Rejects: A Hero Story

Eoni took a break from his scavenge to wipe a bloody bead of sweat from his sand-crusted brow. The gash across his forehead oozed a thin scarlet slash gushing down his right temple, dripping off of his face onto the desert-shrouded garbage pit. Dark streaks of dust streamed down his blackened cheeks like tears of coal. Casting a shadow across his sunken face, his parched, cracked lips. Thick globs of slummer grime seeped deep into the tattered rags hanging off of his lean body.

He glanced at the herd of Citizens seated in the dark pews of the Dome Church underground. Withered wood croaked beneath their hysterical bodies. Lifting their deflated minds from the murky depths of gritty sand beneath their aching feet. Shadows devoured their waxen faces. Blank eyes spread wide. Wandering. Pupils darting. Searching. Lost amongst the preachers raging babble.

A short, gelatinous man. Standing tall, atop an elevated pulpit. Strands of sweat surged down his leathery, sun-scorched face. Mouth agape towards the fluorescent bulbs beaming bright down upon the stage, illuminating the preening political act. A rabid show, cloaked beneath the sanctimonious mask of religion.

A thick snarl spread wide across his snout. Nostrils flared, puffing sand dust over his idle flock. Back, forth, his glaring shadow stalked, preyed. Looming, tormenting eyes, prowling, searching. Sharp teeth, chomping. Gnawing, gnashing. Slithering tongue. Darting in, out. Piercing. Prodding. Hunting for shackled, empty minds to devour.

His raspy voice, barking orders. Bushy, barbed brows bobbing up, down. Dry lips smacking. Waterless mouth, sand-stuffed, shouting nothing. A charlatan, demanding unquestioning obedience from the inanimate congregation. A stringless puppet spouting the Protectorate’s propaganda. Hollow words, filled with emptiness. Creeping. Crawling. Echoing through the gloomy chamber. Streaming out into the sweltering air. Squirming through Eoni’s ears. Strangling his mind.

A searing gust of wind ripped through the village, sending a cold shiver creeping up, twisting back down his spine. Eoni shuddered beneath the scalding Dezparatu sun flinging fire down upon the bristles of his shaved scalp. He blinked gritty dust from his hazy nebula green eyes and wrenched his mind back towards his scavenge in the deep depths of the junk pit below…