On the growing list of forbidden words:
auburn
apologetic
frantic
as soon as my/his/her head hits the pillow
finally
I was ____ when ____ happened.
cosmic
chortle/chortled
Thus I now present a very bad story:
.
The Answer
I was ready for them when they finally came — at least I thought I was. They pretended to be gentle and apologetic, but I saw through them. I knew where they wanted to take me. Sure enough, their masks soon dropped. They told me it was a safe place but I knew there were no safe places left. I told them what I had been whispered in the seventy tongues: that we had poisoned the clouds and mutilated God’s mouth, and that even the seat of mercy was turning against us. When I saw one of them chortle at me behind his hand, I lost it. I was frantic for the state of all the burning gaping hearts in hell with no answer, awaiting us as if we had anything that could help them. They surrounded me and one of them managed to stick me. My blood slowed and my limbs melted. I dropped down into myself like a pebble sinking into deep water. The vision began as soon as my head hit the pillow: I was being swallowed by a great auburn-scaled snake. It wound through jungles, cities, oceans, devouring all it could, and grew bigger and bigger until the very Earth was too small for it. It coiled through the cosmos, through the seven rivers of fire and the seven of hail, drew down the stars and terrorised the sun. And I saw that the world had been forsaken, that the throne of glory had finally withdrawn from our abominations, leaving the universe a dead machine, and that there would be no crystal waters for us, only the terrible second death that we ourselves had chosen.
