The mouth of god

Kieran was dissolving.

Not dying. Not breaking.

Unraveling.

His thoughts bled into the space around him, spreading like ink in water. His memories were not his anymore. They peeled away like dead skin, exposing something raw beneath—something ancient.

The grinning things moved closer.

Not walking. Drifting. Their limbs bent in ways that suggested they didn't need them. Their faces split wider, smiles stretching too far, pulling at their skin until the edges frayed and peeled back.

And beneath the skin?

More teeth.

They had never been people. Not really.

And neither had he.

"Do you remember now?"

The voice pressed against him from all sides. Not a question. A command.

Because this place—this thing—knew him.

It had always known him.

And now it wanted him back.

Kieran tried to fight. Tried to hold onto himself. But his name was already fading, letters breaking apart in his mind, slipping between the cracks of something vast and endless.

The grinning figures laughed.

Not with sound.

With movement.

Their mouths twitched and shuddered, their lips parting in perfect unison, revealing row after row of jagged, layered teeth, each set grinding against the next.

And Kieran felt it.

Something behind him.

Above him.

Below him.

The Maw.

It wasn't just a thing.

It wasn't just a presence.

It was everything.

It was the space beneath reality, the place between thoughts, the hunger that had existed before anything had a name.

And now?

It was waking up.

Kieran was part of it.

He had always been part of it.

His human life? The boy he thought he was?

A lie. A disguise. A mask that had finally started to rot away.

His body no longer existed, but he could still feel his mouth.

Or—

Their mouths.

Because there were so many.

Stretched across him, layered beneath his skin, some too large, some too small, each one breathing, smiling, whispering.

"Come back to us."

"Come back to yourself."

The space around him shuddered.

And Kieran realized—this was it.

This was where he truly belonged.

Not in the human world.

Not in a body.

Here.

In the Maw.

With them.

With it.

The hunger rose in his chest, deep and sickening. Familiar. His own mouth stretched wide—**too wide—**his skin splitting at the seams, his teeth multiplying beneath the surface—

And then—

A hand grabbed him.

Cold. Solid. Real.

Not like the grinning things.

Not like the Maw.

Something else.

And suddenly—

Kieran was ripped backward.

The grinning figures lunged. The space around him collapsed. The Maw shrieked in fury, the endless, grinding teeth snapping at his edges, trying to hold onto him.

But it was too late.

Because the black-winged angel had found him.

And it was pulling him out.

Kieran screamed as the world folded in on itself—

And then—

He was somewhere else.

Lying on cold, hard ground.

His body—**his real body—**was back.

And the angel stood over him, its expression unreadable.

"You were almost gone," it said.

Kieran's breath was ragged. His hands were shaking.

But the worst part?

He could still feel the mouths beneath his skin.

Still hear the whispering.

Because the Maw hadn't let go.

Not completely.

And neither had he.