Chariots of Flesh by Ezekiel Kincaid
One of the most terrifying things about a demon is sometimes you don’t know they are there.
Hophni lurked in the shadows. He craved a body. The darkness was his home, but it often bored him. There was no one to torment there. No one to inflect pain upon while he subsisted in the formless void. If he had flesh to inhabit, he could inflict greater suffering and torment. He could destroy and ravage. He grew tired of influencing. He wanted to possess.
“The most entertaining thing about humans,” Hophni would tell his legion. “Is they give you control, and they aren’t even aware of it. Their selfishness. Their hate. Their ignorance. Their sins and their blasphemies and abominations. Their heartless devouring of one another. These are our bridge. In their acts they think they find freedom, but in their acts, they find our chains.”
Hophni stared at the chains which were gorged through his skin. Hundreds of them pierced almost every inch of his demon hide. His eyes followed them to their last link. Each one was connected to a person who had given him control and influence.
He guided them all, like a satanic puppeteer, using them to accomplish his plan and entertain his desire for dominance.
Hophni smiled and his jagged, opaque teeth dripped with saliva. “My beautiful chariots of flesh.” He pulled on a chain, then yanked on another. Still another he guided off to the right.
Weeping and screams echoed forth. The cries of hurt and agony resounded in the void. More lives destroyed, and Hophni loved it.
Hophni couldn’t hold back the sensation. The craving was now too intense. He needed to find a body to possess. His lust for torment was unbridled.
He inspected his chains again.
“Who shall it be? Who shall become my chariot?”
Then Hophni saw him.
The man walked along a secluded street, the lamp from the light shining down on him. Hophni could smell the man’s heart. It was full of darkness and rage. Hate, sorrow, and bitterness bubbled forth. The man wanted to die.
Hophni took the chain in his hand and pulled. He drew the man closer and closer with each movement.
Then the man felt it. The entering of pure, unadulterated wickedness into his body. The last words he remembered hearing were, “My beautiful chariot of flesh. I will guide you into the bowels of darkness, where I will then shit your pathetic life out in pieces.”
Hophni took hold of the reigns and they began their descent.
Don’t want to miss anything on the site? Sign up for our newsletter HERE
Want more from frightful fiction? Just search below:
