Rylan bitterly eyed the morbid sights that surrounded him, watched as all the others shivered with widened eyes filled with horror, the bloody, tiled floor uncomfortably stinging his knees; everyone had been forced to kneel over a silver kernel which circled the entirety of the room, connected by pipes that lead to a dipped drain at the room's heart. He spotted strapped metal tubs and tables in a separate compartment, along with scarlet-stained carcasses dryly hung by pins and chains, neatly enclosed with translucent bags of which several flies swarmed, trying their best to make it inside, their efforts fruitless. The smell of it all turned Rylan's stomach completely raw─if not for the gag forcing his mouth closed, the urge to vomit would've been more profound and irresistible.
He watched three men go down the line, analyzing each boy as a much taller, bloated guy made preparations within the separate room. He emerged not soon after being ordered to quicken his pace by one of the men, who mentioned something about a lurking threat; Rylan had heard Elliot say the same moments before they were taken from the trailer.
The bloated, dark-skinned man was now dawning a different attire─an apron amongst other things. He clutched a machete firmly within his right hand, motioning the other three to give him some privacy before he started.
"So that's how it is," One questioned. He was a rather eccentric blond, sharing in a few of the same features Lilly had. "Elliot forces you to work on your day off and now you don't want us around?"
The dark-skinned man scowled from behind his mask. "I had a date with Katheryn planned. Been talking 'bout it for weeks."
"Right. Forgot you were fooling around with Gabriel's side fling. Must be nice."
"Shut up," He retorted with a dry laugh. "Best you could probably do is one of those unfertile breeders Elliot always manages to catch."
"I mean, not to toot my own horn or anything, but the silver-haired one he reeled in just yesterday is pretty wild. You should give her a go whenever you're not following Katheryn around like some lost little puppy."
"And you should close your trap and get to work on those carcasses in the other room. I'm gonna need the space once I'm done here."
"As you command, your majesty."
The blond wasted little time; Rylan made out the pale corpse of female, recent from the looks of things. Her body was hooked by one of the chains that dangled within the second room, of which the blond began to make preparations immediately─the sound of his chainsaw slashing flesh a fright to many. The dark-skinned man wasn't all too pleased once he finally took notice of how antsy everyone had become.
He mumbled something under his breath, his eyes narrow as he slashed the throat of his first victim, forcing the boy's head into the kernel; the sound was sickening to many. Even Rylan cringed when the boy's muffled screams and convulsions started to die down.
Somewhere deep within, he felt a tiny twinge of fear strike at his gut, watched as Noah awoke just in time to see the man make quick work of his second victim. The boy's eyes were wide─unlike Rylan, who stood motionless beside him, Noah fruitlessly tried his best to get free, as did many others, screaming to their hearts' content, the dry spasms of blood a sound that was driving them absolutely crazy, instilling them with profound amounts of terror. A few had even turned their eyes to the man in the separate room, who was now skinning what remained of his victim with a knife, her form completely unrecognizable. She looked every bit like the other carcasses that hung so horribly about.
It wasn't until after the man was but two victims down from Noah that he was called to the back; he complied with a frustrated sigh, disappearing not soon after, a sense of utter helplessness coursing throughout everyone's viens.
Rylan tried communicating with Noah through his muffled shouts─although the boy paid him little attention. All his screams and squirms had stopped, his eyes dulled and his posture low, as if he'd somehow found peace in their current situation. He looked no different than the corpses further down the line.
The sight disturbed Rylan far greater than all the death surrounding him. Could Noah really have given up? Why? Trying to understand the boy was a moot point. Even if Noah no longer possessed the will to live, he still did. He valued life far to greatly to just sit idly by and allow it to end so sheepishly, but struggling was indeed pointless, as he soon discovered. The metal shackles restraining him couldn't be simply broken by willpower alone. He needed a key.
The man returned in an even fouler mood than before; he made quick work of his other two victims as he cleared the path for Noah, the boy not flinching from the cold sting of the knife seeping under his collar, drawing forth a spec of blood and the man's smirk. He began to carve the knife deeper into Noah's flesh. Then something caught his gaze, made both him and Rylan gasp in utter surprise, the man sent frantically stumbling back after dropping his knife, his eyes wide with terror, his body trembling.
An explosion followed suit mere seconds after, trailing that the onslaught of gunfire and screams, the abruptness of it all throwing many for a loop, but Rylan's mind remained fixated on that moment, that instance when the butcher's blade met flesh, when his eyes landed on Noah's blood.
It was blue.
Note:
'OMG? Why is Noah's blood blue?! I can't take the suspicion!'
Well, there's sure to be even more suspense next chapter, so stay tuned *winks*
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The Apostate Trials
Science Fiction"I didn't crawl my way to the top of the food chain just to become a vegetarian." First came the days of solitude. After the days of the solitude came the trials. Dark trials that forbade the agonizing destruction of one's humanity. The death...
