cult.

THREE: three

To Renjun,

If you're reading this letter, I'm gone. No, this is not a suicide letter but I'm sure you've already figured that out. I made sure Chenle gave this letter because I wanted to explain everything to you. I didn't want to hurt you, and you deserve to know the truth. Hopefully, Chenle hasn't read this letter because this is only meant to for. You are the only person I truly trust and the only person that has truly understood me.

I've always been told that I'm great at persuasion. And I never really took advantage of that until a few years ago. It sort of shocked me how well my tactics worked on others. And when I met them... it only shocked me more.

I met and befriended a group of people who were so easy to persuade and manipulate. They followed me like a herd of sheep. It was almost like they worshipped me. And I will admit that I had a little too much fun with it. But soon enough, spending time with them became such a bore--mainly since the only thing they wanted to do was what I wanted to do. And to be honest, I didn't know what I wanted.

My boredom reached to the point of creating something that would ultimately ruin everything for me. I made up my own religion-- a cult if you will... I created a god that I pretended to worship and created scriptures and everything. Most of it was thought out, but I would add things on, occasionally. As I expected, they wanted to join my "religion," and I became a cult leader.

It was fine at first. We would meet every Friday night a night in that shed in the woods. It was the one behind my house. I had rituals and "services" planned for every Friday and we would make sacrifices each night. The first month was fine at first... We would just sacrifice artifacts of nature, but then I got bored with that. Within that same month, we started to sacrifice parts of the body such as hair and blood. And towards the end of the month, I had joked about sacrificing a living being. Every day of my life from then on, I've regretted that statement and I will tell you why.

They ended up taking that statement so seriously to the point where I couldn't turn back. The last Friday of that month, they asked me what we'd be sacrificing, and to them, they thought I meant a human body. And at that point, you might think I stop this lie I've kept up. But I couldn't. To tell you the truth, as uneasy as I felt maintaining this cult charade I was still having fun with all this power and praise I received. So instead, I told them we would just hunt for animals in the woods to sacrifice. Once the next month came up, we started again with nature artifacts... and the cycle continued. We would have some meetings during the week as well, and our meetings were becoming more and more frequent. This went on for about a year, and then you came.

They didn't like that I would cancel meetings to spend time with you. They would get upset every time I mentioned something about you. I couldn't understand why they despised you, but I was able to finally put the pieces together. With you, I was able to feel freer. It was as if you liked me but didn't need to praise me or worship me... and in a way, that was sort of refreshing. When I went to cult meetings, I felt like I was just hiding. Mainly because I was. I was hiding from the truth. I was too terrified of what would happen if I told them. Another year goes by, and that's where everything recently comes into play.

The members of my cult suggested something I just couldn't go through with. They wanted our living sacrifice of the month to not be an animal. They wanted the sacrifice to be something much bigger. My members were genuinely, whole-heartedly considering sacrificing a human body. They wanted to sacrifice your body.

It was at that moment I knew this had to end. This had gone on for too long and now it has come to murder. And I honestly and genuinely care about you, and I would never want to see you in pain. I strung these people along with me and had them do these awful things, and soon it would be murder. I had to do something and I had to do it before they got to you. I made my decision so that they would hopefully leave you alone and stop watching your every move. And that decision was to sacrifice myself in your place.

I hope this will offer some sort of explanation, and I hope you're not too mad at me for keeping this in. But after all, we all have our secrets to keep. And some secrets are bigger than others. Additionally, I would hope you cut Chenle a bit of slack. I wish I hadn't strung him along on this horrendous journey, but I could tell he was questioning his morals so I knew he would understand. He was truly a loyal member of my cult and yet he never jumped to murder as the others did. He's a good person, and I hope you can agree with me. We both care about you and want to protect you.

Anyway, this is my goodbye to you. Live your best life,  okay?

Sincerely,
Mark.

renjun slowly placed the letter on his lap as he processed all of the information he just read. he eyes were brimming with tears. he bit his lip to stop it from quivering as it began to sink in. knowing that his good friend was most likely dead at this point seemed like such an unreal concept which began to make itself his reality. he didn't want this to be his reality.

not to mention the growing betrayal he felt towards mark. the mark that he knew seemed nothing like the mark in this letter. he almost began to doubt that this was even real. was it all just an elaborate prank on him? was this all meant to torture him? he didn't want to believe anything that he just read. he didn't want to believe that mark did those horrible things. renjun needed to find out for himself.
and tomorrow night would be a friday-- certainly not the last friday of the month, but he knew that mark's cult would be there regardless. he knew exactly what he needed to do. renjun was set on finding out the full truth.