Lambchops Preview (Lambert X Narinder)

Should this become a story?

Cold, misty air nips at my exposed ankles and bound arms as I’m forced to trudge onwards, occasionally stumbling as I have been blinded with a hefty sack fitted over the entirety of my  head. I am ushered on with an urgency that is tangible to my very senses, uncertain of what’s to come as I am being poked and prodded with the pointed tips of some weapon I can’t begin to discern. My breaths, albeit somewhat labored from all the travel, feel hot to my enclosed face and provide some warmth for my body. I can’t remember where they all came from, I was quietly picking berries until suddenly they came out of the woodwork, but sure enough they
have made me into a prisoner of their own. Now my fate hangs in the balance of these foreign folk I have not seen before, and I am scared they mean to do harm. Am I going to die?

I can’t remember for how long or how far I have been forced to walk before I’m stopped and forced to my knees. The thick sack covering my head is unceremoniously snatched off me and I
am at first blinded by bright, blazing fires. It takes me a few brief moments to collect myself and allow my two main eyes to properly adjust, squinting around at my surroundings. I’m still somewhere deep in the woods in a clearing, a campsite not far from where I am kneeling. My knees sting from scrapes, seeing that instead of dirt I am placed upon a large carved stone slab
that has been exposed to the age of time itself. Moss covers and fills many cracks and crevices, the original designs that once adorned the surface frayed and eroded. Sat right before me at the center of the large slab is an equally large statue, just as moss-ridden and time-worn as the slab it sits upon. The statue depicts a crown-bearing lamb; an ancient beast that had been erased from the lands long ago. No one can remember what they were like, even their very image had started slowly warping and fading from memory of those still existing. As I realize I am surrounded by robe-bearing people whose faces I can’t see as they hum, a creeping chill crawls up my back and makes me shiver, wondering why they have brought me here.

“O Great One, grant us your mercy as we bear your gift!”, A booming voice roars out above the humming of the others encircling me. The one who spoke steps towards me, my skin crawling as I see the dagger in their hand. “Sacrificial Beast, please accept your long-awaited sacrifice that hath been written in your blood and uttered in your image! I bear unto you, the three-eyed cat!”

The humming gets louder as the one who had loudly spoken steps closer still, halting before where I am knelt. My heart beats faster in my chest, my fight or flight instincts beginning to course through my veins and yet I have no way to fight back and no way to save myself. I look up pleading, now able to make out their face beneath the hood at this close of a distance. They seem to be a dark-feathered bird of a sort, maybe a raven. Tears prick at the corner of my eyes, even as I try to keep the third one at my forehead closed. I flinch away as the raven reaches a hand out towards my face, poking at and forcing my third eye to open. I shudder as I blink and help it to adjust to the light of the fires around, feeling uncomfortable and exposed with my third eye having been forcibly revealed. I look back up to the raven as they turn away and face the statue, raising their arms up in a form of praise it seems.

“O Sacrificial Beast, as your prophecy is all but fulfilled on this night, we wish to only see your great return! May you walk this earth once again and reign over your most loyal following! As it is written!”

The raven turns back around again facing me, now brandishing the dagger they held ever so carefully before. He grabs me by my short fur and forces my head to bow down over a bowl holding a small red flame at the foot of the pedestal. The heat is intense as I squeeze all my eyes shut, tears now beginning to stream down my cheeks, fear and dread filling my very being at what is about to happen. I feel the cold steel of the blade as it is brought around my neck, almost caressing it in a meaningful way. My body involuntarily shakes as a terrified sob sounds out from me, unable to help the sniveling and whimpering that I would loathe any normal day. As swift as it had been placed there, the dagger is drawn across my neck harshly in the blink of an eye, any noises from me being cut off by my gargling, an intense pain I have never felt before takes over as I watch my own blood draining from me and splashing messily into the bowl below. Dark spots start appearing in my vision, the pain slowly fading and unable to concentrate anymore on the humming or chanting, words not even comprehended. The world around grows darker, my body becoming cold and weak as I am unable to keep my head up. Before I can form any thoughts, it feels as though I am drifting away and the humming fades into nothingness, the world draining from my vision until I can see no more.