The Red Man
By Alex Meleg

Copyright 2011 Alex Meleg

Smashwords Edition

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The Red Man
I opened my eyes and clawed a handful of sand. Cold waves lapped at my legs. The air was still. I rolled over onto my back and felt the hot sun penetrate my eyelids as I drifted back into sleep. A massive wave crashed over my head and salty water rushed up my nose and into my eyes. I sat up, coughed hoarsely and squinted against the over bright sun as I surveyed my surroundings. I was on a pristine beach that appeared endless from horizon to horizon.
Red clouds shrouded the sky in twilight past the dunes that separated the beach from the rest of world. The white beach gradually gave way to ruddy dirt. A primal shiver traveled up my spine as I realized my only option was to walk inland. I collapsed and stared at the ground. I was alone, naked, with no memory of how I arrived here. I rubbed the last vestiges of sleep out of my eyes, stood up, and clambered over the dunes.
Blowing red sand stung my eyes and punctured my skin like needles. After hours of walking, the wind died. The vast desert grew silent. I wiped my face feverishly as the ground rumbled beneath my feet. A wall of sand that stretched as far as I could see thundered toward me like a herd of amorphous elephants.
Blood rushed to my head, my hands tingled. It tore up rock outcrops large and small, smoothed and filed them down as it blasted forward. I frantically ran in the opposite direction.
The mouth of a small cave underneath an outcropping appeared ahead of me. I dove into the inky hole. I hugged the wall and inched towards the back of the cave. Slime covered the walls. The blackness swallowed what tepid light sneaked into the cave. 
I sat against the glowing walls. Maybe insects of some kind had colonized them. The light show pulsed up and down from floor to ceiling. The sandstorm raged outside as rocks shattered and splintered. The cave shook as the storm poured over it. 
A schritching sound reverberated deep within the cave. I stared into the darkness, not daring to move. A whimper, like a lost puppy, floated out from the blackness. It echoed through the cave, getting louder as the schritching became desperate. The pulsing light in the walls sped up, in pace with the sound.
Outside, the storm broke and the overcast sky returned. A bit of light flowed into the cave. Eyes on the verge of crying glared at me, small moist eyes. Its head lolled against its shoulder, too big for its frail body. It strained wildly in my direction but fleshy protuberances locked it against the cave wall. 
I watched it transfixed, the grey lights on the walls arched above my head now, forming a weave of vein like supports for the cave. The creature was harmless enough, humanoid and locked to the wall. What evolutionary process could produce such a creature? 
Brief flashes of a lecture hall, writing something on a chalkboard about bones, insects, dates. I backed out of the cave, the creature was at the point of breaking its flesh chains. Its teeth were sharp, its eyes hungry. 
I stood outside the cave. Tried to catch my breath, calm my racing heart. Quiet moans and yelps drifted out of the cave. The air became still as the creature gave up. 
The landscape transitioned gradually from desert to craggy badlands. I rubbed another handful of sand out of my eyes as my right foot slipped and catapulted me over a hidden cliff edge. My arms flailed for a purchase, three of my fingers anchored into a divot and my foot locked into a small crevice. I pulled myself up and looked out over the cliff.
A vast field of crude huts stretched across the barren plain below. They had to be manmade, someone down there might know what was going on. I was elated at the prospect of talking to someone, just seeing another person would have satisfied me. I glimpsed a path that led from the cliff to the outskirts of the huts.
I followed the edge of the cliff towards the path. Giddy, twitchy energy flowed through me. The path was narrow and steep with parallel ruts running along it. Tall cairns stood off to the side, marking where the path twisted and turned. 
The city was claustrophobic and sweaty. The crude mud huts were covered in archaic symbols that didn't resemble any language I was familiar with. They were like something out of Africa but older than anything I'd ever seen in my travels. I ran my fingers across the scripts, my stomach lurched. 
Perhaps this was a dead city, an abandoned relic in these blasted lands. Something moved in my peripheral vision and I turned towards it. I recoiled violently from the creature that trotted out from behind a nearby adobe hut. 
It walked on all fours, head wrapped completely in thin bandages. A viscous red fluid stained the front of its bandaged head. Its body was black and sinuous, like a large hairless dog. Four long skeletal legs with far too many joints supported it. 
It paused and turned towards me. I passed out.
I awoke on a dirt floor in the dark amongst quiet murmuring. Looking towards the source of the sound I saw a group of naked people huddled in a ball. They were all grimy, shivering, and wide eyed. I spoke to them, my voice old and unfamiliar.
"Where are we?"
A woman sitting on the edge of the huddle eyed me cautiously, but gave no answer.
We were all naked, the ground cold. My mind screeched with stories of cannibals and cryptozoological horrors. Perhaps we were going to be sacrificed to an imaginary god? Or would it be quick, a slice here, a cut there, and a quick bloody death. 
One of the bandaged creatures entered and trotted over to me. Its legs bent in odd directions while its front legs resembled elongated hands, human hands. It smelled like an old corpse left out in the sun. A cold bony hand wrapped around my ankle.
I flailed in its grasp, fought, and twisted as it dragged me through the streets on my back. It paid no attention when I hit it or tried to pry its hand open. 
"Where the fuck you taking me!"
It glanced at me and raised its hand in a shushing gesture, guess it understood what I said.
"Where am I? What are you?" my head smacked against a rock. It continued forward without looking back again.
The creature navigated the twists and turns instinctively. We entered an open area in what I figured was the center of the city. Dozens of the creatures milled about. Many of them wore ornate headpieces embellished with something like tarnished gold. Black veins interlaced through many of their headdresses, as if the creatures' skin grew around them. Others affixed ornate rings to their many fingers. Some were naked like the one that dragged me here. All their heads were wrapped in red stained bandages.
It released me and gestured for me to stand in the center of the square. A creature from the back lobbed a pile of greasy leather clothes at me. None of the creatures wore anything other than jewelry. Where did they get these clothes? I dressed, their eyeless faces watching me.
A creature wearing an enormous headdress galloped out and stood on its haunches in front of me. It produced a blade blackened with rust, no not rust, dirty blood corroded the blade and left the sharp gleaming edge intact. It carried a maligned rodent in its other hand. It held the rodent onto a crack in the ground and gently cut it so black blood flowed onto the cobbles.
Tendrils shot out from a sandy crack and pierced the rodent. It was like a swarm of mosquitoes descending on a hapless animal that couldn't fend them off. It strained helplessly as the tendrils slithered deeper. A lumpy brick shaped cocoon with eyes replaced the rodent in a few moments. The creature licked the blade's edge clean and slid it back into the slot on its headdress. 
The dirt I walked on wanted to eat me alive! And perhaps keep me alive. What was left of the rodent vanished into the crack and filled it in like fleshy mortar. But how did these free living creatures survive? Perhaps they were in a symbiotic relationship with whatever lived in the dirt. 
The biology of this place kept throwing me for a loop and I still didn't know why I even cared about its biology. All I could recall is my name, Martin, and even that was a faint memory. 
Similar fleshy patches littered the square, pulsing rhythmically. For the first time, I was faced with something far worse than death.
Hundreds of the creatures circled the square. They crept along the ground as if prowling for something. I'd concluded by then that they were thinking animals, probably conscious. It was silent except for the cracking of their joints and quiet footfalls.
One veered out of the pack and approached me. It was smaller than the others. It stopped in front of me, got up on its haunches and gestured for me to kneel. I complied and the creature stroked my cheek. 
I fought the urge to jerk out of its reach. The creature embraced my head in its many jointed hands. I sat there, stuck in time. It released me abruptly and trotted away. The other creatures created an opening in the circle for it to leave. It gestured for me to follow.
The mesh of unending alleys and small streets terminated in a large piazza of sorts. In the center of the piazza stood a massive milk white gazebo that towered over me. My eyes skirted around the structure, unable to focus long on it. The creature tugged me towards it. 
The air vibrated around me as we approached. Swirling clouds formed out of the nothingness within the gazebo. They coalesced into a three dimensional image. A pure pulsing image of clean night skies shimmered with roiling clouds and waterspouts forming over blue waters. 
A torrent of memories and images in my head. Laughing students, long hours in the library, correcting hundreds of tests. A man, me, a face I couldn't recognize. On a beach, playing in the surf, sun. 
The image folded in on itself and faded away along with the memories in my head. I saw dirty huts and a broken cobbled road leading into dead lands. I fell to the ground and clutched my head. After a few moments the headache faded. I regained my composure and looked at the creature. 
"Do you have a name?"
The creature sat in front of me and wrote something in the dirt. I was surprised to see the word VEECH. 
"My name is Martin." 
Veech smothered out his name and trotted off.
"Wait, what's going on? Where are you going?"
Veech stopped, came slowly back to me and sat on his haunches. He cocked his head to the side like a bird. After a few uncomfortable minutes he scratched something in the sand.
I guide follow to big gate you decide.
"Decide what?"
He scratched out the words except the phrase you decide. He pointed at the ground, pointed at me, and sat back. I was as confused as ever. 
I followed Veech through the maze of streets and alleys. The city was large, far larger than I'd guessed. The only buildings I saw were the mud huts, none of which had any light coming from within. Veech slithered around corners and vanished into shadows. I could barely keep up. We ended up at the edge of the city on a jutting plateau of red rock. The drop was sheer and the wastes beyond stretched clear to the horizon. 
We walked through silent craggy badlands draped in tepid daylight. Night never fell and sleep never touched my eyes. Veech hardly looked back at me so I tapped him on the back. He stopped and without moving any other part of his body turn his head to look at me.
"Veech what are you?"
He sat up, clasped his hands together and looked at the sky and the ground. His words were crude and oddly shaped.
Like you.
"Like the same species? You understand me and write in English, what are you?"
Veech quickly wiped out the words and wrote sorry in the dirt. He ambled off on his many jointed legs and ignored any more of my requests for information. 
We veered towards a black smudge in the distance that reflected the faint light. The smudge became a black water lake leading into a sparse forest. Burnt husks of trees loomed over us with claw branches. The trunks seemed to breathe. Large fungus like growths opened and closed, exuding hot fetid air. Veech warned me away from them and walked towards the forest. 
The smell of old rot wafted from the lake which rippled with the consistency of coagulated blood. Veech sat on his haunches and watched me walk to the edge of the lake. I bent down to get a closer look at the strange water and recoiled as sharp odors invaded my nose. I backed away from the water towards Veech as he made his way into the forest.
Deep pools of black water were interspersed throughout the forest. Ahead, a small child sat calmly submerged up to his shoulders in a quiet pool. Shiny black hair framed a smooth white face. Eyes unblinking obsidian ovals. I pitied him, I was at the edge of his pool staring at my reflection in his eyes, they were the key. If I just moved a little bit closer.
The child mumbled something under his breath and lifted a sludge covered hand out of the water. I clasped the child's small hand in mine, slick and warm.
A familiar hand on the nape of my neck. Veech violently yanked me away from the child. The warm haze in my mind broke and I saw the child for what it really was. Its jaw unhinged like a snake. Out of its maw shot a thick searching tendril. Cracks opened in the boy's skin where smaller tendrils wriggled around, frantically searching.
Veech continued on. He'd often swivel his head around to watch me with his eyeless gaze, I didn't think he trusted me much after that. I walked close to him and distanced myself from any pools we passed. Obsidian eyes hungrily followed me from pool to pool as we passed through the forest. A high pitched hiss of anger from the boy marked our exit.
In the distance a red rock plateau rose out of the bed of a deep valley. Thick waves of heat smoldered and pulsed in the distance, distorting the view. At the top of the plateau was a piece of fabric blowing in the wind. A marker? Veech pointed at the plateau.
“Why do we have to go there, can't we go around?”
Veech slowly wrote in the dirt. 
Need direction central guide stone.
“So you just need to get our bearings? What's so special about that hunk of rock?”
Guides use it forever make vision large.
At the base of the plateau Veech latched onto the rock face and climbed, I followed suit. The rock was like stiff sponge between my fingers. It gave when it looked solid and broke and oozed when I grasped too tightly. The pungent odor of rot wafted off the rocks. We eventually reached a twisted trail to the top and followed it up.
At the opposite side of the plateau the blue fabric I'd seen in the distance was actually a creature. As if it sensed my thoughts he, it was definitely a he, craned his neck to look back at us. 
His face was a foamy blue color. Hair like wispy strands of dried seaweed with small shells and items affixed to long braids framed a cherubic face. His lack of eyes was the most striking feature, blue skin seamlessly filled in the space where his eyes should be. 
The slick panther like gait of the Blue Man unnerved me. He slid over to us and regarded Veech, sneered. 
"Brought fresh meat for the chopping pit I see," he said.
Veech stood between me and him. 
"We all started out as something else. Human or otherwise. Come with me and I'll show you a better path than this crawling worm can."
Veech raised his hands and drew in the air. His many knuckled hands contorted into strange shapes.
The Blue Man responded in kind "I too can speak in the ancient g'calte. But I follow none of your dead precepts guide."
Veech backed away, grabbed my hand, pulled me back with him. 
His voice resonated, like a broken record echoing in my skull. 
"You seek a gateway? I was like that once," he chuckled. "Gateways are an easy way out of these lands. But, if you are patient, you can find other paths to freedom."
I gave him my full attention. In fact I couldn't take my eyes off him.
What did I have to lose? The Blue Man exuded wrongness, like the boy in the pool. But his offer was intoxicating. What if Veech's path wasn't the only one? 
"What can this world offer other than slow death?" I said.
He snickered, his dry lips cracked. "I can show you, but you'll have to follow me," Veech had vanished.
I let him lead me down the plateau. I was a sleepwalker and the Blue Man was the light at the end of the tunnel. We passed by tall creatures on skinny twig legs that swayed in the breeze like plastic flamingos. Massive snake like creatures ate holes in screaming rock. Black trees with blood red fruit literally called out to me. 
The journey was punctuated by his watery smell. Over hills and sandy dunes I followed that smell. Never stopping, never getting anywhere. 
His unnatural voice pierced my reverie like a volley of arrows. 
"We're here. My home and personal collection"
I stood in the center of a large room. Faces carved with unnatural precision covered the walls. No, not carved, the faces twitched and wailed. The floor along the wall was lined with living statues writhing against their restraints. I'd backed into the corner of the room, animal fear clouded my brain, why had I followed this monster? My exposed hand brushed up against the wall. 
Unbelievable pain shot up my arm. I collapsed against the wall. I screamed, it was like acid being pumped into my body. 
The Blue Man's hot breath wafted into my nostrils. Like salt and dead fish.
"I'm a skin collector you see. I live in this choir of pain because it gives me pleasure," he took a step back. "You should have listened to Veech my friend," he strolled out of the building, humming to himself. 
Hours passed. This land, it consumed everything it touched, How could anything free living survive in such a hostile environment? The tendrils were deep inside, consuming and changing me. Through the crawling pain I fondly remembered a light coming at me from the end of a dark tunnel. The Blue Man's laugh was all that light promised. 
A hand gently caressed my thigh. I painfully wrenched away from the touch. Through my mental haze I saw Veech.
"Veech? Why did you let that thing do this to me?"
Veech shuddered and wrote in the sand. I struggled to read the words. I guide not force.
I sighed and let my let my chin rest on my chest. Veech edged closer to me, a small knife in his hand.
He sliced the tendrils holding me to the wall with surgical precision. I shivered as the parts already inside me slithered deeper into my body, away from the knife. The punctures closed shortly after. Growls, yelps, and screams erupted from the surrounding walls as he severed each one. 
The last tendril was cut and I fell to the ground clasping my gut in agony. Veech grabbed me by the armpit and dragged me out of the building. My veins were on fire and my skin was like burnt parchment. The terrible wailing followed us as we shambled into the wastes.
We collapsed in a cave a few miles away from the building. Veech rolled me onto my back and examined me by touch, the red stain on his bandaged head dripped worryingly. He wrote in the sand next to my head. 
Deep within you can do nothing pain fades.
I writhed on the floor. Vivid nightmares of a broken stone face oozing hot magma interrupted my sleep. It floated in the darkness of my mind's eye laughing at me.
I bolted into a sitting position. My skin was cool to the touch and the fever faded. Veech propped himself up against the wall and looked at me.
"What did he do to me, did he infect me with something?" I looked out towards the Blue Man's temple, could hear faint groans singing in the wind.
Veech wrote, scratched it out, wrote something else, scratched that out. He looked at me, clasped his head and shook it. I understood that reaction at any rate. 
Veech trotted out of the cave, looked cautiously around, and clambered down the broken hill towards an old beaten path. I was uneasy, my hands were flushed as if something twisted and swam within.
The wide desert Veech led us to was stagnant and unmoving. The wind blew hard but the sand was still, as if it were fossilized. Large sheets of cobweb clung to the dunes and billowed like ghostly palls. A darkened dirty twilight left little in the way of sightseeing. 
Veech led us to shallow caves that led into unknown gloom beneath the desert. Strange torches that burned with a dead blue light lined the walls of the cave. I picked up a stick as we walked and wrapped the top with greasy cobwebs to form a crude torch. 
I gaped when we exited the caves. We were in a massive canyon that ran through the heart of the desert. Colossal robed skeletons lined the walls of the canyon from top to bottom. Some held swords, others grimaced disapprovingly, still others prayed. The statues ran for miles against the canyon walls. 
Veech stopped and raised his hands above his head, performed an intricate set of gestures and touched his head to the ground.
"What's so special about these statues?"
Veech wrote Not statues.
I yelled down the canyon "Then what are they?"
Alive you me the land.
"You're not serious."
All alive all like you me nothing dies nothing ends.
A skeleton's hand shifted position. Each statue slowly changed position. They were stuck in slow time, living artifacts, a testament to a wholly inhuman world. 
Tepid darkness shrouded the desert above while billowing cobwebs that arched over the canyon attested to its long forgotten existence. Veech wrote in the sand We pass through desert to outer rim. 
I scratched my hand and the flesh tore away like vellum. I ripped more off to reveal broken red obsidian in the likeness of my hand. I could still move my fingers but the patch cracked and ground against itself like a knife on a chalkboard. I was shaking and couldn't stop.
Veech sat and watched. He made no move to touch me or give comfort. You become land and land becomes you.
Was this inevitable and unavoidable, this horrible change? 
The red rock crept up the tips of my fingers to my shoulder during the long journey through the canyon. Hopelessness gnawed at me, I should have listened to Veech, shouldn't have followed that damned Blue Man. 
Creeping paranoia that the Blue Man followed us invaded my mind. I'd look up and see a faint light following the lip of the canyon in our direction. I told Veech but he waved me away. He crept along purposefully and without hesitation, I didn't want to break his concentration.
The canyon terminated abruptly after a few days walk. The desert wastes opened up into a large tundra that stretched for as far as I could see. Rusty red marks dotted the ice sheet at regular intervals. 
Hand sized boxes were scattered around the canyon entrance. Each one contained a small fleshy human figure. They reminded me of mummies. I tried to pick one up but they wriggled about and gnashed their teeth at me.
"Why does the land take everything it touches?"
It tests, some pass some lose. I picked at my red obsidian arm, like a dirty scab. 
The icy plain they traveled across spoke in cold winds. The ground creaked and moaned at them as if they disturbed a horrible old man from a deep slumber with each step.
Veech occasionally stopped and swung his head in all directions before picking a new path. He looked back the way we'd come with increased frequency. We made no progress as Veech turned left, right, every way except straight. I grew increasingly uncomfortable because I'd never seen anything that fazed him in a noticeable way. I screwed up my nerve and turned my head.
Black many legged shapes on the horizon moved in halting bursts of speed like hungry spiders. Their glowing eyes tracked our movements. They bore down on us, matched our pace, flanked and blocked our escape. 
A powerful rush of air slammed into my back. A large blood red balloon careened wildly in the sky above out of nowhere. 
It swooped low and kept pace with us, some of the spidery creatures backed off. The Blue Man peeked out from the basket and flippantly offered his hand to us.
"What do you want!" I cried, still running.
"I want you! Your options are the mercy of the wolves or mine. I don't particularly like when something I own gets up and walks away."
A vicious cacophony of hoots and sharp growls erupted around us. I made a quick decision, the only one really. 
I leaped and caught the Blue Man's forearm. He was stunned by the red obsidian eating its way up my arm. He pulled me into the basket.
I frantically turned around and swung my arm over the basket. The wolves carried Veech away in their misshapen mouths. I screamed, pleaded for him to grab my arm. Veech struggled against the clutch of the wolves but to no avail. The balloon rose away from the fray.
I lunged at the Blue Man. Tried to reach for the rusty knob that controlled the balloon's elevation. Each time he effortlessly pushed me to the floor. I couldn't overpower him and he knew it. The wolves and Veech were a dying speck on the horizon.
"You fucker, we could've saved Veech if we tried."
"He chose his own fate—"
"No, you left him there to die"
He chuckled. "Nothing dies in these lands. No, far worse fates await those like your friend who succumb." 
I collapsed into myself. Ragged breath flowed in and out of my lungs, the human parts of me screamed. I glared at the Blue Man who sat opposite of me.
"Why did you save me?"
"I'm a fervent believer in my art and I keep what I collect," He stood and ran a finger across my arm as he walked to the edge of the basket to look out.
I reflexively curled my arm away from him. There was no recognizable flesh on it anymore, red obsidian sheathed it from fingertip to shoulder.
"In these lands you can become anything. I think that scares you," he said without looking at me. 
"Where are you taking me?"
"We're traveling to one of the scattered bastions of free flesh like us. we go to meet our people."
We lapsed into silence. The only movement on his part was to adjust the burner to correct our altitude. I stood, stretched my legs and surveyed the horizon. A towering vertigo of structures loomed ahead. 
The city violated all natural laws. It snaked up like a twisted spire from a rooted base with no regard for gravity or architecture. Bands of rubble between windowless dead buildings stretched into the sky. A massive wall that brushed the clouds braced the city on the far side. 
We were coming fast on a natural spike of stone with a platform on top. Giant rusty hooks rose out of the rocky outer edge of the platform. 
The Blue Man directed the balloon towards the hooks. The leading side of the basket was speared with enough force to throw me within inches of impalement. 
He climbed out and helped me over the edge of the basket. He pulled a long knife from his belt and cut the fibrous cords that connected the balloon to the basket. The balloon drifted and disappeared in the scabrous clouds. Going back was no longer an option. He kicked the basket a few times until it fell off the stone platform into the wastes below. 
"Are you going to tear that off your face or am I?" He said.
I stroked the dry papery flesh that flapped back and forth. I tore off the patch and touched the hard obsidian underneath. My fleshy fingers shivered. The rock was cold to the touch.
He smirked. "That thing's bothered me since you got on my balloon."
He skipped from stone to stone with no regard for the wastes below. He led me in a dizzying spiral up the snaking city. He'd often turn and chuckle knowingly at me. I'm sure if he could wink at me he would. 
"We're going to the top and then I'll decide if you're worth keeping," he said. As we climbed the living statues that comprised the city's inhabitants moaned and cried at us. The higher we went the more there were. I was close to becoming one myself. The thought amused me. 
At the top stood a large bleak building. The skin of the building pulsed like a tumor and dark purple veins sought purchase on the rocks. It was like the building grew upwards and pulled the city along with it. 
"We're entering a dangerous place, a place of pain, of worship," he said.
Massive pillars were arranged in a semicircle around the large empty room that made up the totality of the building's interior. On these pillars perched statues who twitched like they were having continuous seizures. 
The Blue Man walked to the center of the room and waved me over to his side. 
"Flesh mothers, who provide home and safety to those who survive the eating wastes, I bring a citizen for your approval," he bellowed.
The massive flesh mothers sauntered slowly out from the shadows. They formed a circle around us. Their flesh was twisted weirdly on frames that barely hinted at a previous existence as women. Their voices hummed and vibrated in unison in my head.
"Welcome, you bring one for us—"
"A statue perhaps? He still wears—"
"The clothes of a dead one—"
"Flesh of his old self—"
"Cleanse him and we will regard him."
The Blue Man let out a cry of joy, grabbed me by the hair and yanked. My scalp ripped off like paper. I stumbled backwards towards the entrance but he kept coming. He tore off the sleeve of my right arm and all the flesh with it. I tripped and fell backwards. He sat on top of me. Ripped with a smile on his face.
It was over quickly. He calmly walked back to the center of the room and left me sitting on the floor in a nest of papery flesh and clothes. 
Abject terror overcame reason. The room blurred. I rubbed my eyes but jerked my hands back in shock. My eyes were gone, in their place was smooth obsidian. I touched my skin, Only hard red obsidian from head to toe. I was naked again, a freak alone on the shore of a world that wanted to eat me alive. My knees curled into my chest.
Little cries and moans erupted from my lips for some time, I was too far gone to control it. The flesh mothers and the Blue Man let me wallow in their silence. 
I propped myself unsteadily on my left arm and watched a few pebbles crumble off and fall to the ground. I limped over to where the Blue Man stood. My old skin and clothes laid there like the left over effluence from a caterpillar's cocoon. 
I stood straight. I would not end up like Veech or the child in the forest. I would remain free.
"It is burnt rock and hewn bone now—"
"Much better—"
"Cleaner—"
"What does our new citizen wish?"
I opened and closed my mouth a few times and swallowed. My voice sounded like the innards of a smelter. 
"To leave this place, to go home, to wake up, to end this nightmare."
A resonating laugh penetrated me to the core. 
"We judge you unworthy—"
"Of our mercy—"
"One so weak as you—"
"Deserves only to languish for all time in despair."
I slumped, my joints cracked and groaned. The Blue Man grinned. 
"You have claimed this creature's flesh—"
"Rightfully—"
"We give you its existence—"
"You may do with it whatever you want—"
"Its weakness disgusts us."
I fell to my knees, covered my face and moaned. He bowed to the flesh mothers who retreated into the gloom. 
He firmly wrapped his hand around the back of my neck and headed for the entrance with me in his grasp, a dead and broken thing. It was no use fighting anymore. The flesh mother's condemnation echoed in my head, absolute and final. 
"I always keep what I collect." the Blue Man dragged me to the edge of the platform that formed the border around the flesh mother's temple. 
He tightened his grip and threw me against the ground, hard. I groaned as a new line of cracks formed across my face. the Blue Man kicked me, left a crater in my gut. 
His boot pressed against my neck. Salty breath licked my cheek.
"You're mine now, forever. I'll let the walls of my home eat you until there's nothing left. I'll chisel out what's left and cast it into the wind." 
Something in my neck snapped. 
"I always keep what I collect. You won't escape me again Red Man. No one ever escapes."
He turned his back to me and walked over to the edge to look out into the wastes. 
My head throbbed. I didn't want to stand again. I was a bag of bones, a forgotten pile of stone. I gritted my teeth at his smugness, his simple morality on collecting. I wanted to be like that, to have that inner strength to do anything necessary. What did I have to lose? Nothing could be worse than what he planned for me. 
Desperation drove me. A desperation to survive. I wasn't afraid of him anymore. I was afraid of the dangerous creature I would become to survive. I braced myself on my cracked arm and grinned at him.
He turned around and pursed his lips. He walked over and knelt in front of me. That's right you fucker, you have no idea what I am anymore, just a little bit closer. I tried to stand, small bits of rock crumbled off my cracked frame. 
He pushed me back to the ground. I laughed. I planted a knee on on the ground and he kicked my shoulder causing me to tumble onto my back. I stood and grinned at him.
"You almost had me there, you were so close. You offered me an easy out to this world and I almost took it, it would be so easy to fall asleep, slowly let the land eat me" I said. 
"You think because you had a stupid little epiphany you'll just be able to walk away from me now?" he licked his lips.
I took a step forward, the Blue Man stepped back. "I'm free. You sought to cow me before the flesh mothers. You failed," I inched closer to the Blue Man. This power within me was so natural, all I had to do was point and shoot and it would fix everything. 
"Veech failed to guide me because I wanted an easy way out of this hell. But you've let me become something stronger than what you intended, something more dangerous than you," I said.
The Blue Man's lips curled into a snarl. He didn't see how close to the ledge he was. I did. I embraced him and whispered in his ear, inhaled the salty fragrance of his hair.
"The wastes below sing to me, I can hear it now, can you?" I released him and gently pushed. He hovered in the air for a second, shock marring his features. He hit many platforms on his way down to the twisted hungry sands below. His screams of agony brought joy to my ears.
I descended the platforms. On one lay his tattered woven cloak. I ran the rough fabric between my fingers and draped it over my shoulders like a perverted war trophy.
Hanging over the edge of the platform was his sheathed knife. The blade reflected the light at odd angles like a broken prism. I strapped it around my thigh.
The howling of living statues followed me down the twisted spiral of the city. I roared at them and they lapsed into quiet twitching.
Long broken cobbles and old stone littered the base of the city. In the center of the mess sat a throbbing fleshy root on the same order of magnitude as a sequoia. I remembered visiting those forests as a child with my parents. Was that a memory or a fabrication, an errant thought perhaps?
My head throbbed, the memories became more painful each time. 
The wall that blocked my escape was taller than it looked from the balloon. I ran my hand along it and took in the grainy texture. At least a four day journey from bottom to top. Going around it wasn't an option, swirling mud sands surrounded the city, which explained why the balloon was the only way to get here.
One of the city's tendrils had made its way up the wall and acted as a brace. Thousands of capillaries branched out of it and spread across the wall like the skeleton of a leaf.
I hooked my foot into a crack, clasped a thick vein, and started my accent to the top.
Two days into the accent and the climb had become routine. Foot in, hand up, lock my fingers. Rocky fingers couldn't bend readily so I dug them into the wall like hooks, leaving small holes behind. The tips of my fingers were being filed into points.
I locked my fingers in tight as something yelled at me from below. I found a foothold and swung there looking down. Something was climbing after me, it moved quickly and was at most a day behind me.
It stopped. It yelled again, its voice unnaturally loud.
"The longer you run the worse it'll be for you!" it said.
It was the Blue Man. How strong he must be to fight his way out of the sand and catch up with me. I climbed faster.
I pulled myself onto the flattened top of the wall and looked out. In the distance, the dingy red clouds transformed into wild threats. Lightning arced in all directions, illuminating the gateways on the horizon. They formed a loose girdle along what Veech called the outer rim. They were massive, many orders of magnitude larger than the one Veech had shown me and hundreds of miles away. Black waters stretched out beyond the gateways. 
Below stretched a deep chasm that ran parallel to the wall, separating the city from the region beyond. Over the other side the distant figure of the Blue Man grew closer every passing moment. He wouldn't leave me alone, would never stop, until he owned me completely. I sat cross legged. 
I'd wait for him and finish this.
A silent day passed and then a dirty blue hand appeared followed by another. A naked body save torn pants and boots. A terrible grin, a hungry grin.
I stood and drew my knife. I hoped it wouldn't come to that but he was an irrational angry creature with simple goals.
"We can part ways here! Forget each other exist, there is more than enough land to lose ourselves in," I said.
He smiled, his mouth unnaturally large. "Was it not you boy who pushed me over the ledge, and stole my cloak and dagger? And now you speak of mercy?"
"Mercy for you, we can settle this peacefully."
"There is no peace for anyone in these lands, no rest, no food, no sleep. I always keep what I collect, that is my one law."
"Still on that eh? Look where that led you," I lowered my knife to my side. The Blue Man moved quickly.
I feinted right, slashed at his greedy hands. He grabbed the knife by the blade, pulled me into him and struck my left arm above the elbow.
I backed away, the knife slippery in my hand. A deep fracture had formed where he'd struck me. We circled each other, I was waiting for him to strike out again. I'd be ready this time. I waved him closer with my knife, grinned back at him.
He clenched his teeth, I braced myself. I stabbed towards his gut. The blade slid in to the hilt.
He laughed, grabbed my knife hand by the wrist and kicked my broken arm. It separated from my body right above my elbow leaving a ragged edge. It was like getting a tooth pulled at the dentist.
I clutched the jagged remains of my arm. The Blue Man threw my dismembered arm to the ground and advanced on me. I backed up to the ledge, my heels hanging over into the void.
"You're coming back with me, in one piece or a hundred, you're mine," he said.
I couldn't get a break. The chasm below was deep, I didn't think I could survive the fall in one piece. I took a step back.
I hung in the air for a second. The meaty hand of the Blue Man flashed out and clasped my arm in an iron grip.
"Now now, wouldn't want you to spoil yourself," he said.
I gritted my teeth at him and an odd sensation tingled behind my eyes. A finger twitched on my dismembered arm, the sharp gravel beneath it faint but present. I focused and it dragged itself forward. It brushed against something smooth, the hilt of the knife.
"You win, I'll come back with you," I said.
"Really? All that running and now you give up?" his grin spread from one side of his face to the other.
"Agree to one thing and I'm yours."
"Oh?"
I stabbed out, the knife slid cleanly into his exposed foot through cartilage and bone. He screamed and let me go. As I fell my dismembered arm faded from my mind, gone forever.
I spun and tumbled through the air and forced myself onto my stomach. A powerful updraft smacked into my face. I spun around until I faced the wall.
I pressed my arm to my side and directed my fall towards the wall. I had a few minutes before I hit the bottom.
I smashed into the wall and dug my hand into the pliable rock. I continued to fall as my sharpened fingers were filed to stumps. My arm vibrated, My fingers locked into the wall and my shoulder wrenched as it caught my rocky weight.
Miles above me the Blue Man peeked out over the wall at me. The blue smudge disappeared and reappeared. I had to be quick, if he could get up the wall he could certainly get down and he would be armed when he found me.
Cylindrical spires of rock jutted out of the darkness of the chasm. They formed a loose chain from the wall to the other side.
I tensed my legs and pushed off into the air. I slammed into one of the spires and my whole body vibrated. I slipped but my hand caught in a pit on the spire. A small moan erupted from the rock. The pit I'd dug my hand into had eyes and a mouth, I could see its fleshy lips trembling as I dug my fingers deep down its throat.
I jumped from spire to spire clasping the screaming rock. My remaining hand was near worn to the knuckles as I leaped to the opposite cliffs.
Between me and the looming gateways was a truly demented forest. The trees oozed pus and blood as they writhed around, stretching into the sky searching for the last little bit of light. Like the exposed veins of the earth forced from their protective flesh.
The roar of the Blue Man across the chasm made me tremble, he was coming and I could do nothing about it. I moved into the forest.
Strange channels and trails winded their way through the trees. I followed one in the direction of the powerful lightning strikes in the distance that marked the end of my journey.
I was sitting next to one of the fleshy trees when I heard something moving in my direction from the way I'd come. The trees moaned and flexed as it came closer.
The Blue Man stood about ten yards from me. I made myself invisible and small, just another rock in the forest. I wrapped my hand around a sharp stone and held it close to my chest, prepared to lash out if he came closer. I shivered with anticipation.
Footsteps moved in my direction, stopped, went further down the trail, stopped. I shifted my position, he walked further down the trail and kept going.
I opened my hand to drop the stone and it hung there from small tendrils poking out from the stubs of my fingers. I yanked the stone off and the tendrils stiffened.
I clasped the rock and pressed it against the ragged stump of my right arm. My shoulder vibrated and I let it go. The stone hung from my arm, attached to small tendrils. Veech's words came back to me. All alive all like you me nothing dies nothing ends. I laughed quietly.
I attached enough rocks to form a crude but functional arm. It had three thick fingers and weighed at least three times more than my lost arm. I affixed small pebbles to my broken fingers until my body wouldn't accept anymore. I was whole again.
I picked one last rock and broke it into sharp splinters. I affixed the largest and sharpest one on the back of my new hand.
The forest was silent except for the wet squelching of the trees. The lightning became more intense and woody saplings emerged from the stony ground and grass poked through clean dirt in clumps. I never thought I'd see grass again. It was alien, this life had the gall to spread and grow where no other life could.
The forests edge opened into a vast grassy plan. A cool wind swept across the plain and blew my cloak out behind me.
Sitting in my way was the Blue Man. He cleaned his teeth with his bloody blade.
"This ends now, I'm not yours. You can't force me to come back with you," I said.
He leaped to his feet. "Boy, I've followed you for over a thousand miles now, I'm not giving up now. We want the same thing."
"What?"
"I've lived in these lands for as long as I can remember, there is nothing here that I haven't seen, no flesh I haven't sampled. But you, you would be the biggest waste if I let you go and do what you want."
"I want freedom, the gateways will give me that, an out, I'm frustrated here, can't you understand that, I'm not of this world."
"We all started as something else, remember? Even now you begin to truly understand."
"How do you know what's best for me eh? All you want to do is make me one of your statues, a slave to your art," I brandished my new arm at him, gritted me teeth for the bloody struggle ahead.
He flashed his teeth at me and flung his knife into the grass. He held out his arms.
"It's your choice, you must suffer the consequences of your actions, from this point on I'll have no more say in what you do, It's all on your head now. But know this, I have you now and won't ever let you go."
Blood sprayed and gushed. I cut and tore at his raspy flesh until all that was left was ribbons. The soil soaked him up, convulsed and entombed him. From the mound sprung a small woody sapling. I kicked it and the ground moaned like I expected it to. 
The gateway stood at the top of a large craggy hill. It climbed forty stories high and shimmered pearls against the cloudy sky. I was close, the air hummed with new possibilities, as if the gateway waited specifically for me.
The air vibrated around me as the inside shimmered and coalesced into an image. The world in the gateway enveloped, welcomed, and enticed me.
I dropped to my knees and wondered what stayed my legs. I wrapped my cloak around myself to stave off the wind.
I shook my head, stared at the gateway, and looked back into the eating wastes. The human Martin was no more, a memory of a memory. I examined my hands, ran my fingertips against each other, the scrape of glassy stone against itself. I was broken but pure, reduced to what I was meant to be. I couldn't escape this thing I'd become.
The gateway was dark. I'd made my decision. Blood stained cloak blowing in the wind I descended the mountain and returned the way I came. My home, where I would never run away from anything again.
Those of us who choose to stay in these lands end up becoming the land.
***