Short Story / Withdrawal (Analysis)
I knew it was true; the other cults are completely changing the rules to include abuse to their rituals and beliefs. I lower down to the ground and twist to the other side of the tree; I have to make sure not to be seen. The breeze is stinging my cheeks, but moving will cause more trouble than the fall’s night breeze will to my skin; or health for that matter. I know two main things about Satanism: one, being the cults are branched out in two main sections, Theistic and Atheistic Satanism; two, Theistic is the worse worship of all worships. Everyone knew it, and the Theistic Satanist made it hard for others members of the religion to learn Satanism, let alone having Satanism gain a decent respect amongst the world.
There is religious war coming soon, the Earth’s battle cry is screeching out to the Satanist ears to prove whose practice is right. I really have no idea why religion has the outcome of war… I thought we are suppose to accept any religion and practice. Though, the Theists are wrong with their practice; it is actually quite sick what they do to animals. They participate in criminal acts, and not just any criminal acts but rape, abuse of animals and children. Satanists are supposed to worship children and animals not destroy the lives of them.
Wow, it got really quiet. Does that mean I should leave now, or should I just sit here longer? What if they walk by here? What if they see me, I don’t know what they will do to me if they happen to spot me… it definitely will NOT be good whatever it be, and I know this for a fact. Oh SHIT! I haven’t even been paying attention to my surrounds, what if they already seen me? And that is why it’s so quiet. Am I shivering or shaking right now? I can’t be scared. I am not allowed to be scared, it’s against the nine statements. The statements of satanism, whether Atheistic or Theistic, are serious matters. There are punishments for those who break them. If I’m scared I would break a law. Sure no one will know that I broke it, but I would know.
“You, who are you?” questions a powerful voice as my glance strolls upwards only to met the Theist High Priest’s cold, dark eyes.
“I am from an existing cult northern of here,” I claim with a monotone.
I am not very good at lying. Anyone could see that. Though my emotions are as unseen as a poker match. My emotions can stay hidden, but my lies are different; I usually need time to procrastinate, to think for I don’t land on my knees in failure.
“What clan of Theists are you from girl?!” demands the Priest as I rise myself from the ground. “You can speak while you stand!”
“Shut up, most people can’t even walk and talk. Seriously, have you ever been to a high school?” I reply in a humorous tone, while really thinking of something to get me out of here. “I am from the Temple of Set, also known as left-hand path, of the northern region of Michigan. I only have the first symbol imprint upon myself, for my father has yet to decide where to place me.”
I turn around pulling the left shoulder of my sweater down revealing the inverted pentacle imprinted on my ghostly colored skin. Every Satanist will bare the mark of a invert pentacle, it’s an universal mark. Then as a member completes tasks he or she gains the head of Satan in the middle of invert pentacle. I don’t have the head of Satan because I refuse to pledge full loyalty to Satan; this is highly frown upon by the Church of Satan but no one will question me since I am the high priest's daughter. I feel no need to worship a symbol though, I just worship myself. I thought that is what true Satanism is about... I hope it’s true, that they have imprints for each level and clan placement. A man left to the High Priest moves forward to me, while giving a quick lick to his index finger. He swipes it slowly and harshly across the tattoo, I feel the night’s air tackling over the small, newly wet area of my body. A shiver hits me, allowing goose bumps to spread across my body like a plague; the men react to my shiver with chuckles and gesturing whispers.
I hope they don’t notice the sign from the Church of Satan. The Church of Satan symbol is a Lorraine Cross on top of an infinity sign, and on the Lorraine Cross is the sign to represent alchemist through Brimstone. Brimstone is an element of sulfur that has been long associated with Satan by the Christian Churches; the Church of Satan used the symbol because they thought it was humorous way to piss of the Christians. Only an Atheistic Satanist will have this symbol, if a Theistic Satanist had this imprint they will be seen as trader. My favorite symbol imprinted across my skin could cost me dearly at the moment.
“It’s real, High Priest Aglaeca,” quivers the old voice. “She could be speaking the truth.”
A maddening laugh rises in the air from a young person standing behind the High Priest. All the black robes freeze in place with the laugh, not even the breeze could move the cloaks. The eerie image forces me back a step or two. While the laughing person steps forward from the crowd removing his hood, bringing a rather pleasant face to life. Trent. The bright, clear blue eyes will always give him away. I should feel safe now, but I don’t. Why don’t I? Could it be that he will betray me for past events?
“Cam-Lilly, what’s up?” he questions playfully, bringing me relief.
“Don’t call me that!” I exclaim in a whiny tone back with a grin.
He turns to his clan; they all stare down at their feet while Trent stands up against them. I don’t understand, they act like he’s the High Priest... Yet he’s not wearing the clothes of a High Priest... I stand oblivious to whatever is happening at the moment lost, in complete thought. Noticing that everyone had change positions and Trent’s grip is resting easily around my wrist a shake back to reality. I really need to learn to stay focus longer. A nervous shock runs through my body as he pulls me back closer to him.
“I hope you improve on your lying skills since we last met,” he whispers, in a smooth tone, to the side of my ear. “I am sure your confuse, since you never been able to keep up.”
He’s right confuse; I don’t understand anything that’s going on. Why is he here, that’s what I don’t really understand? And we’re screwed if he needs me to lie.
“How many of you feel like feasting tonight?” Trent questions the members.
WHAT!!!???? What the hell is he doing!? They rise their hands in excitement, glory, and pride. Fear strikes me like a rattlesnake’s venomous bite. Why did I come here, I should of knew better! Emotions try to overwhelm me with their sense to be felt and not to hid. I refuse to cry, I will not. No matter what happens, I shall not cry! The members seem to quiet down with Trent harsh stare overwhelming them. They lower their hands until they are resting easily at their sides.
“Well then, I suggest you all go home and rent yourself a whore. For no one will be touching the Lily this evening.”
A sense of relief rushes over my mind. I feel like I can inhale without the fear of seeing my blood flowing across the stone alter. I can see the members threatening faces, they are not happy with him. One of the unmask members steps forward from the crowd, while the rest back up a few steps getting ready to make their departure from the late night events.
“High Priest, I mean no disrespect with what I am about to say. But, why are we just leaving her alone? If it was any other girl that walks into our paths tonight we would of use her as a sacrifice. So what is different about this one?” questions the member in a strong but fearful voice.
I saw Trent many times when he was angry, but the angry he was expressing now was not the same as the other times. He is not the same as he use to be, or at least this what I can understand from what was told me... None might be true, his angry could always be this way and I just don’t remember. He moves with a wider step than usual walking pace; the steps are intense, raging, and hurtful. Trent stops about just under an arm length away from the member. The member shakes with fear, he could, also, tell that Trent was furious for him questioning the High Priest command. Trent swings a punch at him, locking with the members face and forcing the member to the ground.
“Does anyone else want to question me?” his words are furious, and warning them that they will NOT like the result. “Good, now go home! Come on, Lilly.”
I follow beside him, trying not to glance back at the rest of the cult. I can’t resist giving a glance back towards the member Trent had stricken with his fist. He is still laying on the ground, it seems like he is just laying there watching the night’s sky. I wonder if he’s okay... I don’t even know why I care... I shouldn’t care, I mean the guy particularity side ‘Hey, let’s gang-bang her’. Erm! I wonder what happen to Trent, he never acted like this before, I think... It’s not even like it’s him anymore. Though right now I really don’t know anyone. And why he is calling me Lilly? We stop in front of black, shiny Pontiac Firebird, which is all I can tell about. I am so not knowledgeable when it comes to cars.
“You always wanted one of these, Camilla.”
He was right I always did want a Firebird, but not just any Firebird. I want a black one with a dark purple dragon on the side. I wonder why he would remember that after so many years. “Yah, I did. Of course, I wanted it to have a deep purple dragon on the side of it...”
“Ha-ha, come here,” he demands with a playful laugh. I walk over to him only to be face with a purple dragon. “I couldn’t have the other side done because I wasn’t sure if a midnight blue would look good or if I should just put another purple one.”
“Midnight will make your beast shine beautifully,” I shyly smile back the reply.
“Why do you have this though, this was my idea not yours...?”
He gives a sigh, seeming like he is trying to find the words. “I-. I was hoping to see again. I owe you from before, and I just thought that this would be excellent gift to give you to have you forgive me.”
“Huh? What are you even talking about?” I question him with a puzzled stare. “Seriously, are you joking or something?”
He glares at me, like I’m not being seriously with him. He figures out that I am actually really confuse he shutters “You don’t even remember do you?”
“Remember what? Trent, are okay? Maybe it just something you thought up, I mean I did just kind of leave out of nowhere.”
His stare is hurtful. “What did he do to you Cami? It’s not just something you would forget?! You didn’t just move out of nowhere to New York, you don’t remember?! I helped you pack that night, to go with your mom, Cami.”
“Trent, my Mom was dead then... I moved with my Dad,” I try to correct him. “It has been about 10 years, but you shouldn’t have it that mixed-up.”
“No we packed your stuff and went to train station to meet your mom. I didn’t go with you because I couldn’t just leave my family. Plus, people would question us because we were only 12 years old. You could easily go because you were going with your Mom,” he insisted. “Cami, what happen to you? You didn’t even contact me, in less this you contacting me now. I am pretty sure it’s not though.”
“I am spying for the Atheistic Clans of New Yor-”
“Your what!!? How did you get into the Church of Satan. Why are you in it?”
“My father is the Highest Priest, he is the one that -”
“Your father is Self-styled killer and nothing else,” he rages fiercely with flaming eyes. “He is nothing but a terrible man. You don’t remember what he did to you? Do even remember why your mother left the two of you?! Not that she should of left you with him, no one in town was able to figure that one out. We all just thought she wanted out as fast as possible, and she went insane and forgot you. Since she had all your stuff packed anyways.”
“I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. That never happen, Trent.”
“Oh you don’t believe me, ask any Satanist around here Camilla they will you tell the exact same thing,” he argues. “Your lucky that most of the members didn’t recognize you back there. Even I wouldn’t been able to stop them from what they would of did to you if they knew whose daughter you are.”
“It’s just because I am Atheistic Satanist, not because who my parents are!”
“Bullshit, they would do much worse things to you than what they would do to an Atheistic Satanist, Camilla. They would made you suffer for your father’s crimes against us,” he retaliates with a sigh. His glance becomes distance, and horror hits him like a brick. “Get in the car!”
“What?”
“Get in the car, now!”
He grasps me and drags me into his car. He pushes me into the seat next to him. He even decorated the inside like my drawing, but I didn’t do that part until New York. So how did he know? The purple LCD lights turn on with the engine, the seats an aqua blue to match the stereo, and the inside of the side of the doors are shape as wings from a fallen angel. His face read of fear, but the fear doesn’t really seem like it is for him. He swings the car around and drives through the woods until the car meets the pavement of the expressway he stays highly tense. Relief seems to have left both us along time ago. Silence is the only thing that rumbles through the car, I think about saying something but change my mind.
“You have to remember Camilla… The war is going be over people like Nicholas Ray Crothar. You have to remember, or you will be in the crossfire.”
“My father is not what the war is going to be over! I do NOT plan to even be around for the war, I plan to move to Paris before it begins,” I claim, which makes him retort a smug laugh. “What are you laughing at? I'm serious.”
“Paris is one of the biggest hot-spots for Theists. The war is going to be over your father or at least the Self-Styled and Dabblers; before you say that your father is among the Atheists, he is not really one of them. There is no way after what happened.”
“What happen before, Trent?” I question with curiosity.
“What do you mean what happen before? How do not remember, it happen to you... He brought you there and -” he pauses mid-sentence trying to think of what to say. “What happen to you while you were gone?”
“I... I- The train... it crashed. The only thing that is from my own memory is what happen after the crash. I didn't really come back to spy, I came to remember. I remember blood spilling out from a lady's head that was sitting across from me... Her blood was soaked into my clothing, and my father was shaking me,” I stutter out, with a lower painful tone of voice. “He was trying to make me come to. That's as far back as I can remember on my own, everything else was told to me.”
I lift my glance from the car floor to Trent's face. His face turns to a ghostly white and his expression is between horrified and stunned. His lips move but nothing comes out, silence fills the air once again. He stops the car in front of rather enormous, abandon house. The house is being overcome by rose vines. The door front door is untouched by the world, its’ bright red door and silver handle stood with glory while the rest of the house seems to be falling. Trent’s face is returning to color as he stares at the house with me. He stayed silent, thinking but of what I don’t know. The house seems so familiar...
“I want to go inside.”
“Okay, let’s go,” he replies lowering his hand to the door handle. “It’s someone’s property I know anyways. I am sure she will not care if we go in.”
I glance at him with a slight curiosity. I wonder who owns the house, and how he knows her... I swing open the car door, and slide my feet out to the ground to stand up. I finish getting out, and slowly close the door. Trent is already out leaning on the hood of the car. I stroll over to him, and we begin to walk to the house. A raven awaits on the gates we push forward to enter the front yard of the house. I think it is odd that one, lonely raven would be just sitting on a gate like a statue. The bird acts as though he is a prisoner to the gate, or maybe just a gate-man.
Trent turns the silver handle swinging the screeching door open. I peak inside by standing on my tip-toes, to allow me to appear over Trent’s shoulder, there is blood stains across the landing where we are entering.
“Why is there so blood?” I question Trent in terror.
“I don’t really know how to explain it, but it might help you remember. I don’t know what you’ll remember but something,” he answers trying not to give an actual answer the to my question. “Do you still want to see it?”
“Yes... but you didn’t answer my question.”
He walks towards the stairs ignoring my hint that I want a real answer. We start up the stairs, it seem like whom ever lived here before had expensive taste. Pictures hang from the wall to our left, they are cover in sheets of dust. I take my sleeve and wipe some of the dust off one, only to reveal a picture of my mother. My mom... Was this my old house, no it can’t be; we sold the house before we left. There’s no way someone would buy a house and leave someone else’s stuff in it though... Plus, we had everything packed and sent to us in New York. The picture though is my mother, there no doubt in my mind. Maybe it was her house. I glance at Trent, he already made it up the stairs and is waiting for me.
“Hey, you coming or are going to stand there like a zombie,” he teases me, but mainly to lighten the eerie mood of the empty house. “Did you remember something?”
“No... This picture it has my mom in it.”
“Maybe the house belongs to someone she knows...”
:”But-”
“Come on!” he claims with enthusiasm. “Lets check out the rest of the house, I haven’t been here since I was kid.”
He wanted to add something to his statement but he wouldn’t, I could tell by his troublesome face reactions. There are blood stains on the hard, oak floors again. It almost seems as someone was fighting up here and fall to the landing down the stairs. I step around the blood splatters on the floor and enter the nearest room. The room is a light pink with a hot pink stripe about one third way up from the floor. This is a little girl’s room, or at least it was at one time. I start feeling dizzy, I lean against a little white chair and fall. I stand backup and walk over to the bed and lay on it hoping that it will smooth the dizziness, it generally did. It wasn’t going away, I roll over holding my belly. I see more blood, on the little girl’s white sheets. I know this room, this house... Oh god!
I go into shock, screeching and sobbing, I end up against the railing. My hands clinches the railing to the point it breaks as Trent comes out the third door from the stairs. He grasps my hand as the railing falls to the first floor. He is saying something to me but I can’t hear him all I can do is see the past.
My father, he destroyed me. My mother ran away when I was five from the abuse. He would allow them to rape me... He tied me to the bed, saying ‘You are the ultimate sacrifice’ as he was laughing. He- He would slash me with knifes and rip the skin off my body; then fed it to his members, while he drunk the blood from the wound. I can feel tears streaming down my face as I remember my childhood. My mother finally got a hold of Trent’s mom and had us pack my things to meet her at the train station when I was twelve years-old. The train exploded and the blood I was covered in was my mother’s blood. Trent was telling the truth. My father was sick man, a killer. He brought other girls and babies home, sometimes alone other times with others, and they would kill them. Oh my God.
The floor begins to shatter, Trent tries moving us for we don’t fall. It’s to late we fall to the first floor. I see pictures float in the air above us, of my father and his victims in my last moments of life. I figure Trent founded the pictures and planned on hiding them for I could remember without seeing. It was pointless, though, because I remember and I am seeing all of it again. The war will begin after our deaths, when the Satanist see the pictures. The clans will hunt done the Self-Styles to end it all. The rest of the second story of the house begins to crumble on top of us. I see Trent die on impact from the second story falling on him. I will die soon too. I can’t move for the post of the bed doesn’t go through my skull. I see the red door, the symbol of a Satanist, of blood, and of horror stand gloriously as I start to meet my ultimate defeat, death. I feel the blood drip from my forehead and everything starts going black and cold...
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Check your grammar. There are numerous tense errors.
“what if they already seen me? And that is why it’s so quiet.”
You could also rewrite the above to something like:
What if they already seen me, and that is why it’s so quiet?
Here is an example of missing words
“Maybe it just something you thought up, I mean I did just kind of leave out of nowhere.”
Maybe it’s just something you thought up, I mean I didn’t just kind of leave out of nowhere.”
It seems this would be the good bases for a longer, more detailed story. As it is, it leaves the reader with more questions than answers.
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