The Bringer of Pain

Anna came to her senses, lying on her side, they had dragged her down the stairs to a fairly big room in the basement and put her inside a circle painted on the center of a smooth polished cement floor. She didn’t understand the symbols painted in various colors around the exterior of the circle or the smaller symbols contained within. Many of them reminded her of the marks her father had carved into her body. She looked up at her mother, bewildered.

“Soon my dear, you will realize your glorious purpose,” she soothed, not breaching the edge of the circle.

“Mom?” she asked, the slippery blackness inside roiling as she pulled herself onto her knees.

Darlene exchanged looks with the others around the circle. Anna also looked around, eyes frightened and panicked. “Mrs. Myles?” she asked, looking at Veronica’s mother.

“Don’t fret now dear, all you need to do is just let go,” Brenda encouraged, smile on her face. “Give yourself to oblivion.”

“This is so fucked!” snarled Anna, shaking her head violently.

There was a sound from upstairs and many heads turned to the staircase to see the source of the noise.

“Looky what I got here,” announced Vance, nudging a handcuffed Adam down the stairs leading into the basement.

“Daddy?!” said Anna, eyes wide.

“Princess,” he replied with a smile, “I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner,” he lamented as Vance pushed him down to his knees some feet from the painted circle.

She got to her feet and tried to step outside the circle to go to him but was met with an invisible barrier. Using her hands she navigated all around the circle, looking almost like a mime, palming her way all the around the diameter as she desperately sought an escape from the unseen trap. “I can’t get out!” she said, voice tinged with panic, eyes capturing her father’s.

“Just remember what I taught you baby girl,” Adam said, voice choking with emotion, water brimming in his eyes.

Anna slammed her fist against the unyielding force confining her.

Vera looked to Vance and nodded, “This malcontent doesn’t deserve to look upon the goddess, end him, his last act will be the gift of blood,” she instructed, stabbing toward Adam with an arthritic finger.

The policeman pulled his service pistol from his holster. Disengaging the safety, he put the lethal weapon to the back of Adam’s head.

“No!” screamed Anna, striking at the barrier repeatedly.

Adam smiled at his daughter, “Use that strength, it’s all you’ll,” the rest was left unfinished as the gunshot boomed in the confines of the small basement, Adam’s head snapping forward from the force of the blast before his body toppled forward into a lifeless heap.

“Pop goes the weasel,” laughed Vance in a singsong voice, looking down on Adam’s dead body and blowing the smoke from the end of his gun before slipping it back into its holster.

“Won’t somebody hear?” asked Don Donaldson, eyes round.

Vera shook her head, “It’s protected, no one will hear,” she said reassuringly, turning her gaze back to Anna.

Anna dropped to her knees, tears running down her cheeks, the blackness clawing its way to the surface, filled with raw primal energy. “Daddy,” she wailed, voice full of sadness.

Vera smirked. “We begin this ritual with an offering of life, of blood, great goddess,” she said spreading her arms wide. “Let us begin.”

Anna sniffled, feeling light headed as she looked at the small pool of blood oozing from the bullet hole in her father’s head. “No,” she whispered, shaking her head from side to side, balling up her hands and clenching her fists at her side.

Each of the seven other people around the circle chanted in unison, “So thus it begins,” all nodding uniformly in Anna’s direction.

“No,” repeated Anna, looking up at the eight people surrounding her. From Don Donaldson the school principal, to her history teacher Mr. Collins, to the old withered librarian, to her mother with a mask of ecstasy oh her face, Veronica’s mother, the smirking cop who had ended her father’s life and finally the two men she didn’t recognize.

Vera locked her rheumy eyes on the bloodshot eyes of the young girl trapped in the containment circle. “Let’s us cleanse this filth from the holy vessel,” she said, voice full of fervor, swaying slightly from side to side.

“Cleanse the vessel, make ready the way,” repeated the congregation in harmony.

Anna rose to her feet, shaking her head, “No,” she said softly, sensing the other within her stirring, rising up as her own grasp faltered.

For a moment, an eternity for Anna, she and the other were one, thoughts, memories, emotions blended and indistinguishable. Then the other began to gain in strength, the darkness drowning out the light.

“Great Inanna, your meager servants invite you to purify this vessel and make it your own!” Vera screeched.

“Purify this vessel!” answered the gathering.

Like a tidal wave within her, Anna felt as if she were far away, except for the tiny light in the emptiness, the little spark of silver white deep inside her. Her father’s words rang in her eyes, far away and hollow, “Just remember what I taught you.”

Closing her eyes, Anna allowed the other to well up as she receded toward the little spark, the marks in her flesh started to glow.

The battle was engaged.

Anna screamed. She had experienced what she had thought was near unbearable pain before in her life, but it was never like this, never to this degree, almost unimaginable like her soul was literally being burned away. Every fiber of her physical body inside and out felt like she was being submerged in molten lead except where there was scar tissue. No matter what she did, there was no escape, no reprieve. Rolling on the ground, she tore at her clothing, exposing the mutilated flesh on her stomach and clawing at the marks, tearing open her flesh.

Two voices in one, screaming.

The gathering watched in mute silence at the teenaged girl thrashing wildly about on the floor, tender body smeared in her own blood. When finally she stopped, she was face down, streaks of blood from where she had torn herself open decorated the floor. Several fingernails had been torn off. Her breath came in pants.

“The way is clear, the filth is gone, welcome the goddess reborn,” exalted Vera, arm held high.

“Welcome the goddess,” answered the people in the circle.

The bloody girl in the circle raised her head and smiled, eyes devoid of pupils, glowing a baleful green.

“Praise Inanna,” voiced Vera, “Dread and powerful goddess,” dropping to her knees.

“Praise Inanna,” murmured the others.