God's Cancer Is Incurable

The gaze given by the gods is both a blessing and a curse. People who are looked at for too long forget that they ever had a human face. They sprout wings, tentacles, exoskeletons, extra mouths, and eyes. Every change is a mark left on their bodies by the gaze cast by the gods. They call it "the sign of divine favor" and "life transition". But no one asked you if you wanted to. Because it was never about you. It's about how someone higher up uses you as fuel. In this world, a rite of passage is a torture watched by the gods. Those who pass gain inhuman strength and become inhuman; those who fail to pass become outcasts, eating corpses in the cracks of the city, never satisfied. Every "adult" has a tree inside of him. Either dry or luxuriant. And Demian's tree grew black leaves. They are constantly decaying and constantly being reborn. He didn't know what it was. I don't know what this means, he is just still alive. And in this world, living itself is a thing worthy of being burned to death.