CH 27 -  Oracle Denied

Stepping forward to his cell, the Oracle trembles at the sight of the carnage scattered across the room. The young woman he had left here days before had been torn to shreds, with skin thrown across the room in tatters.

The bones are broken and destroyed as her body almost vanishes into a lingering mist that hangs in the air. The soft scent of her perfumed skin was perpetrated with decay.

Coughing violently, the Oracle collapses as he loses control of his nerves. The stress is overwhelming as he thinks of the images of her growing up. The dreams he had imposed in her mind. She was the first he genuinely cared for, and he tried to stop seeing them as an influx of meat to be devoured. He had begun to see the world as his brother had.

The tormenting of flesh only gets you so far. His strength had become a curse that blinded him to the realities of life as he struggled to rationalize morality. He was intended as a weapon to seek out evil, to ravage the world of the darkness. Instead, he merely fed on the light and provided well for centuries.

The faith had grown until his tenure as its Patriarch. His power was produced by destroying innocence, which he was fed daily to thrive. His insatiable appetite turned him into a weapon that allowed him to yield complete control.

He became a beacon of hope and light and twisted his words. They turned his voice, the soothing voice of a forgotten deity, into the wretched thing it became.

The idea was pure when it was envisioned before it became corrupted. It was based on a mixture of long-forgotten texts in primitive tongues speaking of prophets alluding to riches in the beyond.

The demonic teachings twisted the notion of love into that of sacrifice. The monsters and hordes that were fed were found to be tremendous. The villages which were once safe havens became farms where meat was kept.

The farm was protected from the masses by a faith that promised them feeding and sacrifice. Sacrifice in exchange for protecting those deemed worthy of such a cause.

In their mewing vulnerability, the animals allowed themselves to be tended to. Allowed themselves to become weak as the strongest creatures culled the herd while ensuring their safety. The delightful dance of reward and torment was an electrifying power.

Providing the correct pairs of the healthiest were selected for breeding, while those with weaker genes were sent to other villages to mass-produce sustainable food.

But this, the Oracle's stomach lurches as he almost says woman, but what is left of her isn't much, if anything, anymore. The rotten mist slowly falls as the air is disturbed by his movement.

He had touched her softly and cradled her in his arms as she had made him feel alive. Far more alive than conquest ever had. He had felt as if he had mattered that she was ready to give everything to him. He didn't want it to last a night but to last a lifetime.

He trembles slightly at the memory of his brother, who cast aside his hunger for a woman. How foolish he was to give up everything he could ever have for something as fleeting as the love comprised in mortal life.

Caesar had given up every chance to become a God, to shape civilization itself but to hide and try to mentor mere handfuls. The Oracle trembles, thinking how pathetic his brother was to him just weeks ago.

Trembling at the piles of flesh before him, the Oracle bends to pick up a piece of her shattered skull as he runs his fingers through her blood-matted hair. His voice cracks as he wishes to speak to her but doesn't even remember her name. Those thoughts were ripped from his mind by the demon he serves.

His service for her safety and those that serve him. That was the deal, the price, and the reward the Oracle paid. It was all for naught because she was gone. She was torn from him as her memories were mere shadows of a forgotten past.

For the first time in its existence, the Oracle cries as tears of blood travel down his face. The last remnants of his love drop across his flesh in misty droplets as he trembles alone in the room in the darkness of this hellscape.

For the first time in generations, he finally feels as truly alone as he had always been. The loneliness of reaching the pinnacle of life where every living creature desires to be in his place. But none of them know the hardship and sacrifice to get there.

He wished he remembered her name. He wished he could remember her face or see the look of her eyes. Even if they were lifeless, no, that part was long devoured.

His heart aches as he witnesses firsthand the aftermath of the monsters. He had seen the massacre in his dreams and heard Olivia's voice. He had thought, had prayed it was a warning, but to see it now, it had been real all along.

His love, his desire, had been fed to the slaughter. Pulling at the entangled bones that once locked her heart away, he trembles. He had given her his heart, but ultimately, he got nothing. Running his thumb over the edge of the bone, he missed her and wished he was there to defend her. He wishes he could have done more, and as pitiful as it is, he wishes he had his brother's strength to be his own man and fight for something worth dying for.

As the Oracle sobs, he stabs his love's rib through his throat and rips out his throat in his last dying breath. A final penance for all the harm he brought to the world as the light finally leaves his eyes. As the blood seeps out of his body, he has finally found his purpose to love and to bleed for those who were worth protecting. Those who never had the strength to defend themselves.