Re:Cursed

Dan slumped into his seat as the trolley rolled into motion. He wasn't the only one. All around him, acolytes like himself moaned in exhaustion.

One would think that the simple act of staring to the sky could never be draining. They weren't using their body. They weren't even meant to actively use their mind, so by all means they should still have energy at the end of the day, yet that couldn't be further from the truth.

Kneeling beneath the Great Iris and chanting for hours on end was the most draining thing he'd ever done. He'd willingly take the sermon lessons any day over this.

Yet, even after overcoming the aches in their knees from kneeling, and the sting of their eyes from peering into the star-riddled pupil, their seniors had them return to the rearing wards for the night. Dan was damn jealous of the acolytes that could sleep at the temple.

As he leaned against the window, he fingered the everseeing assists that pinched his eyelids open at all times. They'd been clamped in place for a while now, and yet he still couldn't get used to them. Sleep had become a nightmarish challenge. If not for the exhaustion he felt every night, he was sure his insomnia would be impossible to deal with.

Three months.

Dan could hardly believe only that much time had passed since his naming. So much had happened. Not one, but two Dark Star Events; the death of K'tan; and Nix's disappearance.

That damn girl. Dan scowled as he cast his eyes out the window, to where the Dark Star had been only two weeks prior. Finally gone. It's her own fault she's dead.

Immediately following K'tan's death, Dan had been frustrated at the girl for killing the man without his and Ari's help. That annoyance would have dissipated relatively quickly, as there was no helping that he'd kidnapped her without consent — at least Dan hoped she hadn't tried to bait him — but then she'd gone and avoided them.

Nix should know how dangerous her situation was. She'd just killed a man who had the Fleshsmith's backing. If she didn't want to die, she should have joined Dan and Ari in the safety of the ward rather than gallivanting around on her own. At the very least, she should of remained hidden. But instead, she'd felt it appropriate to come knocking on their ward during the worst corruption crises in over a century… then refuse the safety offered by the overseer.

After that, there had been no word.

Either she was hunted down and killed by the Fleshsmiths, or she'd died when the cult ignited their second Dark Star.

Thoughts of that girl made him frustrated again. After her naming, she'd broken her shell and become a completely different person. Regardless of her status as the 'cursed girl', the determination she'd shown despite her bleak future was admirable. Even being one of the few accepted by a cult immediately, it was not a confidence he could replicate.

And she'd gone and thrown away her life.

When the trolley came to a stop, he was the only one to climb off. A few curious gazes were thrown his way from the other prospective Everseeing Eye cultists, but most were too zoned out to even notice.

He felt guilty, but he didn't want to talk with Ari right now. So instead, he went for a walk.

Dan loved her, but he sometimes struggled to deal with her moping. He understood why; the Omen Artisans still refused to take her on, even as a basic acolyte. And it wasn't even Ari's fault. The Artisans had simply stopped taking in any but the absolute best prospectives in the past year. But constantly being faced with her troubles made his own seem unimportant, yet he found it impossible to brush them aside, not to mention actually speak of them to her.

By all means, Dan was in a much better position than the vast majority of those around him, and he couldn't be satisfied? Saying that he wasn't sure he wanted to join the Cult of the Everseeing Eye to someone who couldn't get accepted into any cult would be like rubbing salt into their wounds. It didn't help that he'd already received his second additive.

Dan-yae-soov

Not only did he achieve a second additive earlier than most others, he had the benefit of it being synergistic with the additive he already had. 'Soov' gave him the ability to cast his voice to those he saw clearly. Considering 'Yae' extended his sight, his direct supervisors were already excited to see his first evolution.

Ari had celebrated with him, but they'd kept it secret from the others of their new ward. Nothing good would come by making them envious. What should have been a happy day was soured by the guilt. Not that he let Ari know how he felt.

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The worst part about his illogical uncertainty was that he didn't even know which cult he'd prefer over the Everseeing Eye. While he didn't like that he had to wear these clamps over his eyes, it wasn't all that bad compared to the concessions required by the other cults.

Once you joined The Scriptures, your skin became a canvas owned and used as the cult saw fit. Both the Technocult and Bodytwisters required the sacrifice of organs. And the Machine God Worshippers… there were rumours that they gave their minds over to their machines.

Compared to them, having to keep his eyes open indefinitely seemed tame.

Despite how tired he was, his legs carried him forward. Eventually, completely unintentionally, Dan arrived at the edge of the crater that had been the Dark Star. It was cordoned off, and he didn't dare step past the warning rails set in place to keep wayward unevolved like himself from getting themselves killed.

The cults had gone to great lengths to suppress the corruption in the safe zone, but the site of the Dark Star itself remained horribly inhospitable.

He gazed down in to the massive pit. Each of the cults had taken it upon themselves to build up different sections. All except the Fleshsmiths. The remnants of that cult had faced no small amount of criticism in recent days.

The first days after the Dark Star collapsed, millions of drones had filled the air. Apparently, they weren't associated with the Machine God Worshippers. They had immediately begun to remove the warped, corrupted remnants and restructured the core skeleton of Coral.

It seemed like they were there to completely restore the surface to the way it previously was without the input of the cults, but at some point, they stopped. Considering the cults were quick to take a slice for themselves, Dan figured it was more than likely they stopped the drones. What wasn't as easy to determine, was whether it was done for the good of the safe zone, or simply the greed of the cults taking more space while it was open.

Dan sat to watch. One group of harbingers ran along a corner of the crater incinerating wooden roots as thick as buildings. They were strong. Each rope of fire spiralling from their mouths warmed his skin despite the immense distance. Yet those roots did not burn easily. As soon as they felt the heat, they coiled and split, spreading ever further. At one point, the roots shot out from the wall and wrapped one of the cultists in its thorny grasp, only for the cultist's skin to peel off and bite through the timber as his friend scorched the base of the growth.

Shivering, Dan averted his gaze.

Sometimes, it felt like he was the only one on Coral that wanted to keep himself whole. He could see the benefit. His attachment for his body made it an incredible sacrifice considering how… frail people were. So many saw as a privilege without downside. But Dan was different.

The idea of losing parts of himself… it terrified him. How much did he have to lose before he wasn't the same person? If there was value in sacrificing parts of his body, then how likely was it that he was losing a part of his soul? It was an unfounded concern; the soul was one's name, and you did not lose your name with your body. But still, Dan wanted to remain whole.

He didn't want to be anything but human.

Giving up his eyelids was nothing compared to his heart, yet he never wanted to do it. He grew nervous with a simple haircut. What happened after it left his body? Did it retain a connection to himself? Could a monster of the Darkness use that against him? Dan had no idea how nobody else could feel the terror of what could happen.

This fear… he knew it was a problem. It clashed with the cults and their desires. Knowing that, he'd kept it secret. Not even Ari truly knew the extent of it.

Dan didn't know how it started. It could have been some experience he'd had when he was too young to remember, or something he'd always had. Maybe it was because of K'tan; having grown up worrying if he was going to be the next kid to be sacrificed, it was hardly surprising he'd soured on the idea entirely.

But he could hardly live his life terrified of one of the core tenets of the cults' way of life. What options did he have? Stick with the cult of the Everseeing Eye, which were one of the lesser evils, or join one of the cults that were certain to demand more. There were only the Fleshsmiths that could somewhat get away without any sacrifices, but… they were the Fleshsmiths. After K'tan, Dan could never join them.

Not that there were many rushing to join them in their current state.

Then there was the path without a cult. If he didn't go with a cult, then there would be no one to demand he cut up his body. But that option was unthinkable. Choosing to go without a cult was to choose poverty. It was to choose weakness, and an early death. Dan wouldn't let his fear sacrifice his future.

Down in the crater, his eyes slid over a shadow. As if reacting to his sight, it recoiled and slid back into a cavern within the metal. It reminded him of the dead girl. How she'd been before she shattered that shell of hers.

Nix would never have been accepted by the cults, yet she'd gained the confidence to attack life even when it supposedly crushed her. She'd somehow killed K'tan. How she'd done that to someone a whole evolution above her and who wasn't held back by curses, Dan would never know, but it did give him reason to not simply give up.

In two weeks, the Trials would take place. It was four months earlier than it had been scheduled — some high creed cultist pulling their weight — but it offered Dan the opportunity he needed.

Doing well in the Trials could land you a sponsorship directly under one of the higher creeds. That offered many benefits one couldn't find in the normal ascent as an acolyte. Particularly, they might overlook his desire to keep his eyelids.

The Trials were designed for the harbingers, but not exclusively. Dan had no chance of reaching the later trials, but he only needed to show his worth in the early portions. At least he hoped. Already, some of those he'd grown up with seemed dangerous. Dan would never be able to fight monsters like Grif.

His determination set, Dan rose to get to work. He may be exhausted, but he would need to push himself further if had any hopes of impressing someone important… even if he already had two good names.

Hopefully the Adjudicator chose Trials that weren't just strength focused. Both for his sake, and Ari's. With the Omen Artisans no longer taking the average acolyte, she would need to prove that she had the skill to be taken on, even if her name wasn't as attractive as they'd hoped.