In a dark, empty land she stood, surrounded by nothing but darkness.

Taking a step, she hears a thick *Shlop* noise and looks down.

She is standing in a still quagmire of thick blood, all the way up to her knees.

In utter fear she tries to jump but the blood suddenly springs to live, clinging, holding, clutching at her legs, keeping her unmoving.

But it does not stop there; the blood starts to pull, drag, sink her deeper into itself and she frantically claws at the blood only to vomit as her hand sifts through the coagulating swamp.

The droplets, forming small hands, inch their way up her legs and inevitably drag her down.

Unable to stop the living blood, all she can do is bend double and heave her insides onto the trembling blood.

But she does not empty her stomach and just keeps heaving and heaving as she is slowly dragged down to her upper thighs.

Her heaving finally falters but as soon as there is a small gasp of air, blood spew into it and claws its way down her throat.

Within seconds she has another bout of vomiting and starts of vomit out her insides, literally.

Her guts spill continuously from her mouth in one long string and she tries to scream but is blocked by her liver squeezing through her throat and out her mouth in a squishy lump.

With a small gasp of air, she tries to scream, but blood enters her mouth once more as it drags her head under, drowning her in crimson.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH”

Opening her eyes with a scream, her vision is now black once more. But this time she can just about see the shrouded outline of her room.

Jumping out of bed, she crosses the distance to her sink and begins splashing ice-cold water on her face.

Her face decently iced, she strips off her sticky t-shirt and dumps it on the floor.

Taking a towel, she quickly exits her room and runs to her hall’s shower.

Shivering in the cold shower but not due to the cold, she takes many deep breaths to calm her furiously pumping heart.

“It’s not real, it’s not real. It was just a nightmare”

She repeats the words over and over again like a mantra. However she knows that it is not just a nightmare, for it has come to haunt her sleeping hours many times.

Feeling the numbness spread across her entire body, she finally exits the shower.

Drying herself, she makes it back to her room, slightly calmer than before.

Entering, she stops at the visage reflected in her mirror: Her face is slightly gaunt and partially hidden by the long, wet locks of brown hair giving her an ominous look, while her ribs are beginning to poke out of her slightly underfed body.

Sighing, she opens a drawer and starts munching on a piece of crisp bread.

Due to her new trauma, the number of foods she can safely eat has decreased to a few.

To her, bread is one of the few things that she can safely eat without being reminded of the vivid images that haunt both her waking and sleeping hours.

After munching on what her stomach can take, which is not much, she goes to her capsule, to return to that horrible yet calming place.

She doesn’t really understand why she keeps on returning there even though it is giving her nightmares.

As she is getting into the gel-like substance inside the capsule, someone knocks on her door.

“Ms Sunderland, please may I come in?” A light, feminine voice comes from

No, please go away.

“Sure, just give me a moment” Yulia replies with a slightly bitter tone

Getting quickly dressed, she opens the door to reveal a dark skinned woman wearing a business suit.

“Ah, Ms Sunderland, you look…underfed” the woman speaks in an analytical tone

“And? I am an adult so I can feed myself” She replies with a twinge of anger

“Sure you can. However I’m not here to talk about your eating habits. I’d like you to tell me why you haven’t gone to lectures lately” her tone is more than condescending

Yulia just stared at the woman who she knows as her hall warden, Cheryl, in mild anger.

“Look dear, I know university life can be difficult but you must still go to lectures, or you will never learn what you need to learn for your course” Cheryl places an imprisoning hand on Yulia’s shoulder.

Wordlessly, Yulia opens her bottom drawer, takes out a file and hands it to Cheryl

Raising her eyebrow, Cheryl opens the file.

After a few moments of looking through the entire year’s worth of notes, she closes the file

“You need to go to your lectures to learn things about your lecturers”

With all the might in the world, Yuila stops herself from rolling her eyeballs at the moronically pushy woman.

“Fine, I’ll sign in to my lectures ok” She sighs slightly at the persistent for no good reason warden.

In her experience, her lecturers hinder learning more than they help.

With a fake smile, Cheryl leaves the room satisfied she’s done her duty.

Closing the door after her, Yulia grabs her phone and sends a quick text to Marcus.

He replies with an ‘you owe me one’. Happy with that, she undresses and slides into her capsule.

Letting darkness take her, she finally remembers why she keeps going to this horror; because it is less horrible than the reality around her in a different way.

…

..

.

The darkness is replaced with a dim room that has permanently pungent air.

Rolling out of her bed, she quietly glances around and sees that thankfully, she hasn’t appeared at the wrong time: Moren is nowhere to be seen; so she guesses he’s probably sweeping the Cathedral steps.

The man however is sleeping beneath thin covers, but she notices the sheet is a lot flatter than it is supposed to be. It is almost as if the man isn't there, though she sees his head shape underneath the sheet.

Dwelling little on the curiosity of the situation, she quickly gets up.

Looking away from that general direction, she walks out the room, skirting around the edge to give the well-used center a wide berth.

Exiting the room, she heads upstairs to the dining room where she and her fellow disciples take breakfast.

Chase, the short-haired redhead with a growing goatee, gives her a wave and a smile as she enters the room. The other three follow suit quickly.

Sitting down, she stares at her fried, crispy and crunchy fish.

“So, have you heard that 'It' struck again?” Nyah, the short blonde with cat-like eyes and a slightly overgrown canine spouts excitedly.

“Yes, victim was literally ripped to pieces after being killed” Janus, a spectacled man, with a balding head and defined jaw replies as one would if they were reading tiredly from a newspaper.

“Whatever 'It' is, It is really quite the monster; ripping people apart after death for no foreseen reason” Chase shivers at his own voiced thoughts

“True, but there may be no reason” Janus speaks with his slow and sagely voice

“Guys, you’re getting off topic again” Nyah pipes up since the attention is away from her “Do you want to hear who the victim was this time?”

“Well Its kills seem to be random so who 'It' killed doesn’t make much of a difference does it?” Chase asks with a tinge of fear

“That may be so, however even though 'It' may have no order in its killing, whom he killed may make a difference” Janus looks at Nyah in confirmation

She nods rapidly a few times

“Exactly! This time someone of some importance was killed so the Lord has ordered a large search party to find 'It' and kill it” Nyah exclaims

“That’s great…but why didn’t they do that when this whole thing started; a month ago?” Chase looks at Janus, looking for an answer

“Well there are three factors at play; the first being the progressive violence of the kills, which begun as a ripped throat to the victim looking like they had a bomb explode inside them.

The second factor is the type of people killed. When us foreigners die, we talk to other foreigners about it. However, that talk doesn’t reach the Lord. Only deaths with corpses that remain were found. So even though the death toll the Lord has been notified of is only six people, the actual death toll is closer to two dozen.

The last factor is the class of people killed. The Lord was not informed about the deaths of farmers and homeless people, only a death of an important person like a mage, noble or priest would cause the Lord to be notified and thus have him take action” Janus gladly answers in full.

Everyone takes in that information silently for a few minutes, letting the conversation die before Nyah jumpstarts it back to life

“Well we don’t need to mind about that, since it’s going to be sorted. All we need to care about iiiiiiiiis…” She drum-rolls on the table while looking at Chase

“The Ceremony?” He answers slightly unsure

“Corrrrect!” Nyah gives a clap

“Almost four months of our life swiftly goes by in discipleship, however we are now moving on to another stage” Janus nods

All take a deep breath when remembering the quite uneventful past almost four months as disciples. However Jacob catches Yisra’s eye and they both know what the other is thinking.

After a few moments of blissful silence, Chase shivers, along with Nyah and Janus, as they all seem to be thinking the same thing.

“What’s happening with them?” Chase asks with vivid fear in his voice.

A few weeks ago, he finally experienced Moren and the other man doing their daily ritual. Chase had been praying next to them at the time, and has been skittish ever since.

All of them think at that, because none of them actually know, except for Jacob.

“They do the ceremony too’ He says nonchalantly, much to the slight horror of the others.

Most of them send prayers to their chosen deities but all soon stop as the doors to the eating hall open.

Turning round expectantly, they all narrow their eyes at the fact that Brother Chad has come through and not Brother Danfey

“Disciples, it is time”

With the scraping of chairs, the disciples stand up and begin to make their way out the door.

“Where’s Danfey?” Nyah points out curiously

“Since I was the one to bring you in, I will be the one to take you to the place that may be your beginning or your end”

Everyone shrugs and takes that as an answer. Everyone but Janus, who makes eye contact with Chad and slowly nods.

Leaving the room, the six of them begin their way to the ceremony hall.

Yisra's fish, remains behind, untouched.

…

Guard Captain Cannith growls as his lieutenant finishes the report.

Taking a side road, he hears the clanking of metal from his dozen bodyguards and lieutenant as they keep a protective yet safe distance from the visibly angry man.

Stomping through the alley, he quickly reaches the gate and marches with his bodyguards to the Ring of Coin.

His lieutenant, good at his job like always, had already ordered men to secure the perimeter and divert the people away from the scene.

Slowing his pace to a slow walk, he looks around to see a large zone in the middle of the street which his guards are keeping clear.

The zone is filled with reddish chunks of flesh, innards and bones, all strewn about the place looking as though the body was ripped apart by a pack of wild dogs. However Cannith knows better.

The intestines seem to be ripped open so the pungent smell of undigested food wafts in the air.

Wrinkling his nose, he keeps walking towards a visibly larger piece; the head possibly.

Kneeling down with a squelch, he takes the roundish chunk of flesh in his hands and turns it round, to see a single right eye drooping and dripping its punctured insides.

The only visible thing to make the person recognizable is the fact that there is the very distinct mark of Deeatun on what Cannith believes is the lower jaw.

“Lieutenant” He calls out gruffly

The lieutenant is next to Cannith within seconds

“Yes sir?”

“Inform Bishop Yan and our Lord that ‘Its’ victim is Brother Danfey. And have your men collect the pieces, for the search party to analyze and for burial.”

With a salute, the Lieutanant finds soldiers to relay the orders.

Cannith shrouds the head of his priestly friend with his cloak before standing up, leaving the head there.

Holding back his tears with anger, he storms off down the street, with his lieutenant stalking close behind.

…

‘Wakey wakey sleepyhead, we have a Ceremony to attend” Moren taps the man lightly on his covered shoulder.

“MMMGH” He screams through the gag while trying to keep as still as possible

“Whoops, sorry, I forgot you still had a minute or two”

Moren lightly removes the sheet, with much muffled screaming, revealing the man’s internal organs to the cool air in the room.

Making sure the sheet doesn’t touch the man’s skinless arms or legs, he fully removes the sheet from the bed and folds it to one side.

Keeping an eye on the man for another minute, he sees the miraculous process that is the man’s body.

The bones regrow quickly all over the body, causing the man to balloon up somewhat as his ribcage reappears along with several other bones. Then the skin is regrown at a lightning fast pace.

Within the minute, the man is once again normal looking and he removes the gag from his mouth.

Taking a few deep breaths, the man stabilises somewhat and stands up, wiping the pouring sweat from his forehead.

Moren claps the man’s shoulder giving a wide smile

“Today’s the day” Moren exclaims happily

“Oh I can’t wait till we’re priests” the man grins deviously

“I have a few ideas on what do to once we are” Moren reciprocates the grin

Both chuckle at the thoughts swimming in their head.

“I am going to miss the room though” the man looks around at the small space that was their living quarters for the past four months, or in Moren’s case quite a bit longer.

“What will you miss about this room?” Moren asks genuinely

“Well apart from the constant stench of vomit and blood…”

“What are you talking about; we will be dragging those things along with us”

Both chuckle darkly at that little piece of truth.

“I’ll miss Yisra” the man sighs deeply, not with love, but more with the tone of one who watches a friend leave

“Yeah, I’ll miss her too” Moren sighs with a heavy heart, for he never got to really spend time with her or get to know her better

“Though, all she did was make this place smell as grand as this” The man adds on with a lighter tone

Both shake their heads as they chuckle.

They both know that apart from trying to set ground rules with them, Yisra didn't spend any time with them. After-all, about ninety percent of the time she saw them, her insides greeted the floor soon after.

“Well who knows, maybe we will all fail the ceremony and end up as disciples again” the man speaks with a mischievous grin

“We will be excommunicated if we fail remember” Moren wags his finger at the man

“…I actually forgot about that. Oh well, if we fail, we can just visit the church for the twenty three hours that it is open” The man shrugs his shoulders noncommittally

They both chuckle heartily at that.

With that final chuckle, the two of them exit the room, clothed in their slightly damp straw-colored robes for one last time.

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Author's Corner:

Hello my lovely readers!

Thank you for reading and hope you enjoyed it.

If you have queries/questions/likes/hates/random things to say, comment or message me, because I always love and need feedback :D

just so you know-> The end of the Church disciple arc( I mean yeah i guess it's supposedly the main part of the story(?)) is nigh!! So look forward to it :D

-TRUE NORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRD