Lavena's Sacrifice

A Clenchport story for Madness & (May)hem: Day 21

Image: Planet Volumes via Unsplash+

"Why are there so many of them?" she screamed.

"You tell me, you're the one who called them here."

Lavena turned her head to the night sky. Moonlight flooded in through the observatory's roof. The stars in the sky had doubled, but Lavena knew the new lights were not distant balls of burning gas.

They were things that should not be. Unfathomable horrors that lurched ever closer to Earth.

"Well, I suppose if that many answered the call, we must be doing something right," she said.

Lavena looked to her assistant, a lanky kid from the Miskatonic University. She had already forgotten his name.

It starts with a T, she thought to herself.

"Tony, stop staring at the encroaching horrors and fetch me the blood from the ritual," Lavena barked.

Lavena's assistant had a bewildered expression on his face.

"Who's Tony? My name is Peter."

Lavena clenched her blood-soaked fists.

"That's good to know! I’m sure the unknowable gods we summoned from beyond the stars will give a shit right before they kill us.”

The color drained from Peter's face.

"You said we were going to be fine."

"I said we'd probably be fine, but don’t worry, I'll make sure your tombstone says, 'Here lies Peter; he was so concerned with semantics that it got him killed. Now stop arguing and get that blood!"

Lavena picked up a cloth on the table to her left and wiped the blood off her hands. She carefully stepped over the corpses lying on the ground around her.

Each of them was carved with esoteric symbols from head to toe. The kind Peter probably sketched out as part of his schoolwork at the Miskatonic University, though Lavena imagined he usually didn't trace them on human corpses.

Her eyes followed the blood that ran from their wounds, watching as it trickled down their skin and flowed across the floor toward a glass orb sitting in the center of the observatory.

Peter stood over the orb, watching intently as the lines of blood trickled into it, filling the interior.

A singular chime rang through the empty room as the orb reached capacity. Peter looked in the direction of the sound.

"What was that?"

"Just a kitchen timer; I was making cookies."

Peter gestured to the numerous corpses surrounding them.

"You made cookies while we defiled all these corpses?"

Lavena nodded. "Yeah, I’ve got a nasty sweet tooth. Don't act like you don't want one."

Peter lowered his gaze. "Yeah, I do.”

"Grab the offering, and let's head outside," Lavena said.

Peter picked up the glass orb and followed Lavena as she walked to the observatory's parking lot.

The two stood outside, looking up at the night sky. The moonlight flickered like a light bulb about to burn out. Lavena watched thick tendrils crawl across the surface, snuffing out its light. Soon, only the light from the street lamps in the parking lot remained.

A loud hiss filled the air around them. The air shook and vibrated as a trio of shadowy silhouettes descended onto the asphalt before them.

They looked like people, but they were devoid of features. The edges of their bodies flickered and shook like a bad signal on a TV screen.

"I'm glad you got my message," Lavena said.

A low hum filled the air. Peter clenched his jaw as pain shot through his body. Blood trickled from his ears, but he held the orb steady. Lavena was impressed.

"I prepared an offering as a gesture of goodwill," Lavena said, gesturing to the orb.

A screech cut through the air. Peter screamed for only a moment before his entire body exploded into a cloud of red mist.

The orb crashed onto the ground below, sending shards of glass and fresh blood across the asphalt.

Lavena sighed. "I meant the orb, not the kid! I swear, for unfathomable beings, you can pretty fucking dens—"

A black tendril shot out from one of the shadowy figures and wrapped itself around Lavena's throat.

She gripped the tendril and peeled it off her neck. Her face was flustered with rage.

"You're not the ones in control here! You'd do well to remember that," she said, throwing the tendril to the side as it retracted into its host.

A chittering sound filled the air, like a thousand insects crying out at once.

Lavena nodded. "It's very simple. Take me and leave him here. You know I'll fetch a better price."

Another low hum, this one lasting several seconds.

"I guess you could say that love makes you do crazy things. Of course, my motivations are none of your business, so do we have a deal?"

The three figures all pointed to Lavena simultaneously. Her head shot back, and her eyes glowed a bright white as her body levitated off the ground.

She convulsed beneath the flickering street lamps until a white orb shot out from her mouth. Her body went limp and fell to the ground. The orb soared over to the center of the three figures and landed in its hands.

The shadowy silhouettes rose into the sky, and the black tendrils retreated from the moon's surface, letting moonlight bathe the Earth again.

The body of a man materialized several feet above the parking lot. He fell face-first onto the asphalt, landing in the spreading puddle of blood.

He stood to his feet, furiously wiping blood from his face as he spat globs of the sticky liquid out of his mouth.

"Where the fuck am I?" he asked, looking around.

His hands shot down between his legs. He covered himself up and ran behind one of the street lamps.

"And why am I naked?"

Silence answered him. His eyes wandered over to Lavena, who lay motionless on the ground nearby.

"Lavena?"

The man ran over to Lavena and shook her shoulders, but she remained unresponsive.

"Wake up, this isn't funny!" he shouted.

Lavena remained still.

"You can't die; it's impossible! You're cursed like me, you can't be killed. What the fuck happened here?" he asked.

The man stood to his feet and ran inside the observatory. He stopped as he saw the bodies lining the floor inside.

"No, no, you didn't," he said.

He leaped over the bodies and went to the employee's locker room. He easily tore open one of the metal doors and pulled out a pair of pants and a white lab coat.

He walked over to a corded phone that sat mounted on the wall. He picked up the receiver and typed in a flurry of numbers. It rang once, twice, and then someone answered.

"What the hell is going on? Do you have any idea how late it is?"

The man leaned against the wall and stifled a sob. "It's Armitage. Listen, I need to call in that favor."

"Armitage? It’s been years; where have you been?" the voice asked.

"It's a long story. Can you come to the observatory in Clenchport?"

The voice on the other line sighed. "I must ask again, do you know how late it is?"

The man slammed his fist against the wall. "Dammit, Franklin, it's Lavena, something's happened!"

The line went silent for a long while.

"I'll be there in twenty minutes."

The man hung up the phone and immediately collapsed onto the ground. He buried his head in his hands and sobbed until his friend arrived.

---

---

Thanks for Reading! Here’s Your Musical Pairing

Listen to this after reading. Like pairing a glass of wine with dinner.