Kinsmen

There was only one rule: don’t open the door.

I know not when it became a rule, nor who christened it. I cannot place its dictum upon the lips of another, nor do I know how this edict became as inflexibly adamantine within myself as that holy script penned by the very finger of God.

I am only aware that it is so. I have known for time immeasurable.

Lightless days and darker nights has made existence an enduring twilight. I cannot remember a time outside these walls or how I came to inhabit this labyrinthian abode of eternal blackness.

But one reprieve, one blessed boon, was bequeathed to me in the vastness of this enduring mausoleum of solitude: a vast storehouse of knowledge compiled in bewildering rows of shelves that stretch on in what seems an endless abyss.

This rude omniscience awakened within me a kinship to that race damned by God and made in His image, yet I cannot know, for amongst the treasures of this solitary hall, there is not one mirror.

Beyond my door something knocked with an unceasing repetition, drawing nearer with each passing day.

Then the door that shall not open coughed and choked in a plume of dust. In strode those of whose race knew I must belong. The sound of voices seemed a treasure to my ears. I recall then the sensation of taste for the first time. And hunger.

The door opened, but not by me. Eternity’s yoke slipped from its bondservant. The chains of that holy script no longer found hold upon my weary soul. I was loosed. Out from darkness strode I to greet my kinsmen to their abject horror. I was to them a nightmarish terror, and they to me the first morsels of an endless feast.