The Atonement Of the 13th Order

1: The Sacrificial Lamb

Josiah Washington did not care to celebrate birthdays, or even holidays for that matter. Why should today be any different? “It’s just another day” he would firmly state when offered the customary, “Happy Birthday." Although this day started off very peculiar. He awoke at 6am with Five Finger Death Punch blaring over the speakers on his headboard. He jumped up and slapped the alarm base off his nightstand. Then he heard a loud "thud" on the porch. "What the hell was that?" Josiah wondered as he approached his heavy entry door. He unbolted the locks and opened his door. Nobody was there. He opened the screen door and looked down his driveway. He looked down then and saw an odd wooden box with riveted steel bands around it. An ancient locking device secured the front hasp. Atop the box sat a wax sealed document that looked to be written on skin. "Vellum", Josiah says as he fingers the material. The crimson red wax bore the letters E.W. "This is weird", he says as he snapped the wax seal. He suddenly felt very dark and angry. He could hear voices and growls all around him but saw nothing. The mirror by his front door shattered outward in a shower of fragments.

An ear shattering scream could suddenly be heard directly behind him. It did not alarm him for he oddly prepared for it. And as sudden as the activity started, it stopped. Josiahs eyes turned as black as coal and he heard a demonic voice speaking an ancient tongue he knew he shouldn't understand say, "I have chosen you Josiah." The voice was gone. All activity stopped and his eyes returned to normal. He thought he had been daydreaming until he looked in his clench fist at the ruined piece of material in his hand, burnt enough to be unreadable. It did not matter, he somehow knew, he already knew the message, Josiah just had no recollection of it happening. He set the box on his table and sat on his couch. He fingered the hasp and the magic inside pricked his finger.

The box snapped unlock with a drip of his blood on what looked to be an ancient needle. Suddenly, the rivets snapped open and the box popped open with the vacuum pressure inside the box gasping for oxygen as it opens a half inch. Josiah was nervous after this occurred. He hesitated and finally succumbed to opening the box. He lifted the lid and peered inside the red velvet lined box. On closer inspection he realized it was actually a white piece of cloth soaked in blood. Laying on top was a key much like and antique prison key with a pentagram medallion on one end with a goat head engraved into the center. A crude not read, "Hold onto the key everywhere you go" in what looked to be written in blood. Inside the note was a folded up was of bloody $100 bills. "Sweet" Josiah thought with the wad of hundreds balled in his clenched fist. Josiahs drug habits were recreational on most days but he planned on getting real high tonight. He cut through the alley and suddenly darkness enveloped him. He heard the shrieks again screaming this time at full volume rumbling the ground beneath his feet.

A large black shadow formed in front of him. He thought he was losing his mind as the form began to speak in the demonic tongue, he knew he shouldn't understand but again did. "Your bloodline has betrayed you boy" the demon growled. "Who the hell are you, wait, what the hell are you?" Josiah demanded. Mahound snarled and a circle of hellhounds surrounded him. He warned sternly, "Do not get insolent with me boy, you have no choice but to obey, when the shadows disappear you will be in your new prison for the next 13 years and we will see who is insolent then boy." "What do you mean, what are you talking about?" Josiah asked scared all of a sudden. The shadows disappeared suddenly as the figure in front of him did with one last growled word, "Atonement."

Josiah opened his eyes and was standing face to face with a rusted or blood-soaked door. In the dim lighting it was hard to tell. He reached in his pocket for the key hoping it would lead him out. He put the key in the keyhole in the eye of a goat head doorknob. He turned it and with a loud click the door gasped open. He saw a long bloody hallway. Blood smeared from floor to ceiling. Bones and flesh littered the hallway. No full body could be seen. "Everyone, or one person ripped to pieces, what the hell?" Josiah muttered aloud. Just then, from a room to his right, a blood-soaked woman rushed Josiah screaming like a banshee. "GET OUUUUUTTTTT!!!!!" as she swung a framing hammer at his skull. He stumbled backwards and fell into a pile of what looked to be intestines. He retched and vomited, and swung to the side almost too late before the woman smashed his skull with the hammer.

Josiah knew he had to render her unconscious so he could escape. He swung around the woman blindly hoping to strike home. He misses and sprawls facedown near someone's teeth. He begins to get angry, and turns to rush her again. This time he hit her hard in the chin. His ring tore flesh on her jaw. He watched the woman as she shrieked in horror. Her body writhed in agony and a tortured scream burst from the woman as her skin and flesh aged and decayed right before his eyes. What the hell was that? He frantically grabbed all over his body to ensure he wasn't also decaying. Satisfied he was fine, he bent to pick up the hammer. Down the hallway, Mahound stood motionless watching Josiah's encounter. Josiah glances up in time to see a black mass in the center of the hallway suddenly rush into the darkness at the end of the corridor.

"What the hell is this place?" Josiah thought to himself as he started down the corridor again. He came to a flickering light in the darkness. On the wall he was able to see markings. On closer inspection he realized it was the word "Mahound" written in blood. He also saw slash marks. 13 slashes to be exact. The customary pentagram was also crudely drawn on the wall. He saw a flicker on the floor off to his right. And thanked god when he found a satchel with some supplies in it. He pulled a flashlight from the satchel and turned the beam on. He directed it down the hallway and watched as multiple shadows, too many to count, scattered with the darkness as it disappeared. "Holy shit." Josiah said as he scurried backwards.

Josiah knew he was stuck in some paranormal hell. Purgatory he feared. "Am I dead?" He wondered as he started nervously back down the corridor. He could not turn back, as it just stopped. He had no escape, and no choice but to move forward. As he started his journey, he found himself wondering why there weren't any windows. Knowing his hammer was in his grip made him oddly calm. "Why was this so normal to him?" He asked himself. "Shit, isn't much better on earth these days." He said out loud with a laugh. A small boy suddenly appeared in a doorway to his left. Josiah says, "Hello, where's your mommy?" The little boy laughed with crooked rotten teeth and looked behind him pointing. Josiah almost fainted when he saw what had to be the mother, laid on a table, and filleted open as if she were the main course. A small girl in a blood-soaked white gown stood on a chair beside the table. She was using an electric carving knife inside of the mother's stomach. "There isn't room for another baby." The little girl states innocently, then begins to cackle like a witch.

Josiah stumbled back from the doorway in horror and turned to run. As he did, he fell to his face and slid in the woman's blood. He scurried up and ran down the hall as fast as he could. A man in a butcher's outfit stepped into the hall blocking his way. Josiah stopped scared shitless. "Who are you?" The butcher demands. "Josiah" was all he could say. "Ah, then you are the main course, I've been expecting you. Josiah screams and darts into an open doorway filled with darkness. He runs blindly into the dark for what seemed to be minutes. He stopped and held his breath listening for approaching footsteps. What he heard chilled him to the core. "We are watching you" was suddenly whispered in his ear. He feels hands all around him grabbing and pulling at him. He again flees unashamed of his fear. "What the fuck is going on here? He screams at the darkness as he runs. As he sees the dimly lit hallway ahead, he only hears one more scream from within the darkness, "ATONEMENT".

When he enters the hallway, he expects to see the butcher stalking him. But the hallway is empty and now fully lit. The blood and flesh gone and, in its place, red carpet and marble walls. The doors had golden numbers on them. "What is this, a hotel?" He mutters as he approaches an open room. When he enters, he sees the occupants must have gone out, but they left a feast for kings on the table. Turkey, steak, prime rib, the works! He gorges himself on the food without even taking the time to make a plate. He eats for a few minutes before he hears a dark laughter from the hallway. "Glutton will kill." He looks to the doorway awaiting the voice to become a figure in the room. When it did not come, he turned back to his meal. He looked in horror with his hands inside what was a turkey before, but now was the mother's insides. He had been feasting on the children's mother.

Josiah shoves his finger to the back of his throat gagging himself. He wished he would wake up from this nightmare. He gathered himself and pushed on. As he exited into the hall, he was alarmed to find a young woman kneeling and crying with her hands covering her face. He approached carefully waiting for her to attack. Yet, she looked up at him suddenly and said, "You aren't like the others, are you?" He pondered for a second, "I am stuck here, wherever here is." She looked sideways at him as if he were being facetious. "I am too, these things, kept attacking me." "I am Josiah" he said holding his hand out to help her up. She took his hand and suddenly her face twisted and a demon like form had his hand tightly with one hand and a machete in the other. In the fastest movement Josiah had ever seen, the creature before him swung the blade fast, missing Josiah's throat but biting deep into his shoulder. He lurches back from the agony and screams out in pain. He turns and evades the demon into a lit-up room further down the corridor. He steps inside and see's he is inside some sort of butcher shop.

"Shit" Josiah says when he turns the corner and see's the butcher with his cleaver cutting hunks of what looked like a human thigh and throwing the pieces to dogs. Or, what looked like dogs. These creatures were snarling and salivating heavily. Blood and spit dripped to the floor from the creature's mouths. Josiah looks frantically around before he is discovered for a way around the evil trio. He looks

up and sees an access ladder to what hopefully is an exit to the roof. He begins to lowly ascend. As he climbs the stress to his wound causes it to bleed. Blood runs down his shoulder and arm and begins to drip onto the floor below. "almost there" he thought as the creatures below stick their noses in the air sniffing the fresh blood source. The creatures snarl and turn towards the ladder. Josiah kicks faster as the hellhounds begin leaping up with long sharp fangs covered in blood snap shut inches from his feet. Each leap seemed higher. Finally, Josiah reaches a hatch just as one of the creature's teeth snap onto his foot in searing pain.

The creature below was heavy and tearing the flesh of his foot. Finally, as if by some miracle, the beast let's go and Josiah pushes up through the hatch and kicks it shut behind him. He drags a debris to block the hatch. He looks up and realizes he is back in the same corridor where the demon cut him. His blood still fresh on the floor. He pounds his fist on the wall and sinks to the floor. In seconds he is fast asleep, exhausted from all the chaos. He slept deep for what must have been hours. When he woke up, he was in a new hallway. This hallway appeared to be an asylum. Old, and derelict. Dark and he could feel the entities hating him and wanting him gone. He now knew he was in hell. What mayhem awaited him now?

2: Mayhem

Josiah looked around the area for anything he could use as a weapon. His flashlight was almost dead, and a hammer would be ineffective if that butcher guy showed up again with his pets. As he moved about, he tried to gather an idea of the layout. He began hearing clanging sounds and what sounded like footsteps nearby, but he saw no one. He could only imagine the types of people that were once housed here. Everywhere he looked at dingy, white, padded walls. Smeared with a combination of blood, and feces. Crude chairs used to strap patients down were molded and grimy. Cobwebs strung from floor to ceiling. He moved cautiously through the dimly lit asylum. The windows were dirty but, he could make out the bars on the outside of all the windows. Again, he was trapped inside. He came to a large room that must have once been the dayroom. He walks towards the nurse's station and leans over the counter to scavenge supplies. He finds nothing but a syringe and a bottle labeled, “Valium”. “Jackpot.” He chuckles to himself pocketing the sedative and the syringe.

He thought he could use this as a sleep aid if his suspicions were correct. If so, then every time he slept, he would awaken in another realm. He hoped. He wondered how long he’d been gone. His watch had stopped at 4:27. “That is odd” he thought and scratched his head. He had just bought the watch. “What the hell is this place?” He muttered as he pushed on. He began to hear shouts and maniacal laughter. “Great” he said, “Crazy ghosts” he followed with. He entered the room and saw scrawny, naked, men standing in a circle. He stood up on the table nearby and looked into the center. A pile of nurses and orderlies littered the floor. Bludgeoned to death by what appeared to be locks in socks. An old prison and asylum weapon. They paid him no mind. He climbed down and moved past the herd of crazies. As he opened the door the noise alerted the men. In seconds they were on him kicking and hitting him hard.

He scurried under the bare feet trying to escape the mosh pit above him. He was hit so many times he lost count. His entire body felt like it was bruising. He scampered under a steel table and kicked it over blocking the men from him buying him the precious, few seconds, needed to escape. He rose up and scampered towards the doorway. This place was freaking nuts was all Josiah could think looking in on this nightmare of a scene before him. All laid out before him filthy and starved looking bodies littered the floors. Men and women eating the flesh of the dead before them, laughing maniacally and loudly. The cackles of crazies maddening to listen to. In their twisted minds the meals they ate were gourmet. Demented minds turned cannibal without even knowing it in some cases. Josiah pushed further until coming to what seemed to be a locked corridor.

He pushed the door and it literally collapsed from the frame, disintegrating to dust and splinters. A loud gust of air sucked into the dark space. Josiah turned back to one of the many fires that littered the asylum halls. He lit a leg of a broken chair and fabric torn from his shirt into a makeshift torch. He pushed through the darkened entryway to the corridor. He trudges on through scenes of his worst nightmares. Ahead he is forced to watch one patient undergo a very bizarre form of electroshock therapy as a dark entity shoves a broken electrical line into a tub of water the patient is standing in. The burst of electric blue light and the sudden stench of rotten, burnt flesh fills the narrow hallway. The sound escaping the tortured soul could not be explained other than other-worldly. He ignored the gruesome scenes around him and tried to dismiss them as some horrible nightmare he himself was having.

The walk through this hell seemed to go on for days as he pushed on. He seemed to sink into a routine of ignoring all the horrors around him. “Why the hell is this happening to me?” As he finished the thought, he could hear a sinister and low laugh ahead in the darkness. He came to a doorway that was lit up. He could not believe his eyes. A cot with a bedding rack nearby. He could not refuse. He grabbed at a stack of the linen and thought against it. “Screw that, turn into some fly paper or some shit.” He laid down without a second thought about it and was fast asleep. He awoke abruptly to a loud shrieking. He felt as if he had slept hours. At one glance he realized he had actually slept on blood and feces soiled linens near the incinerator. He could not even find the anger to care. He moved on down the hallway into the darkness. Little to his knowledge, the further he went in distance, he went into the Darkness. The Darkness was drawing him in by the second. He was already deeper connected than he knew.

For what seemed days he pushed on through the asylum and his own personal version of hell. He had picked up anything useful along the way. He hadn’t found much. Finally, he comes to a sealed door. Sealed, from the outside. He is almost mesmerized by this. “What is in there that had to be barricaded in?” Like any stubborn and angry man would, he deconstructs the crudely built barricade. He finally finishes and removes the steel security bar across the steel door. He unlocks the door from the outside with a loud clank and unlocks the long-barricaded door. A woosh of air enters the room as he does. He can feel the Darkness surround him and taunt him. He begins to anger to levels he could not understand. All he could feel is rage when the sound of heavy steel drags on concrete ahead of him. He enters a large room with sparks falling from the ceiling and sees a large brutish man in the corner looking ragged and beaten. The man suddenly turns and enters into a blind rage charging Josiah. Fight or flight came instantly and he figured, “Why argue with myself?” He took off running low and to the right.

He evaded longer than he thought he could and still had to come to face facts, the only way out of here is through that, shit.” He faced his opponent and gaped at the sheer size of the beast in front of him. The steel pipe he dragged along with him had to weigh 100 pounds. Josiah recalls thinking of the damage it would do to his skull if it hit him. Josiah shook off the notion as the brute began swinging the large piece of deadly steel. Josiah saw his way out. He got the brute to turn on him, swinging wildly. Josiah backed away slowly taunting him, until at the right moment, Josiah rolled out of the swing and the brute’s piece of steel struck the live electrical lines sending enough juice to light up the piece of steel like a direct current conduit. An explosion of electricity knocked Josiah 30 feet into the wall injuring him but not stopping him. He slowly rose to his feet and looked to a twitching hulk of a corpse that was once his foe. The stench of burnt flesh filled his nostrils. Death permeated in the air around him and seemed to follow him like a lingering fart.

Josiah approached the hulk of a man and saw a burnt folded document near his body. He unfolded the scorched document and could not understand what he had, but he knew it was important. It said something along the lines of Order of the 13....in some calligraphy and on a type of vellum?? He tucked the document away safely and grabbed an ancient looking keyring off the wall. The first door he came to unlocked with ease with his new keys. He pushed through the door and came to a creepy looking spiral staircase. Being the only light source in the room he decided against the seemingly easy way out and pushed deep into the Darkness. Soon his hand felt the cold steel of a door. He turned the latch and it opened with ease. He saw the soft glow of medical equipment and entered the room. He turned around and the floor was littered with working and broken medical equipment. The air held a stench that only could be described by the word Death. He looked up and saw nurses hanging from what looked like meat hooks. Crudely fashioned to a conveyor line clearly meant for medical laundry. The nurses were all weird, faceless, stitched together like rag dolls. From their wounds, black oil looking liquid seeped to the floor.

Josiah did not want to imagine what hell these ladies went through, or what hell he faced in the room with them. He saw no alternative, he hit the red switch and jumped to grab one of the free meat hooks. He rode the line until it stopped in complete Darkness. He dropped down stumbling for his lighter. He flicks it instead of lights it to gain his bearings. A survival tactic he learned as a young boy. He saw the outline of a door emerge and he pushed through it. He stumbled through the door. He stood facing a man around his age standing naked in the center of the room. Some sort of observation room. A drain at his feet collected the blood from many wounds on his body and the urine he expelled awaiting this hell to end. His body looks as if he has been standing there for an eternity. The wounds that coursed his rugged and lean body were unnatural. Crudely torn edges that clearly came from something inhuman or with a weapon of substantial weight and a shitload of rage fueling the murder. Josiah looked around the room searching for any way out of there that didn’t include this guy right here!

Seeing nothing but an avenue almost touching the man, Josiah sighs and decides to throw something at him. “Shit, mama didn’t raise no fool.” The object he found was just a hunk of fabric. He balled up the blood-stained fabric and hit the man square in the face. The man stands emotionless and motionless. Just the whimpering the man was already doing before Josiah entered the room. Josiah did not pay attention to the several dark shadows above observing the situation. Only the crazy in the center of the room was aware of their presence. Just then, a deep and guttural voice comes through the intercom, “They key you seek lies within the bowels of hatred.” Josiah steps back stunned and looks up finally seeing he is being watched by many things very dark. He catches a gleam of something in the corner of his eye, flashing on the ground like a beacon. He picks up the ice-cold scalpel. He suddenly by some dark knowledge just instinctively knows He lunges at the still man and feels hot warmth suddenly envelope his hand. The scalpel cuts deep and true. The man's bowels fall to the floor without even a grunt. Josiah looks stunned to his victim. The man locks eyes then with Josiah.

Instead of agony and question, the man shrieks with laughter and starts chanting, “LOOK WHAT THEY MADE YOU DO, LOOK WHAT THEY MADE YOU DO, LOOK WHAT THEY MADE YOU DO, LOOK WHAT THEY MADE YOU DO.” Over and over again. Josiah kicks the bowels around and hears a small metallic clink. He moves a segment of large intestine and recovers the key to somewhere better, or worse than here. He turns the key and enters into his next nightmare. He feels as if he is sucked through another time. A very dark and cold time.

3: The slave quarters

All Josiah could tell was he was screwed. He looked around the Darkness and felt something hateful seeping deep into his soul. An anger and rage he personally had never experienced. Rage filled his heart and visions of brutal beatings began to fill his field of vision. He dismissed them as an evil he could fight and keep out of his head. Or could he?