The daggers begin to soften as you back away. The slow heartbeat resumes, but so apart from your own racing heart it only scares you further.\n\nThe waves soothingly slice into sound. "Please come home," it says.\n\n"You have never known home," you quickly think.\n\n"This is home. This is always home. It is home for all. For always."\n\nIt //is// home. There is nowhere else to go.\n\nYour start to notice your ear is bleeding as it drips onto your shoulder. Its whisper is fatal, its temptation tempered in your mind like a hot blade through your eardrums.\n\nAt least you are too far to carry into the river.\n\nAt least.
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What is it?\n\nIt looks like the raw materials of a human being, and in the dark, its contents purveyed sloppily as if suddenly spilled, you cannot quite make it out at first —\n\nIt is a child.\n\n[[It //was// a child|start3]].
A baby, in fact. It reeks of life.\n\n[[You feel compelled to touch it|start3a]].\n\nBut then you notice [[the pool of blood from its gutted belly extending toward the river|start4]].
You step toward it, carefully, in the dark.\n\nIts features are imprecise. Its face is preserved, but with its vague post-life and stoic posture, it looks absolutely ancient.\n\nIts abdomen resembles the turbid chaos of roadkill but far more natural. It is already being repurposed. So close to the fish, fresh meat is difficult to come by.\n\nIts skin feels soft and hollow. It smells like an infestation, or a rebirth.\n\nIt is so beautiful.
You step on the carcass and leap forward.\n\nThere is no rush of water, no splash of displacement as you seek refuge from the sensory assault.\n\nYou have leaped into its mouth, and without body you seek, entirely, toward whom to consume next. There is infinite reach. \n\nYou have many appendages, and you seem so, so calming. \n\nPlease come home.
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The lapping of the river is stronger now, but you cannot really tell if it's just your focus, your fascination, with this wonderful offering before you.\n\nThe blood has dried in the past few hours, but the sting of metal is eerily fresh, and it extends to the river, almost deliberately, until at the threshold, where you see it is welcomed. \n\nThe river, you now notice, is the slightest shade of red; and to celebrate, there is the faintest reflection in the water of the [[blood moon|start5]].
The lapping of the waves continues to grow louder.\n\nThe river is still, even as the sound of the waves is sharpened into knives. You can hear every aspect of the assault. Your hands cupping your ears, you fall to your knees.\n\nThis child is something more, now.\n\nYou will be found dead by morning beside the carcass if you do not act.\n\n[[You jump in the river|start6]].\n\n[[You back away from the river|start7]].
It is probably far too dark to be walking out this far, and you know this, but the lapping of the waves has always seemed so calming, like coming home. There is the resemblance of rest in the slow crash of the riverbank that lends the night an air of attraction. \n\nIt is the closest thing to the ocean to you and everyone you know, but its resonance within you lets you know it is only the echo of a heartbeat.\n\n[[But then you see it.|start2]]