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“No,” I realize that my fingers have desperately clung to Samael’s arm, almost clawing at him with my nails, so instead, I grit my teeth so fiercely that I feel like they may shatter.
It’s not just the night breeze, it’s an emotion that consumes me from within.
I’m terrified, yet eager, all at once.
The growls begin to subside as the distinct crack of wood echoes through the air, and a surge of heat warms up my skin.
“What took you so long, Sami?”
I can recognize Rheea’s irritating voice, and I feel Samael’s hand slipping away from mine. Immediately, a sense of unease washes over me.
He had promised not to let go, and yet he did. I grab onto the white fabric of my oversized t-shirt, peeking out from under the XXL hoodie I’m wearing, and clench it in my fists, discreet enough to hide the storm raging inside me. It felt strange that he didn’t let me change. I left in a hurry.
I breathe in the scent of burning wood deeply into my chest. At this moment, I have to be strong.
“Silence!” a voice cuts off the murmurs around the fire. What’s your name? I can recognize Manasseh’s voice.
“Rebecca,” I clench my fingers into fists, growing impatient.
I want to take off the blindfold and look at them. But I can’t.
“Wrong,” his sharp voice cuts me off loudly.
I freeze, and I bring my hand to the scarf around my eyes, but I remember that Samael had told me not to take it off, no matter what.
“What’s your name?” the question is repeated.
“B-Becca?!” I repeat the wrong answer as I didn’t know what else to say, and I preferred to give a wrong answer than not to answer at all.
“From tonight on, your name is no longer Rebecca. Your name is Crasnic. Do you understand?”
I gulp and clench my fists. Crasnics are not differentiated by name, but by the mask they wear.
“Yes,” I reply dissatisfied, yet happy that I would finally become one of them.
What matters is that I can spend more time with Samael and be by his side.
“Are you ready to give up your name, your soul, your body, and become one of us?”
My father would kill me, but only if he finds out.
“Yes,” I reply, swallowing the knot that had formed in my throat.
“What’s your name?” I hear the question repeated for the third time.
“Crasnic,” I respond abruptly and without hesitation, the gruntings begin to inundate my ears, drowning out the crackling fire in front of me.
“Then shed your name, relinquish your soul, abandon your body, and let them burn in the LAST FIRE of your mortal existence. Be one of us, be a Crasnic!”
An unsettling sensation takes hold of me as I feel two fingers gliding over my ankles, then more fingers on my wrists, and I sense slender fingers threading through my long, loose blond hair, untangling the red scarf from my eyes, momentarily blinding me with the intense glow of the fire before me.
As my eyes adjust to the light, I see people with pig-like heads encircling the fire. Suddenly, I regret ever wanting to see them.
The Crasnics are difficult to look at, so terrifying that you feel the need to run as far away as possible, yet now they draw closer and closer, and all the courage I had earlier, when I was still blindfolded, disappears.
The scene forming around the fire takes on somber shades, and unsettling sensations crawl across my skin, compelling me to shy away from the searching hands of these unfamiliar beings. My heart leaps out of my chest when I see a Crasnic at my feet, with long hair and a pointed snout, sniffing at me hungrily, as if I were a piece of meat. He’s so close as if deliberately reminding me of the bizarre fact that the pig skin on their masks is actually real.
“No way!” I shake my head and quickly pull my leg away from the Clawsman’s grasp. “Back off!”
