I made my way inside their hideout with the two newbies accompanying me. We reached the mountain range. I saw a giant black iron gate adorned with the cult's insignia on it. The newbies knocked the door seven times and it was opened by a tall guard wearing the same uniform as usual, upon noticing my silver Star cloak he bowed and moved aside.
The ceiling had artificial light and the walls were covered in metal with blood stains on them. Several guards were standing on duty. All of them wore the same outfit but had no stars to represent their rank. Seeing my silver Star on the cloak they all bowed to me as I and the newbies made our way inside.
Thanks to the cloak covering my face my reaction to the inside was masked. My eyes were wide, my jaw tightened upon seeing the futuristic interior, it felt like I had traveled hundreds of year into the future.
'If it weren't for this cloak, they would've noticed my reaction to all this.'
There were giant lifts with several hundred of rooms with self driving vans acting as the sole mode for transportation. Multiple cult members were traversing the complex hidden inside a mountain.
'Here I thought the cult was old fashioned. But how the hell did they got their hands on such technology is intresting to say the least.'
'Well leaving that aside if I actually want to get some info I would have to search their server storage or any type of records these weirdos keep.'
The newbies took me towards a van. Sitting in the van, I instantly noticed the interior which was very premium like it was made up of finest quality of leather. The smell inside the van was similar to a lavender.
The van took off at a speed that was way faster than train I ever had a chance of riding. It was probably using magnetism to levitate off the ground and accelerate at such speeds.
I glanced through the window to my right side. The entire place was filled with unknown technology that humans probably couldn't achieve in a timespan of hundred years. I saw a lot of laboratories with weird names, they had the alphabet 'C' and numbers representing them from 1 to 100. All of them lacked staff expect one, 'C-34'. Unlike other labs it was full of people and its size was bigger than others.
"Senior, we were told to go there and inspect the working of that lab and report it to the higher ups."
One of the newbies pointed towards the lab 'C-34'. I calmly nodded, even though internally i wanted to see what was going on there.
The newbies used a tablet placed in the front of his seat and selected the lab 'C-34' location. The van changed its direction towards the lab and moved towards it. I could hear the voices of the lab staff as our van approached the lab. Finally, I heard the sound of the van's sliding door opening. As I stepped outside the van the voice of the staff were clear, they were saying some biological and mathematical terms i didn't understand.
The newbies walked alongside me towards the lab front door. As the sliding metal door of the lab opened with a 'creak' sound we entered the lab. Nobody was paying attention towards us. Unlike the other cult members, the lab staff were wearing normal lab coats over their civilian outfits. I noticed some staff taking some notes on notepad while observing something through a glass. I quietly left the newbies as they started conversing some of the staff about some trolley, I made by way to the glass window. Seeing me the staff moved out of the way and I finally looked through it,
On the other side of the window I saw a ghost.....no a closer look it was a girl, staring at the white wall in front of her. She seemed too thin to be called a living human. Her complexion was akin to a corpse, saying her skin is pale was an understatement, it seemed translucent. Her black eyes didn't had the gleam of any hope, looking at them felt like looking at utter darkness. Her black hair were tangled and reached down her hips. She was wearing a hospital gown that reached her knees, it looked twice her size.
The entire room keeping her was painted in white, even the bed located in the center was white in colour. There was a bookself whose wood was painted in white colour, it had four huge books in it. On the other side on the room there was a small opening, a small white tray was located near the opening. The only things that weren't entirely white in the room were her jet black hair and black eyes with small dark circles underneath them.
All of this seemed like utter madness. It reminded me of a psychological torture called white room used for prisoners . It's a form of psychological torture used by certain prisons. According to the article I read about it a few years ago, the entire room is painted in white with smooth surfaces, the food given is kept bland without any sort of taste. Bright lights are kept on 24/7 and made sure no shadows are formed. The extreme lack of stimulation can deprive the prisoner of any visual or auditory stimulation.
'What the hell are they doing to a girl!'
I felt amazed at the cruelty humans can do to their own kind. My fists clenched, teeth grinding as a cold rage and helplessness surged through me. I couldn't do anything—and yet I couldn't look away.
As I was looking at her, the newbies called out to me and I hesistantly removed my gaze from the horrifying view and made my way towards them. They were holding some paperwork and reports.
"Sir we have collected what we needed from here."
I nodded to them. I took a glance at the report it was some kind of blood report. We exited that horrifying place and made our way towards the van. As I sar there I couldn't take the girl out of my mind. On one side I was feeling pity for her and on the other side I wanted to laugh at the miserable look of her face.
"The situation of that girl is pretty intresting, isn't it?"
I finally decide to speak to the newbies, on my words they akwardly looked at each other before one of them replied to me,
"Y-Yes, sir, the girl has been here before I started working here 5 years ago."
'So at the bare minimum they have this girl in captivity for 5 years.'
My eyebrows furrowed at the thought of the girl's suffering. Then one of them spoke the words that made me physically flinched,
"I heard rumors about her being here since her birth."
'Since what now!? This is just disgusting, how is she still alive after all those years. She seemed to be around my age'
Then the bell of van rang as I was about to say something.
"Oh well reached the overseer's office"
One of them said as both of them stood up and started walking towards the office door, I followed behind them. The door of the overseer's office opened and two attendants standing near the door took the paperwork and blood reports from the newbies hand and put them on a table.
"Hey silver star one, we remember sending a bronze star one with you, where's he?"
'Well, shit.'
"He reached the facility ahead of me. I had some more extra work to do"
"Very well, all of you reach the cafeteria in a minute, the overseer is going to be there for a speech"
In a hurry we made our way to the van and reached the cafeteria. There was a clear separation for all the ranks bronze, silver and gold. I reached the silver area and sat on an empty in the round table. Suddenly a hologram projection is shown in the middle. A tall man wearing a blue cloak is shown through the projectction upon seeing him all of the surrounding silver star ranks stood up from their seat and bowed to him, I went along this ridiculous act.
"Dear followers of the Cult of Zarathustra, as you may know the cup of reincarnation is going to descend in 8 months. We have started preparing for it in advance but so do our other enemies, many new organisations are rising in Europe, asia and several other parts of the world. All of them have a single purpose to fulfil their selfish wishes with the use of the wish granting cup. We wish to eradicate such evil organisations and grant salvation to humanity. The path of salvation is full of thorns but we must endure this divine trial and succeed in our herculan task. We must achieve it for our eternal love and peace for humanity."
"Now I suppose I have taken enough of your time, let's us provide salvation to non believers by eating their flesh"
As the man said that a knife and fork appeared in my hand and a dish of human liver and eyeballs was presented to me...