Annual Immolation
Annual Immolation
The sky sat grey and the breeze blew no more than a gust every so often, making my raven hair fly an inch or two away from my scalp. There was something about how the sombre birds would recite their deafening squawks relentlessly and how the horse fly pierced through succulent skin in time for their afternoon drink. This suggested all was not what it seemed. My eyes watered from the irritants that intoxicated the atmosphere. A clan of widow spiders crawled across the scene and marked their territory by a small lattice window in a remote corner. Their shadow’s projected largely through the dim light of the moon. A swarm of rats ran past me as they could smell it too. Human blood. It was time for the ceremony.
It was taking place at the old church behind Greyamth road.
A family of campanula flowers which grew freely
on the walls around the church emulating its dark violet colour
in the dusky moonlight. The grand iron gate spiralled around the church imprisoning it,
each bar bled with a vermilion titan rust.
I entered the compound, walking towards it and in a timely manner
the gates shut behind me viciously fracturing the deafening silence.
A barbaric, icy wind blew from the east and didn’t not stop.
My nostrils flared as my eyes rolled to the back of my head.
Darkness. Deprived of sight, all I could feel was my
heart attacking my rib cage with each powerful beat.
Rolling back into position, the grand church door stood tall in from of me.
It opened slowly with a low, eerie creak.
“Welcome” was whispered by a collection fatigued voices.
I made my way towards the voices and entered the crypt that was lit by elderly witches. Darkness hugged my pallid pale skin then the wind tiptoed around me. Seconds later, dark figures chanted religiously from every corner of the scene. I felt a pain and it echoed. They were all dressed in charcoal capes, the shadow masked their faces making them anonymously terrifying. There must have been hundreds who all migrated from their small villages to make their appearance tonight. Their capes flew freely behind them as the wind lead their forbidden dance. The moon touched the highest point of the evening sky. I slowly removed my hood and revelled my frantic face, their dark hooded eyes acknowledged my arrival and they patrolled my every move religiously. The fire, centre to the scenery was unrealistically luminous, burning fiercely as though it was alive. One of the witches stared intensely at the fire and without warning the flames extinguished. No ashes, no smoke. Nothing.
“It’s time” muttered one of them.
I was not the only terrified person present. I stepped forward, and saw how she laid lifeless on the cold cobblestone floor. Looking into her eyes and seeing everything. She blinked lifelessly three times then surrounded. She was much too weak for the battle she so urged to fight. Kneeling, I placed my hands on her forehead and carved a cross on it, the flesh on her body was so thin my knife scrapped against the bone beneath her flesh. This was why I had been called to perform the ritual as only I had the sight to see her. Looking in her large emerald eyes, they began to sparkle, emulating a clean shininess as though tears where restraining the themselves from falling. The beating of her heart grew slower and slower and then stopped.
The young girl began to stare at me, the look was so piercing I knew something was not right, she was trapped inside her own body without a way of communicating or voicing her thoughts. Perhaps she was warning me of the danger that was yet to come?
Seconds passed and a white transparent substance elevated from her, its appearance was similar to a silhouette. It didn’t take me long to realise her soul was leaving her body. The elders barked at me to entrap it. Souls are our source of energy, it gives us the power to continue our rituals, cast our spells and without them our colony will grow weak and powerless. Never in my time had I failed to capture the soul of a demon. Often demons hide themselves behind seemingly innocent persona’s but this one was different. This soul resembled a thousand-year-old, experienced demon, who has been jumping from body to body to sustain survival and as a result give it immorality. If I couldn’t defeat this demon then my life will be in serious danger, every second that passed without an answer was a second closer to my deaminase. Her eyes turned coral as they rolled to the back of her head and a series of blood rushed from them, red veins ran across her olive skin as she began to shake. White saliva foam flooded from her mouth, she grew grey then colourless. I felt my heart ripping, separating into two. That was then the moment I witnessed her soul walk away, she was invisible to the rest and only the chosen one behold the power of vision, that was me and I failed my people.
“DING DONG”
The bells from the top of the tower rung echoing vigorously through the town. The ancestors turned to me and I feel their rage as they gave me a murderous look. The hair on my skin stood up tall and gave this nightmare a standing ovation.