Page 144 of Nocturne

“No,” I whispered, my voice a hollow echo of the scream clawing at my throat.

As if on cue, the men moved. Blades gleamed in the firelight as they sliced across throats, crimson sprays arcing into the air. The women crumpled, their lifeblood pooling beneath them, trickling into the runes.

Then, the men kicked the bodies into the flames. The fire roared, hungrily devouring the offering.

The smell of burning flesh hit me like a physical blow, and the scream finally tore free from my throat—a raw, guttural sound that split the night.

Vir turned, his chanting silenced. He crossed the clearing in seconds, crouching before me. His bloodied hands reached for my face, but I recoiled, pressing myself into the earth as if I could disappear.

“Don’t worry, sweet thing,” he murmured, his voice eerily calm. “You aren’t them. They were rejected. You are blessed.”

His fingers brushed my hair, and I shuddered.

“Greatness awaits your future.”

IV

A month.

That’s how long I had been held in solitary confinement, buried beneath the forest floor in a cell they had constructed for their twisted rituals. It was a place of nightmares, a pit where women were thrown to see if their god would “bless” them. Somehow, I survived. With my mind intact. And my body untouched by the venomous snake they claimed carried the god’s essence. I was the one woman who didn’t break, and for that, I was deemed special. Blessed.

Vir and his cult worshippedAzazel, the god of forbidden knowledge and chaos, along with all the madness that came with him. To them, the world was filthy, infested with undeserving souls that needed to be purged so their god could reign supreme. Their loyalty to this deity required human sacrifices and unswerving devotion. No act was too heinous if it pleased him.

The cell they moved me to after my survival wasn’t much of an improvement. It wasn’t the pitch-black abyss of before, but it was still a dungeon. A dim, miserable place with a few empty cells and mine. The only light came from flickering lamps on the damp walls outside. No one cared if I froze in the biting cold. Their only concerns were feeding me and letting me use the revolting bathroom once a day.

Each morning, Bapo dragged me to the pond for his vile ritual. He’d bathe me like the first time, his hands roaming where they had no right to, his body pressing against mine. The harder I fought, the more he enjoyed it. It was a game to him, to see how much fight he could beat out of me.

Until, finally, I stopped. I stood like a doll, hollow and unresisting. The joy he took from my struggle disappeared, and after a week, he declared himself too busy to bother. For the first time, I was allowed to go to the pond alone. A guard followed me, his presence intrusive but infinitely preferable to Bapo.

This guard—I never learned his name—watched me like the others, his eyes lingering too long, but he never touched me. One day, I noticed him reading a book about Azazel. I asked if I could read it, feigning curiosity. His eagerness to comply was unsettling. He told me I should embrace their god, accept him, and I’d no longer be a prisoner. I’d be honoured as a “blessed one.”

I only nodded, my goal clear. I needed that book. It might hold answers, some way to understand what I was caught up in. Why my flesh was scarred at the base of my spine, why women screamed in the night, why those sacrifices exist or continue. The book became my lifeline, a grotesque manual to the horror around me.

Azazel’s doctrine was a cesspool of evil. He sought to destroy the world and reshape it in his image. His followers, promised power and wealth, were bound to him through human sacrifices. Six women per ritual. “Unsullied” women—untainted by non-believers’ touch—were deemed fit for the offering. That meant the followers raped them to remove the touch of the non-believers and impregnated them.

And worse, those pregnant women were the ultimate sacrifice. Their unborn children’s souls, considered pure and trapped between worlds, were ideal vessels for his will. These sacrifices were carried out in the third month of pregnancy, a time when the soul was thought to be most vulnerable.

I read these passages with mounting nausea. My stomach churned, but I couldn’t stop. I needed to know everything. Every vile detail of this madness. If there was a loophole, a weakness, I had to find it.

The rituals revolved around two figures: the “blessed one” and the “chosen one.” The chosen ones were families handpicked by Azazel, granted forbidden knowledge to secure their wealth and power. To maintain their standing, they had to adhere to the rituals. The role of the blessed one, however, remained shrouded in mystery. All I knew was that I was essential to the sacrifices. Each one required something from me—what, the book didn’t specify. My involvement was the key to starting the ritual.

The women sacrificed were branded each month with a sigil that connected their souls to Azazel. By the third month, after the final sigil, they were offered to him with the help of the blessed one. My role, whatever it was, made me indispensable.

I kept reading, dread pooling in my chest. My survival in solitary confinement had marked me. Trapped with a venomous snake, they believed I had been chosen by their god because I remained unharmed and sane. To them, it was proof of my strength and Azazel’s favour. They didn’t consider the possibility that the snake simply hadn’t felt threatened. Or that my “visions” of the whispers were nothing more than stress-induced delusions.

None of that mattered. Logic had no place here. They had killed countless women in their quest for a blessed one. And they believed I was their god’s instrument. Their faith terrified me. It was unyielding and monstrous. And it left no room for escape.

The deeper I delved into the book, the more unhinged their beliefs revealed themselves to be. Azazel’s will was their reality, and they would do anything to fulfil it. Witnessingtheir atrocities firsthand had already scarred me. But knowing the depth of their devotion, the extent of their depravity was unravelling what was left of my sanity.

I didn’t know how long I could hold on. I didn’t know how much more I could take. But one thing was clear: I had to get out. I had to survive. Whatever it took.

* * *

I thought I had been given a reprieve for a few weeks, a small mercy amidst the torment, before Bapo resumed his role as my personal torturer. He didn’t mind that I had the book; in fact, he seemed pleased, almost smug, that I appeared to be leaning into their god. But Vir wasn’t a fool like his followers.

Vir knew me.

He knew who I was and likely knew that I harboured suspicions about him being the one responsible for my father’s death. He didn’t trust me. He made no effort to hide it, ordering Bapo to keep me under constant surveillance, unwilling to risk losing their precious “blessed one” after years of fruitless searching.

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