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Ryker grimaced as they took another wrong turn through the winding hallways of the Basilica, the heavy door they had just come through slamming shut behind them. Trying to pull, then push on the door yielded no results, though they had expected that with the soft clicking the door made after it shut.
They sighed, giving a last frustrated yank on the handle before spinning to face the rest of the room and slumping back against the door. Sliding down the cool wood they crouched somewhat awkwardly on the old rug covering this area of the floor, shifting minutely on their heels.
Sharp pain flared deep in their chest each time they breathed in, fading to a dull ache with every exhale. Their head throbbed with a harsh pressure, light sparking behind their closed eyes. Everything hurt, and the brief break was only making it feel worse now that there wasn’t anything else to distract them.
Opening their eyes took way too much effort. They were met with the same sight of old books, scuffed wood furniture, mismatched rugs and eerie paintings of angels and twisted gore-covered animal bodies. Large eyes graffitied on the walls stared back at them, the room smelling like musty books and an odd, faint, putrid sour-bitter-sweet scent that came and went at random.
They shivered in the cool air, letting their eyes fall closed again. If simply keeping their eyes open took so much effort, how would they ever find the strength to stand up again?
Warm, stale air brushed past their face and rustled their hair ticklishly against their face, coming from somewhere they really hoped not to discover. It felt nice, sort of. The air was so chilly and still in this part of the Basilica, making them shiver as the sweat they worked up walking around dried on their skin.
…..Not that they particularly enjoyed the alternative. The warmer rooms, with exception of the gardens and the front areas where that blond priest seemed to live in, always carried this faint smell of old meat that made their stomach churn.
Sleep was so, so tempting. The only rest they had gotten since coming here was the occasional bout of concussion induced unconsciousness, and it was taking much more of a toll on their body than they had expected. Their limbs burned from exhaustion, lungs struggling to inhale against the pain and weight of their chest.
The idea of letting themself drift off into a deep, peaceful, painless sleep and take a much needed break from this twisted reality was beyond tempting. So, so tempting.
Everything slowly faded around them, Ryker losing track of the sensations in and on their body. It felt like slowly sinking into a pool of warm water, soothing their pain and easing the tightness deep in their muscles.
A warm haze settled over their thoughts, replacing the anxiety and racing thoughts that never seemed to stop. They were almost asleep, finally comfortably resting, when a distant peal of children’s laughter wormed its way through the haze.
Startling awake with a gasp, they blinked slowly and licked their dry, chapped lips. They had desperately hoped that the strange nightmares and visions would give them a short break, but that laughter made them terrified of what they would see if they fell asleep.
Relief washed over them as they scanned the room to see no ghosts nor strange bloody figures, quickly fading into disappointment at the failed attempt to sleep. Letting out a deep, bone weary sigh they let their head fall back against the door again, angry tears filling their eyes.
“Putain de dieu,” they muttered under their breath, instinctively glancing around the room after with worried eyes. They had seen enough bizarre things, an angel coming out to slay anyone who dared to use vulgar language in a church wouldn’t be so strange anymore.
When nothing happened, of course, they smacked their head lightly back against the wood. The whole situation was clearly getting to them. They had all but blasphemed God already with no consequences from the Basilica, not to mention how the priest had cussed them out before. Of course nothing would come after them this time.
They rubbed their eyes, heels of their palms digging in painfully as they tried to scrub away the paranoia building up again. Clearly sleep would not happen, at least not in this area. Not with the eyes of the paintings and graffiti staring at them and watching their every move.
With a pained groan they pushed up to standing, wobbling for a moment before catching their balance. It hurt more than they expected to stand.
The room tilted and blurred, and they had to lean against a bookshelf to keep from falling. Their head pulsed with heat and throbbing pain, strange colors swimming before their eyes before they shook their head and successfully chased away the vision trying to drag them to new angel-led horrors.
Their hand brushed against an odd tacky, chalky texture on the bookshelf, making them grimace. Gross.
Rubbing their palm against their pants to remove any traces of whatever caused that texture they started walking. Even the soft, muffled thuds of their shoes against the thick rug felt loud in the dead silence.
Ryker tried to avoid looking at the eyes of the paintings, desperately glad that so many had the faces scratched out. The eyes that were still present seemed to be following them, glinting in the light with strange reflections they couldn’t quite make out from how high up the paintings were.
The rug suddenly giving way to wood floor startled them, having been distracted by their thoughts. They stumbled, wincing at the much louder clacks of their steps echoing in the large room. A saint seemed to glare down at them, disapproving of the sudden interruption to their never ending prayers. Ryker sheepishly looked away, not recognizing the saint in the portrait but still feeling chastised.
Some faint scratching sounds caught their attention. Their eyes darted over to a dusty old curtain hanging against one wall between a stack of books taller than their head and a fake plant, noticing how the bottom edge of it shifted ever so slightly in a steady rhythm.
Walking over to it they got down on the hands and knees, feeling a faint breeze brush across their wrists. Ryker pulled up the edge of the heavy blue fabric, revealing a jagged hole cut into the wall.
It was big enough for them to crawl through but just barely, and dark enough that they couldn’t see what, if anything, was on the other side. Air rushed out much stronger now, sharp and cold in a way that made their skin prickle and burn beneath the frigid onslaught.
There was another faint scratching, a flash of movement deep within the blackness, and when Ryker leaned closer to try to make out what it was, gravity suddenly shifted below them. They were slipping, falling through the yawning mouth of the hole that suddenly expanded to welcome their whole body.
They had thought it was cold outside of the hole. Inside, falling through an endless expanse of shifting darkness, they thought they were going to die.
It burned on their skin, so sharp and painful, like needles of ice were pricking into their flesh. They couldn’t even shiver. Wherever they were was so cold that it felt more like intense heat on their body, feeling like a painful mix of frozen glass shards and scalding steam blasting their body as they fell.
If the bizarre way they fell into the hole hadn’t tipped them off to the not quite natural circumstances going on, the fact that they went from eternally falling to suddenly standing in a brightly lit, warm hallway solidified their suspicions.
Light polished wood surrounded them, covered in small windows that looked out onto endlessly swirling pastel colors. Dark twisted shapes moved far off, Ryker’s eyes unable to distinguish any details about them among the dizzying colors.
Tearing their gaze from the windows they stared down the length of the hall, sighing. It was hard to tell how far down the door at the end was, the floor covered in hundreds of painted rabbits of varying sizes and thin neon stripes of paint swirling along the full length of the walls. The ceiling was too high up to see, some sort of black fog obscuring anything higher than twenty or so feet above their head.
Ryker shuddered and started walking forward, not wanting to know what if anything was waiting up there. They focused on quickly walking forward, trying not to trip on the strangely three-dimensional shapes painted on the floor. After nearly five minutes of walking down the hallway they finally reached the door, grabbing the handle and giving it a tug.
It was locked.
Groaning in resignation they let their head fall forward to smack against the door. Not again. They really did not want to go on another ridiculous search for a hidden key.
Turning around they kicked at the strangely textured floor, somehow ruffling up the painted spots like carpet. Thank God the key was hidden under the carpet-paint-whatever that was, their kicking dislodging it from its hiding place and sending it skidding across the floor a couple feet away.
The door opened easily once the key was inserted, Ryker not even needing to turn it before it faded away and the door simply unlatched by itself. They cautiously slid through the crack, not sure they wanted to push it further open in case anything hostile was on the other side.
On the other side of the door was another hallway. This one was lined with deep red curtains, both the walls and floor seeming to be made of the fabric. Their footsteps made no sound on the floor, and when they called out their voice disappeared almost as soon as it left their throat.
No matter how long they spent in silence, it never stopped unnerving them. They felt like they were suffocating, anxious thoughts getting louder the longer they spent surrounded by unnatural quiet.
They couldn’t put into words just how much they hated silence. Yet it seemed to be one of the few constants of the past few days.
“Ryker.”
And that was the other constant.
They jumped, whirling around with a hand pressed against their chest over their pounding heart. The strange angel stood there, golden eyes staring at them from beneath the expressionless blue beetle mask and boring into their soul. He didn’t react to Ryker’s startled panic, simply standing there with leather-covered hands clasped in front of him.
Ryker waited uneasily, unsure of why the figure that claimed to be their guardian angel was there and distrusting of what he might plan to do. Every time he had visited so far only caused greater confusion and heralded pain for Ryker.
“You have suffered much.”
The statement didn’t sound like a question, more like an observation. Shifting uncomfortably, Ryker nodded. The angel had not truly acknowledged that before, the pain and the fear and the constant injuries and the growing worry in the back of Ryker’s mind of an invisible clock that may or may not be ticking down to their death.
“.......Yeah?” It came out thinner and more anxious than they meant it to. The angel didn’t seem to mind or even notice, just tilting his head and staring.
Silence dragged on for an uncomfortably long time. Ryker glanced around the room, suddenly aware of how much darker their surroundings had gotten since the angel appeared. They couldn’t see anything past a couple feet, both their bodies seeming to be not quite glowing but the only illuminated objects in the dark expanse.
The angel didn’t speak as Ryker walked towards where one of the walls had been. Nothing. Even when they swiped their hand through the air there was no curtain nor wall to meet them, just an endless void of thick shadows.
More unsettled than they already had been Ryker quickly stepped back over to the angel. As much as they disliked him , it seemed like a much better option than wandering through that void.
A strange crackling noise sounded from the angel’s direction, and Ryker turned to see him now holding something that was shaped almost like a large shard of glass, glowing such brilliant gold that it stung their eyes to look at.
They squinted at it, taking a step back at the growing dread deep in their chest that had grown all too familiar a sensation in the past days. “What are you-”
A hard blow on their shoulder had them stumbling backwards and falling with a yelp, trying to scramble back and away from the angel as he easily caught up to them and knelt, straddling their waist.
His hand was gentle when he touched their forehead, leather gloves cool against their near feverish skin. They froze in fear and confusion when he stroked their face gently, bringing their frantic thoughts to a sudden screeching halt.
“Shh. You are important. You will not die here. That is not allowed.”
Whatever panic had left immediately flooded their body again. They tried to push the larger figure off of them, palms sweaty and skin buzzing with terror. “W-wait what are you going to do-”
The angel simply shushed them again, gently tracing the tip of the jagged golden light shard in a slow, smooth line down their face, their throat, their chest. It wasn’t enough to cut them, but they could feel the strange tingling burn that touching the shard caused.
Ryker froze. Their breaths were quick and shallow, limbs trembling as the angel grabbed one of their hands and lifted it. He inspected it for a long minute, turning it this way and that as their anxiety grew before finally pressing the tip of the shard against their middle finger, and dragging it down.
Sharp, searing heat followed the trail the shard carved, a long line down their finger to palm. He didn’t stop at their wrist either, continuing the cut down their forearm and ending at the bend of their elbow.
Eyes squeezed shut, Ryker couldn’t do more than gasp at first. It felt so strange, an uncomfortable heat that their brain knew was wrong but not exactly painful. The angel pulled the shard back from their skin, prodding and rubbing at the newly exposed flesh inside the cut. His touch made the burn worsen, true pain joining the strange heat and making a strangled gasp tear from their lungs.
Seemingly satisfied with what he saw in the wound, the angel cut again. This time the shard was angled sideways under the skin of their palm, easily separating it from the muscle and fat beneath.
Pale skin came smoothly away from raw tissue beneath, the shard cauterizing the wounds and keeping blood from dripping down their body. The angel held up the strip of skin, admiring it before pressing their thumb against Ryker’s lips.
“Open. You shall receive a new blessing.” The words were firm, measured. His eyes bore into Ryker’s, thumb forcing their mouth open enough to drop the strip of skin onto their tongue. “Eat.”
Horrified, it took their mind way too long to catch up to what just happened. With a panicked half muffled protest they tried to spit it out, tongue nearly pushing it out of their mouth. The angel tutted, covering his mouth.
His grip was strong, and their efforts to open their mouth did nothing but make their jaw ache. Seeing a flash of the blade in his other hand made them tense further and they very reluctantly started chewing.
It was surprisingly hard to chew, almost rubbery between their teeth. Ryker gave up after a moment and struggled to gulp it down, trying not to gag at the godawful texture. The experience was made much, much worse by the fact that the taste wasn’t even that bad. Not good by any means, but not nearly as awful as they had expected.
The angel hummed approvingly, soft insect chitters sounding from behind the mask or carapace or whatever it was. He lowered the shard again, burning away the material of their shirt with barely a touch and leaving their belly bare before ripping off the rest of their shirt.
Shifting uncomfortably at the sudden exposed and vulnerable skin, Ryker watched with shallow, barely existent breaths. They groaned as the angel started with their chest, cutting a long, deep line down the middle of their chest and belly. Another cut across from just below their nipples, and then the angel’s fingers digging into the wounds and pulling their flesh back surprisingly easily.
Their vision blurred, barely able to make out the sight of flesh and muscle and bones. The angel scraped his fingers between their ribs, using the shard to cut out strips of flesh.
“You will receive a new blessing.” His voice seemed to echo in their head, the strange chittering humming sounds they made echoing throughout the empty space.
Ryker whimpered softly as he pressed a strip of flesh against their lips, tiny drops of blood streaming down his wrist and dripping onto their face from sections of the meat that hadn’t been fully cauterized by the blade.
Another pleased hum from the angel as they ate, chewing the flesh and shuddering at the texture of blood and fat on their tongue. They forced a swallow, barely avoiding gagging on the knowledge of what they were eating.
They licked their lips, cringing at the taste of their own flesh on their tongue. They balked at the next piece, shaking their head and trying to turn their face away from it.
“Eat, Ryker. This is what is willed.” The angel held it against their lips until they gave in and let him feed it to them, tears streaming down their face. It hurt, a strange vulnerable pain tugging at them with every breath and exposed flesh prickling in contact with the air in an intense feeling of wrongness.
The next cut was a deep, slow push of the shard into their belly, carefully slicing open the abdominal cavity and pulling apart the layers of flesh until their organs were left exposed to the view of anyone watching. Ryker stared down at the mass of glistening wet red, deliriously giggling at the sight.
They couldn’t help comparing it to anatomy diagrams they’d seen in school and the plush toy they had as a kid, trying to remember the names of each organ and figure out what was where. It was so strange to them, they had expected the inside of their body to stink like the organs they found growing deep in the Basilica’s catacombs but all they could smell was a metallic tang.
Hands delved into the warm guts, grabbing at intestines and tugging to rip them free of the mesentery. The angel wrapped them around his hands, pulling them out of Ryker’s abdomen enough to start digging through the tangled mess.
It was so surreal, lying there and watching an angel disembowel them. They stared up at him in dizzy, barely lucid awe, no longer able to connect the twitching wet flesh with the intense pain pulsing in their body. Light seemed to flash just out of their vision, accompanied by a strange otherworldly humming.
The angel’s eyes were piercing, deeply focused on whatever he was doing with their intestines. He glanced up at their face, pausing and pressing a hand wet with blood and peritoneal fluids from their abdomen against their cheek. “Stay awake, Ryker. Your blessing will come. Your fate is written within your flesh, if I can draw it out.”
Groaning softly, their eyes opened. They hadn't even realized that they had closed them. The angel kept sifting through their intestines, calm and collected, much more so than Ryker had hoped. He seemed completely unbothered, as if ripping open guts and digging through them was a completely normal activity for him.
Exhaustion pulled at their limbs. They were so tired, feeling like they were slowly sinking into the ground beneath them. The pain grew sharper as the angel's movements became more hurried, glancing at their face every few seconds while prodding and squeezing their intestines.
“Ryker. Do not sleep. Not yet.” Sharp hot pain bloomed beneath their ribs, growing worse the longer the angel kept his hand pressed against their exposed sternum.
Even when he drew his hand back and resumed digging around in the contents of their belly, the burning didn't stop. It felt like fire, burning in their heart and the back of their throat in a way that nearly made them gag.
The angel stopped finally, running his fingers tenderly over a length of intestine. “I have found what I need,” he said, the faintest hint of something like satisfaction in his voice.
They didn't have the strength to care beyond feeling vaguely relieved as their guts were stuffed back into their abdomen. The angel placed a damp hand on their throat, thumb rubbing against it in a soothing motion as he pressed one last bit of first into their mouth and under their tongue.
“Sleep.”
The word cut through the pain and the dizziness and the fear, and they finally were allowed to sink.
Next thing they knew they were jerking upright, head pounding. They turned and retched, gagging and coughing even as nothing came up. Their stomach was empty, a strange comfort as their eyes darted around to try to remember where they were.
They were on the floor of the Basilica, half sitting in a pew with an old worn robe draped over them. Ryker stared down at the makeshift blanket, uneasy at the idea of someone carrying their unconscious body all the way through the Basilica to the pews and tucking a robe from a storage closet around them.
Shaking their head to dispel the violated feeling they fully sat up, staring down at their arms. There was no sign of the cuts, no visible marks nor sensitivity where the wounds had been. They slowly twisted side to side. Nothing, aside from the expected pain of their broken ribs. Their stomach felt fine. They weren't even hungry.
……They decided to ignore that discovery. That had already been a horrible and traumatic experience. They absolutely did not want to dwell on it further or let themself consider the possibilities of any potential waking world consequences.
As awful as it was, the nap had helped with the exhaustion. They felt much better, some semblance of strength returning to their sore body.
Slowly standing up and stretching out their arms, they decided to continue exploring. And if they survived this place, they would never eat red meat again.