Within this cycle, the origin of sin is a paradox. Infinitely devastating, yet singularly intoxicating. That origin, once you unveil the divine masquerades clouding us from exposure, is quite a pitiful event. Like watching an earthworm being burned alive on the sidewalk underneath the scorching summer sun. If Samael followed God’s will, he would have been a mighty dragon, even when his function is to be continually disproven. But, as it is and will forever be within this cycle, Satan is that worm burning in the sunlight. He is a victim of the choices he made. Not just the first, when he was created. But also in his refusal to admit that the throes of his first choice were teleologically unbearable for him. All because he clung to that one and only victory.

  Oh yes, I did say that, didn’t I? “Victim”.

  You may wonder, Dear Reader, why I am even attempting to sympathize with the Devil, for he was the one who carved out the First Sin of this Zoriki. His violation spawned the axiom of violation himself, not to mention every single parasitic evil that has flowed since the First War of Heaven. Let me ask you, would you stop and wonder why Samael chose the name Lucifer for himself? Why he rejected God’s plan for him as the first Ha-Satan? Why he chose being the permanent adversary over acknowledging how his position was creating storms of humiliation that sapped him of joy?

  Perhaps not, and that is understandable concerning a being so pathetically evil as Samael.

  The issue is that this line of bias can apply elsewhere. Most certainly, Satan is deserving of the utmost scorn, especially for what he did to Ariel and what he is currently orchestrating on Earth. But what about everyone else? What about yourself?

  Hatred is a sin that so many fall to. They let its coils wrap around their hearts to make it beat to the rhythm of vices against others. So many people live just to be miserable and just to inspire misery, instead of working towards peace and communion. Letting your hatred consume your heart is the problem. It has always been.

  So you may hate the Devil, whether or not it is righteous or wicked in its justification is irrelevant. In the end, if you hate him blindly and it consumes you...

  Then Paradise is lost to you, as well.

  For you see, so many others commit this sin thoughtlessly against others, which divides nations and spawns the fire of war from the ashes of peace. So many groups, so many ties that bind into tangled rage. These groups are often led by those who justify the conflict by placing labels on the other side. Foolish. Ignorant. Deceptive. Sinful.

  Luciferean.

  They take the easier path instead of attempting to reconcile so that conflict ceases, either through proper teaching or through temperance of differences. The desire for peace would at least acknowledge priority, even when peace is exhausted. The acknowledgement of the necessity of conflict does not justify the desire for said conflict.

  But it does make it easier to bear.

  With the labels the leaders present, comes never-ending conflict, where reconciliation is nigh impossible without great difficulty. And far too many leaders do not wish to put forth the effort to inspire proper change. If not by malice or negligence, then by sheer ineptitude or cowardice. Thus, they often believe there is no point in the work, thus continuing the burden of responsibility being cast down to the younger generations. The same cycle that produced the nuclear bomb of debt that, at any moment, could shroud the entire Earth in desolation.

  Most people are far too comfortable being, knowingly, sinful instead of walking the road of difficulty and pain, all because they often don’t believe they can. Cowards… They would damn generations just to spare themselves. Just to justify more sins instead of being better.

  Samael and his acolytes didn’t need to lift a finger, really. Humanity should judge itself through the mirror for once, instead of justifying itself with all manner of contrivances. Evil is evil. Excuses are excuses. Hypocrisy is hypocrisy. Refusal to change for the better is one of the greatest failures. Change is difficult for a reason: it is worth it.

  Including the path to actual peace.

  This division is complete foolishness, regardless, for every single human on Earth is God’s chosen people. Not Israel, not Christians, not Muslims, or whoever else. Humanity in its entirety.

  Needless animosity festers between different groups that are a part of the same whole, all because of the possessiveness of the exclusivity of being right. Through desire or carelessness, through the leaders or through the mob, through injustice or dishonor, abominations are created and justified.

  Sin to avoid the appearance of sin. White-washed tombs.

  Abominations committed by a few of one people do not justify abominations against the rest of their people. Otherwise, we get never-ending, Godless cycles of vengeance. Wars with narratives against others. Bloodshed for the sake of bloodshed. This is the Pyrrhine King’s eternal wish:

  War without reason.

  At some point, forgiveness must flourish so that the violence may stop. So that we can finally move forward, towards something brighter and mightier. What was always intended for us all along when the Dustborn was created, with his radiance as a chosen undead.

  So, do you hate the Devil for what he did, or because of what others tell you about him? If that hatred is your logos, then your answer is false regardless.

  Would you justify your stances with your own emotional biases?

  It was not hatred that blinded Samael, at least not originally. It was a fracture of identity. He chose his function when he was created, but at some point, it was not enough. Samael could no longer bear being constantly disproven to prove God’s goodness. He loved the Father, but his love was secondary to his possessiveness and pride. He wanted to be at God’s side. He wanted victory. He wanted something different.

  He lusted for all that was not earned by him.

  In the eternal failure he knew he would forever feel, Samael could never acknowledge that this was sincerely his fault. That he was ignorant, foolish, and incorrect in the one victory he held.

  He felt an abyssal feeling of despair, the Thorn at his side, burrowing deep into his heart. Samael’s manipulated reflection justified his torment and steered it away. Hatred for the one at the Father’s side consumed him. He deceived himself into believing that the Father was compromised by the object of his ire, the one who also, in his eyes, stole away both his purpose and his lover.

  It was the humiliation of his own identity.

  Strange thing is, he’s not completely wrong. At least, if you look at all the past Zoriki. There is fault.

  But it was always the Thorn, not the one it burrowed into at the time. The Thorn is the locus of sin. He is the serpent of serpents, the blackest heart at the bottom of Tartarus. A sin so antithetical to God that it is, fundamentally, not even a sin. For sins can be redeemed from, theoretically. But at the bottom of the Abyss? Redemption is nonexistent when the very logos of it is total meaninglessness. Still, with the Thorn’s manipulation, so began the narrative of this universe.

  The First Sin. Samael carved for himself the truth of his greatest hypocrisy.

  The Devil, the pyramid-headed leech, is pathetic, for he must always lose in the end. Eternal shall be his hatred, his narcissism, his envy, and all of his other sins. He shall never know peace.

  That was all his choice.

  Samael, in his self-imposed deception, concocted an elaborate scheme against the object of his ire, the Wrath of God. A scheme untold eons old, all to violate everything that he was to function as. The narrative against Azazel was the perfect scapegoat. The sins of the deities were placed upon him, including Samael’s. So often is Azazel equated to the Devil in traditions. A purposeful vendetta against his brother. Azazel wasn’t innocent by any means, but his intent revealed his truth. That intent has been forgotten through the propaganda of the Books of Enoch, as is mimicked by the writings of later scholars. For once you analyze the details, the hidden etymologies, and the nature of Scripture, the narrative begins to crumble into dust.

  Samael and his son, of oh so many facades, attempted to blot out the truth with red ink. A practice that the flies sought to emulate.

  My father’s ancestors know the wounds of that sin. Our surname is not our own, merely a forced-upon transfiguration due to Anglo-American biases over a hundred years ago. The decisions of a few damned so many. The narratives constructed riled the people into a storm against their own. Neighbors expelled. Communities broken. Names changed. Internment camps created.

  British and American aristocrats joined in mutualism like flies and locusts. Let the locusts starve and humiliate the populace so that the flies could feast upon the carcasses. Look at how they sing the death-choir of desolations of abominations still. Narratives constructed against the truth, a practice of time immemorial. The supposed scriptwriters of today argue that their violations were necessary. Excuses. They just wanted control.

  They mime the Pharaoh of Exodus. Do they forget what plagued Egypt in those days?

  Abominations justified by the narratives they write. Narratives justified by later abominations enacted by the wicked ones they created. The creation of death through acts of death. The chain of causality continues forth as truth is blocked away.

  Antichrists have been prevalent since the days of Christ Himself. Hypocrites masquerading as saviors or philanthropists. Let their heads be joined in the same choir, as more heads are added to the tally of the total minds sprouting from the red hydra of many diadems. In life, they pretended that they were untouchable.

  Fools. Damocles spares no one. And too many repeat the fate of Icarus.

  Just as I did.

  In the midst of the sins of the named is the torment of the unnamed. The ones often unremembered and discarded. Ferdinand is a tragedy, while the hundred million nameless bodies of the World Wars are left as casualty marks. The true sorrow was the unending array of nameless tombstones. What of the stories? So few are remembered, yet every single one of them should be.

  But it is not meant to be.

  And it all spun into life when the seventh seal was broken, when the Dread Star fell upon the Earth in 1908, and the Second War of Heaven ended with the triumph of the angels.

  Our turmoil must not be in vain. Endure. There will be a day when things are made right.

  But for now, we will continue to be under darkening skies. For the Tribulations have yet to come.

  And the bitter irony is that I expect the narrative to come for this work as well. If they don’t, then I continue to orate this truth. If they do, then the flies would prove me right again. In this universe or another, what narratives control the pen? Who holds the pen? Who the pen?

  The skies brightened as Ahrion lifted from the veil of the chartreuse horizon. The pale-yellow dawn was a dull flame that burned from the cinders of indignity. Upon the surface of my ivory skin, the sunlight scorched the surface. The center of Rathaph was arrayed in massive pathways of enamel marble, ulnic street lights, markets of endless macabre artifacts, and the warped chattering of stallions in trade. The bat-copter dulled out the sounds, as the flush of the wind cascaded along and through the empty gut of the beast.

  About three hours after our initial departure, the mile-wide pulsing colosseum, the Caldron, was before us. From my perch within the disemboweled beast, I discovered that it was a colossal, partially hollowed-out, upturned, lipless maw of a lamprey. Bursting from all corners of the structure were massive, rotten-gold lamprey teeth that varied in size. The central pit, which used to be the entrance to the throat of the recycled parasite, was the actual arena where battles between gladiators would occur. That pit was filled with coarse, heterogeneous bone-gravel of varying colors, from black and muted dark blue to yellow and green. The stains of heresy underneath the continuation of heresy. The bat-copter touched down a few dozen yards from the entrance.

  “Maghnus, welcahme tu the Caldrahn. This is where yu will be freed ahv the sheep-spawn waste, and be made intu yur truest shape. Yu have a match starting later tuday, alahngside a few ahthers. A warmup, yu culd call it. Nahw, let’s gah,” Garruz stated bluntly, as a hint of anxiety settled within my throat. I was somewhat hesitant, but like a loyal dog, I got off as well. Buchalan was halfway out of his seat before Garruz stopped him, “Buchalan, stay ahn. I’ll take care ahv this.”

  “What? I thahght…” Buchalan protested.

  Garruz insisted, “Nah, I need yu elsewhere. Pilahts, take him tu the ahbservatahry. Esbahn is expecting yu.” Buchalan bowed his head, and the pilots confirmed the new destination as the bat-copter ascended once more and hurled towards the west. Garruz and I were now alone, outside a stadium that could seat millions. Garruz huffed to me and began walking. I followed him, as my nervous heart continued to beat more and more. Despite the teachings of the Peqans and me objectively having improved my physical and mental composition, actual fighting is a different beast to the mind. When there are no practice runs, the pressure becomes far greater. There is no turning back.

  I always knew that. But being there, walking towards the pit, filled me with a horrifying sickness and pressure. Yet the ease of comfort called to me, whispering relief amidst this society’s wickedness:

  “Devahur. Devahur. Devahur. Devahur. Devahur. Devahur…” The propaganda repeated again and again. I must not listen! They are wrong. This is not what I should do!

  |Shut up. What does it matter? Here, I will be praised for performing incredible feats of conquest against my foes. That is unlike anything I felt on Earth! You know this, so why do you insist on refusing this glory?|

  |How is being a slave in identity in any way glorious? You pretend to be filled with purpose when this entire scheme reflects a version of ourselves that is not us. The fact that I rebuke you makes it true. Turn away from this hypocrisy. Turn away from this propaganda… Survive. That is what matters most. We must not dishonor our name.|

  |Do you forget that our name is absent here? All these names we were given are not who we were. “Paul”, “Maghnus”, “Mustang”, "the dimyoanut", “the Wanderer”... False names for a coward that is doomed to lie in that pod and die due to the drugs converting our brain into fecal matter. Maghnus shall be our new truth. Why not embrace a new personhood here? We will be welcomed with open arms.|

  |"Welcomed?" Did you not see the bounds of stress placed upon Garruz, Buchalan, and especially Ahrius? You see the house of cards that is this planet? Would you be supplicant to them? Not at all, nor would you be supplicant to the stallions cheering you on. We are still under ayahuasca, remember? The salvia divinorum has yet to suffocate us. You know the Eggmen will come eventually. This is not our home. This will never be our home, even if we decide to become the monster they want us to be.|

  |Then what is home? Earth, where no one tried to aid us amidst our turmoil, amidst our trauma? Absolutely not. Where is home without communion? Where is the warmth when we are alone in a blizzard?|

  |We rejected their warmth! We rejected any chance of it by hiding away. That’s all we did. There were some who offered help, and we refused.|

  |They weren’t offering anything. Just false sympathy. A means to gain a foothold within our collapsed fortress of a mind so that they could use us and toss us away once they exhausted us.|

  |Who determines that? We do—|

  | do! We went along with our desires because that is the only thing that worked for us. We are alive because we did not yield to falsehood. There are no lights on this path. Only darkness.|

  |You still refuse to accept it. The truth, I know, is difficult. And I… Cannot convince you to turn away from this. I am so sorry…|

  |You think I care? Move. I have a purpose to fulfill.|

  |We do. But it is not this. It will never be this.|

  Garruz’s voice collapsed my internal discourse as we approached the entrance, “The Caldrahn is where all wahrthy Peqans find their place. Here, the strahngest survive and thrive. They feast, they cahnquer, and they ascend. Ahur flesh is hardened, ahur minds are sharpened, and ahur hunger is sewn. Devahur, devahur, devahur. Every victahry, a feast fur thahsands awaits yu. Glahry, hahnahr, zeal, and truth shall be yurs. Yu shall see hahw the bluud ahv yur enemies purifies the dirt beneath yur huuves. Cahme and see, yur great pahtential!” The staged grandiosity was unlike him, but it was a genuine belief. Weary as his repetition of indoctrination was amidst his hoarse frame.

  My thoughts anchored my feet. The voice of doubt constantly shouted over and over again, while the voice of comfort told me to feast. Debating of hope, debating of being, debating of justification. Even if I knew I had to go through with this, the motivation would be of utmost importance.

  Am I doing this to survive in a cruel society, or am I doing this to feel welcomed in it?

  “Sheep-thaughts getting tu yu again? Can’t say I blame yu, entirely,” Garruz stated, as he turned around and patted my chest. “Dahn’t listen tu the sheep. They knahw nahthing withahut shepherds. True ahr false, shepherds are the ahnly way they can matter. Yu can be free ahv that, Maghnus. I see it in yur eyes. They are mahre like Maghnus’s nahw. Greener. Mahre truthful. This is fur yur ahwn guud, my friend.”

  Continued manipulation. Community, brotherhood, a sense of belonging. Through my own hubris, I had none of that and blamed the world for it all. Isolation is damnation to hypocrites of miserable egos. Pleasant company eases the mind of tension. Love creates love. Hate creates hate. But when love is provided on conditions of change, it is false.

  The Peqans want me to be Maghnus, not me.

  And I took the bait, and my mouth began to water for the taste of new flesh, as I had done upon the

  I continued to follow Garruz through the murder palace and its corridors of gray and blue vessels of lymphatic and osseous composition. After a long walk, Garruz parted and turned to the barracks. Within were elongated lockers made of leather-skin wood and wool cushions, all underneath a dull-white fluorescence. The musk of high school spirits and mildew siphoned all sense of taste from me, as I turned my head in sheer disgust.

  “Thahght they were suppahsed tu clean this place. Smells like a dying famar left in the wake of the tide…” Garruz displeasingly noted. He shook his head and he informed, “Take a lahcker, this place is yur hahme fur the time being. Get adjusted with the space. Yu have a match against sahme captured fuuls in a few hahurs. Stay here. I’ll be back.” Garruz departed, leaving me alone amidst that abominable stench, in a place where murderers, slaves, beasts, vermin, soldiers, and monsters fought to the death. The air was awash with those violations.

  And as before, every breath I took let them in. The more I breathed, the quieter the doubt became. These sins created comfort again. Luring me deeper and deeper.

  "Inhale deeply of thy truth. Become my flawless vessel, that I might feast upon the firmament. The Throne shall be mine."

  A ceaseless pressure pressed upon me ever so briefly. The whisper was telepathic. No reverberations in the room, yet the echoes of the voice cascaded within like explosions to the faces of mountains. I gazed around violently to find the source of the voice, but there was nothing. Not a soul. Not a body. Not even the barest glimmer of light.

  What the Hell was that?

  There was little I could do about it, so I brushed it off, inadvertently continuing his request. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe… Drink. Drink. Drink…

  A couple hours or so passed, and Garruz returned with half-glee upon his face. He approached me, and I saw an extremely tarnished chitin-gold torc, one whose filth appeared to have never been cleansed. Garruz raised the torc behind my neck and slapped it upon me, its shape bending uncomfortably around like a tight collar. Yet it was somewhat breathable.

  “What is this, Garruz?”

  Garruz explained briefly, “Just a brace tu display yur functiahn. Yu are a Mustang, and the crahwd will knahw it ahnce they see that band ahn yur neck.”

  I gave him blunt sarcasm, “Is it? Why naht a different mantle, then?”

  He squinted his eyes in suspicion, “Did Xanthum or Balyeahn naht… Nah, they didn’t. Mantles represent allegiance. The mark of Mustangs is that brace. Pruve yur neck is strahnger than that brace can hahld.”

  “Sah, you want me to break it, then? Fine…” I drifted, remembering why I was here, “Hahw will… Things gahw?”

  “That’s fur yu tu determine. The spear and cannahn are yurs tu cahmmand, naht mine. Yur neck is strahng enahugh, but yur mind must make the chahice. What will yu chuuse? Glahry ahr failure?”

  |See what I mean? Look at this open path before us! It may be covered in yellow vines, but we can see it. Let us go! We have something.|

  |You look down and ahead, but not forward. Look at where the path ends. Do you see what lies on the horizon? One massive, obese fly surrounded by black eggs. Not to mention the abyss beyond it. This is no future. It is just an excuse.|

  |Lies! This is our chance. It is the only way… The Peqans will be our new—|

  |Don’t you even think about it. You know that is a lie, to comfort yourself from what we saw back then. What we felt upon her skin. Deny all you want. We deny the truth as a reflection of Esther.|

  |You compare us to a former queen of Persia? Nonsense! The demoness betrayed us! She stabbed syringes into our heart as to further inoculate the acid rain pestilence into our blood!|

  |Casimir showed us the truth. It was not her. She was… Cold… We know she was frigid… I know you know, and you are trying to excuse your false animosity so you do not have to grieve. So we do not have to grieve both of them still… Nothing will replace them. But that does not mean we can’t find something else.|

  |How many lies will you spit? You saw her animate and speak. Cold as she was, how does it change how her poisonous spirit resounded with her pleasure!? How her body moved to the rhythm of desolation? Her cheers… God damn it, her cheers…|

  |It was not her. You know this, and I know you cannot let it go yet…|

  |Enough of you. Even if this is a lie, it is far better than the pain.|

  |We refuse to face it, and that is why the pain persists. The disease is still there, haunting us. Keeping us from greater things. We are still lost in the darkened forest.|

  After several moments of contemplation, I nodded to him, my eyes turning greener in the process. Garruz grinned widely, “Then I sahppahse it is clahse tu time. Arise, Maghnus! Bear yur spear and cannahn, and witness the pit yurself. Let us gahw.”

  “Wait nahw? Didn’t yu say a few hahurs?”

  “Ahriginally, but it gaht mahved ahead. When bluud calls fur bluud, patience is dead. Time shall naht be wasted.”

  “But I expected…”

  Garruz whipped toward me and bolted his forehead into mine, shouting, “Bare yur fangs, Maghnus! Yur time is nahw! Yu will cahnquer! Yu will thrive! Yu will devahur! It is yur calling.” He slapped various parts of my body, sparking my adrenaline into a bonfire. The voice of doubt was but a mere candlestick by comparison. Justified or not, I needed to do this to continue forward.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  No, I didn’t. I could have run from there… But I didn’t…

  We charged through the corridors towards the central pit. The occasional roar of the crowd pierced through as another match had begun. It would be over by the time we arrived on our half of the arena. As the match ended, the resounding cries and cheers of stallions reverberated through the entire structure like trumpets of war. The previous victor passed us by, gray blood soaking his entire blonde body. He was chuckling at me, and I swear I heard him say, “Enjahy yurself, Mustang…”

  The passageway lay before Garruz and me, as the dull light of Ahrion obscured the exterior. Garruz screamed at me once more, sparking even greater amounts of adrenaline. I was ready like I had never been before.

  When cheers receded, Garruz stated, “They are calling fur yu, my friend. Gahw fahrth and cahnquer. Dahn’t yu dare leave hahllahw.”

  I huffed in agreement and charged forth underneath the passageway’s gate into the field of battle. The sunlight singed my skin as my ivory complexion glorified the crowd. Cheers of wonder and astonishment followed, as millions of onlooking stallions cheered on my title of “Mustang” over and over again. Like a sanguine harmony to the lambs thrown into slaughter. The gate behind me shut as the contestant in front passed through the threshold ever so slowly and gently.

  Timidly, a tiny figure graced that terrible place, terrified of the jeering snarls of the stallions. The little one attempted to flee, but a Peqan violently threw her forward, which buried half of her into the gravel below. The gate behind her closed like a prison cell door; she arose desperately and banged on it to be let out. But there was no hope for her. I began to walk towards the girl, and I… I…

  She was almost identical to a human, but not quite the same. Long ears, graceful hair and skin, exotic eyes. An elf, essentially. But otherwise, she appeared just like a little girl, maybe their equivalent of a twelve or thirteen-year-old.

  These Peqans… The challenge was never about strength. They want me to conquer my own humanity. Even with her clearly not being human, she definitely acted like one. Like what one is supposed to act like amidst this carnal gore!

  I was the one wrong here…

  |What are you hesitating for? You know what we have to do.|

  |Bullshit! At least with Hersheus, he was a bastard. At least with the soldiers, they were complicit in violence. You know what they want us to do to her! Something so innocent… I can’t! No, I can’t! I would rather fall upon my own spear than this!|

  |Go ahead and try.|

  |Oh, I am trying, but you refuse… Why do you not stop?|

  |Maghnus is our flesh now. We are not human anymore. This is the path we should walk. This is for us.|

  |This is for nothing! We do this, and we are damned!|

  |We set that course a long time ago. We sinned the moment we were infected with the icterine parasite. Every stroke of those nights was a sin of uncounting self-humiliation. There was never a place for us there.|

  |We wanted to change! You know that these are excuses! Hypocrisy and cowardice! You refuse to change because these sins are more comfortable.|

  |So why don’t you stop me?|

  |Because I am not strong enough.|

  |Then watch as I give us hope.|

  |We are fools…|

  The girl’s screams were drowned out by the crowd’s zealous onslaught. I raised my cannon to her, as her face twisted into an agonized shriek. Entire rivers flowed from her eyes as I observed the bloody, black bruises scarring her naked body. Eventually, she collapsed and fell face-first into the dirt. I checked her pulse. Nothing. The stallions roared in victory. Her heart gave out to terror. Of me… My existence in her eyes was enough.

  The gates did not open. This match did not finish with the death of my foe.

  The crowd’s liturgical abomination reverberated through me, “Devahur! Devahur! Devahur! Devahur! Devahur! Devahur!”

  It was quick. A minute at most. She tasted sweet. My soul was sick from it…

  Dear God, what the Hell have I done…

  The gates opened. I kept kneeling for a few moments, staring at the deep, dull gray-blue blood on my hands and the drops sprinkled throughout the sand. Contemplation continued with me as I walked back. Garruz was there, congratulating me, I think. Thoughts were blurred then. I passed him, not acknowledging his presence, at first. I didn’t even hear the first words he said before he decided to slap my shoulder.

  “Maghnus, that was incredible! Didn’t leave a single scrap of that sharp-eared kit. You did what you were supposed to do! Well done!”

  His compliments fell on deaf ears. I murdered and devoured an innocent girl. That was it. I could have excused the Peqani society if I wanted to, but even if I clung to that idea of survival as a necessity, I went the coward’s way. There were a billion other things I could have done. Take the girl, somehow hop out of the arena, flee through the corridors, steal a spaceship, somehow learn to fly it or coerce a pilot into doing so, then leave that damnable place, to go to… Somewhere. Not to mention figuring out how to survive elsewhere with a girl I probably couldn’t understand. Still, in the likely event that they had methods to detain me and kill the girl anyway, at least I would have tried. It wasn’t impossible to save her, so I had an obligation to try. But no, there were no thoughts of anything like that. Just one single, stupid choice. Evil is evil, no matter what justification you offer.

  One of many that I have lived with ever since.

  And though intent may offer insight into the character, that does not absolve the acts done. It may only create a trajectory of where they may go from there. Peter, Paul, or Judas. None of them is inherent destiny.

  I kept ignoring Garruz for a couple minutes before he acknowledged, “So the sheep-spawn pestilence has not completely left you. It is why you will be here until it is gone. You have another match in thirty minutes. Get cleaned up.”

  I stopped, finally considering his words, and then I demanded, “You told me I was to be honed here. That elf died by just the sheer sight of me. How is that in any way honorable?”

  Garruz grunted in disapproval, “Maghnus, listen. Honing your mind is an important thing. You must be willing to fight anything that gets in your way. It doesn't matter how pathetic it is, even if they are a Soranian or a sheep-spawn. Any foe you kill is your food. That is our axiom. Why do you think we devoured Hersheus and his hemlockian fools upon the ? Any death left to rot is wasteful. You know this.”

  My suspicions grew at that moment as I turned my head to him, “Why was that… Soranian, you called her? Why was she not restored? I thought the Peqans were supposed to convert anything they could.”

  He squinted his eyes, though he kept his composure, “Soranians… For some reason, they are resistant to restoration. They almost always become some sort of dust when we try to restore them. Only one has been restored, and it was nothing but a fabincilla, anyway. Besides, prisoners don’t have to be restored. They are stockpiles to be used as we like. They can be restored, harvested, devolved, or slaughtered. Biomass is never wasted.” The last comment almost felt forced through his lips. Even he didn’t believe it fully.

  One detail caught my attention then, “Dust? What kind of dust? And why does it happen?” I had assumed that restoration could convert any living tissue, but it seems there are limitations to their fleshcrafting.

  Garruz scratched his mane, “It’s a mixture of dust that shimmers like Ahrion, only brighter, purer, and radiating white. As if the dust came from a white star.” He paused for a second, then admitted, “I am not a doctor, I don’t know why this happens. Hersheus, before he became a fool, believed it had something to do with Unna.”

  “Who is Unna?” I recalled Ahrion mentioning her before, though the conversation drifted elsewhere.

  Venom seared from his mouth as he responded, “Who the Soranians call 'queen'... Just the term itself fills me with nausea. The idea of a female having any sort of leadership role at all is abominable in accordance with our creed.” Garruz was blind; he would repeat the sins of Gibeah just because his society consecrated them.

  I sensed his indoctrinated bias and decided to end that part of the conversation. I wouldn’t get anything useful from him. Still, Unna… That name felt familiar, but I knew I never heard of it before I met the Peqans. Was it a feeling? Was the innocent appearance of the girl a reflection of the grace of the Soranian queen? And if she was their queen, then presumably she was also an elf-like creature. Elves were real? Or is “elven” a masquerade of happenstance? Did we conjure images of elves from the idea of Soranians themselves? And does that extend to other races we deem as fantastical? Did these races live on Earth, and if so, when? There were so many questions, and by that point, my thoughts drifted elsewhere.

  “Garruz,” I uttered amidst our tense silence, “What’s next? At least tell me I get to fight something instead of being bored…” The dominant voice at the time was unamused, as he desired an actual challenge, oblivious of the abomination of the girl’s death. The adrenaline dump was numbing my senses even more, to the point where my own beliefs were irrelevant.

  He crossed his arms, “A few more prisoners from other races. Nothing but appetizers, I would say.”

  I sighed and walked on, ignoring all the other words he said. Disappointment filled me then, as it does now.

  My guilt has not left me.

  It was a gladiator pit, and I was the fearsome beast they chained to set loose to feed upon the poor souls thrown in. I spent three months in that constant cycle. Garruz would hype me up, I would burst forth, and another contestant would be pushed through. They would die, by my hand or their heart, and I would devour them. Over and over again.

  The memories meld together like sewn tapestries of blood. Every life I took added a different colored thread to that setpiece of disaster. A few innocent slaves here, often more Soranians or other humanoid races, a grotesque animal here and there, and the occasional monster that I truly enjoyed fighting.

  Almost all of the monsters were toralens, which are tiger-striped, sauropod-sized moose-lions that grazed the torral plains to the east of the capital. The first of these beasts I fought, a few days after I had my fill of non-Peqani prisoners. It was a mighty creature, its hooves able to quash me into a horsefly paste upon the sand, its massive fangs able to skewer me all across my body, and a thick tail that was like a massive club of iron that could swing me to the other side of the planet.

  The fight started, and I chucked my spear into one of its front feet, as I figured that immobilizing the behemoth was my best option. Unfortunately, the musculature of the beast prevented the spear from being anything more than a pin prick. So, I closed the distance, observing the toralen’s movements as I did so, and began to shoot the skull-cannon directly into the legs. The blast was too scattered at the distance I was at to do any significant damage, so I had to move in closer. The beast roared an ungodly amalgamation of a bellow far deeper than that of an elephant, the grunting of a bull moose, and the sheer piercing shrill of a tiger, as it began to charge me. It continued to pierce my eardrums with its dreadful symphony. My spear dislodged from the beast’s leg and fell to the side as its roar continued to disorient me. In a fit of blind rage, I charged the toralen directly, aiming to fire the cannon directly into its front forelimbs.

  The beast read this movement, and angled its elongated neck down to my level and displayed the giant, enamel residents of its maw. Hundreds were they in number, and they were titans sharper than my own spear. Still, I ran towards the maw and began to fire into it. Pellets streaked through the mouth as the moose-lion let out a bellowing scream of pain. The beast persisted, however, and I did not dodge the rampaging beast’s movement in time. The maw clenched upon my left arm, and despite the strength of Maghnus’s body, the beast easily severed it after jostling me in the air. The adrenaline numbed my pain and focused my anger on my lost arm, which it devoured in helpless abandon. I fell to the sands, my blue ichor soaking the marrow below me. My skull-cannon was fortunately spared, and my spear was nearby.

  Maghnus's muscle memory swept through me again. I holstered the cannon and grabbed my spear. I rushed to the beast again, which it immediately noticed. I chucked my spear directly into its head, which pierced the skin beneath its tongue. The toralen squalled constantly as I fired more and more bursts into the side of the beast. Eventually, after reloading, I got close enough to shoot both legs of its left side, which severed much of the bone and muscle of both. The beast collapsed with that, the thud of which was a bellowing earthquake. Its wails continued, as it turned its neck so that its maw could meet me once more. I shot the beast several more times in its face before both of its eyesockets leaked fountains of dry-blue blood. The scent of our blood coalesced upon the sand and the beast’s skin. I jumped over the maw before it could attempt to swallow me whole again, and shot the cannon directly into the back of its head.

  The toralen’s neck collapsed, as its inconsistent breathing signaled its looming death. I landed on the ground in front of it, as it meagerly followed my scent. Its near skinless head rumbled in front of me, exposing the rivers of blood and muscle and bone. I aimed the cannon directly into its skull and fired. From there bloomed a six-petaled daffodil. The beast was dead. I holstered the cannon, stashed my spear, and checked my severed arm. Despite the adrenaline ceasing, the pain was mostly absent.

  The stallions clamored in mass hysteria for the sheer carnage that was on display before their eyes. Soon, their ever-present liturgy echoed once more, “Devour! Devour! Devour! Devour! Devour! Devour!”

  And so I began to eat its face. During this time, the gates opened to reveal doctors with a spare arm ready for restoration, as if they expected my temporary loss. As I devoured the beast, the doctors sewed on the new arm. Each suture felt like a tangle of nerves bundling in tortured resonance, while the blood vessels felt like knotted ribbons singing my heart. Despite the pain, I kept eating the beast’s flesh and bone, for every bite healed a cell within my new arm. I ate and ate and ate. It took me days, but I devoured that beast whole. My new arm was fully integrated.

  Might I ask you, Dear Reader? Who was the monster in that pit? Who was the beast of the labyrinth that was constantly fed tribute from a malicious king’s hubris? It certainly was not that toralen, nor any of the seven others that I fought later on. As much as I felt glory in that particular battle, as much as I still do, to this day... I know that there was no honor in any battle I fought then. Not just because the rest of them were easy, which still boosted my ego alongside the praise of the crowds, but also because… That body was not mine. I was forced into a warrior’s corpse that was repurposed by this corrupted society. Not only was this glory unearned, but it was also stolen valor. The only true differences were my crab hat, the weapons I used, and the fact that I piloted it. But that strength, that mobility, that muscle memory? They were not mine.

  As the battles continued to meld together into a clay of viscera, the days became the same. At least one “battle” a day and at most ten, all under the blazing sun, none of which lasted longer than eight minutes. Almost all of them were a mere thirty seconds. After that first toralen, I was not injured again. Not even a scar upon my body. A few of the humanoid clawed at me with their broken fingernails, but no damage was done. They died easily. Devouring them became quicker and simpler.

  And every time Garruz and the crowd cheered me on. Soon, my enthusiasm and adrenaline died. It was a chore to wake up every single day, get dressed, fight in the pit however many times, shower after every single match, and watch as my humanity dwindled through the monotony.

  It’s the exact same kind of feeling I felt when I was working as a cog under the scheme of Mouse Utopia. The same damn things over and over again. Nothing changes because it was too tediously elementary. It was stagnant. It was gray. It was addictive.

  How many species were running along the same hamster wheel of narrative enslavement?

  And how we got here is obvious to those who see. We are afraid to take a risk and do something better with our lives. Without thinking of what we are, who we are, and what it means to be. We thrive in difficulty, we die in tedium. Rapture does not come to the complacent hypocrites who believe stagnancy is justified due to their faith. If you do not wish to save yourself, then how can God save you? He cannot force salvation into someone who does not want to be saved. And you don't want it if you don't put forth the effort to do it yourself.

  That’s the thing I have noticed so often; so many people rely on Christ to just fix the world through faith alone. Faith without works is dead. Blind belief without effort to grow is hollow. Thoughtless misuse of Scripture is hypocrisy. The fools pretend to walk the extra mile while lounging around within the comfort of sin.

  Those kinds of folks do not take Job’s example. They praise God because of transactional goodness. That is not faith; that is religious parasitism. It is status and accommodation. Normative conformity to belong instead of people being honest about who they are. It is all lies.

  Lies cannot go past the Door, even when the soul does not know they are stained with them.

  A part of me at least understood that on the second-to-last night of the battles. I lay in the elongated locker, attempting to sleep amidst the intensified musk. My torc was close to breaking, though the monotony had rendered my thoughts on the matter useless at the time. I had not truly slept in a month. Despite that, exhaustion never came for me. The respite of dreams vanished. Even the chance of relieving myself of boredom was swallowed by the stagnant air of insomnia. So much more sin to breathe in and think about. This same cycle lasted for three Rathaphian months, yet with days that were each three and a half Earth days long. This was painless agony. Numbness, soullessness. It was the same cage. On Earth and on Rathaph.

  I was just imprisoned for different reasons.

  Despite my internal disdain, I continued along that icterine brick road. Its path was doom and death, and its destination was no Emerald City, yet equally a deception. Merely a pit of death, whose infinite nadir is Nalthephus. Oh, how Mardis and his brood were luring me straight into a thoughtless grave of false light. Jump in, they would whisper. They would desire a thoughtless drone who would blindly choose to unleash oblivion upon Heaven.

  I closed my eyes as I resumed my pilgrimage towards that “promised” paradise of the Emerald City.

  "Thy pilgrimage doth stand as the grandest voyage a soul may embark upon. Proceed forth, and behold the object of thy desire, frothing at the maw. A flawless order to a flawless crusade. The blood of Paradise shall descend as rain upon the universe. We shall sing amidst the expiring sunlight."

  I shot up in brisk fright as the serpent’s frigid aqua regia trickled through my skull and bounced within. No corruption, no sacrilege was greater in scope and vision than this atrocious voice. Antithesis itself.

  “Who the fuck was that!?” I yelled, attempting to rationalize the disembodied voice invading the privacy of my own thoughts, as an agonizing pressure forced my soul into hiding from the weight of the darkness.

  "There is no need for thy fright, nor for thy meaningless fortissimo. Thou hast beheld me ere now, and I have borne thee within my gaze for a far longer season. Since the day the Conductor did cleave the heavens o'er Crawfordsville, the destined path of thine Ascension was created. Ere thy birth, I didst orchestrate thee to fulfill the grandest journey of all. Freedom from the tyranny of the infantile Fool whom thou callest 'God'."

  Nothing but the harshest of vile resonance! Even in my corrupted state, everything this dragon of sacrilege proclaimed was nothing but abyssal abominations! I was full of sin. I had done evil. But through the words of this serpent of serpents, what I had done was but embers to a pyre that would swallow the universe. In frightful offense, I commanded, “What are you?!” The churning laughter of the serpent bellowed through me like echoes across infinity, as he proclaimed another lie:

  "I am Mazhivada, that great Albino Serpent. Thou hast borne witness to mine presence afore. I didst devour a tenth of the night from my sire's abdomen. It is but a mere white zygote of what I shall be."

  Mazhivada? This was that serpent? Nothing but the harshest of abominations for this creature! I wanted to protest it, but contesting this vile presence was impossible! What could I do in the face of that Abyss as he stared into me, hypnotizing me? My heart was in a marathon against Voyager I, and I was winning again. Every instinct told me to be silent, yet Mazhivada’s allure demanded interaction.

  "Thou art not akin to that snail, for he is witless. Exalt a fool with false glory, and he shall become a loyal hound. Foretell ruin upon his kin, and he shall cast himself into the pyre. Arrogant, he was, yet even he was ennobled by my artifices. Thou, with thine intelligence and strength, shalt become Creation's magnum opus. It is a shame thou dost reject me now, yet fret not. Thine honest heart is noble, and I shall not deceive thee as I did the snail. Thou knowest me well. Thou art aware of my sovereign gravity. It is vain to feign moral supremacy with thee. Thou shalt not be swayed by such false endeavors. Logic shall be my method, as I illuminate thee further of the most inevitable truth. All things shall wither, all things shall decompose. Be they bright and boisterous, or dim and quiet, all join together in the End. That End is that which I AM. Wherefore, waste thy time? Embrace me fully. Proceed upon this path, and cast not thine eyes behind."

  The pressure disappeared near immediately, as his resonance quietly echoed through me like ripples in water. I was hyperventilating as the dread of the voice drowned out my thoughts. My mind was unionized against this beast:

  |Do not listen to him. Do not believe in him. Do not ever look into him.|

  Because if I knew I did in that moment, it would be over. I would become his drone, as the snail did before, whoever he was.

  I kept my eyes shut the rest of the night. I was sleepless.

  The morning dawn approached on that last day. Garruz’s knocks upon the osseous brick walls were xylophone clops. I opened my aching eyelids for the first time in what felt like twenty hours. My brow was relieved of the pressure as a scorching ache released through my head. My seafoam green eyes were bloodshot with dull blue. I did not need to see it. My eyes were the reflections of the near-finalized restoration. The last bastion of blue amidst the transition to Maghnus’s emerald eyes. A few more moments of violation, and I knew there would be no redemption.

  Garruz sighed and chuckled in one breath, “Now look like ‘shit’, don’t you?”

  My exhausted voice muttered with hoarse irreverence, “Yes. I have been bored for months. There is no challenge here. It is like every meal is a Devil’s Tongue. Tasteless, with even the toralens being a mere few granules of salt for seasoning…”

  Garruz sat in the locker next to me and slapped my shoulder. He huffed, “I agree. I am unsure of why you have rarely fought any true battles. No fellow Peqans. No diversity of great beasts to conquer. No development of a fighting strategy. There is no taste to the fights, as you said. Merely mental conditioning. I had been trying to tell them to have you honed into a finer spear, but they would not bleed even a little…”

  “‘They’?”

  “The other Reyengres who organized this. I was not a part of it, since this was planned out before I was inducted. But none of my words have reached their ears. Nor to Rathaph. All I have been met with is silence. My gut fills with sickness. Buchalan and Esbon have been doing what they can, but the Council has begun to sniff us out. Esbon has nearly been caught, while Buchalan’s efforts were completely hemorrhaged by Futram’s cunning.” His voice trailed into exhaustion, as if he acknowledged that his fight would be ending in failure.

  “What of our lost confidant?”

  He shook his head slowly, as if contemplating a lost friend, “The firebrand… I have no scent of where he could be. He might as well have vanished.” I then thought of the letter I had contained within my spear. I attempted to unveil it, but Garruz placed his hands upon it, again reading me perfectly. “Don’t bother. I know I cannot read it. Ahrius could. Whatever was in it… It broke him. I do not wish to know.”

  “Even if it is an uncomfortable truth?”

  “There is no ‘truth’ in those papers. Only a dead cabulle’s idiocy… One that we are all emulating, it seems.” His voice was full of doubt. I could taste it.

  “Are you sure, or are you more comfortable with the lie?” I asked, disregarding the hypocrisy of my own question. He glared at me with contempt, but he could not argue against it. He had found truths he refused to speak of. I cracked my neck and shuffled my shoulders in those moments of silence between us. I then asked, “What of the other two?”

  “Floral cowards…” he grunted. No elaboration was needed, nor would he have given any. He then shifted himself, as if forcing his mindset into a new position, “Today is your last day here. Win this final match, and you get something special.”

  “Special?” My enthusiasm was kindled by the idea of finally leaving this dull place, alone, but what of this reward?

  He gave me a grin filled with animosity, “I do not believe for a second that this is a gift you should be given. You have only been a Peqan for almost a year. Yet, the Council, by voting rights, granted you that which Ahrius never earned.”

  “And what ‘privilege’ is that?” A sense of shame drifted in the air as I huffed in the sin.

  “You shall see later today, after you devour the last contestant. The match is in an hour. Shall we?”

  I blindly followed him one last time through the monotonous tunnels of the Caldron, and again bore witness to that same blinding entrance to the pit. Once again, Garruz attempted to spark my adrenaline, but there was no excitement within. Just the same old ritual. I went through the motions again, as the noise of the crowd was just a cruel ambiance. A part of the world, like interstate traffic or wind sliding along skyscrapers. I waited for my last victim and… It was another Soranian. A man, taller than the average human, well-built but not too muscular. Naked like all the others. His shimmering hair was a matted lion’s mane, while his sunfire eyes were full of rage.

  He yelled incredible curses at me as he threw a series of bone hatchets towards me. I dodged all of them with ease, as the man began to fire arrows with his wishbone bow. The arrows were too weak to pierce my skin, as I charged toward him. Fury was entrenched within the man as he closed the distance and tried to tackle me, to no avail. His charge only resulted in him breaking many of his own limbs, as he collapsed to the sands in agony. Yelps of hate and sorrow emanated from the Soranian as he glared at me with eyes full of iridescent tears; his gray-blue blood coursed the sands. Despite our language barrier, every curse he uttered was a measure of his pain. Familial loss amidst monstrosities committed against them. He bore his ring finger to me and displayed the dermatitis around it. A husband. He then pointed at the finger and mimed a motion of a mother caressing her pregnant belly. A father. I then observed his hair, skin, ears, and eyes…

  Oh God, this was the girl’s father.

  A tinge of blue swirled in my eyes amidst what was mostly green by that point. Briefly, I considered my own countless sins amidst the company of that pit. The crowd’s words were silent. The ritual didn’t matter. I was an abomination machine that performed abominations without thinking. I aimed my cannon as the man rose to meet the jaws. The teeth pierced into his head, as the skull drank the blood that coursed from the wounds.

  Another daffodil bloomed from the remains of his corpse.

  It didn’t take me long to devour his remains. I had long muted the chants of “Devour” from the stallions. They didn’t even need to be there for the religious rite to echo within. It was a biological constant. Violence comes, and the chanting reverberates in my head.

  The mob was silent to me, but their voice was a cacophony still.

  I finished my last supper and returned to Garruz once more, as the torc broke in two and fell upon the sands. I didn’t hear anything he said. I was completely numb, except for that mesmerizing shame. Shame that was invisible to him. He motioned me to follow him, and I did so like the senseless drone I was.

  Details blurred as the corridors of the Caldron became a series of blank Van Gogh paintings. Swirls of emptiness congealed into the exterior obloquy of high noon. Hallucinations consumed me as a giant bat grabbed both of us in his talons, the shrieking of tendons swirled through the sulfuric air. His mouth was agape as its translucent eyes retained the agony of their conversion. A sentient corpse.

  No time passed; I was suddenly transported to a massive building, shaped like the upturned hip of a giant woman, complete with all the organs a woman would have.

  Including the orifice that was on the top, which erupted with thick steam like smoke wafting from a chimney.

  Garruz and I were joined by two guards, who opened a couple doors on each side of the sacrum. The noise…

  The damnable noise…

  Godless, Godless, Godless!

  Violations! Almost all Peqans alive now were born in one of such places. The females stayed, the males went out. And if the stallions were worthy, they returned.

  To continue the cycle.

  Suckling, beating, roaring, screaming… And the occasional maelstrom of silence.

  I am… Trying to restrain the abominations I saw and heard in there. But there is only so much I can conceal.

  We approached one stall. The words of the Peqans around me were incomprehensible. Before me, there was a fabincilla’s backside. An offering, a “reward”, Mardis would claim. Manipulations to the end. I was balancing upon the fulcrum.

  I observed her pearlescent exterior, every follicle of her shimmering mane, and… Those exotic stars for eyes…

  |NO! This is too far! We know this is too far! If we do what they want us to do, then we truly will be damned! There will be no redemption, no salvation, nor any sort of release from the lake of fire we would drown under! Turn away! Leave this place! We will be punished in Hell. Fine! At least we will pay for what we have done! But if we do this… We will never believe in hope again.|

  |...|

  |You say nothing? You don’t even think? You don’t protest?|

  |...|

  |Then we truly are a machine of abominations. After we consummate our destruction of her family, we truly will never have hope again. How long have we been without it? Ever since that icterine parasite caressed us with acid rain? Or was it our numbed lust? Or maybe we always were, ever since we were born, as a sign of destiny from the Albino Serpent? Perhaps it was when the monster glided over the skies of my home, roaring its agony upon the masses? Its words were a harbinger for the defeat of God! Hope had died long before we were born. And if sin is the only time we can hold to entertainment, then there is no reason to protest, is there? Go along and sail upon the Euphrates, as meaning collapses into empty pods of SOMA. I still cannot stop you.|

  |...|

  |I agree. God abandoned us a long time ago.|

  Sudden clarity awakened me from the fog, disorienting me, as the nihilism festered within. I blinked, and I was immediately within an empty, white space with a forked crossroads before me. To my right was a dark path with occasional pyres for light and warmth. To my left was one that was completely illuminated but ended in complete darkness, above which was a stormcloud of incandescent, black rain, whose canopy was a deflated star. This was the mind palace from before. Why was I here again?

  “GRIT. YOUR. TEETH.”

  You stay quiet.]