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Shaped like a flat coffin, grooves cut into its edges, ready to capture liquid and funnel it to the end where a glass cauldron swung, greedy and grasping for every drop.
An ancient ache worked through me.
Time seemed to overlap.
My mind filled with similar scenes. Historical sacrifices, pages from books I’d read, and scenes depicted in the old castles and manors I’d explored.
In every era of humanity, evil had presided.
Today was no different.
And standing in that oppressive cave with stone pews circling the sacrificial altar and torches adding a patina of misery, I struggled to believe in innocence. Struggled to hold faith in hope.
Even Mother Nature seemed in on this hellscape with stalactites dripping like fangs and mineral-deposited stalagmites spearing like demon fingers.
I’d never felt so small or so stupid.
Historic brutality couldn’t compare to the energy pouring off my fellow jewels.
The indescribable shattering of thirty broken hearts as we all came to terms with our fate if we didn’t find a way free.
One day, each of us would be buckled and bled on that altar.
One day, every single one of us would cease to exist.
For an age, no one breathed.
But then…a gasp.
A cry.
A stumble.
The spell broke, and the jewels all reeled back as one. Bumping into one another, choking on wails, scrambling for strength, and finding they had nothing left.
“Don’t…” I whispered, gagging on my own dead heart. “Don’t….”
I wanted to tell them not to give up hope.
Not to envision what’d happened in here or to picture themselves on that table.
“Stay,” Peter ordered as he clung to a stalagmite, doing his best to remain standing. “Forget what you see. Ignore it. We’ll travel deeper into the cave system where they will never find us, and then we’ll—”
“We’ll be caught!” Nancy screamed, her bright red hair looking like flames in the gloom. “We’ll be caught like always and hurt and raped and…and—” Slashing at her wet cheeks, she trembled. “We’ll end up on that.” She pointed at the altar. “No matter what we do. No matter how well we behave. No matter how long we serve. We’ll all end up on that. Oh God—” Hugging herself, she backed up. “Zach and Seline…Paula and Thandi—”
“Don’t do that,” Peter commanded weakly. “They’re dead. They’re free—”
“And they died right here.” Nancy sobbed with no sound, shook with no rattling. “No. I can’t. No more. I-I can’t do this.” Pushing past the other jewels blocking her exit and darting around the dripping stalagmites, she snarled at Peter as he snatched her wrist.
“Let go of me, Pete! I’m leaving. Right now. I can’t stay in here. I can’t stay here period. I’m swimming. I don’t fucking care—”
“You swim, you die.” Peter groaned, swaying on the spot as Nancy ripped her arm back.
“I’ve heard drowning is an okay way to go.” Rebecca, the blonde with small breasts and weary eyes, drifted to Nancy’s side. She looked at all of us before linking fingers with Nancy’s. “Nancy and I are going to try. If anyone else wants to come—”
“I will.” Dane stepped forward. “I reached my limit the first time that Charles bastard made me cook a strip of my skin for his appetiser.”
“Me too,” Suri whispered. “I can’t stomach Branson and Azhar sharing me again.”
