The Whisper of Pharmakeia: The Hunger That Devours
The Ancient Curse
Before the gods of men were named, a word was born in the shadows of Mount Olympus: Pharmakeia. It was not a word but a wound, a key to dominion carved in blood and bone. Priests of Apollo whispered it in fevered rituals, their tongues blistered by its power. Witches etched it into the skulls of their victims, binding souls to eternal torment. It promised healing but delivered chains, its sweetness a lie that burned through flesh and spirit.
Centuries later, the Book of Revelation screamed its warning: “By thy pharmakeia were all nations deceived.” (Revelation 18:23) Prophets clawed at their eyes, weeping of a time when poison would masquerade as salvation, when sorcery would cloak itself in white coats and sterile vials. Addiction would be its leash, and humanity would beg for its own enslavement. No one listened.
The Glass Abyss
In 2025, New Jericho City gleamed like a blade under neon skies. At its heart stood Elysium Labs, a pharmaceutical empire housed in a glass monolith that pulsed with cold light. Its billboards loomed over the city, flashing images of serene faces and the promise of Somnus: a single pill to erase pain, fear, and despair. “Live Free,” the ads whispered. Doctors prescribed it like communion wafers. Patients clutched their prescriptions like lifelines. But the streets told a different story: hollow-eyed men and women, trembling, clawing at their skin, whispering for more.
Somnus was no ordinary drug. It was a synthetic opiate, laced with something ancient, something alive. One dose melted agony into bliss. Two doses birthed a hunger that gnawed at the soul. By the third, users were no longer human, they were vessels, tethered to a will older than time. Elysium’s CEO, Elias Varn, smiled on talk shows, his teeth too white, his eyes black as oil. “Addiction is a myth,” he said, his voice smooth as venom. But those who met his gaze felt their skin crawl, as if something stared back from behind his eyes.
The Apothecary Eternal
Elias Varn was no man. In Thessalonica, he had been Niketas, the apothecary who walked free from witch trials as accusers choked on black bile. In Rome, he poisoned senators with elixirs that glowed like emeralds. In the opium dens of the 19th century, he peddled dreams that devoured minds. Now, in tailored suits and sterile boardrooms, he wore the mask of a healer. Around his neck hung obsidian beads, carved with runes no living tongue could speak. They clicked softly when he moved, a rhythm like a heartbeat from the void.
Elysium’s labs were his altar, its vials of Somnus pulsing with a faint green glow. The drug was not just addictive, it was sentient. It whispered to those who swallowed it, promising peace while weaving chains. Addicts dreamed of Elias, his voice a serpent’s hiss: “Take more, and you’ll be whole.” But their bodies betrayed them. Their skin grayed, their teeth sharpened into jagged points, and their veins glowed with something that wasn’t blood. Somnus didn’t just bind them, it remade them.
The Nurse’s Fall
Lila Carter was 27, a nurse in New Jericho’s overcrowded hospital. A car accident had left her with a shattered spine and pain that screamed through her nerves. Her doctor prescribed Somnus, calling it a miracle. The first dose was heaven: pain dissolved, fear vanished, and she floated in a sea of warmth. She went back to work, smiling for the first time in months.
But the second night, the pain returned, sharper, like knives twisting in her bones. She took another pill. The relief was fleeting, the hunger deeper. By the end of the week, she was swallowing three pills a day, her hands shaking as she hid in the hospital bathroom to dose. The hunger was alive, clawing at her insides, whispering: More.
At night, Elias appeared in her dreams. He stood in a void of writhing shadows, his obsidian beads glowing faintly. “You need me,” he said, his voice curling into her mind like smoke. “Surrender, and the pain will stop.” She woke screaming, her reflection unrecognizable: gaunt cheeks, eyes like pits, teeth sharp and wrong. She tried to quit, flushing her pills down the toilet. But her body revolted, sweat poured, her stomach churned, and her bones felt like they were splintering. She clawed through the hospital’s locked cabinets, sobbing as she swallowed stolen doses.
One night, she saw her arm in the moonlight. Her veins glowed green, pulsing like worms under her skin. She screamed, but the hunger drowned her voice. She wasn’t Lila anymore, she was Somnus’s creature.
The City’s Ruin
New Jericho was crumbling. Somnus flooded the streets, legal prescriptions and black-market deals feeding a plague of addiction. Emergency rooms overflowed with addicts, their bodies twitching, their mouths foaming green. Some tore at their own flesh, screaming about voices in their blood. Others vanished, leaving behind whispers of a man with black eyes who took them in the night.
A whistleblower, Dr. Sarah Kline, a chemist who’d worked on Somnus, contacted an underground journalist. She smuggled out a vial of the drug, its contents glowing like a dying star. “It’s not just an opiate,” she whispered, her hands trembling. “It’s alive. It rewrites your brain, binds you to him.” She described Elysium’s secret lab, where vats of Somnus pulsed like organs, fed by something that wasn’t human blood. Before she could publish her findings, her body was found in a dumpster, her veins glowing, her eyes carved out.
Father Anselm, a priest haunted by the city’s decay, followed Sarah’s trail to Elysium’s glass monolith. He broke into the lab at midnight, his cross heavy against his chest. Beneath the building, he found a chamber lined with obsidian. Vats of Somnus bubbled, their surfaces rippling with faces that screamed silently. On the walls, runes glowed red, spelling out a prophecy in ancient Greek: “Pharmakeia shall chain the nations, seduce with mercy, and devour with desire.
”Elias appeared, his shadow swallowing the light. “They choose this,” he said, his voice a low growl. “They beg for my chains.” Anselm raised his cross, but the air thickened, and the runes pulsed. He fled, but the whispers followed: “You cannot save them. They are mine.”
The Hunger’s End
Lila’s life unraveled. She lost her job, her apartment, her name. She lived in alleys, trading anything for Somnus. Her dreams were a prison: Elias stood over her, his beads clicking, his hands forcing pills into her mouth. Her body was a ruin, her skin cracked, her veins glowed like neon, and her teeth tore her lips when she spoke. She saw others like her, shambling through the streets, their bodies twisting into something less than human. One night, she followed a group of addicts to an abandoned warehouse, drawn by the promise of a free dose.
Inside, Elias waited. His eyes were black mirrors, reflecting their hunger. The addicts knelt, offering their arms for injections. Lila watched as their bodies convulsed, their skin splitting to reveal something writhing beneath. Elias smiled at her. “You’re ready,” he said. She ran, but the hunger dragged her back. She woke in a pool of her own blood, a needle in her arm, her veins burning green.
Father Anselm tried to burn Elysium Labs to the ground. He doused the chamber with gasoline, but the vats wouldn’t break. The fire roared, but Elias’s laughter echoed through the flames. The priest was found the next day, his body twisted, his veins glowing. The police called it an overdose.
The Eternal Hunger
Elysium Labs stands untouched, its glass cathedral gleaming. Somnus flows like a river, its glow lighting up pharmacies and back alleys. Addicts fill the streets, their bodies decaying, their souls chained to the whisper of Pharmakeia. Elias Varn walks among them, his obsidian beads clicking, his smile a promise of mercy that never comes.
Lila is gone, her name forgotten. She wanders New Jericho, a husk, her glowing veins a beacon for others. She sees children swallow Somnus, their eyes lighting up with false hope. She tries to scream, but her voice is a rasp, her teeth too sharp to form words. The hunger owns her.
The prophecy is fulfilled. Pharmakeia, cloaked in Big Pharma’s sterile white lies, has devoured the nations. Its elixirs are not cures but leashes, its promises not salvation but slavery. In every city, behind glowing ads and sterile counters, the whisper lives: “Swallow, and be free… or be mine.
”And Elias Varn, eternal and insatiable, watches from his glass throne, his beads clicking as the world kneels to its hunger.
The Hunger of Pharmakeia - The Poem
In shadows deep, where Olympus weeps,
A word was born to bind and creep:
Pharmakeia, hissed in ancient dread,
A curse to chain the living dead.
Its venom sweet, its promise sly,
It whispers healing, but you’ll die.
A word was born to bind and creep:
Pharmakeia, hissed in ancient dread,
A curse to chain the living dead.
Its venom sweet, its promise sly,
It whispers healing, but you’ll die.
Beneath the neon, New Jericho burns,
Elysium’s glass where the hunger turns.
Somnus glows in vials of green,
A serpent’s gift, a devil’s dream.
One pill to soothe, one dose to crave,
It carves your soul into its slave.
Elysium’s glass where the hunger turns.
Somnus glows in vials of green,
A serpent’s gift, a devil’s dream.
One pill to soothe, one dose to crave,
It carves your soul into its slave.
Lila, once whole, now cracks and fades,
Her veins aglow with emerald blades.
Her teeth grow sharp, her eyes like coal,
The hunger eats her fragile soul.
She claws for more, her screams in vain,
Each dose a link in Pharmakeia’s chain.
Her veins aglow with emerald blades.
Her teeth grow sharp, her eyes like coal,
The hunger eats her fragile soul.
She claws for more, her screams in vain,
Each dose a link in Pharmakeia’s chain.
Elias Varn, no man, no kin,
His black eyes gleam where nightmares spin.
His beads of stone, with runes that bite,
Click soft as death in endless night.
He walks through time, from witch’s pyre,
To labs of glass, his dark desire.
His black eyes gleam where nightmares spin.
His beads of stone, with runes that bite,
Click soft as death in endless night.
He walks through time, from witch’s pyre,
To labs of glass, his dark desire.
The city falls, its streets a tomb,
Where addicts writhe in glowing doom.
Their skin splits wide, their blood runs green,
Their voices scream what none have seen.
Somnus lives, it twists, it sings,
A parasite with phantom wings.
Where addicts writhe in glowing doom.
Their skin splits wide, their blood runs green,
Their voices scream what none have seen.
Somnus lives, it twists, it sings,
A parasite with phantom wings.
In dreams he comes, with silken lies,
“Swallow,” he purrs, “and pain will die.”
But pain returns, a jagged knife,
It carves your flesh, it steals your life.
Your bones will break, your heart will bend,
The hunger’s start is not its end.
“Swallow,” he purrs, “and pain will die.”
But pain returns, a jagged knife,
It carves your flesh, it steals your life.
Your bones will break, your heart will bend,
The hunger’s start is not its end.
Father Anselm, cross in hand,
Sees vats that pulse in cursed land.
Runes of blood on obsidian glow,
They speak of chains no man can know.
He lights the flame, but fires fail,
Elias laughs through smoke and wail.
Sees vats that pulse in cursed land.
Runes of blood on obsidian glow,
They speak of chains no man can know.
He lights the flame, but fires fail,
Elias laughs through smoke and wail.
The prophecy, in scripture’s breath,
Foretold this dance of drugs and death:
“By Pharmakeia, nations fall,
Deceived, enslaved, they heed its call.”
Big Pharma’s mask, so clean, so bright,
Hides ancient evil’s endless night.
Foretold this dance of drugs and death:
“By Pharmakeia, nations fall,
Deceived, enslaved, they heed its call.”
Big Pharma’s mask, so clean, so bright,
Hides ancient evil’s endless night.
Lila’s gone, a husk, a shell,
Her glowing veins a living hell.
She sees the young take Somnus’ vow,
Their eyes alight, their fates sealed now.
She tries to scream, but teeth too sharp
Tear lips to shreds in hunger’s harp.
Her glowing veins a living hell.
She sees the young take Somnus’ vow,
Their eyes alight, their fates sealed now.
She tries to scream, but teeth too sharp
Tear lips to shreds in hunger’s harp.
Beware the pill, its emerald gleam,
It’s not salvation, but a scream.
Each dose you take, each lie you trust,
Turns heart to ash, turns soul to dust.
Pharmakeia waits, its whisper near:
It’s not salvation, but a scream.
Each dose you take, each lie you trust,
Turns heart to ash, turns soul to dust.
Pharmakeia waits, its whisper near:
“Swallow, my love… and know true fear.”
