Chapter 11
The Trial of Blood his eyes were solid black, and you could see tiny teeth lining his fingers where they touched our skin.
The photos kept changing as I walked. Each one showed us aging, but with increasingly disturbing imagery. In one, Mikkel's arm disappeared into Rell's back like a puppeteer.
The hallway seemed to go on forever.
Finally, I reached a wooden door. Completely ordinary except for the wet, rhythmic thumping coming from the other side. Like a heart.
I reached for the knob. It was warm. I turned it.
The room was dimly lit, with hundreds of chains hanging from hooks. There was a kneeling woman at the center of the room.
Her arms were stretched upward, bound by heavy chains pulling them into a crucifix. Her head hung forward; a curtain of dark hair hid her face. She was naked and trembling.
"Hello?"
No response, but her trembling intensified.
As I got closer to her, I realized something was wrong with her chest. It had been split open.
It was cracked wide, the skin and muscle and ribs peeled back and pinned in place with small hooks and wires.
Her lungs were pulled out and stretched to either side like wings, still somehow expanding with each breath. Her heart was exposed, beating visibly in the cavity.
The inside of her rib cage was filled with small silver leeches that fed on the liquid spilling from her bones.
I stumbled back, bile rising in my throat. "What the fuck?"
Her head snapped up at the sound of my voice.
The face looking back at me was familiar… her high cheekbones, full lips, the exact same eyes as mine. An older version of the face I saw when I looked at Rell. The face I sometimes caught in my own reflection.
"Mom?"
"Fischer… My boy… My beautiful boy."
This wasn't possible. She'd died in childbirth, that's what Mikkel always told us.
"You're not real!"
She laughed, a wet, painful sound. "Everything here is real, Fischer. That's the cruel truth of the Trial."
I shook my head, backing up a step. "No, no, no, no, no! You died. When Rell and I were born."
"Is that what he told you? That I died giving birth to you…"
"He didn't let me die, Fischer. He kept me. Right here. In your Trial."
"That's not possible. The Trial is generated when a Sacred enters their Awakening. It's not a permanent dimension."
"Is that what the textbooks say? What the SDC teaches? Did you ever wonder why Mikkel knew so much about Sacred biology? Why he left the SDC? What he was researching?"
The chains rattled softly against the walls.
"He was studying Origin formation, how to manipulate the Trial space. How to make it permanent. How to use it as a cultivation chamber." She said, coughing flecks of blood. "I was his first breeding experiment."
"Breeding experiment?"
"He needed Sacred children with tailored Origins. He tried with others before me, but their bodies rejected the modifications. I loved him, Fischer. But what I thought was love was just another one of his manipulations."
"What did he do to you?"
"He implanted modified Origin seeds in my womb. Cultivated you and your sister. When you were ready to be born, he performed a cesarean. But he didn't take me to the hospital."
Her eyes dropped to her exposed chest cavity.
"He opened me up here, in this pocket dimension. Removed you both. And left me, suspended between life and death, to serve as an anchor for the dimension itself."
"The bond… he formed it within us before we were even born."
"Rell… he's already taken her."
She closed her eyes, a tear sliding down her cheek.
"And now you're here, in your Trial. Becoming what he designed you to be."
"I need you to end this, Fischer. For both of us—"
She strained against her chains, the hooks in her chest pulling at her flesh.
"—I've been conscious for twenty-three years in this room. I can't die. I can't live. I just... exist."
"What do you need me to do?"
"Break my chains, and let your worms consume me."
"What? No! I'm not going to—"
"You have to! If you consume me, you'll gain the knowledge I've accumulated watching Mikkel all these years… and you'll set me free."
"There has to be another way."
"This is the Trial, Fischer. There are no easy choices here."
I stood frozen, staring at the woman who had given birth to me, who had suffered unimaginable torture for decades, who was asking me to end her life.
"If I do this,if I... consume you... will I still be me afterward? Or will I become like him?"
"Mikkel devours with rage and hunger. But consumption can also be an act of mercy. Of connection. Choose which kind of parasite you want to be, Fischer."
My hands trembled as I approached her.
The worms beneath my skin sensed her, sensed the power in her.
I reached up and grasped the chains binding her right wrist. I pulled, muscles straining, but they wouldn't budge.
"They're not physical chains, they're dimensional anchors. You need to use your Origin."
I looked at my hands, feeling the worms squirming eagerly.
"I don't know how."
"Yes, you do. The knowledge is inside you now."
I closed my eyes. I could feel them moving through my body, carrying power. I reached for that, letting it rise to the surface of my consciousness.
They flowed down my arms, emerging from my fingertips as thin white tendrils. When they touched the chains, they unraveled them, converting the metal into more worms that joined them.
The chains dissolved. Released from her bonds, my mother collapsed forward, her exposed heart beating rapidly in her open chest.
I knelt beside her. "What now?"
"...Now you must devour me. But not like he would. Not with rage. With mercy."
I hesitated, my hand hovering above her exposed heart.
"It's okay," she whispered. "This is a gift, Fischer. From mother to son. The only thing I have left to give you."
Tears blurred my vision.
"I don't even know your name."
She smiled.
"Gwen. My name is Gwen."
"Gwen… Mother, I'm so sorry."
"Don't be sorry. Be strong. Be better than what he made of you."
I nodded, swallowing hard. Then I placed my hand on her heart.
They fell from my palm, surrounding her heart, spreading through her open chest. They converted her flesh, bone, and blood into pure information.
As they ate, memories flooded my mind:
Gwen, young and brilliant, working alongside Mikkel at the SDC.
Their first kiss in a lab after hours, surrounded by dimensional research.
The moment she realized she was pregnant—with twins—his eyes lighting up with a hunger that she mistook for joy.
The day he brought her to this pocket dimension, explaining it would help the babies develop stronger Origins.
The betrayal when she realized she would never leave.
The birth—if you could call it that—as he cut her open and removed us while she screamed.
Years of watching through dimensional windows as he raised us, loved us, and prepared us for his feast.
The hope she felt when she saw me fight back. When she realized I might be different.
Knowledge came with the memories, the exact nature of Mikkel's Origin. The pocket dimension structure. How to navigate the Trial space.
Most importantly… how to fight him.
As the last of her physical form was converted into worms and knowledge, I heard her voice echoing in my mind.
Choose what you become. The worms can be anything you wish; they're limited only by your imagination and will. Master them. Use them. But don't let them use you.
I stood in the empty room. I could feel the worms inside me organizing the information they'd absorbed, integrating Gwen's knowledge.
Continue… Complete the Trial.