They Are Many
A Cosmic Body Horror
It skims through the cosmos, brushing past meteorites in the star wastes. Turning sharply, it enters and grinds over the single blue planet’s atmosphere, sparking and burning as it tears through its first layers of sky.
It now dives through the bank of clouds like a bird of prey, fluttering its wings, which resemble rag-thin membranes cut into odd angles and pocked with holes. As it descends, its limbs grow and multiply. First, a handful of them appear, then a dozen more, branching out. Each new branch is smaller than the last, splitting off from the larger; eventually, they split like roots in the soil.
Its feet follow suit, building out as two forming pillars that end with rectangular slabs. The slabs wedge into the earth upon impact with such force that the hill is punched with a cratered hollow.
It is an angel, and it is many. Multitudes in one, built as one.
Kneeling and hunched, the angelic body rises, burnt and smoking from the fall. When it first moves, it becomes a chorus of many motions. Ribs bend outward, exposing the torso’s open beating heart that emits rays of light. Droplets of thick white fluid exude from countless holes perforating its grey husk. A single eye adorns the head, and the head splits at the crown into twin, horn-like ridges. The angel breathes in heavy, wet gulps, with an awful sound, more like retch than breath.
From the ridge, where it stands, a city sprawls into the horizon; it lies in the far distance, past the procession of valleys. Then, around it, deserts stretch out, barren of life. Here, in this place, the only living souls are the villagers in the valley below.
The angel turns its gaze upon them. The towering figure stands atop the hill, looking down. The angel's mouth now opens, crawling with hundreds of teeth; it opens vertically, towards its sternum, and it sings towards the villagers.
But no sound reaches anyone’s ears. Instead, the villagers’ teeth hurt, ache and crack, as invisible pressure bores deep in their bones. People fall to their knees, clutching their heads in agony, as the unearthly song befalls them.
Now the angel’s silhouette rises against the sun. It is winged and tattered, gliding towards the centre of the village where the old well draws the waters of life. Swirling clouds pull inward around the angelic figure, wrapping it like smoke in a kiln. Enfolded in that churning shroud, the angel slowly descends into the panicked crowd.
***
My name is Tobias, and I keep the village chronicle.
On that day, I stand at the edge of the square, watching this thing in our midst as it straightens up and stretches. Around me, others are just as terrified, unable to tell whether the entity is falling apart or still forming itself as it moves.
The creature’s limbs, or something akin to it, unbraid themselves, then reknit again, over and over. There are hundreds of them. Its eye is set high, on a head-shaped stalk, metres high. It casts its eye on us rapidly, searching, from one to another, as if looking for someone. Its chest is open, and it radiates strings of light, almost blinding, whoever it reaches. There is a muscle inside its chest… No, it’s a heart, beating. Two tattered rags, with shapes cut out, spread from its back, but they might be its wings.
It is far from any constant state, especially in motion; it lurches forward with jarring and disjointed movements, as if lapsing apart.
My mind refuses to believe what I see. I want to scream, but something doesn’t let me. A beast like this shouldn’t exist, yet it does.
I clutch my head along with the others, reeling from the pressure of its silent song. We all raise our voices in a prayer, as if without a choice, as if this is imposed on us. A prayer none of us knows, yet our lips are moving into its sounds.
Suddenly, it drives one of its hands forward, towards a rigid point, its eye finding an anchor. Even that gesture is strange, stuttering, as if reality itself were skipping frames. Its outstretched finger, a sharp dagger really, one amongst hundreds, singles out a woman in the crowd. She is young, younger than me. I will not mention her name; it is a matter of respect. You will understand later. I will name her the Chosen One, for now.
When pointed at, the woman collapses to her knees, trembling in wicked convulsions. It’s as though she is commanded, with no will of her own, and she can’t resist. Few try to help her or approach her, but they can’t flinch. Her mother and father are frozen behind with their facial expressions full of terror. She is dragged violently towards the entity by no visible hand, but mere will, bruising her back against the ground, causing dust to float about.
It hovers over her, now lower, her parents screaming. The branches, or the limbs, hold her, grab her, then they pull her upwards, in a sudden motion, swallowing the woman whole. Her parents are now on the verge of desperation, crying. She is inside, whole, in the ribcage, meeting its heart. The ribcage encloses and seals, the being stops for a moment, it doesn’t breathe anymore. A moment of silence follows, and she is spat out, all in some sort of sludge, sticky.
The beast shoots up in the sky, its work is done, and all the villagers’ eyes follow it, all of them scared. The Chosen One sobs; her parents are now released, and they cuddle her, cradle her, take her home.
I know what this means at this point, though I cannot say how. She has been chosen to be a vessel for something, and it will be strange.
***
The next day, the woman feels sick, her body stretches, and she refuses any food.
The days following are even worse; she vomits, and her parents tend to her. Each night, the villagers cower in their huts, whispering about the omen.
By the third day, everyone’s fears prove true. It happens in hideous silence. The woman’s body jerks on the bed, and flesh bulges out from her midsection as if hands are pushing from within. Her mother recoils, her father’s eyes are wide. They cannot look away from the unspeakable metamorphosis: her belly splits apart and a grotesque organ slithers out; it seems an external womb pulsing with life. White viscid fluid drips from it, puddling at her knees.
She gurgles in agony, as her form is no longer wholly human. The skin stretching, limbs bending at impossible angles. With a wet rip, her torso blossoms open, curling outward like spines of some nightmarish flower, and the thing inside her crawls free.
It is smaller than an angel but no less horrifying: a mass of slick grey flesh studded with ever-watching eyes and many dagger-tipped limbs. The woman collapses in dread and pain. At once, her frame is crushed and absorbed into the spawn’s glistening bulk, using the cord as a rope, tearing it off after the transmutation is done. The being is fully sated, for now.
Few onlookers enter the chamber, lured by the screams. They want to help, but a wave of madness immediately ripples through them. Some vomit, others scream incoherently at the sight of the creature now squirming before them.
A mother with her children peeks through the door, her two children suspended in panic, and she covers their eyes.
The angel’s new progeny flaps its pairs of wings and then howls, singing the song, raging. The few villagers surrounding the room fall dead from it, torn apart, and blood splatters the hut’s walls. The air is thick with the iron stench of blood.
The newly hatched spawn still drips with a white fluid. Having slaughtered those nearby with its song, it unfurls its wings fully, and with a single mighty flap, it spears through the blood-soaked ceiling into the air. The swirling clouds above part as the small horror launches itself towards the heavens.
Tobias stumbles to his knees and looks up, watching the abomination approaching the sky. Around him, those who remain alive are weeping and clutching their heads.
In a final act, the angel dives down, aiming at the ancient well at the centre of the square, the well that once held the village’s lifeblood. It lands and coils its body around the well’s rope and stone. The final screech follows, and it dives into the darkness of the well, hiding itself in its waters like a seed.
The scene shatters the last glimpses of sanity among the rest of the living villagers, but they persevere and live.
***
This is Tobias, again. I am the village’s chronicler. In the aftermath of the following weeks, no one chases or looks after the winged creature into the well. Or, should I say, no one dares to. It has gone silent, completely. Some believe it’s not there any more.
In the end, the well is the only source of our water, and we are forced to drink from it out of thirst. Many are resistant and reluctant to it, but we drink it, in the end, and the water seems clear and typical. There is nothing ill about it.
The only thing is that, night after night, I wake with strange thoughts in my head. And words, phrases, none of that I remember learning.
As the days pass, fear and despair give way to bliss, and we all begin leading the new chants we find composing, humming hymns that seem… liberating. Visions and voices guide us. I dream of a city of light and a voice that speaks from the water.
Slowly, a new faith takes root in our hearts. We believe that the angelic spawn carries a divine presence and that we have been chosen for something greater. Together, we gather by the well at dusk, whispering prayers of revelation.
In the end, we vow to carry this message beyond our valley, to spread the Word in honour of what has passed through our village.
And yet, every time the cup touches my teeth, I feel them ache… as if something old is still singing inside the water. Maybe it is just my imagination.
Third Eye Horror
© Maciej Sitko, 2025
All rights reserved.