Sisters

I left the cult I was involved with a long time ago, however it’s teachings still stay with me always. I have been a member here for quite some time, lurking in the shadows, reading and finding comfort in your experiences as they relate to my own. Even if I have never commented or messaged you personally, I have felt a strong kinship here with you. I have seen many inspiring things on this forum and have decided that now is the time for me to share my own experience, with hope it can inspire others.

Before I begin, it is important to remember that perception is reality. How you are raised shapes so much of who you are, and the way you view the world. Seeing as this is a forum for people like me, I may not need to explain that. However, I am very used to explaining it to outsiders, and it is a good reminder to us all. You never know what someone else has gone through.

I won’t bore you with my entire childhood, but instead will impart to you the events that led to me leaving my village and brought me here. The events that reshaped my beliefs and made me who I am today.

I am leaving for a trip tomorrow night and will attempt to get everything out to you before I do. If not tonight then tomorrow morning so please be patient if I cannot get through the full story all at once.

Before I begin, I just want to make clear to you all this simple message.

You can leave. You can change. You CAN be your best self.

My name is Vilina, and this is my story.

Part I

As the willows whispered wildly, I passed under and through them. With their many fingers passing over me they brought an already steady girlish giggle to a hearty laugh. I knew that my sisters were not far behind, but as sure as a siren’s call they could always find me from my laughter.

I traveled through the far meadows to the edge of the marsh. I rolled down the ocean of tall grasses and stopped face up at the bank. Looking skyward and feeling the warm winds whip against my cheek, I lounged daydreaming up at the clouds.

My dreams, much like the rest of my childhood, had always been so calm and comforting. They were so vibrant in their peace and serenity that at times I longed to sleep, to rejoin that other worldly place and its many dreamscapes. I had often thought about it before, and have often since, how fascinating it is that in dreams you do not necessarily see things. It is more a feeling you get from your dream, and your mind simply generates images to match. You get the feeling of falling, or of something chasing you, and that gives you the images of coming closer to earth, or of a monster. Nightmares.

I did not have nightmares. Like most children, other girls in the village did have nightmares. Nightmares were explained to me, but I did not have terrors to call my own. My dreams seemed constantly filled with ethereal places of heavenly, bright vivid visages of wanderlust brought on by a constant sense of tranquility.

I had always dreamed this way, until I didn’t. What’s strange is that in those final weeks in the village my dreams had changed, but at the same time they had not. Where I once dreamed of my wind-swept oceans of tall grasses feeding into mountains and meadows, I now saw only the same things every time I closed my eyes. I saw things I had never seen before. Things that contrasted so harshly to all I had ever known.

In those dreams I saw cold dark earth packed against red stone walls. I saw a mother who had hair about her face. Mostly, I saw the well. Other images came and went through my dreams in those last few weeks, but the one constant was the well. A well with black brackish waters in a dark place. Always dark. The well with waters that would move up and over you as they slowly transcended upwards out of the well in small beads, sweating from the surface. I remember the feeling that these small perspirations were at the same time calling to me as they were comforting me. They hungered for me to touch them. In every dream I approached the well, but I never touched it or its waters. Whenever I awoke from these dreams, I remember feeling so odd. Not from the dreams themselves, but from the feelings they gave me. These things when said out loud to Mother should have been frightening. So foreign and dark to the only world I had ever known; and yet somehow, I felt the same comfort as I had when traversing my normal temples of trees and green vistas. Maybe for the same reasons I have heard people love to watch wild horses, I loved the well dream. The thing I could not control. The thing I wanted to know more about that always evaded me.

My mother did not have much to say about these dreams. She merely brushed them off and told me it was a normal part of growing older. We couldn’t always dream of the meadows.

On that day, as I laid on the beach of the marshland beyond, I slipped again into that same dream, and dreamt as I often had in those weeks. I dreamt of the well, and of its waters calling out to me once more. I approached closer than I ever had before. I willed myself to reach out and touch the bubbly baubles. To  run and to leap into those waters. Yet in my dream, my slow approach never faltered as I drew steadily closer to the well. I felt myself coming to a precipice, about to finally understand what it meant in some way to learn its secrets. I saw my hand climb from my side and stretch out to the surface, coming close to peering over the edge. As I reached the climax of the dream, ready to view the depths of the pool, I felt myself lurch from my slumber once more, its secrets escaping me.

“Vilina! Wake up!”

I jolted from the dream. My sister Blanche’s pale face stared down at me with disapproving eyes.

The wind carried her golden hair across her face, which she primly swept and placed neatly back in order as I sat up.

“Asleep again? Always asleep,” she scolded.

“I was so close! So close to knowing! I could feel it!” I said without veiling my exasperation.

“So close to nothing,” she chided.

“Its just a dream. We all have the dream. The mothers say we all get them as we get older,” she spoke factually and without condescension.

I knew Blanche did not approve of my many trips through the forests, or of my general curious and lackadaisical habits. However, being perfect as she was, it was not in her to be snide or rude. She had never shared her own feelings on the matter, or of my actions.

“Blanche is right you know,” said Agnes.

I looked to see Agnes staring off towards the marsh with the same look of mistrust and concern she gave most things.

“We all have the dreams. Mother says even if they terrify us there is nothing to fear,” she continued, her head tilted as she more carefully inspected a frog hopping off into the murk with a little more disgust.

Luckily for Agnes, at that moment we all turned as we heard the beginning of the call. The afternoon beginning of the chapel services, and the melodic hum traveling across the valley to all corners.

Blanche sighed, no doubt anxiously awaiting her eventual visit through those doors and an end to the longing. Longing for the communion with Him that she had long been promised. She stared off in the direction of the village, lingering just a second before regaining her composure.

“We are all too old for this sort of prattle. Any day now we will have our descendance,” said Blanche. “We will meet Him and see the world beyond. We are far too old to be concerned with dreams and fears. The only thing we need be concerned with is how best to serve Him in all ways and uphold the faith as Mother always says.”

Placing her hands on her knees, she sat perfectly poised for a moment before softening her face with a smile and looked down to me.

I was amazed at the way she harnessed the ability to preach at us while always maintaining her calm, sweet, motherly demeanor. It was as if she was perpetually practicing the balance, to slip into the perfect motherly role she was destined for. If nothing else could be said, we could all know that Blanche wanted nothing more than to be a mother herself and raise a daughter of her own.

She saw me staring up at her, pondering the thought while laying lazily in the sand. I’m sure I had a look of indifference to the sermon.

Mother or not, she looked at me and rolled her eyes as she spoke.

“Come now, lets get back before service finishes to help with the end of day chores.”

Standing, she held out her hand to me.

It was my turn to roll my eyes as I took her hand and she helped me to my feet.

Her face turned to confusion as our eyes met, and she looked down.

She turned my hand over and I saw her eyes widen.

I looked down to see what alarmed her, and took in the sight of my own palm. There was dried blood mixed with the sand sticking to a fresh cut.

Before I could even react, she was dragging me to the waters edge. She began vigorously rinsing my hand in the cold murky waters.

Anges yelped at the sight.

“You… You can’t do that. You can’t do that. We don’t touch the marsh. We don’t touch the marsh. You know that! WE DO NOT TOUCH THE MARSH!”

Anges was working herself into a frenzy.

Blanche’s eyes were wide with panic; however, her voice was still as the waters had been before our interruption.

“We have to clean it. Maybe, if we clean it there wont be a cut. Maybe you just put your hand in something,” she said.

Frantically she went on waving my hand in the waters.

I already knew she was wrong. I must have gotten the cut while rolling down the bank, but even now I don’t remember feeling when it happened. I do however, remember the sting I felt as the waters of the marsh entered my hand. These were not the tranquil calling waters of the well. These were fresh embers, the burning felt from the cold liquid sent a small prickle up my wrist, and I pulled away from her.

“Let me see it!”, she called as I walked back up the bank.

"The water. The boundaries. You both know the rules. The marsh and the valley apex. It is forbidden. You both know. You know this." Agnes was spiraling, dwindling out. She knelt on the ground. She still had not moved an inch closer to the marsh or toward us. Dejectedly she repeatedly whispered as she stared at the ground, "You know… You know…"

The gash was a couple inches across my palm. Given it had been some time since it happened, with Blanche's cleaning it wasn't even bleeding anymore.

"Let me see it, I said!", came Blanche, grasping for my hand once more.

I pulled away again to face her.

"I am fine. Its fine!"

"It’s not fine Vilina! You know it’s not fine, the desce…"

"IT. IS. FINE!”, I yelled. Taking a breath, I straightened. “You sound like her."

I pointed at Agnes who sat still mumbling, now too low to hear.

"SHE. IS. RIGHT!" screamed Blanche emphatically, finally losing the cool poise of the perfect promised child. "I know she's right, and so do you. We don’t touch the marsh, or go beyond the boundary of the valley's apex. Exiting or going beyond the boundaries before descendance is forbidden. We all know this. You also cannot damage yourself. I only want to help you. We need to find a way to fix this. To hide it if we must.”

There was a part of me that was touched by her act to help save me. At the same time I thought about how much of that may be self-preservation. We were meant to be three pure sisters descending as a trio, as He wished.

My eyes narrowed.

"This is hardly my first scrape, let alone on my hands."

I pulled up my skirts to show the pale lines and years of healed damage. My arms were much the same. I had been lucky that my hands had never seemed to be harmed. Add that to the fact that injuries were easily concealed in a world where Mothers did not scan over every inch of you. We all wore the white linens from wrist to ankle. People were more inclined to believe you just caught your dress on a snag than you had been injured, so long as you cleaned the fabric well before arriving back home. I had become excellent at cleaning and mending by this point.

This also wasn't my first time in the marsh. I had spent many a clandestine afternoon wading through the wetlands and sunbathing on the further bank when I knew no one was looking for me. I treasured my stolen afternoons while Blanche devoted more time to housework, and Agnes to fetching up her mother’s skirts. However, I chose not kick that hornet’s nest.

"I just don't see why He would care at all about a few scrapes over the years, Blanche. Why would He care?"

Blanche's mouth dropped.

"We are all meant to come to him as pure as we were born. That is His will. How could you be so careless with all of our futures?", she said flatly.

"Because it doesn't matter."

You would think my words had been a knife to her belly.

"These rules. They are just words. I did worry once, about the first small knick I received. Then nothing happened. As I grew older, I realized no one checks me. No one cares. It does not matter, Blanche."

I don't know if she even heard my second reply, as she still seemed to be recovering from the first time I told her it did not matter.

“What of the Mother’s cuts? What of their hands? He seems fine with that.”

She swallowed back whatever disgust she had at my admissions and admonishments.

"I sincerely hope you're right, Vilina. I hope you don't come to regret this when you meet Him. I hope we all don't come to regret it," she said, choosing to ignore my comments about the mothers hands. We all knew not to speak of them.

She took a breath, and then I saw something change in her for a moment. Something passed the preachy perfect sister I had always known. Her eyes read hurt.

"I do wish you would have told me. I would have told you."

As quickly as the hurt had shown, it was gone. She dusted off her dress and looked at Agnes. She spoke kind and stern as always, ever the mother again.

"Come now Agnes, you will be okay. One way or another we must not speak of this. What is done is done. We have not done wrong and have to pray He will know our piety above all when we are weighed and judged by Him. In the end, all are to serve His will, not our own."

This last jab she threw hit home at that moment. She knew it would sting, as those words were not just spoken out of anger. The words were my mother’s words, spoken to me many times through the years. No matter how many times I strayed the path, they had not stopped me from myself. Hearing my mothers own counsel, I wasn't just letting Him down, I was letting Mother down.

Blanche walked up and over the bank holding Agnes’ hand. They headed back through the forest guided by the rising rhythmic hum of His call.

They were easy words for Blanche to say as an attempt to hurt me, but what did she know? She had never known anything beyond her teachings. She had never felt the call of the wild as I had, never felt the pull from the peaks around us. Blanche had never longed for more than she was allowed. She never hoped for more.

Strengthened in my resolve, I picked myself up and made haste, determined to catch up with my sisters on the path back to the village.

I caught up to them at the foot of the forest that acted as barrier to the meadows. We did not talk of my hand, or of the marsh again.

As we wound through the path we talked of chores. As always, I found it difficult to focus on turning in the animals, washing, candle lighting, dinner preparation, etc. I did my best to act excited to gather the eggs and clean our chicken coup, though I hated the thought. The hens always pecked at me as I nimbly inspected their nests for eggs. Not to mention the feeling of fear I felt at the thought of running into Stosh. I didn’t have anything that made me feel fear like the other girls did from their dreams, but if I did have nightmares it would surely have been from that rooster.

I shook off the thought, and put on a smile as we weaved through the woods. At last we reached the point of the forest that began to thin, the trees making way for grasses and then nothing but dirt with pink and white pedals.

The apex of the valley was marked all around us by large flowering dogwood. In the spring each year they started to drop their blossoms. The petals rode the wind to bless us with their spectacle each year, a welcome reminder of just how much I loved home. If the wilds were the waves of my daydreams, then the village was my port. A place to always return, rest, and repeat.

For some reason the grass and forest refused to overtake the village. I never saw anyone have to clear or remove the woods to make way for new homes, or pens. However, the petals never seemed to care and always blessed us with their beauty. A light dusting always covered the ground through summer, offering a carpet of color to brighten the many dirt pathways and thatched rooftops of the hundreds of small dwellings within the village.

As we crossed the threshold of the village we saw the other girls already hurrying about their nightly chores. We wound through the homes, and passed by Kori, Reina, and Gabriel. Reina and Blanche had a long standing unspoken feud, the most awkward standoff that I had ever seen. It was a battle for supremacy, to determine who could be more ideal. It was odd, because they did not openly dislike each other.

We all walked the same path in opposite directions, two sets of three sisters. We met abruptly, staring at one another. We let the two saintly sally’s do the talking.

“Blanche,” said Reina, bobbing her head slowly in acknowledgment.

“Reina,” said Blanche, mimicking her to perfection.

The two prefects stood at attention, mirroring each other in every way down to their golden hair and clasped hands at their navels.

“We are off to prepare for our Mother’s dinner before we receive His word,” said Reina.

“We are off to do much the same, except we also plan to bed the animals and get a head start on tomorrows chores. Sorry, we can’t stay to chat. We had better hurry off, mustn’t waste the remainder of the chapel services. As He wills, we look to the future.”

I looked at Blanche with a groan. We never discussed getting a head start on tomorrows work. I for one would not have been in favor, but I did my best to say nothing. I didn't need any more sermons tonight.

Blanche’s comment made Reina’s eye twitch ever so slightly, interrupting the staring contest, and like that it was over.

“May your descent come soon, and may you all be found worthy,” they both said in unison. The three girls parted way for us, and we walked past them nodding to each other as we did.

I picked up my skirts as Blanche quickened her pace. She strode with her long legs, and the harmony of quick deliberate motion coupled with upright rigidness gave her a weightless quality. Floating, she moved ahead of us with a grace we could not match.

Agnes, seemed always ready for the way that Blanche moved with purpose throughout the village. Trusting Blanche to be her eyes, she kept hers to the ground looking for the imperceivable threats looming to make her take a tumble as she flew.

“I can’t stand that girl,” I breathed, as soon as we turned a corner.

“You ought not to speak like that about anyone, Vilina,” Blanche said.

“I know you hate her too. All of her comments about hoping we descend soon! She might as well just say she wants to be rid of us already.”

“It’s just a nice thing to say,” said Agnes with a sigh.

“I see what she is really saying, and you both know it’s true,” I spat at the ground. I also couldn't afford to look up at this point, with this pace.

“I for one am not trying to say that I hope they descend soon to be rid of her. It is simply the proper thing to say,” said Blanche, as she came to a stop.

Agnes and I almost toppled as we slid to a halt and bumped into one another. Looking up I saw why Blanche had stopped. We were at the point in our route that took us closest to the chapel. I could see the plainly colored white wood boards that made up its walls, otherwise unadorned. My eyes traveled over the great double doors beyond the stairs that Blanche daydreamed of climbing one day. The doors were bathed in a green light, the only such light in all of the village. When I thought about this building I really only had three questions. What made that light green? What was beyond the doors that made the chapel forbidden to girls and not mothers? I pondered the third question, as my eyes raised to look at the chimney above the steepled roof. There was the same steady stream of smoke rising from the chimney that never seemed to cease no matter the time of day or the weather. Blanche turned back to me.

“I am not trying to say that I hope she descends soon to be rid of her,” she repeated. “I do hope she descends soon. Just not before me.” She smiled a smile that touched her eyes before redoubling the mad pace from before.

Agnes and I sighed and took off at a run after her. She may have been able to keep that pace without running or looking foolish, but I am sure Agnes and I looked like idiots.

We came to our home at last. Without speaking, we all went our separate ways and made for the chores previously discussed.

Agnes broke for the washing, and Blanche for the cooking. I ran straight for the hen pen, but as soon as I was around the back of the house I stopped running and took in a deep breath.

Sitting still, tall, and proud was Stosh. With all two feet of his mustered height, the rooster crowed defiantly.

“His will,” I said with a sigh. I walked forward into battle.

Thirty minutes later and a few additional snags in my linens, I returned to the house carrying the nightly round of eggs. I almost dropped the delivery when I saw all three mothers already home.

Agnes sat wide eyed in a chair near Mother Ailsa, who seemed to be speaking slowly to calm her. Blanche was hugging Mother Beatrice. She overflowed with joyful laughter while trying her best to maintain a semblance of grace.

I was confused, until my own mother stood from a chair next to the door. Mother Genevieve looked to me and said what I should have known already.

“My child, your time has come. Tomorrow will be the day of your descendance.”

I did not react as my sisters did. Agnes responded in fear, Blanche in joy, but I did not know how to feel. I searched my thoughts, and couldn’t determine where I stood between the two. The concept just seemed foreign. Sure, one day I would descend; but that was “some day”. Now that “some day” was tomorrow, I felt torn. Mother Genevieve must have seen the look of consternation. She came to forward, wrapping her arms around me in an embrace. She pulled my head close to her chest, her long stark white hair encasing me.

“I am so proud of you my daughter,” she whispered softly. Her words were a gift just for me. She gently patted my back with one hand, the other stroking my hair delicately.

I pulled back just enough to look up into her wise old eyes.

“I hope I can make you proud tomorrow,” I said.

I meant it. I hoped I would be able to descend. With the reality of the day settling in, I remembered that my fate was not only tied to my sisters, but also to Mother. I was an extension of her, after all.

“You will. I know you will,” she said with a soft, warm smile.

She went to hug me again, and as she did I saw past her. I took in the scene of my sisters different emotional states.

By now, Blanche had moved to comforting Agnes with Mother Ailsa. Mother Beatrice stood with hands on hips, a monument to rigid impatience. She looked in my direction with that same look she had given me my entire life. Unbridled, exasperated contemptuousness lit in her eyes.

“One of them cries. The other looks like a lost fawn!”, she said throwing her hands in the air. “We have spent their entire lives preparing them for this moment. You would think there would be more gratitude. In His name. I told you both that you have been to lax with these two. Especially this one,” she said pointing at me.

It would only serve that the Mother who had raised excellency would have high standards, but Mother Beatrice took this to a different plane. Needless to say as a girl who wasn’t known for following His teachings quite so strictly, I was always a target for a good sermon. Or condemnation.

“We all handle the descendence in our own way, Beatrice,” said Genevieve.

“This one hasn't handled anything, ever,” she returned flatly.

“I think she is handling it just fine. We never know when our day will come, or what His will is until He shows us,” my mother said, now turning and giving that same soft smile to Beatrice.

I loved it when she preached lightly back to her. This wasn’t just another set of sisters we watched wrapped in a contended battle of devotion as before. No, this was two titans of divinity.

Acting unfazed, Beatrice approached.

“The trio must serve their purpose as one. If she does not do her part, this will all have been for nothing.”

“She will be fine. As will sweet Agnes,” said Genevieve, gracing the timid girl with a nod of approval.

“They will go. They will descend as He wills, one way or another it will be done,” said Ailsa quietly as she stood. She spread the creases from her linens with far more creased and crevassed fingers.

This was unlike her. Each mother had a different way of dealing with things. My own mother had a philosophy of fighting Beatrice’s icy demeanor with warmth and an occasional spark of flame. Agnes’ mother chose to handle her with a casual nonchalance, like she did all things. More often then not, just choosing to let her cold stare drill into her uncaring face.

Ailsa let out a long, deep breath and walked from the room with a slow tired gait. She made clear she had nothing more to say or add. Her silence carried enough weight of its own.

Agnes looked like a fish out of water. Looking around in dismay, she stood quickly.

“Goodnight sisters. Goodnight mothers,” she said quickly. She almost tripped on her dress as she tried to curtsy while turning to leave in pursuit of her mother.

Even Blanche’s mother seemed stunned to see Ailsa partake in the discussion at all with such finality. However, that shock did not last long. She shook it off quickly and restored her fury to me.

“She better make it Genevieve. Blanche deserves better,” she fumed. She called for Blanche to accompany her, and stormed off.

Blanche hurried to follow, but not before giving me an apologetic look.

“Goodnight Sister. Goodnight Mother Genevieve. Thank you for all you have done for me. For all of us,” she said. I could tell she was still overjoyed and despite the heated exchange she still couldn't set aside her own excitement for the next days events.

She curtsied her respect, and quickly padded off to follow her mother.

We took our leave then, and as usual Mother walked me to my room. Like every other night, as I prepared my night clothes she sat at the edge of my bed humming quietly. Mother closed her eyes as she swayed there to that melody. It was as though she drifted off in her own special place. It is a memory I still take with me always. Something to comfort me to sleep each night, even now.

“Are you nervous my child?”, she asked as I slipped into bed.

“I am. I just want to satisfy Him.” I lied.

“You will Vilina. You will. I have faith.”

“What will happen tomorrow, Mother?”, I asked.

She paused looking down at me as her lips pulled to a line. She looked even older than usual. It was as if the smile vanishing on my kindly mothers face was a sign that all of the exuberance she had left had been depleted, leaving a husk of the sweet fruit she had been.

“You know I cannot tell you that,” she said. Her tender look and smile returned, but it seemed to take some effort or unknown toll from her.

“What if I don’t know what to do? What happens if I make a mess of things? I don’t want to ruin things, or to disappoint you.”

She maintained her patient kindness, but I could tell somewhere behind that smile something was troubling her. She chewed my words. Nodding to herself she seemed to come to a decision.

“My daughter, my Lamb. I must confess that no other Mother has ever truly loved a daughter as I do so love you, my child.”

She paused a moment. Her eyes took me in, and then looked about the room as if to just take in the moment. Seeing no one else, she took a deep breath and whispered to me. She spoke in a rush, in a tone that not even the walls were meant to hear.

“Because of the depth of my love for you Vilina, I must tell you something. Something that I should not.”

My head cocked to the side, but before I could speak, Mother Genevieve leaned in closely. Even though she was whispering directly into my ear, her voice was so hushed I thought even the light wind outside would surely take the words away.

“In the most difficult moments.

Take heed my words.

Give in completely.

Have faith forever my child.”

She pushed out each line quickly like a spear which attacked my mind the moment it left her and entered me. As quickly as the conspiratorial possession overtook her, it seemed to pass as she pulled away and stood. She once again spoke busily of mundane nightly duties.

“Are you hungry?”, she said.

I was still reeling trying to understand.

“I shall fetch you something small before bed.”

She walked out of the room. I was left in the vacuum created in the wake of her words, words that ran rampant through my head. Spinning, I replayed every line.

“In the most difficult moments.

Take heed my words.

Give in completely.

Have faith forever my child.”

What made this odd was that there was nothing out of the ordinary in anything she said.

Nothing made sense, because it all made too much sense. She had told me these things almost daily for my entire life.

I had always been a wanderer. It was difficult for me to fall in line. Difficult to conform to the dresses, chores, routines, and rituals that all the other girls seemed to have no issue adhering to. Because of this, Mother had often told me to heed her words, to give in to Him, be forever in faith, and to follow His will. She had even said this in front of my sisters and the other mothers many, many times. These things were openly taught; not just to me, but to all of us during the many seasons of life.

We were always meant to have faith in His teachings, even though as girls we did not yet know Him. Every girl in the village knew that during difficult winters, pain, or any hardship, our mothers faith was strong. We never lost faith in them, and our mothers never lost faith in Him.

Why would she say such a thing, and in such a way? The question plagued me.

She returned to my bed with a small portion of bread and cheese. Handing it to me I could tell that she knew I was vexed. However, along with all other great conspirators, we held a commonality. The unspoken trust that what had been said, had been said quietly and in such a way as to never be mentioned again.

She sat humming a version of the call at the edge of my bed while I ate. It was my turn to take in that moment now. Seeing her there, I ate slowly. I hoped she would say something else to make it all make sense, but in the end I finished my plate and handed it back to her. She stood, kissed my forehead, and smiled at me one last time before leaving the room without another word.

I laid awake mulling the meaning of Mothers words repeatedly until His real nightly call came crashing through the village. The low thrum of the tone reverberated in the small space. The walls shook and my bed pulsed as it lulled me to sleep. In my slumber I floated off to be filled with more dark, moist memories.

PART II

I woke the morning of our descendance. There was a quiet that seemed to be swelling in the village. Like an unseen wave about to break I felt myself bracing as I rose from bed, and walked into the common room where my sisters already waited for me. They were holding hands looking towards the open doorway leading out of the house. Both turned to look at me and smiled. Today was our day. Blanche reached out her hand, and despite the previous day, when I reached out to clasp her she quickly closed the distance. Leaning forward, she smiled wide.

“I know we don’t always see eye to eye, but I want you both to know that no matter what happens, I am proud to be your sister. To descend with you. I love you both, with all my heart, and I know He will too,” Blanche said, as tears welled up at the corners of her eyes.

“I love you too,” said Agnes. She was of course already crying. Whether from anticipation of the unknown, or the speech, I will never know.

“I…” My voice wavered. Which genuinely shocked me. Somehow I had just never seen today as real. Now that it was here, the feelings of it seemed too big for my comprehension. I swallowed, feeling like I couldn’t speak. So I didn’t.

Then I cried. “I love you” was just something you said to family. Despite having said it many times before, they were just words. Here and now with weight of destiny calling, I was eviscerated with emotions I could not contend with in that moment. Happy tears flowed as Blanche and Agnes pulled me in and hugged me. I realized then that I loved them both dearly. I had always seen Blanche as a golden haired golden child, the apple of any mother’s eye. I saw Agnes as a timid shadow, frightened to step away from her Mothers side.

If I could go back and change or do anything different that day, I would have told them both that I sincerely loved them. It was a chance I would never get back.

Instead I just held them there, and by the time I was ready to speak I heard it. The call began.

Within the village the call was almost a roar. The humming chant emanated from the chapel in all directions. Low and bellowing, it felt as though it might knock you backwards. The glass of the windows shook and chattered. It made my eyes flicker on the verge of fainting. My knees buckled, and I gripped Blanche for support. Her smile only grew.

“It’s time,” she said, as she took a step forward, flanked on either side by Agnes and I. Hand in hand we moved as one.

Just as every other trio of sisters before us had gone. Just as He willed it.

We walked through the front door and turned onto the main pathway through the village. When we did, I saw them. All the other girls in their windows and doorways. Silently they loomed. Every step we took we were traced by hundreds of wide eyes. Wet with wonder at our every step, they watched in anticipation. I knew because hundreds of times before, I had been them.

We slowly made our way down the path, met every few steps with another note of the call. I always thought since it was so loud at home, getting closer it would be deafening. However, through some miracle the closer we got to those chapel steps the melody seemed sharper, more defined. The song was calm and quieter. It became more than bearable. I had always loved the call. It was a lull that reverberated from my bones down through the core of me. It was my dream’s song and muse. Now in this moment, I can say it was nothing short of intoxicating.

I felt ready to fall into its warm embrace and never come out. I happily made the steps up the stairs. Barely cognizant of my movements, my bare feet slid over the wood. They raised and fell one after another. One moment I was in the street, and the next I was at the doors of the one building in the village I was never allowed to be near. It was the one rule even I strictly followed.

I could feel my sisters still next to me, Blanche’s hand still in mine. They were both completely silent. There were no tears, laughter, or joy. We all sat staring at the doors. On the next pulse of the call the doors cracked open slowly revealing a blinding light from within. I pulled my free hand up to guard my eyes. When I lowered it, my eyes adjusted as much as they could. I saw now that the rising sun was pouring in like a dam let loose through the valley of pews. Past a large statue at the far end of the room it flowed over every mother in the village.

I thought it was unnerving to have the other girls watching, but it was nothing compared to the anxiety I now felt. Despite His call still growing ever louder in my head and in my heart, I felt small under the scrutiny of the mothers. Their long drawn faces with their many wrinkles and pure white hair sat framing hooded eyes. They judged our every movement. Silently they tracked us as we continued forward. No one within the chapel spoke or gave us direction. Something inside my head just kept saying the same thing in a voice unlike any I had ever heard before. “Go forth. Come to me,” it said.

Step by step we continued to move in unison. We crossed the threshold of the forbidden chapel and passed the pews as we approached the statue. A statue that even today I have trouble explaining. Just like my dreams, it filled me with feelings. As my feelings changed, so did it. At one moment I was giddy, a chalice filled to the cusp with joy. The statue was of a woman, but then it changed. In the changing I was content and at peace, so much that I could have laid down and just stared at it until I let the world waste away. I would have been fine with that. In my desire for it, it now seemed to become darker somehow. Scaled, foreign, and strange, but in no way repellent. It just was, and I was raptured that it was there at all.

I wish I could have pulled my eyes from it to see the mothers. Were they looking at the statue with us? Or were they taking in the triumph of seeing us as we saw with open eyes for the first time?

At that moment I was far to busy pulling in deep breathes of the every moment spent in its presence.

I don’t know how long we sat gazing into the statue. It could have been seconds, or maybe hours. Time did not seem to matter. All I know is that when the call stopped, the statue was still there. Now it was a simple obelisk with no adornments, standing smaller than even Agnes.

This feeling was jarring. The world came crashing down around me. I felt like a child who was trying to run after spinning in circles with my eyes closed.

Pulled from the dream, I fought to stay awake through the spinning. I could feel my sisters fighting the same urge as we swayed, held up only by our combined will to remain strong in the face of such judgment. I remember thinking, “Is this the weighing and judgment of our souls? A test of strength to persist under such incomprehensible pressure?”. If only it had been.

I looked to my sisters as I felt my legs start to stabilize. Blanche was somehow still smiling through a stupefied look of drunkenness. Agnes stared at the floor though barely staying vertical by the good graces of Blanche’s shoulder. If not for my weight to keep the balance between us, we surely would have toppled.

Despite the call being gone now, I still heard the voice in my head repeating as before.

“Go forth. Come to me.”

I rolled the words around in my head. I could tell my sisters had heard it too. Even Agnes looked up towards the obelisk once more, and when she did I saw her eyes turn to panic.

I quickly looked back toward the statue, to see what I now know to be a man. The very first man I had ever seen. Father.

The man stepped out from behind the obelisk. His white robes were offset by the true white of his hair. Just as in my dreams, he had hair upon his face. His skin told a story, time cut and weathered like a canyon carved by many inlets or rivers. His age was untold. I remember often thinking about how old the mothers around the village were. When I asked Mother when I would look as they did, her response was “decades”. Tens of years until I would ever get my first wrinkle or gray hair.

But if the mothers were old, then this thing in front of me was beyond my comprehension of time. He walked slowly, the apparent frailty of his age showing in the timid steps he took as he crossed the distance between us and the statue.

He was tall. Taller than all three of us, even Blanche who stood half a head taller than I. Taller than our mothers who always felt like monoliths throughout our upbringing.

I gazed up at him in awe. He stood silently scanning us, and when his eyes met mine, I remember questioning my own sight. For all his aged appearance, his eyes seemed to have been stolen from a much younger man.

Lightly colored greenish-blue eyes peered back at me. Spry, happy, and intelligent eyes. Not just wise like a mothers eyes, but calculating. He was watching us, but also measuring. I was sure of it.

The whole chapel hung still in that silence. The only thing I heard was the breathing of my sisters and I. I wanted to turn and look for Mother Genevieve. However, right as I made my head look away from him, he dragged me back with his breathy flat tone that resonated all throughout the chapel.

“You have been at your mother’s sides for long enough. You have been brought to adulthood in solitude, safety, and purity.”

I felt Blanche shift uncomfortably next to me.

“Much like every mother you see standing around you now, you were girls and now you are women.”

He brought his hands in and touched his chest with the long nails of his fingers.

“I am Father. I am the only man in the village.”

He paused, reopening his arms and spreading them wide with his palms down.

“It is my honor to be the keeper of the faith and call this chapel my home. Should you have faith in Him, so too should you have faith in me as the keeper of His calling,” he said.

“In a village of all female inhabitants this may seem strange, but I promise all will be explained. You will have all your questions answered through your promised descent.”

His eyes became softer. He held up his right hand, long fingers made longer still by splintered, discolored nails that grew out unnaturally, raised high for all to see. He held the motion before slowly bringing his pinky and thumb nails to meet in front of his palm. His other three fingers remained above the now perfect circle.

“You three have come to descend. To travel.”

He brought the three fingers down and through the bony circle; gripping the three tightly, he made a fist which shook at the force.

“To visit the other world, to see what we have all seen. In the end, to be weighed and judged. To find where your place among us lies going forward.”

He stepped towards us and put his long-spindled fingers on both my shoulder and Agnes’. I flinched, but it did not seem to put him off. He leaned in close, looking directly into my eyes and tilting his head back and forth. His facial hair scratched at the front of my dress. He inspected my face, and I tried my best not to move, even though under my skin my heart pounded. I felt as though all the worms of the marsh had found home within my flesh. As if noticing my unease, he lightly patted my back, his long nails sliding up and down the blade of my shoulder and occasionally catching against my linens. My skin turned to gooseflesh and prickled. I felt cold. Despite considerable effort, I began to shudder.  Staring back into his eyes, it felt as though his breath was a winter wind sheer. His stare was a tunnel I dared not enter or turn from. I sat frozen in place, just another obelisk spectacle for all.

“What is your name child?”, he commanded kindly.

“Vilina.”

“Vil-Ee-Nuh,” he enunciated. Rolling the letters around his mouth, he flicked his tongue against his teeth as if tasting every letter.

He smiled, lips pulling back to ribbons, exposing the yellowed husks of what were once human teeth. The smile pulled at the corners of his eyes. What could have been joy could have also been cunning, as he whispered through a grin in a low rasp.

“You will do nicely. Your mother should be proud. You will be the last to join me below.”

He then shifted quickly on to Blanche. Removing his hand from my shoulder, he moved to touch her. Had I not been so unsettled, I would have taken great joy in the fact that even she jumped and began to shake under his inquisition.

While he looked over my sisters, I had time to gather myself. Quickly I realized that I did have something to be happy about in the end. He had never checked my hands. Never seen the many scars or history of scrapes. He was pleased. Mother had always told me that all we ever needed to do was please Him. So surely, I should have been pleased. Somehow, even without any logical reason to feel otherwise, I was anything but pleased. I looked on, transfixed at the statue over Fathers shoulder. It did not move as before, but I remember wishing it would. Anything to rid me of this feeling of dread.

I continued staring unfocused at the statue, facing forward as he carefully caressed and studied each of their faces, investigating their every feature.

As time went on, I found myself staring past the statue, to the door against the far wall. I wondered to myself what lay beyond. I saw that it was cracked open, ever so slightly.

There was something within the chamber. A small bed laid plain with white sheets made up neatly and a night stand next to it. Something on the nightstand caught my eye. Shifting my weight I leaned to one side.

The change gave me just enough perspective to see an object there roughly the size of a head of lettuce. I say roughly because the objects shape was difficult to describe. It seemed iridescent, dark, and yet indistinct. When I squinted to make out what this amorphous thing was, I felt my eyes unfocus until my head hurt, and I was made to look away at the floor.

Carefully, Father inspected my sisters for a great while before lifting his palms from the sides of Agnes’ face and tore his eyes from hers.

“Well done girls. Well done,” he said, smiling magnanimously.

He raised his head to orate to the congregation once more.

“I am pleased. You mothers have made Him proud this day!”, he said as he scanned and nodded specifically to our mothers somewhere in the room. Presumably still looking at our mothers, he continued.

“You have done all you can and fulfilled your promises. Now they go to make promises of their own.”

Still no one else spoke or even murmured. In my peripheral, I could see the shapes of the other mother’s heads as they slowly nodded their assent.

“Blanche, you shall be the first of your sisters to descend. Your value and piety is well known to me, as well as your eagerness to serve His will. He restlessly awaits you. Let us not keep Him waiting.”

I saw her stand taller with pride. Elated, she grinned.

He held out his hand to her and she accepted. Overjoyed, she stepped up next to Father, and lightly moved as he did in his infirmity. As she neared the statue, I saw her look back one last time in the direction of the mothers. Blanche was happier than I had ever seen her. In that moment, as the sun came through the far window and silhouetted her in a glorious golden glow, I saw her as her mother must have seen her always. She was beautiful and perfect. Not in the backhanded sense I had always thought of her before, but truly ideal. I wished then, and not for the last time, that I could be so ideal.

Despite my envy of her value, we did not share the same dreams. I had never longed for this building, or for the descent as she did. However, seeing her then as the heavenly sunbeams complimented her glittering hair, she was giddy and girlish. As though all the time she had spent preparing for and wanting adulthood had found her. Now she was free to be a child, if only for a moment. I found myself basking in her triumph. The kind of triumph that only sisters can have when seeing the other accomplish their dreams. I watched as she flicked out of sight around the backside of the statue.

I smiled, expecting them to pass beyond the statue and into the room beyond. However, as her skirts disappeared behind the stone, they never reappeared on the other side. At first I was surprised. I leaned, to look around the statue. Still I did not see them. I finally looked around to the mothers behind me. They all stood looking at the statue. I felt a small comfort knowing that although this was bizarre to me, this must have been a normal part of the ritual.

Now free from Father’s scrutiny, I continued to scan the parish for my own mother. I found all three of our mothers standing together a few rows back from the front. I don’t know if I ever would have been able to spot them in the thickets of white manes and wrinkles, if Mother Beatrice had not stuck out among the rest.

Blanches normally rigid and stern mother stood staring in the direction of the statue, mesmerized like all the rest. What set her apart was that her face was beet red. Tears openly streamed the many canaled paths of her cheeks and ended as wide damp stains wicked into the front of her dress. She looked like she was in agony, on the verge of screaming, but her mouth was clamped shut. She trembled slightly. Mucus ran from her nose, and left unattended, it dripped out of sight behind the pews below, but she never moved. She did not speak. She just sat with her eyes glued to the statue along with every other mother.

Mother Ailsa stood there next to Beatrice stoically. You could have taken the blank look from any other woman in the room and painted it over hers with no change. She seemed completely indifferent to her own daughters descent.

Glancing across to Mother Genevieve I hoped to see her look back at me. Hoping she would show some sign of life beyond that same look of indifference. She did not. Plain, blank faced, and soulless, she looked transfixed past us just like the rest.

I watched them. Observing my own mother, I was perplexed. I wished she would have looked at me, or even tended to Mother Beatrice to comfort her in some way. Anything to give me a sign that the Mother I knew still existed behind that stare.

I was debating calling out to her, unspoken rules of silence and tradition be damned, when all of the eyes in the room shifted at once.

“Agnes.”

I spun to see Father standing on the other side of the statue. After adjusting garments back into place, he raised his hands in a welcoming gesture.

Blanche was nowhere to be seen.

I was panicking now. With no way to know, I had to assume that this was normal to everyone else and so it should be normal to me.

I felt Agnes trembling as she stepped forward. My grip lingered on her fingers before I let her go, and watched her walk away with Father. They disappeared behind the statue.

My shoulders slumped. I felt so alone despite the hundreds of eyes at my back. I held congress with my own thoughts. I attempted to think back to every teaching and sermon the mothers or Blanche had ever given me. Had they ever said anything to explain what was happening here? In the end there was nothing I could think of. I cursed myself for my daydreaming ways. The part of me that had not cared about anything real or within the village. It all seemed so normal and rigid, while the areas outside seemed different and curious. The simples rules and rites in this place never needed to be questioned because they were just too mundane. I had craved so deeply to be free to the wild outside that I had missed the wild within. This part of me that I had always loved had betrayed me.

I tried my best to convince myself that everything was fine as the little voice inside me groaned with dreaded anticipation. My mind raced. What could I remember of His teachings? I could hear Mother’s voice reminding me that in His grace we could accomplish anything. Through faith in Him we could descend to greatness in His presence.

I found myself feeling like poor Agnes. I repeated “His will. His will. His will,” under my breath as I focused on the floor.

For the first time in my life, I truly hoped for it to mean something.

“Vilina,” came Father’s deep breathy tone.

I raised my eyes up to meet his. As he had done countless times before, he raised his hand up and offered it to me.

I shuddered at the thought of touching him, but I also felt the weight of the world around me to move. With one final “His will”, I stepped forward and dropped my fingers into his waiting, clammy palm. As his grip closed over mine, I looked over to my mother one last time. She stood silent and still like a gargoyle. She had not moved in all this time. I felt myself wilting as the last hope of redemption withered, and I moved to look away. As I did, for the briefest moment, I saw Mother Genevieve’s eyes move to meet mine. She quickly winked. One eye flickering before she returned her stare to the statue having never moved another muscle, like nothing ever happened.

I felt Father’s grip tighten as he pulled me lightly. With renewed vitality in my mother’s blessing, I moved myself next to Father. We rounded the statue completely, and now I saw the stairs as Father whispered to me.

“Come now child, the well awaits.”

I gawked at Father. The mechanisms of my mind were slowly catching up as he guided me into the dark, descending the stairs.

I soaked in the space below the chapel. With a reverence, I looked over its details like a memory. Red stones bled rust colored clay that fortified the chamber and leaked onto the dugout stone staircase. Excitement crept in and began to edge out the dread as the steps ended. The well from my dreams came into view. Stepping off the stairs, Father released me to walk on my own as my feet sank into soggy mud. The muck longed to keep me and made my movements lethargic, caging my elation to a slow walk. I clopped ever closer to the culmination of my curiosity. I tread within the many foot holes that crowded the space leading up to and surrounding the well.

Reaching closer this fairytale foundry, I found myself inspecting the droplets from my dreams. As they danced, I followed them with my eyes. They whirled, slowly rising through an opening in the ceiling above. I stood below in wonder, watching the dribbles expire at the exit of the chimney. Terminated by their contact with the sunlight, they puffed, and winked out, drifting their essence to the wind before fading away entirely.

At last, I gripped the edge of the well and stepped on to the cairn that served as a looking point.

I leaned over the waters. Soft, wet beads perspired up and out of the pool like raindrops in reverse. They lifted and floated up over my hands and face, sweating off me they traveled up through the opening above.

Looking down, I expected to see something magical and equal in majesty to the supernatural aspect of the reversing waters.

I was met only by the sight of my own face staring back at me, sharing a confused look.

“Stare deep within, child,” said Father. His calm, even voice echoed off of every wall, repeating multiple times throughout.

I leaned closer. Squinting, I tried to see beyond myself and into the depths of the pool.

“I don’t see anything Father,” I said, my reflection mouthing the words.

Not looking away from the water, I leaned down, my face almost touching nose to nose with my other self.

Another long moment passed. I focused so hard that nothing else existed. I looked deep in her eyes, and then through her eyes. Within her pupils I thought I saw something. Something moving beneath.

“I SEE IT!”

I jumped, tried to pull back, but I was stopped an inch from the water.

Father’s hand was on the back of my neck.

I panicked. Flailing, I continued trying to push myself away from the well, away from those waters.

I pushed on the ledge, fighting against his grip. He was strong. Impossibly strong. His apparent frailty made clear by his age was nothing in the face of the strength he used to keep me there, staring at the waters of the well.

I saw the girl there struggling, the man behind her holding her with one hand. His other hand braced the edge of the well, and behind them both I saw the thing in the water squirming and wriggling.

“You go now to meet Him, my child. Go now with my blessing, and may you find His grace.”

I squealed, pressing against him with all my might.

His words and my cries struggled for supremacy in the chamber. When his words tapered off and my cries won out, his hand made the move. I thought his strength was superior when holding me in place, but it was nothing in the face of the force he used to push my head into and through the water’s surface.

The frigid waters felt like needles shot through every inch of my face. I gasped and was rewarded with a mouth full of salt water that burned as it went down my throat.

Father’s hands now gripped my ankles, and as I struggled more, he gave me one last push down. I was plunged deeper, fully submerged beneath the surface of the well.

I saw only black below me for the briefest of seconds, but I was too concerned with breathing to consider anything else. My mind only thought of the first battle to breathe. Once I accomplished that goal, I would have the luxury to worry about what was beneath me.

I immediately turned my head to the surface. Though only a few feet down, I acted on instinct, pushing my legs against the side of the well. I kicked off with all my might, launching towards the precious life saving air beyond.

I rocketed upwards. If Father was there to stop me, I hoped I could at least get a breath before I had to fight him off. That thought would never come to matter.

As I saw hope in the light above, I crashed into it. Like a wall, my head hit the surface and I saw stars.

Dazed, I floated there for a moment on the brink of the darkness of not only the well, but the despair of my own thoughts. Drifting within that hopelessness, I heard Mother’s voice come back to me one last time.

“In the most difficult moments.

Take heed my words.

Give in completely.

Have faith forever my child.”

I didn’t have much choice either way, but in that moment I made that conscious choice. I now had no reason to trust Mother. I surely didn’t have a reason to trust “Him”. Yet somehow I did. I surrendered myself to the waters of the well, opening my mouth and welcoming the fluid into my lungs. The liquid was alive as it ripped at my throat, burning like acid as it tore away at the tissue. I grabbed at my throat in futility as the corners of my vision slowly faded darker. I struggled less as my limbs felt sluggish and useless. My last thought, as the final bubbles of life floated away from me and easily broke the surface, was that I finally knew secret of the well. The darkness took me into its embrace and my world went black.

PART III

My hearing returned before my sight, the dripping sounds of water pattering on stone from far above. I felt cold within my soaking linens as they clung to me, but far more uncomfortable was the uneven rock beneath me.

Becoming more conscious, I opened my eyes as if I had never opened them at all. In my haze, I remembered slowly what had happened. However, once I realized, the panic set in. It hit with a fury at having been so overlooked. Senses heightened, I heard my breathing catch and hasten. Where was I?

I would have called out then, if not for the feeling of fear within me. The fear that screamed silently that there was more to be afraid of here. What may be waiting for me here in the dark? There is a comfort in isolation rather than an unknown friend.

Sitting up quickly in the darkness, I felt the many rocks scrape and tear at my dress. Moving to my knees I felt about, cautiously surveying the area around me with my hands.

My wrist sunk into a puddle, plunging me down. I stumbled hard onto my shoulder and face. Uncontrollably, I groaned at the pain.

I heard something move in response.

Laying completely still, I did my best to control my breathing through the pain.

I listened to its shuffling and heavy breathing.

Whatever it was, it was coming closer.

I braced myself to move, but in the blackness here, I had nowhere to run.

In my deprivation, I could feel the blank air around me palpitating to the rhythm of my own heartbeats.

Whatever I had heard, it was searching around right next to me, touching the deep puddle I had fallen into.

I screamed as I felt something grab my ankle and kicked away from it. It crashed into the water as I stood to run. I recognized the equally horrified scream, piercing as it came echoing back off the cave walls.

“Blanche?”, I called out.

It was her turn to groan as she crawled out of the water-filled fissure.

“Vilina? Is that you? Is Agnes with you?”

Following her voice, I knelt to find her hand and held it. I felt instant comfort in her warmth.

“No, I went last. She was after you. She isn't with you?”

“No. I am sure she is down here somewhere, but I can’t see a thing.”

The frustration overtook me then.

“This ‘other world’ of yours needs a candle.” I said, with all the condescension I could muster.

“I am sure we will find our way if it is His will,” she said coldly.

I scoffed.

“Father just tried to kill us!”, I yelled.

As I did, I heard the the exclamation traveling away from me and not just echoing back. Something within the chamber had changed. As I registered this fact, I saw for the first time in this place. A small green glow began lighting a tunnel behind us. I heard crunching footfalls as the light grew steadily brighter until I was fully able to see what carried it.

What entered the room were not mothers, girls, or even men. The two creatures looked as tall as father, but their flesh was black as pitch. Their shape was only made out by the florescent glow given off by something behind them that scattered a pale-green, mottled color. Large menacing shoulders of hardened chitin gave way to claws with too few or too many digits to be call hands in any sense. Where there should have been a face, a nose, a mouth, there was only a cavity lined with bristled tendrils that slowly swayed and wafted like fingers that beckoned. Beyond the facial appendages sat many rows of small, jagged teeth.  On the sides of the head were unnaturally wide and bulbous eyes. They glared at us. Those greasy, black-brown orbs conveyed more hate and contempt than anything even Mother Beatrice could muster.

I howled a high pitch screech at seeing them.

They never stopped moving as they entered the small chamber. As they moved, the creatures breathed a heavy hissing sound. They clicked and chirped, like the sounds of overlapping insects in the night. As they closed on us we backed away from them. We reached and pressed ourselves against the far wall of the cave. They moved around us and pushed us roughly forward towards the tunnel where they had entered.

I tried to say something to Blanche, but as soon as did they struck me. Their strong shoves and blows to the back of our heads every time we tried to speak made it known that this was unacceptable. As we left the chamber, I noticed the puddle Blanche and I had both slipped from earlier. It was a basin, worn from water which dripped tirelessly from an unknown source above. Out of the darkness there the water fell like teardrops from the bygone innocence of my childhood left behind in that place.

From that small collecting pool sprang a steady stream which was our constant companion as we wound deeper and deeper within the belly of the earth, always downward. At times we quickly descended, sliding on our sides or rears down water-slicked passages or traversing impeding rocks that the creatures navigated with apparent ease.

The creature’s light was bright within the darkness, however, not so great as to allow flight from them beyond a few feet. Compelled as we were to descend into the depths, there was little room for error between the creatures and upcoming obstacles of the tunnel. We walked to the point in which the casualness of the journey became a monotony. Complacent in our steady pace having not faced any obstacle in our way for quite some time, it was then that I walked forward and felt my foot carry on past where it should have met stone. I felt my stomachs equilibrium turn on end as I found my momentum carrying me not just forward but also down, off the cliffs edge which I had so carelessly missed.

I screamed out, but before I could get more than a squeak passed my teeth the larger creature had me around the waist and was pulling me back up to the ledge. Lucky as I felt to have been saved, I was quickly brought back to the reality of the situation as the creature flung me into the cave wall. I fell there next to my sister and looked back up at the creature. Clicking and waving its grotesque claw about over the chasm, I was thoroughly chastised. Its anger seemed to intensify as I laid there, and it moved forward as if to do me more harm. Blanche was there to quickly pull me to my feet. I leaned on her as she carried me down the path.

As we moved away, I ventured a look over the cliffs edge, more out of wonder than of any hope of seeing what fate what may have befallen me there. By chance, or by some working of the same nightmare that made the rest of this possible, I glimpsed something there in the deep. A shape - large, shifting, and glistening within its own wetness - was moving within the void. I shuddered.

We hugged the wall as it narrowed, moving one at a time now, paying careful attention to our every footfall. What felt like eons passed there in the dark. The silence was only broken by ours and our shepherds’ steps as they echoed from cavern to cavern. We traveled down and down. Our only reprieve from this tedium of silence was the sound of things scratching or breathing as they wandered around down there in the blackness, out of sight. I was glad to never know them or their purpose, but it kept us all the more vigilant.

I thought we were meant to walk until we gave out, but after an interminable time, I began to see something else in the darkness before us. Something that started off small at first. I was sure it was another of the creatures with its green glow emanating from its back. As we drew nearer, I saw that I could not have been more wrong. This was not one of the creatures for it was far too large.

We approached a crag in the cave wall ahead. Through it I could see the glow of the same green colored light, but of a blinding intensity in comparison. I tasted hope and thought beyond any real sense that it may even be daylight through the leaves of my forest. Like the hopes of a hungry man for a sweet apple, I bit in. I was greeted only with decay. A hot wind carrying a pungent, sweet necrotic odor crashed through me. Blanche and I both stumbled. Queasy, I fought back the urge to vomit.

Through the gagging, they hit us again and again until we moved forward. They pushed us through the opening and we fell on our knees to the sights and sounds of that foul place. Gazing up, I took in a cave more massive than anything I had ever seen in my life. I could see the path we had been on was still laid before us, the stream continuing now directly into the heart of this place. I followed it with my eyes and saw that it led directly into a vast city.

Barking at us, our captors forced us to stand and pushed us down the trail into the city of chartreuse chaos and the clamoring cacophony of cruelty within. I tried to study the metropolis, yet over everything throughout the cave hung a mirage-like mist that obscured all things. A mist that wafted and swayed with an unseen wind. Through it I could barely make out the rough shapes of buildings that seemed to move and morph in the most sickening ways, reminding me of the object on Fathers nightstand. Looking at the structures my breath caught, and the putrid heat assailed me again. Retching, I pulled away. This time the vomit came, and there was no stopping it.

Wiping the bile from my lips, I tried to take in the city once more with my stomach empty. Although disgusted, I was still amazed at the sight of the place. Across the whole visible horizon, the city spread with its massive spired structures and carved burrows. Scanning, I took in the sheer size of the dome-like opening that ceilinged the city. The light that lit the cavern was emitted from the wall on one side. It pulsed and flickered as if made from many things. They culminated in one large organism; a massive, glowing, living thing. The growth branched off, spreading up towards the ceiling. It dangled there like unkempt hair. On the opposite side of the glowing growth stood a large cave mouth shrouded in shadow. I could barely see it through the waves of shimmering fog that swirled like a silent ocean.

As we reached the edge of the city, I could see the shapes of other things moving around in the fog. Still unable to really look at the buildings without feeling dizzy, I kept my eyes down except for small glimpses around to navigate. What I saw made me wish I had not.

The whole city was carved from within or built from the stone of the cave. Its many murky mired pools and fissures seemed to do little to inhibit the cities inhabitants. Past the first set of edifices, we began drawing more creatures than just our guards. They watched us with revulsion as we passed. Hundreds, if not thousands of wet fixed stares bored into us. As we trekked further, the inhabitants seemed less content with just glaring, desiring to voice their rage as they lathered us in their loathing. They hissed and clicked, spitting and roaring at us. Shaking, we held each other as we walked. Their children ran free throughout the city and much like their parents they seemed predisposed to oblige us with their hate. They were encouraged to throw rocks or refuse at us as we moved. Occasionally the dwellers would be emboldened. Delighting in our fright, they would go on all fours with a running start to come right up to us and spit in our faces. In one such moment, I thought certainly one meant to do more than just jeer or spit as he raised an arm to strike at us. Our guide clicked quickly, a small chirp that froze the thing in place. It snorted and slinked back. Our caretakers then took position in front of us and moved forward through the growing crowd as it moved around us.

We moved along the pathway, trailed by the audience who now kept their distance, but only as much as they could while more creatures pressed in to gawk at our spectacled passing. Going further within the city I noticed something had changed and the creatures I saw were not all as they had been. Before there had been the creatures like the ones that had come to retrieve us from the cave after the well. On entering the city, I noticed slight differences. Thinner creatures with the same color, only more delicate looking, with their slender builds and softer features. However, dwelling deeper there were also other things within this place. Small crustacean-like creatures that skittered, hiding between crack and crevasse as we passed, avoiding the mob. Longer bodied and many-legged vicious looking things also stared at us laying coiled at the feet of their master’s or while traversing the sides of the buildings.

Most curious of all were the bottom feeders. They looked like the main citizens of the city, however they could never be confused with the monsters. They were small, human sized things with speckled flabby flesh and had no hardened appearance to them at all. They trudged through the side streets and off shoots between burrows. When I saw the larger creatures come in contact with these vaguely humanoid beings, they treated them with the same level of disdain as they had for us, only with much less regard.

I watched as one of these bottom feeder creatures attempted to scrape away excess build-up from the growth that covered the sides of the spires here. I still could not see what made up the growth, but it seemed to be truly attached as the base-born thing clawed away at the green mass. Its digits bending under the force, sweat ran profusely in the heat, dripping down the malnourished skin pulled tight against its ribs. As it strained, it exposed cuts from what I could only imagine were the latest in a lifetime of abuses.

As we moved, I saw there was a group of the larger creatures at the head of the alleyway. Tracing the direction of my gaze, they realized what I saw there and moved in on the poor thing as it worked, unsuspectingly. Without preamble they reared back and whipped the thing with their hardened, tentacled hands. Like oiled lightning, I saw them flick and smack at the poor wretch. I heard it scream out in agony before it was left beaten and bloody on the cave floor, unmoving. Turning back towards me, their faces were flecked with its red blood, thin tentacles wiping themselves clean as they clacked raucously.

I turned to see if Blanche had witnessed what had happened in the alley. However, she had been witnessing her own atrocities. Looking on past her, here in the heart of the city I beheld a great central pit. Within it were what I believed to be the bodies of more of the smaller creatures. The pathway skirted the edge of the basin before continuing. As we made our closest circuit we could plainly see the headless mass of a small pale creature on a flat, angled, stone alter. The body was flayed completely exposing the musculature, organs, and bone. Hung upside down, its blood dripped from the slab and into a communal pool beneath. Around the pool, still more of the pitiful smaller creatures dipped vessels into the lake and carried them away to unknown destinations. The harsh, sickly-sweet aroma of long decay mingled with the ironed ozone smell of fresh viscera. I knew then that this is what I smelled even before entering the cave.

The magnitude of the slaughter and the grotesque nature of the exhibition filled me with endless sorrow. I found myself hanging my own head low, trudging much as these scavengers did. Onward, I followed the command of my captors.

The creatures ushered us forward past the crowds of grotesque amphibious denizens. Parting, the crowd revealed a pathway cut in the stone. It dove once again, now under the city.

I could feel the rough debris long since abandoned from this passage’s creation below my feet with every step. Despite being accustomed to traveling the walkways of the village and woods barefoot, one way or another this path made clear that I was not meant to be a part of this world as the jagged pieces of earth pierced my soles.

I tripped, stumbling as a large splinter of rock cut deep in the padding of my foot. Instinctively I dropped to pick it out, offering my knees as sacrifice to the pain.

Our guides clicked and growled at this. Their scale clad feet crushed and crunched the stones as they turned and marched menacingly back towards us.

Before they could reach us, Blanche pulled me up and whispered, “Be strong. Don’t let them see your pain.”

The tears held back from the whole experience hit me as I saw them coming, felt the pain. I missed my mother, the dogwood petals, forests, and mountains. I missed Agnes. Seeing her timid and shy face often made me feel superior. I was strengthened in her frailty. Without her, I felt the burden of that weakness.

“I can’t. I can’t.”

“You can,” she said, more sternly than ever before.

She shook me.

The creatures callously moved into us. They struck Blanche in the back of her legs. Jolted from the impact, she grimaced in pain. She trembled, but she did not fall.

“You can,” she said again before marching on. Leading by example, her stride never faltered. She seemed unphased by these obstacles, though when I looked to my feet I saw that there were two clear paths of blood trailing behind our every step. My admiration for her stoicism resolved me once again to push forward. I hardened my eyes and stepped down the path towards the opening below.

The crowd of creatures gathered at the lip of the tunnel, chittering and dripping over us as we walked down under the throng. At the end of the walkway stood an archway of stone with a carving of a human face at its peak. Its hollow stare was pulled at the corners of its eyes by a wide-open mouth, screaming in eternal agony.

We walked into the abyss; I could see nothing but shadow residing within. The jeering hiss of the creatures vanished as we dove lower into the passage. We listened to the crunch of the creature’s feet before us, doing our best to follow. They either knew where they were going, or they could easily see in this place while we were completely blind. Our guides footsteps stopped ahead. Blanche and I clung to each other as we froze in place there in the darkness.

Sightless, my other senses peaked. I could hear every little sound; the drip and drop of water on water coming down somewhere in the chamber; our fear filled breathing; the low rattling sounds that resonated from within the creatures chests, and wet flapping sounds as they exhaled.

I heard the crunching again, except now it moved towards us. I heard it shifting about mere inches from me. I braced in fear, thinking of what it would do and how I would not be able to see it coming.

I jumped as a small patch of the gray-green light blossomed before my face. Raising his tentacled hand I saw it then. The monster breathed into a piece of the growth; I saw now that it was a sticky-wet green plant. It would have been magical in any other circumstance. However, here I found it horrifying as it illuminated the details of the larger creature’s face. Limelight glowed in the iridescence of the oily black eyes of the thing. It’s breath rolled out like a fog from the cavity at the center of its face, smelling of decomposing flesh and fish oil.

I looked around for the other creature, but the plant was small and only offered illumination of the creature’s face. There was still pitch black beyond. The light only showed that the tunnel had never widened, and only reached an arms length around us going forward toward the creatures.

I did not know what to expect. We trembled as it looked at us. Despite the malice laid plain in its gaze there was also a glee that took pleasure in our torment, as it let out a low, chittering snicker.

The sound echoed and faded. Somewhere in the abyss I heard the second creature. Shifting and heaving, it racked chains against chains before I heard them slap against the stone floor.

The creature in front of me snorted. Spraying globules of sticky oiled mucus across our faces. We recoiled, and when I looked back, he was gone. Standing now 10 feet away, he raised the plant and blew into it once again, making it slightly brighter. He raised it to the caverns ceiling exposing a small metal tray that hung there as he placed the glowing plant within. Standing below the light, as he basked in its glow he chittered once more. When he stepped backward, he appeared to slide into the darkness. As he moved, he revealed his gift for us. Bathed in the green glow where his shadow had been, sat Agnes’ head.

Her head sat lopsided, with a few of her vertebrae holding it at an angle. Her hair was still wet from the well, eyes pulled open wide. As hard as I try now, I can never picture my sister’s face in any other way. That frozen look of terror that she must have died with is painted on her face for eternity in my mind.

Blanche screamed, in a flood of anguish. I felt her pain, but in that moment I clamped my hand down over her mouth. Her muffled misery bled through my fingers. I gasped, noticing the small knicks and nibbles missing from Agnes’ cheeks. My own torment shrieked from within and leaked from my eyes. I hurt as she hurt, but I also knew that this sight could not be the sole reason for this chamber. This was not the end, not what they had in store for us. My sisters head did not require chains.

As if summoned by my thought, the next trial slowly trudged into focus, framed in the glow and hanging over Agnes.

The thing before us was not like the other creatures, the ones who had led us here or any we had seen throughout the city. It was smaller. Like an emaciated child it leaned and canted as if it were unsure of its own balance at any moment. Its carapace skin looked rough and hard. There were small bumps and ridges at the outer edges of its shape, while it still maintained a soft pink and milky white flesh to its torso. Its arms hung like twigs at its side, with hands hidden in shadow below its oddly distending belly. Atop its shoulders sat a deteriorated human head. The skin fell from yellowed bone at the cheeks and its jaw looked broken as it hung limply from one side. Its eyes were sunken within its skull, and despite the grotesque form they inhabited it emanated a profound sadness. The eyes communicated a story of immeasurable suffering as they stared into mine.

Blanche knelt beside me, still weeping. I felt as she did for my sister but I could not drag my eyes from this pitiful thing.

As it sat with its eyes locked to mine in that pleading way, I heard the sound of our guards behind it. They bellowed out a series of ravenous clicks and gruff growls.

The thing winced, breaking from my gaze. Slowly lowering itself to the ground, it hovered over Anges’ jilted head. It looked back up to me and Blanche as it began to move its mouth over her face, consuming the flesh and bone with sickening slurping and crunching sounds. It never blinked, and it never took pleasure in its work as it stared up at us.

Blanche screamed again and buried her face in her arms, renewing her cries.

As it finished consuming my sisters remains it stood straighter with sustenance. Under the sickly green glow the thing’s face began to change, contorting and snapping into place with a series of twitches. As unseen structures shifted, I realized I looked into my own sisters face. Although the eyes never changed, I found that they had always been my sisters eyes. Sad, dejected, and afraid, the thing’s mournful gaze never shifted from my eyes.

Without thinking, I took a step forward but stopped when I saw that it took a step towards us. Timidly, I stepped forward again. It mimicked my motion.

I stopped and looked back to Blanche hoping for some sort of conference. She still lay there, broken and mourning.

When I turned to look back at the thing it had silently moved closer.

I stiffened but did not move. For a long while we both stood staring at each other, its eyes begging me for something I could not know.

Finally I spoke. “What do you want from me?”

My question seemed to cause it pain. It winced again like it had from the guards. A tear fell from its eye and it trembled.

I spoke again, gentle and low. “What do I need to do to get through?”

Its eyes shifted down looking at the floor, before coming back to meet me.

It spoke with broken gurgling inhuman words, as if its mouth was never meant to speak. The words came bubbling like stuttering and stumbling through thick vomit.

“H-hell…”

It choked and gulped back the words, taking another step forward.

It was now an arms length from me and had stepped out from the light of the plant.

Its head tilted back up.

“He-llll-p me ssssss-isssst-er…” it hissed in a mournful plea.

As I looked into its pleading eyes, misty with hurt, I found my hand raising instinctively.

It came up towards the thing’s face, my sisters face. The child like, sad, lonely, and fear filled expression I had always known. The sister forgotten, the sister cast aside, so afraid of her own shadow. The sister I had neglected and now outlived. More than anything, I wanted the chance apologize for never giving her the same care and attention that she had from Blanche all along. A chance to right the wrongs of my own selfish and stubborn ways.

I brought my hand up to the level of Agnes’ face.

As I did, it’s arm raised revealing long claws. It’s sharp, lethal fingers climbed up out of the darkness, suspended over my head. It moved up much faster than I had moved. As I went to recoil, it moved even faster. Swinging its claw towards my chest, it aimed to slash right through me.

In that moment Blanche flashed between us, pushing me back. I fell hard against the stone. Closing the distance faster than the thing expected she offset the distance between its claw and its target. I could only witness as the thing’s claw came sweeping down over Blanche’s head, swatting her to the ground. She laid motionless on the stone.

I screamed as Blanche had first screamed. The feelings of regret, Agnes’ death, the betrayal of our Mothers, and now my remaining sister broken in front of me tore through my mind. All the helplessness of the situation overcame me and I roared into action.

The apologetic mournful eyes of the thing meant nothing to me as I crashed into it. The thing hit the ground hard beneath me, and I was already ripping and tearing at it. I sunk my fingers into the soft flesh unguarded by shell. Pulling and snapping, I grabbed at its arm releasing a splintering sound. I was vaguely aware of the fluids as I continued my assault. Crippled now and laying on its other arm with me on top of it, it stared up at me, pleading out scrambled syllables. I stuck my thumbs deep into those eyes - my sisters eyes - forever snuffing out that desperation. I felt its life dwindle as it stopped writhing beneath me.

I sat atop the thing breathing heavily, and began to sob. I frantically wiped the tears, and turned to see Blanche weakly pulling herself to her knees. I went to help her up, only now noticing the red blood that covered my hands, arms, and linens. As I raised her up to embrace her, I saw the long gashed trail left by the thing’s claw. Tears flowed once more as I looked over the wound that now marred my perfect sister’s perfect face.

The creatures reclaimed us apathetically, pushing us on through the tunnel.

PART IV

The larger creature removed his plant from the dish before blowing into it. Once it regained the brightness from our initial trek, the creature placed it within a small opening at the base of it’s neck. It then moved away, guiding us through an unseen opening just beyond the corpse of the thing.

As we moved from the chamber, in the green glow of the plant I could see now where they had unchained the thing I had just killed. I saw an open space on the floor with rusty, barnacled shackles. My eyes wandered through the space and I saw dozens more of the same sad eyes looking up at me. Silently, they lay prostrate and pleading, chained down with their chests pressed tightly to the floor with arms outstretched before them.

Looking at them I was filled with pity all over again. Their many lonely faces begging for salvation were much like the smaller pale creatures from above. They looked to be in a perpetual state of misery. My eyes swelled with renewed pain as I watched the gaunt figures struggling to breathe, constricted by chains with their too thin legs buried beneath them. It was terrifying to fathom how long they had been suffering there.

Just as I was overwhelmed with the emotion of the sight, I heard a scraping. The thing nearest to me was moving the only thing it could. Slowly, it flexed long spider like claws against the stone. I could see that it had carved out deep grooves from it’s time there. Seeing that it had my attention it spoke to me in a deep wheeze.

“He-llll-p me ssssss-isssst-er…”

A deep sense of revulsion took me then, and with no care to my captors I broke for the thing. I spat at it with a snarl, ready to hurl myself at it. However, before I could get more than a few feet off course my guard already had me. Carrying me for a few steps, it set me down softly. I gave it no thought at the time and quickly rushed back to Blanches side, taking her hand.

I never looked back down the hallway and I will forever hate those things. I hope they are still chained in the dark.

We emerged from the underbelly of the cave, where I expected to be instantly assailed again by a throng of creatures. However, there was nothing. The sharp contrast from the city made me feel even more uneasy as we steadily climbed the path out of the passageway in near silence. Reaching the top of the passage I saw what I had barely glimpsed before through the fog.

The cave opening was even bigger than I had imagined. It was round, and gaped wide. I viewed the great stalactites there above leaking to the stalagmites below, which sunk down and revealed a drop beyond which the path beckoned us to enter.

Our guides seemed changed in this place. They fanned away from us a little more and even walked ahead, seeming to understand that we did not need protection here. It was fully understood that whatever was forward was better than what was behind.

The gray-green light of the growth passed behind the city. As we walked ever closer to the opening, I reflected. In truth, I believed we had little to no hope of leaving this place. Even if the opening led somewhere else, there was no telling if it would be better. I found myself despairing at what else could be in store for us. More likely than not, these cruel creatures were meant to walk us to our end, not theirs. Among all the lies told, the reality that there was no greater glory to be found here made the truth of the situation that much clearer.

Mother Genevieve had lied to me. All the mothers had lied. There was no beauty in descending, or in Him. I realized the likelihood that all the other girls I had known who had descended before me were dead, just like my dear timid Agnes.

When I thought of her, my stomach turned. I remembered her fear filled, hopeless face there under the glow staring up at me, eyes wide. Regret swelled and burned within me.

What I would give to be able to turn back time. To just have the previous day back with her and Blanche. To say and do the things I should have done all along.

I stopped walking. The guards continued on, increasing their gap from us. I turned to face Blanche and spoke with all the hurt harbored within me.

“I’m sorry.”

She turned to face me.

The girl that stared back at me could hardly be the same sister that had awakened and walked with me this morning.

Her eye sat sunken, and the normal look of precious perfect piety had been replaced with a hollow stare that looked more through me than it did at me.

I trembled on weak legs as I took her in. Without my support she swayed as though the caverns wind would surely blow her over.

The slash marks across her face dove from her left side, concluding in a rough ravine abruptly. Her small torn nose hung limply, swaying under her breath. Blood from her wounds had begun to congeal. The swollen socket of her eye was all but closed, leaking a milky substance from its lid that mixed with the sticky black blood. It froze there like a fungus, dripping from her hair.

Through her good eye, I did not see that look of determination. Instead, she only looked bewildered. Like a person daydreaming she seemed to wake, not having heard me.

“Vilina?”, she questioned.

“I said I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for, dear sister,” she said in a cloudy, too contented way.

She tried to smile at me, but as her lips raised over her teeth they caught the edges of the cuts there and she winced.

I broke then. The little part of me that held in all of the hurt, all of the anger, all of the guilt, was shattered. Anger at the mothers for their deception, anger at the creatures for their malice, anger at myself for being so self absorbed. It broke the part of me that stubbornly held on to any bit of hope, and I was lost to despair in that moment. I wept and ranted like a lunatic to the only person I had left to lose, and who I knew in that moment, I surely would lose. I would not let this last moment pass if this was to be our last moment together.

“Do you think Agnes knew I loved her? Do you know how much I care for you? I cant stop seeing her face in that place, as she was, and that thing. All I can think about is how I have never been there for her… or you. How I would give anything to go back and spend more days with you both. Instead of the all the forests in all the world I would give anything to have just have one more day spent toiling over chores with you and her. To hold her close as you did so many times and comfort her as you did. To be strong and caring as you are. I spent so many days cursing you for your perfection that I did not realize the things I mocked were the things about you I wished only to have within myself… I am just so sorry Blanche, sorry for everything. For my selfishness and my wanderlust, and for what it cost me.”

“Enough,” she whispered, more alert.

“Maybe…maybe…” I stuttered, “maybe if I wasn’t such a fool, so concerned with myself I could have been more concerned with the mothers teachings, more concerned with the thoughts of my sisters, and maybe then you both would know how much I truly adored you. You for your strength, and Agnes for her innocence. That you would both know how precious you are to me,” I continued quickly losing my breathe.

“Enough!”, she said flatly.

“We adore you Vilina. You, the perfect cherished child of the village. We all look to you with wide eyed wonder. You are the envy of us all. Your unbridled self assurance and a will to match stone.”

My eyes went wide.

She embraced me, and softly she whispered into my ear.

“I love you Vilina, and I have spent many nights wishing I was you. Both Agnes and I spoke of it often, and I love you for all the things you say you wish you could have changed. I would change none.”

She pulled back from me. Holding on to my shoulders, she looked past me as if something of interest were there, but there was nothing. As she was turned away, I only saw the unmarred side of her face. She looked every bit the beauty I always remembered her being. It was only as she spoke that I realized how deeply the madness had taken its toll.

“But wishing we could change things does not matter now. His will is all that matters, here and always. Whatever happened was His will, just as it will be in the future. There is no use trying to change things.”

She had forsaken all hope of control, defaulting to the safety of her dogma.

With that she broke away from me. In the same determined way I had come to prize, she slowly stumbled down the path.

I collected my thoughts about what she had said. How could she possibly still believe there was some grand plan for us after all we had seen? How could she still believe He had any divine plan in store for us? The look of madness on Blanches face was still fresh in my mind, but she was still my beloved sister. So, I carried on down the path after her. As I reached her, I placed my arm around her for support. We walked together twisting through the great teeth of the cave and into its cavernous mouth.

Just inside the cave we found the creatures waiting for us with their green plants lighting the area around them. We folded in with them as they dispassionately led us forward.

In no time at all we came to a large stone. The monument lifted and raised like a massive thick carpet, stretching like an undulating appendage of the cave floor frozen before us. We approached the end of the statue and the creatures halted there.

Immediately they turned to look at us. The larger creature pointed to Blanche. I pushed her behind me, the thought of losing her flooding into me again. She broke from my clutch, and I tried to stop her.

“Please no,” I muttered through my heartbreak.

“It will be alright, Vilina. As He wills, it will be done.”

She smiled her last smile as her fingers left mine. The creature took her by the wrist. It brought her hand up towards the statue, as it pulled up a small knife.

I gasped, but Blanche’s smile only widened as she willingly opened her hand.

It moved the knife and I saw the well of blood open within her palm.

Quickly he rotated her wrist, pressing it against the altar. The creature stepped away.

Blanches head flew back, convulsing wildly. Loose flesh flew from her face and flapped with the momentum. It tangled with her wild hair as I heard her body crack, the air within her hissing out as she contorted. As quickly as it had started, it stopped with her face pointing straight up. She inhaled sharply and began heaving raked bouts of air. Her good eye flashed green plant light between hurried flutters. She struggled against the stone but her palm never left the surface as if she was stuck there. Then all at once it released her, the light in her eyes went out and she fell back on the cave floor.

“Blanche!”, I cried out.

As I ran to her I realized that the second creature flanked me, and in one deft move it pulled me away. I struggled pointlessly as I watched Blanche start to move. She raised her head, both eyes now open wide with frenzied terror.

“Vilina! You cant!”, she screamed.

Scrambling to her feet, she rushed at me.

“I WAS WRONG! RUN! DONT TOUCH IT! KILL ME!”, she forced out with everything she had.

Frantically, she looked over her shoulder for the other creature, but it was already too late. He was far to fast for her to outrun.

The larger creature was already on her. Both of its appendages wrapping and constricting her around the waist, it locked her against itself. Its head canted to one side, and from the hole at the center of its face its tongue slithered out. It bore down on her, pressing its face against hers. Its tongue invaded her mouth and filled her cheeks as the smaller tentacles groped her face, entering the wounds there. I heard her cries redouble, muffled within the creatures hollow head.

I moved to attack the creature. Its companion effortlessly stopped me, wrapping my wrists and holding me there. Helpless, I watched as the creature finished its kiss. Releasing the rest of her body, it moved to stalk away. Grabbing her by the arm it dragged her back down the path towards the city. She tried to pull away but it was too powerful. As she threw herself to the ground in an attempt to escape, it merely grabbed her ankle as it drug her away from me. The last time I ever saw my sister in person, she had a look of panic and fear. Her screams continued to echo within the stone walls of the cave as she faded away, a concert of cruelty played just for me.

When the creature released me, it did so gently. I had unconsciously been straining so hard against the creature. Now that I was free, I went limp with exhaustion and despair. Staring off into the direction of my sister, now silent and dark, I trembled.

I realized in that moment that these things had nothing else left to take from me other than my life. The thought became clear, He had taken everything from me. The longer I dwelt on that thought, the more my grief turned to rage.

My sorrows turned to savagery as I turned on the creature. I pivoted quickly to pounce at it. Attack with all the hate and malice laid plain on my heart. When I made my move, I stumbled because it was already next to me, its knife out. I struck at it, but it did not attack me. It gripped my right hand as I pounded away at it with my left, kicking and screaming, scratching at it as though I was a wild beast.

As the rest of my body was free to fight in futility, the creature pulled my hand close to it and opened my palm. My hand blossomed to expose the barely healed cut there and the creature paused. It slowly turned to look at me, and for the first time I could tell there was no hate behind those oily orbs. I stopped my futile attacks, and it just stared, considering me. It moved closer, and for a moment I thought it meant to do the same to me as the other creature had done to Blanche. However, it stopped mere inches from my face. Its whisker like facial tentacles still beckoning, it looked deep within me and slowly nodded its head. As it’s head descended downward, so too did the knife into my palm. The creature carved a deep line across the existing cut. New blood came, and pooled in my hand. Before a drop could overflow he pressed my hand against the stone.

If I was awake, I was plunged into sleep. This seemed more like finally waking from the dream as the visions came swimming and swarming over me. The images rushed through my minds eye, flashing before me in seconds. My physical eyes flickered and yet I could see and understand it all perfectly, as He intended.

Everything felt so real as consciousness sprang forth within me. He showed me everything He wanted me to see. He showed me how to feel. He showed me my purpose. He showed me that He was everything I ever needed.

Although my sight still remained there in that waking dream, I now saw the truth. The statue I touched was no statue, it was Him. I knew then that I was touching His tongue as he tasted my flesh. He soaked in the contents of my cut, my body, my soul, and measured me in totality at last. I was within him, the Great Old One himself as He slept within the walls of this place. As this was revealed to me, I wept under his eminence while he flooded me with knowledge.

Next I saw the village with its many cabins and homes. The Mothers and girls were running errands and chores under the flowering dogwoods. He showed me every time I had broken the rules of the village and how He had allowed it. These weren’t rules, they were tests inside tests. He had no use for rules, He was the breaker. He had no use for chains because he had complete authority over His domain, over us. Then I was off, rushing over my mountains of majesty. I saw another village filled with many men and boys. They had one Mother, equal to Father, the aged visage of venerability.

Gasping, I now saw every inch of the cave, its catacombs and inner workings. Through his vision I passed into one of the burrows within the city. I delved down to the dank pools  where the creatures I now knew were His children found comfort within the blackened, feted, grottos they called home. This, the largest cavern was merely the closest to Him, its people most pure. The other caverns, passaged and steeped in the their own glory, all served their own special purposes that detailed His plans, within plans, within plans. Designs that detailed more than I could ever hope to describe here.

He showed me the purposes of my sisters and made clear their uses and the different paths laid out for the girls. Among the many places he framed, I saw Blanche’s scarred face dwelling in the endless spawning pools beneath. She would be a mother, and her brood would be a bastion of blessings throughout the city, their purpose serving Him as we all did. They would do the work and give themselves willingly. Their blood would feed the true people of this place and provide them the sustenance to grow until His awakening.

With that, at last he shared with me my purpose. I felt the tears of joy stream down my face as I wept under his veil. I was there wedded to him completely. He fed me my desires and I reveled in his designs of which I could not begin to fathom. I did not need to understand. All I knew, all I needed to know was that He was there, and I was there to serve Him.

Finally, He laid my path out for me. I had my life’s purpose.

At the height of my ecstasy I began to feel sorrow as He showed me our journey together was about to end. I longed for him to stay. I held onto that fleeting feeling until I felt him leave me.

For the second time that day I fell, and let the darkness carry me away.

I awoke with the sun rising through the clouds of a wavering tempest passing away from me. The ocean waves lapped at my feet and the shore was cold. I stood to mourn its retreat, but knew His will and understood my place.

For a long moment, I just sat and watched the seaside serenity before making my way to the nearest town to begin my new life here among you.

I have seen many things since my descendance; cars, planes, cities, computers, and many technological advances in your society. Still, I know that none of these wonders here can compare to Him and His precious presence, for which I still long.

Why am I here? That would be my first question if I was one of you, never having seen Him. Alas, we cant know the lessons of the world hiding behind Mother’s skirts forever. Plainly, I have come to learn. I have learned to read and write your many languages and have been functioning here among you. I have come to understand the human race away from Him as we all do, once we leave our adolescence behind.

It has been 100 years to the day since I emerged from that cave and was birthed into your world.

I walked among the deep, dark, and dirty things that dwell within the belly of the earth. In the end I emerged cleaner than when I began, my linens white and washed of the filth and blood of my descendance. Now and forever since that point, I belong to him. An apostle of the Great Elder.

With this message, my long mission is nearly finished. I shall return home and nest within the valley above the deep. I have but one final chore to complete, to secure my celebrated return home. He has already shown me my path. In His vision I have known everything that would come to pass along my journey, even every word written here. So you see, I already know my daughters face, as well as her name, Katya. I have now only to collect her from her false parents and bring her home to the vale with me. To embrace my Mother once more as sisters, now in perfect covenant with Him.

You may believe that these testimonies are of some sort of devious cosmic cruelty. They are not.

You see my time here has afforded me a window into your lives, and I must tell you I can sum up your current state succinctly.

Your cities ebb and flow, oceans of people aimless and without true purpose past selfish pursuits of meaningless toil. Like a rogue wave, one day He will rise. When He does, He will crash through your world and in His cleansing tide remake it as His, as it should be.

With this truth you can continue on in this way, or you can choose to serve a greater role in Him. I do not need to tell you where to find Him. Simply open your mind and He will find you. Your dreams will be waking, and He will show you all you need to see. He will embrace you. Although you may never come to know me, and I may never know the fruits of my labors here, you will come to know Him. Through Him you will know your true purpose as a bleeder, a breeder, or a true believer.

By-HelpTheBagMan | L.Crawford