Recollector Log No. 12 - Memory of Pain

[Recollection Log No. 12: Memory of Pain]

Archive Class: Kashiopeiea Secretary System – Video Surveillance Log (Transcription) – The White Room Incident Cycle Time: 33:06

//LOG COMMENCE

(A featureless white room appears before the viewfinder. Our actors enter the stage) (A nondescript lainedoll kneels at the center of the room, eyes closed. Her steel hands are interlocked together, as if in a gesture of prayer.)

(The lainedoll speaks to an unseen listener, but her voice trembles.)

THE LAINEDOLL: Father Zaleri…I wish to seek your c-counsel.

(With a flash of light spiraling outward from the center of the room, a figure materializes into the WHITE VOID.)

(The figure, for a moment, was bathed in impossible light. The figure spoke in a soft yet assertive cadence.)

ZALERI: What troubles you, Sister Sister Faustine?

(The lainedoll Faustine’s eyes widened as she looked up at at Zaleri’s figure in bewilderment. Zaleri was wearing a white overcoat on top of her ebony gravesuit, adorned with crimson accents like voidstones. Instinctively, Faustine turns her head away.)

THE LAINEDOLL NAMED FAUSTINE: Forgive me, Father. I did not expect to see you in your real body. I do not deserve to look upon you.

(ZALERI approaches the lainedoll and knelt beside her.)

ZALERI: There is no reason to feel disgraced. Not from me, Sister Faustine.

(ZALERI takes FAUSTINE’s left hand reassuringly. Faustine nods gravely, but continues to look away.)

FAUSTINE: I dreamed of a great beast devouring my hand. And I woke up….to this.

(The lainedoll raised her right hand, her palm facing up. A black coagulating mass emerged from an unseen wound within her palm.)

ZALERI: It can’t be…The entropic stigmata. Stay your hand, Faustine. (With a sense of urgency, Zaleri instinctively reached into her white coat pocket and produced a small, dark cylinder. She unsheathed it, revealing a concealed ebony blade.)

ZALERI: Faustine, if I may? (Faustine nods in silence.)

(ZALERI presses the edge of the blade against Faustine’s hand, from which emanated a strange warmth. Then, in one fierce motion, Zaleri stabs into the blackening mass.) (Faustine screams, and then pulls away.)

FAUSTINE: Father, what was that sensation? The black liquid. Pain. I was burning inside. And then—

(Faustine was suddenly calm, and looked at her hand. The sensation was gone. The wound appeared to have been cauterized. The black liquid stopped flowing outward.)

(ZALERI retracts her blade, back into her coat.)

ZALERI: They call it the Gift of the Silver Witch. A preliminary stage of entropic derangement syndrome. But this shouldn’t be happening. Not this time…

(ZALERI stops as she noticed Faustine looking up at her with pleading eyes, cloaked with anxiety.)

Faustine: Father, is this because of my sin?

(ZALERI shakes her head, but smiles reassuringly.)

ZALERI: Do not worry, child. There is no fault. Not with you. Not with any of my daughters. (ZALERI takes Faustine’s hand.)

ZALERI: The Silver Witch will not take anyone again. That is my vow.

//LOG TERMINATED