Chapter 0: Sacrifice...
Whether you outright accepted her offer or not, the pale, horned Goddess reaches out and gently grabs your hand.
Whether you outright accepted her offer or not, the pale, horned Goddess reaches out and gently grabs your hand.
Her black talons feel chilling to the touch. An itching sort of sensation. The coldness felt almost alive. It spreads like a rippling tide through you, sending a shiver throughout. You feel your form contract, as if you were being swallowed whole. The light of her soft presence, and that of the gloomy world around disappears in a fast, yet viscous swirl.
As the colors fade away into a whirlpool before your eyes, the last thing you think you see is a toothed smile upon the face of the Goddess.
You are now bound in complete darkness, distant noises screaming and howling in your ears. Words that were almost within reach to comprehend. After a short lulling, you feel an invisible force pressing itself against your body. As though trying to lift past you. You may try to flail your arms and legs, but there is no control in this vast emptiness. Soon, there is a faint light deep below, and you begin to see shadows pass by, long columns that stretch out from above. Who knows how far up they go. But one this is certain now, as you plummet between them towards the light.
You are falling.
A grey disc begins to take shape as you approach the center, your eyes catching stone before you make impact.
When you land, however, there is no pain as you would expect. In fact, you bounce like a rubber ball, rolling off the mossy stone flooring with a bubbly sound.
You are quickly joined by other humanoid shapes, similar to you, featureless, wispy, and confused, all falling down around you like droplets of white rain. There must've been at least a dozen others laying around there in this massive floating stone platform.
As you sit there trying to settle the spinning of your mind, trying understand what was going on, your eyes, not that you really have any, adjust to the dim light of the pale illuminating flowers scattered across the room. This piece of carved rock you were sitting on seemed to be affected by a mysterious force. A few of the massive pillars, having snapped off from the stone foundation, hovered silently above. They were covered by these glistening pale flowers. Like dangling lanterns. Even with their earnest glow, the darkness seemed to stretch out endlessly beyond the edges of the stone.
You begin to look around, grasping for anything that made any sort of sense. At least sense enough. And though you don't find much of significant description, you can't help but notice how old everything looked. Moss and white weeds, with these beds of glistening flowers blooming from them, grew from the cracks of the stone all around, practically tearing portions of the flooring apart. All this overgrowth and floral invasion, it was as though everything here hasn't been touched in many a year. Maybe never at all. The only real notable things were small plinths that were littered around the edges of the ceaseless chamber, some shattered and others whole. Out of what appeared to be 27, only 14 remained intact. There looked to be faint carvings upon them, but you are too far away to distinguish any sort of significance to them.
But would you even be able to tell, even if you were? You can't recall a language, yet you think with words. Or do you? Aside from active thoughts, any attempt to reach back for any sort of former memory is met with fuzzy spaces where they probably should exist.
However, before you can even begin to speak up to one of the other wispy strangers around you, or get up to a better look at the chamber, something rumbles at the center of the stone-etched platform, causing the whole of everything to shake and groan.
You are filled with a crippling feeling of an oddly familiar dread.
Suddenly, the pale light of the flowers warp and dim as a large shadow made itself known, curling inwards as though pulled by a magnet or sorts. What lay at the center of the room was like a monster out of a nightmare, a gangling beastly form with smoldering black eyes-- Eyes that stared with an unnerving coldness. Probably worst of all was how it greeted you. The hunched form dragged itself towards the closest pale wisp and presented them with a crooked, smile filled with jagged bony spines. Much like a beast upon a helpless, scared frozen prey. The creature lowered its great, tall body, it's hollow eyes seemed to pierce into their very soul. A faint whispering sound followed as it closely inspected them from this angle and that, sounding almost like a snickering laugh. Simply looking at the creepy monster made your mind reel and your thoughts crumble, your heart hammering with the instinct to run.
You can't imagine how horrible it must've felt to be that close to it.
After a moment, the accumulation of the incessant snickering, the nonsense of everything, and the maddening gaze, something cracked. A shrill scream pierced the room. The wisp, now clasping their head, scrambled to bolt away from the dark watcher. It was the last thing they did. This creature's face suddenly contorted into a savage frown at this sight, lunging like an arrow toward this unfortunate soul. Spearing them with a single hooked nail, the monster lifted the limp body high into the air and dropped the wisp into a maw of jagged teeth. You can hear bones and the sound of flesh popping as the teeth ground them between each bite, a slender tongue flicking in pleasure as the creature let out a sickening slurp, swallowing the remains for good.
It turns its eyes upon the rest of you and continued to smile, white blood dripping down its lip now.
It slowly shook its head, as though in warning, letting out another snicker.
Again, it choose another wisp and stepped up. You feel your heart sink as you anticipate the same fate. But as it opened its mouth wide over the stilled wisp, poised to repeat the same cruel feasting of the last, the monster suddenly reared back. It's mouth snapped shut and it gazed at the wisp.
A faint whispering can then be heard. A secret transaction between those two and those two alone.
A change of mind?
It seems so, as it nods in what appears to be approval.
A crackle of joints echo the space as it extends an boned arm, pointing first to them with a emaciated, decaying claw, then towards one of the plinths at the end of the platform. Then it moved on to another. Same thing. Then to another. Unfortunately, that next one was killed, though this time falling upon its knees, crying, and begging.
The order was random. It was almost like a game, on who would succumb to the dreadfulness and those who did not.
Each surviving wisp this creature visited seemed to have a look of understanding though, and with it, their wispy pale form changed slightly, gaining a noticeable amount of solidity as they walked to their respective plinth. Some didn't seem very different at all, but others grew vestiges of horns, flowing tails, and other strange things.
When it came to be your turn, the umbral, hollow eyes and terrible visage came close to you. Close enough to kiss. Though I'm sure there was no reason why you'd want to do that, unless you wished to test your luck -- And life. As it hovered around you, the strange whispers, though familiar by now, fill your mind with a stark loudness. The sounds were disgusting, almost like vile fingers digging into your brain and picking apart your very thoughts and privacy. Then, just when you feel like you can't take anymore, words begin to form in the wild, hissing sounds.
"Answer me. Why do you deserve to live? Why should I not eat you too?"
Hollow eyes stare down at you intently as ever, waiting for an answer.
But not very long. Suddenly, the mouth opens wide before you, a row of white-blood stained jagged teeth eclipsing your peripheral.
"Answer now."
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