A Story of Man (Nouvelles / Short stories) (FR/ENG)

Sanctum (ENG)

I am writing this under the restraint of a consuming force, far greater than any kind, that shall soon surge onto our land. The Shadow proved itself to be more vicious than anything we could have foreseen.

The mere act of revealing these words, shall be regarded as an offence in the path of our Great Lord, but the duty of truth remains mine, for all of my fellowmen are now gone.

To halt the invasion, we did as He commanded and set out to fathom the Shadow. According to His will, we unearthed the sacred corpse of one of His faithful White Knight. The only one to have been saved in time from the fight against the abomination and to have escaped the claws of the Dark. A most precious soul who was lucky enough not to be fully corrupted, the very one we were about to plunge into torment once again.

The body was moved to the Old Sanctuary, a forgotten place, hidden from the rest of the world. The experiment took place there, and it was with some reluctance that I brought my Ocular Observer with us.

My fingers trembled as I put in place the instrument, reflecting the misfortune my own invention was about to cause. I recalled the words I taught so many years - piercing the eye to access the soul - for they were the only remnants of a past not yet stained by the wickedness of my sins.

The unfortunate had not yet returned to dust, preserved by the Shadow, he had suffered the same fate as the others: unable to live but forbidden to die.

I adjusted the lens, and the needle made its way to the depths of his soul. Pain hit faster than I expected. He struggled with a strength inconceivable for a man, far exceeding his former self, but the chains were enough to contain his ravenous brutality. I then proceeded to investigate a fragment of his mind and quickly realized that what lied inside of him was of the same nature.

A mass of black and viscous liquid sat in an abyssal void. Flailing back and forth, it devoured every part of it. Driven by a macabre impulse, I looked inside.

I entered the product of a broken mind with no other purpose than to corrupt that of others. All the infamy, all the vileness of mankind was there, floundering in a pond of pure blackness. My senses slowly faded as I approached its bottom, letting darkness merge with me. Interrupted by one of my peers I managed to escape the horrific sight and retrieved my instrument, then gave way to someone else.

The images still fresh in my mind, I tried to put into words what was then indescribable to me. Absorbed by this vision, I did not notice the small black hand reaching from inside the corpse to my fellow's throat. It grabbed him with the same violence that animated the Shadow, broke its neck, and the second after threw himself at the rest of my men.

I immediately fled to the back, entered what seemed to be a vault and closed the stone doors before it could reach me. Screams erupted from outside, but I was certain it could not get in here.

A shiver ran down my spine as I discovered the surroundings. The ground was cold, deathly cold. A heavy silence hung over me, and darkness reigned supreme. I did my best to summon what little fire I had, but the distance from my lord allowed only a spark to remain in the palm of my hands. It revealed huge, damaged wall tapestries as well as a stele, standing in the middle of the room, with engravings written in a language unknown to me.

All this led me to suppose that I had just entered the inner sanctuary, where prayers took place, and that these last clues testified to the passage of ancient, forgotten cult.

I waited here for what felt like days, waiting for the beast's rage to subside. When silence returned, I tried to open the doors again, in vain, my exit was blocked from the outside. I was left with the realization that escape was now impossible.