Son of Carrion

There was a catastrophe on each street that he ran past, an apocalypse in every corner; all of it was ending, and all he could muster to think was, "How lovely."

He made it past the spiked walls, and over the fire-pit - and even through the acid baths which ran out of the mouth of the Ghoul King, whom he hadn't seen in years (and whom he certainly hadn't missed). In a brief moment of respite from the incessant time trials that must be completed, lest the house be overtaken, he felt a looseness, and then a complete ripping away - first a canine, and then, more rapidly each time, a closer, more centered tooth. They did not shatter and splinter as they had in the past, and it was not the result of an unstoppable grinding or crumbling, which was usually the case; rather, he pulled away any pressure from his tongue or his gums or his lips, and felt the shock as the teeth fell out, as if pulled by some sort of enamel magnet, or claimed by some unholy curse.

Slack-mouth and lost as he was, though whistling through the growing holes in his mouth, he breathed the words, "Have mercy on my darkness, lord; the company of lies and disaster that I keep, the burden of original failure with which I dine. I demand mercy for my wounds and plead for grace, as I've patiently been awaiting this armageddon - to end all in beauty and leaving the stones upturned . . . yet sneakily, so as to leave my depths beneath what was above. They will shout - oh, they will shout! Have mercy on my darkness; if i am to sing, give me song - if i am to run, fuel my legs past the agony."