A loud shattering echoed as the church's window blew in all at once. The torches and candles snuffed out as the cultists screamed and hid under the benches. The leader slammed his fists on the alter. He lost her. He lost all but one. This is what you get for sending others to do a job for you. The leader's hands shook as he growled for the cultists to bring up the last one.
Her red hair was matted and shaved in some places. The girl's face was blotchy, stained with tears and blood. Her green eyes glared at the blurry shapes around her, her glasses broken during her kidnapping. She could no longer stand on her feet, the chains darkened with dried blood from her gutted feet. They drug her down the aisle through the glass. The wraps barely covered her mutilated body. The cultists stopped at the steps before the alter.
"I don't care what you do to me, I won't tell you anything."
The leader rolled his eyes, not turning to face her as one of the cultists smacked her.
"You are nothing in this world and you will not be able to stop the upcoming end. I will rule this world, over all of the creatures. Your life and death will be in vain. They train or make you into these soldiers with no hope of you actually achieving anything. Sending those who are so new to a world so cruel." He walked around the alter. The cultists drug her up and tied her to the alter, a soft velvet box set to the side. "You were all babied and coddled, then expected to fight a war that you knew nothing about. Why fight, when you could have lived a life of your own choice. You all had choices. We all had choices for freedom."
The leader then pulled out a syringe, purplish black liquid frothing and fighting itself in the glass. He held back her head and slid the syringe into her neck, sending the liquid throughout her body. Then slowly, ever so slowly, chipped at the flesh and skin around the green stone in her chest. Her screams of pain and suffering echoed off the church walls but were somehow muffled from a few rows back. After hours, the jewel was pulled slowly away from her chest with a large tendon with a throbbing light. A diamond knife sliced through the fibers as her body stopped moving and the light left her eyes. The leader held the jewel up to the sky, a lighting bolt coming through the window and striking the jewel.
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Claire woke up screaming and crying as the storm raged outside. She started clawing at her eyes and the jewel in her forehead. Sherri scrambled from her bed on the other side of the room, grabbing Claire's wrists. She called for the help of one of the guards Lokat left from them in the cottage they hid in. Claire continued to violently sob and shake as they tried to calm her down.
They were able to slowly get her to a point of whimpering and rocking. She kept mumbling a name under her breath as the other guards left to go gather Lokat and the other leaders of their communities. It was the first time any of them had met demons, and Sherri wasn't sure how to respond or act around them. They were strong and quiet, not allowing much for conversation outside of gathering food and important items for the girls. They all knew they were missing on girl and they were desperately searching the surrounding areas. They hadn't seen Morgana either, and they had no idea if she had survived her injuries.
Claire looked up at Sherri with red and wet eyes. Her eyes were both focused on Sherri and far away in some place that seemed to be causing Claire pain. Sherri pushed the blue hair out of Claire's face and handed her a glass of water.
"What did you see...?" Was a soft whisper into in the painful silence.
"Kat is gone..." Claire answered back slowly.
Sherri's hands dropped against her sides in shock. She didn't reply to Claire as she thought about her best friend no longer being in the same plane of existence as her. Kat's laugh still rang in her head. Their first meeting played behind her eyes as they played with dolls in the river. Claire had to shake her back to the present. "How.."
Claire didn't get the time to answer as Lokat stormed into the room, packing the few belongings and motioning for the guards to pick up the girls in the their blanket piles. They were brought out to the cars and buckled in, moving silently amongst the night towards the mountains. The drivers did not turn on the vehicle lights and the radios had been ripped from the dash boards. "Where are we going...?" Sherri whispered dryly.
"Home."