Issue 20, Page 8
Transcript
1: An elevator door starts to crumple and distort from beyond, small tentacles prying it open as the thorny, bony limbs scrape at the metal.
2: The Sedjet Creature bursts through the doors, tearing it apart from within the elevator shaft.
3: It stomps into the observation room, connected to the loading section of Julia’s holding cell. Julia stands against the glass, waiting.
4: The pair stand either side of the thick glass door. The idol has hunkered down, hissing and whining at Julia. Julia has her head down, casually.
Julia: I know… I know, I know, I know…
It hurts. All that noise, those strange voices screaming down from the sky, all around us, all day, every day, from every direction. Trapping us. Keeping us in these shapes.
We never notice it until we go without it, and now… it hurts so much…
Now that they KNOW they’ve been trapped in a day dream, there’s no way they can go back to it.
Lol the alt text.
My, my, how much you have *grown* …
… no, not you, Sedjet, the *window* that used to sit atop a “counter” that Julia could hide behind …
Hmmm, The way “Julia” is describing the radiation, sounds almost like an incantation, prayer, or constantly broadcast command…
Religion is usually used for a sense of community and togetherness. Maybe something the Black Idols are always seeking was supplanted by this sense of togetherness shared on earth for millennia by enlightened species prayer to “higher beings.” Religion was possibly bootstrapped by the original radiation sources, kinda like a reverse “Marker” from DeadSpace, but the prayer helped temper population expansion. The other races in the universe may not have ever believed in higher beings and planes, I can’t remember if the Martians mentioned anything about religion.
I know in our world as time has marched forward it seems people areso much more lonely and crying for community despite all the ability to connect to folks more then ever before. Possible commentary on this with how the transformed idols speak?
Obviously there are at least other planes of existence out there as we’ve been shown through Rhoda’s interactions, so maybe players in those planes interfered to sequester the black idol to earth and setup the radiation to keep it in check, least until someone gets sent far off into space that is, like Julia….
This page makes me think Julia will end up returning to her normal form. Firstly because the voices supposedly trap them anyway, and secondly because Sedjet is looking like a narrative sacrifice to help readers take the threat seriously.
But how is this going to work? I think there is going to be some recontextualization. Deeper secrets that make the strange voices bearable, or even appreciated. Rhoda probably knows those secrets.
The strange voices probably surround the solar system entirely. Given the presence of Black Idol here, maybe the entire system was meant to be a prison. But were the people of Earth ever meant to develop? What about the people of Mars?
It had been mentioned at least twice that Shankar Radiation is v. strong on Earth, specifically. Martians said so, so Mars is more quiet.
As for the origins? Who knows.
Maybe it’s a fluke.
Maybe it’s the Black *’s adaptation to the radiation.
Maybe it’s a semisuccessful execution of what the insectile aliens had intended, but only works well on Earth.
Maybe it’s sustained by astral beings to get tastier souls (bland mortal, or sheltered godshard?).
Maybe the Black * is deliberately doing this as a way to farm souls/minds without consuming civilizations (prolly not, astrals get the souls, usually).
And that’s just a couple ideas, could be anything.
ATM I’m interested in whether Specimen Sedjet can shapehift or not. The direction of tentacle spikes doesn’t count.