Burn: The Last Witness (part 50)

*As Erus nears the silver platform, the crowd just a step or two behind him begins to chant and pray in a manner that makes the whole forest suddenly feel heavy and dreamlike. Burn knows what will happen, that this beautiful redhead is about to be sacrificed like all the other women on all the other silver platforms were sacrificed, but he cannot seem to find it in himself to move. Even when Rayne helps the woman to lie peacefully on the silver, not an ounce of protest heard from her, Burn stays still. But when Rayne moves off as Erus picks up a knife and heads for the platform, Burn feels something. It is a righteous anger at this evil, something that grows as Erus begins to preach that he is the way, and the truth, that there is no High Father or Citadel there has always been only the Darkened Earth until he made it pure through his deity and a few drops of blood. Erus proclaims himself the Messiah, the only way to salvation and peace in this world, something he had said so many years ago yet now instead of just his section of the Darkened Earth that glorified him, Burn looks around and sees a multitude in praise to the falsity of Erus. The whole world could be glorifying Erus for all that Burn knows but he bore witness to the new heaven that rose up on what was supposed to be a new earth once the Citadel was destroyed. This cannot be that new earth, and the rage Burn suddenly feels at how Erus is trying to make himself the only god in this new world finally causes him to move. Even with the crowd keeping him at bay, and Rayne tearing at his jacket and ripping off a sleeve again and again until that jacket cannot keep up and does not heal, Burn has to move. He continues on until he reaches the silver platform, takes out his ancient axe, and halts Erus from doing anymore harm [AI Art]*