Sacrifice

Next morning my beauty sleep was interupted with a huge scream in my ear that had a chance to make me deaf.


'ERA, WAKE UP!!!' Someone shouted right into my ear making me jump in my bed. My legs tangled themselves in the bed sheets causing me to fall to the ground. A giggle followed my groan and I finally opened my eyes. Agape stood before me in fancy grey tunic with a huge smirk on her face.


'I hate you' I managed to say and slowly sat up. Another giggle left her lips.


'I love you too. Now hurry up we don't have time for snoozing' she cheered and jumped into my dresser. Seconds later we were flying across the halls towards the bath.


'Why such hurry?' I asked when we finally sat in hot water. It was pulling me back to sleep, but Agape made sure to hold me awake by pouring a little bit of cold water down my back from time to time.


'Today is annual offering day to the God of the Underworld' she said with her voice dropping to the quiet one.


'Hades, right?' I shook my memories in mythology section.


Suddenly, Agape slapped her hand over my mouth.


'Never say his name out loud' she whispered. Her face was full with fear.


Another one who believes in this bullcrap....


'Why?' I asked pulling her her hand away from my speech hole. She frowned.


'It will bring bad luck. I heard one man's family died from illness, because he said the name outloud' she tried to spook me, but instead I laughed.


'Sooo scary. Agape, you don't actually believe in that, do you?' I looked at her with a smile, but she still wore a frown on her face.


'You can believe what you want to believe, but heed my words' she said and we stood up.


'Okay, okay' I said dismissably waving my hand and pulled my tunic down my head.


Agape lead us right to the main entrance where Hagne, Akake, Alkaios, Harod and, unfortunately, Arcadios were already standing.


'Sorry for the wait, we have a sleepy head here' Agape said and poked me with her elbow. I just sheepely smiled.


'What a waste of time' Arcadio murmured and walked to the cart in which I came here. I managed to hold my tongue just to not ruin the mood.


We all climbed in and Akake took the reins. Whitout a word we moved from our spot towards the town.


We rode for about 15 minutes when I saw a mass of people. We came into a clearing surrounded by steep rocks. In the back of the field stood a statue made from white stone. It was an old man with a long beard and scepter with a three head dog Cerberus by his legs. The statue stood a good 5 or 6 meters high and was made by a really handy man. In front of the statue was a low pedestal like area made of stone as well. What disturbed me was a freshly cut goat with it's blood oozing out.


We climbed off the cart and I was instantly grabbed by Arcadios.


'Come with me wench' he spat and pulled me through the crowd.


'What are you doing?' I asked angrily. Our small comotion brought people's attention to us, but he didn't seem to be bothered. Whitout answering to me, he roughly pushed me and I fell down on something hard. Looking up statue's emotionless eyes looked back at me and I turned back to Arcadio.


Everyone started to murmur between them while I tried to stand up, but was kicked this time to the ground.


'Arcadio, what are you doing?' Hagne appeared in the front line horrified at the scene. My bones hurt, but I managed to stand up with the help of the statue.


'Today we will offer her in exchange for peace with neighbouring nations' Arcadio said loud enough for everybody to hear. My eyes went wide and fear clenched my chest, but I held it down with my amazing attitude.


'You moron! Killing me won't make your imaginary friend to come for help!' I spat and he quickly turned back to me.


'What did you say about our God?' He asked and grabbed me by my hair pulling towards himself. A small scream left my lips and I clawed at his hands, but he held me tight.


'What did you say?!' He screamed into my face.


'Your so called Gods don't exist! No one will help you with your stupid war!' I screamed right back at him.


On my words sky broke and droplets fell down, quickly turning into full rain. Arcadio looked at me for a moment and pushed me down again. This time my head hit the ground hard causing stars appear in my vision. I watched him with my vision darkened a bit as he dramatically pulled the hunting knife out of it's holder and turned to me. I tried to stand up, but my hands slipped on wet surface.


Arcadio rose his hand, but right before he could make the final blow, a war horn rang throughout the field. All of us froze and then a horrified scream went down the crowd. A chaos broke out.


People started to run towards the exit, ignoring each other. Some fell down and were run over, kids were crying while women screamed. And all of them were pointing to the cliff.


'You....' Arcadio whispered bringing my attention to him. His grip losen up and the knife fell down. His eyes were wide and face pale as a chalk. I didn't understand what was going on.


Suddenly, I felt something hard in my throat. A razor sharp pain went down it and I started to choke. My air flow became tight and I coughed out some blood. I could feel the thing in my throat move and I coughed another wave of blood. Tears appeared in my eyes from the pain and I grabbed my throat with my shaky hand. I could feel something inside there. With the last cough something clinged onto the ground.


'Shit....' a voice said by my side that was followed by quick footsteps, but I didn't care. My eyes were on the black key covered in blood that came from throat. My body was shaking not from rain, but more from shock.


I raised my head, completely forgeting that Arcadion just left, but saw completely different thing. A black figure was standing on one of the rocks with a war horn in his hand. The rain didn't seem to bother him at all and he was just standing there.


Then he lifted his head.


My eyes met crimson red eyes and I froze. But before I could do anything, pain went through my head. It spread down my body and whitout a warning my body shut down itself.

Comment