Reign in Blood

"He shall suffice...let us prepare," The boy slowly opened his eyes, a dizzy haze hanging over his head, marred only by the numbing pain in the back of his head. Uttering a slight groan, his eyes drifted around the unbearably hot room. How had he ended up in this place? But more importantly...what was this place? Trembling green eyes scanned his stone surroundings.

The ceiling seemed to go on forever, disappearing in a blanket of darkness far beyond his field of vision. A similar darkness permeated his small quarters, making it hard to see from one corner to the next. The boy brimmed with a budding sense of terror, fearing for what lurked in the corners though it was apparent he was alone. As his gaze drifted, it fell upon a great opening sealed off by a massive metal door. The only source of light in the stone enclosure came from a slot in the door, too small to crawl through, but just large enough to peer through.

The boy shook his still sore head, rubbing the tender spot at the base of his neck. With some effort, he rose to his feet; the boy was shocked by just how badly his legs hurt. Biting spikes of pain shot through his numb legs, nearly dropping him to the hot stone floor once again. He stood stiff, running his hands over his naked body. Though he was naked, he was sweating. It felt as though he was standing right next to a raging fire.

Feeling returned to his extremities, just as a numb fear settled in his chest. His...hole as it were, was deathly still. The sound of his own haggard movement, clumsy and tired as they were, seemed unable to penetrate the dank silence. As he walked on unsure legs, he tried to recall what had taken place. Though, for all the effort he gave, he couldn't seem to recall any specifics from before he woke up. He knew there was a time before this place; he had a family. A mother, a father, three sisters...but even their faces were a foggy distant memory.

Suddenly, a sharp sound rang out. The boy looked up in a daze, walking in a zombie-like trance to the door. The hole was high, but just low enough that he could pull himself up to look through it. His eyes widened, despite the pain of the light coming in through the opening.

Outside the cell was a massive chamber, far larger than his own cell. Flames rose up in the distance, working around the room until they were out of his field of vision. Immense heat came from either side of the opening, presumably there were flames on either side of the door. Torches perhaps? There was no way to know, at least not yet. The most imposing structure was a single stone surface, rising up in the center of the room. Bathed in an unnatural red light, he couldn't help but stare.

The object was meticulously chiseled even his untrained eye could admire the craftsmanship. The surface was utterly, impossibly smooth, rising up through the stone floor like some gift from unholy agents below. Near the top it seemed to branch out into a table. It appeared to be very narrow, but very long, stretching out beyond the base. As the boy marveled the structure, he happened to notice the floor, his eyes widening. Painted in an unknown red substance was a demonic symbol, so unholy that his eyes couldn't bear to give it a name. The symbol filled the floor, from edge to edge of the eerie red light. The boy hunched down, trying to see further, trying to find some source for the light. He gasped and stared in disbelief when he finally realized the source. The red light was coming from the symbol on the floor.

The boy screamed and dropped away from the door, hearing another loud clang of metal slamming against metal. Swallowing, his heart seemed to be pounding in his ears, he pulled himself up to the hole again, his mouth falling open. A quiet moan broke the paralyzing silence, as a group of three figures dragged a fourth into the light. His darkened skin reflected the light, whereas their dark cloaks seemed to absorb it. The realization left the boy more awed than the sight before him; he watched numbly as his father, naked save for the dark cloths binding his eyes and mouth, was forced onto the table by one of the dark figures.

His father was no weak man; he had been renowned for his strength and courage at home. The boy breathed in small, quick gasps, watching a single dark-clad figure wrestle his father to the table. The other figures quickly secured him, tightly binding the powerful older man with thick ropes, arms stretched as far over his head as they could go. The boy shuddered and a hand nervously went to his stomach, a failed attempt to settle the sickness rising within him.

"We owe this to you, and as such you shall be the first," The voice came from nowhere, startling the boy. It seemed to echo in the hellish red light, reverberating throughout the dark chamber. His father tried to look in the direction of the voice, but even he, in the midst of the conversation, couldn't decipher its location. The cloaked figures surrounded his father, one at his feet, another at his head with one, presumably the one who spoke, standing to the side, facing the boy. As he began to speak...the boy could swear something in the inky blackness of the specter's hood was looking right at him.

"The hour is close at hand...we offer unto you this feeble insect. We bathe our hands in his blood, that we may be closer to your saintly form," As he spoke, his deep voice rumbling through the chamber, his arms raised over his head. At first, the boy hadn't noticed, but as his voice rose to a crescendo, he stared with shaking eyes above the figure. Hefted in the air, the supernatural red light gleaming against the cold metal blade, the figure held a twisted dagger. With only a moment's pause, the figure brought down the knife, impaling the older man with sickening resolution. The boy nearly screamed, would have screamed could he find his voice. Instead, hot tears streamed down his cheeks. His father gave a strangled scream, his cries stifled by the cloth covering his mouth. With no amount of trepidation, the cloaked figure tore the knife through his father's side. The boy's silent sobs, his father's strangled cries, and the sickeningly dominant sound of the older man's blood splashing against the stone floor created a cacophonous symphony, drowning out all rational thought.

When the knife pierced his father's opposite side, this time the boy did scream. A wild, hysterical sound that echoed throughout his cell. He turned away from the hole in the door and dropped to his knees, holding his head, staring through his fingers at the dark floor. Surely this was a nightmare, surely this couldn't be real. Tears ran like rivers down his hot cheeks. The boy's eyes widened, hearing another strangled cry, the disgusting sound of flesh being torn, of blood bubbling out, pouring down that stone table. His chest heaved, and his stomach whirled. The boy plunged forward, vomiting and collapsing in pitiful sobs. Though he wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and wish this place away, morbid curiosity dragged him to the door.

Peering through the slot, his mouth fell open in a silent scream. His father's abdomen had been torn open, cut down through both sides. The cloaked figures now seemed to be...making a bowl of some kind from his midsection. Unmoved at all by the blood streaming down the table, nor by the wild, hysterical sobs coming from their victim, they peeled back to the flesh and tore into his insides. From his vantage point the boy had a perfect view of the mutilation, even if it was from a great distance. While the two outer figures seemed to be working at widening the opening, ripping back his father's skin and digging their fingers into his muscle tissue, the figure in the center-whom the boy assumed to be the leader-worked at crafting their sick basin.

He plunged his fingers fearlessly into his father's stomach, tearing it open with unnatural ease. A hideous mixture of fluids poured out from the gashes torn in his father's sides, splattering against the floor. The boy nearly fainted, once more turning away to vomit. He could hear more screams just beyond the door, horrible, bloodcurdling screams coming from a man he once thought invincible. More terrible than any scream, however, was the sound of ripping flesh, of the innermost workings of a human body being pulled apart unceremoniously, brutally. Every dribble and splatter of liquid against the stone floor sent the young boy into convulsions, heaving for something, anything to purge from his sore stomach. A stomach he could still claim to have, he thought through a haze of tears.

"He is ready, we shall begin," Those words pierced through the boy, the color rushed from his sweaty face. He spun and pulled himself back up to the door. To begin? What had they been doing? What could possibly begin now? His new question were answered...far quicker than he could ever have hoped. The figures soaked their hands in the well-rounded hole in his father's abdomen. The leader soaked his dagger in the same mixture of blood and bodily fluids. With an almost holy reverence, he carried the knife almost like a child. Gripping the hilt tightly, he nodded to the others. They took position on either side of his father, holding his head in place. His gag and blindfold fell to the floor.

From the distance, the boy couldn't see his father's eyes. He could barely make out the garbled, fearful words pouring from his patriarch's mouth. What words he could make out were so foreign, he refused to believe they belonged to his father. His father knew no fear; this pitiful man begged for mercy in strangled sobs and cries. One of the figured grabbed his face roughly and forced his mouth open. The head figure stuck the dagger into his father's mouth. A high-pitched, wild scream filled the room.

The boy could see it in his mind, clear as day, though from his angle his eyes could only watch his father's profile. Like a twisted vision, he saw the leader pinch his father's tongue and give it a tongue. He couldn't look away, even by averting his eyes, as the cloaked figure jerked the rough, jagged dagger's blade through the muscle.

"Speak...no evil," The head figure said, in a deep, dark voice dripping with a hint of irony. He dropped the now useless muscle to the floor, where it landed in the growing pool of blood with a loud slap. Though his stomach heaved, now the boy found that he couldn't avert his gaze. No, now he was a captive audience, fully engrossed in his own father's twisted murder. The wordless screaming-now a gargled, drowning sound-continued, hitching up an octave as the leader grabbed his father's left ear. Now the boy had a clear view.

"Hear...no evil," He spoke in the same sarcastic drawl. With one swift motion, the blade severed the ear, a wretched scream ringing out. Blood streamed down his head in rivets. The boy stared in horror, slowly shaking his head. He wanted to look away, he struggled with all his might to find the will to look away. Pale, frightened green eyes remained unblinking as another flesh-rending slice came before another weakened, watery scream. The two figures on either side shifted, now holding his father's eyes wide open. Father and son knew was was to come, both screamed in unison as the leader grabbed the older man's face. There was almost a hint of a smile in his voice.

"See...no evil," The knife came down with enough force to knock the older man's head against the table, enough force to spray blood on the cloaked figure, as the sharp tip plunged through his eye. With studious indifference, he removed the knife and plunged it into his other eye. Blood streamed down the father's face, intermixed with tears; his was voice gone, strangled beneath a mouthful of blood. He coughed and blood bubbled over his lips, his mouth twisted in a silent scream. The figures released his father's head and stalked back to the hole in his stomach. The lead figure stood by his side, watching the man, his russet skin tainted by the blood pooling around him, writhe in the throes of death.

"Will you give your heart to He, that your suffering may end?" The boy finally managed to tear himself away, doing so just as his father frantically nodded his head, babbling a useless stream of sounds-probably more pathetic cries for mercy. He sat against the door, sliding to the floor with his eyes clenched shut. Holding his head, the boy sobbed wildly, listening as a new scream rang out behind him, the sound of blade piercing flesh once again echoing in the unearthly light.

What of his mother? What of his beloved sisters? Were they, too, in this horrible place? The boy whimpered, holding his knees tightly against his chest. He could hear a sick ripping sound beyond the door, flesh being pulled back. In all his life he had never heard his father so much as utter a sigh of weakness; now his nightmares would be forever haunted by his elder's pitiful screams and hysterical sobs. He felt new tears trickling down his cheeks and gave in to body wracking sobs, shaking his head and praying that he would wake up to find this some kind of sick dream.

"Unto You, I offer this...a meager sacrifice, a prelude to the harmonious cacophony to come," That dark voice...it sounded like no human he'd ever heard before. The voice spoke with a strange accent, an archaic kind of dialect that seemed so old...it almost seemed futuristic. The way he spoke, no human could ever speak like that. Driven by fear, drowning in sorrow, he turned and crawled to his feet. Once again, his legs had gone numb, shooting with sharp pain. That pain paled compared to the wrenching in his heart.

His father's chest had been...pulled apart. The flesh had been stripped from his ribs, and his ribcage had been pulled open like a bird, ready to be eaten. His father was unmoving; the boy could only pray he had already passed. The figure reached into the hole and tore free his father's heart. Holding it with a dark reverence, he slowly clutched his hand, muttering under his breath in a tongue the boy had never imagined. Words so dark, so sinister his ears heated up. So wicked his heart began to beat faster and faster, and a cold wave of terror flushed out all the hot pains of agony and loss.

"I commit unto He, this mortal soul," It was one thing to see the man cut his father apart. It was quite another to watch as he clenched his father's own heart, his fingers digging into the throbbing muscle, blood trickling down from his hand, splashing in the basin dug out of his father's abdomen. The squishing, sloshing sound of the organ's last moments echoed in his head over and over, even as he stumbled backward, slipping on his own vomit and cracking his head against the floor.

"Surely you wish to know why you are here. Do not question, merely observe and wait for your time. In this sign, you shall conquer." In a daze, the boy drifted on the verge of unconsciousness. He saw the figure peering in through the hole, though he could not make out his face. As his eyes drifted shut, his ears rang with the sound of his father's dying scream. Blackness at last overtook him.