As he had for nearly the last two weeks straight, today Cael walked, as he did every single day now without fail. But as he walked through the endless white expanse, the desolate environment pressing in from all sides, the complete lack of any human interaction, and everything that had happened to him up until now, it all began to pick relentlessly at his empty mind like vultures tearing at a corpse.
Cael's breathing became increasingly intense and heavy, each breath ragged and uneven, struggling to fill his lungs properly. His head shook violently as he walked, trembling uncontrollably as he tried desperately to stay honed in on his hatred, his burning desire for revenge that kept him moving forward. But he felt like he was starting to go genuinely mad, his grip on sanity slipping with each passing day. Everything was starting to seep through the mental walls he'd carefully built around his psyche. The overwhelming grief, the paralyzing fear, the crushing loneliness, it was all breaking through at once.
His teeth gritted together hard enough to hurt, the pressure making his jaw ache, as spit leaked from the corners of his mouth and dripped down his chin. He stopped dead in his tracks, his feet planted firmly in the salt, closing his eyes tightly and taking a deep breath to try to center himself and regain some semblance of control.
Then suddenly, without any warning, he began repeatedly hitting himself hard in the head with his clenched fist. The impacts made dull thudding sounds that echoed across the empty landscape. A look of pure, radiating anger dominated his face as he struck himself again and again, trying desperately to beat the weakness out of his own skull, to force the invading thoughts away through physical pain.
Finally he stopped the brutal self-abuse and began flexing all of his muscles, tensing his entire body until it trembled with the effort. He opened his eyes and looked down at the ground beneath him, forcing himself to breathe steadily.
"FOCUS!" he yelled at himself with raw intensity, the sound traveling across the blank landscape with nothing to stop or absorb it, echoing endlessly in the emptiness that surrounded him on all sides.
His breathing remained ragged and harsh as he quickly summoned a mirror of ice with trembling, unsteady hands and forced himself to look directly at his burn scar. Resetting himself. Reminding himself forcefully of his purpose, of why he couldn't afford to break down now. He stared at that twisted, discolored flesh for several long seconds, letting the rage build back up inside him, before deliberately letting the mirror shatter on the ground. The pieces scattered across the white salt like drops of frozen rain.
Then he continued his endless trek with renewed, desperate determination burning in his chest.
He walked day and night in an unrelenting march, his hands clenched so tightly against his sides that his fingernails drew blood from his palms, leaving red crescents in his flesh. It only got harder and harder to control his turbulent, chaotic emotions with each passing hour. The isolation was eating away at him from the inside. He didn't sleep willingly anymore, terrified of what stopping and resting might mean for his increasingly fragile mental state. What if he stopped and couldn't start again? What if he gave up?
But eventually, to his great dismay, his body simply ran out of strength completely and he passed out on the rough salt ground, collapsing mid-step like a puppet with cut strings.
After hours of deep, unconscious sleep, his consciousness slowly came back like rising from the bottom of a dark ocean. His eyes opened gradually, adjusting to the light. He was lying face-first in the ground, the coarse salt rough and uncomfortable against his scarred cheek. He took a couple of precious seconds to enjoy the brief moment of conscious rest, his exhausted body grateful for even this small respite from the endless walking.
But he knew he needed to get up and keep moving forward. He couldn't stay here.
So with what little strength remained in his exhausted body, he placed his hands flat on the rough ground and pushed himself up slowly to his feet, his muscles protesting the movement. He raised his face gradually to look ahead and see what lay before him in the landscape.
But when he did, he immediately took a stumbling step backward in reactive shock at what he saw before his disbelieving eyes.
"W-What the fuck," he said in barely a whisper, his voice cracking and hoarse as he looked ahead in absolute horror and confusion.
Only probably ten feet directly in front of him stood a cross, a massive, imposing cross probably ten feet tall, dominating the empty landscape. It was made of some sort of strange red metal that gleamed dully in the light, almost like dried blood given solid form. And strapped to it, nailed to it with crude iron spikes driven brutally through the hands and feet, was a figure that made Cael's blood run ice cold.
"F-Father!?" Cael stammered as he stared in shock at what looked to be presumably his father crucified on the blood-red cross like some perverse religious icon.
His father was completely naked and deathly pale, far paler than usual, almost as white as fresh snow, creating a stark and horrifying contrast against the blood-red cross behind him. His muscular body hung limp and heavy, suspended only by the thick nails driven through his flesh. Blood had dried in dark trails down his arms and legs.
"Father!" Cael yelled desperately, his voice breaking with panic and anguish as he saw his father in this grotesque state. But no response came. His father simply hung there motionless, nailed to the cross, his head bowed low and limp, lifeless or unconscious, Cael couldn't tell which and that uncertainty terrified him.
"Praise Eve, my goddess and savior."
Suddenly Cael heard the chants rising from all around him in low, barely audible mumbles that sent chills racing down his spine. He looked side to side frantically to look and saw that he was standing in the middle of two parallel lines of people. One line on his left, one on his right, each line containing about eight people arranged in perfect formation. All of them were kneeling on the hard salt floor with their hands brought together in prayer, facing toward Cael and the cross in front of him in reverent worship.
They wore identical red cloaks and deep hoods that completely covered their faces in shadow, concealing their identities entirely. Not a single feature was visible beneath those hoods. They repeated that same sentence over and over in perfect, eerie unison, their voices creating a hypnotic, disturbing rhythm that seemed to echo inside Cael's skull.
"Praise Eve, my goddess and savior. Praise Eve, my goddess and savior. Praise Eve, my goddess and savior."
The chant continued endlessly, never stopping, never wavering.
"W-What is going on!?" Cael said as he looked left and right frantically, his head whipping back and forth in confusion and mounting fear. His heart was pounding violently in his chest. None of this made any sense. "WHAT IS THIS!?" he yelled in absolute panic, his voice echoing across the salt flats and mixing with the endless chanting.
When suddenly, a new voice entered his ears from directly behind him, cutting clearly over all the rest of the disturbing chanting. The voice was gentle, warm, achingly familiar, and it made his entire body freeze completely.
"Cael…"
He knew that voice. He knew it better than any other voice in the entire world. It had sung him lullabies, comforted him through nightmares, told him everything would be alright.
It was his mother's voice.