The creature stared past the bars of its confinement, peering into the eerie emptiness with mismatched eyes. It was clad in thin garb, though they could only be described as soiled rags in their present state. Crimson stains which had dried long, long ago mired the fabric, hardening the soft silk into a crusty carapace. Despite how uncomfortable it would have been, the creature made no effort to amend its circumstance. It remained on its back, peering blankly into the darkness with no aims.

  It would be amiss to say the creature was trapped by virtue of the cell itself. There were many cells lining that corridor and many other corridors adjacent. All of them were empty now, although that could not have been said some time ago. The metal bars keeping all of them closed lay bent and broken, with irregular markings along the misshapen parts attributing their state to something with brutish, monstrous strength. Some bars had been ripped outright from the stone which held them, discarded in favor of far greater goals.

  A pair of footsteps and sets of talons echoed across the corridor, coupled with the faint sounds of chirps and rustling of feathers. A jet black beak and midnight wings folded behind his back highlighted an avian heritage to the man. Clad in glimmering silver robes, he was intentional yet nonchalant in every step, placing his feet only where the floor hadn’t cracked and blood had yet to flow. Behind him followed many more of his species, all carrying peculiar staves with their ends shaped into the insignia of open wings with an hourglass in the middle which illuminated the dingy tunnels. The lead raven’s staff was much shorter than the others, more akin to a baton or ceremonial mace adorned by a cracked hourglass instead of the pure insignia the rest of them had.

  “Awaken and rejoice, for it is time to prove your worth,” The ravenclad spread his arms as if expecting a hug from the creature, before turning to the first pair of shorter ravens who accompanied him with a command. “Herash, Humara. Free it.”

  The twin ravens looked at each other with panicked blinks, unsure of how to explain their predicament. “We… lack the means to, O exaltist Galvario. It locked itself in that cell, and so the key too is in there,” One of them stammered, before the other let out a chirp and extended the elaboration. “We would gladly give our lives to retrieve it! But, it was an order from the High Priestess herself, that we were not to approach it ourselves… not even to feed it.”

  The exaltist’s emotions raced from wrathful to insulted to contemplative over the course of their explanation, and only when the priestess was brought up did his grip on the staff loosen slightly. “Kla- The High Priestess Klaxi herself graced this… this abomination, with her diktat?” He loosened far too quickly, breaking into a small chuckle and spreading his wings halfway for the cowering underlings. “Very well then, I have no doubt she oversaw the proper branding of this beast.”

  The creature lay motionless during the deliberation outside its cell. While its eyes were open to witness all, its mind seemed focused elsewhere. The faint light from the ravens’ staves revealed a human-like physicality, although with a number of peculiarities. The way its fingers and toes curved naturally at the tips and its nails grew sharp like claws, the anatomy of muscles rippling unusually below its torn garments, the raw bite wounds all over its limbs, everything gave the monster a rather uncanny appearance that the clerks of the facility had come to speculate on and fear.

  Galvario stepped closer to the metal bars, shining the light from his staff onto its face. He let out a raspy breath of satisfaction upon seeing a brand under the creature’s left eye, identical to the insignia on his weapon. “I command you, vile night-creature! Travel with us to the bottom level, where your flesh shall rend and your bones shall break, and yet, you will provide us with the answers we seek.”

  The creature remained indifferent to his orders, blinking a few times before turning over and curling itself to shade its eyes from the light.

  “How insolent,” Galvario whispered to himself, before slowly wrapping his fingers around the top of his staff. “O Mother Qordia, forgive your servant for resorting to such means. Not all are educated in your name yet as I am.” He glanced over his shoulder at the ravens stood behind him with uncertain eyes, as if his request was a sin of some sort. Then, he pressed his thumb onto the cracked hourglass.

  A horrendous howl of agony reverberated through the corridor as the creature cried out in pain. It spasmed on the floor loudly, clutching onto the left half of its head while its body thrashed around the cell.

  “Back, back…” Galvario warned his subordinates, but looking back revealed that they had already put some distance between them and the cell, all huddled together at the end of the hall. He kept his thumb tightly trained on the insignia, watching the beast’s convulsions grow ever worse.

  Slowly, the creature’s cries grew more human-like as it clawed at its suffering eye. It seemed determined to rip the brand away, no matter the cost, banging its head against the floor and gouging its face out. What began as shock and pain turned into unbridled rage, and soon the ground beneath their feet shook with each reaved slam of the beast. For all its strength, it still did not approach the bars and attempt to escape, instead crawling deeper into the depths of its cell.

  “Yes, yes!” Galvario exclaimed, taking shallow breaths as excitement took over his initial sense of caution. “This, this is what we’ve been looking for…” He abruptly let go of the insignia, leaving his thumb to tremble from the burn it suffered from his invocation. “I must not overdo it, must not ruin the vessel…”

  The beast’s laments eased soon after, and so did the structure’s imminent danger of collapse. Despite their shaking, the floors and walls had somehow remained intact, and even seemed untouched in the face of the creature’s wrath. Similarly, tearing away part of its face hadn’t reduced any of the pain it was feeling.

  The sickly, bony figure crawled to the edge of the cell, grabbing onto the bars to get up and support itself upright. It indeed looked like a human, and may have even been one a long time ago. But now, with flesh and blood dripping alike from its face and an expression of ceaseless hunger, all that remained was a shell. Its grip on the bars tightened, before a distinct creak of solid metal being bent was heard.

  “Exaltist – not to offend, but did you think this through?” Humara stuttered, speaking for her fellow ravens. There was an uncomfortable shuffling amongst them, silently debating whether to stay or leave. The prospect of the creature breaking out by itself certainly did them no favors in that debate.

  “Of course. Did you not mention that it has yet to be fed?” Galvario’s eyes twinkled with certainty as he held his thumb over the insignia again. “Look at it, the beast has been eating itself to live. It lacks the nourishment to become a proper sacrifice.”

  The creature pried the bars of the dungeon apart with its bare hands, making it evident that they had merely been metaphors of containment, veils of safety. It could have stepped through comfortably after bending them a bit, but it chose to keep going until the brick above and below the cell gave way for the bars to be ripped off. With half a remaining expression of rage and heavy breaths, it approached the cultists slowly. Its steps were awkward, somewhat misplaced despite their weight, making it apparent how long it had remained motionless before their arrival.

  Galvario was practically watering at the beak, watching the creature walk towards him. His thumb threatened the use of the insignia again with an ever so slight touch while he reached into his coat pocket, unveiling an inscribed parchment. “All of you, stand your ground. You are not permitted to leave this corridor until I deem it so.” He declared to his subordinates, who, despite their mortified expressions, did as they were told.

  The creature bent its knees and crouched halfway, keeping its eyes trained on Galvario’s hand like a hawk eyeing its prey from afar. One moment, it was perfectly still. The next, its claws were mere inches away from Galvario’s throat, proving the length of the corridor to be another false security the ravens had been affording themselves.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  The exaltist’s heart skipped a beat as he clutched the parchment in his hand tightly from fear. A split second before he would have been decapitated by jagged claws, a shining light emanated from it, banishing the darkness around them. As the light faded, it appeared to have banished them as well, leaving the corridor as silent as it had been before they arrived.

  Galvario landed on the floor with a resounding crash of bones shattering and blood splashing. His last sight was one of bliss, taking in the magnificence of the monster sinking its claws into his neck, with the expressions of terror made by his subordinates present in his periphery. It was all drowned in a veil of red, courtesy of the pool of crimson he was submerged in.

  “Little do they know of your splendor, Qordia… Forgive them, for they will not partake in your banquet with joy!”

  Standing in the shin-deep plash of blood spanning the entire room they were in, the ravens fell into disarray at the sight of their superior torn open. Around them, the room was lined with tinted windows, most of which were shut by curtains. There were markings all over the walls, ones which they understood quite well by virtue of being the ones who had inscribed them.

  “What a pragmatic person, Galvario…” A raven with stark white wings spoke calmly to someone beside him, watching from the other side of the glass. “It was nice of him to bring the vessel directly into containment.”

  “Yes, but what of his subordinates? It seems he acted by himself, or at least withheld his plan from them.”

  “It is the executioner’s duty to provide a final meal, is it not? Let it feast.”

  “And what if its hunger is far too great to sate? You are aware of what we are trying to achieve here, yes?”

  “The chamber has been fortified with the same spells as the facility’s walls. No matter how hard the beast may thrash, it cannot break them. At least, before the ritual, that is.”

  “Klaxi would have had you sacrificed in Galvario’s place for underpreparing.”

  “Both of us read the good doctor’s reports. Homunculus it may be, but it is not all-powerful.”

  “. . .”

  The lull in their conversation led to a moment of silence. The pained screams of birds from the other side as they were ripped open like flesh pi?atas to feast on by the creature resonated as a muffled tone, barely audible above their own breaths. They could still spot some survivors in the corners of the room, begging to be let out while the homunculus was occupied with the flesh of its prior kills. Footsteps echoed through the room after one of the cultists’ bodies was thrown against the glass directly in front of them, trying desperately to escape before being dragged away to be exsanguinated below.

  “You’re leaving? I thought you were eager to perform the ritual.”

  “Do you remember why we began this… all those years ago?”

  “Hahaha… do you? Such trivial things pale in comparison to Mother’s mercy.”

  “Tell me when he’s done.”

  When the beast finally came to, it sat atop a mountain of hollow corpses, the lone island in a sea of blood, feathers and flesh. This time, however, something was different. The way it looked around itself, and at itself, gave away a sense of sapience. Its eyes widened in horror, comprehending its reflection in the tinted glass. It took quick, sharp breaths, disgusted by the stench of corpses which clung tightly to it like its only belongings. Without hunger driving it mad, there was no longer any reason to justify what had happened,

  “Hello there! I’m guessing you can tell what’s happened, yes?” A cheerful tone buzzed in from somewhere within the ceiling. “You have finally been delivered to your purpose. I encourage you to rejoice.”

  The beast raised its sights slightly, acknowledging the voice and yet caught too far in its own deliberations to care.

  “Let us begin then!” The declaration by itself was innocent, but the gleeful intonation of the voice remained unsettling. “If you would do the honors, Corthello…”

  A strange chant began resonating through the building at the cue. It echoed through stone and rippled through blood, making the entire structure vibrate subtly. The beast first noticed feeling much lighter, before the crimson mass pooled in the room began rising up. The corpses and curtains levitated similarly, creating a strange colloid of misplaced, ruptured organs in a solvent of their vitality.

  The homunculus tried to move, but its body remained rooted in place. The levitating blood revealed ritualistic inscriptions all over the floor, slowly pulling the creature to its hands and knees. There was a sense of finality to it all, a feeling that resistance had no meaning anymore.

  “Behold, then, world! WITNESS THE PURIFICATION OF MORTALITY!” The same voice from before cried out, “Grace this perfect vessel with your soul! WREATH US IN YOUR INFINITE GLORY!” The accompanying chorus of chants grew louder, rebounding through every crevice of the structure oppressively. The floating ichor slowly turned black, beginning to swirl around like a whirlpool with the beast at its center.

  The vessel had long since given up on life, failing to find any meaning to existence after losing the last shred of agency it had been clinging onto for so long. And yet now, it seemed to have given up even more, letting its eyes return to a primal sense of non-sapience. With head held low and palms open, it let darkness envelop it in a chilling, scathing embrace, before everything disappeared.

  At the last moment, trapped under a current of exsanguination determined to drown him, he reached out with a hand. He searched for something, anything at all to grab onto. The sudden spike of self-preservation came as a shock even to himself, but it was not one he intended to let go. With all his might, he fought through the swirling viscosity to break for the surface.

  When he finally found something, it felt strange. Despite being unable to feel what he had grabbed onto, the brackish blood around him seemed to let up. He held on with as much strength as he could muster, keeping his eyes closed. It felt like time was slowing down, stretching every moment of agony into plenty more. Every inch he rose past the ruby redness made it feel like it was stripping flesh off his bones, until the final vestiges of turmoil around him gradually subsided.

  The new scenery he was treated to was no less disheartening than the last, an endless void of nothingness. Worse still, the emptiness pressed down on him with an overbearing feeling of being watched, being perceived by innumerable pairs of eyes. The homunculus let go, but remained floating where he was. The only solace he was afforded was that he was somehow intact, even the parts of his face he had gouged out had now been returned to their rightful place.

  “Hark, I have been summoned once more.” A voice boomed from all around him, making him search for anything he could attribute as a source.

  “I shall introduce myself, as always,” The voice continued without any prompt. Every word came from a different direction now, as if echoing many times over all at once. “In the language and nomenclature you understand, I am disorder. Entropy.”

  There was a noticeable pause before it spoke again, as if the voice was giving him a chance to process what he was hearing. “What you have been, means naught to me, for it was woven. Answer me now, what have you gleaned from this life? What do you want to be?”

  Despite his utter confusion, the space gave him a sense of clarity he had forgotten a long time ago. Thoughts raced through his head as he recalled the past, filling him with mixed emotions. There were many things he wanted to say, to shout out at the top of his lungs.

  “I want to burn this world to ash!”

  “I don’t deserve this.”

  “I want to devour them whole for their sins!”

  “It was all because of me.”

  “Nobody there deserves to live!”

  “Just end me already…”

  “No.”

  Suppressing the urge to shout out his answer, the vessel grit his teeth and remained quiet. The moments of impulsive anger and stagnant sorrow passed by him in about a minute of silence, and the truth of his experience slowly came to the front of his mind. The reason why he felt so much rage, why he was so bitter with the world, why he couldn’t reconcile with everything that had happened. After taking a few breaths and reflecting on how to express himself, he finally spoke. It was the first time he had spoken in a long time, and the words that came to mind were just as naive, but he spoke them anyway.

  “I want to be kind.”

  Thank you for reading!

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