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Beat I: Bdelygma kataphronētikon/Scornful Stench.
Walking into the living room, Eved was instantly struck by a wave of intense nausea. He had been awoken from a deep sleep not by a sound, but by an intrusive, suffocating odor slipping beneath his bedroom door—a chaotic conflict between the cloying sweetness of cheap tallow candles burning by the dozen and the heavy scent of stagnant grave-dirt blooming from the shadows. Eved swallowed hard, the cold, metallic taste catching in his throat and forcing a dry cough from his lips. "What are you doing up so late, Mesharet?” Eved asked, his voice thick with sleep but laced with an undeniable edge of exhaustion.
Mesharet stood in the center of the room, surrounded by a dizzying constellation of flickering flames. Between the melting pools of wax lay split brimstone and old resins coating oxidized copper emblems. In invisible waves, a scornful stench rose from the floorboards, settling deep into the drywall.
Mesharet was moving in a frantic, erratic rhythm, their silhouette dancing grotesquely against the walls. They were singing in a breathless, hurried whisper, chanting syllables that felt heavy and misshapen, completely foreign to the quiet house. They walked in circles, scattering coarse rings of salt in specific, defensive perimeters around the threshold. Mesharet stopped mid-chant, turning like a startled animal toward Eved.
“Me? What are YOU doing?” Mesharet’s voice pitched high with a sudden, jarring panic. “You’re uncovered. You are completely unprepared, Eved, and from the looks of it, very vulnerable. You shouldn't be out of your room. It's dangerous out here tonight,” they exclaimed, genuine, trembling worry warping their features.
Eved rubbed his temples, his eyes stinging from the rising smoke. “Slow down, Mesharet. Just slow down. What are you talking about, and what is the meaning of all of... this?” He gestured vaguely to the macabre display on the floor, his mind struggling to bridge the gap between reality and his roommate's delusion.
“Well, the day of Malkam Baal Ha-Sippim,” Mesharet whispered, their eyes widening as they stepped closer, their hands twitching at their sides. “It is today, Eved. His hour nears us; it presses against the very glass of the windows, don’t you know this?” Mesharet asked worriedly.
It was a recurring nightmare, a cycle of madness that gripped Mesharet with increasing frequency as they bartered with shadows.
“Not this again,” Eved sighed, his voice dropping into a steady, unyielding tone of correction. “There is no lord of thresholds, Mesharet. You are building a fortress out of dust.”
“His name is Malkam, and his hour is tonight!” Mesharet snapped, panic flaring into anger. “The stars announce him now. He will demand entry, Eved, and he is moving through the streets even now.”
“Eved, are you even listening to me?” Mesharet pleaded, their voice cracking with a desperate, hollow loneliness as Eved calmly assessed the smoke and wondered how to get rid of the odor later. “Do you not wait for the Lord? If you don’t believe, then why do you always keep your sacred texts by your bedside? Why do you study the prophets? Who do you await if not Malkam?”
“Mesharet, listen to me,” Eved said, his steady faith anchoring his voice, refusing to rise to the frantic frequency of the room. “I await no one that you yet know, for I know the Lord will come sooner or later. No man knows the day nor the hour, only that He will arrive. That is whom I live eagerly awaiting—not a creature born of terror, but a different, invisible One who keeps me protected from this false threat you fear so much.”
“How could you say that?” Mesharet whispered, backing away into the ring of candles. “Have you no fear of what waits in the dark? Have you no concept of the threshold?”
“I’m going to sleep,” Eved said flatly, turning his back on the flickering madness. “Goodnight. Clear away this display before morning; I don't want the smoke staining the walls.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Mesharet muttered, already dropping back down to their knees, their fingers clawing into the salt.
Beat II: Antikathēmenos anomos/Iniquitous Intruder
That night, two distinct souls awaited their Master. One, representing the terrified, hardened heart of humanity, frantic to build salvation out of salt and ashes; the other, resting in the absolute assurance of truth. Both slept deeply within the fragile world of the living, and both were being watched over.
Mesharet, however, was observed by more than just an imaginary lord. A malevolent, ancient spirit of the outer dark watched them—a parasite feeding exclusively on those far beyond confusion, fully convinced of their own self-inflicted con.
The hours stretched quiet and heavy until cold sweat broke along Eved's collarbone. The air turned freezing in a matter of seconds. Then it came. Knock. Knock. Knock. A sharp, rhythmic vibration struck the bedroom window glass, three floors above the ground. Tap. Tap. Tap. Eved bolted upright, his instincts screaming as he looked toward the moonlight.
It was an optical nightmare, two contradictory images of one single being overlapping each other in a nauseating, visual vibration. One layer was a beautiful angel of seductive, blindingly attractive light. Its voice, when it hummed, was soft, warm, and utterly loving. It possessed beautiful, flawless skin, and majestic wings that practically invited a false sense of holiness. Its presence felt caring and bright, but it was an illusion—like the hypnotic, bioluminescent light of an anglerfish dangling in the deep sea. An aura of all that appeared good masked the structural horror that lay directly behind it.
Behind the light stood the truth: a terrible, disfigured humanoid entity, three meters tall. Its elongated limbs were impossibly stretched, thin as brittle bone, and its ash-colored skin wrapped tightly around a skeletal ribcage. Most terrifying of all was its head; lacking a mandible entirely, its long jaw unhinged far below human norms, stretching down to its mid-chest. The hollow void of its mouth was lined with sharp, foot-long teeth. Yet, despite its emaciated frame, the creature carried the staggering spiritual weight of beasts from the cataclysmic ages of Noah, and the terrifying strength of the ancient giants of David.
Eved saw only what was true. It was a creature of the night, a manifestation made purely from humanity’s falsified idea that there was anyone besides Yahweh who commanded the thresholds containing all that humanity knew. Eved panicked for a split second, his breath hitching in his dry throat as he looked upon an impossible being that presented itself with beautiful mirages, born of sin and the prideful fallen angel. He knew that the creature could snap his life in an instant if it so wished, but as it drifted closer, he noticed something—the entity was hesitating. It was keeping a strict, forced distance from Eved's bed, as if an invisible wall of pure force was keeping it at bay.
Eved, anchoring his soul back to what was true, forced his stern expression to return. He drew a deep breath of the freezing air, and in his slow, sing-song voice, with a sudden, overwhelming calmness and relief, he declared into the hollow mouth of the monster:
“Yahweh. Rafa. Elohim. Shaddai. Jireh. Adonai. Se manifestará.”
Beat III: Heis hōde nyn kataskēnoi/ One Dwells Here Now
The ancient names left Eved's lips like a sudden rush of white blood cells flooding an infected vein. Instantly, the true Presence manifested, revealing Himself as having been standing beside Eved all along. An immutable, never-ceasing authority flooded the room, dropping the atmospheric pressure so violently that the windowpanes groaned.
The presence alone was an absolute weight felt by the creature, the self-proclaimed god, Malkam Baal Ha-Sippim, Lord of Thresholds. It trembled within its overlapping layers of light, fully recognizing the ultimate authority of the One who had shown it mercy, allowing it to exist in the lower realms when it chose to follow Lucifer in his ancient fall. Malkam knew better than to bite the hand that tolerated its existence; it knew that it could not approach the servant whom the Lord protected, much less touch the hem of the divine veil.
Yet, Malkam did not vanish. Drawn by the corruption blooming in Mesharet's heart, it backward-drifted toward the shadows of the living room.
Mesharet, standing frozen in the hallway, had heard Eved’s low, rhythmic singing. Their skin prickled with a sharp, internal pain. They walked slowly toward Eved’s door, eyes wide and bloodshot.
“Did you hear that?” Mesharet asked, voice cracking with deep concern. “Some voice; it's ringing in my ear.”
“I was only declaring the true name,” said Eved, his voice perfectly steady. Though the monster had retreated, the malicious presence of a corrupted soul lingered, staining the air like heavy smoke.
Mesharet took a step backward, looking at the dark shapes twisting in the kitchen light. “It was Malkam, wasn’t it? We’re not alone, are we?”
“No, we’re not alone,” Eved replied gently, his eyes carrying profound sorrow. “The Lord is still here, and along with Him, His veil and good tidings over me—which I hope will spread to you, too.”
“Malkam is still here?!” Mesharet cried out, their frantic eyes scanning the ceiling. “Where is he? Where is my lord?”
Suddenly, the air in the room died. The flickering candle flames flattened completely against their wicks, turning a deep, burning white. Out of the mouth of Eved came a voice completely unlike his own—a sound that carried the terrifying, atomic weight of a silent vacuum, flattening the atmosphere and locking the room in absolute stillness. Eved surrendered his voice, allowing the true Lord to take control and address the broken creature before him.
“Thou art dwelling in evil, Mesharet,” the Lord spoke through Eved, the sound vibrating through the floorboards like a low, resonant frequency. “Eved waits for his Lord, just as you do. But thou dost expect me not. So whom dost thou await? And why, Mesharet, dost thou believe your salt or rotting dead shall drive away that which only I can grant the power to defeat?”
The divine voice completely arrested the room, paralyzing the hardening heart of Mesharet and preventing their pride from escaping the demanded authority. It filled the space with the lethal hum of an empty vacuum.
Mesharet dropped to their knees, their hands clawing at their ears. “Who are you?”
“Who art thou that awaitest a self-proclaimed lord of thresholds?” the voice returned, striking Mesharet’s mind not with volume, but with a terrifying, piercing clarity that bypassed their stubbornness, forcing the answers directly into their thoughts. “Who art thou, and who dost thou truly await if not the One who still awaiteth evermore?”
Mesharet gasped in terror. “Elohim? How can you, who stands entirely outside of time itself, be awaiting anyone?”
Through Eved’s eyes, a mourning warmth broke through the terrifying light. “I await thee, Mesharet. I wait for you to find what is true before you are lost. Verily I say unto thee, even now I prepare a place where thou mayest abide in heaven.”
“Again, how can you wait for me?” Mesharet’s voice rose, cracking into a desperate, unstable mixture of panic, anger, and deep-seated sadness. "Is this your pride? Why wait for someone you know is so low? Why prepare a place for someone who you know might never make it? Is it to mock me?"
“Can I not await in hopes that thou mightest choose to return home, instead of choosing only what thou hast been misled to praise?” The words carried the heavy weight of a confession, a call that had reached out to Mesharet a thousand times in the dark, commanding their hearing to find the true path.
“So it is in hopes that I—”
Mesharet’s voice was violently cut off. From the darkness of the living room, the overlapping layers of the self-proclaimed lord of thresholds surged forward, assuming the physical form Mesharet knew. The three-meter skeletal figure stepped directly into the room, preparing to pass through the rot and salt Mesharet had laid down.
The salt did not protect. It did not repel. The moment the creature’s leathery, pitch-black skin touched the white grains, the salt instantly bubbled and dissolved into a thick, boiling black sludge—the dead ink of sin. Malkam leaned over Mesharet, its unhinged jaw opening down to its chest, its one-foot-long sharp teeth clicking in a seductive, terrible whisper.
“He claims such things only to mock you,” Malkam whispered in a deeply comforting, seductive voice. “There awaits nothing for you from Him, for thou hast no worth to Yahweh. Settle instead for the peace I offer from my heart: money, success, health, and all things that appear good. Let my feet announce your peace.”
Beat IV: Ensarkoi diarrēgnymenoi/Incarnates Torn
Mesharet watched as Malkam stepped easily through the threshold, the salt turning into a black sludge reminiscent of the dead ink that covered their own heart. Their heart shook under the weight of the illusion, and a part of that ink hardened a fraction of their chest.
“But do you really bring good peace?” Mesharet wept, their voice escalating ever more in a spiral of negative emotion. “Look as the salt turns into the same ink that my heart is still covered in. You promised me years ago that soon my heart would be clean. When will it be cleaned? Are you supposed to clean it? Should I go to Yahweh who promises such great things?”
Malkam’s beautiful mask vibrated violently, his skeletal jaw snapping shut. “You are a servant unto me, Mesharet, and thou shalt not go to another! I alone guarantee a cleansing unto thy heart. What you speak is madness!”
“Is it madness?!” Mesharet’s voice fractured entirely into a chaotic, overlapping choir of panicked tones. Trapped between two irreconcilable realities, they shrieked at the room in heartbroken frustration: “IS IT?! IS IT?!”
Mesharet's mind began to physically shake, and his sight flickering between three entire realms: one of the ten million colors that we know, the other of the terrifying void of sinful ink, and the other of a narrow, seemingly impossible path that led to true peace. The infinite void experienced a violent electromagnetic pulse rippling through the overlapping dimensions all within Mesharet's own head. In a panic, he began to flicker in his eyes, infinitely shifting consciousness, in an impossible mind-breaking vibration ripping the soul apart, until it reached a lethal peak. The crazed mind shattered cleanly under the divine declaration of the Lord when he said “Wake”.
Mesharet’s posture calcified in an instant, their stubborn pride hardening into a rigid, petrified shape, its jaw locked permanently open in a silent echo of the monster's mask, tipped forward. The physical manifestation of the soul that refused to be saved.
By the command of the Lord, a fragile, weeping remnant of Mesharet's original soul was cleanly severed from that stone mask. Stripped of titles, false altars, and defensive walls, this small being, as commanded, awoke onto the narrow path next to Eved, gasping for its very first breath of truth.
The realms’ vibration slowed, settling into a flat, unyielding hum—the dead-air silence of a world that had met its reckoning. Malkam Baal Ha-Sippim vanished into the void, going to find another soul to call his Mesharet, his servant.
Eved did not speak. He only looked out toward the dawn breaking over the narrow path, his stern expression softening into a quiet, enduring peace as the final, prophetic weight of the threshold settled over the universe. Eved knew the truth that many chose to ignore: the world was living, yet most within it were already dead. Stepping forward, he left the broken ruins behind, letting the Lord guide his feet along the narrow path, ready for what next soul the Lord had for him to save, now with the new Mesharet ready to grow too.
Τὸ Ποίημα τοῦ τέλους
To Poiēma tou telous.
A Poem of Ends
He who has ears, let him hear and let him listen.
Hear this final song, this Warding call—
I, Chofsi Shomer, can offer no glad tidings,
Nor can I offer thine promised lands.
Only this final song, struck against the wall:
“Listen to advice and accept discipline,
and at the end you will be counted among the wise.”
Thus saith the Lord.
Take your breath;
Feel what enters.
Feel what leaves.
With each living breath,
Thou live again.
Even for you who awaitest not,
Even for you who awaitest all,
All is living,
Yet most live dead.
Some that die liveth still on end.
Through the dissonance
Between these men,
This warning I sing to thee,
So listen, this I plea:
“Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed.”
Leaders now present themselves as trusted men—
“Watch out for false prophets.
They come to you in sheep’s clothing,
But inwardly they are ferocious wolves.”
Watch not for what thy leaders offer thee.
Thus saith the Lord:
There is false witness on every land,
In every word, and every hand.
Thine leaders gamble thine fragile lives,
So turn thine eyes—
Thine eyes are turned upon the wrong chaos,
The breaking storms that leaders can prevent not.
Thou awaitest a peace your leaders will falsify.
They await only their next lie.
Whom can thou await if not me?
The One of good things,
The One of good peace,
The One who still awaiteth evermore.
Only one is right in this hollow world,
Only one brings day and holds true word.
Pay little mind to those who lead;
Thou canst await their promised peace—
It will not come, this I plead.
Thou must find what is real,
What is true within thee.
A void awaiteth you—
Let it not consume.
Awaitest not the leaders of the world,
Nor the peace that will not thrive.
Await He who calls to thee all thine life.
For if not Him thou do await,
Then whom, pray tell, dost thou await?
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