Crimson Court

Rebirth

A farmer with sun-blistered skin and peppery hair hesitantly lifts the mask to his face. His sunken cheeks speak of ill harvests, despite his cracked hands and broken nails. He sets the mask flush against his face, pressing it in with decisive motion. He trembles through the expressionless golden visage, as his shoulders contort forward and blood spills out from under the mask. Another man, whose face is marred by burns, does the same, unleashing a howl that dies into a whimper. Others follow suit, keeling forward in echoing anguish and they sputter and mince words of distress. Liliana holds it ahead of her, glancing over to Jocasta who weighs the mask with a trembling hand.

She slowly lifts it to her face, staring down the needle point that tapers into a star shaped base. The world around her vanishes into the darkness of the mask, the singular eyehole the only window into her current world - a pale sandy shore. Jocasta considers the sacrifices that brought her here; from the blood on her own hands to the death of the infants.

She is at war with her instincts, as she aligns the needle point to her pupil. Her eyelids flutter like the wings of a hummingbird, no amount of breathing able to calm her racing heart. She closes her eyes in preparation, counting down in her head. Clammy hands brace the mask. Her thumbs rest under her cheekbone to guide the spike in. She opens her eyes, and it pierces the thin cornea of her left eye. There is no immediate pain, but black dots sparkle as though she's looking up at rain. She pushes further into the lens. Fluid builds around her ducts, streaking down her cheek. Whether blood or tears, Jocasta doesn't know. With a final push, she cries out, her sight plunges into darkness, and an excruciating spasm surges through her skull. She feels the purging of her sin, and all she can see are stars.

Her right sclera fills with ink-like smoke, consuming the white of her eyes, swirling around her pupil in a vortex. Amidst a starfield of endless black shifts a cosmic nebula of purple and blue. Infinite in its vastness. From the farthest reaches of space, she hears Ada's voice call out to her.

"Jocasta..." The whisper tugs at her mind, as if scalping her consciousness.

"JOCASTA!" The scream of Liliana whips her back to the moment, as the tension in her body gives way to a feverish exhaustion. Her spine is arched backwards, her hair dusting the sand as she takes in the scene upside down. Jocasta turns her head carefully, her neck and shoulders rigid as stone. With her abyssal right eye, she sees the inquisitor holding Liliana up a few feet off the sand by the scruff of her robe. She kicks and screams in protest, but the imposing inquisitor doesn't flinch. Holding a black mask within his hand, he incrementally forces it onto her face, a guttural screech shredding her vocal chords until it's hoarse. She bleeds, rivulets of red dripping down her cheeks. He drops her onto the sand and she feebly crawls away, dragging herself like a slug over salt, muttering prayer. Her hands hover and twitch an inch away from her mask, too afraid to touch it for fear of triggering more anguish. She slowly turns her head as if looking around. And as she does, Jocasta sees the mask, both eyeholes sealed.

Another scream jolts Jocasta's attention over to the second inquisitor. He holds down a floundering man, a lithe tailor, and impales the mask onto his face indelicately. His legs kick furiously, digging his heels into the sand and plowing it away, wailing hopelessly. Jocasta looks around in confusion with quivering breaths, unsure just how long she had lost sense of her mind. Those who wear the golden mask sit serenely, bent over backwards with their arms splayed out, unbothered by the chaos around them. Around her, nine men and women writhe on the ground weeping blood, caressing their black-masked faces in a fetal position as they repeat.

"I repent... I repent..."

Darker sand shows trails of them being dragged back into formation within the concentric circles. The dripping spires are no longer streams, but waterfalls, creating a spiraling maelstrom that envelops the shore. The crimson lake, a turbulent veil between this world and another they understand even less of.