He did not care. Using both hands, he dragged himself to Motarn's feet, then began to climb.
The black mist on Motarn's surface was smooth, but its body was covered in folds and depressions. Those depressions were its mouths.
The middle-aged man crawled hand and foot into a crack half a person wide. The soul-flesh inside immediately wrapped around his body and began frantically drawing out his life essence.
He could feel his vitality draining away, like sand through an hourglass, like the receding tide. His body was growing cold, lighter, smaller.
He smiled. He had waited decades for this moment!
"There's an open mouth here! Send me in first!" he shouted to the people outside, but his voice was swallowed by the black mist and did not carry out.
The people outside could not see him. All they could see were the cracks on Motarn's body being plugged one after another, then closing one after another.
Some people began to panic. They feared there would not be enough mouths, feared their turn would never come.
They began climbing higher, squeezing toward the cracks that had not yet been plugged.
A group of ulcerated women supported one another as they squeezed into clusters of tiny, densely packed fissures.
Those fissures were too small, no thicker than fingers, unable to fit even one person. But they did not care.
They pushed in their fingers, their toes, pressed their ulcerated ears against them, brought their pus-dripping mouths close.
Those mouths could not swallow them whole, but they could swallow parts of them.
They were willing. They were willing to dismantle themselves into pieces and feed themselves to Motarn bit by bit.
An old woman stuffed her left hand into a narrow crack. Soul-flesh wrapped around her wrist and began draining her vitality.