Page 57 of The Flesh Remembers
Clara’s eyes widened, her breath coming in ragged gasps. "I… I can’t…"
Blackwood’s expression darkened. "You will."
With a gesture, he activated the frame’s runes, and a surge of energy coursed through Clara’s body. Her scream echoed through the chamber, a raw, primal sound that chilled Eleanor to her soul. Frye, still holding one of the slender metal rods, began to rub it up her pale thigh, inching closer and closer to her aroused centre. With a nod from Blackwood, Frye smiled as he slipped the delicate tip of the rod between Clara’s legs and into her wet opening.
The metal rod worked with the galvanic energy, forcing Clara to the brink of physical and emotional collapse. Her eyes widened as the electric current sizzled within her body, and her eyes rolled back into her head until only the whites of her eyes could be seen. Her body convulsed, her cries of unwilling release blending with the hum of the field. Each surge of energy drew gasps and groans from the crowd, who seemed entranced by the ritual’s dark power.
Frye began to pump the rod in and out of her luridly, watching her face with a rapt expression. He was clearly enjoying the entire experience. His breath was coming faster, and he began to pump the rod with a frenzy as the electricity crackled and the smell of ozone filled the air. Clara gave one last long scream, her entire body convulsing and shaking in an unnatural way before she at last was still.
When the ritual ended, Clara hung limply in the restraints, her body shaking and weak but alive. The basin beneath her collected the glowing liquid that flowed between her legs, a mixture of her essence and the energy siphoned from the crowd.
The room erupted into applause, the acolytes cheering as Blackwood declared her absolution.
Eleanor remained rooted to the spot as the crowd dispersed, her mind racing. She couldn’t shake the image of Clara’s broken form, the haunting mix of relief and despair in her eyes. She turned to James, who had watched the trial with an unreadable expression.
"Do you think she’ll survive this?" Eleanor whispered, barely daring to breathe.
James shrugged, his full lips curling into a faint, knowing smile. "Does it matter? Blackwood got what he wanted."
A shiver crawled up Eleanor’s spine. She knew he was right, but accepting it felt like surrendering a part of herself. The thought of becoming like Clara, reduced to nothing more than a vessel for the cult’s twisted hunger, made her stomach twist. And yet, she couldn’t walk away. Love, warped, unrelenting, held her here, bound to James and this nightmare.
"I won’t let you end up like them," she said, her voice raw with defiance.
James tilted his head, studying her. His gaze softened, but only slightly. "We’ll see."
The Devotion Trial had ended, but the air still hummed with its dark presence. The acolytes moved through the clinic in silent reverence, their eyes gleaming with the promise of the grand ceremony to come. Blackwood’s grip was unshakable, his power fed by their devotion, their fear.
Eleanor inhaled sharply, tasting the weight of inevitability. No turning back. No salvation. Only the final act, and the horrors it would unleash.
Excerpt from the diary of Dr. Eleanor Ashcroft
The clinic is quiet now.
Only the echoes remain, the cries, the devotion, the breaking of flesh and will. The Trial is over, but its spectre clings to me, curling around my thoughts like smoke. I still hear Clara’s voice, raw and ruined, spilling into the humid air. Her suffering, her surrender.
I watched. I did nothing.
What does that make me?
I tell myself I am not like them that I am here for reasons beyond the cult's twisted hunger, that I have control, that I am choosing this. And yet, that lie unravels with every breath I take. I remain because I cannot leave, not truly. Not with James standing beside me, his gaze unreadable, his touch the only warmth in this suffocating void.
There was a moment when I thought he might say something, break that careful mask, and acknowledge the horror of what we saw. But instead, he just watched, detached yet knowing, as Clara was stripped down to something less than human—a vessel—a prize.
Will I share her fate?
Blackwood’s grip tightens around this place, around all of us. The acolytes whisper in reverence, their eyes gleaming with unholy purpose. They are eager, ready. I should run. I should fight. I should reclaim the parts of me that still shrink from the depravity I have accepted as reality.
And yet, I stay.
Because something in me, a darker, quieter part, wants to see how it ends.
What Love Requires
Weeks ago, two of the most devoted acolytes were chosen to become what Blackwood referred to as living effigies, their skin completely transformed with their most sacred symbols. The effigies no longer stood as mere symbols of devotion, they had become almost living deities, grotesquely beautiful in their stillness. The glowing runes on their bodies began to pulse in time with the apparatus overhead, casting shimmering red light across their painted skin. The cultists had moved beyond worship; now, they crawled toward the effigies in feraldesperation, their hands outstretched like beggars pleading for salvation.
Eleanor stood frozen as she watched the effigy marked with Desire, a man whose golden runes seemed to ripple with an unnatural heat. His lips parted in a silent sigh, his head tilting back as two cultists knelt before him. Their handscaressed his thighs, trembling as they pressed their mouths to his skin, licking away the sticky blood-wine mixture that coated his legs.
The air grew heavier with every moan and whispered incantation. The line between devotion and animalistic hunger had blurred completely. One of the cultists, the younger of the two, lifted her head, her lips slick with blood, and began to sob, her body wracked with the overwhelming pleasure of her proximity to the effigy. The man’s hand fell to her head, stroking her hair tenderly and commandingly.
