chapter 5

"Death."

• • •

Althea's eyes widened in shock when she realized that there were eyes staring right at her.

Her heart immediately raced at the sight of the predators staring right at her naked body as she was immobile from the captivity of the crowd.

Drops of sweat poured down her forehead as she continued to stare at the red-lipped eyes staring right at her.

They all looked like they wanted to prey on her, but all she could do was to silently scream from the inside.

When she closed her eyes at the thought of a man leaning forward to lick her on the neck, she screamed at the top of her lungs, putting all of her might into pushing forward to struggle, and that's when she knew she woke up from a nightmare.

Althea's body was bathed in sweat as she rose from her bed, the comforter falling slightly towards her thigh.

The air-conditioned room suddenly felt too hot and suffocating to her as she got up from the bed and went straight to the washroom to vomit.

For some reason, she saw her own lifeless corpse in her dream.

Unknown crowds of people were feasting on her body as she was just there, watching with sunken eyes, the morbid look on her own face.

Althea thought that it was so real that she felt the need to pop a pill and drink water.

After a short while, she realized that it was still too early in the evening when she woke up from that nightmare.

She stared at the darkness of the night sky while silence loomed through the gaping window right across her bed.

For a second there, thoughts started to run through her mind; she imagined that the man Israel was stalking her from across the silent night while they planned to kill her in her sleep.

She couldn't help but doubt the police for not telling her, but she also couldn't say a word to them when there hadn't been anything that had happened through the hours passing.

Althea let out a sigh.

Worries won't take her anywhere if she keeps thinking to herself. She just shook her head and drank a glass of water to dull her throat before she went back to her bedroom.

Because the pill would take a few more minutes to affect her, she decided to go straight to her balcony and take a breather outside.

The cold touch of the wind made Althea feel drowsiness through her eyelids as she closed her eyes at the hollow feeling in her being.

Slowly, just as she was savoring the unfathomable peace of the silence, a rustling sound made her open her eyes.

The moment she did so, her orbs widened in shock as she saw a man face-to-face with her.

His eyes were bloodshot, staring right at her as his face was smudged with the dyed color of red from an unknown liquid. There was a sinister smile that flashed through his lips, as though he had been waiting for an opportunity to meet her face-to-face for a long, long time.

In one instance, Althea screamed at the top of her lungs, ready to run from the balcony when the man was able to immobilize her by grabbing her long curls.

A sharp pain radiated through her head as she felt the man pull the roots of her hair strands.

"W-Who are you? "What do you want?" she would ask, but the man did not reply at all.

Tears were starting to loom through her eyes at the unbearable sensation as she put her hand across his hand, trying to remove it with all her might.

His heavy panting right across her ear was the most traumatic thing Althea ever felt as he dragged her towards the balcony of her own apartment.

It was at that moment when Althea realized that the stupidest thing she had ever done was to go out and take a breather in the middle of the night.

* * *

At midnight, across the night sky turning ever so light, the sky was painted with clouds while no sun was still found.

Althea was now strapped towards a metal plate and, for hours, she had been enduring the eyes of the people staring right at her with those same lustful eyes she had once seen in her nightmare.

Fear continued to crawl up her spine at every step and every second passed. They were all staring at her as though they wanted to gobble her up instantly.

She couldn't do anything but yelp in silence as the gag rendered her deafeningly silent.

She had no idea what those people wanted from her, but she could tell that they were chanting spells and other religious nonsense.

Dressed in all black robes while their faces were smudged with a foreign red liquid, Althea only deciphered that they may be a cult or something.

"Through this woman's flesh and blood, we seek the abundant prosperity of this town. Forsaken the evil doers who have no means in this world and thus, deliver them to hell."

At the center of the said crowd was a man wearing a crown on his head while chanting words from an old scripted book.

She assumed that he was the leader and thought that the others were his followers, following his forsaken orders.

She couldn't believe that such a thing still existed in this world, and of all the people out there in the skirts of their town, how was she targeted?

Why is she the one to be used?

When her eyes darted at one particular man in the crowd, Althea swallowed the lump in her throat.

His saliva was flowing through his mouth as he continued to pant heavily across the group. He stared at her as though he had been starving all along, and if given a chance, he would strike her right across the neck and kill her instantly.

She couldn't help but tremble; the feeling of her heart racing from the inside while she breathed uncomfortably from within.

With each and every second passing, all Althea could wish for was to survive this hell and escape the clutches of these evil doers.

"Behold, the sacrificial maiden! "The one woman who had always been the daughter of the devil and the mixture of all of the sins in the world!" the man suddenly uttered loudly.

"Serve this woman and cleanse our souls with your abundant blessings!"

"Ama, our savior!"

Everyone's hands were raised across the sky as though they were calling forth something from the outskirts of the place, as Althea started to feel a strange feeling from the inside.

In an instance, she felt a sharp pain radiating from the inside of her abdomen while her body struggled uncontrollably from the clutches of the people.

"Clean this woman and serve her to Ama! Let her wed with the undead and we'll bring back the glory days of this town!"

Women dressed in the same black robes started to undress her forcefully across the metal plate and made her wear jewelries for the dead.

They damped her with cold splashes of water across her nook and crook while the others prepared for her to wear an antique white gown with symbols of skulls and foreign substances.

However, what was worse than the idea was the next thing one woman brought up.

She pulled out a tool for holding objects as she put it right across her new polished nails.

"Father, we will remove these forsaken nails for each and every repentance means cleaning of the maiden," the woman commented, making Althea shake her head roughly.

Tears continued to loom through her eyes at the thought of the people wanting to remove her colorful nails from her skin as she remained there immobile.

"Go for the maiden needs to be clean and just," the man uttered, and before she knew it, the unbearable pain right across her fingers started to rip her flesh from the inside.

In each and every finger was a bloodied liquid dripping from within, followed by her eyes widening.

The sound of her nail getting removed from her finger while the people chanted through the sky was the most horrendous thing she had ever felt.

How she wished that she would already die or just wake up from this godforsaken nightmare.

After hours of enduring pain from the people, Althea couldn't even distinguish the time anymore. She only saw the people dressed her up nicely in a white wedding gown as they fixed her body with countless jewels and her wounded fingers with cold water.

Dried blood was visibly through her gown as smudges of dirt and saliva mixed through the fabrics.

She slowly lost hope of escaping as she became lifeless from the morbid cruelty.

A short while after the preparation, the people continued to chant through the surroundings as the sky was now visibly open. Even when she was trying to scream at the top of her lungs before, she realized that there was no use for it because the people behind this so-called cult were none other than the townfolk.

There was no escape.

Althea was barely breathing when she was hoisted up on the metal plate and dolled up for hours by the people. They were praying to a false religious deity called Ama as they marched through the town, going towards the cemetery.

All she could see all this time was the light of sunlight radiating slowly. The Undying Beauty as she was reaching her death.

Just as she rubbed her eyes at the establishment right across town, tears welled up in her eyes.

Undeserving as it may seem, what she had only done with her life for the past twenty-three years of her life was to survive, and yet. . . she still ended up like this.

The feeling of her being carried towards the place stopped for a moment before she realized that they were already there with their prepared tombstone for her.

She blinked her eyes, her heart still racing from within as the people opened the lid of a wooden, rusty pink coffin.

She already knew what was coming next, and all she could do was wait for her death.

Althea closed her eyes as she savored the long and deafening silence.

After being put into the box, Althea's eyes remained closed as she felt her hands on top of each other. She could feel the cold touch of her skin against each other while the rough patches of her wounds were across each and every finger.

Truth be told, everything in her body still aches for different reasons.

She sustained bruises and blisters from the people holding onto her body; bites from those wanting to feast on her; and wounded fingers from those removing all of her nails.

However, what was most nerve-wrecking of all was the unbearable feeling of formalin chemical crawling up her skin, itching and burning her in each and every corner of her body.

While the sounds of people were still outside praying to their gods, she, on the other hand, was slowly diminishing with so little air to breathe.

Tears were rolling up in her eyes as she realized that the people behind all of this were the people she had been meaning to talk to daily.

The townfolk of the whole Berlinda town were in this, and she was the sacrificial lamb they thought was the best to serve.

She never thought that the place she grew up in was a cult to begin with. All she knew was that ever since she was a homeless child, people had always treated her like trash, and when she reached puberty, men started to look at her differently, as though they had always been thirsty for her body while women abused her daily.

She used her body for years to survive in the cruel world, and this has led to what happened now.

Once the sound of the plot hitting the coffin stopped, Althea assumed that she was now buried alive.

Even if she tried to scream with all of her might, there was no use for it because no one would care and no one would come to her rescue.

A chuckle suddenly escaped her lips.

"Right. . .what was I expecting?" she muttered to herself, and before she knew it, tears started to well up in her eyes again as she felt her body gasping for air suddenly.

The lack of oxygen inside of the coffin made her feel suffocated from the inside, her lungs sharply inhaling and exhaling as though in each and every passing second, she could die at any moment.

She held her neck the best way she could as her body struggled from the inside, pounding the lid of the coffin roughly.

Death. . . it looked like this was really her death.

When Althea slowly felt the air from her body come out, her eyes automatically closed as the heat in her body expanded.

The last thing she saw with her eyes open was the bland color of brown before she took her last breath and accepted the consequences of her sin.

"Amor."

But before she could even lose the thread of her life, her eyes suddenly opened in shock as she gasped for air instantly.

The clouded sky immediately welcomed her while a man with lifeless eyes stared right at her. He threw the coffin lid towards the land as he grabbed her forcefully on her wrist.

"Marry me," he uttered, a devilish smirk flashing through his lips.

Israel Sibal, whatever was going through his mind. . . Althea couldn't decipher why he'll go so far as to dig her out from her grave just to take her.