THE JOURNEY OF EVIL

Chapter 4

The line of sick-looking villagers with hollow gazes started in the little room and extended further and further into the night. Cyrus had come outside the building and stopped. The village that looked empty when he arrived now had about four hundred people looking in his direction. He shook his head and kept to the path they created. Each person flanking the sides on the outside held a piece of weapon.

The path led him through a curve that went out of the village and toward his car. Here,  they covered all four entrances of the car except the booth, which was wide open, revealing neatly packed bags of food and a cooler on the side. The provisions packed by Anderson's team stared at him; he went forward and picked up a bottle of water, pouring the content on his face and letting it mix with the sweat on his shirt as it got soaked up—the coolness was what he was after. He sat down and threw the bottle on the ground. It was loud enough to draw a reaction but the faces he saw were lifeless and they stared at him with raw emptiness. He searched and found a plastic bag packed with sandwiches and brought them out. He smiled at the nice red cooler stuffed with drinks. From there, he retrieved a soda and sat down to eat while giving back as much hard stare into the faces of those around him.

Cyrus Night looked up as he finished the contents of the soda in his hand. The clouds were dark, but there was a lone eagle circling his position. He smiled at that and stood up. A path was quickly made for him and he resumed his journey away from the village and into a forest.

The line ended in a cutdown clearing of trees. There were long dark poles made from trees of varying sizes placed around the little clearing to form pillars but somehow Cyrus knew there weren't pillars but beams that channeled dark energy into what looked like a large circle made of blood that was in constant flow on its own path; the blood did not coat or dry. He looked from the beams to trace the source and saw that further up the clearing, Selene sat on a chair made from bent-over villagers who bled their blood into a little circle around her before branching out in the flows he saw earlier.

She waved her hands and seven huge villagers ganged him with ropes in their hands. He tried to fight and knocked down three before he was subdued and bound. They carried him into another circle made from blood; this circle was close to Selene's throne of living bodies. She looked down on him and smiled. She waved again and Cyrus could see from his peripheral vision that the villagers speared out in different directions, each holding a knife.

“What do you think about it?” Selene said in his ears, Cyrus jerked and wiggled on the ground. He had not noticed her movement. “Can you guess what I'm doing here?”

Cyrus wanted to deny her but he did know, the answer was coming from her and into his head. “A ritual, sacrifice to renew youth.”

 Selene smiled. Just as he knew this, he knew this was the eighth time she was doing this but something was different. She had stayed too long and was too weak to contain the whole village so some had escaped and many were still resisting her control.

Cyrus laughed as Selene's brow furrowed when he spoke. “But you're weak and only have about five hundred people, you're not strong enough to maximize their energy. At most you'll get ten years younger but for a ritual that can only be done once in a century you'll be dead soon. So much for hypnotizing a whole village and releasing your pet animal to terrorize them. Let's face the truth you're a dying old woman.” Cyrus spat in her face as he struggled with the rope. “Just come closer and I'll make it quick!”

Selene grinned at him. “Yes, yes. I'm dying,” Cyrus felt a static spark of energy in the air, and a force invaded his mind running around. It made him scream, the old hag was trying to go through all his memories. He bit hard on his tongue for pain and visualized a brick wall blocking her off.

Selene's laughter was deep and cold. “You don't believe in the supernatural, you think it's a form of unexplained science even when you were the leading occult researcher at the foundation. The very ones that put you in jail after you deserted. Oh, I'm dying but you're a great fool.”

Selene waved and Cyrus felt every villager under her control slit their wrists, but more than half were still resisting. She coughed out blood and fell to the ground beside him. He looked to the sky and offered a silent prayer for her death. Cyrus pumped his legs and tried to wiggle out of the circle but she grabbed his arms, her nails digging into his skin.

“You'll make up the numbers, you have no idea what you carry” she said and chuckled into his ears. Cyrus heard desperation and triumph in her voice. A force bent his hands in the direction of the flowing blood circle. Selene whispered dark words into a dagger she held, it turned red hot as she spoke. Cyrus watched her stab him at various points on his body. 

He screamed, it felt like his soul was being pulled from his body. She slit his wrists and blood gushed out in large flow, as soon as it connected to the circle there was a large hiss and the color of the blood path turned hot red and spread around following its path.

In that moment, Cyrus felt the resisting villagers become obedient and slit their wrists at their various positions. Selene was laughing and chanting in a high note as she got closer to her throne. Once she sat down, she snapped her fingers and a gush of wind blew. The blood path grew brighter and screams erupted from everywhere. The throne burst into flames; the heat lifted Selene off the ground and wrapped her like a cocoon. Cyrus saw deep darkness settle over him and no matter how hard he struggled, he slowly slipped into it. From the sky and looking down, the forest had a large, flaming pentagon that shone a bright red.

 In its center floated Selene in her little cocoon.

Cyrus opened his eyes; wherever he was, it was dark with a red glow coming from a door tightly shut that was bound with silver chains that emitted a cold chill. He wanted to turn the other way and run but his legs took steps toward the door. The upper left corner disintegrated with a hole forming at its spot. Pure darkness gushed out from within and tried to touch him. He staggered backwards with a wide eye, regaining control of his legs. He turned back and fled.

In the forest, Cyrus's eyes opened, and he sat up with his heart pounding in his chest, throwing gazes around him. The rope that held him and his clothes broke into fine dust, the tree trunk and the little plants on the floor of the forest—were all dust from losing their vitality. A few feets from him lay a sleeping lady with fair skin and thick black hair, the clothes she wore were fitted on her and Cyrus felt something tug within him. Pure rage consumed his veins and his eyes hardened as he stared at the sleeping form of Selene. He tried to stand but his legs gave way so he crawled towards her and settled on top of her.

 She had the body size of a twenty year old girl. He brought his hands to her neck and tried to squeeze but they refused to obey him. He found her knife, picked it up and tried to stab her but he could not, his hand just froze midair.

Selene opened her eyes due to Cyrus's effort—it was icy blue—and smiled when she saw his hand.

“You won't be able to kill me, I'm a part of you.” She said and whispered the next words. “Remember, you're the first person I did a favor or you'll have been dust.”

It was like a dam burst open in his head and memories flooded his mind. He saw a large amount of dark energy leaving his body and the green lifeforce flowing from villagers entering his body in matching quantity, when it stopped he saw Selene walk up to him and whisper the word ’seal’ twice.

“You made me like you?” Cyrus asked, trying harder to stab her.

“No I linked us, if I die you die. But if you die I lose all my powers. We're both opposing poles. You can't kill me but you can kill yourself. Either way, I'll be dead.”

Cyrus looked at her; he felt like strangling her soft neck, but he was also aware of something beneath the surface: a deep lust for her. He shook his head and dropped the dagger into the dust of the earth.