A young girl clad in a black and gray robe knelt on the ground, her small, frail hands scrubbing dirt off of a stone floor with a wet sponge. Her eyes were dark, cold, and lifeless, like coal. They contrasted deeply with her pale and sickly skin. The girl’s hand trembled as she wiped the ground clean.

Her clothes were dirty and wet from kneeling in the water and filth. Pain radiated from her knees, and as she breathed heavily she glanced around. She found that she had made very little progress into cleaning, and yet it felt as though hours had passed since she had begun. For hours, she had been cleaning this vile place, which smelled not only of musk and mold, but even worse, of blood.

Yes, the smell of fresh blood and gore was far more nauseating than the smell of mold. She could still remember the first time the cultists had made her clean the Room of Sacrifice. She had never seen the entrails of another human before that day. By now, she had almost grown accustomed to the sight of blood and gore, but there was no getting used to the rancid and pervasive scent of death. Her only way to cope was to lose herself in her thoughts and delusions. More often than not, she dreamt of escape, or of freedom. Other times, she dwelled in self pity, and mourned her own tragic tale.

She wanted to leave, to escape this nightmarish cycle. It had now been a full week since the horror show had begun. She still had the marks on her wrists and ankles from when she was abducted. When she was kidnapped, she was the only one in the Pen. However, every day since then, more and more people have been brought in. When they spoke, they were beaten. So they didn’t speak.

Her thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a searing white hot pain, coupled with the sound of a whip cracking and striking flesh. She collapsed suddenly with a shriek, only to be struck once more.

“Get back to work!” Came the shout of a man, muffled beneath their strange purple mask. “If you don't start cleaning quicker, how are the Senior Cultists to use the Room for the next sacrifice?”

And so she did. She slowly lifted her weak, trembling body from the cold and wet floor, and began to scrub once more. As time went on, a thin and unnoticeable purple mist invaded the room, tinting her vision just slightly, without her knowledge. She continued to scrub, even as strange thoughts began to sprout.

Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth. Till the floors are spotless. Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth. Till the blood and gore is gone. Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth. That’s all she needs to do. Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth.

She continued to scrub. Her weariness faded away, satiated by a boundless energy. She continued to scrub. The lifelessness of her eyes sprouted an eerie sort of determination and duty. She continued to scrub. Her clenched jaw loosed, and she began to smile. She continued to scrub. Her slender lips parted, and a jovial laugh began to echo out in the room, drowning out the sound of the sponge scraping against the floor.

If one were to remove the mask of the man watching her, they might perhaps find a similar sort of expression on his face too; A crazed, almost barbaric smile was plastered upon his face, and a fanatical gleam shone in his eyes.