"Killing them wasn't the right decision, I admit that much. But letting them die on their own would have likely been even more precarious and tumultuous. And it could've threatened the political capital of the government if the reports ever leaked and I don't think Mr. President could afford that kind of exposure."
A figure sitting in an opulent chair caught these whispers as two other figures strolled past him in casual conversation.
"Wasn't that a failure on Cloud Corporation's part?" one of them replied. "I've always been reluctant to fund them, unlike you. There are rumors they've failed yet another large-scale project…" The sentence tapered off and a strange silence hung between them for a moment. Both sounded like middle-aged men. Then the second man stopped speaking and stopped walking.
The person in the chair stole a furtive glance at one of them.
One of the men was staring at his companion with an unusual smile, as though hinting at something, holding a glass filled with a dark liquid—too dark to read in the ballroom light.
He had a long, pale face with sharp cheekbones, tired half-lidded eyes, and dark reddening circles. His silver-gray hair was slicked back neatly, exposing a high forehead. Thin square glasses rested on his nose, matching his cold, formal appearance. Dressed in a dark suit and tie, he looked composed, sterile, and slightly unsettling.
He didn't move his lips when the other man spoke again. "Well, whatever happens, I'm just here to enjoy the ball. I've missed it terribly... and I hear the shawarmas are remarkably fresh this time..." He lingered for a fleeting moment, then leaned slightly closer and whispered. "...and pure."
He had to whisper. At the same moment, the composed man's gaze shifted instinctively toward the seated figure who had been watching them — but the person near the table had already turned away, apparently absorbed in admiring the ballroom.
The ceiling rose several stories overhead, disappearing into layers of arches, balconies, and intricate stonework illuminated by warm chandelier light. Massive marble columns stood in orderly rows along the sides of the hall, their polished surfaces reflecting the golden glow spilling from hundreds of crystal fixtures suspended above. The floor gleamed like still water beneath the lights, every reflection sharp enough to mirror the figures passing over it.
The guests filled the hall in small clusters rather than one large crowd.
What made the gathering unusual was how similar everyone looked.
The men wore nearly identical black formal coats tailored to perfection, paired with white gloves and silver pins fixed near the collar. The women wore elegant gowns of similar design and color palette, differing only in minor details that distinguished rank or affiliation. There was wealth on display, certainly, but it was restrained. Expensive watches, heirloom jewelry, and rare materials appeared occasionally, though none drew attention away from the unifying dress code.
At a glance, the crowd felt less like individuals attending a celebration and more like members of a single institution.
Conversation remained surprisingly subdued for a gathering of that size or not perhaps, given that a hundred or two felt negligible in a hall of this scale.
Hundreds of voices merged into a low murmur beneath the distant music. Laughter existed, but never loudly. Business agreements were discussed behind polite smiles. Political favors were exchanged beneath the guise of casual conversation. Servants moved quietly between the guests carrying silver trays laden with wine and delicate refreshments, their presence barely noticeable amid the crowd.
A grand staircase dominated the far end of the room, splitting into two sweeping branches that climbed toward shadowed galleries above. From those upper balconies, figures occasionally watched the gathering below without participating in it. Whether they were organizers, observers, or something else entirely was difficult to tell.
The center of the hall remained largely open, occupied by slow-moving dancers beneath the chandeliers wearing strange dark wooden masks, carved into blank, expressionless faces. Their surfaces retained the rough texture of tree bark and the worn cracks of age.
Everything about the event suggested wealth and influence, yet the atmosphere lacked the usual extravagance of high society. It felt organized and deliberate.
"Welcome, Mr. Murphin. We were waiting for you, it's a pleasure to meet you—" The sitting figure caught the composed man greeting someone a metre or two beside him, but—
"Sir, may we check your invitation."
—a woman who appeared to be management staff had cut in, addressing the seated figure instead. He looked to be in his late twenties and carried himself with quiet vigilance.
"I'm sorry but, I already showed my pass during the entry commotion. What's the reason to show again." He spoke diplomatically.
The woman's face and entire posture were incomprehensibly composed — like a marionette's — with an unwavering wide smile, large unblinking eyes, and blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, holding a digital tablet in her hand.
"I apologise for the interruption. However, we need to re-verify certain guests in order to provide proper hospitality. These are the instructions given to us and we are obliged to follow them. We would be grateful for your cooperation."
The sitting figure felt something unsettling about her, frowned briefly, then relaxed. "Alright." He handed her a metal card the size of a playing card.
An embossed symbol rested at the center of the metal card, formed by two symmetrical hands meeting wrist to wrist. Their fingers rose loosely upward like half-bloomed petals, while the aligned thumbs created a central axis running through the middle, giving the emblem the appearance of both a flower and a ceremonial chalice. It carried the appearance of something simultaneously welcoming and unfinished.
She took the card and placed it against the tablet. He watched her with poised posture. Without any change in her expression she returned the card.
"Is there anything in particular you would prefer to have this evening, sir?"
He averted his gaze and lowered his voice. "Can I have... shawarma?"
"Which kind?" She spoke with the same unnerving gaze and polite smile.
He took a slow breath and said casually.. "Raw..."
Thank you for sharing your preference. It will be prepared shortly — I would recommend entering the room between the staircases within the hour." She delivered the words and dissolved back into the crowd.
The man sat in the chair for nearly half an hour, continuously checking his watch while quietly gauging his surroundings.
Then he stood up with a measured deliberateness, struck by a sudden realisation — the familiar faces he had been observing had gradually disappeared without his noticing, yet the crowd throughout the ballroom remained inexplicably unchanged in size, as though the departures had been seamlessly replaced.
He had the distinct feeling that a wave of new guests had arrived, discreetly substituting the previous ones.
Following the instructions the woman had given him, he followed the corridor behind the staircases until he arrived at a room positioned farther inward from the main hall.
The moment he stepped inside, an arm extended toward him.
It held a wooden mask similar to those dancers.
He glanced sideways, Standing beside the entrance was an abnormally tall figure—perhaps a worker of this place, that was the conclusion he reached after a brief glance. Its entire body was concealed beneath a long white tunic that draped from head to toe, hiding even its face beneath layers of pale fabric. Only a strange symbol rested where the face should have been, though the dim bluish lighting made it difficult to distinguish clearly.
He glanced once at the white figure, then back at the mask, and took it without a word.
A few seconds later, a strange sensation crawled through his stomach.
His balance shifted.
Only then did he realize the room itself was moving.
An elevator...?
The entire chamber had been functioning as one.
There was no violent motion, no metallic rattling, only a subtle downward pressure beneath his feet and the faint sensation of being pulled steadily underground.
It continued descending for several seconds.
During that brief interval, he examined the mask more carefully.
It appeared darker than the masks worn by the dancers outside, possibly carved from an entirely different type of wood. Unlike its rough exterior, however, the inner surface had been polished smooth.
Holding it beneath the pale blue light, he noticed something else — a symbol engraved on the inside, identical to the one on his metal card.
The descent eventually stopped. He immediately wore the mask and turned toward the doorway through which he had entered.
GRIP!
A hand landed on his shoulder. The white figure had seized him, and the pressure was so overwhelming that for a genuine moment he felt his shoulder might separate from his body.
The figure raised its other arm and pointed behind him.
Turning around, he noticed another entrance embedded within the wall itself.
It had escaped his attention entirely because it shared the same dark wooden texture as the surrounding walls. The concealed gate was enormous—roughly three meters tall and split into two broad panels stretching nearly four meters across.
Wrong door.
He nodded slightly.
The white figure released him and pulled open the concealed entrance which was quite ordinary than he anticipated—just heavy wood rotating inward, but...the moment he looked beyond it, his eyes almost widened beneath the mask.
The chamber beyond resembled a ruined sanctuary more than a room, its vast interior illuminated by a dim mixture of candlelight and muted reddish-yellow glow that never reached true brightness. Ancient stone walls rose upward into darkness, their surfaces consumed by creeping vines and age-darkened cracks, while rows of candles scattered across the floor cast trembling shadows that distorted the surrounding architecture.
At the far end stood a throne, atop layered platforms. It was ancient, massive, and partially fused into the wall behind it as though it had never been constructed but had instead grown from the structure itself. Upon it sat a colossal alabaster figure perhaps fifteen to twenty meters tall even while seated, its body resembling a weathered statue carved from pale stone beneath layered white tunics that draped across the throne like funeral cloth, giving only the suggestion of anatomy beneath. Its proportions were vaguely humanoid yet subtly wrong.
The figure had no face.
Its neck simply rose upward and ended abruptly, where two thick curved structures emerged from either side, arching upward and nearly meeting above where a head should have existed, forming an incomplete circular halo.
The entity possessed four arms.
Its lower pair rested near its lap, carefully cradling a small sculpted figure wrapped in smooth stone resembling folded cloth, its shape similar to an infant swaddled in a white tunic. The upper pair extended outward slightly from the body, wrists suspended midair by black chains descending from above.
High overhead, embedded into the ceiling itself, was an enormous face-like structure. Hollow eyes stared downward, and from somewhere deep behind those empty sockets the chains descended.
The throne platform was surrounded by candles, wax rivers hardened across steps, and hundreds of silent figures standing below.
Is this the Statue of the Armless Goddess?
He looked around. Every guest present was wearing the same mask as him, making it nearly impossible to distinguish one person from another by just a distant sight.
At the foot of the platform sat a golden chalice, half an arm's length tall, shaped in the same symbol he had seen on both the metal card and the mask — placed atop a dark carmine rectangular coffin, or something resembling an altar.
Then he noticed the guests moving methodically toward the chalice, each removing the glove from their right hand.
A broad strange figure draped in a long hooded robe brought their hand close to the chalice and—
SSK!
...sliced their palm split open, through which blood flowed down into the chalice and after several drops, they would wear the glove back on and step back without the slightest reluctance. This continued for a while as the figure in the corner observed it all with concealed incredulity.
Are these the same people?
Eventually his turn came. Whatever reluctance he felt inside, none of it showed in his demeanour. He approached the chalice appearing entirely unbothered and indifferent — like one of them — as though carefully suppressing something, making sure nothing surfaced that might draw suspicion.
He did the same as the others, letting a few drops of blood fall into the chalice, then stepped aside and gulped as a bead of sweat traced down his temple. In the moment his palm was being sliced, he had managed a close and unobstructed look at the face of the one collecting the blood.
The figure wore a wooden mask — yet unlike any other present, it did not sit upon the face so much as belong to it, as though the mask were not a mask at all but the man's true face rendered in carved wood. What unsettled him further were the eyes. They held no pupils. Only a glistening, unbroken black filled each socket entirely.
He was the last to offer his blood. After him, without so much as a whisper disturbing the serene chamber — filled only with the faint, ghostly echo of distant music — every guest lowered themselves to their knees and bowed toward the statue, arms raised, hands forming the chalice-flower symbol he had seen on the metal card.
He did the same, though unlike the others, he allowed his gaze to drift carefully around the room.
He noticed it then — a subtle heaviness in the air, and beneath it, the low collective murmur of countless voices, one rising from each bowed figure, as though in prayer or incantation.
Shortly after, several figures draped in long white tunics entered the chamber from an unseen passage, bearing a striking resemblance to the abnormally tall figure he had encountered earlier.
Moving in silence between the kneeling guests, they distributed pale cocoon-like bundles wrapped in layers of white cloth — identical in appearance to the one cradled by the statue.
He received one as well. Though the figure that placed it in his hands was not one of the white-clad attendants, but the tall one itself. The symbol upon its face — a vertical, pupil-less eye, or something approximating one — regarded him without expression.
It stood before him like a monolith for a long, wordless moment, its presence pressing down upon him with quiet oppressiveness, before finally turning and moving away.
The clueless man took the bundle and looked around, uncertain what to make of it, watching and waiting as the other guests rose to their feet, set their bundles on the floor, and proceeded to do something that froze him to the bone where he stood. His pupils shrank behind the mask. His breath caught in his throat. His legs felt suddenly unreliable.
Every one of them was trampling the bundle beneath their feet.
But it was what followed that stupefied him entirely.
The white cloth began to seep red.
They did not pause. Not one of them faltered or hesitated — they continued with the same composed indifference they had carried through the entire evening.
He stood in silence, struggling to process what he was witnessing. He looked down at the bundle trembling in his own hands, then cast a slow, furtive glance around the room. After a long moment he became aware of an overwhelming presence directly behind him.
His eyes widened behind the mask, cold with dread.
He lowered the bundle to the floor and looked around once more. Many of the white cloths had already turned a deep, saturated red — and those whose bundles had been entirely consumed, not a trace of white remaining, had stopped and stood still, as though the act had reached its completion.
With a fearful uncertainty he placed one foot over the bundle, when a heavy, melancholic voice echoed through the chamber from the hooded figure standing before the statue.
"Oh, our first matron. The saint of first birth. The catalyst of forbidden desires. The weilder and forebearer of the first sin." The figure raised the chalice high toward the statue. "We, your children, surrender ourselves to your will. We, your children, seek to have our desires fulfilled through your sanctity. Oh—"
He stopped. The pause was subtly abrupt — carrying a strange, hysterical edge beneath its stillness. He lowered the chalice and turned slowly, revealing that eerie wooden face, and spoke again in the same heavy, melancholic voice, though now laced with something grimmer.
"There is one forsaken without the eye..."
The man watching from behind his mask shivered violently — because the wooden face was looking directly at where he stood. And in the same moment, every figure in the chamber turned to face his direction, hollow eyes converging on him in unison. An oppressive silence settled over the room. An overwhelming, smothering sensation crept through him, the feeling of something vast and uninvited pressing inward.
He didn't deliberate. His body shifted into fight or flight, fists tightening as his eyes cut sideways for an exit.
WHUMP!!!
A crushing blow drove him into the ground before he could take a single step, and before thought or comprehension could form, countless hands were on him — seizing him from every angle, fingers closing around his hair, his jaw, his neck, his arms, his torso, his legs — dragging him across the chamber floor toward a room on the left.
Every struggle, every scream, every attempt at resistance was swallowed whole by the mass of bodies pressing around him.
The moment the door locked behind him, the chamber emptied.
Then a scream tore through the wall.
Worse than inhuman. Worse than harrowing. It filled the chamber the way darkness fills a room with no windows — completely, immediately, leaving no corner untouched. It grew distorting, chimeric, grotesque in ways that defied category, suggesting that whatever was occurring behind that door existed beyond the threshold of what any sane mind would permit itself to imagine — let alone know.
As the screams gradually became muffled, the wooden face raised the chalice and tipped the blood from it onto the altar. Moments later, several streams of crimson flowing from the saturated bundles converged at the same point.
"Approve our devotion, our mother — The Mother of Forsakens..."