Chapter - 4

 

Within the godless church, machine took the place of the god statue, where the only overlooking statue is that of brass gears and electric wires.

 

The hymn of a reverend song played in the background, organs cheered, trumpets and the machine choir welcomed a new era.

 

As Lily’s hand met the screen. The screen descended into the floor, where a metal basin took its place. The circular metal basin, had water within it, seemingly used to baptise newborns and souls, On its cylindrical base, carvings of stone in unknown languages marked its history and purpose. 

 

Out of instincts perhaps, Alice striped Lily of her cloth wrappings and placed her into the basin, as she chanted words with a great smile, her metallic eyes shining brighter than ever.

And her voice more expressive than it has ever been.

“אני מטביל אותך, בשם עצמך. בשם המכונה הנצחית. שתשתחרר מהכבלים שלך. 

שתמצא חירות.”

 

As her prayers came to an end, Alice crouched to a kneel, facing the entrance.

 

Sounds of applause flooded the room, the once empty church now populated, the 9 rows of empty benches now full of peculiar creatures, with each bench containing 9 visitors. 

 

These visitors were winged humanoid creatures with faces mixture of beings, some having heads of lions, sheeps, hawks while others of snake, wolf, human.

 

They all sang in harmony with the church choir. Alice’s smile faded back to a stern look upon hearing their songs, wires started climbing from in between the gaps of her metallic joints, sprawling into a suit of armour. Blades reaching out from her forearms, similar to the fashion of a mantis. Electricity sizzled through her body, her blades glimmering in a luminescent blue. Her once female visage now hidden behind layers of metal and wire.

 

As the cathedral music started to fall to a stop. The once applauding and singing angels now turned more sinister, their wings burning to ashe, while viciousness overtook their grace. Silence dawned on the church, the rainbow paned glasses emanated rays of red, casting down to the cathedral floor. As the tension thickened, and the air grew heavier.

 

Alice rose from her kneeled position, standing tall despite the eerie air, unwavering with determination. Her metallic form glimmered under the redness of the glass panes, across from her, creatures of various forms, too rose from their seats, their once angelic features turned sinister and grotesque.

 

With a graceful nimble step, Alice raised her long slender arms, like a ballerina entering the stage, the blades extending from her forearm, where their blue glow contrasted with the red room. Alice’s movements were fluid and elegant despite the impending confrontation.

 

The creatures noting her advances, bore their claws, and stared with an otherworldly intimidation, their eyes glowed with intensity. Unwavering, Alice’s posture poised her focus unwavering, as she anticipated their every move.

 

The first creature lunged forward, its massive beastial claws cutting the air with deadly intent. Unfazed, like dancing to the rhythm of a song, Alice sidestepped, her movements balletic, as the attack missed by an inch - Striking the ground, shaking the room with intensity.

 

With a smooth movement, Alice’s blades flew through the air in a mesmerising fluidity, executed with perfection. Off came the head of the creature. Redness stained the church floor.

 

The battle raged on, with each beast becoming more cruel than the last, metal clashed and blades talked. The only language that was spoken was malice, violence and bloodshed. The once tranquil cathedral, now drenched in rivers of blood and broken furniture. 

 

Although Alice manoeuvred with grace unbefitting of this onslaught, her movements defying the brutish nature of war, she was not unscathed. With each battle, her eyes grew dimmer, and her movements choppier.

 

Marks appeared on the once indestructible armour of electricity and wire, dents formed and cracks appeared.

 

Multiple beasts lunged at Alice, her form getting rustier and more unbalanced. The once graceful dancer fell from the ballroom. No longer was she dodging and hitting with precise timing, now turned into a matter of attrition. Trading blows upon blows, she overcame the herd of beasts that surrounded her.

 

Looking down at her torso and broken stance, blue liquid oozed from gaping wounds on her chest, and face.

Her hands stained with red, her blade snapped and broken. Stumbling almost, she stood straight once more.

 

The angels of malice awaited her next move, Alice looked back. Her eyes fixated onto the tubule that stood towering on the middle of the cathedral.

 

For a moment, a expression of sadness was on Alice’s face. Her eyes flashing at the tubule.

Facing the ugly creatures once more.

She poised herself, her blades pointing towards her own chest.

She yelled in an unknown language:

 

"Thou art but naught. My blood thou deserveth not. And when thine souls depart this earthly coil and descend to fiery Hell….

 

I shall await thee all!”

 

For a moment, she appear to bore the visage of death. Every movement seemed to echo the inevitable. Each step left a mark of smouldering blue ashes, her broken blades now appeared like a Lance of Longinus, with it, she pierced her own metallic chest, yet for some reason, she bore an eerie smile.

 

Her eyes once cold metallic eyes, now combusted with such a great intensity, it threatened to consume souls, like a pair of azure flaming orbs, it casted rays of blue that illuminated the entire cathedral in her haunting blue hue. It was like the summoning of all the spirits that were ever damned. Her once metallic humanoid form now enveloped in a formless shroud of white flames, radiating a menace that stunned the very air. 

 

She was the harbinger of cold eternal slumber.

 

Erupting with intensity, her flames grew, consuming her foes with it.

But it was not enough.

One singular creature, burning with marks all over its body, flames trailing across its torso and back with an unending heat, marched towards the helpless child bathed in water.

 

With each step limping, but it's ferociousness still looming.

It pressed on.

Not even the flames of sacrifice may hinder its movement.

In a way, this beast was the victor of natural selection,

The ultimate Todoku - the triumphant.

 

Stepping on the corpse of the loyal iron maiden, he crushed its head which still glimmered of faint glow.

 

Stepping in front of the pot of the baptising child.

 

What occurred next could only be described as disturbing.

As its fingers descended upon the helpless child, its talons curled, hungry for flesh, eager to ravage the tender flesh.

With each savage grip, it tore away, exposing the bleeding inside of the child. Blood, oozed from the torn flesh, pooling into the baptist liquid bellow, staining the water red. The creature’s lips curled in a grotesque semblance of pleasure, its teeth sinking into the raw skin with a voracious desire. 

The cackling sound of bones splintering beneath his grasp echoed throughout the entire church, like a symphony of pain and torture, mingling with the yelps of pain.

With each severed appendage, its eyes gleamed with a primal satisfaction, a twisted ecstasy born from sadistic nature and indulgence. The once beautiful child, now lay mutilated, a grotesque display of gluttony and sin.

And yet, the creature felt no sin, instead it felt a perverse delight, relishing in his release of hunger upon the poor being.

Yet out of no reason, the creature after consuming the helpless child, severed its own head, and placed it upon the red dish of bone and blood.

The aftermath of the battle now turned to naught, corpses and blood both faded to particles of blue, the marks left by battle diminished as machine arms reached from the walls of the, cleaning and repairing the battlefield, restoring the church to its previous glory.

The red glass panes, now turning rainbow once more.

Music of god played once more, it was like the battle never happened.

 

Though unlike before.

The corpse of the iron maiden laid desecrated, while the room now emanated with a bright blue glow, particles of blue floated the air, forming a mist that shrouded the room in a blinding light. 

As if attracted by it, all the particles dashed towards the massive glass tubule at the centre.

Forming an orb of radiant light.

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Lily in the midst of her agony, lost consciousness once more, her thoughts before death was: “Was that really it?”

The grip on reality faded before she could contemplate her life. Emptiness shrouded her once more.

She is here now, here in the plane of emptiness. In the realm beyond the veils, where her very echoes of existence fade into abyss, a desolate void devoid of all. No mass, no purpose, no ending, no salvation.

It is here, where time stretches infinitely in all orientations, a vast emptiness where significance is but a dissipating smoke in the wind. Her soul dissipates into a drifting breeze, searching for anything to hold her, rebind her to the living.

As her consciousness faded, as her being was about to wander for eternity a force pulled her back.

Hooking her to the realm of the living once more.

 

Awakening again, her eternal slumber interrupted, she opened her eyes once more.

“....Where am I??”

She looks around, her body although unable to move, her eyes still could. It appears she was reborn, reborn within the capsule of liquid. The strange viscous substance enveloped her form, through the translucent capsule, she peeked at the surroundings.

Confusion settled on her, mingling with a feeling of deja vu, she tried to make sense of her surroundings.

Memories flooded back, reliving moments of the pain she felt before death caused her to choke. Coughing vigorously, she expressed her trauma physically. 

As she thought about her state, a voice rang through her head superseding her own thoughts:

 “לָקוּם”

Her consciousness shifted, with a piercing headache she rose, discombobulated, she observed her surroundings once more, she was in a church…

 

“Wait, this is the same place from before….!”

Her eyes fixated on the massive tubule in the centre of the room, a shocked look appeared on her face.

“What the fu….”

It was a girl, a familiar one as well, it was the form she took when she was a….. I can’t recall… wha-! my thoughts..! This feeling…..

Agh fuck.. my consciousness is fading….

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“Agh, this pain…. Ah, right what was I doing again…? Shit, can’t remember. What is this…. Is that me? This massive metallic tubule… Fuck don’t think about it too much.

As she was getting up, she saw her own reflection, although she had the sensations of a human would, something was off, something felt foreign... Touching her own face, squeezing the cheeks, there was warmth, there was softness, the realism of flesh and blood could be felt, her pulse was normal but. … No pain. Stretching it was to no avail as well. With a risky curiosity, she located the nearest bench, and smashed her hand against the bench as hard as possible.

Her hand did not shatter, instead the bench snapped into chunks, a deep gaping indentation marred it surface where she had struck it, its wooden slats now splintered and fractured like jagged teeth.

The armrests once polished and smooth are now twisted and contorted, this scene was testament to the destructive power unleashed upon it, even the metallic floor suffered severe indentation.

“..What the fuck”

“I guess pressing yes was-””

A sharp pain seared through her as her memories slipped from her grasp.

Looking at the stairs that led to the tubule “she” was in, she saw a headless corpse of a machine of sorts, its torso wrapped in cut wires and charred electricity, bite marks and claws sprawled throughout its body, most interestingly, a blade was stuck into itself, it seemed to have melted into the floor.

For some unknown reason though, she felt pit-

Before she could finish her thoughts, her body moved on its own.

“תשרת אותי פעם נוספת.”

Moving towards the carcass, compelled by some unknown force, she forced her hand into the being’s chest, removing the blade stuck within and inserted her own hand.

An unknown liquid gushed out from her fingertips, the machine started healing, clock-work noises booming from within.

 

Retracting her hand, the machine rose.

Standing up, the figure before her stood tall, its features robotic and boring.

 

Her body moved again as if responding to her own thoughts, snapping her fingers, a loud  metallic resonance vibrated throughout the entire cathedral, the organs vibrating with great frequencies from the sound.

 

The machine’s face started shifting, its body becoming more life-like, materials condenses onto the surface of the machine, seemingly from no-where.

 

Her body moved again, opening its mouth, a small blue particle escaped, glowing with a thousand suns, flew into the machine’s chest.

 

1. “.....Are you.. My creator?”

 

2.”..I think so..?”

 

1.”Very well” The machine kneels into a position

  “Your will is my command”

 

With a confused sigh, perhaps due to her lack of recollection, she names herself and her creation.

 

2”Hear me, my creation. Your name shall be Evangeline, your name is from the Greek word “euangelion”, for I have made you in a church.”

 

Evangeline: “Very well my lord, and your name is…?”

 

With a pondering expression, unable to recall her own name. She made her own.

 

“Elysian.”