Through the ash-choked skies it pierces
From the vast unknown it arrives
Dreadful to the ma**es, still it beckons
The Black Apostle – colossus from beyond the stars
Berthed in the depths of blight;
bathed in phantasmal, unearthly aura
radiating through the walls of sleep
Unnatural compulsion, galvanized by suffering
mystified by the whispers in their dreams
We hear the warnings:
“To cast sight upon it is to be enthralled,
to make contact with it is to be consumed.”
Conscious thought overridden in its presence
Captivated by the glorious oddity
Telepathic surge
the disciples converge
on the blighted earth
convocation without language
Entranced…
Called forth…
in recondite pilgrimage
Through the wastes they tread the apostle their beacon .
blinded by the toxic air guided by the second sight
Battered by the searing sun, the stinging wind, the bitter dust
six-score they gather as moths to a coruscating light
trepidation cast aside, they form a reverent circle
temporal dilation, perceptions distorting
Two-by-two approach, commune and merge
with the alien singularity, double helix contorting
Two by two transmute and emerge
with dissident biology, the sixth extinction thwarting
Nanomechanical infusion
Intramolecular surgery
Reshape the organism, transcend limitations
Discard vestigial DNA
Reconfigure the vital organs
Introduce new biocatalysts
Rebuild the flesh, reclaim survival
On this nightmare that was once called “Earth”