The stench of blood overwhelms Raven—not that she isn’t used to the way blood reeks, but rather the sounds of the victim’s body cracking and her screams fading, filling the air with a gory echo. She forces herself to look away, not daring to watch. Raven never gets used to the victims' last breaths; the light leaving their eyes.

“Now,” Father Harris stands, tearing Raven’s attention away from the gore. “The cleansing.”

She shifts her gaze to the waxy candles and the low flicker of their fire. She stares mindlessly at the shadows dancing across the marble floor, in a way bringing warmth to the damp room.

Members stand, jolting Raven’s focus. They shuffle out of the abandoned shop silently, their heads bowed in somberness.

“Are you ready, daughter?” Father Harris places a hand on her shoulder in an attempt to comfort her.

Raven nods, ignoring the pit in her stomach. “Yes, Father.”

“Wonderful.” He flashes her a toothy grin, but his eyes are empty. He pats her on the back and begins to lead her to the _Sacreum Facere,_ where she will await her death. “You’re doing the right thing.”

Raven drifts through the halls, Father Harris at her side. She focuses on walking, taking one wobbly step after another until they stop at the doorstep of _Sacreum_ _Facere_. She is ready for death, for enlightenment.

The room is encased with chipped red bricks and a singular barred window. A bed and a scratched-up, broken chair sit in a dark, dusty corner. Raven strains her head towards the window, a strange frantic chirping muffled by the glass.

Tangled in a big spider web is a small bird, breaking the peaceful silence. It cries for help, flapping its wings desperately, trying to get away. Raven watches as it wrestles the sticky web, grasping for freedom.

So desperate and so fragile. The bird never stops fighting. In a way, she understands the bird; she knows how it feels to be helpless.

Raven slumps, exhausted by the fear of what she assumes is death—or perhaps the pain that comes before it. She paces back and forth, trying to calm her fraying nerves. Running her hands over the rough bricks, her fingertips grow sensitive and red from the hard and sharp texture. Raven’s hand falls into a small gap, and her steps stumble to a stop. Intrigued, she places her palm on the cool surface of the wall and applies pressure on the loose bricks. The bricks fall away, revealing a hole the size of her arm. Raven sucks in a gasp and peers through the gap into the forest outside.

Raven chokes back a cry as a wave of realization and guilt washes over her, drowning in Father Harris’s lies and the blood of the innocent victims. She remembers their faces, frozen in horror before their final moments.

She slides to the floor, nausea and confusion gripping her chest. How could she be so blind? She’d been hand-fed the lies, she’d called them her _family._

But they love you, she argues. All her life she’s been taught this is the only way to enlightenment, to live like a king and eat the flesh of the unholy cleansed by the divine. She feels sick, battling with every lie and the truth that stares her in the face, haunting her. Innocent, unwilling victims butchered in front of Raven.

Suddenly, Raven realizes the chirping has stopped. She stands, swaying slightly on her feet before looking outside. The web, torn apart by the distress of the bird, now resembles a tattered tapestry. With intense care, the spider begins to rebuild the web, strand by strand until it is whole again. With newfound determination, Raven grabs the wooden chair and braces herself.

She will not be another pawn in Father Harris’s sick, twisted game.