"Would be better off going to the temple next time for medical treatment." I complain, no facts at all on mind. Just delusional thought as I somehow manage to make my way to the Academy's personal religious district. However slow my journey might be. Given the circumstances, though, it's a little surprising to hear that the school has accommodated this well to people's daily needs.
But that's the thing, the gods play such an important role in people's lives. And I doubt they can afford to just have temples all over the place to accommodate specific faith focuses. So it all must come here. Their blessings are certainly active in these parts... For everyone but me, who only seems to be getting curses right now.
Thunder strikes and I look up, watching as the rain falls.
It hammers away at me, the magic within more a painkiller than an exasperator. Either or, I find myself shifting from my slow wandering and going into a hurried job. The insignificant healing properties of such magic rich rain helping me move as much as it is instinct to get out of the rain. It's raining hard, too hard, even.
"At least I won't need a shower..." I manage to joke my wounds going away more now than they ever did in that damn hospital. My running slows down as I take it in, the way it's at least making me feel better. I can breathe now, properly, not labour on through it with despair. So I walk on, walk on and just go with it.
I travel the wet, puddling ground as the downpour only seems to get worse. The winds howl and much of it lashes at me from elsewhere in these strange skies. High above the clouds yet right below another load of them. It soaks me thoroughly, and I feel great. As great as a mangled bug can feel, anyway.
My claws flex with renewed strength, and I wash away what dried blood I can. Peeling away and dumping the rags that are nothing but trouble. It sets off some wounds, but it's an otherwise enjoyable sight. Watching so much of that yellow ick trail off of me like some special chemical.
Yet, as fragments of shell and dead, claying flesh come to sight as if it's curd in milk... I find myself wishing it was just blood getting washed away. Blood comes back in a way that's not bothersome. A scar forms over wounds like mine... At least, that's how it worked in Tobaballe, magic does so much to make me feel paranoid about reality that it's hard to say.
Soon, though, a small smile settles on my face. I'm almost done crossing the distance between the utter shit stye of a hospital and the temple I'm approaching. I'm properly approaching it, on the final path up to the door! The steps I need are decreasing.
So few remain, and I can finally seek some closure from the goddess who's been with me through so much. I might not have the bracelet right now, but, she should understand that easily. She can just be there for me like she was back in Tryhpeltzweig. The goddess who defied the laws of her Father to send me little messages to keep my mind positive. I could do with some of that, right now.
Yet, it seems the door is getting closed to stop the rain, and the rain only gets harder.
"Hey!" I call out to them, waving and repeating myself with a clear sense of hope. This is a temple, surely there's a degree of mercy and professionalism here nowhere else has? Surely a place of the gods is open to all without issue... I can at leat escape... I could at least feel safe here, right?
Yet...
"Go away, Bug." the priest at the door spits out, spitting at the last step and the door slams shut. Its decorations moving around with taunting gears as they lock tight. My curled fist bangs away at the metal, not doing anything to the religiously gaudy door.
"Hey! Let me in!" I call out through the increasingly aggressive rain, downright angry rain. Lightning strikes loudly behind me, making me flinch at just how powerful it was with its thunder. My banging comes to a stop, my next bang not even coming as I add my own water to the rain. I find myself so weak in the legs and I fall all the way back into the mud.
A sudden depression washes over me, almost drowning me as it plays back in my head. Me desperately trying to get into the building, hoping they'll at least let me in. Another lightning strike goes across the sky. And, be it divine sign or not, I see a simple bug in the shadows of the clouds. A spear of gold going right on through.
I break down crying fully, no concern at all for who might hear me. Through it all, a sigh manages its way through my lips as the falling rain tries to choke me... I sigh again, longing for simpler times as they flash in my eyes.
I pull myself up, looking at the temple on my knees as my arms shake away, "You can't... You're not allowed to... You're not supposed to do this... You can't do this..."
My whimpers go deathly silent as my last hopes wash away in the blood running from me. There will be no pity for me as I soak in the rain. I can't even pray for salvation and hope. The priests and priestesses won't let me...
I push my way up to my feet with my bug claws. My insectish mandibles chittering away as an unnatural, entological twitch goes through me. My brick-like feet, my osibindah feet drag in the mud. Heaving me along.
Like dragging canyons into the grass and mud.
What point is there in getting out of this rain...? What point is, was or will be there...? I deserve any problems I get from it. Any bad ailment it will encourage and so on. They're all right, I deserve it all. I'm just a bug...
A monster.