Helen missed the whole “being a slave” experience.

It wasn’t that she wanted it back; no, she’d literally slept through the whole thing. She remembered going to bed at the end of the Phase; she wasn’t about to stay up for it when everyone said there was no reason to. She couldn’t stay up that late. She’d never been able to, even as a teen. It got her laughed at, but on the other hand she didn’t have any problems with being at work before seven; she was up at four or five every day anyway.

When she woke up, she was on a different bed in a different sort of barracks. One with far fewer amenities. It wasn’t what she’d expected for the next phase of the Tutorial, but she could cope.

Helen threw herself into learning and learning to excel here, just like she’d always done. She loved to learn and was good at it; the teachers here were even worse than in the first phase, but she could cope. They were ridiculously strict, but that just meant she had to keep her head down and work harder. Most of the others had been here longer than she had; all she had to do was follow their example.

It was more than a week before it sank in that this wasn’t part of the Tutorial. Sure, she’d been told (in whispers when no one else could hear), but it simply didn’t make sense. You returned to where you started after the Tutorial. That was how it always worked; she had months of evidence and had seen it happen to others several times.

Only it seemed that it wasn’t always true.

Several of the others had gone through days or even weeks of waiting in a holding cell as slaves before they were brought to this strange place; Helen was glad to have skipped that, but she still wasn’t certain this was any better. You couldn’t leave and you couldn’t do what you wanted; you had to do what you were told or you were punished. Sure, they were called novices, but how was it any different from being a slave?

The day it sank in was the day Joe decided to run. He had a plan and didn’t tell anyone what it was; unlike others, he made it outside the room and even outside the building. Helen wasn’t certain if he made it farther than that, but she knew he didn’t actually get away.

They had to watch his execution. It was “educational”. It wasn’t pretty, especially not when the “priests” began “salvaging” his body, but they weren’t permitted to look away. There were punishments for that, too, or even for closing your eyes for too long.

Helen was grateful that there weren’t punishments for vomiting beyond having to clean it up afterwards.

From then on, Helen was even more careful. She’d have helped others, but that wasn’t permitted because it required talking. She had to concentrate on herself, and she made sure she was a good little novice. She learned quickly and obeyed the rules as best she could; when she failed one of the requirements that she was pretty sure was there simply so that everyone would fail something, she accepted the punishment as meekly as she could.

Helen was good at not standing out and she needed every bit of that skill now.

The group of novices grew slowly over the next few weeks, with more people joining the “class” than were killed or expelled, but then it started to dwindle. No more arrived; Helen thought that might mean the Tutorial was over. She hoped that was the case and not that there was another class somewhere. She didn’t want anyone else subjected to this.

An attempted rebellion brought the largest death toll she’d seen shortly after that; she’d refused to join, but about half of the remaining “novices” were killed either during the fight or afterwards to set an example. There were still thirty people here, but at least half of them were broken automatons. The rest were people who knew to keep their heads down like Helen herself.

Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference.

Things eased up a little after the rebellion. It seemed like they’d learned most of what they were supposed to and enough of them had fallen into line that the “acolytes” were willing to relax a bit.

She wouldn’t have expected that right after a rebellion, but apparently they thought that the consequences would make everyone keep their heads down. Or perhaps they thought they’d gotten everyone who wanted out. Or maybe they thought the looser restrictions would make people actually happy?

She had to admit she didn’t know what they thought.

What mattered was that, a full two weeks after the rebellion, one of the acolytes walked up to her and told her to follow him. Helen knew better than to ask why; she simply put down the supplies she’d been using to clean the floor and followed. She’d get in trouble for that, but she’d also get in trouble for trying to put them away instead of following her latest order. It was impossible to win, so she’d pick the one with the lower cost.

She followed to acolyte to a part of the building she’d only been in to clean; it was nicer than the novices’ section where she spent most of her time. The acolyte opened a door, shoved her shoulder to get her to enter, and told her “Remember the rules.” before he closed the door behind her.

Helen stared at her feet and waited to be told what to do. That was the safest thing in a new circumstance. There was someone else in the room, but she didn’t dare look at who it was; she’d been beaten for that more than once.

“Miss? Do you understand me?” The words were completely unexpected. Even more unexpected was the fact that they were in English. English wasn’t Helen’s first language, but she knew it.

Helen looked up. It was against her recent training, but not looking at the person speaking was extremely impolite in most of the English-speaking world. That was her excuse if she needed one; she wanted to see who could possibly know English and be willing to use it here.

She recognized him immediately and gasped. The silver horns were different, but it was still obvious who stood in front of her; she’d watched all of the coverage she could get, and that was a lot. It was well known that the man who’d closed most of Earth’s invasion portals often found his wings “inconvenient” and hid them, so the lack of wings wasn’t really a surprise.

Even if he said he’d closed less than half, no one really believed him. Over half was the better story.

How was he here? Surely he wasn’t a captive of these people? “Serenity?”

It didn’t take long before Helen was spilling out her entire story. She didn’t notice that she was speaking a broken mix of English and Aeon; at this point, her Aeon was probably better than her English and he seemed to understand.

Serenity was glad he wasn’t in his demonic shape. Even without that, he was completely pissed; as a Wrath Demon, he was fairly confident he’d have leveled the building before Helen even finished her story.

He wanted to demand that all of his people be returned to him to be sent home. Rourke had said that wouldn’t work, but Rourke didn’t know everything; he’d also been confident that Serenity would never get to talk to anyone who wasn’t completely indoctrinated into “loving” the Eternal Church. That was true of the first two, as much as they could manage to care about anything, but it certainly wasn’t true of Helen.

Serenity didn’t think he could get everyone, but he could probably get everyone at this location. He was being treated very well and High Priestess Karin knew why he was here. He’d made no secret of it. She’d arranged for the visit to see some people who might be his.

In fact, it would probably seem strange if he didn’t make a try at getting them back.

Yes, he’d try. He’d likely succeed, at least with Helen.

There was one thing she’d said that made Serenity wonder, though. “When you said it was a good thing you have a good memory, what did you mean?”

“You don’t know?” Helen blinked and seemed startled. “No, how could you? You weren’t here. I’m just - you were the one who knew everything.”

Serenity shook his head. “I know just enough to have an idea of how much I don’t know. It didn’t take all that much to know more than most people at the beginning of this mess.” Serenity admitted to himself that he knew a bit more than that, but most of it wasn’t applicable to most people.

Helen gave a sickly grin. “I had to memorize their holy scriptures. We all had to. Word for word, and they weren’t generous about the fact that it wasn’t even in a language we knew. I’m not done, but I know the beginning; that’s apparently enough since I’ve only been here a couple months.”

Serenity hadn’t even seen a copy of any holy writings, now that he thought about it. That was odd for a religious sect; everywhere he went on Earth that was religious had copies of at least the central scripture everywhere, often with commentary and discussion common as well. “Does it talk about who and what Lykandeon is as a deity?”

Helen flinched when Serenity said Lykandeon, but she didn’t let that stop her from talking. “Maybe? It’s pretty generic in some ways. It starts with the god’s origin story. Do you want to hear what I can remember?”

That sounded like a good idea; it might give him clues on what Lykandeon’s actual portfolio was. “Please, go ahead.”

Helen nodded and frowned before she started. “Greatness is made, not born. Our Eternal Lord shows us this with his own story, for he was born a poor child of a saktiin sect; none of his family were great, nor did they want to become great…”

Excerpts from the Book of Eternity, as recited by Helen Leos

…

And so he came of age in that dying land, the last bastion of Our People against the depredations of the subhuman. Lykandeon fought then, for Our future and Our Eternity, to tear it from the grasp of those who wish only to end our lives and our future.

His enemies were many, for all who do not share our form hate it; the hate is worst among those who can only imitate our greatness, so beware those who almost seem as they are of Humanity! They can hide among us and must be cleansed, for they are the ones that steal years from us!

Demons and nonhumans walked alongside Man, then, and brought Our Fall. Some diluted Our blood, and while the blood of Humanity is stronger it cannot resist forever; some of the half-blooded were drawn to the cause of their human-hating parents. Our God was merciful and killed those who turned against Us, bringing Us safely into the Eternal Aeon.

…

Many were the demons that he fought in his youth. As he aged, he found that the first tool of many of those who envy Our greatness was trickery. Yet through resisting the tricks we grow stronger in the Eternity of Our God’s Service!

Remember that it is only through the Guidance of Our Lord that we shall reach Eternity. The call of Aeons comes for us all and we must answer, gratefully and gladly, for it gives much. To those who much is given, much is expected, and all of Humanity has been given the Gift of Eternity by our Lord Lykandeon.

…