Jellie_Ellie

MAJOR CONTENT WARNING: Seriously uncomfortable depictions of child abuse. Like, it gets bad, folks.

Interlude: Cries from Afar

“I seem to recall a certain ‘conqueror’ who slaughtered throngs of my kin as noble fury poured forth from his masked visage, even as he despised his own cause.”

“Papa!” the girl said. “Papa, please, don’t do this, I promise I’ll be good, I promise! You have to believe me!”

“Yes,” the man said, “I am certain you will, dearie. You will be very good for me, won’t you?”

“Y-yes! Yes, I swear!”

“Unit is stable,” the man said, glancing off from behind the half-mirrored glass. “Begin the procedure, Doctor, if you will.”

“Yes, my Lord,” another voice said.

“No!” the girl screamed. “No, no, no! Please! Please, I’ll be good! I promise! Please!”

The device lowered, and the needle began to etch deep lines into The Stone.

“No!” the girl cried, straining against her bonds, once again feeling every inch of her body rip apart, reform, then stretch into unnatural shapes beyond what she could even properly understand. Her skin flaked off, burning. Infinite, unending agony took her, transcending time—her consciousness flowed through boundless eternities, experiencing each moment as if it lasted an Age, feeling every scratch as the needle perverted her essence. No amount of anesthesia would make a difference. “No, NO, PAPA!”

“No, no,” the man said. “A Kteki rune, I think.”

“Absolutely, my lord.”

As the girl shrieked once more, the man frowned. “Odd,” he said. “It’s always the Knowledge… What did It do differently?”

“The True One worked from a superior base, my Lord.”

“Yes, yes,” the man said. “But we’ll use what we have.”

“Perhaps a true-born subject might fare better for our next trial?”

“A waste of resources.” The man waved a hand dismissively, watching the girl’s body dissolve, before resurfacing from the void, far less human than before. He watched her soul expand, then frowned as it collapsed in on itself yet again. “No, mortals will do for this stage. The principles shall be the same—Creation and Ascension are universal properties, you see.”

“Indeed, my Lord.”

“Bah. She is beginning to fray. Pull back and wheel her into the enhancement room for surgery.”

“Of course.”

The needle retracted, and The Stone cooled to a white-hot glow, searing through what little of the girl’s mortal flesh remained. Bitter tears flooded down her stiffening cheeks. “P-Papa, I’m s-sorry, I’m so s-sorry, P-Papa, please, I’m s-so s-sorry.”

“It will be okay, my Little Sin,” the man said with a soft smile. “You did a good job today.”

“I-I d-did?”

“Oh yes,” the man said. “You survived.”

The girl managed a smile. Unnaturally wide, her contorted features warping into dimensions normally inaccessible to her kind. Charred wood covered the divot where her eyes should have been.

I don't even feel like making a joke or hawking my Patreon on this one. There's some deep pain going into this book, man.