Content Warning: swearing, blood.

The first thing Finn Aurora saw was a corpse. 

          It lay face up next to him on the ground, deathly bluish gray, on the verge of decomposing. Dried blood surrounded the body, the only one of its kind near him. Finn’s sense of feeling came in the form of a dull throb near the base of his skull and his ear, as well as a stinging pain in his calf. He looked down and saw dried blood on his black combat pants; he could feel more leaking from the wound. The wind coming in from outside sharpened the pain and dulled his mind, as he dazedly attempted to apply pressure to his leg and realized his hands were bound behind his back by chains. The next sense that came back to him was his hearing, dull as it was, in the form of the dull hum of electricity. Next his smell; smoke. Finally, blood in his mouth was the first thing he tasted. 

          He looked around dazedly to find himself in a strange building with a glass roof, surrounded by dozens of medical tables like the one he was on. About thirty-five feet away, parts of the walls were partially destroyed, with dark sandy dunes surrounding the building. The sky was a dark cloudless purple, the quiet colors complimenting the mute surroundings. The air around him seemed rushed, the wind being soft enough to be a pleasant breeze otherwise were it not for his wounds. Finn could feel the gray sand shifting in time with the wind, what little of it went into the building scattering around the tables. The mute sound around him was deafening, and yet as his senses came back in full, his hearing could sharply pick up murmuring in the distance, though how far out he couldn’t tell. Whether it was real or in his head, Finn couldn’t tell. He had been awake for all of a minute and felt like he was already losing his mind. This place, it seemed unfinished, like some angry god had cast it away. 

          Finn struggled to remember how he had gotten into this position. He had realized by this point that the wound by his ear was likely due to his captors carving out his tracking chip, which he had only planted just below the skin compared to the others. I’ll hear from Aya about that, most likely, Finn thought. They had taken his gun and jacket, the latter he had only recently bought, which stung. He could tell he had a concussion and at least a cracked rib, though he could not diagnose it without a medbed. 

          Gods, why did I get careless? Finn shook his head, trying to get the thought out of his mind as he laid his head back on the table he was lying on. After squeezing his eyes shut for a few seconds, hoping it was a bad dream, he opened them to see a small occult symbol etched on the table near his arms. It was a carving of a wing, but half the wing was slashed out, replaced with what seemed like metal feathers. 

          The Kor-Vecate! The symbol for Enth Machina! Finn thought to himself. I knew Sovereign had been pushing into the surrounding areas recently, but I never realized they were this far into the Edge. How did they survive? A deal struck? No, they’ve never been good negotiators. Quantity over quality, perhaps, though their numbers were slim the last I checked. 

          From what Finn could recall, Enth Machina had been grafting on mechanical parts and steel in favor of their flesh since the early days of the Sovereign state. This had been in practice of becoming more like their machinist deity, believing it to be the cleanser of the universe and the bringer of their salvation in the next life. Though there were many cults like it in the Edge, they had always been one of the more pitiful ones, barely worthy of their Sovereign record. The galaxy at large had thought they had lost their resources and communication with other sects years ago, but now, Finn realized, they had been staging a return. The job, he remembered, was simple: eliminate all wild daguai from an abandoned nuclear plant on the moon of Anek Viltra on behalf of an anonymous contractor. Anonymous, Finn knew, was the hitch. He knew it was a bad idea to accept contracts with no name and just a reward. It was an unspoken rule for mercenaries, probably the only one any of them took seriously. It had been hard times for him and the others, but he should have known not to do anything that dangerous. Daguai were not anything new for him and his crew, they had handled worse, but they had gotten careless and forgot to scan the area and check for base logs before touching down. No, he had gotten careless. Next thing he knew, he and the rest of the first ground crew had been disarmed and drugged into unconsciousness. Him, Magnolia, and Blip. 

          Finn realized the building he was in was likely part of the base they were supposed to explore, possibly the medical wing. Though he remembered the base’s exterior looking dilapidated upon their arrival, this building looked somewhat refurbished. The job, Finn decided, was a false distress beacon sent out by his captors, a trap. Stupid, stupid, stupid, Finn thought. I’ve been captured by a farce of a belief thought to be gone, and they’ll likely kill me soon. Me and Magnolia and Blip. 

          Finn’s thoughts were cut off by the murmuring he had heard getting louder. He shifted uncomfortably as he stretched his neck out, the cramp worsening as he tried to look at his surroundings. About a hundred and fifty men and women, if he could call them human, were filing into the building, moving around the tables. One of them was wearing his jacket, though the left sleeve was rolled up to reveal a poorly treated arm stub. He could see countless more standing on the rocky hills surrounding the area. 

          They all wore remnants of tattered black cloaks, though he saw some that looked new. Though some murmured, the majority remained silent, seemingly in anticipation of whatever grisly event was about to take place. The key characteristic to all of them, however, were their augments. Where once was skin, now laid poorly installed fragments of exoskeletons and other metallic remains. 

          Quantity it is, then. 

          Finn heard a hoarse voice chanting as they got closer, the source of the voice, a thin yet towering individual, stepping away from the group in a gliding fashion, almost like his feet weren’t touching the ground. A thin, gray hand grabbed his shoulder, a silver ring enshrined with the same symbols as the slab. A hooded man was mumbling at him in a language he couldn’t quite understand; an Edge dialect, most likely. His hood had a tattered red stripe with a gilded outline, though its shine had faded long ago. Where once was another hand was the stub of a poorly done or botched surgery, stitched with wires and bloodied thread to a metal fist. A rusted medallion hung about the man’s neck, with the same symbol Finn now realized was surrounding the outline of the slab he now lay on. 

          The man pulled back his hood to reveal a wizened face scarred by time and slightly sunken in. His right eye and part of his nose were gone along with the skin, replaced with a partially shown metallic skull, though the cybernetic eye had lost its color. Both the skull and his face were marked with what was either dirt or some crushed black dye in small intricate designs. Finn’s eyes drifted down to the devices that served as his legs; one, a thick metal rod fashioned into a flat stub at the bottom. The other, a sharply thin blade tap-tapping the ground with the sound of flint. 

          He grinned at Finn through cracked lips and blackened teeth, producing a small silver chalice from within his robe. A masked individual shuffled towards the man with a similarly colored flask and poured a dark liquid into the chalice. The smell was similar to gasoline, only strong enough that Finn had to turn his head in overwhelming disgust. 

          The man stepped towards Finn and smiled again. “You seem surprised to see us,” he wheezed. “The resurgence of Enth Machina starts with you, and for that you should be grateful.” 

          Wonderful. They’re not even an actual sect, rather they’re acting out their idols’ traditions. “I’d like to congratulate you on your willing sacrifice,” the man continued, with almost a gleam in his dead eye. The man’s voice could only be compared to something like the sound of an engine speaking, as if his vocal chords had been replaced with wires. 

          Not the most outrageous possibility. 

          “Your contribution to the final sect won’t go without my personal appreciation, of that I can assure you,” the man continued. He knelt to meet Finn eye-to-eye, tilting his head a few degrees and letting out a sigh of unfiltered satisfaction. “I am Ser-13, their Sect-Grandlead and ritualist,” he told him. “In the name of the Mechanical Angel, I forgive your trespasses and prepare you for your evolution.” With more speed than anyone would have guessed, he thrust the chalice towards Finn’s lips and forced the putrid liquid down his throat. “Yes, drink, drink!” the man cackled as Finn gagged. “Can’t have you meeting the Angel uncleansed.” 

          As Finn coughed up bile from the liquid, Ser-13 gave a wheezy chuckle. He produced from within his robe Finn’s ID and held it close to his face. “Finn Aurora of the Omagi Sector,” he paraphrased off the small card. “Affiliation: Corsair Galactica.” He looked up at Finn from the card. “Working for Wonderland’s denizens, I see.” 

          Finn’s eyes met the hollow gap of Ser-13’s eye socket as he coughed from the liquid. “Moreso anyone, assuming you have the notes,” he spat. “Why, you need something done?” 

          Ser-13 ignored this. “But you and I both know you have a richer history than some merc of the day coming from the other side of the Edge.” He suddenly drew close to Finn’s ear and hissed, his foul breath causing a shiver down Finn’s spine. “But I know better. I can guess what you were, Aurora. Why this says you’re from some forsaken sector barely any dare travel to. Yes-s-s-s-s, I can guess.” 

          Finn’s heart raced as he spoke. They took my tracker out, and I’m guessing these people are aware of and deactivated the failsafe, he thought. Hopefully they didn’t notice the additions Aya made. Although Aya had told them she had seen and altered countless technologies, he didn’t know if she had seen Enth Machina in action, being that they were smaller in size. 

          Ser-13 withdrew from Finn. “Where’re you really from, Aurora?” 

          Finn took a shaky breath, spitting blood. Whatever had been in that chalice was numbing his body, and he could barely move his arms and legs, which wasn’t helping his concentration. He knew they wouldn’t listen to him, but he had to try for his life. The odds of the rest of his crew finding him and the others was growing slimmer by the minute.“I don’t have to answer anything you ask,” he retorted. “Though I am open to discussion of other ideas. If I could negotiate my release, I think that would be infinitely more beneficial-” 

          “I’m not even going to pretend Aurora’s a birth name, but we all have our reasons,” Ser-13 interrupted him with a dismissive wave, his mechanical arm creaking on its poorly oiled hinge. “So where in Sovereign space did you hail from? I see you as a military grunt, something low-level.” He tossed the ID at Finn’s knees. “Or something else, maybe a lord’s son in exile!” He threw his head back and cackled at the inane idea, joined in volume by the nearest swaths of Machinists. “Doesn’t matter. You’ll be in the arms of our Angel soon.” 

          Here’s an opportunity. “And if I am important?” Finn asked as the laughter died down. “Again, I think negotiation would be better for both of us. Or else you’re wasting time for both of us with this.” Though he had only one eye, Ser-13’s was filled with sudden madness. “If you’re important, which I doubt, then all the better for us. The Angel prefers blood of importance, meant for greater things as it applies to the vision,” he said with a newfound hint of malice. He turned and barked at his underlings in the same tongue as before, making them come forward. 

          As the Machinists began to howl with glee, Finn tried to think, though his concussion and the rising noise was certainly making that difficult. As the underlings surrounded him, one of them grabbed the side of the table, cackling. The other, a hulking brute with no jaw, grabbed the table’s hinges. As they wheeled the tables through the building, Finn could hear chanting from a nearby room in the distance. A sacrifice, he knew. 

          Finn looked up at the brute that was pulling the table along. Unlike the various other injuries and haunting grafts, he had seen from the Machinists, Finn knew this one wasn’t due to any devotion to a false god. Though the wound itself had happened long ago, the skin around it was still bloodred, like it was ready to burst open. He had only seen the type of injury on a face once before, three years ago, during a Sovereign raid he had witnessed. A Sentionari had shot a bandit with the same type of incendiary round, though it had been through the bandit’s eye. 

          Finn didn’t know who this man had been before he had joined this sect, but odds are it was far from the Tsi Border, which meant the Sovereign attacks were getting worse, further away from their space. How long before they hit the larger states, Finn wondered. How long before they were wiped out? 

          As they got closer to the sacrifice point, Finn noticed two other tables being moved. On one of them was a purple-skinned woman with dark hair and yellow eyes in black camo gear. The other table carried a short scaly humanoid with green skin, a pointed head and tattered workman’s clothing. Magnolia and Blip. They both look dazed, like they had been hit with some form of tranquilizer; possibly due to the Machinists not being able to find the same tracking devices in them as they did Finn. 

          They might not understand the nature of the devices, Finn thought. Or maybe they do, and they just refuse to do any real damage to their sacrifices for their Angel. Either way, their devices might still be active, and the rest of the crew might be on the way. It wasn’t the most realistic hope, but it was the only one Finn had, and so he held onto it. 

          Finally, the tables were moved into position in a large auditorium. In the middle was a large rusted furnace, with jagged metal towers holding torches and chains towering out of the ground around it in a half-circle. A patchy scarlet banner waved over the furnace with the same symbol as was on the tables. Surrounding the furnace were rows for the Machinists to witness the sacrifice, with metal drums and horns in the bottom rows. As the Machinists filled in, they began to play the instruments, leading to cheering from the crowd. Above, the roof had caved in long ago, letting the dark sky trickle in what little light it had. 

          The adornments and elaborate designs on the furnace itself had been used a long time ago but was now cast away for circumstances such as this. Considering its origins, Finn could take an educated guess on where it came from: high-class families or nobles, certainly from Sovereign space. In the middle of the furnace’s inside was a horn, with vents on the floor for the flame to come up from. 

          Behind the horn was a carving that caught Finn’s attention above all else, however. Small stars etched in a striped pattern, and in the middle, a creature floating amongst them, a whale. 

          The Cosmic Madonna. 

          Finn’s temple throbbed with pain again, though he knew it wasn’t from the head wound. He forced himself to ignore it, and looked back to the outside of the furnace. Many of the additions looked recent, with scrawled carvings etched into the sides and front. Finn recognized some of the carvings in the form of their Mechanical Angel; the top half of an angel falling from the heavens down to earth, a metallic sheen to her face. He had heard about some of Enth Machina’s ideas in his past, but it had been a long time since then, and he remembered little of their teachings otherwise. 

          As the Machinists surrounded the furnace, they raised their various weapons high and cheered as the underlings pulled the three off their tables and shoved them to their knees in front of the furnace. Above them, Ser-13 strode out from under a booth wearing a small mitre and holding a staff with a red jewel at the top. Draped around his neck now was a medallion with the Kor-Vecate etched into the center. He smiled as he gazed out at his followers and raised his hands, the Machinists’ volume rising in synchronicity. Suddenly, his hands dropped to his sides, and the chants and songs stopped. The underlings by the tables stood the three crewmembers up and pushed them towards the now open furnace. 

          Finn could tell the drugs were wearing off on himself as well as the others, because when he looked at Magnolia, she met his eyes with silent fury. Blip, in contrast, immediately started gnawing at his chains, blubbering incoherently to himself. 

          As Magnolia looked away from Finn and back towards the furnace, she felt a slight vibration in her neck. Good, the ships on its way, she thought. She glanced at Finn again. I’m going to send him to his death for this, the goddamn idiot forgets to check the base logs or run diagnostics and here we are now. He probably hasn’t even realized how or why this happened. They took his chip out, I can tell, but I don’t think they saw mine or Blip’s, else they would’ve done the same. 

          As Magnolia looked into the furnace, she also saw the horn; whereas Finn was focused on what was behind it, she looked closely at where it was screwed to, snaking up to the top by the vents. She could tell it had been recently added like many of the exterior parts. It may be possible that it's loose enough for us to pry it free and push the vents above open. 

          “My fellow acolytes!” Ser-13’s voice boomed over the auditorium. “In contrast with our forefathers’ failures, we have before us the one true sacrifice to free our Angel from her earthen shackles!” He pointed at the furnace below him. “With this vessel, the blackmarked will be stripped of their flesh prisons and delivered as repentance on behalf of our dear Angel.” He bowed his head and breathed deeply. “In the name of wravus agari, we realign ourselves with you, and await your great cleansing of these tainted lands.” 

          As the prisoners started chanting again, the underlings by the tables pushed the three into the furnace, cutting Blip’s leg in the process, causing him to let out a squeal. The underlings slammed the furnace door shut, and the drums started back up. As they looked down at the metal grates, they started to smell gaseous fumes rising. 

          Blip looked up at Finn and tugged on his leg. “Friends are coming, right? Right?” he whined. “I don’t like this place, Finny, please.” 

          Magnolia tapped Blip’s shoulder with reassurance and looked at Finn. “The crews on their way, but I don’t know how long it’ll take,” she told him. “The horn in here looks loose, we might be able to pry it off and push through the vents with it.” 

          Finn snorted. “How do you expect us to just break this open and escape without getting killed? Their entire cult is surrounding us.” 

          “They’re not expecting us to get out of here, maybe we can take them by surprise,” Magnolia responded. “We get out of this auditorium; we might have a chance considering they’re all in here.” She glanced at the horn, then back at Finn. “I wouldn’t be criticizing considering it’s you that got us into this mess with your ignorance.” 

          Finn pursed his lips, wanting to defend himself but knowing to save it for later. “Fine, let’s get this horn off,” he finally said. 

          As Blip climbed onto Finn’s shoulders and started to tug at the horn, Finn had a thought. 

          “They’ll notice the horn being pried loose from the volume,” he hissed. “I don’t think-” 

          He was cut off as they heard laughing from outside coupled with the drums. “They already match our Angel’s voice!” Finn heard Ser-13 bellow. “Truly they are one and the same!” 

          Magnolia looked at Finn matter-of-factly. “Fine enough for you?” she said as Blip began tugging again. The horn hadn’t been screwed on very tightly, both Finn and Magnolia could tell. Though the design of the furnace was elaborate, it was still old and rusted, and though the Machinists had done what they could, the horn wasn’t screwed in tightly. As the rivets popped off one by one, they could hear the cheers from outside grow louder. 

          “Now, let our iron maiden witness our devotion and spring forth from the earth!” Ser-13 screamed, as the drums grew louder. The smell of gas grew stronger as the light from the vents below grew brighter. Magnolia and Finn could see a larger man with a toothless smile and metallic finger spinning a gear next to a tube connected to the furnace; the way the flames were being controlled. There was no way to douse the flames, they knew. 

          “Almost there, friends!” Blip yelped as his fingers worked feverishly to pop off the last rivet. A bead of sweat slid down Finn’s forehead and landed in his eye. As he blinked feverishly, his grip on Blip’s feet began to quiver. “No, Finny, stop!” Blip wailed. “Almost there, please!” The last rivet came off, and so did the horn as it fell into Magnolia’s hands. 

          And then came the distraction they would learn to call the Flare. 

● ● ● 

          As Finn blinked, he found himself drifting among the stars. Streaks of bright greens and blues danced intently around him, weaving through the cosmos faster than he could comprehend. A single strand of red light shot from behind him, wrapping itself around his right forearm. The strand didn’t restrict his blood flow, but he could feel it slowly tightening. 

          ERLAITH. 

          Finn willed himself to turn towards the muted voice, though he didn’t know how he could. The cosmos around him shifted with a vengeance to a dark red littered with oranges. The strand began to heat up exponentially, making Finn wince. The planets around him darkened, as did the stars furthest away, fading from his sight. The source of the voice now seemed less sure to him, as it echoed around in his mind. 

          ANAT SHANIVAR.. 

          The voice again, accompanied by a soundless scream that stung Finn’s ears. He impulsively motioned to put his hands to them but found he could not as the strand grew hotter around his arm. He let out a cry of pain but couldn’t hear himself. As he cried out, the cosmos echoed his pain, thundering all around him. 

          AEV-QUYE. 

          Finn screamed in fear. Though there was no sound, his eardrums felt like they were about to burst. The cosmos around him grew redder and redder as great cracks formed in the planets around him. All of a sudden, the noise of the cosmos burrowed in Finn’s ears tenfold, as the doomed screams accompanied the destruction of their worlds like a symphony of the damned. His body felt as if it was incinerating, his arm imploding from the strand. 

          OLVAUNA. 

          Now the voice could be heard; deep, guttural, and omnipotent, like the cosmos itself was speaking. Finn’s body quaked as nonexistent tears streamed down his face. All of reality felt as if it was melting around him, evaporating like waking up from a dream. Finn’s body felt like it was disintegrating, his mind barely having the capacity to function. 

          ERLAITH. ANAT SHANIVAR. AEV-QUYE. OLVAUNA. 

          The voice became one singularity as Finn was faced with its source, a giant hole in reality itself. Through the pain, Finn suddenly found himself seeing within the hole. A great hand stretched out to him, repeating the phrases once more. Finn looked down in horror to see his arm acting against him, the strand pulling him closer to the hole. 

          Reality around him began to dissolve as the hand stretched out from the hole, his own hand mirroring the harbinger in front of him. 

          “Finn.” 

          The hand stopped. Finn woke. 

About the Author

I started writing winter break. I wanted to get back in touch with writing like I used to when I was younger. I don't really have that strong a writing process, just trying to get back into it. I wrote this because the idea of religion in space interests me. So far the theme would entail totalitarianism and how religion is a tool. This is part of a larger story, and this is meant to set up the universe in which the story is told. Characters and the opening as a whole have changed a lot in my writing the synopsis, and dialogue has been repeatedly edited to sound more accurate to the characters in my head.

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