Chapter 5

Tue, 02 Dec 2025 17:53:41 +0000

The shaman's staff strikes the ground again. Thud.Thud. Thud. Each echo rattles my skull, vibrating up my spine, a warning I cannot ignore. My bare feet scrape over jagged stones and exposed roots. Every step reminds me that I am small. Fragile. Out of place.The guards grip my arms firmly, their hands unyielding. Not yet cruel, but controlled - the weight of authority made physical.We move through the village heart. Smoke from fire pits curls skyward, carrying the sharp, acrid tang of burning meat. The smell clings to everything - to the straw underfoot, to the hide coverings stretched across wooden frames. The villagers watch silently: men and women, warriors and children, their amber and silver-flecked eyes tracking my every faltering step. Some wear intricate tattoos; some carry bone-tipped spears. All watch. None intervene.Ahead, the shaman stops, raising a hand. The path ends at the base of a cliffside, and before me looms the Temple of Skulls.It is enormous - walls of interlaced tusks, timber, and massive animal skulls that line the entrance like teeth. The size is impossible, awe-inspiring. From a distance, it looks like the cliff itself has grown into a building. But as we approach, I realize the carvings along the walls are not merely decorative: intricate patterns of humans, beasts, and spiraling symbols tell stories that feel millions of years old.The shaman gestures, and I follow her into the temple.Inside, the air is warm, heavy with incense and smoke. Shadows twist across massive stone floors. My eyes are drawn upward. The roof is impossibly high, almost lost in darkness, and from it rises a colossal tree, its trunk wide enough to hide several houses in its girth. Branches stretch beyond sight, leaves brushing against unseen heights as though the tree itself pierces the sky. Its bark gleams faintly in the light of torches along the walls.The entire village is here. Hundreds of men and women stand shoulder to shoulder. Their murmurs ripple through the hall like water over stones. They watch. They wait.I cannot understand a word. Not a syllable. Yet I feel the weight of their attention as surely as I feel the heat of the fire. My chest tightens. My heart hammers.Then the chiefs enter.The Older cheif, moves with terrifying authority. Every step measured, deliberate, echoing in the vaulted chamber. Scarred and immense, he radiates control and power. Beside him, younger chief mirrors the older, taller ,leaner but just as imposing. Their eyes sweep over the crowd, then fall on me, a flicker of recognition - curiosity - in their amber gaze.The shaman steps forward. Her hands rise, gesturing in patterns I do not understand. Her voice carries, but it is foreign - a string of syllables my mind cannot process. She chants, and the villagers respond, their voices forming a rising, resonant hum that vibrates in my chest.I freeze, transfixed. Every instinct screams to run, but my legs refuse. The smoke, the scent of burning herbs, the low chant, the immense tree above me - it all presses down, heavy and unrelenting. I am a stranger in a world older than my comprehension.The ritual unfolds before me. The chiefs sit upon elevated stone thrones, observing, commanding. The shaman moves between them, performing gestures with precision - offering something unseen, invoking forces I cannot name. Light flickers across the carved skulls that line the temple walls, creating shifting patterns that make them seem almost alive, whispering secrets of a civilization I was never meant to know.I clutch my arms, trying to steady my breathing. Fear coils in my stomach. Every fiber of me senses that I am part of something far larger than myself, something primal, something sacred. I am alone in understanding nothing.And yet, as I watch the chiefs and the shaman, as I feel the gaze of the entire village, I know - instinctively - that I am here for a reason. I just do not understand what it is.The shaman's voice rises, commanding. Her gestures shift, directing the ritual toward me. The chiefs lean forward, attentive. The hum of the villagers intensifies, resonating in the stone, the air, the tree above.I cannot comprehend the words.But I understand the intent.I am the focus.And the tree - the impossibly tall, impossibly ancient tree - seems to pulse in the shadows as if acknowledging it.I am terrified. I am awed. I am utterly, impossibly small.The shaman approaches me slowly, her expression solemn, unreadable. She extends one hand toward my clothing - torn, mud-streaked, foreign to this world. Her fingers curl into the fabric and tug.I flinch back instinctively."No-no, wait-don't-!"The guards seize my arms before I can take a step. Their grips tighten, holding me in place. Panic flares hot in my throat. My protests spill out in choked English, useless, meaningless sounds to them.The shaman does not hesitate.The shaman's fingers hook beneath the frayed hem of my tunic, her nails sharp as obsidian. I jerk back, a useless reflex. The guards' hands clamp tighter around my wrists, iron bands that lift my arms high and pin them to nothing but air. Cloth tears. Cool air kisses my skin first at the shoulders, then the breasts, then the belly, until the last scrap flutters to the stone floor like a dying bird.I am naked before them all. Hundreds of eyes drink me in: hunger, reverence, triumph. My nipples tighten against the sudden exposure; shame and heat flood my cheeks, my throat, the soft place between my thighs. I try to twist away, but the guards hold me spread, displayed, a pale offering beneath the vast black tree.