The office was as ancient as its building’s exterior. The support beams, desk, chairs, shelves, and window were aged as if distilled in an abandoned barrel for centuries, holding memories of ancient clerics. Forti believed this building must’ve once been an actual church before the political, religious, cultish organization fashioned it into its shiny, hermit shell. The modern technology and personal memorabilia disrupted the antiquity of the room, but the skinny, dour man leering at her from behind a thin computer screen was an affront to the entire ambience.

The boy went over and whispered something in Mir. Bargel’s ear. Forti didn’t miss how his eyes shifted to Forti. When he stood back up, Mir. Bargel spoke. 

“Thank you Den, you can go. Mir. Forti, please have a seat.”

The boy left without a word. Forti sat down on an uncomfortable, wooden chair with a seat pillow under her as some reprieve. A drag of Mir. Bargel’s finger moved an image of Forti’s form from the screen down onto the desk. 

I guess the desk was remodeled. There’s probably a camera somewhere in here too.

“Mir. Forti, why do you need to meet me to join Sempirege?” Forti took out the same face and voice she used on Den.

“Well, I attend ValorA and the school is amazing and all, but… no one thinks the same way I do, about the other humans. You see, I don’t think they should be allowed in ValorA. They shouldn’t even be in our world. They don’t belong here. There’s probably more who think the same way as I do, but we can’t just talk about these things. If anyone found out we felt this way–“

“They’d attack you,” Mir. Bargel interjected.

“Exactly!” The old man was pleased with himself, and Forti noticed. “So I did my research, and I was so surprised to find out that in Solpolis, there’s an actual Sempirege chapter. And I found out about you. You’re the leader of Sempirege not just anywhere, but in Solpolis, so I thought, or I knew, you could help me.”

Mir. Bargel crossed his arms and gave a thin smile, sitting back comfortably in his grand wooden chair lined with velvet cushioning, especially plush at the junction between backrest and seat. His eyes scanned over Forti’s face, hair, clothes, and posture. She's a naive girl, thought Mir. Bargel. But she goes to ValorA so she’s not all dumb. She could be useful. Forti kept her docile appearance, ignoring the prickle of annoyance that arose with a disciplined fold of her hands.

“How can I help you?” Mir. Bargel finally asked, satisfied.

“I need you to get me into Deodunge.”

The room froze over. Mir. Bargel was no longer basking in Forti’s flattery. Sharpened brows and austere eyes looked with scathing hostility at the young, impudent woman, but Forti knew this would happen. She laid the snare and stood as bait intentionally. 

“Do you know of the assault that happened in Parter a couple months ago?” Forti questioned with a hardened stare, not inviting an actual answer.

“Who are you?” Mir. Bargel demanded.

“I’m sure you’ve heard of it. A person shot someone in the city ring of ValorA. It’s unthinkable, but it happened, and by a suearis no less.”

“I asked, who are you?” Mir. Bargel raised his voice. Its pitch evolved into something that could shatter plates if he shrieked. Forti felt like she rattled a box of snakes, but in the exhilarated way a tamer would to entertain an audience.

“I’m the older sister of the girl that was shot.”

Mir. Bargel became quiet. He didn’t expect that. He thought someone was trying to have him do their dirty work of sending a kid into the dark city, probably to transport drugs, wash, weapons, or other illegal trash. He considered Crassie, his sworn enemy and head of the Bjolsin chapter of Sempirege, sent the girl so he was caught bringing a teen to Deodunge and arrested. With him gone, Crassie would take over his position and be a seat closer to the coveted title of President of the Eastern Edge Sempirege Federation. To be chairperson of all the east side chapters in Ganmecria was their unfortunately shared ambition, and Rula Bargel would hate to lose his chance because he fell for a ploy by despicable Crassie Selch Yipinson. He’d rather slit his own neck.

“She’s in a coma now,” Forti said. Mir. Bargel looked at Forti as if he forgot the girl was there. “I need your help to get into Deodunge to find the suearis who shot her. I know that you go there, so you must have a way to get in.”

“And if I don’t tell you, are you going to threaten me? Say you’ll go report to the police or the Diapo if I say no?”

“I could.” 

Mir. Bargel grit his teeth. 

“But I don’t want to do that.” Forti leaned forward, picking her act back up, but with a firmer, determined inflection. “I do need your help, and I did mean everything I said. I can’t keep studying at ValorA, surrounded by suearis when one of them killed my own sister, and nothing is being done because everyone is so wrapped up in getting along with them. It sickens me. I need your help, and I believed you would understand me.”

The man looked at Forti with furrowed brows. Rula Bargel believed he could read people well, and Forti’s eyes were earnest and burning. The girl wasn’t a threat, just angry and hurt and hungry for revenge. He could still use the girl, but he would first have to put Forti in her place.

“I see. Well, I’m so sorry about your sister, Forti. I do understand you. It’s terrible that such a thing happened to her, and to you and your family.”

Mir. Bargel glanced at Forti’s form still shown on his desk.

“I will help you. I’ll get you into Deodunge to find that nasty, sin-made creature.”

“Thank you very much, Mir. Bargel.” Forti stood up and pushed the chair in. “I wrote my email in the form and will await your contact. Truly, thank you so much.”

“Wait a moment, dear.”

Forti paused near the door. 

“Please, sit back down. It’ll only be for a moment. Just to register you into our system.”

She stood still, deliberating what the screechy man wanted more from her, before returning to the chair. She sat at the edge of it with both feet planted to the ground.

“You left out a lot of things, but you won’t have to worry because you’ll be in my chapter.”

Mir. Bargel rotated the digital form around so it faced Forti. Forti put on a joyful smile, hiding the rising concern on what to tell and what to twist.

“Could you guide me on what specifically the form needs for me to register?”

“Hmmm.” Mir. Bargel could sense that Forti did not want to fill out the entire registration form. He’s a magnanimous person, so he was willing to accommodate the arrogant girl. “Write down your last name. That’s all.”

Forti typed the instructed area instantly and honestly. Mir. Bargel was surprised, but filed the form away and got up, heading to the doorway. Forti stayed seated, clawing her knees as a repulsive, viscous feeling slathered itself all over her skin and inner organs. She felt like she signed her name away to the devil.

“One more thing, Forti. I need to know if you can handle going to Deodunge. It’s not a place for anyone to enter and tour.” Mir. Bargel opened the door, waiting. Forti caught on and stood to walk with Mir. Bargel. She rested her hand on her bag, fingers poised, and turned her body to face her belonging away from Mir. Bargel’s sight.

Instead of going into any other doors in the hallway, Mir. Bargel moved straight for the stone pillar the stairs curled around. 

“Deodunge is an awful place with the worst kind of people. It’s the root of all the crime and sin in this country. I’m hesitant to even send a kid like you in there.”

Forti didn’t see where Mir. Bargel pressed, but the stone slid away with an animated ding, revealing a tubular elevator as shining white as the main hall.

“But I get it, the Diapo isn’t doing anything and letting a suearis roam free, so it’s up to you to get justice for your sister. I’m going to help you get it, but first, I’m going to show you a bit of what Deodunge will be like while you’re still safe here, just to make sure that you’re really ready to go.”

To step into that brilliantly radiant elevator, or run out the place. Forti stifled her nerves that pleaded her to flee. The rage and misery that strangled her when she first saw her unconscious sister lying frigid on the hospital bed, she tried to relive again. 

Remember why you’re here.

She hopped in.

There were only 3 floor buttons. The first two Forti deduced were for the second floor and the main hall, and the lowest one must be for whatever laid beneath the church. Mir. Bargel pressed the lower button. 

“What you’re about to see, you must swear to Pahth you won’t tell anyone,” Mir. Bargel said. “But I know you won’t. You’ll see, you’ll probably like it.”

The hand Forti had resting on her bag slinked its fingertips under the flap. She had a metal mechanical pencil inside a pocket, prepared to take it out from its holster.

“You’re a member of Sempirege now, and I know for students like you, if word got around about that, it would be detrimental for your education. Maybe even your future career. But you don't have to worry, I’ll keep your secret, and no one will find out while you’re in Deodunge.”

The underlying threat had Forti scoff inside her head. She said a small “thank you.”

“How did you know I go to Deodunge by the way?”

“It was a bluff.”

Mir. Bargel was infuriated that he felt any sympathy for the girl earlier. He wanted to throw Forti out for her insolence, but Rula Bargel wouldn’t be in his current position if he acted that temperamentally. The girl came crawling to him, after all. He let out a forced laugh, loud and bold, but Forti didn’t smile to not let it be mistaken for cheekiness. Aggravating the man any further would lead to a pricier bargain later.

As they went lower, Forti heard the roar of a crowd. The descent was swift but Forti was unsure if that was favorable, as the sounds became intelligible the further down she went.

“He’s a spawn of Ornam!”

“Burn him!”

“Skin the demon!”

When the elevator opened, Forti and Mir. Bargel stepped out into a horde of humans howling in a cave. The crowd was a little younger than the general population in the floor above, a blend of a rally and a rave. 

Forti scrunched her nose. The stench of sweat, breath, and body odor struck her like lightning in a monsoon. If there was any ventilation, she couldn’t find it, and she hoped she wasn’t about to follow Rula into the masses.

The two headed to the outskirts of the cave system, and from there, Forti spotted what the people raucously shouted at in utter disbelief. A wooden star cross stood tall in all its imposing glory, and a naked suearis man was tied against it by his waist and neck. His arms were outstretched from his wrists and his ankles were bound but hanging. Fresh red streaked down nearly every inch of his skin and dripped off his toes into a flat pool. His long, donkey ears drooped down, and what should’ve been his tail was docked. An appendage like a cat tail was nailed or stapled to the lower-right ray of the star. Loosely tied around the suearis’ hip was a flimsy loincloth. The faded, rust-colored splotches on the wood told Forti this was not the first nor the only time.

She felt her mind floating away from her body, as if she breathed in too much oxygen, or it was more like her mind was receding into itself, shrinking into its farthest depths that bordered upon the subconscious. She thought she must be going into a mild form of shock. It was surreal to hear and smell and witness a level of gore only seen on screens from movies or shows, but although overwhelmed, she couldn’t entirely disassociate, like how a thick blanket could smother but not dull a knife. In the corner of her eye, she noticed Mir. Bargel, watching her. Immediately aware of her facial expression, Forti swiveled her head excitedly to Mir. Bargel, awaiting an answer to this horror like a thrilled child. Mir. Bargel let out a grin.

“Here we punish the vermin for intruding in our world,” Mir. Bargel explained. “It’s quite violent, but it’s what they deserve.”

Forti nodded enthusiastically.

An amplified cough rang out to quiet the crowd. Forti forced herself to turn back to the scene. A human man stood beside the cross from behind a podium, donning white robes with shining gold print. He was dressed like an orthodox Pahthian priest, but Forti was unconvinced he was one. The same lighting that illuminated the nave was used in the cave to a lesser degree, shadows long and plenty. The herd formed a dense crescent around the man and the cross. His words boomed crisply from the acoustics of the space and because of the microphones and speakers hidden throughout it.

“We must eradicate these abominations born from Ornam’s seed,” the priest preached as he pointed his hand to the tied suearis. “These monsters have sowed a bed of war in our home. They till with vicious weapons, and water with the filth of their heathen ideals and demonic creatures. It is as hideous as it is hilarious to think we are becoming at their mercy. They’re in our schools. They’re in our government. So it is now up to us to protect our human race. During these hard times, the neofairists have the audacity to go after us when we are protecting our families, our lives, and our people. They would rather want us to let those aliens come infest our world and use our taxes to take care of them. And then they persecute anybody who speaks up about it! They persecute us! Their own fellow humans!

The mob booed at the mention of their enemies. 

“But enough is enough. Pahth has chosen and blessed the few of us with the truth, and each one of us must bear the holy duty to spread the gospel, guide the misguided, and punish the evil, even if our own kind goes against us. We must stop these aliens from invading our world and our minds any further, or else our planet is doomed!

“They desire our world, they covet it, because it is a world bestowed upon us by Pahth. This suearis you see before you lived in our houses, ate our foods, and took our jobs, while millions of us are homeless and jobless and starvation is plentiful. But enough is enough! It is time to fight back. This world belongs to us and only us, the true children of Pahth. We won’t let the aliens take it! So what do we do? What can we do? We send them all back to their worlds or we purge them from ours, by any means necessary!”

 The crowd went wild. They screeched at the bloody man on the cross, hurling insults and expletives like stones. Invigorated by their priest, they felt like they could do anything.

 So this is what it’s like, Forti numbly thought. Her hand, opposite to Mir. Bargel, was curled in a fist with whitened knuckles. How is this happening? How did that suearis end up here? She envisioned kidnapping. She saw fear and panic. A van flying down and arms grabbing the suearis. Manic flailing. Brutal beatings. She heard begging and desperation. Taunts and torments given in return. How do I get him out?