All was right with the world
He glimpsed the world through one black eye; a slanted half-lidded shape that studied intently when open, despite moving very little.
It had been a great passing of time since he could last remember moving his body. The earth had become his body. Flesh fused with root and a rhythm that shook his bones.
Of course this was only a feeling, for when he stood up his ancient bones creaked and his dark ebony skin seemed to regain its elasticity.
His hand along the walls of the cave—his resting place—gliding whimsically but without pattern on the black stones.
Were one to look into the caverns open maw, one would (not) see but shadows, for his skin mimicked them perfectly.
Only the wetness of his eye shined of slight as it gazed cruelly from the darkness—completely black and focused as a lens.
He no longer had skin covering a majority of his face. As time moved and sanity lost its power, the ritual had begun and progressed.
It started with the removal of his lips—no tool more suited than sharpened stone heated over open flame—and teeth filed to a point; both due to poor upkeep and his habit of chewing on the gravel and debris scattered about his home.
Before long the geography of his face (would) drastically change each time he awoke from the long slumbers.
Much of the architecture beneath his skin had been revealed now. After his lips came his nose and then his cheeks all the way up to the bone.
The remaining skin raggedly sewn and stitched to bone, sinew, and muscle left him with a sickening grin that revealed the yellow, pointed teeth as a constant.
His jaw opened and he gasped: a yawn escaping the inside of his dry and cracked throat—a hellish groan, demonstrating all that was left of his communication skills.
He stretched his thin form and aching limbs, gazing thoughtfully at the light filtering about him. With a suddenness, a sharp pain struck the empty socket where his left eye had once been.
His hands yanked back the wild main of black hair that had grown to his thigh and, with practiced ease, his pointed nails reached in the parted lids and plucked a writhing black form from the hollow.
He gazed at it with his remaining eye. After so much time spent in this place he'd forgotten to consider this aspect of removing that particular eye. In this place, where there was an opening there was a life, and so it held true as his jaws opened once more and his teeth closed around the living thing with a loud "clack.”
He stood contemplating as he felt it lashing about all the way down to his stomach. Its sting was powerful, but its venom was useless on him after so long.
Had he lips, he would have smiled.
Instead, he moved at last to the opening of the cavern and gazed from the rock into the world around him. As was usual, little had changed.
Empty shells of buildings stood covered with local fauna and were long grown over. The stone pathways reclaimed by the earth. He'd mostly forgotten what had happened to this world as he stared at its gutted remains, but he knew that it made him happy, and that he was glad he'd made it this way.
The sound of wood creaking caught his attention and he turned to find a figure creeping beneath his perch.
Its body, covered by obtrusively sewn garments, made him only slightly aware of his own nudity. The creature beneath him was frozen; a look of shock and horror on its face. It took some time before he remembered the name of the creature.
"Human," he said, but it came out as more of a guttural groan due to his lack of lips.
With this sound the creature began to slowly back away. He sighed inwardly having expected this. Swiftly he was upon the other, rending flesh and parting skin. He tore at the thing with a swift savageness that gave it little time to make its screeching noises.
It was not long before a sudden silence fell, but for the wet sloshing sound of his chewing. When he had finished, he wandered toward the river, took his fill of its contents, and returned to the shadows of his cave, settling to the floor.
His eye half-lidded as slowly he dozed off once more.
A Thought...
All was right with the world.