Chapter 1
Under the silver veil of the night sky, the stars sparkled like lost tears of past lovers. In this gentle silence of the mythical world of Elysian, creatures of the night scurried around that no human eye could catch. Here, where the secrets were revealed only to special faithful, Mariella walked with sure movements. The streets of Luminara hid her from the threats of fearful people who feared everything that was different.
Tonight, her destiny was to be fulfilled, as a fortune-teller had prophesied. Normally, Mariella didn't pay much attention to prophecies. But this one had made her think. Too many parts of the prophecy had already come true.
The old woman had read her palm and told her that she would remain alone until the candle-lighting ceremony in Luminara took place. A festival at which all the streets were lit by the soft light of candles. The town's mayor walked along the streets with seven virgins, singing an ancient melody that was supposed to keep all evil spirits at bay and protect the town from monsters. Every street led to the market square in the center. There, a virgin with a burning torch stood at the fountain in the center of the square. When all seven streets had been walked and all the virgins were standing around the fountain, they raised their torches to the sky.
A shiver ran down Mariella's spine. This cruel ritual had been going on for decades, and every year it gave her an oppressive feeling. Something about the ritual was wrong, but she couldn't put her finger on it. As soon as the virgins were standing around the well, seven selected young men stepped out of the ranks of the townspeople. One young man for each virgin.
Mariella fled the ritual and headed for the forest. Here too, every path was lined with candles to drive away the darkness and keep the shadowy creatures at bay. Shadowy creatures like herself. She laughed, joylessly. Didn't the townspeople realize that their ritual had been ineffective for centuries?
Mariella heard shouting. She knew exactly what was happening. The men had torn the virgins' white robes, a spectacle for the onlookers. It was supposed to demonstrate that any approaching enemy would be fought with violence and mercilessly torn to pieces. But it was not this brutal act that had caused the shouting. It was the mass defloration of the seven women who stood naked and unprotected around the well, holding torches in their hands and raising them high into the night sky. The young men had to drive their hard cocks into the virginal grottos without any tender preparations, taking them wildly and impetuously until they sprayed their semen deep into the destroyed wombs. The young women had to keep their torches high and not drop them. Only then, so the people believed, would there be another year of peace for the city.
Mariella didn't understand this superstition. Who could benefit from publicly deflowering virgins? Wasn't this brutal act punishment enough? Why did they have to stand there holding a torch high in the air? That was cruel. Mariella didn't think the young men felt much better either. After all, they had to get their cocks hard and then thrust them into unwilling, dry holes. That had to hurt both of them.
And yet the fortune-teller had prophesied that this very night would be her fulfillment. She was to find her soulmate in the light of the full moon. While the people were performing their cruel ritual in the marketplace, where the virgin blood of innocent girls dripped onto the ground, only to ensure the protection of Luminara, she would find the woman with whom she was connected by an invisible soul bond in the forest.
A path should have been forgotten, the words of the fortune teller, no lights should line it. Mariella had been looking for such a path for years. But she never found it – until this year. A fresh animal trail led into the forest, undiscovered by the people of the city, who followed their ritual so stoically that they had not noticed the new path.
At the end of the path, the old woman had prophesized, there was a fork. The right path led to one of the paths lit with candles and torches. The left path led deeper into the darkness. That's exactly what Mariella found. Far away she heard the chanting of the townspeople. They urged the young men to fuck the young women mercilessly, to make as much blood flow as possible. Mariella was sure that not only the women were bleeding, the men were also injured in this unwilling activity. She had been fleeing from this spectacle for so long, because the virgin blood that was shed aroused her bloodlust. But she did not want to give in to it. And so she disappeared deep into the forest at the time of the cruel ritual.
She laughed joylessly as she followed the path to the right. In a way, the townspeople were right. All creatures like her fled into the darkness. Even if they didn't do it because a magical ritual forced them to. They fled because they didn't want to bring more suffering to the young people who simply didn't know any better.
“You and your soulmate will face the dark ritual,” the fortune teller had said to her a long time ago, thoughtfully watching a line in her palm. ”It is your destiny to uncover and end the cruelty.”
Mariella's heart beat faster, she exhaled heavily as she reached the end of the illuminated path. Here was a dark barrier. It was like a velvet curtain that she had to part. This was where the darkness of the forest began, where no human dared to venture. Mariella herself had never seen the need to venture this far. She herself did not know what awaited her beyond this barrier. Somewhere on the edge of one of the illuminated paths, she had a small hut where she withdrew on this night of the ritual. Sometimes four or five of them had waited for the end of the night. For the last five years, she had remained alone.
Perhaps the cruel ritual was having an effect after all. All the shadow beings fled to other areas because they did not want to have anything to do with the terrible deeds of humans.
Mariella looked at the impenetrable darkness in front of her. Slowly she raised her right hand and stretched it out. Her fingertips dipped into the blackness and sank in. It felt cool and refreshing. A feeling of security flowed through Mariella. “Could it be,” she murmured, “that my future is waiting here?”
Then she took a step forward and plunged completely into the darkness.
