Juggernaut: Alpha

A Black Minute

Their voices echo on a quiet night. Silver faces shining under the glistening moonlight slipping through the cracks of stained glass sheltering an unholy cathedral. Blood scattered across the wood-paneled floor masked by the burn of incense filling the hall in a decorative fashion as the unsettling ritual begins. And as if night and day intertwined harmoniously for a single moment as the Stygian setting begins to set and condition the blissfully unaware to their own surroundings, the cattle unwillingly fall into an intoxicated stupor. Lifeless figures following each other one-by-one as they make their way to the beginning of their end. Stripped bare, covered in incisions, the cattle push forward being shadowed by silhouettes clad only in bandages and blank masks embedded with black lines racing down where eyes should be like tar dripping from a wall wearing a fresh coat of white. They gain ground, inching closer and closer to the altar as every step jolts through their numbing, lethargic state. Ragged feet drag the vessels of sedated souls forward as cold iron pressed tightly against ruined flesh begins to become second-nature to these shambling ghouls. As one of the poor cattle leading the herd began to approach the slaughter, it's glazed eyes are caught by an irregular figure among the silhouettes behind the altar dressed in fine robes reading intently into a tattered scripture.

"Moon and Sun, a birthing rite in this eternal duality. Embrace this feeling of our human skin intertwining now in immaculate ecstasy. Breathe in the air of change, let us begin the sacrament."

And as that final word was uttered from the mouth of the figurehead of this practice, the first of the cattle was brought forth to the altar. Cast to the frozen, maroon-stained floor, the creature was closely inspected by the menacing, priest-like entity. Whispers and darkness sheltered the priest as he began to caress the shattered remains of a corpse barely clinging to cognition, let alone it's own life. Grazing his nail from the back of the neck down to her now trembling spine like a freshly sharpened blade slicing through a thin sheet of paper, he maintains his sickeningly calm gaze on the expressionless face, forcing direct eye contact entirely throughout. A bone-chilling breeze begins to seep through the stained glass of disfigured idols now scrambled into puzzle pieces as the priest's composed expression begins to untangle.

"This is not the one! Unworthy! Begone with this heretical abomination staining our holy ground!" the priest exclaims, shaking with horror and quickly cleaning off his hands in disbelief as if making physical contact alone left him plague-ridden.

"Offer this filthy animal to the altar!"

The disciples began to thrust this shadow of a human being onto the altar, they take to themselves and unsheathe their ceremonial knives, entrusted with to each and every loyal devout by him and begin to surround the woman. Pinned to the unwrought stone, her hands are placed behind her as her head is forcefully slammed onto the altar. Blood now painting the inside of her mouth, leaking to the lower part of the chin as she begins to fade in and out of consciousness frantically. Feeling an intense amount of life rushing back into herself, she attempts to let out a scream, that which would be of a banshee shattering the silence. But nothing more than a disgruntled groan exits. Before cries for help could ever hope to manifest, she begins to feel a sharp, piercing constraint passing through the uvula. Maroon below now begins boiling throughout her throat as she scratches and claws within an empty subconscious to find a way to express this unfathomable trauma. But as the thoughts began to blur within, no words known to man could possibly depict exactly what it feels like to reach the end of the light. As hers fades and a corpse is cast aside in place of another, the trials and tribulations of these acolytes mad with lust and cold hearts continue effortlessly to find the cattle worthy enough to survive the priest's unholy examinations. Pools of repugnant stench stain the altar a deep red in its entirety with every passing failure as the priest begins to feel a slight twitch of impatience slithering upon him like a snake coalescing tall grass. But keeping a calm composure around the faceless, he motions for the next candidate to step forward to him. What seemed to be at some point platinum blonde hair; now tattered and dirt-ridden is gently brushed through by the cold, skeletal-like fingers of the priest and suddenly, among the motionless vessels, a man leaves his stationary state and jumps out at the priest. As the unshackled subject flails with a flurry of madness, he breaks through the initial acolytes and; to the ringleader of this practice's own shock, reaches the altar. Now attempting to land a blow on this madman, but before a single one lands successfully, he's subdued by the masked shadows lurking near the priest.

"You DARE disturb this holy ritual with your FILTH!?" the priest; now shaking with rage exclaims.

"Well, it wouldn't have anything to do with this little bird now would it?"

The priest, once gently examining the woman slams her face onto the cold pavement. After repeatedly doing so the way an adolescent throws a frantic temper tantrum over not getting what they want, the man is forced to the ground and bound now by the shadows holding to him like paint drying to a wall. Restrained by the followers, he hears a faint chuckle off in the direction of his betrothed.

"Love is a false idol. A disgusting, sinful illusion that there's anything other than belief to confide in and grant you strength. Filthy, filthy human habits. How much do you truly care about this creature in my hands?" the priest groans with a sickening tone releasing out of his voice not yet heard by the disciples before.

"Well... let us see.."

The woman's head begins to be lifted and a blade is drawn. A larger ceremonial knife than the ones gifted to the acolytes and a much finer hilt cluttered with religious symbols embedded onto it. The knife's cold steel softly caressing the neck of the man's wife, and as he fights with every last gasp of air left within him, he's injected with a multitude of syringes. Unknown liquids begin pulsating and passing throughout his body, numbing his ambition to keep resisting. Cloudy eyes stare off into the distance as the menacing priest shoots him a stare mimicking the gaze of a wolf playing with sheep on an empty stomach.

"Love is unacceptable. There is only the sacrifice!"

And at that moment, the blade once thirsting for the throat of the motionless woman now longs for the floor as it leaves the hand of the priest.

"W-We FOUND HER!" the priest shouts joyfully, his glee echoing throughout the cathedral.

Shaking with excitement, he then swings her in the air as you'd expect a father to cling and hold up a daughter he hasn't seen in years. After gently placing her back to the ground, he begins cleaning off the dirt from her face, calling for his followers to release the man; now paralyzed by his own hallucinations. The paralyzed lover; retaining his vision, gazes as the blurry entities surround the woman.

"Come now, child." the priest dragging her up to her feet as the ones surrounding them begin to kneel as if they were about to initiate a position of prayer.

"Come now, child. Lie in the circle of the few who stain.. their bodies with their own blood."

At that moment, in a numb, paralyzed state of hysteria.. the lover now witnesses his betrothed laid gently on the floor.. the words "sacrifice" begins to shake the halls as the acolytes not yet near the altar begin to cut down the remaining cattle one-by-one. As if already accepting their deaths before they were even sentenced to them. The lifeless bodies now float among each other in a sea of blissful scarlet filling the cathedral. His eyes; still forcefully fixed onto scene closest to him, capture the scene of his wife, the love of his life undergoing deeds too foul, and dreadful to wrap his drug-riddled mind around. Half-baked moans and cries now fill what's left of his hearing as the hyenas cackle and rejoice around their prey. Blood still pumps through his veins as every fiber of what's left of his being tries to fight through whatever was injected into him. The mental scratching and clawing through his everything to draw one centimeter closer to them and stop this.. and then, he too feels the stain of steel piercing through the back of his throat. A light begins to fade in his existence  and he too tries to find the right words to convey the curtains falling before him. But right before chancing upon death's door, a distant, ironic quote is forever jogged into his last memory he'll ever have.

"Now you can live to see another day."

Those voices echoed so violently on that night. A congregation with a line full of evil glistening under the flash of crimson peaking through the blood-stained cracks of glass blanketing an unholy cathedral. Scarlet flowing through the temple of incense-masked ruins of lives no longer taken into consideration by the tests of humanity's recollection. And as if night and day separated once again to chime in with the ending of this unfortunate event, a cold breeze that once plagued the Stygian setting become sheltered with the warmth of a mother's unnatural embrace. Shadows surrounding the woman clad only in skin and flesh guarded by blank masks painted with a red so deep you could swim through. Within those death-ridden halls something else came from that night. But whether it be for better, worse, or otherwise is now left for you to decide.

Because on that night, within those halls of hell on Earth, I came to be.