He gasps for breath, his throat dry, the world swimming around him in a blur of out-of-focus colours. Bloodshot eyes widen as a sea of tentacles surges towards his iris like sharks to a bloodbath. Around him the machine groans, clunking each murderous cog into the next, dragging flesh across flesh. Wet, grotesque straps of leathered hide slap against one another as the merry-go-round spins in its endless circle.

The chimes call, and with clumsy hands he pushes himself upright, gasping at the sky. The sun slices the darkness with its burning touch. Julian shields his eyes and collapses to the ground in a mess of sagging skin and marrowless bones.

He takes a breath, a gulp of air, tasting it. His dry lips smack together with exhausted effort. He closes his tired eyes and mumbles words meant for someone else’s ears, not ours.

The light is cast out and four figures perch among the ruined buildings, watching as the light dies. Wings of a beast beat, hurricanes rise, tsunamis crash, the earth quakes and cracks. His eyes open and he rises to his feet as if a lever had been pulled and the board beneath him snapped upright.

He takes another laboured breath, a weak smile twitching across his lips, thick grey liquid seeping from the corners of his mouth and a trickle running from his nose. He drags the back of his hand across it and spits into the decaying world before him.

“All this, for me?” Julian whispers as his eyes search the buildings, their presence now raw and true.

“You were given a chance!” one of them calls.

“You could’ve gone back into your hole!” another bellows.

“You should’ve proved to the sheep that your words were lies!” a third adds.

“Why?” he gasps, his smile growing wider with each moment.

“Because that’s what he asked! Why do you think you’re falling apart!” the last screams, his eyes, pools of emptiness.

The smile swims across Julian’s broken face, and his head falls back like a rag doll. He whispers words, lost on an endless road his mind traces like a pencil finding what’s hidden beneath.

“Did he say that?” one calls out as the four descend upon him.

“Tell me, dog, what did you say?” one of them roars as he thrusts Julian high into the air, the others closing around him.

His grin spreads as he gasps, “I said, is that what Father told you?”

The four find themselves torn away, thrown to the wind, their throats torn open and gushing rivers of red while limbs are ripped from their sockets.

Veins that had feasted upon the lives of others for eons now scream in agony, spilling pirouetting rivers of red that wash across and paint their decaying shells.

The whirlwind leaves their bodies strewn across the rubble, while the winged beast crouches at Julian’s feet, a snarl curling across his lips.

“N-No!” one of them calls.

He casts his ancient eyes over his children as his snarl softens. He tilts his head to the side.

“Forever is too long, have we not suffered enough?” he says as Julian bites down upon his throat.

A gushing sea of red erupts from the wound, washing over them in a river of crimson.

Cries soon turn to screams as decaying flesh crumbles to dust, and the river that was once lifeblood spirals into the air, leaving behind nothing but memories, lost and forgotten just as they are.