Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 77485 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77485 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
With careful precision, he brought the tool to the man’s face and began to remove his eyes.
CHAPTER TEN
Anguished screams became the only sound inside the church. The man could do nothing but accept what was happening to him. A restraint kept his head from moving.
My stomach churned violently as Mr. Hawthorne squeezed the center of the tool and forced the pointed ends into the man’s eye sockets. I’d never seen so much blood in my life. It ran down his face in widespread rivulets, staining the white shirt he was wearing and dripping all over the floor.
The squelching sounds as his eyes were gouged and clicking of the metal tool had bile rising in the back of my throat.
A disturbing scent filled the air, a mixture of raw agony and a metallic tang. I covered my mouth and looked away, unable to imagine the pain. I silently prayed that this man wasn’t being tortured somehow because of me.
I was desperate to convince myself that this was nothing but a horrifying dream, a sickening nightmare born from the depths of my screwed-up mind that I would soon wake up and escape. As the screams became raw and guttural, every masked person bowed their heads and began to speak as one.
“Vide malum quod Diabolus permits, audi susurros regni eius, et ne loquaris contra voluntatem eius."
I looked out at the crowd of masked faces, trying to understand what they were saying. Diabolus was the only word I could clearly grasp, and assumptions were all I had to translate it.
I didn’t mean to look at the gruesome scene playing out again. I regretted the second I did. Mr. Hawthorne stepped back, and even from where I sat, I could see there was an eyeball spiked through the side, attached to the tool in his hand. The other eye hung like an ornament by a bloodied strip of nerve, leaving two gaping holes in the man’s face.
Mr. Hawthorne held the other up and his followers clapped as if he’d just given a great performance, again all at once reciting a twisted incantation.
"Laus Diabolus, dominus tenebrarum, qui regnat in aeternum. Gloriamus in malum suum et nutrimus per viam obscuritatis.”
I grabbed the edge of the velvet seat and held it tightly. A mixture of revulsion and terror surged through my veins. Mr. Hawthorne spoke to the masked figure that had wheeled the man out.
His words were too quiet for me to hear, but the man was taken away afterward. His anguished cries faded until a chilling silence hung heavy in the air. The absence of sound felt even more wrong now. Mr. Hawthorne handed the bloodied tool off to a man in red, who returned it to the altar as the woman with the bag over her head was led forward. My heart raced as I watched her trembling form, the heady sense of dread intensifying.
Mr. Hawthorne addressed the room again, announcing what the woman had done and what her punishment would be.
"Her name is no longer relevant to us." His voice resonated through the church, tone cold and unyielding. "Her insolence and disrespect were directed not only at myself and my Electi, but the core of our devotion."
The cloth bag was removed from the woman’s head, confirming what I’d already known. It was the servitor from Mr. Hawthorne’s home.
“She will never speak another word again. Tonight, she will be granted eternal silence to reflect on her actions.”
“Non loquere malum ultra doctrinae fines, ausculta tantum susurris tenebris concessis.” Just as before, the masked figures responded to his decree as one, not only acknowledging what was about to happen, but accepting it with ease.
This was insanity.
She’d been disgustingly rude and hostile, but I knew without a doubt that she didn’t deserve what was coming. With the bag removed, her tear-stained face was revealed for everyone to see. Her wide eyes darted around the church. Even though she couldn’t see me, it felt as if our eyes briefly met.
Mr. Hawthorne went and stood behind her as another of his companions dressed in red approached with what almost looked like a vintage hand-pump vacuum.
The realization of her impending fate seemed to grip the woman like a vise, and her lips trembled, as if trying to find words that would never come. The long tool was forcibly inserted into her mouth. Mr. Hawthorne held her still while the man in red turned a dial on the side, separating the flat metal ends and forcing her mouth to open impossibly wider.
I told myself to look away, close my eyes and block this out, but I couldn’t. Despite my own revulsion and fear, I was ensnared in witnessing this gruesome scene. The woman’s jaw began to pop and crack, her muffled cries lashing at my soul as it visibly dislocated. I naively thought this was it and her punishment was done. Then I saw the thin blade Mr. Hawthorne had just been handed.