I Let It In and It Took Everything - A Short Story Inspired by Loathe's Album
Albums as Short Stories #2
Foreword: Welcome back to another album turned short story. This time I’ve put something together for the British metalcore band Loathe and their flawless, post-metal album “I Let It In and It Took Everything.” This one took some weird turns, but I’m thrilled with how it turned out. Let me know what you guys think about it!
Song Recommendations
Best to listen whilst reading (all instrumental): Theme / 451 Days / A Sad Cartoon (Reprise)
My Personal Favourite: Is It Really You?
I Let It In and It Took Everything - A Short Story
It’s like waking up for the first time.
The other ships call through the celestial void like they are the new whale-song… bleak but serene… urgent but majestic… Considering the backdrop, the captain of the Charon III space station supposes they probably are the new equivalent… bending and shifting gently through a colourless nothingness. Swimming away from the death of their home.
Their cosmic call is one that seeks help, whether they know it or not. A plea for those who still care, to save their souls from Earth’s eruption, not just their bodies.
The captain of the Charon III watches as the escape shuttles begin to dock on the lower levels of his space station, painted afresh in the velvet lights of the landing bays. As much as the captain bets that the survivors are glad to be afforded salvation here… he wonders if perhaps their longing for this new mechanical world is more tarnishing to the reputation of the old one than the pillars of flames ever were.
Now it’s all about how one can modify themselves to become measurably better. How can humanity learn from its past mistakes. How can humanity’s home become a perfect, self-sustaining machine. How can humanity make things more convenient. How can humanity make them as convenient as possible. Which, when you really stress the last two words, doesn’t really sound like humanity any more.
The captain guesses he has the PURGE-8 Array to thank for that… a collective of the soundest minds, the most innovative intellects, responsible for taking humans from their doomed ecosystem to a cosmic utopia, yada, yada, yada. “A progressive cult,” the captain likes to call them. Or, when he is drunk enough and someone is willing to sit and listen, a “regressive” one.
It's said that if the captain has not told you his joke of the PURGE’s first 7 failed divisions, then you do not really know him at all.
The ship is on autopilot now, and the captain is sitting in one of the luxury bars on the station’s gravitational rings, eyes cast upon the inferno of Earth. Chunks of land are being spat out from the continents into the void… and the oceans have gone murky… the clouds red… All of the colours start to blend together like an unsure heat-map with each shot of whiskey the captain slams back.
All around him is a joyous roar, people trying to make the most of their new existence, tasting the daring nightlife of space. A couple of others try to bother him, some are even co-workers who have to see to all sorts of maintenance within the next hour, but the captain does not oblige a single one.
He cannot stop watching the implosion of the world… as he is terrified that to blink would to be to miss one of the greatest tragedies bestowed on man. He’s not so absorbed though that he can’t use the table’s interface to order another whiskey. When it’s eventually brought over, the captain finds he’s accidentally ordered two. A couple of eyes consider him jealously, but he just pours it all into one glass and goes back to admiring the destruction.
As the ring continues to rotate, it becomes harder to watch the misery, and instead easier to reflect upon the potential of the stars, that is, until PURGE’s neighbouring station obscures the view. Rotating around its outside is a bout of propaganda that the party-goers behind the captain briefly cheer for. The captain grunts at it instead, finishing his glass.
What the hell was the point of a cathedral amongst the stars anyway.
There was a time where the captain wasn’t so bitter towards faith, it’s what had got him this job after all, but that was before he learned all he now knew. PURGE wasn’t always as altruistic as they made themselves out to be. They were a business, after all, how could they be?
Someone slides into the seat next to the captain. Their eyes are lightyears away. They’re chewing something. They offer the captain some, in the process revealing what could potentially be considered futuristic tattoo, an implant branded by PURGE. The captain declines their advances, even when they are pushy about it. They are insistent that he only need chew for a second to be granted the peace he seeks, that PURGE approves of this intoxicant, but he scoffs and turns away. When they try to slip it into his drink, the captain splashes his whiskey into their eyes. He hopes that they are electric too, and that their vision will short-circuit, but unfortunately they become blinded the old fashioned way. Everyone grimaces at the captain but leaves him alone after that.
He orders another round.
In his own, quiet time, he considers what caving to faith would mean for him. It is tempting to believe that everything will be ok, that having faith in humanity will pay off and they will sail the stars for a happy eternity. Ever so tempting…
The stars are so pretty at this time… and now it will be this time until the day he dies.
The captain gets up, orders two more drinks, and then carries them outside the bar and into another large viewing area.
His head burns as he tries to count the number of stars scattered before him. Every time he loses track, the knot in his chest grows a little tighter.
One, two, three, four… five… six… seven…
Eight…
Nine…
Nine…
Fuck…
Ten?
No, he’s counted that one already. Ten, twelve, eleven… Has he counted that one too?
Despite his best efforts, it is impossible to read the constellations from this angle. There is no future painted amongst the stars but the one he carves for himself. Which sounds lovely, in theory, but it also means that others can manipulate that picture… get in his head… tell him to look in ways he otherwise never would have.
And if he isn’t to follow their predetermined patterns, then who is to say the one he finds for himself isn’t inherently biased either? He can’t trust anyone. He drains one of the drinks to keep his sight fuzzy. That’s better…
The captain is very suddenly overcome with the urge to plunge the lot of them into the blurry beyond and starts heading up to command centre.
It takes him a while to get there, but he manages. He’s been stationed on this ship for months in advance of the world’s implosion, so he knows it back to front by now, the only hassle on this journey is the other passengers who seem resolved on getting in his way and agitating him as he yells at them to move.
When he gets to the control room, there’s a team of ten already in there. They are all busying about their respective stations, with their commander in the middle. They look surprisingly jaunty, but you suppose that this is their first real day on the job, and that they are only at the start of their cycle.
When the commander sees the higher-ranked captain entering he salutes him. The captain shrugs it off and begins to tell the commander his plans, specifically leaving out the part where he knows that he’s spewing out a bad idea for the sake of “just seeing what happens. Who knows, maybe it will fill the endless pit in my head.” The commander can tell he’s drunk though, and likely suspects that left-out part. He is polite at first, telling the captain he should maybe go get some rest and that he can enact whatever he wants when his head clears up before their next cycle… but the captain is persistent.
Annoyingly, the commander is diligent, and sends out a call to PURGE, to ask if they approve of the captain’s decision. They obviously do not oblige. The commander shrugs and reiterates his previous recommendations.
The captain walks away, disgruntled… but does not return to his room, instead boarding one of the pods that can transfer him to PURGE’s floating cathedral. As the passengers are still growing accustomed to the freedom of space, this hour is still regarded as “night” on many of their biological clocks and, as such, the captain is the only one aboard the pod. It’s noiseless in its flight, once more giving the captain time to dread his existence.
Is it wrong of PURGE to endorse such a drastic switch in lifestyle? Or is it wrong of the captain to hate it, when they were only trying to help them survive?
The pod rummages as it enters PURGE’s man-made home planet. Through a little window in the back, the Charon III can be seen in most of its glory, its largeness unable to be effectively captured from this distance. Before leaving, the captain marvels at it for a moment. He hasn’t seen it like this since the day he left Earth.
There is splendour in this new home, it’s undeniable. The molten corpse of Earth spotlights it in stunning fashion.
In a quick flicker, a thought that barely grazes his brain, the captain wonders if he was the wrong one to let in. If perhaps the real invasion was him of PURGE, as opposed to PURGE of humanity.
But no, it must be PURGE.
They must have something in the air over this side… that must be what’s swaying him… either that or the propaganda is getting to him… one of the two… He needs to clear his mind.
The captain leaves his remaining drink behind on the pod, blinking and pinching his eyes to sober up. When he opens his eyes again, he half expects to see the truth staring right back at him, but instead it is the cathedral’s receptionist. Even they are adorned in the alluring mystique of PURGE, immaculate robes that drape daringly, borderline gothic, certainly eccentric. And yet, relatively tame in comparison to the shareholders and money-makers that reside deeper in the station.
The receptionist initially attempts to do away with the captain through their charming smile, but once they realise who they are trying to influence, the look dwindles. They instead put up no fight and guide the captain towards the back half of the reception’s expanse. An elevator with no rails starts to move underneath the captain’s feet, and he rises upwards.
When the elevator draws to a halt, he is in the grand hall of all PURGE’s greatest minds of fortune. They sit like mindless monkeys behind desks of large flashing lights, interacting with an interface that even the captain doesn’t understand to make their numbers go up and up. They all wear lukewarm, orange jumpsuits with bold grey letters running down their left side to spell PURGE-8 ARRAY. The solar system’s finest…
There is slightly more to the jumpsuits than the captain is willing to let on, flourishes of divine patterns and extravagant materials traipsing the body… but he ignores that. He knows the garments of a worker when he sees one.
The captain attempts to gain the attention of a few of the jumpsuit strangers before a booming voice ricochets through the room. At the furthest point, a desk of indulgent proportion whirls to face him. It slides along tracks on the ground until a man of red jumpsuit is directly next to the captain. The CEO. He’s too busy to reach out and shake the captain’s hand, so instead the captain pays it to a hologram stand-in.
And yet, his words are too real.
“Thank you for your help, Captain,” they say. “We never would have been able to complete the purge without your assistance,” they sputter, but quickly get over it, roaring good grace as their screen lights up and a shockwave of money is downloaded. “Business is better than ever.”
“I’m happy for you. I acutally had this idea to-”
“Why, be happy for the both of us. Not that you’ll see much of it,” he chortles grotesquely. “I’m joking, by the way. You’ll be compensated adequately… it just might take a little longer.”
The captain goes to tell the man about his idea to plunge humanity’s remains into the darkest depths of space for the sake of peace, but winces at those last words.
“Compensated? For what?”
“What else? Earth’s implosion.”
Is it really the truth, he wonders?
Has the captain been right all along? Right and wrong?
Is PURGE to blame just as much himself?
Were the feelings not for nothing?
“Who else would we have to thank but the man steering the ship, ey?” Now his hand does actually touch the captain, pushing him back. His deviation from his screen is all the proof the captain needs to know that he isn’t messing him around. “You kept something for them to watch in the sky. Kept them hoping, ey? Stopped them looking down whilst we sucked away the very soil from their feet, hey hey.”
“I was just doing my job.”
“Certainly were, Captain.”
It couldn’t be that he had fallen victim for it all along. There is no way. Except… no… that isn’t true… he is the manipulator, isn’t he? With his promise of steering them to a new land?
The captain is the one he, himself, had been fearing. He is the lie, the construct… the purge… the scourge… the church in the sky… the one who stole them from their home. Maybe he is wrong about the pull of the stars… and all humanity wants is object after object, and his hovering station was just the right one to bring them all here.
Perhaps they even knew that the world was doomed long before it was… and they simply didn’t care.
Does that mean… he is PURGE? That their baptism was thrust by his very fingertips?
One way or another, the faith of the foolish has been misdirected.
The captain watches numbly as the man in the red jumpsuit starts to retract from him. Is there still time to do something? To undo the hurt?
“There must be something we can do,” he pleads.
“Just keep doing what you’re doing and profits will… pun intended… skyrocket.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Then you need to be clearer with what you want.”
“Is there something we can do to get Earth back?”
The man in the red jumpsuit stops his retreat.
“Why the hell would we want to do that?” he asks.
“So we can return to it.”
The CEO’s eyes dart back and forth before he replays the same question…
“Why the hell would we want to do that?”
“It’s our home.”
“Not anymore.”
“But it could be. Surely with all this power and money we could do something to repair it.”
“Sounds expensive.” The CEO’s words sting. “You haven’t gone soft have you, Captain? I did fear this would happen when the others ascended.”
“Ascended?” The captain’s mind is in bits now… somehow the alcohol is catching up with him… although he doesn’t know how. His head is pounding with a regret that no toil could correct. “If nothing else we’ve descended. Look out the window. Does that look like a positive outcome to all of this?”
The man in the red jumpsuit swivels, but all he can see is his technicolour display of numbers going up and down before him. Although… he does mumble…
“I suppose not.” The CEO plants his finger into a button in the middle of his setup, sparking an intercom. “Can someone come take the captain away. My numbers have gone down since his cautiousness entered the room?” He lets go, then adds something else, the final thwarting of any chance the captain had to find peace. “Promote Commander Perses to his position immediately.”
Greed has finally absorbed beauty…
Hands appear on the ex-captain’s arms and he is pulled away from the CEO. The room grows hot. If nothing else was, then this is the death of Earth. Ignorance of a final, sad cry into the void.
The ex-captain does not resist the forces on him now. His heart dies as he is pulled from the sight of his home world… Does it find peace in knowing he never truly could have stopped this, that he was just a cog in an unbeatable machine? Or does it dread ever allowing itself to be a cog in the first place?
With each beat of his heart he sees another portion of another continent detonate. With each beat… he sees the life left behind… the grass… the mountains… the oceans… the majesty… The way nature seemed dominant to it all, even in the bleakest of times.
The ex-captain is not sure he’ll ever see the hues of Earth again, and so he does what little he can to find them in the whirlwind of chaos out the window. Once he has found a shred of each colour, he closes his eyes… and holds onto the thought. Perhaps memory is now the only way beauty can be preserved.
Maybe that is enough.
Maybe it isn’t.
But it doesn’t matter what he decides… it’s all that is left…
This is the way it is.
This is the way it shall be.
And so the men go back to their desks with their numbers.
And the residents continue to party until they must return to their own slog.
The new captain makes peace with his atrocities… for some time… before befalling an equal revelation.
And then, he too, is replaced.
The space station continues like this until it is rotten… and a new, bigger, shinier one is needed.
This current metal world looks upon the new station with delight, eventually invited in by an even newer captain of utmost resolve. And they love it… despite their pitiful hankerings to return to their home world… the Charon III.
But they don’t care enough to protest.
And so they continue to send themselves further from Earth’s remnants… bathing in the unknown allure of the stars until the end of time.
Thanks for checking this post out! I’ll have another one of these coming out soon.
They didn’t seem right sitting up the top (like I had them last time), so I thought I’d put my notes for this short story down here. It’s always so challenging to get everything I want into these pieces, and so sometimes they appear overcrowded, but I’m really happy with the ideas and imagery I managed to weave in this time around.
And, like last time, I’m going to finish this post by highly encouraging you to check out this band if you enjoyed the short story (or any of the music linked above).
Want to check out another one of these posts? Click below to see the short story I created for Reliqa’s masterpiece of an album, Eventide.
Eventide - A Short Story Inspired by Reliqa's Album
Foreword: Hey, I’m trying something new on here where I take albums that I really enjoy and convert them into short stories. I’m hoping people find my take on these albums interesting, but also find some new music that they might not have ever heard before.
What a story! I'm blown away by the way you can dump me right into the middle of this thing and somehow manage to get me out the other side. The premise is bold and bitter, if not terrifying in its implications... and somehow far too plausible for my liking. Still, you did an amazing job bringing this idea to life... and purging life while you were at it. What a trip!
Start listening to the Beatles, would ya?! After this dystopian nightmare I just want to live in an octopus's garden under the sea.