My angel fumes, “What is this?”

Walking through the corridors of an arched temple, rows of children shuffle at the beat of a masked drum, muffled and dull. In accordance with the days of observance, children trudge along dark halls in wait. Each a muzzled mouth; blind, deaf, and dumb.

My angel mumbles incoherent thoughts.

I do not understand.

Her thoughts break before I make sense of them.

Angel, keep sense.

A piercing creak is heard from above. Light, so intense, so blinding, shocks me. My eyes shut and tears form. A shrill horn is blown. My ears are shot. I dart my hands up; an attempt to shield myself.

Someone swats them away; a Senior perhaps.

As my eyes adjust, and the ringing numbs, I am faced with a portrait.

The Maven.

The canvas encompasses the entirety of the south-end wall. So stretched is this piece, so contorted and deformed is the man pictured, it is difficult to distinguish whether he is as such or just an unfortunate result of botched strokes and mismanagement of canvas space.

I have become accustomed. He no longer frightens me.

“I will not be reprogrammed!” my angel wails.

Seniors file the children along an array of angular tables. They are sat in groups of three. Two are huddled close, while the third is left apart.

I look up. Yellow light pours through a creaking plane. A plane lined above the Maven’s portrait.

Such a dim light still strains me so.

Not once have I been able to resist.

Without fail, I tear.

It disappoints me… immensely.

“I. WILL. NOT. BE. REPROGRAMMED!” my angel cries.

“Let me focus on these two instead,” my angel readjusts herself.

I look down at the two across from me. I sit with the young salmon-haired girl and the small dark-haired boy my angel obsesses over.

Strange that the salmon-haired girl wears no muzzle.

She pats the head of the muzzled dark-haired boy, seeming satisfied with the situation.

My own muzzle bares into the back of my nape.

How much more abuse must my poor nape take?

It itches.

These children bore me, but my angel wants them close. I want to focus on my connection with her, but she focuses on them.

Angel, I want you, not them.

Seniors creep up behind the children with dishes of raw egg and fruits of cacti. They unlatch muzzles and present each child a selection of sharp knives. These are our eating utensils.

I must be careful to break the egg in such a way that its contents do not spill. Children who fail to do so, cannot, and, are not, allowed to eat.

…

I am successful in breaking my egg.

I cup the bottom of its broken shell and tip it into me.

The yolk slides neatly past my pharynx and down my lining into my wanting stomach.

Next is my cacti. As much as I dislike the egg, I enjoy the cacti. With careful precision, I knit my fingers betwixt my cacti’s needles, then tip its extracts into me.

Oh! How refreshing… How lovely.

Across from me, the dark-haired boy failed his egg. He is muzzled again. The salmon-haired girl is muzzled as well. She seems to have failed her egg too. I smirk inadvertently at her.

The dark-haired boy glares at me. I frown at him.

“No! No! I want to get along!” my angel barks.

I avoid his gaze and look up at the Maven. His opus gives me a heavy mind.

Is it a lack of faith that clouds my mind?

“That child, the dark-haired one, will be my path to a clear mind,” my angel urges.

I hate hazy minds. They nauseate me.

I care for my angel and she wants the dark-haired one, whether what she says is true or not, I want to indulge her.

Yes Angel, I am here for you. The boy will be mine.