The Dark Ritual
"Gha-!" Thunk! Thunk! "Oof! Uh,...." Thud. Blonde hair fell to the stone floor. Blue, stone cold eyes stared at the wall as life quickly drained from him. Four pairs of arms picked up the dying body while the fifth pair held a jar below the man's mouth to catch the escaping blood.
They carried him outside and across the moonlit sand into a nearly completed pyramid. They laid the man carefully on the stone slab, positioning him on his back. Then they cut him and caught his blood into decorated jars similar to the first one that had been pressed gently underneath his lower lip.
Now he watched the sky as they slowly bled him to death. 'Hmmm,,' he thought as his vision of the sky began to blur, 'Is this the agony that a star goes through when it dies in the morning?' His last sight was a man dressed as the dark god.
"Master, we have the blood," the smallest of the five men knelt and held up the decorative jar as an offering to the man who stood imposing in front of him. The man reached down and wrapped his hand around the jar, his long black nails encircled the hard clay container the rest of the way. With his other hand he pulled the lid off with his black talon like nails. He brought the opened jar below his nose and took a deep breath in. The smell of the blonde's blood overwhelmed his senses and a dark grin spread itself over his lips.
"Continue!" he commanded the five men. They scurried to do his bidding and made new cuts to steal the blonde corpse's more valuable organs while the smallest began to wrap the man up with gauze. The master of the five men walked over so he could look down into the lifeless blue eyes. He brushed the hair way from the dead man's face, "Perhaps next time you had best take me seriously when I say you are the chosen sacrifice, dear brother.."
Wind howled and spiraled down from the opening of the not quite finished stone pyramid. It blew out the torches and surrounded the poor dead corpse. The men fled with only the jars of blood in their hands. The dark one stepped back and stared in disbelief at the wind that was now transforming in to a beautiful cat goddess.
"You will leave this place," her silvery voice was threaded with the fury a thousand cats howling and hissing.
The man bowed and lowered his head, "Anything to not anger the gods."
"You HAVE angered the gods!" she yowled with twice the fury as before, "Pray that when your judgment comes your heart will learn to tip to the scales." She turned around once more to see the nearly wrapped corpse, his head and hair were still uncovered. She listened to heavy footsteps retreat back into the open sands of Egypt. She stared sadly into the handsome blue eyes while she gently traced his face with her claw like nails.
She found the four jars, one was empty, she tossed it aside and the hard clay shattered on the stone floor. She took out the contents of the other jars and put them back into his body, his heart the last thing to pass through gauze, clothes, and skin. She bent over and placed a single kiss on his forehead, "Sleep now, you have a long journey ahead of you." She then lightly wrapped him the rest of the way and went back to the night skies leaving the mummified body on the cold stone slab and broken pieces of clay jars on the ground and a small clay jar standing up right by the base of the giant slab.
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