The Day That Reality Went Away
Dunsapie Loch, near the top of Arthur’s Seat
Barely eight hours had passed since the ghostly pipe band had led the spellbound procession up to Dunsapie Loch before dropping into heaps of bones on the ground, lifeless once more.
What was normally an idyllic setting, looking like the countryside in the middle of a city, was filled with hundreds of worshipers.
The young and the old, infirm and fit, stood side by side all night unaware of the bitter wind howling past them. Cripples had risen from their wheelchairs or dropped their crutches, walking unaided, and if proof was required that she was a goddess that would have been all they’d needed. But none of them had even noticed what those around them were doing all they could think of was Morrigan and how much they loved her which she drew strength from, feeding on their faith like a vampire that feeds on blood. Even so, it was only enough to let her voice break free from her prison of igneous rock.
When she spoke she sounded desperately weak even so her words still echoed around the hill, “Is this paltry number all mine heralds canst summon? All those within the seven hills of power heed mine command: believe!” a gasp at the end showed that it had cost her nearly all of her remaining strength.
The insidious words flowed down deep inside Arthur’s Seat, the ley lines carrying the message to every living thing capable of understanding her within the seven hills.
In the surrounding streets vehicles screech to a halt as people of Celtic descent stopped in their tracks, her command opening their eyes for the first time.
They all wondered how they could have been so stupid, how they’d never seen it before. It was so blindingly obvious: science was a subterfuge by an unseen devil. Their cars, phones and household electronics were all blasphemous devices used to steal their immortal souls, shiny trinkets to distract them from the only thing that mattered––the worship of Morrigan.
Their rage overflowed as they realised that they had been tricked into abandoning their beloved goddess for a world where no love was as great as that they felt for her.
Non-Celts couldn’t hear her voice in their heads and carried on with their day, oblivious to streets full of people frozen in rapture, then, blinking as one, her thrall suddenly awoke to their surroundings, seeing their new reality for the first time, mortal law had become inconsequential now that she, the only true lawgiver, had returned to save her people.
“Blasphemer!” a woman shouted as she hurled her phone at an African man who was texting as he walked. It hit him in the head so hard that it exploded, the side of his head caving in as it broke his neck. An old man leapt fifteen feet to drive his hand into the chest of a woman leaving a shop carrying a new toaster. He ripped her heart out and held it up triumphantly, blood still spurting from its arteries as she fell.
On their way to Arthur’s Seat the mob pulled down the statues of idolaters and burned houses of worship as they dragged any non-Celts they hadn’t killed with them, where they would sacrifice them in front of their goddess, to glorify her name.
Everything that happened was vital sustenance to Morrigan and as her new disciples started to arrive, the top of the hill above them split with a deep bass groan, venting noxious fumes, with an ear-shattering crack it pushed a cage of igneous rock to the surface, pebbles and stones raining down on those below, instead of trying to avoid the debris her followers acted in perfect synchronicity all dropping to one knee and chanting, “Mor-ri-gan, Mor-ri-gan, Mor-ri-gan,” in unison, the sound echoed for miles around as dogs all over the city howled at once.
The faith of tens of thousands flowed into her, the hilltop humming with power as the cage that had imprisoned her for ten centuries grew white hot and exploded with a deafening bang, lava raining down on the loch below.
Her followers burst into triumphant cheering and applause as chunks of lava hit the water, hissing and spitting as they disappeared beneath the surface in gouts of steam.
The supreme Celtic goddess of war stretched up from the fetal position like an unfolding flower, she opened her reptilian eyes, her teeth and bones faintly visible beneath the almost transparent blue flesh underneath her hood of a greenish hue, her nose had been lost in an ancient battle to one whom had just lived long enough to bitterly regret it.
As morning turned to afternoon more and more worshipers arrived, at first it was a trickle of the wide-eyed and love-struck, but it soon grew into a steady stream as they answered her call from miles around. Amongst them were the British soldiers sent to keep the peace before all but a handful of them had abandoned their weapons and joined her. When there was no more room at the top of the hill they made a rough encampment as near as they could get, spreading out all the way to the bottom.
Morrigan opened her mouth to speak to the assembled crowd as a helicopter buzzed low overhead, she looked at it puzzled, never having seen anything like it before, “Whatever bothersome mage didst cast their accursed toy into the skies to mocketh me shalt suffer untold agonies afore I crush their bones neath my boot,” she said, in an old form of Gaelic that nobody spoke but they all understood.
They cheered enthusiastically, ignoring the air traffic as more copters and drones circled the hill, she paused to listen to the sound of armoured vehicles in the distance, although she had no way of knowing what was approaching she could sense when a hostile force was on its way.
“Hear mine enemies as they approacheth; let them see a demonstration of mine power!” she said, pointing to the open top of the hill. It erupted, blowing a rectangular piece of igneous rock into the air, sending it tumbling end over end, shattering two military drones, and catching a third one a glancing blow, hurling it, spinning wildly, into the main rotor blade of the nearest helicopter which spiralled out of control. There was a deafening crash as it hit the park below, an acrid smell filling the air as a gout of black smoke from the burning wreckage rose to join the darkening clouds. All around the hill her army cheered in triumph.
“And now, mine valiant cattle,” Morrigan said, commanding immediate silence, as her troops massed around her, hanging on her every word, “mine march to destiny hath begun, and thee shalt build mine throne with the skulls of those who dareth to defy mine power.”
The roar of approval could be heard for miles around, sending a shiver down the spines of people who were her deadly enemies––they just didn’t know it… yet.