the liquid somewhat where a core began to form. It almost looked like a dark reddish-greenish glassy marble brain. It then quivered, forming a rubbery, dull skin like dried blood.  The red blob was a little bigger than his father’s head. It began to move to him jiggling and oozing like sentient blood pudding. 

“What the tear?” He asked himself. He looked up to see a far-off man starting to walk toward him. Hemolin turned and ran away, dashing off, weaving through the boulders and trees, and very quickly finding his home. Dashing to the front door, he slammed the door behind him, and his father turned to him. 

“Son, you tossed it?” 

“Yea.” 

“Get away with it?” 

“I think so?” 

“Did you remember the blood pan?” 

Oh, sweat, He thought to himself, I forgot! He closed his eyes and shook his head. 

“You forgot?” the father asked. 

“No, um, I was going to wash it out before putting it away.” 

“Did you do your blood god praise?” 

“Um, not really.” He said. “I resisted the urge a few times.” 

“You are almost 15. Stop saying such things.”

“Why is everyone so against a joke?” 

“You need to pay more attention, boy. Stop sleeping in modern history class. Three powers took humans from the stars. Now we are here.” 

He rolled his eyes, “Sure, the three gods that don’t exist.” 

“The powers ain’t like other gods boy, and they are certainly real. The powers are why we don’t have monsters killing everyone.” 

Hemolin stepped away from the door and said, “Dad, it is just a joke. We swear all the time, and it doesn’t spitting matter to you.” 

“They don’t listen to swears. The powers do listen to blessings. Your joke phrase could be counted as prayer. The last thing we need is that power’s answer.” 

A loud sloshing sound made both of them turn to the door. A red liquid pooled from the bottom of the door. It tried to enter further, but there was a thud, and the entire body shivered. It tried to enter a second and third time but was unable to squeeze something under the door. The father and son looked at each other, confused.  A thin tentacle reached up and grabbed the door handle. The handle was pulled down and the door cracked open. The wiggling blood pudding guided its marble brain past the doorway, into the house. It held itself with a tentacle as if it was a human nursing a stubbed toe. It then stretched out another tentacle and closed the door behind itself. 

The father shrugged, saying, “At least it’s polite.” 

With more speed than anyone expected, it lunged for Hemolin’s leg. He stumbled back, falling on his butt. A tentacle wrapped around him and nuzzled him as if a puppy were welcoming his owner. He felt no pain, just smooth rubbery skin.   

“Son, please tell me that you haven’t been saying that phrase so much that the Bleeding One actually sent you a Blooden.”

“None of this is my fault! I didn’t make weird lightning strike the blood green. It’s a freak accident!” 

“Bloodspit!” The father cursed.

“It’s not-”

“Like Bloodspit it ain’t!” 

“It looks nothing like one of those temple servants!” 

His father sighed. “That’s because they offer their prayers to the Weeping One for wisdom or the Soaking One for strength. They don’t keep talking to the power of death, rot, and pain!” 

There was a loud, furious pounding at the door, with someone shouting, “You bloodstains! Open up!” 

“What is that sweat stain Scaber doing here?” the father asked himself. He opened the door, “What is so important that you could not wait tomorrow?” 

The mason, sweaty from running in scented clothes, said, “I am not stupid. Hermer.” 

“What?” the father asked. 

The mason grabbed the blood pan and pointed at the initials. “H and H, for Hermer and Hemolin. I saw your boy splatter something on my fence and melt away a good chunk of it.” 

Hermer turned to his son, “You forgot the blood pan at his place?” 

“So what?!” Hemolin shouted. “Scaber has been overcharging every blood job on this boulder!  Its always the sweat and tear jobs, thinking they’re better than the rest of us. All because some stupid powers that don’t exist-” 

A tentacle slammed into the teen’s stomach cutting him off. He gasped for breath. 

The mason saw the living blood goop and smirked. “Of course, the child of a dried blood job is a heretic, serving the lowest power.” 

“Leave him out of this.” 

“Like you did for my wife?” 

“She rejected you. She chose to be with me. It was her choice.” 

“She chose wrongly Hermer. If she had my child instead of yours, she would not have-” 

Hermer’s temper flashed, and he slammed his fist into the mason’s jaw. His clean figure crumpled to the ground. His jaw now bled from an open wound. Scaber spat in disgust. 

“I certainly will go. When I tell the temples about your heretic blood child, I will enjoy collecting the bounty and-” 

He was cut off. The Blooden slammed into his face and latched onto his bleeding chin. The living blood poured itself into the wound. The mason screamed, his body contorted, twisted about in ways that should have broken his bones. Living blood flowed through his body, and it began to digest him from the inside. To the father and son’s horror, the mason became a husk, drained of all his inner organs, and they could see the slime in the body, like a child hiding under a skin blanket. Then the skin moved towards the slime as if the creature was like a whirlpool. The head was the last to be digested, as it made a popping sound, and the Blooden sucked all the flesh into itself. It did not touch the scented clothes. 

“What now, father?” 

The two stared past the clothes, beyond the doorway to the descending night and ascending boulders and islands. Hermer sighed and said, “Son, you denied reality. One too many times.” He rubbed his face nervously. “Now, we have to live with your consequences.” He stood up, looked his son in the eye, and said, “Blood for the Blood God.” 

The Blooden raised its tentacles in the air, vibrating in what seemed to be happiness, while the son said with a heavy heart, “Blood for the blood god.”

 

Thank you for listening to my short story. If you want more work like this please support me through my subscribestar. You can also purchasing my book The Lost Soul of Scholastic Study. Links in the description below. This is J. J. Bartel, author, botanist, historian and gamer, and until next time lets cultivate some greatness.