20210312

Day 2,377

The phrase "red sky at night, shepherd's delight" doesn't make sense to the younger generations any more. For them, the sky is always red and pulsating with hints of the Great One's gaze if it's a particularly clear day. They don't even know what proper sunlight looks like - they only know the mouth of the Great One.

I remember when the sky was blue and the ground didn't shoot up all around us as its jaws sealed shut, leaving gaps between teeth where the sun desperately tries to reach for us. A lot of people died in those first few years. Suicides at first, then starvation until we got the hang of farming the plaque-like fungus that grew at the base of every tooth.

I suppose in a way we are its tongue, sending down anything we can't eat in the hope that the Great One will accept it and not swallow us down instead. The younger generations don't even feel this fear - this is their normal and I hate it. I hate it but there's nothing else we can do.

Plenty of people have tried climbing up the teeth, thinking that the rest of the body must still be underground and there hasn't been any other movement since the mouth closed. The flying things that live on its upper palate usually get to them before they make it more than thirty feet up. Messy little monsters shred the poor buggers and shower our whole town in viscera.

For now, things are stable and nobody's come up with anything other than useless protective gear for climbing the teeth so we're all still stuck. We're stuck together though, and while we may be in the mouth of a vast and ancient being we're alive.

Some days even I forget that there's a world outside of here and I'm slowly forgetting to care.

It's probably for the best though.

Best to forget it all and rest.

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