(Link: Part 1)
And in the darkness, I began to feel out the waters of the pool; this subterranean lake that I may cleanse my grievous wounds. Slowly I entered into the waters, first a foot though the waters, so cold were as daggers piercing my skin. I must be intentional to enter these waters, though in this darkness I could not know if it were safe. Would I feel my way in, and suddenly find myself plunging into depths unknown? And the cold… it was like ice alive upon me, slowly swallowing me. Yet I understood that only in the waters was cleansing for my wounds – wounds that would fester and grow gangrenous to my utter destruction were they not cleansed.
Who inflicted these wounds upon me? You might ask. Was it the great dragon of the Abyss? Ah! Would that it were – for many battles I have fought with that raging beast of the depths – and even infection in wounds is the it’s dreadful spawn. But it was my well-beloved who harmed me… but nay, let us not now speak of it.
The water was so cold that it was a dreadful battle within myself to force me into it; to do so, one must put his own desires to the grave, and suffer a death like His… even as I made my decision – to put my own desires to death for the greater good, for health and salvation – I heard in the caverns about me a rumbling growl which echoed through corridors, bounced off of cavern walls and found its way into my ears. It was the beast!
The beast of the depths whose name was Man was a blind and vile enemy of all that is good. This terrible beast has power over flesh to control it, to suppress it, to harm it. The beast is obsessed with control, and will do so by any and every means, first by enticement (for Man is a succubus) but failing that by oppression. The beast in an amalgamation of humanity, and gains power in the synergy of human flesh – which men falsely call ‘unity.’
Every human alive has a piece of this beast within; when the will of our flesh combines with the collective, it is the power of this beast which rules by mob lust.
The beast was, doubtless, riled by my motion into the waters – for while it is blind, it can sense the power of the Kingdom of the Sun far above, and seeks at all cost to snuff it out. It has no pleasure in the worship of Light, but demands the worship of Man, for this beast considers itself the moral law, and all of its pleasures and desires to be laudable, and pursued at all cost – to the detriment of Truth, Honor, and Justice.
Accept every perversion and waywardness of man, and you strengthen the beast who looms over us all. Reject those desires of the flesh, and it will seek to oppress or destroy you.
Any who pursue the way of righteousness will be attacked by Man… and I had now called its attention to myself. Yet the work wasn’t done, and I stood barely in the water; this immersion was opposed to the will of my flesh, and so contrary to the morality of Man. I sought cleansing from that which is wrong, this too provokes its ire.
Knowing now that the beast could sense my motion into the kingdom of the Sun, and that it will now pursue me; my own carnal lusts agreeing with the beast must be destroyed – drown in the water that I may live by the Kingdom of the Sun in these dark caverns below.
And so hesitating no more, I did cast myself into the frigid waters, whose terrible cold pierced my flesh as with a thousand daggers and caused my bones to ache within me. So cold was the water that my chest constricted, forcing my lungs to burn for air. This plunge was like having the flesh flayed from my body, and being crucified where the lungs fill slowly with fluid.
But the waters washed over my wounds, cleansing them even as my scalp felt as though thorns pierced it, and my skull ached with the cold. I tumbled down in the depths of the waters, my body seizing, and stiffening as if dead, but the burning in my lungs only increased, and so I forced my limbs into action.
Though each of my joints felt as though they were out of place, I pawed and kicked at the water that I may find my way back to the surface.
After a three minute struggle, my hand found a rock, which I desperately clung to, and began to climb, finally pulling myself out of the waters.
My flesh now flushed with a sense of warmth, as blood pumped into my skin to counter the terrible cold I had felt in the water.
Yet here… something new, for though I remained in this world of darkness in these caves deep below the world’s surface, yet somehow I now could see as though my eyes themselves were projecting light.
And it was now that I heard a terrible shriek – for the beast called Man, who had been roused to pursue me by my decision to deny its desires within myself – could sense the change in me… that the deed against it’s yearnings was accomplished in me. By my desire for cleansing, I had enraged Man who would now destroy me at all costs. It was drawing closer…
1 Peter 3:20-21
20 Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.
21 The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ:
Pnuematic Rain 