Soulless Soul

Chapter 6: The Harvest

The heavy iron doors of the cell block groaned open. The sound cut off the old man’s explanation mid-word.

Rough hands shot through the bars. No warning. No names. Just fingers like iron clamps grabbing Sky by the collar of his tunic and yanking him forward.

He tried to resist. His arms twitched. His legs kicked. It didn’t matter. He was too weak. Too cold and too drained to even put up a resistance.

Looks like my time’s up.

They hauled him out into a winding, torch-lit corridor. The air here was hotter. Thick with smoke and the smell of incense trying and failing to cover the stench of blood. The walls were carved with the same weeping eye symbol, over and over, until it felt like they were watching him.

Sky’s feet dragged on the stone. He couldn’t get traction.

"Let go," he rasped. No one answered.

The corridor opened up.

And the sound hit him first.

Low. Rhythmic. Chanting. Hundreds of voices layered on top of each other, vibrating through the stone and into his bones.

They dragged him into a massive, cavernous amphitheater.

It was round, carved directly into the rock. Tiered seating rose up into darkness, filled with Crimson Apostles in their red robes. Torches burned in sconces, casting jittering shadows that made the weeping eyes on the walls look like they were moving.

And in the exact center of the chamber stood it.

A monolithic altar. Carved from a single, massive block of dark stone. It was taller than a man and twice as wide. The surface was slick, and it pulsed with a faint, unnatural heat. Like it had a heartbeat.

The cultists threw Sky onto the cold slab.

The impact knocked the air out of him. Before he could even gasp, heavy chains slammed down. Runic chains. Dark metal etched with glowing symbols. They locked around his wrists. His ankles. His chest. And his neck.

The moment the metal touched his skin, a freezing sensation washed over him.

Not cold like ice. Cold like absence.

It drained his physical strength in one pull. His muscles went slack. His vision swam. He couldn’t move a finger. He couldn’t even lift his head.

He was entirely paralyzed. A living statue.

Footsteps echoed. Slow. Deliberate.

The High Priest stepped forward.

He was taller than the others. His robe was deeper red, trimmed in black. And his mask — a golden mask shaped like a weeping eye — caught the torchlight and threw it back, distorted.

In his hand: a jagged dagger. Carved from the bone of something ancient. It hummed with life.

The chanting rose. Louder. Faster. The words were guttural. A forgotten language that hurt to hear.

The High Priest raised the dagger high above Sky’s chest.

"For the Dark City! For the Harvest! For the vessel!"

The blade came down.

Sky braced for pain. For steel tearing flesh.

It never came.

Instead, an unprecedented wave of agony ripped through his mind.

The runic chains flared blindingly bright. White-hot. The symbols burned into his vision.

And then Sky watched, in absolute horror, as a translucent, shimmering blue copy of himself was violently ripped out from his physical body.

His soul.

It hovered above the altar, tethered to his body by a thin, glowing thread. He could see himself below — eyes open, mouth slack, chest not moving. And he could see *himself* above — the same clothes, the same face, but made of light and mist.

He tried to scream. No sound came out.

The High Priest laughed behind his mask.

"Yes! Yes! The vessel is pure!" Too pure.

The soul began to drift. Slowly. Toward a pedestal beside the altar. On it sat a single fruit. Crimson. Veined with black. It pulsed like the altar did.

The thread pulled. His soul was being seeped into the fruit. That was the Harvest. That was how they made their vessels.

Sky felt himself thinning. Fading.

And then the roof exploded.

A deafening crack. Stone and debris rained down from above. The chanting cut off in a chorus of screams.

A ground-shaking roar vibrated through the foundations. Deep. Primal. Wrong.

Out of the rising smoke and dust lunged a beast.

Massive. Multi-limbed. Covered in jagged armored plates that scraped against the stone. Bioluminescent yellow eyes. A maw full of obsidian teeth.

The same creature from the black sea.

Sky’s disembodied soul jerked in its chains. He couldn’t control it, but he felt something in him laugh. Hysterical. Broken. Looks like I really am going to die here.

"Impossible!" The High Priest stumbled back, dagger clattering to the stone. His golden mask tilted up. "How did it come here? The wards! The seals!"

The creature ignored him. It ignored the bolts of red magic the other Apostles threw at it. The spells sizzled against its armor and did nothing.

It threw its massive weight into the panicked crowd. Limbs came down. Bodies went up. It began tearing the Crimson Apostles apart with savage glee.

But that wasn’t the worst part.

It opened its massive jaw. Not to bite.

To feed.

From the cages ringing the amphitheater, thin blue lights began to rise. The souls of the other prisoners. The ones who had been waiting. The children. The hollow-eyed men. The beast inhaled them. Greedily. Ravenously. Drawing the glowing essences straight into its mouth like smoke.

The entire amphitheater transformed into a bloody, chaotic slaughterhouse in seconds.

Cultists were crushed underfoot. Their robes tore. Their bones snapped. Magic was useless. The air filled with screams, with the sound of stone cracking, with the wet sound of the beast feeding.

And Sky could only watch. Watch this evil play before him.

Suspended in a state of living death. His body bound on the altar, unbreathing. His soul drifting just out of his own reach, tethered by that thin, glowing thread, as the world tore itself apart around him.

The thread pulled again. Tighter.

The crimson fruit pulsed closer.

One more pull and he’d be gone. Inside it. A vessel. Above him, the beast roared again and slammed a clawed limb down, shattering the altar’s corner. Dust fell into Sky’s open, unblinking eyes.

The High Priest was running now, mask askew, screaming orders no one could hear.

Sky stared at his own hands — soul-hands — translucent and shaking. He didn’t know how to fight. Didn’t know how to move.

But he knew one thing.

If he let that fruit take him, he wasn’t coming back.

The beast turned. Its yellow eyes found him. Found the glowing thread.

It tilted its massive head.

And lunged.

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