The man allowed the tear to trickle down his cheek as he laid out the naked body of the child before him on the dirt floor. She was a pretty little thing, with her locks of golden hair and pale, unblemished skin. She still looked pretty even now, in death, with her eyes closed and her thin, bloodless lips pressed tightly together. It was so sad that such a lovely child had to die; it always had the same effect on him when they left him like this – alone once more, with only the memory of his sexual satiation to sustain him.
He sighed. “If only it could be different,” he thought, sorrowfully, as he gently stroked the naked body for the last time. Children, especially little girls, were his deepest love, and when he lost himself in the act of coition it was, to him, a divine moment – almost like a communion – and the cries of the child he was hearing were not screams of terror from a dying little girl, but the beautiful strains of a choir of angels.
The whole experience was so…so celestial. And then the uninvited, unwelcome God intervened and tore the life from the little girl right at the point of his ecstasy. He wiped the solitary tear from his cheek and said a silent prayer for the soul of his sacrifice. Then he gathered her in his arms and rose from his position on the floor; it was time now for the ritual burial. He had laid her clothes out carefully on the ground – an act of reverence rather than contrition. He had washed the stains of the baptism from her body and then cleansed himself of any residual evidence. Everything was prepared.
Carrying the body in his arms, he was making to leave the hut when suddenly he felt a jolt run through his body, like an electric current, coupled with a sense of intrusion that all but overwhelmed him. Someone, or something, was watching him. He could see nothing through the darkness, but he knew – from his heightened sense of intuition – that he was being observed, psychically, from afar; and it frightened him. Whoever, or whatever, it was knew; knew about his sacrifices – not just this one, but all the others too.
He felt confused, apprehensive; threatened, even. Who was it? Who could be watching him? And how? How was it possible?
He had been so careful to remain undetected. He had planned everything so meticulously, down to the finest minutiae, to ensure there was little chance of him ever being discovered.
And now someone knew – someone unknown but, like himself, with the metaphysical abilities to pierce the protective veil he had built around himself.
Suddenly, he was more scared than he had ever been in his life before. Was his world – a world so carefully constructed and defended – about to end…?