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Julian steps forward and takes my place. I slowly step back, watching him pull a butcher’s knife from his cloak and slash it across Jason’s right arm.
He doesn’t scream in pain for once. He chuckles like a madman as if the torment makes him happy. It’s the drugs. The LSD…the sweet poison, that is bringing him a step closer to destruction.
When blood starts to stream down the chair, I turn around and dash out of the room. I’m no longer needed, but I also don’t want to be there in the first place. I never wanted this, yet I’m forced into it by Julian—my uncle.
The man not only raped my mother but also killed her. And after her, he made me the angel of Ixtal. Just like he did for my mother who was the previous angel of Ixtal. A fucked up and horrendous community formed by my uncle. He believes he can help people get to heaven. It’s nothing but a hoax where innocent lives are tarnished and sacrificed.
Just like mine when I watched my mother die at the age of eight.
I trembled in fear as I watched Uncle Julian cut off my mother's head. My breathing turns shallow and uneven as the urge to throw up becomes stronger. He cut her other limbs, and people surrounded her dead body in a circle. They all joined hands and chanted with their heads held high as they stood naked.
I should have listened to my mother and not followed her. I should have stayed in my room, but curiosity brought me to this massacre.
I pressed my hand against my mouth to stop crying as tears streamed down my cheeks. Uncle Julian smeared my mother’s blood on his hands and painted his forehead. He walked around the circle of people and painted them with her blood. He started to chant along with them. His eyes rolled back like he was possessed.
“Accept our offers, oh, Heaven Almighty. Let us be in the gates of heaven. Accept our sacrifice, accept our angel,” Uncle Julian shouts, and everyone else repeated. He went to a nearby wall and grabbed a lighted sconce before coming to my mother’s dead body and setting her on fire.
I gasped in shock, unable to hold back. I threw up on the floor, feeling sick; I poured it all out while I sobbed. My heart and soul shattered from the loss of my mother and how ill she had been treated…even in death.
The door I was peeking through suddenly opened, and Uncle Julian stood with a vicious look. “We have a little spy here,” he snarled, grabbing a fistful of my hair and dragging me inside the room.
“No! Let me go! Please! No!” I screamed, hitting his arm, but he brought me closer to my mother’s burning body. From such a close view, I could see her skin melting and her hair charring.
The sight was beyond horrendous and traumatizing that it would haunt.
“Look at your mother joining heaven. She will take us there, but soon we will need more. I’m glad she had you because you will be our gateway to heaven from here,” he mutters close to my ears, making shivers run down my spine in fear.
“No! Uncle, stop this! Please!” I pleaded with him, but he didn’t listen. He grabbed my hair and tilted my head back with force.
“Shut up!” he sneered. “You were born for this, and you will fulfill your role. If you think anyone will save you, you are dead wrong. Anyone attempting to help you will face the same consequences as your mother.”
My body turned still at his words.
No. God, please. No.
The sight of my murdered mother would never escape my mind. But if I turned out to be the reason for the death of another innocent person, I would drown in guilt and may not find my way back.
“You are the next angel of the Ixtal people. You will take us to heaven. Accept this life or die like your mother.”
I accepted this life…this miserable and horrific life. For years, Julian and I kept manipulating prisoners in Blackwell Prison. Inducing their minds to fall into this fucked up cult with drugs. Their minds are fucked daily with LSD mixed in their food and drinks. Frequently there will be a weak prisoner who would give in easily. Most recently, it was Jason. He confessed to accidentally killing his sister by pushing her from a boat as a joke. I can sense the immense guilt he carried that weakened him.
Based on the final ritual of Ixtal, a weak soul must be sacrificed before an angel is sent to heaven to gain ascension. By using LSD, Julian manipulated the prisoners to think they belonged in heaven and was free from guilt and sins. But that idea never existed. After the sacrifice, the angel is then used for pleasure and later killed to be sent to heaven, while the people around her feed on her body to attain spirituality. The mere thought makes me sick to my stomach.
And Jason isn’t the first victim of Ixtal’s last ritual. Over the years Julian has killed several weak souls, and he has claimed to see God in his dreams. He said how God praised him for his sacrifices and performing the ritual. He even professed that God encouraged him to continue on this path for his way to heaven is getting closer.
Many have become Julian’s victims. But not Silas. I have been trying my best to protect him from the Ixtal. I even sneaked some rotten herbs in his food as the LSD is odorless and tasteless, so that the foul smell would repulse Silas to take a bite. Now I had to help him get out of here.
But now with Jason being dead and used for sacrifice, the ritual is going to happen any day now. I have to get Silas out of Blackwell Prison before the ritual starts.
But will he accept my help when he knows about my truth? Will he hate me? Will he abandon me?
Only time will tell.
CHAPTER SIX
SILAS
I’m washing myself in the shower, thinking of my plan to escape with Aella, when I hear a sudden commotion— grunts of pain and thudding.
