Viele

When was the last time I took a form that I could call my own? Me beneath all of these faces, these skins. I'm lost behind the eyes of the beasts which I have become. My sanity is still here. I can hear it still whispering me to keep hope. so I do. I keep on wishing.

Several hundreds of years have passed since a town boy had been taken to be sacrificed. The pains of having daggers slice open the flesh to let the life's blood seep out and stain once untainted and scar-less skin. The cries could not be heard. The boy had his tongue cut out and was gagged with some cloth to soak up the blood and keep him from screaming out for help. Who were these people? Masks. That much was for certain when wild and teary eyes darted around for some source of salvation. So many masks. So many faces yet in the hollowed eyes did he see one who wished to free him of this torment. Why was this? Another dagger placed its tip to his thigh and slowly cut deep. An artery had been severed and with it, he felt his strength depleting all the faster. Auditory senses were no longer as sharp. A loud ringing slowly taking over as the chants which once filled his ears with such coarse words he could not understand were fading. The sky.. he could remember the sky but where he was there was no sky. The darkness above was as abysmal as what was consuming him. To beg for death would make him a weak person and he did not want to disappoint Mama nor Papa. Especially not Papa.

But where were they? There was a tingling sensation on the center of his chest where they had cut open a deep gash but was careful not to damage any organs. They... that is assuming these people were people to begin with. Moving the head was out of the question. Bound by the neck with some strong twine he could not lift his head even if he could.

Why me..?

The days of his past crept by in slow cinematic. Hunting, playing with his siblings. being scolded by his father for not killing the meat proper enough and thus caused some of the innards to spoil faster than necessary. The lessons of life he had accumulated were all amounting to nothing. Life was far too feeble for any accumulation of such a number of lessons. Eyes now bloodshot darted down to try and leer at the sensation in his chest. Of all things to give a twinge of some odd sensation, why his chest? There was clearly a gaping fissure there. The beating of his heart visible for any and all who gazed upon him behind those veils and false identities to see. There was a sprout. Something that looked similar to a tree visibly growing out of his chest. That feeling had begun to spread throughout his body in tandem to the cold embrace of what he could only describe as death. Eyes rolling into the back of his head as his body had begun to shake and thrash in one final fight to survive.

And then darkness.

There were flashes of what he could remember. At first, the people were rejoicing at the sight of the sprout... but then... blood. The sound of bones crunching. He could remember being taller so suddenly, but then it all went black again. These memories coming and going like someone's head bobbed above an ocean's surface and failing to keep afloat. The taste of their flesh he could remember all too clearly.. and yet his mind was still sane. He wanted them to suffer as they made him.