Daphania opened her eyes.
A bewildering expanse of light and flowing water greeted her glowing blue eyes.
Gentle beams of light shone all across her body, piercing straight through her gown and irradiating her flawless pale skin.
If these beams of light shone on the body of a regular human, they would have caused the person in question to scream in agony as the affected areas and the flesh around it to burn and vaporize!
Yet when these deceptively beams of light landed on the slim and graceful body of Daphania, no adverse reaction took place. Her skin and body easily absorbed and integrated the energy transmitted by the lethal rays. In fact, it even appeared that she was being nourished by the energy!
Small coils of water curled around the white expanse of the immense chamber. These coils followed random routes and blended and separated at odd and random points.
Despite their oddly mesmerizing patterns, they never came close to hitting one of the many energetic beams of light.
The seemingly-pure water did not seem to be enriched by any minerals. However, their unusual nature became very evident by the soft white glow surrounding the threads of water.
These water flows curled like snakes and followed winding paths towards the woman floating in the center. When they touched Daphania’s skin, the water flowed over the surface but did not drench her gown or leave any drops behind.
As the water continued to nourish her body, Daphania’s consciousness awoke even further from its slumber.
It was as if a dragon had come to life. As Daphania fully roused herself from her deep sleep, an inviolable blue corona surrounded her body.
Instantly, the light beams and the water flows stopped touching her body. The white chamber turned brighter as the light beams disappeared and the water flowed back to their source.
With radiant streaks of pure white hair flowing down her back and waving from a non-existent wind, no one would mistake Daphania as a regular human.
She floated towards the exit more than a hundred meters away under her own power. Aside from wearing a sky blue gown, she wore no other accessories on her body. She did not even wear a comm, which was highly unusual among modern humans.
As her body approached the exit of her extravagant sleeping chamber, a curtain that consisted of flowing water parted before her passage.
Anyone or anything that attempted to pass through the flowing glowing water would have been annihilated without a doubt! Not even energy signals could pass through this curtain.
Even if someone managed to interrupt the flow of water, Daphania would know in an instant.
Her body entered a large and wide corridor that was large enough to fit a shuttle with plenty of room to spare. She floated in the absolute center of the corridor, paying no mind to the delicate statues floating to the side or the pleasant-looking bulkheads that consisted of fine organic white bone matter.
No apparent light source was visible in this lifeless corridor, yet everything was illuminated.
Not that it mattered. Daphania sees without needing to rely on something as limited as the visible spectrum of electromagnetic radiation.
Though her progress was slow and the corridor was long, the glowing woman exhibited no signs of impatience. Even when the corridor started to slant downwards, she effortlessly adjusted her flight and descended until she reached another chamber that was filled with red and shiny liquid.
As Daphania landed on the warm and soothing white deck, her pale white feet stepped forward until she reached a pool the length of a mech.
Droplets of red liquid flowed down from the ceiling and entered the pool. These splashes of red looked exceptionally vibrant despite the rather dim lighting in the large compartment.
Her gown automatically parted from her body without any command and disappeared from existence. The woman comfortably submerged herself in the giant bath of red liquid. As the scarlet water washed over her body, her skin seemed to absorb them as if it was a bottomless pit.
Yet strangely enough, the soft blue corona that surrounded her body was still visible. It was as if nothing could ever obscure her form.
A small vortex came into existence as she settled in the middle of the pool. Her body was absorbing more than her entire body volume with each passing second. Her intake increased so much that the shower of reddish drops grew more intense.
As her submerged body calmly floated in the warm and comfortable liquids, she tilted her body backwards and looked up at the high vaulted ceiling.
A bizarre array of bone struts floated just below the ceiling. These spine-like bones criss-crossed each other in no discerning pattern.
Yet that was not the strangest part about them. Several human bodies hung from these bone lances! Each of the long bone struts pierced straight through the hearts of these suffering men and women.
Their black gowns were drenched with their own blood. Drops of rich red blood poured directly from the holes in their chest at a surprisingly stable frequency before falling into the giant pool below.
Such fatal wounds should have killed any humans, but for some ominous reason, these bodies were still alive. Worse yet, they were completely conscious and perpetually locked in constant agony!
Their mouths gaped as soundless screams escaped their throats. No matter how hard they tried to express their suffering, their throats did not release a single sound, lest they disturbed Daphania’s bathing ritual.
The inhuman display did not disturb Daphania’s sensibilities. Instead, she saw beauty in the tortuous array. The angles of the bone struts along with the seemingly patterns of men and women, young and old, highborn or lowborn all followed mysterious rules that caused her to become inspired.
It was a great way to start a new day.
After cleansing her body, mind and soul of filth with the lifeblood of human sacrifices, Daphania floated above the pool of red. The droplets that fell towards her body diverted their path and avoided crossing through her glowing blue corona, at least at first.
Instead, the red rain no longer dropped into the pool, but gathered together behind her body and slowly formed into a shifting blob of liquid.
More blood rained from above. More blood entered the concentrated ball. External pressure acted on the ball, causing the blood to concentrate and compress into a smaller volume of space.
The ball grew smaller, thicker, darker and more mysterious. After a few minutes of compression, the near-solid ball suddenly stopped growing denser.
Instead, it began to expand. It elongated until it matched and exceeded Daphania’s length.
Thee dark red mass of condensed blood then began to flow forward and envelop her pristine body, transforming into a regal red dress that featured an exaggeratingly tall rear neck collar that flowed through her white locks of hair without interruption and reached a height that fanned out at least a head’s height above the top of her skull.
Two flowing masses of red stretched from both sides of her back. The more liquid and malleable blood formed into unstable-looking wings that looked a few steps away from collapsing, yet constantly maintained their form for some inexplicable reason.
Though her dress had fully taken shape, she needed to don one more item in order to complete her ensemble.
A bright sunny spotlight shone from above. It cut through the dimness of the bathing chamber, penetrated through the glowing blue corona and shone directly onto Daphania’s red-robed body.
It was as if she was the only clean and pure entity in the entire compartment.
Seconds after bathing Daphania with bright rays of light, a golden laurel wreath descended from above. It appeared into view without warning and lowered towards the pool of blood without any fluctuations.
No drops of red ever came close to defiling its exquisite artistry. The strong sunny rays scoured every drop that came close.
Strangely enough, neither Daphania nor her bloody dress exhibited this reaction.
When the crown of gold landed on top of her head, she finally deemed herself ready to assume her responsibilities.
There were no other visible exits in the bathing chamber aside from the corridor that she had just passed.
Yet this proved no obstacle to Daphania. With a single though, her golden laurel wreath vibrated a fraction of a second before her body blinked from the chamber.
The entire area fell silent now that its primary occupant had left. The golden rays that shone from above grew dim before disappearing entirely.
The gloomy chamber became filled with death, despair and hopelessness as the hundreds of impaled humans continued to suffer from their cruel and tortuous wounds.
Suddenly, sharp shocking sounds echoed throughout the chamber as the bone struts retracted into the bulkheads!
The sudden retraction caused the upper side of the chamber to look a lot more bare and empty. The disharmonious patterns that Daphania previously admired were no more. When she would come back tomorrow, a different set of patterns would grace her eyes.
As for the bodies of the wounded victims that previously hung from the bone lances? They fell as the only support that kept them aloft had retreated.
Hundreds of bodies hit the surface of the pool of blood, submerging them all without exception.
The people who fell disappeared from existence. They were never seen again.
Elsewhere, Daphania reappeared without any sound or fluctuations.
Yet her entry into the massive hall that stretched at least a kilometer high instantly caused the hundreds of thousands of blue-robed people to shout and bow in unison.
“BLESSED SPEAKER!”
The thunderous roars echoed and amplified throughout the immensely large hall.
The men and women standing in precise rows of white facing the central path that ran across the length of the enormous hall did not continue to bow, but lowered themselves to knees and bent forward until their foreheads rested on the bone white deck that transferred warmth and energy into their skulls.
Daphania, garbed in her winged red robe and wearing her golden laurel wreath crown, did not pay any mind to the hundreds of thousands of supplicants expressing their deepest and most sincere admiration towards her appearance.
They were no different from the grains of sand on a beach, the orbiting rocks of an asteroid belt or the stars floating across the sky. Their lives and importance meant nothing.
She floated forward. Though her flight was not dependent on her flowing red wings, they lazily followed her thoughts and flapped.
Her speed slowly picked up. Rows and rows of kneeling people in robes continued to pass her glowing sight. Her forward motion only slowed when she reached a large bone-white pyramid with steps running down the middle.
Daphania stopped and lowered her body until her covered feet floated just above the first step of the wide stairs.
People garbed in black, inky robes emerged from the sides. They lowered their covered heads and conveyed the deepest respect towards Daphania as they slowly ascended above the stairs.
A single black-robed figure stopped at each step. This continued onwards until a black-robed figure had stopped at all 999 steps.
They then began to face sideways in an alternating pattern. One robed figure faced left while the other stood at the opposite end while facing right.
Each of them simultaneously began to lower their bodies and knelt until their heads touched the surface of the steps.
Then, they waited.
Daphania began to ascend the steps.
She did not choose to fly over the pyramid-shaped temple, because that would be a sign of deep disrespect. Not even she could afford to violate this tradition.
She did not choose to touch her feet onto the steps and walk her way up to the top with her own legs. She was too great of a person to resort to such a low method of moving.
Instead, she stepped over the backs of the black-robed figures. Each time she took a step, the body below her pressed down as if an enormous weight had crashed into their backs!
Up and up she went. The flight of human stairs provided her with an uninterrupted path upwards.
Unfortunately, the journey wasn’t always smooth. The black-robed figures all experienced difficulties in bearing her considerable weight.
Whenever any of them pressed too low, the soles of her bloody feet extended spikes that caused them to stab deeply into the spine of the failing men and women!
As soon as she stepped away, the bodies she injured all collapsed onto the steps. Blood poured unceasingly from their corpses as their lives had already ended from the moment they failed their duties.
Blood continued to pour down the steps, drenching both dead and living black-robed figures alike.
When Daphania neared the top of the stairs, the flows of blood that ran down the center of the pyramid had grown so large than the figures at the bottom almost drowned!
Yet despite the risks to their lives, the ones that still lived did not dare to move or even shake.
Once Daphania reached the top, she walked across a carpet of human bodies. Her footing remained stable even as the bodies underneath her was uneven. She moved forward until she approached a bony altar.
She quickly lowered her eyes and bowed. Her golden laurel wreath shone as the projection of a hazy cylindrical object seemed to bless the symbol of her authority.
Once Daphania had paid tribute to the vague projection, she straightened her back and turned around.
At the top of the pyramid, she enjoyed an impressive view of the tall and wide hall that she had just passed through.
She slowly raised her palm before turning it into a fist.
The kneeling supplicants simultaneously uttered a shout that shook the entire hall!
“BLESSED BE THE SACRED SPEAKER!”
“BLESSED BE THE WEARER OF THE GOLDEN CROWN!”
“BLESSED BE THE LADY DRENCHED IN BLOOD!”
“BLESSED BE THE HOLY DAUGHTER OF THE SACRED WATER SCROLL!”
A sacred and unnatural silence descended upon the high temple as Daphania took in her honors without any fluctuation.
