Selena fell hard onto the cold stone floor, her eyes, vacant and searching, scanning the dim surroundings before she slowly pushed herself up. She found herself in a vast, gothic church—an eerie sanctuary where ancient images of monstrous beings adorned the walls, and where she now stood behind an altar. The black walls were stained with dried blood, and deep, jagged cracks ran along their surface.
She lifted her gaze and, her voice barely above a whisper, spoke slowly, “O… what have you done, E…than?”
As she peered at the altar, an unseen force tugged at her, and she barely registered the echo of a voice resonating within her mind. Before her, suspended in a grotesque crucifixion, hung an angel—a being of two heads and six wings. Three wings on its right were pure white, while those on its left were as black as the void. Crowning its split visage was a crown that, too, was divided—half white, half black. Its tattered robes revealed a pallor that mirrored Selena’s own.
The angel’s eyes snapped open. With a sickening display, a gash along its belly burst open, and from that wound its entrails writhed grotesquely. In a voice laden with an invisible, crushing force, the angel intoned:
“Follow… the orders of Nefta.”
A series of whispered titles followed, each more paradoxical than the last:
“The Sacred Contradiction.”
“The Paradoxical Mother.”
“The Silent One Who Shouts.”
“The Crucified of Two Faces.”
The angel’s gaze fixed on Selena as its golden eyes swiveled, and golden veins writhed like living ribbons in the air. Confused, Selena scratched her neck—and suddenly, before her, a message materialized:
[An entity watches you]
[Lose 10 Sanity and gain 5 Madness]
[For exceeding 4 Madness, you have gained the trait: Obsession.]
In the blink of an eye, Selena’s body was hurled aside. She slammed her head against a cold wall, screaming in agony.
“Ahh!
Oh, the pain!” she shrieked.
Yet, amidst the torment, a distorted, almost beautiful voice echoed: “How lovely!”
Selena’s trembling gaze returned to the angel. With a gesture that sent rivulets of crimson across her porcelain-like skin, she muttered, “Lovely.”
The angel, almost disdainfully, expelled a chunk of its own entrails onto the floor. It regarded the hapless witness of this unspeakable vision and spoke a single word:
“Affliction.”
At that moment, the walls split and cracked. The images on them began to contort and sigh, as if exhaling centuries of sorrow. In a maddening, near-ecstatic chorus, whispered voices filled the space:
“Affliction!”
“Sweet Affliction.”
“Melancholy.”
“Wretched Melancholy.”
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“Divine two-faced angel of the clear night.”
“Two-faced angel of vivid death.”
“Two-faced angel of useless utility.”
Then the voices ceased.
Selena’s scream—a raw, guttural cry that seemed more beast than human—filled the chamber. The angel slowly descended, its crucifix contracting until it appeared to vanish, as though tucked away in some unseen pocket. In her disoriented state, Selena slammed her head against the wall again, a sickening, involuntary reaction that caused her skull to throb.
Another message flashed before her eyes:
[Affliction watches you.]
[Melancholy watches you.]
[We watch you.]
Gradually, the pain subsided to a dull throb, and Selena’s twisted senses began to reassemble themselves. Her battered body, though scarred and contorted, was slowly mending. The angel approached once more.
“Savior,” it whispered, a twisted note of mockery in its tone. Slowly, it bit its own finger, allowing a single drop of blood to fall into Selena’s waiting mouth.
“Poor creature,” it murmured.
The blood surged through Selena’s veins, eliciting spasms and causing blisters to burst from her lips. There were sounds—cracking, snapping—from deep within her battered form, and then, inexplicably, she began to laugh maniacally. Her laughter was wild, unhinged, as she floated upward briefly before being slammed back to the unforgiving floor.
A strange, warm sensation spread through her body—a brief, incandescent moment that seemed to fuse pain with pleasure. The images on the walls, the broken crucifix, and the spectral voices all restarted their discordant hymn:
“Nefta, our savior.”
“Nefta, our destroyer.”
“Nefta, our…”
“Nefta, our…”
“Nefta, our…”
The chanting halted abruptly. A voice rose from the throng of painted images, now clearly addressing the fallen angel:
“Demon of Two Faces.”
“Beginning of both evil and good.”
“Origin of freedom and bondage.”
The murals began to bleed. Scarlet ink trickled down the walls like fresh wounds. Amidst the chaos, Selena was hurled upward toward the ceiling, only to crash down again. Yet, inexplicably, her wounds were healing at an astonishing pace.
“Death.”
She murmured repeatedly, her voice a broken echo—then shifted to:
“Fall.”
“Ascension.”
Visions flashed before her eyes: a colossal giant, a piercing bolt of lightning, an angel, a demon, the very visage of the angel, then nothing, only chaos. Her eyes bled, her ears seemed to press into the floor, and a gaping hole opened in her neck—a void where her trachea should be. And through it all, her body mended itself, defying the carnage of the moment.
A cascade of system messages flashed in her mind:
[You have lost 6 Sanity.]
[You have lost 5 Sanity.]
[You have lost…]
[You have lost…]
[You have lost…]
[You have no Sanity remaining.]
In that instant, Selena felt a resounding click in her mind. Suddenly, she found herself in a world devoid of color—gray and oppressive. Two figures sat on a worn bench, a small child huddled at their feet.
“You are a monster,” a masculine voice accused.
“No, don’t speak so harshly to her,” a gentle feminine tone interjected, “we can change her. We just need to try.”
The world shattered like brittle glass. In the next moment, she was no longer in the decrepit church but in a sterile office. A man in a lab coat sat behind a desk while a couple cradled their baby, eyes wide with grief.
“Mr. and Mrs. Millers, I regret to inform you... Selena was born with a tumor in her limbic system.”
“What?” the father gasped.
“The limbic system houses our emotions and memories,” the doctor continued in a tone as clinical as it was harsh. A tear slid down the mother’s face as the father’s fist clenched tightly in his lap.
“Will she ever feel?” the father demanded, voice trembling.
“Cure?” the doctor pressed.
“No,” came the cold reply.
In this dismal grayscale, crimson droplets oozed from the father’s clenched fist. Blue tears welled in the mother’s eyes. And Selena—lost in a cascade of shifting memories—saw herself in the past. Yet, despite it all, she felt nothing. Not a flicker of emotion coursed through her.
The world shattered again. Before her, the angel reappeared, retrieving a piece of its own entrails from the floor and pressing it against Selena’s arm. As the substance merged with her skin, she stood in a pool of blood, utterly unable to see or hear, yet fully aware. The murals on the walls began to sing, their voices bleeding through the canvas of the room as more figures entered the church.
“Sacrifice,” they chanted in unison.
The angel seized Selena and impaled her on a jagged stake of black stone. Blood spurted from her, a torrential cascade that the frenzied onlookers absorbed hungrily. Kneeling in despair, they bowed their heads, indifferent to the pain they inflicted upon themselves.
In a final act of grotesque ritual, the angel flung one of its regenerated entrails toward the assembly. The frenzied crowd began to tear at one another, biting and devouring the entrails. As they feasted, delicate strands of golden light stretched from their mouths to the angel, imbuing it with an unholy aura.
“Cursed,” someone muttered.
“Sacred.”
Selena’s blood flowed freely, sated by the maddened masses.
Then, a flash of lightning illuminated the sky outside. A message echoed throughout the chamber:
[The Original watches all.]
Instantly, every person collapsed, marionettes snapped in a grim display of destruction.
Selena was driven deep into the stake, the force nearly splitting her body in two. The angel, in its final act of defiance, opened its hands. Golden threads arced into the void as its wings folded, its eyes bleeding, its body contorting in a futile struggle.
A new system message reverberated within her mind:
[The Original disapproves of the Two-Faced Copier.]
The angel howled, thrashing as if in agony while attempting to strike at emptiness. Selena could do nothing but watch, transfixed, as a strange, unyielding knowledge began to etch itself into her consciousness.
“Original.”
“Supreme.”
“Exalted.”
“The one who saved her.”
“Bards yearn for tales.”
“People hunger for harvests.”
“And I… I hunger for pain.”
The murals began to sing once more, their whispers invading every corner of Selena’s mind. Amidst the chaos, the angel collapsed into a lifeless heap, and Selena—driven by an inexplicable impulse—drew a strange symbol in the air using her own blood. The mark spun, morphing into a gear, then an hourglass, before finally dissolving into nothingness. As her wound stilled its bleeding, it began to heal miraculously.
And then, through the lingering whispers of torment and revelation, a voice emerged:
“O Mistress of Pain.”
“Deception.”
“The Deception.”
Selena closed her eyes, embracing the cacophony of tortured chants that flooded her mind.
