The girl stirred to life, eyelids dancing open to reveal eyes mirroring the dim, cold light filtering through the slits in worn walls. She breathed slowly and steadily; a faint mist appeared in the frigid air of that dilapidated room.
For several moments, she did not stir, her silence almost weighty upon her chest. It was an average-sized room, but it felt enormous because each corner was cloaked by stretching shadows into infinity.
Her eyes traversed it slowly, cataloging a topography of broken furniture sprawled upon the floor, facets of glass glinting grey like shattered diamonds, torn scraps of paint clinging twistedly to the wall as the edges of dead leaves did on trees.
A sigh escaped her lips, soft yet heavy, as if she carried a burden too vast to be spoken. Her dark eyes, clouded with unspoken thoughts, lingered on the cracked ceiling before narrowing, a quiet resolve stirring within them.
She pushed herself upright, rising slowly, her movements deliberate, almost reverent, as if to further disturb the silence would be to invite something unknown.
She moved toward the next room, her steps calculated, her bare feet grazing against the rough, debris-filled floor.
The door was before her now, worn and frail but resistant to yield. Deeply scarred, its surface told of scratches from clawed hands or tools in desperation.
She grasped the tarnished handle, her grip firm. It rattled but refused to budge. With a furrow of her brow, she stepped back, planted her foot firmly, and kicked.
The crack of splintering wood shattered the silence, the door giving way with a groan as it slammed against the wall. Dust and fragments of wood filled the air, swirling in chaotic patterns before falling to her feet.
Inside, the room revealed its grim secret: a corpse slumped against the far wall, richly appareled, starkly contrasting with the decayed and forgotten surroundings. The air seemed heavier here, tinged with an unshakeable sense of sorrow and decay.
The girl moved closer, her actions steady and detached, though her eyes betrayed a flicker of something unspoken. She knelt beside the body, her hands methodically searching its pockets and folds.
Her fingers stumbled upon something cold and metallic. Pulling it free, she examined it-a badge. Its edges were worn smooth by time, but the engraving at its center remained distinct: a single, unyielding <1>
She looked it over in silence, her brow furrowed a bit. Then, in another second, she pulled it down into her pocket. Her mind was cloudy again but visibly disturbed.
Her gaze fell again upon the walls, where every inch had uneven and wild scribbles on them. Deep-sunk words in plaster chiseled out some praises for the invisible deity-words whose fervent tone hovered around the brink of desperation.
She paced the perimeter of the room, her eyes lingering on every mark. Torn photographs hung in disarray, their edges jagged and their faces scratched out. Words had been written across them in a frenzied manner-implications of worship, pleading for salvation, and oaths of undying faith.
Some of the phrases had been violently crossed out, as if even now the anger in that gesture could still be felt. The air was heavy in the room, as if the voices of those who had written these words were still in the room, trapped in these decaying walls.
She turned her back on the room, stepped through the broken door, and out into the desolate streets.
The streets were strewn with the dead. Soldiers and civilians lay side by side, their bodies twisted in grotesque displays of agony. Some wore strange uniforms and clutched books in lifeless hands, their faces frozen in expressions of devotion-or perhaps fear.
The girl paused, her eyes narrowing as she observed the carnage. The corpses seemed to form a procession, their bodies lined up as if part of some macabre ritual.
She nodded faintly, as if to some unspoken truth, and then turned and began to retrace her steps.
Her feet took her to the site of the crucifixions. The air was colder here, heavier, as if the suffering that had occurred still lingered as a ghost.
She walked to one of them and stopped. She reached upward without a second's hesitation and yanked the body loose, and it fell with a muffled sound to the ground.
She flipped it over, and her breath caught at what she saw-so the words in deep flesh carved out with crude pieces of nail were:
Sacrifice the sinners.
The gaze fell on a mother and child who lay nearby, entwined in death. The same words were carved into their flesh, too-the cruel letters hewn with merciless precision.
Her jaw clenched while her eyes darkened as she turned to continue, undeterred by the storm beginning to rage inside her.
She walked, her thoughts churning on what she saw, questions gathering like storm clouds on the horizon. He came upon another pile, these riddled with gunshot wounds, their deaths violently absolute.
Each corpse carried the same haunting inscriptions
The repetition was maddening, a ceaseless echo of blind devotion hanging in the air like some form of curse.
No, Not for God,
For themselves.
Her footsteps faltered as she came across another group-figures in clothing decidedly different from all the others. These had made use of whatever they could find-knives, pipes, even jagged pieces of metal.
Nearby, a rusting sign lay half-buried in the dirt. Many of the dead clutched pieces of it in lifeless hands.
She stooped and peered at one fragment. The words scrawled across its surface read
She straightened, and her eyes searched the scenery with silent determination. This battle had been as unkind as any she'd seen; still, this scrawl on a broken sign seemed to speak louder than prayers.