The gates of St. Vitus Cathedral yawned open like a wound in the castle walls, iron bars twisted into thorned crosses. Beyond them, a line of supplicants snaked across the courtyard – dozens of broken bodies hunched under threadbare coats and cracked boots, waiting for judgment.

Dan walked beside Liz, the stiff wind teasing ash from their sleeves. His fingers were crusted with soot. The collar of his coat had been torn deliberately, revealing bruises he'd pressed into his own neck. Dirt caked their boots and faces. They looked like survivors – but only barely.

It wasn't enough to fake suffering. They had to wear it. Let it drip from every gesture. Let it choke their dignity until nothing was left but hunger and devotion.

Dan lowered his voice. "We have to lose everything to get in. No pride. No resistance. Just... faith."

Liz didn't speak, but her jaw set. Her eyes – rimmed red, dirt smudged beneath them – burned with something not quite hatred. Not quite grief. Just a single, steady flame.

Not anger. Purpose.

The Cathedral bells tolled above them, deep and slow. The courtyard reverberated like a giant held its breath. Every time the sound echoed, heads bowed. Lips moved in silent prayer. Some crossed their hearts. Others stared up toward the spire where a screen flickered with static and gold.

At the centre of the plaza, half-shrouded in incense smoke and candlelight, stood a statue of the Flame Father.

Max.

But not.

The likeness had been mutilated in worship – stone blackened and cracked, hollow eyes wide with sorrow. He knelt with arms outstretched, wrists chained, flames licking up from his back. Burned offerings littered the ground around him: letters, bits of cloth, the charred bones of something small and once alive.

Liz stopped walking.

Her voice came low, almost inaudible. "This isn't my father."

Dan followed her gaze, heart tightening.

"No," he said softly. "But he's in there. And he's waiting for us to find him."

Liz nodded, once. Then they stepped forward, joining the end of the queue. No one looked up. Everyone here was already halfway gone.

Screens flickered on as they moved. Old CRT monitors embedded in the courtyard walls hummed to life – each playing the same loop: Max, hunched and shivering in a concrete cell, touching the forehead of a weeping woman. The woman spasmed, screamed, and collapsed into ecstatic sobs. The caption beneath read: "The Flame Father burns for you."

Then another clip. A child walking again. A blind man blinking through tears. A soldier saluting with hands glowing like molten gold.

Each miracle bought with pain.

Dan looked away. Liz didn't.

He could see it in her shoulders – that moment of hesitation. That flicker of revulsion. But she didn't flinch. She absorbed it.

She was already preparing.

He saw her spine straighten. Her hands clench. Her breath steady.

Liz was ready to beg.

To kneel.

Anything to get her Dad back.

…………………

The courtyard smelled of mildew, incense, and wet stone.

Rows of rust-streaked benches lined the cracked flagstones, and sixty hopefuls sat shoulder to shoulder – hunched, pale, quiet. Most were barefoot. Many hadn't bathed in days. The air buzzed with breathless prayers and dry coughing.

Liz sat near the back, shoulder pressed to Dan's. Her coat was thin enough to make her shiver, but the cold didn't touch her. Not really. She'd known worse chills. The kind that seeped through bone. The kind that came with possession.

She scanned the faces around them. A woman cradled a child in a stained blanket, whispering lullabies in between coughs. The child's skin was grey. His eyes barely opened. Nearby, a man with one leg and both hands missing stared forward, lips moving wordlessly, as if he'd forgotten how to speak but remembered how to pray.

Two teen girls clutched each other, eyes raw from crying. One had her wrists wrapped in gauze, dark splotches soaking through. The other mouthed, "We'll be okay, the Flame will fix it," over and over, like a mantra.

It was real. All of it.

Their pain. Their need. Their belief.

And that made it worse.

A metallic click echoed across the courtyard.

The Overseer had arrived.

She moved like a scalpel. Thin, clinical. Her grey robe was immaculate, hemmed with the golden insignia of King Tomas stitched over her breast. Her clipboard was metal. Her pen clicked with the same rhythm as her boots – sharp, deliberate, final.

She didn't speak as she passed the line. She simply looked.

One glance. A tick on the page.

A man stood up, smiling. She shook her head once. "Not broken enough."

He opened his mouth – something hopeful, something desperate— "Go home."

Another woman knelt before her without waiting. "Please. My husband died in the meat lottery. I have nothing left."

The Overseer hesitated. Then nodded. The woman collapsed into herself, weeping.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Liz exhaled slowly.

"I see the pattern," she murmured. "They only want the ruined."

Dan said nothing, but his knuckles turned white where he gripped his coat.

The speakers overhead clicked on with a hiss of static.

Then the voice came.

Low. Hollow. Distorted – but unmistakable.

Max.

Or what was left of him.

"He has taken on your pain. He has burned for your shame. Give him your sins… and you will be remade."

The screen near the gate flashed. A shaky clip of the Flame Father kneeling in a concrete room, his back covered in lashes, a chain around his neck. He raised his hand. A man crawled to him, trembling, sobbing.

Max whispered, "Come to me."

Liz stared. Her throat was tight.

She hated them for using him like this. Hated them for turning him into a goddamn martyr-on-demand. But the hate didn't help. Not here. Not yet.

Dan's breath hitched.

She reached over and took his hand. "I'm ready," she whispered. "I've begged before. I know how this works."

Dan's shoulders started shaking.

He wasn't pretending.

Tears rolled down his cheeks in silence. Tremors ran through his arms. It wasn't just theatre – it was grief. Honest, cracked, buried-deep grief.

Liz squeezed his fingers. And for a moment, she let herself feel it too.

The Overseer was five paces away. Four. Three.

Time to break.

Time to beg.

…………………

Dan fell too fast.

His knees hit stone with a thud that echoed louder than it should've. His hands gripped the hem of the Overseer's robe like a drowning man clawing a raft.

"Please," he choked out. "Please, I need to see him. Just once. I saw him in a dream—" His voice cracked, broke wide open. "He was burning. And wept. And I knew… I knew he was suffering for us. For me."

The Overseer didn't flinch. Didn't look down. She stared straight ahead, as if watching the horizon.

Dan buried his face against her robe. "I need to see him again. Please. I'll give everything. Just… let me kneel before him."

No answer. Just silence.

Liz stepped forward, slow but sure. Her boots scraped stone. Her legs buckled – but not from weakness. From memory.

She dropped to her knees beside Dan.

And it hit her all at once.

Not just the fear. Not just the horror of what might be waiting below. But everything. The years lost. The voice in her head. The dark. The way Dad used to laugh when she pouted, or ruffle her hair when she cried.

"I lost my father," she said, quietly. No performative tremble. Just truth. "He died. Not in a fire. Not in a war. Just… vanished. Gone. And I was alone in that silence for years."

She looked up at the Overseer. Her cheeks were wet now, and she didn't care.

"But when I heard the Flame Father's voice…" Her chest rose, fell. "I felt him again. I felt something break in me – something good."

Her voice cracked. "Please. I'll do anything. Anything. Just let me get close enough to hear him again."

Silence.

The Overseer's eyes drifted to Liz. Then down to Dan. Back to Liz.

Her pen clicked once.

She ticked two boxes on her clipboard.

"You'll do," she said, voice utterly flat. "You both will."

Then she turned.

Other names were called. 28 more.

Sobbing children. Limping men. One girl who'd carved a spiral into her thigh.

Thirty in total.

The rest were dismissed with mechanical indifference. One woman screamed. Another begged to trade her place. The Overseer never looked back.

The chosen were corralled into a separate line.

Liz stood slowly, her hands shaking.

Dan wiped at his face. The tears were drying, but his expression was raw.

They looked at each other.

Neither smiled. There was no victory in it.

Just pain. And purpose.

And the long descent still to come.

…………………

The antechamber felt wrong.

Stone underfoot, walls half-veiled in smoke-stained cloth, the sour tang of bleach in the air. Industrial lights buzzed above, harsh and cold – no candles here, no incense. Just exposed wiring and flickering fluorescents like a hospital that had forgotten it was once sacred.

Dan's boots scraped as they entered. Thirty of them now, shoulder to shoulder, some crying, some praying, all waiting.

The Overseer climbed the steps of a concrete podium that jutted from the back wall like a tumour.

Behind her loomed it.

A golden effigy of King Tomas stood with arms spread wide, cast in divine splendour – his chin lifted, eyes gazing heavenward. Beneath him, on both knees, bowed another figure: hunched, gaunt, burnt black. The "Flame Father." Shackled hands lifted in offering. Chains trailed from his wrists like fireless smoke.

And behind them both, stained glass panels stretched from floor to ceiling – infernos rendered in shards of orange and blood-red. Souls screaming in the fire. A figure rising from ash, glowing white. The message was clear:

Burn. Rise. Serve.

Dan's throat closed.

The Overseer didn't shout.

She didn't need to.

Her voice was low. Precise. Reverent in its restraint.

"You have been chosen," she said. "You are the broken. The willing. The faithful."

Her eyes passed over them one by one. They never lingered – but Dan felt the weight all the same.

"The Flame Father," she continued, "was once a man. But he abandoned that name. He cast away comfort. He cast away dignity. He cast away love. For you."

Liz twitched beside him. He felt her hand tremble, just slightly. His own clenched at his side.

The Overseer went on.

"He suffers that you may be saved. He burns that you may shine. His pain is your blessing. His degradation – your cleansing."

A man in the line began to sob.

Another fell to his knees again.

Dan wanted to scream. Wanted to grab her by the throat and tear the lies out of her mouth with his fists. But he stood still.

Because Liz needed him to.

"You will be stripped," the Overseer said, with no change in tone. "Not as punishment. As mercy. The self is illusion. The body – a vessel. You may yet be reborn."

She stepped down.

Robed guards emerged from the side alcoves, faces blank beneath iron masks. One by one, they handed out lengths of thick, scratchy rope. Black canvas bags. No ceremony. No explanation.

Just inevitability.

A guard approached Dan. Held out the bag.

He didn't hesitate. He took it.

He looked at Liz.

She was staring at the stained glass – at the kneeling figure with hollow eyes and fire dripping from his spine.

Her lips parted. Just slightly.

Dan reached out. Gripped her shoulder.

"I'm here," he whispered.

She nodded. Once.

Then she pulled the bag over her head.

Darkness. Breath. Rope tightening around wrists.

And the shuffling of thirty bare feet as they were led, blind and bound, into the dark below.

…………………

The bag itched against her skin. Every breath fogged the inside with warm, damp air. She could hear her own heart. Her pulse was fast – not panicked. Not yet.

Just waiting.

The ropes chafed her wrists with each tiny movement. She couldn't lift her hands. Couldn't wipe the sweat collecting at her hairline.

She couldn't see a thing.

But the sounds were everywhere.

Bare feet shifting on stone. Fabric rustling. A cough. A prayer, whispered fast in a tongue she didn't know. Someone sniffling. Someone else muttering, over and over, "He forgives, he forgives, he forgives…"

And from far ahead – rising like a hum through the marrow of the steps – came a voice.

Calm. Measured. Ritualistic.

"Thirty candles. Thirty sins. Thirty flames must walk the path."

Liz clenched her jaw. The voice was male, but empty. Like someone who had poured themselves out long ago and kept speaking anyway.

She took a step.

Cold stone kissed her sole. Damp. Uneven.

Another step. Then another.

She felt the slope change. The angle shifted. The descent began.

Her shoulders brushed close on either side – walls. Carved stone. Too tight. It was getting narrower.

And hotter.

The air thickened with it. Heat. Not from machines. Not from sunlight. A more primal warmth – open flame somewhere below. She could smell soot. Ash. The faint iron tang of scorched metal.

Sweat gathered at the nape of her neck.

She staggered once and felt someone brush her arm – Dan. A breath, unmistakably his, close ahead.

She focused on that. Held onto it.

She thought of her father.

Not the statue in the courtyard. Not the sermons or the lies.

The real one.

The man who once fell asleep on the couch with her science textbook in his lap. Who sang off-key when he cooked. Who hugged like the world might end if he let go.

"I'm coming, Dad," she whispered.

No one heard her.

But the heat did.

It licked at her ankles. Slid across her calves.

The stone steps grew slicker. Steam coiled beneath the blindfold, thick and cloying.

Still they walked. Still the spiral wound downward.

She didn't know how long it went. Time had thinned to nothing. Only the dark remained.

And then—

The heat licked her skin.

And the dark swallowed everything else.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.