The Mantis Variant - Book One - 1. Chapter 1 - Agrell, Part One

Agrell regretted her decision. Of course, the ritual she endured was not her decision, and a burning resentment now overshadowed the awe-inspired devotion of her childhood. Before the ceremony, Agrell still felt a mysterious sense of wonder. But in the darkness later that night, she muffled the sobs that wracked her body, as she drifted off into restless sleep.

In the temple gardens the next day, Agrell smiled and rejoiced with her fellow Messiahs. She hid the confusion and sorrow that was twisting her soul into knots, and Agrell repeated lines that she heard countless other Messiahs say after their own inductions.

“Long live the mantis!” Agrell declared, and everyone replied as they always did.

“Hail, the mantis!” and their words were like smoke in the cold December air.

She was told since childhood that every Messiah who went through the ceremony became an important member of the order. Each one of them who came before her was now an elder. No one ever left.

Agrell was born and grew up in an isolated community. She was raised to believe that Shifts were an abomination of nature. The forced indoctrination was used to hammer into her brain that Shifts were not even human, and they were inferior to the trueborn. In her earliest years, Agrell believed out of fear what she was told. But that fear soon became curiosity, and what the elders had told her came into conflict with what Agrell began to believe for herself.

As a child, she could not understand why these Shifts were considered evil. Their descriptions made them sound like magical beings. It was unclear to her where they came from, and she was not privy to the arcane wisdom of her Messiah elders. When young Agrell asked questions, she was more often than not met with disdain and dismissal, and she learned to keep her curious nature to herself. Agrell also did not know how Messiahs gained their enhancements, but on her 18th birthday, their secret was revealed.

Agrell’s mother led her to the sacred chapel at sundown. No children were permitted within, and this was her first time entering the tiny building. The two were the last to arrive and the room was already crowded.

Those elders who were Agrell’s role models and teachers surrounded her, and the leader of the community stepped up and towered over her. He was a large man, with broad shoulders and an intimidating presence. Agrell was used to seeing him from a distance. There were two rooms that helped set him apart and above the other members of the community, one with an elaborate wooden chair and the other with a pulpit from which he delivered his messages. He looked down at Agrell with a smile, and the ritual began. It came with a shocking revelation.

“The source of Shifts’ powers,” he proclaimed, “is the mantis gland. This genetic corruption of our pure humankind must be ripped out by the root. It cannot be allowed to remain! The sin of being born a Shift must be cleansed. It is by the removal of a Shift’s mantis gland that they are purified, and it is through the consumption of it that we are elevated.”

The ceremonial master was dressed in a robe of crimson, and his garment was decorated with brighter red trim at the hems. He wore a sash of burgundy around his waist and a matching scarf draped over his shoulders. Atop his head sat a skullcap that was patterned with vivid roses.

Over one shoulder was slung a long reflective red chain, and beneath the opposite arm was a knife. Its handle was the color of pinot noir so dark that it was almost black, and the weapon was sheathed in red leather set with gemstones of sparkling blood.

He raised his arms, and to Agrell’s horror, her young cousin was dragged into the chamber. The boy was just on the cusp of turning 14. He was bound and bruised and bloody. Tears were streaming down his cheeks. He was gagged, and his hands were tied behind his back.

“What?” Agrell began, but her mother grabbed the back of her arm. She gripped it tight and her fingernails dug into her daughter’s skin. Agrell held her tongue.

The red priest pointed an accusatory finger at the trembling boy. “This monstrosity,” he spat, and his voice took on a wrathful tone, “tried to infiltrate our community! He tried to spoil our sanctuary! You filth,” he raged, “show us what evil you can do.”

Agrell turned her head and shot her mother a scowl, but the woman did not release her arm. Her mother’s gaze was fixed on their leader.

“Do it, slime!” the priest demanded of the child.

The boy choked a sob and furrowed his brow. In the blink of an eye, he disappeared from where he knelt and instantly reappeared by the wall behind the priest.

Agrell was startled.

The child looked around in confusion. He was still bound. Her young cousin turned with desperation in his eyes and stared at the only other person in the room who was not an adult. Their gaze met. Neither he nor Agrell could comprehend what they were experiencing.

“You see?!” Fury flashed across the red priest’s face and spittle foamed at the corners of his mouth. “Once full-grown, this monster would be able to disappear and reappear anywhere! Anywhere! Children are not meant to be cursed with powers such as these!” He grabbed a fistful of hair and the boy let out a muffled cry through the gag. The man drew his dagger from its red scabbard, and when he spoke again, his voice shifted and took on a deep monotone.

“It is by the removal of Shifts from society,” the man droned, “that we procure the future of the trueborn. It is upon our shoulders that the responsibility rests. The cleansing of this accursed race of subhumans falls to us. We are the eradicators, the purifiers, the sanctified.” He brought the knife to the child’s throat. “We are not chosen; we are predestined. We will be the ones to wash away the poison of their infestation.”

“Please,” whispered Agrell in a quavering voice.

Her mother released the grip on her arm, but Agrell was grabbed on both sides by two of the ceremony master’s fellow priests. She was forced down to her knees and held there.

The fuming man bellowed, “Shifts are a disease against humanity! We take the world one tiny step closer to balance with the removal of each Shift and the uplifting of each new Messiah.” He yanked the boy to his feet and shoved him right in front of where Agrell knelt.

She looked up at her young cousin in despair, as the red priest slit the child’s throat.

“No!” Agrell screamed, and she was showered in blood. It gushed onto her head, sprayed her in the face, and filled her mouth. The terrible shock of it jolted her into silence, and she spat out the sticky warm liquid.

Her cousin’s eyeballs shifted this way and that in their sockets, as his panicked gaze darted around the room from one person to another. His blood covered Agrell. He ground his teeth against the gag in his mouth, and his fluids spurted once more and the boy’s jaw slackened. His eyes fell still and became unfocused. Blood bubbled out of his nose and seeped from his restrained mouth.

“We send you where you belong, Shift, to the land of the unliving.”

Another elder took the dagger and handed the leader a cleaver.

“Thank you, cousin,” the red priest said, and he started hacking away at the dead child’s spine. With a snarl on his face, he decapitated the boy. He kicked his limp body to the floor and held the dripping head aloft.

The other Messiah elders erupted in cheers and applause.

“And we make one of our number,” the man continued, as the rest fell silent again, “more than she could have been on her own.” He handed the cleaver to one of the other leaders. The priest then hooked a finger of his free hand in the gag, and as he pulled it from the mouth, the boy’s tongue lolled out.

The ceremony was already appalling to Agrell, and it was about to get worse.

She was left kneeling in a puddle of blood, as a small table was positioned between her and the priest. He placed the boy’s head onto the surface, and a fellow elder returned the knife with its red handle to the empty hand of the priest.

“Thank you, cousin,” the man repeated. He then began peeling the flesh from the bone. “By each removal of an enemy Shift, we move humankind closer to divinity again.” Chunk by gruesome chunk, the boy’s face and scalp were scraped away, and the skull beneath was revealed. “Our rightful place at the summit has been usurped by these mutilations of nature.”

The red priest turned the skull on its side and stuck his knife’s tip into the gristly connective tissue at one corner of the jawbone, then the other. He flipped the hideous mess upside down, ripped the jaw from the skull, and then turned it upright again. It sat on its upper teeth.

An acolyte dressed in white took the blade and handed the priest a silver hammer.

“Thank you, cousin,” the leader replied. He raised the shimmering tool above the skull. “To conquer the new enemy of humanity, we need strength!” and the man brought his hammer down.

The grisly head made a wet crunch.

Another assistant stepped up to the table, placed a crystal bowl beside the mangled head, and reverently took the bloody hammer.

The red priest nodded in appreciation. He then stuck his fingers into both eye sockets and caused the glassy orbs therein to rupture and ooze down the front of the skull. The man pulled both hands in opposite directions, and for a moment, nothing happened. Quiet pops from within the bones indicated that they were about to give, and the skull ruptured. The slick pale pink brain matter sloughed out into the sparkling bowl, and the man discarded the two pieces of bone onto the floor beside the boy’s headless corpse.

Agrell was barely breathing, as the priest thrust his hands into the brains and worked his fingers through the slime.

He continued speaking in his elevated and ritualistically repetitive way. “The aberration of nature that are Shifts, from them comes the source of we Messiahs’ power.” When he found what he sought in the bowl, his eyes lit up. “For edification, for elevation, for strength and speed, to be more than we once were!” He raised one hand from the bowl and thrust his fist toward the sky. Gore dripped down his wrist.

The table was removed, and the red priest continued. “Consuming the body of Shifts,” the man declared, “raises us from our place among the pure and proper humanity, elevating us to Messiahs of the lost, Messiahs of the world.”

All the elders said aloud and in unison, “Consume!”

The leader smiled. He lowered his arm and opened his palm in front of Agrell’s face.

Among the dripping bits of brain, she could see something different. In the center of the man’s hand was a tiny gemstone. He poured water over the crystal and much of the fleshy grey-pink matter fell away.

“Consume!” the elders repeated.

The red priest leaned towards Agrell and whispered a single command.

“Swallow it.”

The elders said again, “Consume!” and they all simultaneously stomped one foot. Thump! They repeated, “Consume!” and they stomped their other foot. Thump! “Consume!” and the group around her continued the slow stomping.

Thump!

Agrell’s mind raced. What was this all about?

Thump!

Why did they murder her little cousin and smash his head open?

Thump!

She spent her whole youth anticipating this ceremony, being told that it would be the most glorious day of her life, and the beginning of a new one.

Thump!

Her eyes shifted this way and that over the staring faces of her elders.

Thump!

With a quivering hand, Agrell reached forwards and clasped the little gem between her thumb and finger.

Thump!

She pulled the sparkling thing from the gooey bits in the priest’s hand.

Thump!

“Consume!” the elders said even louder in their unified voice.

Thump!

Agrell looked around the room again in disbelief, but several of the elders were nodding encouragement to her.

Thump!

The priest extended a fresh glass of water to Agrell.

Thump!

“Consume!”

She stuck the tiny gem into her mouth, caught a mineral-scented whiff of her dead cousin’s brains, and snatched the glass of water from the man. Agrell gulped deeply and swallowed the crystal.

Thump!

The elders stopped stomping their feet.

On her knees and coated in blood, Agrell began to weep.

Then it felt like lightning struck inside her. She cried out in agony and doubled over. Agrell gasped, fell to the floor beside the headless corpse of her cousin, and she curled her body into a tight ball.

Everything burned. Her muscles tensed. Her limbs locked. Her body trembled.

Pain flashed through Agrell’s brain and radiated around her being. She pushed herself up to her hands and knees, as another bolt of lightning struck within. She squeezed her eyes shut and screamed. Her skin felt like it was on fire. Agrell felt like she was melting in acid, and she let out another wail.

All in an instant, the pain vanished. Her screams stopped and her eyes flashed open. She rose back up to a kneeling position and looked around at her fellow elders.

Before she could say a word, one of them drew a broadsword from its sheath and swung the straight blade with terrible fury at the blood-soaked girl. She did not even have the opportunity to get her hands up before it struck the side of her neck.

Agrell squeezed her eyes shut again. In a flash, she knew her life was spent. She did not understand why the elders put her through this ghastly ritual, only to kill her at the end.

She did not feel any pain. Agrell knew she was dead.

A moment passed.

Then Agrell noticed that she was still breathing; she could still feel her own heartbeat. She was even aware of how the blood on her skin was getting tacky as it dried. She opened her eyes.

Everyone in the cramped ceremonial chamber was smiling at her.

Agrell looked down. The blade was partially wrapped around her throat, and there was now a severe warp to the weapon.

The red priest took the hilt from his fellow elder’s hand. “Thank you, cousin,” he said yet again. He removed the twisted sword from the side of Agrell’s neck, allowed one of his knees to drop to the floor in front of her, and he extended the mangled weapon toward her.

“You are reborn, Agrell,” he said to her. “Now you are one of us. We welcome you as the newest Messiah.” He smiled. “You knelt down as a girl, now rise a woman.”

Agrell took the broken sword in her hands, without comprehending what she was being shown. She flipped it over, confused by the entire proceeding.

The priest rose and reached out to her.

Agrell took his hand, and the elders burst into more cheering. She stood before them all, wide-eyed and covered in blood.

“It is done,” the red priest concluded, and those gathered exited the ceremonial building, as the stars above were beginning to sparkle in the darkening sky.

Over the following hours, as that first night progressed, Agrell’s confusion boiled up into a rage that then shifted into sorrow. The next morning, she buried her resentment and kept her emotions a secret from those around her.

Throughout that day, as each member congratulated her, Agrell repeated, “Long live the mantis!”

“Hail, the mantis!” they replied with pride.

This was not what the Messiahs had told Agrell for her entire youth. This was not what she wanted. This was not what was right.

Later that evening, a mere 24 hours after she was welcomed into the higher order of her sect and promoted to Messiah, Agrell fled the only home and family she ever knew.

She snuck out into the cold darkness and followed the old road that led to Teshon City. Though she had never visited it before, Agrell was certain that she could escape there and hide among the masses.

She knew that she would forever be haunted by her little cousin’s brutal death, and Agrell could not believe how wrong she was in thinking that her home was ever safe★