Luciana Centeno does work that is really hard to categorize, even for Bizarro. It seems on the surface like it’s dark fantasy until you look at the transgressive elements and the meditations on queer selfhood at the core of it. This piece and the novel whose world it comes from remind me of both its roots in anime and JRPGs but in that genre’s roots in Dunsany and the fragments of Lovecraft. I love the otherness of this piece and how it’s a mouthpiece for someone proud of that otherness.
Hellbound Goddess by Luciana Centeno
Fire trailed across Empress Akasha’s skin as she descended into the abyssal crater. Her
victims always told her she was destined for damnation, but she never knew it would take this
fucking long to fall. At least her body healed faster than she could burn. She only hoped the
impact when she hit the ground would be similarly mitigated. Her platinum blond hair battered
her face in the howling wind. It felt like she was caught in a cyclone. She was falling faster by
the second, yet it seemed to bring her no closer to her destination. She evoked her rebellious
impulses, and vantablack tendrils crept from her fingers like ribbon eels. Perhaps I can brace my
fall. She projected the tentacles towards the mist-shrouded depths below. They didn’t travel ten
feet before they crashed back into her body. No! How is that even possible?
She sighed and tried acceptance, yet it offered her no relief. Perhaps prayer would.
Please, Grandfather, don’t let me become disfigured. You wouldn’t want me to hate myself, would
you? She scrambled to shove her shrieking phobia into the corners of her unconscious. Her mind
regressed into an incoherent amalgam of her sniveling childhood years. She swore she would be
fine. She refused to look like one of the late Emperor’s mutilated ex-concubines. When she was
still his sex slave, he kept them in the court to scare her into submission. She was still plagued by
nightmares of their smashed-in faces and shattered teeth. No matter how many centuries passed
after she usurped him, she couldn’t forget those poor girls. Do not test the limits of my love. I
will cripple you and pose you in front of a mirror for all eternity. How would you ever love
yourself again? How would anyone else?
She closed her eyes, but she saw their mangled, drooling faces reflected in the darkness.
She could feel their saliva on her skin. Their vacant gaze bore into her. Wordless sentiments
lamented her failed utopia. I’m sorry I failed our dream. Humanity looks upon desolation and
sees a womb. Death is the only cure to their collective madness. Utopias are for little girls who
still see friends in livestock and kindness in their fathers. We are prisoners from birth. Our
screams were never meant to be heard. Men forged the world into a soundproof cell long ago.
Freedom only exists in my wasteland.
No! She worked too hard and long to overcome that fate. Hell, she was one nation away
from conquering the world. It couldn’t end like this. It was too cruel even for the malevolent
gods she called family. I am not a helpless child anymore. I ascended centuries ago. I’m the
Goddess of Ether. I’m Grandfather’s breath made manifest. I need not suffer this farce. Please,
Granddad, help your beloved grandbaby. Do not let me turn into one of those girls. Have I not
made you laugh with all my crazy genocides? You love genocide! It’s literally your favorite
thing!
She opened her serpentine lavender eyes and once again attempted to measure the
distance between herself and her destination. Even now, the features that comprised the bottom of the pit were indiscernible. Every inch of it was consumed in an unnatural mist. The sound of
ticking clocks and grinding machinery echoed from within. If there was magic in this
phenomenon that could damage her, she couldn’t detect it yet. That meant there was likely no
swift end to this horrific tedium. How many minutes had it been already? Forty-six? That was
just a guess really. It was the first number to come to mind, but her first guesses were often right.
Fuck! She suddenly realized she hadn’t considered what killed her in the first place. She
remembered her deadbeat father tossing her inside some fuck-ugly book. That must have done
the job somehow. She wasn’t sure why he hurt her, though. He was probably mad she helped
Grandad genocide his homeland. Goodie two-shoes. You know… now that I think of it, this kind
of feels like one of Grandfather’s pranks. Well, if he is behind it, he’ll become bored and set me
free soon. And with that thought, her head smashed into the bedrock below.
Glorious liberation… for about fifteen seconds.
A murder of screeching paper crows startled her awake, pecking at a faceless young girl’s
nude, frostbitten corpse. Akasha traced her hands across her face and breathed a sigh of relief.
Everything was intact. She stood and glanced over her surroundings, grimacing at the sight
before her. A snow-consumed wasteland sprawled as far as the eye could see. The tattered roofs
of brick homes and wooden sheds peeked from beneath the endless white. The upper half of a
dragon-shaped cathedral looked over them from above. Akasha’s crystalline palace towered
above all else, casting shadows across the frozen ruins. A crimson statue of her stood beneath it
in her untarnished imperial garden. Its immortal presence seemed to mock the ruins of her
nation’s capital. She turned her gaze to where the devoted blacksmith’s house once resided. All
that stood was a hill of smooth ice, clearer than glass. A flock of penguins belly-slid down the
desolate monument, landing beside the old smithing table. Glimmering pink fairies danced above
a corpse-littered campsite further down the way. No…
She floated closer to the cavalcade of dead bodies and saw seppuku wounds in their
armored stomachs. They each wore a sigil on their breastplate. It was a dragon, wings spread out
in a Y formation as it blotted out the sun. These are mine… They must have returned home only
to find Zerothul buried. She grimaced as she watched wild dogs rip into her soldiers’ flesh. She
stomped and shouted to scatter them, but they didn’t acknowledge her. The fairies were still
dancing like they hadn’t heard her either. Her bloody tears cascaded down her cheeks, sizzling as
if they were acid. Her flesh once again healed in the same instant it burned. She was an immortal
alone in an observational purgatory. She screamed to the fae, but they trailed off into the tundra
as if she never said a word. She scoffed and drifted towards her castle, tripping over a foreign
priest’s severed head in the process. She giggled to herself as a dull, familiar ache settled in her
chest.
Is this the peace we fought for?
A perfect wasteland frozen in time…
Thank you, Grandfather.
It’s beautiful.
Lucifer is the reluctant narrator and chronicler of sacred and infernal histories lost to time. He is King of the demonic realm, Abaddon, and the father of many beloved children. He is genderfluid and his pronouns are he/she/they. He currently wears the prickly trans femme flesh suit of his favorite simp, Luciana Centeno. (She/Her.) She lives in Long Island with her two girlfriends and a suspicious cat. She is a proud author of “bizarro fantasy,” but remains oblivious to the reality of the unhinged stories Lucifer inspires.
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