Each and every hand that was pinning me down on the ground feels like vice grips, digging the wires deeper into my skin while a pool of blood starts to form around my legs and hands.
But I don’t give up to get away from their grasps. “Let me go!” I scream.
“You will be sent to hell,” one of them mutters in a monotonous tone, talking with me for the first time.
“You don’t belong here,” another speaks.
“You are tainted by the devil,” the third one murmurs.
“We won’t let you darken us with your sins.”
They all start to speak these lines over and over again while Geryon keeps chanting some prayers. The more they speak the more my ears start to hurt, along with my head aching.
But suddenly I hear thudding footsteps approaching and I look at my feet side where Agnes was approaching me with a knife in her hand. And the look on her face is enough evidence to tell me she is blinded with an unknown rage that she is going to take out on me.
She pushes away the two women holding my legs and swiftly slashes the knife along the cheeks of the two women holding my arms, making them falter back.
“This ends today! He is only mine!” she yells, drawing the knife back to stab me and I almost accept my fate. But then I hear Eryx’s loud roar as he pushes down Agnes so hard that she hits her head with a loud thud against the nearest pillar.
“Eryx,” I whisper, trying to get up.
He is about to kneel down to help me up but Geryon comes in and kicks him on his chest as he falls back.
“Not today, Eryx. I won’t let you save her today,” he promises. As Eryx leans up, Geryon doesn’t waste another second, kicking him right across his face. I take my chance to move up when the other women suddenly come to me and pins me down like I was previously. My legs and arms are trapped before I am aware, but I don’t care this time and endure the pain.
“Fuck!” I grunt, twisting my arms. Because of the blood covering my wrists, their grips slightly off. I raise my hands and strike them in their eyes with the pointed ends of the wire.
“Ah! God! Ah!” They both scream at the top of their lungs as they back away with blood spurting out of their eye sockets. They hold their hands against their eyes, yelling in agony with the blood smearing their palms and leaking through the gaps of their fingers.
Reaching for the nearest candle, I use that and plunge the end of the fire side against the neck of one of the women holding my left leg.
“Ah!” She screams the same way and falls back. With my one leg free I kick the other woman. The others go towards the injured ones, to help them like they start to care for the first time.
I get up and carefully get the wires from my wrists and ankles. Looking at Eryx, when I see his face coated with blood and bruises, my heart falters with fret and fright. But he gets up, even though he is broken from the hits and punches delivered by Geryon, fighting with his weak muscles.
I make a move to help him in his battle but then from the corner of my eyes I see Agnes’s figure approaching me in stealth mode.
But luckily, I find a knife that Geryon must have dropped and pick it up to defend myself from Agnes. With a sly grin, she walks slowly towards me, holding the knife forward with her eyes wild and wide open.
“He can never be yours, you cunt,” she mutters through her clenched teeth. With every step she takes forward, I take one back.
“There is nothing to love about you,” she eyes me from top to bottom with a disgusted look, “never loved by anyone. Your parents left you, your sister killed herself because of you and your brother-in-law used you for who you truly are…a fucking whore.”
“Agnes…you don’t have to do this,” I mutter.
“Nothing will stop me today, you whore. Not you, not Eryx and not even God Himself.”
She was getting closer but this time I have nowhere else to go when I hit my back against the statue. I look around for a way to escape and then I find a small bowl containing white paint. When I see Agnes about to pounce at me, I throw the paint on her face.
“Oh God!” she shrieks and closes her eyes tightly and loosens her grip on the knife while trying to get the paint away. But she still tries to bridge the gap between us on her instinct. Without hesitation I plunge the knife into her belly, twisting it deeper.
She grunts in utter agony as I see blood oozing out of her stomach followed by a squelching sound. In a few seconds her body starts to turn limp with her hands guiding forward for support. But I move away as she stumbles against the statue and falls lower, making the candles fall over one another like dominoes.
Before I am aware of it, I witness the tapestry catching fire and soon spreading all over it, looking like a curtain of hell fire.
“No! No! No!” I hear Geryon yell with a venomous rage, making me turn around. He looks at the burning tapestry and then at the circle which is now ruined. He looks utterly shattered while witnessing the sight like he is broken deep down to his soul. Behind him Eryx is coughing and trembling on the ground.
“No! Please Lord, no!’’ The other women scream as well and as if they think they can save it from burning, they don’t hesitate to jump into the fire and get trapped by it.
“Ah! Ah!” their screams of pain as their bodies catch fire echo through the Magdalene. Their skin burns as they rush blindly at all places, spreading more fire around.
“What have you done?!” Geryon spits out his words so loud that I can see his veins popping against his neck and forehead with his eyes turning red. “Y-you…you have ruined my path to heaven…you did what the devil sent you here for…”
He looks around the disaster that he has no control over before his gaze meets mine with an insanity that shares the uncontrollable rage he is carrying.
“But this won’t stop me from sending you back to hell, you fucking cunt!”
He charges at me and I prepare myself to use the knife but as I take a step back, I slip on the puddle of blood, falling hard on my back.
He kicks the knife away from my hold, and as I try to get up, he wraps his hand around my throat so tightly that in a few seconds I am struggling to breath. He beckons my body up by his hold while I can’t do anything but surrender to his strength.
“I should have sacrificed you the day you arrived here. I knew you were nothing but a devil’s creation who came to ruin us. And today you have…” he gestures around us as the fire spreads more and more, turning the room hot and smoky that makes me struggle even more.
“But today it ends for you,” he squeezes my throat tighter that my vision starts to blur, “return back to hell because I won’t let you ruin my journey to heaven.”
My nerves race faster with my heart pumping vigorously. With my unfocused sight, I see Geryon’s face turning hazy but I don’t miss his other hand raising the knife in his grasp before he strikes his move at me, while my consciousness takes me to a darker place where I know I will never be returning from.
But even in these final moments my mind reflects the moments I have spent with Eryx, making me wish I could tell him that I have forgiven him…that I should have trusted him…that I love him.
But it was too late now…too late.
