The suns set upon a grand and imposing structure, hewn from sandstone and etched with intricate reliefs along its sides: The Temple of Azan, the very heart of Terezan religion... and now their last beacon of hope. Soldiers - as well as their mechanized counterparts - patrol the Temple’s borders as the remaining populace await their turn to enter. One by one, each person is led inside by a small group of black-robed priestesses.
Waiting nervously, Uzarex’s eyes dart around the entrance of the temple. Large carvings of Azan grace the walls in all her glory, arms held skyward and triumphant. An awe-inspiring image in its own right, though today she couldn’t help but feel fearful. Those divine eyes carried a sinister weight in the fading light, glinting around the pupils where gold inlays captured the sunset. They almost appeared ravenous... Her attention is brought back to reality by a cold metal hand on her shoulder.
“Come, child. It is your turn.”
Turning to the touch, Uzarex is met with a visage of black cloth and glowing yellow eyes from beneath a shadowed hood. She nods, following the woman into the temple. Passing the threshold, they are accompanied by several others, clad in the same raven fabric as the one Uzarex trailed behind. Looking around, she could see other people in the same situation as herself - all headed to the central chamber. Her soft footsteps could barely be heard over the unified metallic clicking of the holy women’s feet on cold stone.
The other groups began to separate into the myriad of side rooms within the main antechamber, their priestesses standing watchfully beside their respective doors. “Come,” the woman leading Uzarex spoke again, motioning to a yet empty room. “This is the one for you.”
Inside, the walls were lavishly engraved with twisting lines - weaving and elaborate designs to pull the eyes toward the back wall, which bore another imposing relief of Azan herself. Arms held downward, this image depicted a beckoning gesture that pointed to the dais at the center of the room. Somehow, the eyes of this one seemed even more terrifying than those outside.
“Lay upon the center stone, child. The time for your blessing has come.” The head priestess commands, pointing to the central dais. As she spoke, a series of metal arms and pointed implements unfold themselves from the shaded ceiling above, full of menacing points and bladed tools.
A small shudder ran down Uzarex’s spine as she complied, taking place on her back in the center of the room. From both beneath and beside her, the seemingly flat stone slid open to reveal complex machinery far beyond what she had ever seen before. The drones and war mechs outside paled in comparison to the snaking wires approaching the back of her head.
“I’m scared,” she pleads to the head priestess, struggling to sit still. The priestesses, however, remain indifferent to her as they continue their litanies in a circle around her.
Suddenly, everything is silent. The litanies are replaced with sharp, horrible pain at the base of her skull as the wires attach themselves to her nervous system. Her vision blurs and fades, the lowering needles and blades from above inching far too close for comfort before being taken by darkness.
“There is nothing to fear, my child.” a voice whispers into her mind.
The pain was unimaginable in even her worst nightmares as every nerve was systematically torn from her body and mapped in detail by the horrible machine holding her in place. The distinct sting of blade to skin; The burning touch of a surgical laser scalpel; The cold feeling of slow death spreading from her extremities. If she could just fall asleep and forget, she would. It would have been a mercy.
But she couldn’t.
As the spreading numbness took hold, she found herself thinking of the other recent horrors she beheld before coming to this place. Memories flooding her mind of her mother’s delicious food she missed, and of the friends she hadn’t seen in months. She remembered the riverbed where she liked to run to when she wanted to rest her feet in the cool water with the fish...
“All things you have lost. Taken from you by the Demon.”
She remembered the bloodied and broken smile of her mother’s body as it crawled across the floor to get her in the dark hours of night. Her desperate escape from that house scarred her mind, begging the question: Did that happen to her friends as well? Were they all ruined in the same way as her mother? Anger filled her mind, pushing away the spreading numbness in her body. She wanted her mother back. She wanted her friends back. She wanted to make the thing that ruined her life suffer.
“There is much to be done, dear child.”