Hard Choices
05 Mar 2019Today’s prompt: “Pick a person, then ask yourself: What is the hardest choice this person has ever had to make?”
Why does someone become a leader of a cult dedicated to the overthrow of humanity and the destruction of the Earth by malicious entities from a dark, impossible realm?
Was he brainwashed? If so, by whom? He seems to be the one calling the shots. The one doing the brainwashing, if anything. Was he mesmerized by one of the Old Ones with hypnotic or zombifying powers? He seems in full control of his faculties. He’s certainly a charismatic leader. He’s attracted many fervent adherents to the worship of Cthulhu and his ilk. Or was he raised in the cult, growing up a believer? Perhaps making a series of small, daily choices to stay in the cult, but never really knowing anything other than that?
Or did he, as seems likely, make the choice one day to start worshipping the Old Ones and working to deliver the Earth into their tentacled grasp? Did he read the Book of Azathoth on a lark and become convinced to pledge his soul to the elder gods by signing his name in blood in its pages? Did he have a vision of one of the Old Ones, who called him, charged him with ushering in an era of blood for humanity and feasting for the elder gods?
What convinced him? Did disembodied voices whisper to him in the night, promising him power? Is he so convinced of his superiority that he thinks the rest of humanity deserves to die, but that the Old Ones will preserve him? Was he poisoned by dreams, his sleeping mind infiltrated by an elder god providing his subconscious with marching orders?
Or does he just relish his power over others? Does he enjoy barking orders at his underlings in the cult? Did something wreck his faith in humanity? Abuse, perhaps? What could make him want to watch cities burn and crowds be devoured? Does he enjoy the pain of others? No, it doesn’t seem like that. You see no gleam of pleasure in his eye at what he does, nor a burning for revenge.
You’d like to think that the hardest choice he ever made was to slit your throat and draw a pentagram in your blood. But you know that’s not true. He did it so emotionlessly. There was nothing in his eyes when he drew his knife. Nothing that belied a tortured soul, a hint of doubt about what he was doing. No. You may never know his reasons for it, but his hardest choice came years ago, when he first pledged himself to the Old Ones. Everything since then has been inevitable.