Story:A Meal with Sidian

This short story documents the events following a Vaikan IT worker's mysterious meeting with the Gomodd prophet, Sidian. As if the meeting itself was not both fascinating and terrifying, he soon after begins to succumb to Sidian's influence. It doesn't end well.

Days past
Grey. Grey and dull. Grey, dull and confined. As were all the workspaces in the tiny Rhodnin Technical Support facility on District 5 of Dhragah city, north-west Vrallhin, Ilion. But Leidn would have it no other way. Forty three years he had sat in his stall, taking calls, requisitions, inquiries and the occasional foul-mouthed rant by some random guy who couldn't get the newest episode of My Little Kentirlot on their AV Interface. Any person, alien or Vaikan, would probably lose their mind after so much of the same boring routine, small and enclosed cubicles and limited contact with people that didn't have some kind of technical problem or weren't slightly (for lack of a better word) insane, and D5 had plenty of them. Immigrants, drug-runners, asylum seekers and other scum would piled into the district by the hundreds. But Leidn powered through, with a good deal of success.

Leidn Hendr, 1st branch executive of Rhodnin IT Corp.'s Community Support team took the chaos and displeasure any mere mortal couldn't hope to withstand in his stride. He learned to control his emotions at a very young age, but more interestingly he seemed to be able to channel it into a pale charisma that often times helped resolve violent over-the-RCI conversations and make his job a little less mindbogglingly irritating. He was married, or at least, the equivalent of married in the bizarre "District 5...-ien" sub-culture of the already moderately bizarre Vrallhin region. Ok, let's just say he had a mate he lived with and was legally and morally obligated to support her for as long as they held the contract. Of course, intercourse was fairly common, at least more common than the usual Vaikan mating periods... so yeah, this was pretty much marriage. But, of course the "emotional control culture" still ran strong and what some cultures might call "love" wasn't a necessary part of the equation. But other than that, Leidn was as close to being happy as his people could be. Good work, good pay, good sex, good life.

And then they came. Though he wasn't big on galactic events, this was something he couldn't afford to ignore. Gomodd. That's what they were called. "The Holy Disciples of His Most Benevolent and Wise Vernietigen, Guardian and Father to All Life in the Universe" were a force to be reckoned with, according to all sources. Two Eteno fleets wiped-out by a single cruiser, they say. Worship a dead god from over fifty thousand years a go, they say. Commanded by some extragalactic warrior of unimaginable power, they say. Leidn called it a load of crap and tried to get on with his life, not wanting to worry about some far off menace that will probably be stamped out by the next quarter. But the moment he heard the word Vernietigen, that is when the... itching started. He put it out of his mind and ignored everything to do with these events. But he would grow to regret that decision.