Quick A/N: Trigger warning. If you have issues with cutting, please stop here. I don't want to be responsible for any tragedies. That being said, remember that this is a horror story. The romance will come later. Please read at your own risk. No, I am not involved with any secret societies or cults, this is imagination plus five minutes of research. Lastly, remember that the best place to stay up to date with news and the update schedule is my profile page. So enjoy the chapter, because if I couldn't write a decent evil ceremony, what kind of Kuroshitsuji fan would I be?
To Hell and Back Again: Chapter One
Cold metal bars pressing into my back were what finally stirred me awake. They were nothing new; I'd been slumped against them for an uncountable number of hours. I opened my eyes, even though I knew there was no light in the room. Nothing had changed since I last awoke. I was still sitting in a cage in a dark room in what I believed to be the basement of someone's London townhouse.
After a moment of careful attention, I determined it was the vibrations of the cage bars that had woken me. Vibrations meant one thing: someone was coming to get me. I squeezed my eyes shut, giving myself ten seconds to feel helpless and sorry for myself before the sound of a door opening and a sudden onslaught of light forced me to put back up a tough exterior.
Whoever had come to fetch me had turned the lights on in the room, temporarily blinding me. It was a smart strategy: turn the lights on, and the girl who never sees daylight will be rendered unable to attack you like she did before you developed this strategy when you open the door of the cage she lives in. A metallic rattle reached my ears as the cage swung open. Rough hands hauled me to my feet and yanked me out of my prison.
"Oi, girl, we got a job for you. Be good, and maybe you can have some supper," my escort sneered, even throwing in a giddy laugh for good measure. I said nothing. My head was still recovering from the unexpected return of the light, leaving me too dizzy to protest when the man began to shove me along ahead of him.
We left the room where my cage was kept, and wove through a labyrinth of dark hallways before reaching what I called the ceremony room. It was an enormous space, easily the size of a warehouse. Catwalks crossed above our heads, just barely visible in the room's dim lighting. I saw in a backward glance that my guide had taken up an almost sadistic smile as he pushed me along faster.
Making our way between stacks of boxes and what would seem a number of random items such as potted trees, metalworking tools, and enormous quantities of candles and chalk, the man and I grew slowly closer to the center of the room. From this same area came the only source of light in the room. Memory told me it would be a massive amount of candles, casting their flickering light over the faces of those who would be watching me perform my job today.
We emerged into a large, clear area; or rather, it would've been a large, open space without all the people. I guessed there to be around one hundred figures donning black cloaks and hoods which hid their faces gathered tonight. There's more of them each time, I noted. When I'd first come here, it had been only me and the man who had come to retrieve me from my cage tonight.
The crowds parted for me as I walked through. Feeling suddenly very exposed compared to the heavily cloaked and shawled figures around me, I tugged at the hem of the short brown dress made from rough fabric which I had been given to wear. It chafed and was uncomfortable as hell, but it was better than going naked.
At the center of the circle was a huge pentacle. White chalk had been used to draw the lines. Candles had been placed at even intervals along every line. Around the outside of the pentacle were twelve trees. Eleven of them I didn't know the name of, and didn't care to. It was the twelfth tree that put my nerves on edge. The twelfth tree was a large oak that had been suspended upside down from a catwalk at the bottom-most point of the pentacle. If the hanging upside-down part wasn't creepy enough, the oak, like all the other trees, was completely dead, despite the fact that they were watered daily, had soil, and received some light from the candles, which never went out.
I could hear now that the crowd was chanting something. My guide nudged me over to the oak tree. We moved slowly. His footsteps fell in rhythm with the chanting crowd, but I refused to match mine to their pace. Any minor disobedience I could get away with, I would take full advantage of.
I could suppress only half a shudder as I flashed back to the last time I'd been brave enough to defy the dark cult that held me captive.
The sea of black hoods hissed in disapproval. "It is not yet ready, girl, foolish girl. You try its patience. Know your place, sacrifice, and keep it." I glared back at them, defiance burning in my eyes. "I'm not a toy. You can't just pull me out and play with me whenever you feel like it."
"If that is what you believe, foolish sacrifice, then let it bestow upon you what consequences it wishes." Their words, spoken not as individual units but as a single, synchronized group, seemed weightless and insignificant to me. The cult practiced some form of black magic, though I'd never seen it in action. I didn't actually believe it was magic.
Despite everything I'd thought, though, I found myself only seconds later clutching my wrists as they blossomed with pain. My mouth opened in a scream, but the pain stole all sound from my cry. I wasn't bleeding, because no warm, sticky fluid ran down my fingers. I'd sank to my knees, and was shaking violently. Though I was afraid of what I might find, I looked down at my wrists to assess the damage.
Two ash gray marks had branded themselves onto my wrists. A double ouroboros formed the outer ring of an almost pentacle-like mark. Inside the two snakes was an upside-down phoenix with its mouth open in a fearsome grin. The marks were identical to one another, except for one detail. Under each mark was three words, written in what looked to be Latin, though my knowledge of the language was limited.
"Omnia quae surgit, omnes qui moritur. All which rises, all which dies." The crowd chanted. I still could produce no noise other than small gasps of pain and astonishment. For a minute, the candles seemed to glow less brightly, and the shadows seemed to grow longer. The crowd suddenly seemed like giants towering above me.
I gave in to the fear, ashamed at myself for doing so but too scared by the new brands on my wrists to do anything else. Pulling my knees to my chest, I rocked back and forth, clutching my wrists against my chest as I tried to ignore the chanting around me, which grew steadily in volume.
The next time I left the cage, the number of robed figures in attendance had very nearly doubled. And, much to my shock and dismay, the marks were still seared into my wrists. My escort told me later on that they would be permanent. To make things worse, I noticed that the brands would grow searing hot and begin to smoke when we drew near the pentacle in the ceremony room.
Whereas the crowd had previously been silent, they now picked up a haunting chant, which they began to repeat fervently. I glanced down at my wrists, a constant reminder that to fight my captors was a poor decision on my behalf. They were burning hot and smoking, as they always did. It created an eerie effect, making the phoenix and two snakes seem much more lifelike, as if they might begin to move around on my skin.
My escort, who was also the only person who did not wear black, (he instead wore a dark, blood-red robe) stopped me in front of the oak. The tree's dead branches reached out to embrace me. I shivered at their touch, shrinking away from the lifeless talons which scratched at my bare arms.
The crowd continued to chant for much longer. Sometimes, they would chant for so long that I began to fall asleep standing here in front of the oak tree. The hooded figures seemed to have more reverence for the tree than for almost anything else in the ceremony room. It made me feel awkward, to be standing in front of their sacred tree as these mysterious people paid homage to it, but they rarely acknowledged my presence during this part of their rituals.
And then they began the next phase of today's ceremony. Eleven figures shrouded in black robes came forth holding wooden pots. They were small enough to fit in the palm of one's hand, and I guessed that each pot was made from the wood of whichever tree it was set down beside. The pots were placed between the trees and the chalk lines of the pentacle. Every tree except for the oak received a pot. As the pot-bearers returned to their posts in the crowd, the group took up a faster, more haunting chant.
Somewhere in the back, I heard drummers pound a steady rhythm on drums which produced a deep, heavy sound that strained my ears. The crowd continued to chant. Their voices rose, winding higher and higher in volume until they stopped abruptly. A sharp jab to the small of my back signaled it was time for me to start moving.
Turning to my left, I began to walk in a clockwise circle around the pentacle. At the first tree, I stopped. My escort, who had followed me, produced a ceremonial knife from the folds of his robe. It was a long, silver blade with a handle fashioned from a human's bones (I knew because he'd once told me that in an attempt to scare me. The bones were not mine, so I set the matter aside to ponder at a later date).
I held out my hands over the pot. The crowd chanted again, fast and low. When they stopped, the silver knife flashed forward. I waited until a drop of blood had fallen from each hand into the pot, then moved on to the next tree. At this one, we performed the same ritual. Chant, blood, repeat. Chant, blood, repeat.
Each of the pots so far had already contained a fair amount of blood, both from my hands and from the bodies of sacrificial victims. At the sixth pot, we stopped, and began a new series of actions. The crowd took up a different chant. This time, the knife flew toward my wrists. Blood dripped down into the pot, but I felt no pain. The pain had stopped long ago.
After that, I returned to the oak tree, nestled once more among its lifeless branches as the assembly of robed figures finished their ceremony. They were silent, a forest of black cloaks as I was led away, out of the ceremony and back down to my cell. Someone had turned out the lights again; unfortunately, my eyes were now accustomed to the light, leaving me to flounder helplessly in the dark space.
The lack of light did not stop my escort from returning me to my cage, locking the door, and leaving, all without saying a word. There would be no bandages for my wounds. All I could do until the next time they summoned me was sleep. Or, if I became especially bored, I could drag my fingers along the cage bars and count how many there were (57, there was always 57 cold, metal bars).
I drifted off to sleep, letting the misty bank of dreams take me away from this wretched reality. Life hadn't always been this way. I could scarcely remember it now, but there had been a time before the black room and the cage and the black-robed chanting. Images of snowy London streets and softly glowing lanterns and children playing games in the street swam through my thoughts as I slipped into unconsciousness. And when I woke up, there was bread and water waiting for me.