Chapter 13: Purge
I wake to darkness, deeper and more suffocating than before. My body screams in protest as I move, every inch of me aching. My mind is feverish, fragmented. Lucious's cruel laughter echoes in my head, blending with the whispers of the underhive. I can still feel his touch, the cold bite of the broken guardian's wing as it carved into my flesh.
My flesh…!
Something is crawling under my skin, writhing and alive. It slithers through my veins, coiling around my bones, spreading its poison. I claw at my arms, my legs, trying to dig it out, but it only burrows deeper, laughing at my feeble attempts. My hand trembles as I lift it to my face, and I see the mark, glowing faintly, sickeningly. Then I feel them, more than one, pulsing with a light that is wrong, twisted, and malevolent. They feel… good, and that terrifies me more than anything.
"Emperor, save me," I whisper, my voice cracking. "Please, save me from this evil."
My prayer is desperate, a plea from the depths of my soul. The darkness presses in, and I feel the weight of a thousand eyes that aren't eyes, watching, judging, anticipating. I try to stand, but my legs buckle, and I collapse onto the cold, hard floor. My eyes dart around, seeking, searching for something, anything to help me.
My head feels like it's on fire, burning, not with heat, but hunger, hunger for things I can't and don't want to understand.
My fingers brush against a metal pipe, and I recoil at the heat. It's scalding, almost burning to the touch. But it's exactly what I need. Without hesitation and with a desperate cry I press my palm against the pipe, directly over the mark. The pain is immediate, white-hot, searing through my hand and up my arm. My vision darkens, and I grit my teeth, moaning to keep from screaming. The stench of burning flesh fills the air, acrid and nauseating.
"Emperor, save me," I sob, tears streaming down my face. "Please, make it stop. Make it go away."
I hold my hand there, as long as I can stand it, until my vision blurs and my head swims. The mark sizzles, the flesh blistering and peeling away. I pull back, gasping, and collapse against the wall, my body trembling. The pain is excruciating, but it's a small victory. One mark down. The thing inside me writhes and pain lances through my spine, throwing me to the ground, my body shakes and twists with a will not mine.
I force myself up again, crawling towards the pipe. My forehead throbs and I know the next mark is there, pulsing with that same sickening light. I press it against the pipe, the heat blinding, overwhelming. I scream this time, unable to hold it back, the sound echoing through the underhive, a cry of pure agony and somehow, in some way, victory.
"Emperor, why!?" I scream out, a prayer ripped from ragged lungs. "Why are you letting this happen?"
I pull away, collapsing once more, my breath ragged and shallow. The world spins, and I can barely see through the haze of pain and tears. But I can't stop. I have to keep going. I have to purge this evil.
My shoulder is next, the last mark. I drag myself up, using the wall for support, and press the mark against the pipe… except I don't. Why would I? Why serve such a hypocritical Emperor?
The thought comes unbidden to my mind. No pain, no throbbing in my spine, how spearing agony throwing me to the ground, just a thought, just a question, one more to join the many other unanswered questions that brought me here, to these pipes, away from the camp. Why serve an Emperor who only cares when he feels like it, only loves to make you serve him, only gives so he can take?
My vision swims and my ears burn as I feel my whole body alive with fire, a fire that chases away the pain, the doubts. A throne, not golden but white, bleached white, a throne of skulls. "Come, drink of the red rivers," the voice that utters from my lips isn't my own. "Drink and be free, drink and be reborn, serve that which rewards, that which hears, that in which there is no falsehood only the pure, cleansing simplicity of rage."
My eyes feel drawn upwards, from the rivers of red that flow through the valley of bones to the base of the mountainous throne. Gravity itself pulls me up, drawing my gaze to one sitting on the throne like light caught in a black hole. "I see the one who sits enthroned. The emperor of skulls, the lord of blood. His name is—"
With a terror beyond mortal reckoning I throw myself against the pipe. The white hot pain lances through my arm, burning as I press harder, harder, harder. The pain, tears through me with every second. Spots swim before my eyes, dark and growing, the vision of blood and bone fades and is replaced by darkness, the oppressive darkness of the underhive now seemingly bright, welcoming, and warm. My body shakes, and I feel myself go, my heart give out, my glands drained of adrenaline, everything shutting down….
I hit the ground and feel my heart beating, slowly, exhaustion in every cell of my being and torment in every fiber of my soul.
"Please, Emperor," I whisper, my voice inaudible even to me. "Please, don't abandon me. I need you. I need your light."
The marks burn, the flesh charred and blackened, but the light remains, taunting me. Another mark, there's still another, somewhere beneath my chin. I collapse to the floor, completely spent. My vision swims. I feel liquid running down my cheeks from my eyes, ears, and nose, hot, wet, sticky, final. In the dim haze of my vision I see the faint outline of Sister Helena's helmet, the eye lenses glowing chrimson in the darkness.
Ceramite boots crunch nearer, echoing through the underhive. Heavy, deliberate steps. They come, and I feel a hand on my shoulder, rough , cold ceramite. I can't look up, but as my head lolls back, my vision blurry, I hear the hiss of pressure seals and see the cold, unyielding gaze of Sister Helena, staring down at me.
Sister Helena's gaze pierces through the haze of my pain and fear, locking onto mine with an intensity that makes my blood run cold. Her hand rests heavily on my shoulder, the chill of ceramite seeping through my flesh, grounding me in this nightmare. Her voice, a harsh whisper, cuts through the oppressive silence of the underhive.
"Aurora," she says, each syllable a hammer striking an anvil. "Did you kill them?"
My throat constricts, and my voice wavers, barely more than a whimper. "Did not kill, did not kill, did not kill kill kill…" A giggle floats up my throat and I cough and twitch in her grip.
Sister Helena's eyes narrow, scrutinizing me with an unrelenting intensity. She kneels beside me, her movements precise and deliberate, each action measured and controlled. Through the haze of pain and exhaustion, I watch her examine the mutilated bodies of the veteran and the cadet and the marks on their skin. Her fingers trace the ragged wounds, the charred edges of flesh, and then return to me and trace the seared and scorched flesh of my hand, shoulder, and forehead, her eyes flit to the pipe where strips of skins till smolder and bubble.
Her hand reaches for the broken guardian around my neck, the string cutting into my skin, drawing blood. I flinch at the contact, a fresh wave of pain washing over me. She removes it, her expression unreadable, and holds it up to the flickering light. The guardian, my guardian, once a symbol of my faith, now defiled with the mark of chaos, dangles from her hand like a mockery of my beliefs.
"What should be done with this?" she asks, her voice cold and detached, as if she is speaking of an inanimate object, not the last remnant of my past.
Tears stream down my face, mingling with the blood and grime. My voice, broken and raw, emerges in a sing-song whisper, a desperate chant. "Burn burn burn burn burn burn burn…"
Sister Helena's eyes flicker with something I cannot name. Without hesitation, she sets the guardian on the ground and ignites her hand flamer. The flames roar to life, consuming it in an instant, reducing it to slag and ash. The sight is visceral, searing into my mind in a way a hot pipe never could. I watch through feverish haze the final destruction of my last tether to the person I once was.
The smell of burning flesh and metal fills the air, acrid and nauseating. My heart clenches painfully, each beat echoing the loss of my faith's physical manifestation. The guardian, the symbol of my mother's love, the focus of my childhood prayers, gone in a blaze of purifying fire. I feel hollow, a void where my faith once anchored me.
Sister Helena's gaze returns to me, unwavering, unyielding. "And what about you, Aurora?" she asks, her voice as cold as the void of space. "What should be done with you?"
The question hangs in the air, heavy with implication. My mind is a whirlwind of pain, fear, and overwhelming loss. I can barely think, barely breathe. The thought of being consumed by those same flames, of having my existence reduced to ash, terrifies me. Yet, a part of me wonders if that is my fate, if that is the only way to purge the heresy from my soul.
I stare up at her, my vision swimming, my thoughts disjointed. The pain, the fear, the sense of betrayal all blend into a single, overwhelming sensation. I can't find words, or perhaps the flickering twitches of the thing under my skin stops my mind from using them. In the end all I can manage is to repeat a single verse of the prayers my mother taught me to say before bed each night…
"In the sky so high above,
He watches over us with love.
Keep us safe eternally,
Burn away the heresy…"
THE END…. for now…