Page 143 of Nocturne

“Come on, little one. It’s time to brand you,” he sneered, his grip tightening on my body, dragging me closer.

Before I could react, he shoved me to the ground, my body crashing against the cold earth. I cried out, my head spinning from the impact. I felt my heart hammering in my chest, my skin exposed and vulnerable.

Bapo’s touch was cruel and unrelenting. His hands roamed across my body, groping and squeezing again with a sick satisfaction. I recoiled, but it was useless. He was everywhere, his hands on my skin, touching me in ways that made my stomach churn. My body screamed in protest, but my voice was drowned in the sound of his laughter—low, sick, and twisted.

“Shh,” he whispered, his breath hot on my ear. “It’ll be over soon, little one. Just give in.”

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. His hands were everywhere, pulling, tearing, and violating. I wanted to scream, but all I could do was tremble, my body refusing to respond.

Then I felt something sharp at the base of my spine—a sudden, unbearable heat, like fire coursing through my veins. I screamed, a guttural cry that tore from my throat, overpoweringBapo’s laughter. The pain was unbearable, like every inch of my skin was on fire.

That was the first time when the truth that I might not make it alive out there sunk in. That was the first time I started praying to be let out of there.

And then, everything went black.

III

When I woke, the first thing I noticed was the stars. Pinpricks of cold light pierced through the canopy above, alien and distant. For weeks or months, there had been nothing but suffocating darkness, a void so complete that I thought I might never see again. Now, they were there, indifferent witnesses to my pain.

I lay still, letting the air fill my lungs. Damp soil and the sharp tang of smoke replaced the rot and filth I had grown used to. It was disorienting, this shift from claustrophobic captivity to something that almost resembled openness.

Then reality came crashing back, and with it, the pain.

The branding was a living thing, a raw, searing agony etched into my flesh. I couldn’t scream. My body refused to give me that relief. My fingers twitched toward the source, brushing against something cold and wet. A leaf? Cloth? My mind swam, unable to process. I wanted to see it, to know what they had done to me, but my neck refused to turn, leaving me trapped in my confusion.

The dress—thin, white, and clinging to me like a shroud—was another violation. The realisation that someone had dressed me while I was unconscious sent a shiver of revulsion crawling under my skin. My breath hitched as the weight of it pressed down: I wasn’t a person here, just another object for them to use.

My eyes darted around, desperate for context. The fire blazed at the centre of the clearing, its flames dancing hungrily, casting jagged shadows against the trees. Vir stood before it, his figureobscured by thick robes, the hood shrouding his face. He held a goblet, and his lips moved in a steady chant, a low, guttural sound that made my skin crawl.

Around him, the ground was etched with runes, their grooves filled with a liquid that glistened dark and wet under the firelight. My stomach twisted as the realisation hit me—it wasn’t water or oil. It was blood.

I swallowed hard, the metallic taste of fear thick on my tongue. My hands clawed weakly at the earth, a futile attempt to anchor myself against the rising tide of panic.

The sound of movement snapped my attention to the forest. Men emerged from the shadows, their faces hidden behind grotesque animal masks. Their bodies were slick with blood, streaked in crude patterns that glistened in the firelight. Around their hips, scraps of fur hung, more a mockery of modesty than clothing.

But it was the women they dragged behind them that made my breath catch.

Each man gripped a woman like a hunter with his prey, hauling them forward despite their resistance. The women were dressed like me, but their gowns were shorter, and ripped, exposing too much. Their faces… God, their faces. Glazed eyes stared at nothing or rolled skyward. Some whispered to themselves, words that tumbled out like broken prayers. Others laughed—a sound so fractured and wrong that it made my blood run cold.

I wanted to turn away, but I couldn’t. My body was frozen, pinned by the surreal horror unfolding before me. The women weren’t screaming for help. They weren’t begging to besaved. Whatever sanity they once had was gone, replaced by something… broken.

The men forced them into a circle around the fire pit, their movements methodical, and practised. I could see it then—that wasn’t chaos. That was a ritual.

I tried to move, to crawl away from the madness, but my body wouldn’t obey. My limbs felt heavy, as if weighed down by chains. My head lolled uselessly as I struggled to muster even a whisper, but no sound came.

The chanting grew louder. Vir’s voice rose above the crackling flames, a cadence that seemed to seep into my skin, sinking deep, filling every crevice of my mind.

The men surrounded the women, their hands moving with cruel efficiency. Dresses were torn from bodies, the sound of ripping fabric mingling with the crackle of the fire and the low hum of the chant.

I squeezed my eyes shut, but it did nothing to block the sounds—the screams, the laughter, the sickening thuds as the women fought and failed.

My mind splintered under the weight of it, every nerve in my body screaming for escape. I whispered to myself, a desperate mantra: “This isn’t real. This isn’t real. This isn’t real.”

But the smell of blood and sweat, the heat of the fire, the guttural sounds of violation—they were too vivid to be a nightmare.

The chanting reached a fever pitch, and then came the silence.

I opened my eyes to see the men standing back, their hands now gripping daggers. The women—what was left of them—were on their knees, heads bowed, bodies trembling.

---