They tell us that the Gods live in the sky.
The Archons in their white-bone towers, high up on the Rachis Spine, preach that we are blessed. They say we are the chosen children, cradled in the arms of a celestial protector.
They lie.
I know the truth, because I work in the basement of the world. Down here, in the Tartarus Pits, the geology is soft. You don't need a diamond drill to break the ground; a sharpened piece of rebar will do. When you strike the tunnel walls, they don't chip—they bruise.
The air down here tastes like old pennies and sulfur. The rivers don't flow with water; they churn with boiling, crimson sludge.
We aren't citizens of a planet. We are maggots crawling on a corpse.
We are parasites living on the body of Typhon, a dead Titan floating in the cold silence of the void. We mine his flesh for food. We pump his blood for fuel. We carve our cities into his bones and pretend we are kings.
But the old miners whisper that Typhon isn't dead. They say he's just waiting. Waiting for the itch to become a pain. Waiting for the parasites to bite too deep.
Let the highborns play their politics in the clean air of the clouds. Let them think they own this world.
I know better. I can hear the heartbeat in the walls.
The God is waking up. And I'm hungry.