When all was quiet and safe, Rachel continued through the mansion. Making sure to watch her step while she kept her camera recording and only periodically turning the torch on and off to illuminate the dark hallways to ensure she wouldn’t trip over. She would stop whenever the floor creaked and groaned, holding her breath as she darted her head around in case the monster had heard her.

  Eventually, she entered the southern wing of the mansion. The hallway was decorated with lavish art of naked men and women with the same tattoo of a crescent moon above their abdomen, which Rachel assumed were esteemed cult members. Most of the plaques on the portrait frames also stated that those portraits were made as early as 2014 or as late as 2012. That would mean the mansion the cult resided in was a permanent base of operations and not a location they recently acquired or took residence in when the owner left for a time.

  Though she knew the cult could have killed the owner and taken control of the mansion. There was also a likely chance that the owner was a member of the cult. That idea scared Rachel the most, as it would imply the cult had wealthy connections and assets they could utilise at any time. Who knew what the cult was capable of?

  As she was examining one of the paintings, a door leading to a hidden room popped open on its own. Rachel shone her torch at the door and waited for a survivor to pop out, only for her to be met with silence. Before she could figure out what was inside, she gagged and coughed as the smell of rotten meat flooded her nostrils.

  ‘Fucking hell!’ She swore before raising her shirt to cover her face to mask the stench. Yet seeing that it could be evidence of what had happened in the mansion, she reluctantly made her way inside the mysterious room. Once inside, she removed her shirt from her face to puke onto the ground at the sight of the bloated corpse strapped onto a flogging horse.

  The body was about to burst, but the latex suit the victim was wearing acted as an enclosed space that trapped the toxic gases. Rachel closed the door behind her to safely examine the body to see what the cause of death could be. From what she could tell, the victim had perhaps been dead for months and was left in the room to decay. The cause of death was unknown, as she would have to open the suit to see for herself. Though if she had to make an educated guess, she believed the victim starved to death as she couldn’t find any evidence of trauma or lacerations.

  Then something strange happened. The smell became more pleasant, almost sweet even. Rachel lowered her shirt to get a good whiff of the bloated meat before her. Without knowing it, she bit her lower lip as she stared at the flogging horse. How her mind raced to what she could be doing on that thing, how her husband might play with her being strapped down.

  ‘Focus!’ Rachel shook her head, trying to focus on why she was there. Worried that her mind drifted to such depravity. She was never a kinky person in her life, and Rachel struggled to understand why she thought of herself being strapped down and used by her beloved. It was like an itch that needed to be scratched, even though that itch should never have existed.

  However, when she turned to her right, she noticed a hierarchical board of sorts. The board showed photos of members holding up signs with their names and birthdates on them. At the very top is a nameless leader going by The Leader. Under him are five members who, in turn, were in control of five members, and under each of them were five more members. From a rough count, there were about 134 members within the cult.

  She couldn’t tell who those people were. She tried to remember the missing people report for any familiar names, but she couldn’t recognise any. However, upon further examination, she noticed that some members had a red X over their names. There didn’t seem to be a reason as to why, as the members with their names crossed out were randomly allocated to different members.

  Murdered? Rachel thought to herself, unsure what it would mean. She could try to pull on a few theories, but that would make her come up short, as she had nothing to ground them.

  ‘You shouldn’t be here.’

  Rachel turned to face the voice. He was an old naked man holding a revolver. His dark skin was covered in ritualistic wounds. He was wearing a penis cage that was put on dangerously too tightly or was too small for his member. This caused his genitalia to rot away as pus leaked between the gaps of the cage. The smell of which was masked by the bloated corpse next to her.

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  Rachel stepped away, keeping her torch light shining on him as she planted her black against the wall. ‘Hey now, I’m not looking for any trouble.’

  The old man raised his revolver and aimed it at her. ‘Who are you?’ He growled, his crackly voice booming with anger, like she was an intruder in his home.

  ‘Rachel Abernack.’ She swiftly replied. ‘I’m looking for someone, my husband. He was missing for months now.’

  ‘Henry’s girl, huh?’ The old man snorted and spat on the ground. ‘Yeah, I know him. Doesn’t change the fact that you shouldn’t be here.’

  Rachel felt glad, excited to know that someone knew her husband. ‘Look, I only came for him. Just tell me where he is and I’ll be gone.’

  ‘Not gonna happen.’ He shook his head. ‘The feast has just begun, and we still need more essence, for the world is changing. Changing to become something better than ever before. It just needs a helping hand.’ The old man checked her out, his eyes examining her as if she were a product about to be bought and sold.

  Seeing that things were about to go south, she held her camera close to prepare herself to use it as a weapon. ‘Look, I know something is wrong here. Something terrible…’

  ‘Terrible?’ The man snorted after lowering his weapon. ‘Your ignorance is showing, Miss Abernack. Do you not know what is happening? The beauty that has been brought to this world?’

  ‘Whatever you brought isn’t good.’

  The old man tilted his head, then smiled as he raised his gun at her. ‘You saw it, didn’t you? You bore witness to the true inheritors of this world. A new-age of hope, a future that can only be brought into existence by us. That was just the beginning, a little fledgling we need to feed. He can’t help it. He is just hungry. But I… I will feed him! I will feed our child! Miss Abernack, I’m sorry, but you have to do.’

  Rachel gasped as the man chuckled, but before he could pull the trigger, a large mass of muscle and flesh grabbed him from behind and slammed him into the ground. Rachel couldn’t get a good look at the horror, but she squirmed as bone and tendons snapped and broke while the beast effortlessly tore the man apart by its swollen fingers to be consumed.

  Seeing that the monster was distracted, Rachel bolted out of the room and in the opposite direction from where the monster was. Noticing another potential meal running away, the monster roared and chased her down. Its heavy fist slammed against the ground and shaking the entire mansion, while its bulging body clumsily barrelled through furniture.

  Sensing the creature was too close, Rachel ducked down before the monster could grab her head, causing it to trip and slide across the floor.

  As the monster stumbled onto its feet and regained its balance. She shone a torch on it to get a glimpse of the horror before her and gasped.

  The monster was a twisted figment of what a human form should be. Its torso was twice as large, while its back was pulsating and oozed green slime. Its arms were as thick as tree trunks and covered in metallic bone. Rachel’s heart raced as she looked at its face, which was just three human heads fused together. The face on the left groaned as its left eye dangled out of its socket, the central head was blind but roared to reveal its rows of bloodied teeth, while its right head, with a warped flower tattoo on its cheek, had its right eye trained on Rachel with eager determination.

  However, doing so blocked her chance of going to her car and escaping the mansion. Desperate, she ran up the stairs to the second story in hopes of evading the monster. The creature let out a scream as it continued the chase, digging its fist into the stairs to climb up and get her.

  Though it gave her time to make some distance from the monster as it struggled to make its way to the second floor. She knew it wouldn’t be long before the beast caught up with her.

  Desperate, she ran to one of the bedrooms and locked the door behind her while her head darted around to look for an escape route. She sighed in relief as she noticed a garbage chute near the bathroom area.

  She ran up to climb in before the hulking monster smashed through the wooden door and jumped down to escape her death by the skin of her teeth. Though she escaped certain death, she let out a scream as she fell into the chute and into the unknown.