Nous Sommes le Bélier

Down here, we can't even cast a shadow. We've not even the right to that. 

The circular chamber is soundproof and naturally integument; it's deep underground, the very inverse of the empyrean. Down here, below the undercrofts and the catacombs and the crypts and the trenches, it's as if we are millions of miles away from civilization- an alien concept that seems to have no place here. 

Torches line the stone walls of the decagonal structure- just enough to see ahead of you. Along each wall stands a Défenseur, nine of them, draped in blue robing, with the tenth wall occupied by myself, agneau sacrificiel. I am blindfolded, bound, naked, down here Mise an Abyme- but I know why I are here. 

In the center of the room lies the pyre. 

"We are imperfect and unworthy. Nous méritons tout. We are the ram, the black princes, the heretics, and we are here today to once again call upon thee for forgiveness."

We step forward and I can feel the heat along my face. My breathing quickens. 

"I am a sinner and I wish only for a fraction of your forgiveness," I call out. "Recognize my penance."

I step forward 

through the pyre- no pain, none of what I surely thought would accompany me in my journey. The air is dry and arid and harsh winds greet my face. I have been told this is how it would be, and yet I am still disquieted by my shift. Below my barefoot feet I can feel sand, and as I walk forward, still not daring to remove my blindfold, it seems like that wherever I am, it is vast.

"Purgatory," I say, and I am crestfallen.

You're not there.

I tear the blindfold from my face, unsure of what to expect. 

Upon seeing The Passenger of Teeth, Million Legs, Great Lord Abraxas- my god- I fall prostrate, almost crying. I have not been abandoned. 

"Have I been- have we finally been forgiven?"

And Abraxas looks down on me with his thousand eyes, and I can hear his voice like the sound of waves crashing in my head: 

Not even close.