Europa I

  May our desires never know the taste of their own fruit. May our sins never know the reality in which we dwell. May our hearts never know the pain we’ve always felt. May our souls never know the tranquil facade we show. May our bodies never know the ecstasies we might behold. May our minds never know the end of the road.

  This is the creed of the Sisters of Helen. This… this is the mantra that has been hammered into me for the past two years. This limitation of the human spirit out of—out of fear. This is what has become of me. This is the road I’ve been forced on.

  But from everything I know of what ‘the end of the road’ entails, I probably ought to be glad they’ve denied me my forbidden fruit. It’s insanity; pure, unbridled madness—that is what awaits those who succumb to the desires of the Rot, and frankly, I’d prefer not. No, much better to fantasize from a distance than lose yourself to the fantasies.

  Yet it is… particularly hard for someone like me. See, most of the sisters, they’re attracted to men. And so, confined usually to the Sister’s Temple, they rarely see men. And so, in a sense, they have a far easier time containing their attraction to men. Me? Well, I see what I’m attracted to every fucking day. With their tight figures, their big fucking tits and their curvy, perky arses and their soft words and even softer tongues. I’m forced to live amongst my desires—yet I can never have them.

  It’s all so… draining.

  “Sister Europa?” my mentor’s voice called out.

  I turned to my left and the black hood I wore concealed half my vision. Yet with even half of her missing from my view, my heart still turned to envy; Elder Cecelia had a great body. Her bust was round and just the right amount of big, molding to her robes like one of those old statues up in the Garden.

  Not like me. No, I wasn’t blessed with such luck. While she looks like she should—like we all should: a manifestation of beauty, the result of repressed perversion bubbling through the skin—I look like a child that raided their parent’s closet… but just to excuse myself: I blame my underdeveloped breasts on growing up poor. I blame too many things on being poor, but that one I’m particularly angered about. So if I want an excuse, I’ll fucking have it!

  And If we’re throwing out annoyances… she's also eighteen years my senior. It’s unfair, simply put. It is unjust, even.

  “What is it?” I asked, casting a pleasant smile.

  The strands of greying hair hidden beneath her hood swayed a smidge as she moved to speak, but the pink eyes I know all too well bid her hold. “Walk with me a moment, if you would?”

  It wasn’t a question, obviously. So I followed her through the long, dark, brown—and quite eerie—metallic halls of the Temple. They were bereft of any furniture… there were pretty funny rumours about that involving some grinding, believe it or not—but more importantly, they were lacking any bloody windows.

  Now, it’s not like they’ve kept me held up in here—it’s quite the contrary, actually—the Sisters of Helen are all too fond of testing their young ones in the tribulations of a sweaty street. But I wouldn’t mind being able to look outside when I want—without the endless probing of some old cunt trying to see if I was imagining going at it with some spotty butcher’s girl—true story, by the by—and no, I wasn’t.

  “Have you prepared for tomorrow?” Elder Cecelia asked me with that would-be tone of butter and honey.

  I know she doesn’t like me. She doesn’t like my… proclivities. “I’ve made sure to pack seven sets of robes, and I’ve made sure that they’re all different shades of the same shade of red. Underwear too. They’re also a nice shade.”

  A particularly witty crone might croak back that I only need one half of the underwear, and I’d probably laugh too. She wasn’t a witty crone.

  “You know what I mean, Sister.” She licked the bottom of her chapped, whitish lips. “There will be women besides us tomorrow—and even more at Enoch. The soldiers have families too. Plus, I’m not sure the consul’s made plans to erect a temple yet, so there’ll be little hiding away.”

  Hiding away? This fucking cunt. “If you have such little faith in me, why am I going?”

  “Because I am charged with your progress,” she practically sighed. “And so too am I charged to establish a base of operations in Enoch. I can’t exactly leave you behind, can I?”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  Although I bet you’d like to. “You sure you’ll be able to keep up with the sons? I hear they’re… a rambunctious sort. Surely that’ll get your panties—”

  “Enough,” she cut me off, giving me a stern look. “I know you think the worst of me. You’re probably right too, I was raised a proper Christian… and think nothing but ill of your sodomite tendencies. But despite that, despite what I am… we share a unique life—one we certainly were not bred to live… but a life nonetheless. I do not wish to see you succumb to the Rot anymore than I do anyone else. That brings only chaos—no life at all.”

  Poignant. “Thank you, Elder.” I’m not thankful—even if I’d like to be. “As do I.”

  She didn’t buy it. “In case you haven’t gathered, we’re going to the barracks.”

  “What for?” I asked, but I couldn’t help my smile forming. Finally!

  “Your new mask,” she answered. Oh. But then I saw a slight smirk. “And your pistol.”

  YES!

  The rest of the way was a… pleasant daze. I was too busy imagining all the cool lines I’d say as I blasted away some feral imp—and, alternatively, the sexy poses I’d make in a mirror once I had it. TWO YEARS! That’s how long they’ve denied me a fucking gun!

  NO LONGER.

  When we got to the barracks, I practically skipped my way over to the counter where a sister wearing a black face mask stood like a golem. “One pistol please!” I yelled out as I tapped my fingers along the desk.

  “Mask first,” Elder Cecelia corrected.

  Following the elder’s command over mine—which was quite rude—the sister handed me the same old breathing mask I learned to wear two years ago. A black mask, with circular goggles about as wide as a cup, and a long tube extending from the mouth. Apparently, people were oft to say these looked like an Elephant’s trunk, but I imagine most of the sisters saw another sort of trunk.

  Taking hold of the tube, I flicked it towards Elder Cecelia’s crouch—after which she promptly slapped my hand and pointed back to the counter. There, a chest-harness containing a metallic square sprayed black was next to the mask.

  Well that’s nice. The Sisters certainly weren’t skimping out when it came to keeping up the colour code.

  My eyes mirrored that of a hawk’s—or so they say—as I saw the sister at the counter reach under the desk and pull out a red and black bolt pistol, alongside four magazines the length of my fingers. Four. How many fucking bullets do they have? How many imps can I kill with four magazines?

  “So?” Elder Cecelia asked, expecting me to jump in joy.

  I wanted to, too. But I’ve already been a bit of a fool. “How do I load it?”

  “How do you shoot it, you mean.” She motioned for me to grab the gun. “Come on.”

  Walking over to the tight, narrow firing range at the side of the room to the left of the counter, I followed her instructions and jammed the magazine into the rather quaint hole in the underbarrel of the gun.

  It didn’t look like a pistol anymore—more like an… uzi? Is that what they call it?

  “Now raise the gun—with both hands…”

  I did as my lord me master instructed.

  “Flick the safety on the left side of the handle, aim the sights at the target and… click!”

  Thunderous bangs rang out as three black dots appeared on the white target at the end of the range. It wasn’t long after I noticed my hands were literally shaking. God be good, recoil is a bitch.

  Wait just a minute! “Three bullets? What the fuck am I suppose to kill with that? A serpent?”

  “Most usually say snakes,” Elder Cecelia mocked. “And one of those bullets is enough to thread the guts of ten imps. Our true weapon is not a gun, Sister Europa. Remember that.”

  “You say imp, yet chide me on my use of serpent?” I pressed her, ignoring the stupid lessons about our ‘true powers’ I’ve heard a thousand times before.

  She gave me a queer glance. “Imps actually look like imps—or what we imagined them to look like for a few dozen millenia. We had snakes before this world—it was only some imaginative fool who named them serpents.”

  Relenting to the logic behind her words, I threw a look back to the counter. “Do I get another magazine?”

  “Go ahead,” Elder Cecelia laughed. “Try and hit the red this time.”