Sacrifice

They dragged me to the remaining survivors and tied me up again, I didn't recognize anyone.

One barbarian sits in front of me.

—At least you tried to run, boy, though you gave up. These imperials, have no guts, look at them—. She says signaling to the other prisoners.

—Well, your people looked the same this morning. When they were in our cages—. I say, thinking about what she said and choosing a non submissive approach.

She stared at me for a moment, the wooden mask real close to my face, before saying. —They are not my people, not from my tribe. But you are right, there are cowards almost everywhere—

—You speak my language well— I say.

—We had some imperial teachers, though they were not so willing to teach at the beginning— She says.

—Your tribe, what's the name?— I ask.

—Don't worry about it boy—.

—I have a name, Augustus— I say, hoping that knowing my name will make her empathize with me.

—Ha, you are a cooky one, aren't you, Augustus? But I like that. My name is Sabrina— she says while taking the mask off —I'm sure you have noticed. We aren't taking prisoners this time—.

—Yeah, I see the altar, I suppose we are going to get sacrificed—.

—Yes, though the other ones are just materials, preparations, look— She says while another barbarian takes a prisoner, puts him face down on the floor close to the altar and slits his neck. Then she grabs his death arms and another one his legs and starts walking in circles around the altar.

—It's almost time, Augustus. It was a fun talk. Here, have some of this— She says giving me a rectangular medley of leaves like a granola bar. —It's better if you eat it on your own will—.

I do what she says and eat the thing. As I chewed they were draining the remaining prisoner, I was the last one. When some barbarian came for me, Sabrina said —See you in a moment, Augustus—.

They stripp me naked and tie me to the altar, the thing is like a high wooden table, every one of my extremities secured at one corner.

There are no clouds in the sky tonight and the moons, one more full than the other, are lighting up everything. I start to feel weird, trippy, the moons, the stars, the blood in the air everything seemed so strange.

I start to hear a song, like a whisper at the beginning. I try to look around me and see the barbarians, in a circle, looking at me with their wooden masks, with horns, with flowers, with weird symbols on their body. The choir of women sang louder and louder and one of them started walking slowly towards me.

It was Sabrina, with no mask, just some crown of leaves on her head and a dagger on her hand. She climbed on me, gently adjusting the thing between my legs.

—It's a beautiful night— She said while rubbing slowly against me. I felt like I was on fire, there was not an ounce of fear within me anymore. Sabrina was perfect, her long brown hair, her toned legs, her stomach, her breasts. I couldn't control myself. Sabrina noticed and with an ajust of her hand she was moving more wildly at the midst of the singing.

A few minutes later and when I felt like a river of flames streaming down the altar towards the floor and all the masked women, I was stabbed in the chest. The wound was just deep enough to make a cut, just big enough to let Sabrina keep moving her hips, just enough to rip my beating heart out of me.

I died, again.