“I cannot let them hurt her!” Sachen passed through the village center again, seeing the same people, ignoring them. She pushed her classmates aside, and they started to throw things at the girl. She continued moving without feeling a waste of energy. Then she arrived at the eastern gates, where the guards huddled to the doors and drew their guns towards the girl, and they warned her not to go any further. Sachen spat at their faces. Not willing to let them push her away, Sachen charged, and she muscled through the gap between the guards. One of them grabbed her dress. Sachen headbutted him, and he went dizzy. A small score of victory. Right after she brisked through to the other side, and the guards, in frustration, beat each other up.

The girl soon headed into the forest. Still with energy she ran, and she tossed away the branches and leaves that kept coming in her way. It was then she encountered the river, and she rolled up her dress and sleeves. She lumbered through the water, her nerves shriveling from the cold, her toes were freezing. She hopped to the other side, and knowing there was little time left, Sachen went quick as ever. The matter of hope and luck she began to carry, she anticipated she would get to Neha before nightfall.

Nearby there was a row of bushes and the cave. Sachen halted, she dipped into the foliage. The mouth of the cave, as it was before, it emitted an eerie vibe. On the spot Sachen couldn’t bring herself to enter into the place, for it seemed the authorities were present to guard the opening. One more step, she could be sent back to her house. And to make herself feel doubtful, what lingered inside the cave was entirely a mystery. Excluding the High Order, nobody knew as to what lied beyond there. Sachen only heard the stories about the wanderers stumbling into the cave by accident, and their fates ranged from decapitation to being consumed by monsters, horrible enough to act as a deterrent so that people wouldn’t come. Of course, Sachen had no need to wallow into the stories. Moreover, people talked about it so many times that it failed to frighten her, and she could conclude that the fates were anything but the truth.

In a few minutes of replenishing her energy, Sachen entered through the cave’s entrance. It was dark, lifeless. Immediately the damp air moistened her nostrils, and the darkness devoured her presence. She walked further and further into the cave, not having expectations on what was about to come forth to her. It was as though she had, for the temporary, let go of her fear.

But it wouldn’t be for long. Sachen continued, and then she noticed that something bitter, something artificial, smelled. It wasn’t anything she recognized. More so, the smell was so pungent that she leaned to the side, pinching her nose. “What is this?“ Sachen removed herself from the side, and without thinking, she stepped onto something... wet. It burned the calluses on her feet.

She jumped back, and touched the substance upon her toes. The same odor. No color. “Yuck!“ She wagged both her legs, before she crept to the side again and moved forward, managing to avoid the substance. God only knew what she encountered. To be hopeful, she said to herself she wouldn’t meet it again.

Now after a long time she was in the bowels of the cave. Still it was full of darkness, and the artificial smell was absent—a charred, burnt scent replaced it. Along her path there lingered objects of the unknown, they were brittle and fleshy. Almost slipping on one of the objects, Sachen picked it up. “What’s in the world? Are these bones? What are they doing here? This is getting weird.“ She dropped the so-called bone, and then wondered of how the High Order would be willing to do their activities in such a place like this. They could have found a more suitable area, but it made sense for them to reside here, since nobody could disturb them. Regardless, the cave itself started to make Sachen feel a bit of unease.

As the girl picked up the pace, tongues of flames brightened the path before her eyes, and a row of torches from both sides hung idle. Below each of the torches was a skull and a pair of bones, the bones fixated in a cross. The skulls sparkled, having no blemishes, holes, or spots, and they stared at Sachen with their hollow sockets. Under the illumination, the skulls’ mouths seemed to be moving up and down, as if they were chattering about the arrival of the young girl. Sachen exchanged glances with the objects—of whom they could belong to? Name tags or indications of their identities, they were nonexistent. She believed these remains might have to do with the candidates who had participated in the spiritual mission under many Lamas. The candidates, people who might or might not be forced to go, must have suffered to the point of never-ending agony. Horrifying if it was true, and she thought it was better not to know further. She shifted her glance to her feet and resumed walking.

The cave became wider. More torches appeared, and the smoke overmastered the dampness. Sachen hugged herself as she went, avoiding the bones and the puddles of the mysterious liquid, trying hard to focus on the darkness ahead of her. She coughed when she dragged her face too close to the flames. Her mouth turned dry, she could barely breathe. Swallowing so much of her saliva seemed to do the trick, but the dryness never ceased. It was only a matter of time before she might fall into exhaustion, for it seemed that the path would go on forever—perhaps it’d take the whole night to find something significant.

“How long do I have to walk? And it’s getting very cold-” Sachen stopped. Time froze. The flames blinded her, and for a moment she saw stars and floaters. When she regained her vision, she rubbed her eyes, and becoming dizzy, she breathed deeply in an attempt to grant herself a room to relax. She soon moved again. One step, two steps forward. But it was not more than that when the girl vaulted back, frightened. Her ears opened. Somebody screamed.

The scream vibrated the skulls and the pebbles and the puddles. It traveled all the way to the cave’s entrance. The tendrils of the sound drilled through Sachen’s ears, causing her to hear a ringing noise, and only for a few seconds did she experience the unpleasant sensation. Once the scream quivered, Sachen sprang.

“It can’t be! I must hurry!” She kicked her heels, and amidst the heat of the flames beginning to boil up the area, she ran a marathon through the passage. To find where, and whose scream was that, couldn’t be important enough. She would have guessed that the sound was a hallucination, but since it had occurred, no doubt she knew it had originated from a person, maybe a prisoner or an injured parent. Whomever it might be, Sachen had to know.

When Sachen gasped for breath, she slowed down. Then her eyes wandered, and she soon found herself in a place where it looked empty. There was a circle of torches, they surrounded and revealed something that was on the floor. Nothing quite like this she had encountered. Sachen focused on the floor, seeing a blood-stained circle with a four-pointed star inside of it. Around the outside area of the circle, skeletons of hands and feet protruded on the surface, all the hands held a vial of the bitter, clear liquid. Out of curiosity Sachen slewed her fingers through the circle’s substance, and she assumed it came from berry extracts. But one whiff of it, she almost vomited.

“W-why does it smell like blood?” She drew herself back. She wiped the substance on her dress. Looking more into this room’s layout, the shapes on the floor twinkled, as though the heavens had blessed it a long time ago by their cosmic power. On the walls, handprints coated the rocks and jags, they were made of ashes. Right across from Sachen, a door stood shut and still; above the door, a window was present, and it seemed to reveal the outside world. But plastering the window seemed to be an illustration. The clouds fuzzed, the birds were a set of lines, and the flowers had a happy face on the petals, making the impression that the other side of the door was not the place Sachen expected it to be.

Still astounded, Sachen lifted her sights. Upon the ceiling adhered a metal bar, and the bar had a line of chains. There were four chains to be exact. All of them were inert—except one. The chain with the rust and blood, it shook back and forth.

At the point where she noticed it, Sachen pushed herself to the wall. She traced the moving chain, and returned to the symbol on the floor. The chain extended to the far-left corner of the room... and the second Sachen’s eyes reached its origin, a blood-curdling shriek rippled. Once again the din circulated the entire cave.

Dragging her body, Sachen tip-toed to the origin. She lowered herself, her face was soaked with sweat. She looked at the person that was in the corner, and she was too surprised to utter a remark. The individual, a boy, moved only an inch away from the corner. His limbs were covered in blood, and his cheeks had countless lacerations. His rib cage jutted out like a bird’s talons, and his stomach wrinkled, deprived of satiation. Nowhere around him indicated that he had hurt himself. He was in terrible pain, for every time his skin touched the wall or floor, he would scream again. There was nothing in Sachen’s mind that made her second-guess that she could mistake this for someone else, but it was clear he was the person Sachen had been looking for so long.

He clung onto the chain, and when he exchanged eye contact with Sachen, he rattled. His eyes flashed before haze overtook his pupils. He raised his head and revealed a scar on his throat. Sachen shed tears.

“Kuraizang! Kuraizang! Oh my God! Stay with me please!” She couldn’t believe he was here. Let alone Sachen’s surprise, why did nobody bother to check on him? Why didn’t the Young Guards inquire about his whereabouts? It was alarming. For the school, his classmates, and also his family to not care, or seem to not care, it was beyond belief that this boy was condemned to this deep part of the cave, all alone without food, comfort, and company. It came then to Sachen’s epiphany that the High Order took things too far—but nobody condemned it, nor did they protest the matter in the first place. How little to naught the village worried for the kid. And now that she witnessed Kuraizang’s pain, Sachen had nothing to relieve her anxiety, to somehow stomach this situation. Could this be what the mission involved the entire time? If it indeed contained so much harm and cruelty, she would never tolerate it, and she reserved no exceptions in this display of horror, the madness that reigned.

At this very moment, in the wake of Kuraizang’s suffering, the opportunity granted Sachen to save him. There was nothing else here that could further raise questions. “Don’t worry! I’m going to set you free!” She grabbed the chain. She yanked and twisted it, and she even smashed it with her kneecaps. No use. The chain, although it looked as though it was going to fall apart, remained sturdy, out of reach from what strength the girl had. Yet she persisted. She started to pull the chain apart, hoping that in a miracle she could rip it. At the same time, Kuraizang pointed to the star symbol and rolled his eyes backwards. He motioned his lips.

“The righteous shall inherit the earth, and all the beauty and grace before it, and the Dove shall bless us with salvation, forever to come, forever to cherish…“

“What? Please don’t talk for now!” Sachen tugged the entire chain, attempting to get Kuraizang to the center of the area. In turn, the boy dug his nails on the soil and stuck himself in the corner. He continued to speak as though he had all the time in the world.

“The righteous shall inherit the earth, and all the beauty and grace before it, and the Dove shall bless us with salvation, forever to come, forever to cherish, forever to come, forever to cherish, forever to come, forever to cherish...”