Day Two hundred and eighty seven - Into the pentagram

I'm sitting down at the table where Viorica laid out the choices for my penance. She is not here with, though, not anymore. I never saw her leave, but she disappeared in the blink on an eye. One moment she sat sadly in front of me, the other she was gone. Now, in front of me, and just ahead there lies a door - it glimmers ominously in the gathering dusk. It beckons to me, and I must enter it, so the final part of my journey begins. Everything that is to come will be worth it. Everything. I walk towards the door, disrobed, bare, nameless, voiceless. I feel the crunch of sand underfoot, feel the dampness of it seep into my bones. Step by step, I forge ahead, and cross the threshold beyond the door. As it closes behind me, I realize I'm back at the wooden cabin again. Baba awaits me inside, sitting down by a fire that burns bright and red. She turns her attention towards me, and after a few moments of silence, broken only by the crackle of the logs, she says 'The girl certainly took her time with you. But, alas, such is her nature. Hope is something that can never be taken away from her.' She senses my confusion, senses the question that my eyes posed. 'For you', she says knowingly, 'it might have felt like moments only, but you were with her for nine months. And your time here will not be short, too. We must wait for the moon to wax and wane, until the time is right. The final part of the ritual sees me becoming the Breaker of Souls. But it's a delicate thing, and all formalities involver must be observed. We are bound to it.'

I can't account for the passing of time here. Judging by what I was told, we'd have to wait for the moon to go through its cycle. It seems as though it happens only a few minutes after we started talking. It's warm inside, it feels cozy, and it will be the last time I'll ever know such kindness. Baba gets up, and bids me come. We exit the cabin by a back door, and we walk out to a secluded meadow, on a beautiful spring day. A fawn grazes lazily, and birds chirp, filling the air with their song. A soft breeze blows, leaving me pinpricked with gooseflesh. 'Consummation', Baba says, 'begins now. It's a consummation of the senses, of the soul, of the flesh. First, you are to enter me and spend your seed there. That act will void you of a part of your vitality. I will put a hold on your penance as we move into this part. Speak now.' My throat feels sore, as if I had not used it in a very long time. I'm barely audible as I first start to speak, but then finally am able to make myself heard. 'Good.', she says, and then proceeds to undress. Everything about her is unappealing, her skin is loose and wrinkled, almost leather-like. Great, sagging breasts fall down to her waist. She laughs, wickedly and loudly. She taunts me and my limp manhood. Then she waves her hand in front of her face, and in an instant there stands a much younger woman, very beautiful, with a pear-shaped body. She speaks with a different voice, and yet it's the same, but it sounds innocent, somewhat naïve still. 'This is me in my youth. Wasn't I beautiful?', she said. She was, and very much alike Viorica. But still I can't manage to eke out a response from my listless cock. Another wave of her hand, and now it's Viorica she assumed the guise of. I feel my blood stir, and she notices it. 'Or maybe you'd prefer to look into your true love's eyes.' She waves her hand, and I know at once it's Sarah, a grown Sarah, an idealized version of Sarah. I feel my cock betray me, as it springs to life. 'Ah', Baba says, 'so it is functioning after all.' But I don't want it to be her, not this way, not this undignified, unholy way. I say no, and she cycles back to Viorica. She walks towards me, and then gets on her knees in front of me, and swallows me whole. I... I never had this done to me. It feels like I'm ready to burst, though she does it for a long time. After she's had her fill, she commands me to lie on the grass, and much like the real Viorica, she gets on top of me, and rides me incessantly. Sometimes she changes positions, and turns her back to me, her long dark sways from side to side, as she rises and falls on top of my cock. Then, in one swift motion, we reverse, and it's now her who lies on the grass, and me on top of her. I plunge myself deep inside her, sometime slow, sometimes hard. She shrieks with pleasure, a devilish laughter echoing from her throat. As I fuck her, I feel her nails biting into my flesh, running down my back, etching grooves on my back that run red with blood. 'This consummation', she asks, 'do you wish it?', and I go in and out of her, and say yes. 'Do you wish it devoutly?', I'm going faster and faster, 'YES.' Wolves bay nearby, the sky darkens. The moon hangs full in the sky. I come with such ferocity inside her, I feel another part of me disappear.

I lay spent on the ground, emptied of almost everything. I am all but an empty shell, a husk of a man. I barely have the strength to talk. I ask Baba, though I cannot see where she is, if I get to see Sarah again before it ends for me here. She says that as I go, so shall she be returned. There will be a moment when both our energies will be in the same path, and there may be recognition. I hear the sound of muffled footsteps, as if the wolves had padded silently towards me. Far beyond my line of sight, I hear the sound of flesh rearranging itself, and soon I see four faces staring down at me. It's Radu, the innkeeper, and his children who broke my faith and wills, Scarlat and Viorica. Baba, too, stands alongside them. 'It is done.', they say. That sound again, but this time far closer to me. I see their snouts growling at me, their eyes redolent with a ravening hunger. They sniff my body with their wet, cold nostrils, taking in every inch of me. I am going to die soon, and I feel happy. Anything for her. Anything. They circle me, slowly, warily. The growling intensifies, they snap at each other. I feel a jaw latching onto one of my arms, and violently tear a piece of flesh away from me. Then another set of jaws rips into my left leg. Another devours a foot greedily, stripping each finger from their sockets with fierce bites. My cock is bitten away. One single solitary tear streams down the side of my face. I utter no sounds, my penance is in full effect. I am being eaten alive, and not even my bones will remain. I am already leaving my body - I look at it as it starts to fade into black. I'm falling, being dragged into the fiery pits of hell. I see Sarah briefly as her light speeds past my descent into damnation. Everything will be worth it. Any price will be worth it. I fall, her light now far gone from sight. I promise you, my love, one day no matter how long it takes, we will see each other again. And we will be together again, together until the light takes us.