Story Hub: [link]
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Axin ran and ran and ran. Even as the light seemed to dim more and more, even as he stumbled over every loose tile and crashed into the walls, he refused to stop for anything. At least until he careened into the dead end at the far end of the hall. It had simultaneously felt like he had been running forever and for no time at all. Dazed, delirious, and completely disoriented, he was forced to take a moment to recenter himself and finally realized he had run too far and missed the turn. Thankfully, there didn’t seem to be anyone following him. Not so thankfully, the hall was eerily quiet as even the distant sound of the crowd had vanished. Optimistically, that would mean everyone had suddenly left, but realistically, that meant something was very wrong.
‘I didn’t…I mean I couldn’t have…’ Axin considered what he had witnessed. If anything was a divine messenger, it was whatever he saw, but that can’t be right. He knew it was all a trick, just advanced tech on this primitive planet, yet that…Creature? Being? Entity?...whatever it was spoke directly into his mind, seemingly by accident. He had heard vague whispers of such otherworldly abilities, but that was the result of science gone wrong and freak mutations. That ‘existence’ was anything but scientific or a mutant. It just was.
‘Leaving now, never looking back. I’ll just live in the mountains or something until I die of old age,’ Axin affirmed. It wasn’t a real plan, but despite the fact he intended it to be a bit of dark humor to lighten his mood, he found his desire to be as far away from this place as possible all too real. Without another thought, he retraced his steps to the door that led him into this cursed hallway and opened it up to an empty corridor. The cathedral was deathly silent, and the once bustling and overcrowded pathway that brought him from the outside was empty. ‘This looks too good to be true,’ he realized.
He took one step, then another, then another before quickly dashing to the end of the hall, intending to peer down the way he came to ensure the coast was clear. Instead, he was seized by several pairs of hands from around the opposite corner. Axin flailed for a moment thinking he was being taken, but one look at his supposed captors and he realized they were just regular worshippers.
“Ah, a late arrival. Forgive us, we heard you running and thought the worst,” a middle-aged woman at the head of the group said. “Do not fret, the service only began a very short time ago. Please come along with us, no one will judge you for being a tad tardy.”
“I’m not-” Axin tried to say, but was dragged along before he could get another word out. He wanted to struggle free, but was stuck between five people who were practically dragging him along. The rogue couldn’t tell if they were being malicious or just incredibly pushy. His first instinct was to assume the worst, but he knew how fanatical some people are. In their mind, they’re helping him. The thought made Axin wretch, but alas, he still couldn’t break free.
Taken into the main hall, Axin bore witness to the grand majesty of the cathedral. The ceiling seemed impossibly far away, and the intricate paintings and murals lining each wall looked far too detailed to have been created in the short time it took to build the cathedral. Despite the uniform layout packed to the gills with worshippers, everything felt just a little off. Not just in an eerie or creepy way, but in the sense that it was all slightly wrong and misaligned. It wasn’t even that it appeared rushed, poorly made, or malicious, just that on some subtle level, the cathedral wasn’t put together correctly. Axin was being pulled along too quickly to be able to notice any of the fine details, but the longer he saw this place, the more he sensed the inherent wrongness.
‘I swear there’s something crooked about this place, literally crooked,’ Axin could feel the revelation just beneath the surface of his thoughts. He knew it on some level, but it hadn’t reached his conscious mind yet. However, before he could make the connection, the whole room became alight with rapture as the prophet reappeared by a podium at the far end of the room.
“Fellow believers, the word of the divine messenger is near,” the prophet exclaimed, “they asked for but one more thing before the message is shared. I shall not be the one to disseminate the message. It will be one of you!” The crowd of worshippers, dead silent not even a moment before, went into absolute hysterics. “Let the light of our goddess illuminate the chosen!” The prophet shouted.
‘Just what I needed, an even wilder crowd, and audience participation,’ Axin grit his teeth. ‘What poor sap is going to be dragged into…this…?’ The dusty-haired man suddenly felt very seen as all eyes followed a single spot of light that focused on the area he was standing in, slowly closing in on the group he was stuck with before tightening to a single point centered on him. ‘I had to ask.’
Everyone in the cathedral stared at him. A mixture of awe, wonder, envy, hatred, and joy was poured directly onto his being. Axin felt sick to his stomach as the prophet beckoned him forward. He wanted to run, to flee, to scream and demand them all to leave him alone, and he very might well have, but he was still trapped by that middle-aged lady and her friends and more importantly…
“Come, the Divine Messenger awaits you,” the prophet said directly to Axin, and this small, insidious part of himself burned with the desire to accept. He wanted to see it again, he needed to see it again. You can’t just go back to the life you had before when you witness a being like that. By the time Axin returned to his senses, he was already halfway to the podium.
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While Axin wasn’t dragged into the backroom of the cathedral, it certainly felt like it. He was roughly deposited into a clean, white, marble room, the roar of the excited worshippers eerily muted since he entered. The room was decorated with more objects and ornaments of worship for this enigmatic goddess the prophet was going on about, but most striking was the pool of crystal-clear water that served as the centerpiece.
“Welcome, blessed child,” the prophet began to speak. “You have been chosen to bear the divine goddess’s gifts.”
“I don’t…I can’t…” Axin tried to reject her, but the words kept dying in his throat. Something about this lady terrified him, and the room was just as off-putting as the main hall. He desperately looked for an escape route, but there were no windows aside from some stained glass depicting an angelic figure far out of reach, and the only door was the one he came in, blocked by the middle-aged lady and her posse.
“Do not fear, child, the goddess is generous and merciful,” the prophet assured. “Your early intrusion is already forgiven. In fact, it was a stroke of good fortune that you made your way here. If you hadn’t come here, we might have spent ages looking for you.”
“What’s so special about me? I’m nobody,” Axin choked out. The rogue struggled to breathe as the atmosphere of the room suffocated him. You’d think such a holy-looking place would offer solace, but this room radiated an incomprehensible presence that shook Axin to his very core.
“But you are special, you are like me, from beyond this place, from the stars,” the prophet smiled. Axin couldn’t see her eyes as they were hidden behind her hood, but he could feel them piercing right through him. “What you know, what you understand is invaluable in a place like this.”
‘I was right, I was right, why? Why?’ Axin cursed his misfortune. He needed to leave...he needed to see the divine messenger…No, he needed to leave, if only after basking in that light again…No, he needed to…needed to… ‘What’s wrong with me?’
“It is alright, child, you may release those worries plaguing your soul. The divine messenger has come for you,” the prophet gestured above. The stained-glass window shone with brilliant light as the figure depicted in the artwork stepped out of the medium that contained it and took on a physical form. The Divine Messenger descended upon the room, filling it with a blinding light. The prophet and the worshippers fell to their knees in reverence, while Axin couldn’t even move.
‘AND SO, BLESSED CHILD, WE ARE UNITED AGAIN,’ the Divine Messenger’s voice boomed into Axin’s mind.
‘Get out of my head!’ Axin tried to scream, but could only bring himself to shout within his own mind.
‘DO NOT FEAR,’ the messenger reached out their hand as the blinding light faded. Its form fully revealed, Axin saw that it was a feminine, angelic humanoid, with two brilliant white wings on its back, long golden hair, eyes of brilliant silver, and armor he distinctly recognized.
‘That looks like Federation soldier armor, heavily modified, but I’d recognize the garb of those pigs any day,’ Axin realized. ‘But why is she wearing it? This ain’t a place the Federation would ever step foot on if they could help it, and I’ve never seen an alien like her…wait no I have once. It was a news article about Barstilin, something about obnoxious new residents on the streets? But what were they called?’
‘CYANGELS,’ the messenger answered his thought, causing Axin to flinch.
“How? How!” Axin stumbled backward as his thoughts were invaded.
‘WE ARE CAPABLE OF A GREAT MANY THINGS,’ the messenger explained, ‘AND WE WISH TO SHARE THOSE GIFTS WITH PEOPLE LIKE YOU, BUT WE MUST SPREAD OUR WORD, OUR MESSAGE, OUR DOGMA ACROSS THE GALAXY FIRST. LESS WE RISK BEING IGNORED AND MISUNDERSTOOD AGAIN.’
“What…what kind of…” Axin could barely speak, his terror taking back over.
‘IT IS A SIMPLE MESSAGE, YET DIFFICULT TO CONVEY,’ the messenger continued, ‘IT IS HARD TO ACCEPT AT FIRST, YET MANY SEEM TO AGREE UNCONSCIOUSLY.’
‘What is she talking about?’ Axin wanted to throw up.
‘WHY TELL, WHEN WE COULD SHOW YOU?’ The messenger spread her wings and took to the air, hovering above the pool. ‘COME, BLESSED CHILD, STEP INTO THE WATER TODAY AND TOMORROW SPREAD OUR DIVINE MESSAGE.’
‘What would that do to me?’ Axin stared at the water in horror, finally realizing what about this place was scaring him.
“It will give you the same blessing that I received,” the prophet appeared behind him and grabbed his shoulder. Her cloak slipped off, revealing she was also a cyangel, one with white hair and piercing gold eyes.
“Let go, let go!” Axin tried to struggle, but her grip was like a vice, and she dragged him toward the water with little effort.
‘ACCEPT THIS GIFT, MAY YOUR COMPONENTS CREATE LIFE ANEW,’ the messenger chanted.
“What!” Axin’s heart stopped. All this time he had assumed they were going to do something to him, change him in some way. But the way she spoke made it sound like he was fuel in the furnace. A catalyst for something else. This was no baptism, it was a sacrifice. “Stop!”
“Accept this gift,” the prophet smiled as she dunked him into the water, holding him down as he struggled against his inevitable fate. At first he flailed like a trapped animal, but soon he couldn’t even put a single finger above the surface. His limbs grew heavier and heavier until he could lift them no longer. Then, suddenly, they felt as light as air. He dared to open his eyes and saw something sinking into the water beside him. In fact, there were many scattered pieces in the water with him. However, Axin quickly realized he was still the only thing in the water a reality that ironically became more apparent as his vision decayed before completely cutting out, followed by his last thread of conscious thought.
“He stopped struggling…oh, he is gone,” the prophet pulled her hand back, finally noticing Axin was no more. She stepped aside and watched the pool with an eager smile as it swirled with his remnants before something began to form in its center. “What new life finds its spark in these waters?” She wondered as a single hand reached out from the water, which was swiftly grabbed and dragged out by the divine messenger. The prophet smiled as she witnessed her new counterpart enter this world.
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The grand cathedral of Illuxio continued to spread the word of its goddess unabated, and the once enigmatic and vague religion came to be known under a proper name: the Cult of Ambrosia. They promised a new form of immortality, unlike any the people of this humble planet had ever conceived of before, and more importantly, a graceful union of all people and a promise of everlasting peace as long as everyone converted to this new religion.
However, this was all unknown to the Federation scout Herin. He was here tracking the ship of a small-time space rogue. Normally, the Federation would never bother to send its scouts to such a primitive planet, and in fact forbade it on the grounds of non-interference with less-advanced civilizations. But that goes out the window when you have proof someone else is already doing that. Even then, hunting down such a minor crook like this guy would be a waste of time, but Herin was lucky enough to catch a signal from the rogue’s ship. While he wouldn’t hunt the guy to the ends of the world, Herin at least had to confirm this criminal wasn’t exploiting the local people. If the guy was keeping to himself, he might even let him go free. Alas, the rogue was quickly forgotten as Herin made his first steps into a local city.
“Our fellows, followers of the faith, we come bearing news of another divine visit,” a twin pair of robed prophets, one in white and one in black, exclaimed to a ravenous crowd in front of a cathedral far too large and complex for the level of technology on this planet. What was even more startling was that their words and actions were being backed up with effects from an Illumin 9000. Herin was distraught at the amount of paperwork he’d be stuck with after this, but also excited he stumbled across proof of the Illumin theft rumors. All he had to do was get a closer look at these mysterious prophets and their out-of-place cathedral, and he’d have enough for a report that would get his superior’s attention.
“Just a quick 15 cycles of recon and a few pictures and I’ll have more than enough to prove someone is interfering with this planet’s growth. If I’m lucky, I might even get a promotion out of this,” Herin smiled. However, in his glee, he failed to notice that the twin prophets were staring directly at him, even though he was far away at the back of the crowd.
“Fellow believers, the word of the divine messenger is near,” the twin prophets exclaimed. “Once again they asked for but one more thing before the message is shared. We shall not be the ones to disseminate the message. It will be one of you!” The already animated crowd went ballistic. “Let the light of our goddess illuminate the chosen!” The prophets shouted.
‘What kind of nonsense is this?’ Herin thought before he felt thousands of eyes upon him, as an inexplicable light shined directly upon where he stood.
End Transmission…
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When you go looking for all the answers, often you find none of them, but when you try to avoid them, you just can't escape.
Until next time, Read, Comment and Enjoy.
