The Prometheans Demand Blood

“One more day of blood sacrifice,” Pierce chanted.

One more day.

Painted in congealed arterial spray and clotting fluids, with sweat streaking his jowls and plastering expensively styled hair to his skull, he shrieked the shibboleths and prayed that this be would the day. The day his god would reward his devotion by ending the perverse freedom of his reviled enemies, those who mocked the power and wisdom of the almighty progressive state.

“Say their names,” bayed the howling mob, and Pierce howled with them.

He cried out the required names. In those names he danced and emoted and performed until, unbidden, a wordless, incoherent wail, cognomen of 200 million nameless innocents whose blood had fed the twisted god, tore itself from his throat and continued until he tasted blood on his tongue and fell to the ground and had no more breath to scream with.

When he awoke, gasping for air, all that remained in his frenzied brain were the essential words, repeating in an echoing cacophony: One more day. One more day. One more day.