Sekhmet - Faith Arc (Patreon)

“The whole world was under our rule. Primitive nations of the eastern bassin, barely proficient with newly acquired bronze tools, bowed down to us as gods as we ruled them with an iron fist like one orders cattle around. Not a moment was without decadence for us, or suffering for our lessers. Such bliss was not to endure. It was a day of festivity like any other when she appeared.

From my own eyes, I saw her as she stood: tall, proud and strong. She leaned over our fortified walls like one would lean over a small parapet. Her skin, smooth and pleasing to the eye. Her slender feet were hundreds of paces long, leading to firm, strong legs that led all the way up to a sort of shifting fabric, its form changing depending on the mind of who viewed it. Her body was lean, sculpted with overtly defined muscles, barely hiding her strength within. Her visage of divine beauty displayed a steady piercing gaze. Sekhmet, we called her.

She was to be our end. Her voice strictly announced our fate: we had overstepped our morality, and had become a blight upon this world. Archonius and the council defied her, and sought to appeal the sentence. But, if you are reading this now, you should know things did not pan out as we intended. Her form grew tenfold as she laughed at our folly. I remember the folds of her sole as it came down over the capital’s temple, blotting the very light of the sun. Archonius himself was picked up, his cape precisely pinched between two elongated nails that could have simply squashed him had she desired. I remember as she dangled him over her head, her tongue extended like an unending red muscle. He fell into her, disappearing into the darkening abyss of her overgrown mouth. For a moment, in a flash, her head appeared surrounded in flames not unlike the sun, her head that of a lioness, smiling at us all.

I ran, like a coward, but I survived. Naught is left of our once great civilization. I came back only to witness ruins… and Sekhmet. Amidst the broken husk of our once unending capital, she stood, ordering new followers to create a society more just and orderly. She fed off their worship, growing ever stronger as we devoted ourselves to her. One such act of devotion was held once a week, as she stood upon a rebuilt plaza: her form stood tall, her arms spread outwards as our goddess bathed in the sun. Her long foot was barely contained by the available open space. Thousands of us flocked to it, caressing her flesh, kissing her skin and chanting for our salvation. Some even attempted to climb, finding purchase amidst the large indentations of her toe print, crying for divine salvation.

All this was decades ago now. My body is now old and broken. Sekhmet has disappeared, but not before leaving her worshippers with a statement: ‘Your kind hath wrought trouble on my world. Do not ever again dare to defy your position on the chains of existence. Know thy place, or I shall make it a certainty that you do.’ ” 

-Katernius, Records of Atlantean History And The Coming Of “Sekhmet”, Vol IV.