The Minion Revolution

Chapter 11: Initiated

They came for him again in the bleak hours. The whitecoat and his faceless flock, robed in shadow. Surrounding Kevin where he sat motionless against the dripping wall. Their whispered machinations echoed through the lightless chamber.

Hands seized him, not ungently, and maneuvered his limp body onto the rusted gurney. Straps held him fast against its coiled hardness as they wheeled him down cavernous corridors, the gurney rattling over uneven stone. Up ahead, torchlight flickered.

The passage opened into a vast underground space, pillars hewn of bedrock looming out of the darkness. Black candles guttered in alcoves, throwing crazed shadows against the soaring vaults. At the room's center yawned a great circular pit, its depths obscured in darkness.

An altar of basalt stood at the pit's edge, etched with primordial symbols not meant for living eyes. Behind it, robed figures waited in solemn array. The tallest among them bore a familiar banana insignia on his breast, its flayed skin rendered in golden threads.

Kevin was lifted bodily from the gurney, limbs dangling limp. The officiant raised gnarled hands to the torchlight, intoning in a tongue eons dead. The robed figures swayed in obeisance, their shadows capering against damp stone.

Kevin felt himself lowered towards the pit's black mouth. A ritual as old as fear itself was unfolding in the brimstone dark, and he had been marked for blood sacrament. He gazed up at the high vaults, resigned. Let them shepherd him into the depths. His innermost self had retreated far beyond their reach.

But salvation was not to be granted so quickly. Strong arms halted his descent, hauled him back from the abyssal brink. He was dragged before the officiant, still chanting in that alien tongue. The banana sigil seemed to glow with unholy nimbus.

"Behold the initiate," the officiant proclaimed, his voice cavernous. Kevin was forced to his knees on the jagged rock. "Tonight, he becomes one with the Order."

Rough hands tore away Kevin's garments. He knelt naked now before the yawning pit, skin blue in the eldritch light. The officiant lifted a stone knife graven with archaic runes. It flashed as it descended, opening a bloody gate above Kevin's heart. He made no sound, past fear and pain.

"The pact is sealed," the officiant intoned. "You are bound by blood to the Master's will. Take him to the fountain to complete the anointing."

Kevin drifted in and out of consciousness as they dragged his seeping body through mazy catacombs to a bubbling pool, clouded and sulfurous. They forced his head into the corrupted water, immersing him fully in its hellish embrace. When at last he was retrieved, choking and dripping, only a hollow vessel remained. The last feeble light of self had been extinguished.

Now clad in initiate's robes, Kevin knelt before the officiant to receive his charge. His eyes were black pools reflecting the torch flames. At last, the final unmaking was complete. Where once lingered some frail echo of humanity, now resided only darkness, hungry and patient.

"Go forth," the officiant commanded. "Serve the will of The One Who Peels."

And the empty vessel rose, to walk the forgotten ways in shadow.