Page 14 of Devoured
I wondered if any of them had gotten out. Really out. Not just transferred. Not just buried.
I stood and walked to the window that showed me nothing but rain and darkness. Night had fallen while I sat, mind circling the same questions. The storm was getting worse. Wind rattled the reinforced glass, and somewhere in the distance, thunder rolled across the sky.
Then suddenly the lights went out.
The darkness hit as if it had weight. Complete. Total. Not even a strip of light under the door. My chest seized immediately, that old childhood terror slamming into me full force.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t even remember where the bed was. My hands shot out, searching for the wall—for anything solid. My knee hit something hard—the bed frame. I grabbed it like a lifeline and pulled myself onto the mattress.
The panic was everywhere now, crushing my lungs, making my heart slam against my ribs. In foster homes, I’d learned to sleep with the lights on because darkness meant eyes watching from the corners. It meant whispers that might or might not be real. This darkness felt alive in the same way—like it was full of things waiting just out of sight.
The trazodone was pulling at me, trying to drag me under, but I fought it. I kept my eyes open even though there was nothing to see. But the medication was stronger than my fear. Despite the strange building, despite the dark, my eyes finally closed.
The mattress turned to water beneath me. I plunged through it, through the floor, through earth that opened like a wound. I fell past terrible things in the dark—a woman’s face with empty eye sockets, hands reaching from walls that breathed, doors that led nowhere. My hair streamed upward. The scrub fabric flapped against my skin. Strange voices whispered in my ears.
I hit stone hard enough to knock the air from my lungs and landed flat on my back, my head cracking against the floor. For a moment I just lay there, trying to breathe, trying to understand where I was.
A circular chamber stretched around me. Torches burned in iron holders on the walls, throwing shadows on the ancient walls. I pushed myself up, palms slipping on the wet floor.
Oh God. No. Not again.
But I was back. The third time now. First when I was twelve, begging to die in that group home. Then when Theo strangled me and I chose hell. And now here I was again, like this place had hooks in me I couldn’t shake.
That awful smell was everywhere, stronger each time. What I’d thought was rust and pennies as a kid, what I’d tried to ignore when Theo almost killed me—I couldn’t pretend anymore. It was blood. New blood mixed with old, soaked so deep into the stones that it would never come out.
The center of the room drew my attention. Figures stood in a circle there, robed in brown cloth stiff with old stains. They swayed together, synchronized, chanting words that made my teeth ache:
“Dolor purificat. Sanguis mundus facit. In dolore, veritas.”
“Pain purifies. Blood makes clean. In suffering, truth.”
In the center of their circle stood the woman I had seen earlier through the door window—Margaret. She was older than I’d thought, maybe seventy-five, with stringy white hair that hung to her waist. Her pale, wrinkled skin was covered in scratches, some old and scarred, others fresh and weeping.
She stood perfectly still, arms at her sides, staring at nothing. Her lips moved, mouthing words I couldn’t hear over the chanting. Then her hands rose to her face. Her long, ragged fingernails dug into the skin at her hairline. She pulled—and the skin came away like wet paper, peeling down in strips, revealing the red meat beneath. Blood ran down her neck, pooling at her feet.
The chanting grew louder. Faster. The robed figures rocked back and forth like wheat in wind.
Then came the scraping. Metal on stone, getting closer.
I knew that sound.
He walked out of the shadows. As big as I remembered, but clearer now. He was strong and muscular. His bare chest was riddled with scars. The helmet looked like rough iron bolted together, with slits cut for eyes. Red light flickered behind those slits. His blade dragged behind him, carving lines in the floor. When he lifted it, the thing looked heavy enough to split the world in half.
The chanting stopped cold.
In the silence, I heard the woman speak for the first time, her voice calm despite her ruined face. “I am ready for judgment.”
The blade came down.
It split her perfectly in half, from crown to crotch. For a moment, she remained standing as if the two halves had not yet understood they were separate. Then she fell, opening like a book. Scarlet fountained out, spraying the robed figures, painting the walls. I wanted to scream, but my voice was locked in my throat.
The robed figures erupted in celebration. Not cheering exactly—something more primal. They threw back their hoods, revealing faces hidden behind masquerade masks. Gold and silver, some with feathers, others studded with what might’ve been jewels or glass. The masks covered everything above their mouths, which were open, gasping. They fell to their knees in the spreading blood, pressing their faces to the stone, tongues out, lapping at it like animals at a trough.
And from somewhere—everywhere—came a sound that made my bones ache. A moan of deep satisfaction, of hunger finally fed. It vibrated through the walls, through the floor, through my teeth. Whatever had made that sound was pleased.
The figure with the blade, the figure from my nightmare, stood over the split corpse. I thought I was invisible here. Just awareness. Just witness.
Then his head snapped toward me.
