Yes, you welcome death. You want to be an offering to the death cult which you have worshipped since before you admitted it. All the mysticism, all the posturings – they were merely garnishes on the final fact of your profoundly anti-humanist impulses. When you accept the blade in your neck, it is like your mother’s first kiss. The nihilism is strong in this one. A shame, too – you could have been a hero for Life, for the beauty of the Struggle, for the fringes of the Mandala which are arguably more Real than the center itself, or at least inseparable from it. Either way, you’re about to find all these answers, because your blood is spilling across the stage.

Then again, you kinda had this one coming.
Credits

‘I know,’ you say, ready for a ceremony which you’ve been preparing for your whole life.

In fact, you’d foreseen this night years before, on a Junior year Spring Break trip with Ajax and Achitophel to Bayonne, New Jersey – a farcical idea on Achitophel’s part, who suggested taking a vacation to a mundane destination. You’d slid into a K-hole, it’s true, and retained your sunny sanity only by adopting an entirely different persona – Kathleen Third-Eye, a Messenger from the Shadow Realm of Urlu-Ketańa-Rå – and speaking in tongues for twelve hours. Afterwards the world was your domain, and you ordered blueberry pancakes with Himalayan repose, your palm raised in the air as you said to the waitress (who had a degree from the University of Las Vegas), ‘There was a time when I would have said, No, I would never order breakfast at 9pm. But I once told myself that I am many things, which I am no longer. There is only the pancakes, the stomach, the hunger, and time is maya created by the pantomime of the self’ and then you poured syrup on the pancakes before eating them with your lustful hands. Sure, you were quite the mystic, then… but that was before resume writing classes, before seeing yourself in the mirror in a shirt and tie for work, before losing years of your life to something far less awe-inspiring than the Void.

Stepping onto the stage, you reach the center and watch as the other alumni begin to dance again. They move in exquisitely choreographed yet disturbing jerks and stomps, all following an atonal rhythm. You remain still and silent, facing forward: you know you are the spoke of the Unseen, that which both Is and Is Not. It’s astonishing, how easy it is for you to slide back into your old ways, to forget your name, to forsake the strictures of civilization and join the cult of Death.

An offering is brought forward: he is naked, young, and caked in black oil – yes, he will do nicely. Perhaps that is the ultimate horror: the knowledge that, if you so wish, you could strip away your morality and become a sentinel of the Shade, that the Death-Wish is ever-present, ever-appealing. The faceless alumni are kneeling to you now: for your service here, you shall be accorded a high pedigree indeed in the highest echelons of corporate power, moneyed interests in offshore accounts, and the preterite and proletariat alike shall be kept under heel in your name. Yes, the ministers of Kal’Alhoum are assembled, and will provide no quarter. The boy is given a silver shiv, which winks in the red light. The drums are thundering now, but no one moves – only the boy, as he advances towards you, lunges, and misses.

You pirouette out of his way, adopting a cobra pose, your face placid. Have you come here to die?

A) Yes.

B) No.

Putting on your best Crusading Protagonist, you force open the double doors and stride (or perhaps strut) in, eyes darting around to survey the scene.

A group of alumni, alarmed, have turned to face you. One has a wild mane of red hair and looks like he just left a Korn concert (your older cousin listened to them, not you, you assure yourself – your inner monologue making that reference doesn’t make you old. Though they did appear in that one South Park episode). His hands are empty, yet that is not true of the woman standing to his left: she’s your age, as well, sports the entire Vineyard Vines Summer 2014 catalogue, and brandishes a two-handed Infinity Bludgeon. It is an elegant weapon, from a more civilized age: the adamantium handle is sixteen hands long, and laced with a criss-crossing inlay of silver which blossoms out like a mandala over the bludgeon itself, a heavy boulder famously dug up by the school’s founder, Erich von Straussheim, in The Year of Our Lord 1744.

“Where did you get that?” you ask automatically, momentarily forgetting the situation.

“What’s wrong, old friend,” she asks, fingering the handle playfully, “a few years since graduation and you’ve already forgotten that I know all this school’s secrets?”

Your eyes adjust, and suddenly it dawns on you: the Vineyard Vines Summer 2014 catalogue – of course! She was wearing it the last time you saw each-other in civilian dress, the day before graduation.

“Achitophel!” you cry, throwing out your arms and embracing your old friend with postcard joy. Yet something isn’t right.

“Something isn’t right,” the red-maned man growls, and, looking over, you recognize him, too.

“Forgive me, Ajax,” you say, allowing him to kiss your hand, “I got a little freaked out on the walk over here.”

Naturally, you expect a cordial response, yet Ajax offers none: he simply stares back at you, with a blank expression. The others do the same. Huh. Looking around helplessly, you say, ‘So… is there something I missed?’

‘You missed the Light of the Nine, evidently,’ Sphinx-like Achitophel observes, ‘otherwise you would have known that fear is never to be forgiven.’

Achitophel delivered this last line as matter-of-factly as a weather report. ‘The Nine?’ you ask, bamboozled.

‘We’re not here to discuss theology, old friend,’ Ajax replies warmly, laying a hand (suggestively?) on your shoulder. ‘We’re here to enact it, in mystery cult theatre 3000.’

Leading you forcefully, with Achitophel following close behind, Ajax ushers you through the antechamber’s antiquated doors into the main theatre. You feel as if you’ve stepped into the shelled out ruins of a czarist palace flooded out when a dam retaining a reservoir filled with Arizona Iced Tea collapsed: the upholstery of the tiered seats have been eaten through by maggots, the incongruous Roccocco molding caked in gold varnish (imported from a Medici estate thanks to a generous contribution by George Gordon O’Hoolahan himself), and the stage itself – large enough to hold a performance of Phantom of the Opera, even though the theatre department principally serves as a front for the school’s poaching of oil oligarchs (backdoor purchases for the performance rights of fictitious plays, seven-figure matinee seat prices, ‘Ibsen’).

Most alarming of all, however, is on the stage itself: a dozen alumni of varying ages – you spot a septuagenarian in there, surely – run in a circle on-stage to the atonal beat of a timpani drum, each wearing flesh-colored suits and featureless masks over their faces. What kind of networking event is this, exactly?

‘So what is this, The Rite of Spring?’ you ask, trying to retain your composure.

‘You were always a literary type, friend-o, but no,’ Ajax replies, taking a hand off your shoulder, ‘this is the ultimate networking experience.’

‘Some real participatory theatre,’ Achitophel adds.

‘I thought you were putting on Shakespeare?’ you recall.

Achitophel lays a hand on your chest and looks deeply into your eyes. ‘You were performing Shakespeare out there. We’re moving beyond that here.’

And with that, the maelstrom onstage halts, with each actor (participant? Victim? Potential employer?) stopping in place to form a triskelion: three lines of people, four in each, extending from an empty center, which Achitophel points to.

‘That’s for you,’ she says, as the players on-stage and Ajax turn to you.

So, what are you gonna do?

A) Take your place center-stage.

B) Demure, and suggest that someone else goes forward.

Thinking impulsively, you jump off the rafters, land on your feet alongside your compatriots, and start attacking Achitophel and Her Alumni Dancers…

Or, at least, that’s how you’d hoped that would go. Instead, when you jump off the rafters you break your ankle, and start screaming in pain. The woman of a certain age landed on her feet, and she starts exchanging judo chops with a faceless alumni, whereas the twins each landed right on top of a dancer, and are having trouble untangling themselves from their targets.

‘Ajax! Get over here!’ Achitophel shouts, recognizing you, ‘turns out we’re having a proper reunion, after all.’

‘Achitophel! What the hell is going on!’ you demand, clutching your foot.

‘I wouldn’t talk about hell if I were you,’ Achitophel replies, wielding her Infinity Bludgeon, ‘You’re heading to the Shadow Realm, after all.’

‘Wait!’ you cry, as she prepares to bring the Bludgeon down on you. ‘Wait!’

She doesn’t.

DAMNIT! Well, might as well try again.
Credits

‘Let’s do an all-out attack on Achitophel,’ you say to the others, ‘c’mon!’

Letting out a war-cry, you all stampede the stage. The faceless dancing alumni turn just as you approach, and you each push one out of the way, carving a path to Achitophel. She yells something angrily – ‘you? What are you doing here?’ or ‘why are you attacking us?’ or ‘why aren’t you the resurrected spirit of Erich von Straussheim?’, perhaps – but it doesn’t matter.

Holding up her Infinity Bludgeon, she hits you in the shoulder, and you feel it shatter, collapsing on your side. You’re passing out quickly, but not before you watch your comrades gang rush Achitophel, knocking her out. A dancing alumni was starting to strangle you, yet you feel their grip soften, and they collapse on top of you. You are in an intense amount of pain, your vision is fading, but as you pass into sleep you have the mildly thrilling knowledge: you are going to LIVE. That is too bad about the mime, though…

YOU SURVIVED!!!

Not bad! Think you can beat it twice?
CREDITS

‘Follow me!’ you command between your teeth, leading the others quickly towards the stairwell that rises up the wings.

Ajax is there, and on your way down you almost run into him. ‘You?’ he cries, incredulous.

But you’re not walking down the stairs, anymore – you’ve leapt on top of him, sending you both tumbling downstairs. This is very painful, stairs having sharp edges and Ajax being a heavy guy, so you prioritize covering your head as you go down. By the time you reach the bottom, you’ve momentarily forgotten why you got there, checking for any head trauma. Luckily, you’re fine, and Ajax is dead – hit his head on the railing on the way down, wrenching it sideways, etc. – so you and the gang can continue on your quest.

‘That was graceful,’ the woman of a certain age observes, picking you up.

‘You should see me on a dancefloor,’ you reply coyly.

‘You kill people?’ Twin #2 asks.

‘No,’ you clarify, ‘I slay.’

The woman of a certain age groans and rolls her eyes. ‘You are a terrible person.’

Now you’re in the wings, and the stage awaits. The question is, how do you approach it: do you go straight in for an all-out attack on Achitophel, or do you pretend to be a messenger for the spirit of Erich von Straussheim?

A) All-out attack on Achitophel.

B) Pretend to be a messenger for the spirit of Erich von Straussheim.

Suddenly, everyone gathered in the 2nd story garret – you, the middle-aged twins, and the woman of a certain age – hear a cry from downstairs.

‘Quick!’ the woman hisses, leading you through the next room (a dusty collection of show costumes) and onto the theatre’s rafters. She points down and whispers, ‘They’ve started.’

The theatre looks like a czarist palace flooded out when a dam retaining a reservoir filled with Arizona Iced Tea collapsed: the upholstery of the tiered seats have been eaten through by maggots, the incongruous Rococo molding caked in gold varnish (imported from a Medici estate thanks to a generous contribution by George Gordon O’Hoolahan himself), and the stage itself – large enough to stage Phantom of the Opera, even though the theatre department principally serves as a front for the school’s poaching of oil oligarchs (backdoor purchases for the performance rights of fictitious plays, seven-figure matinee seat prices, ‘Ibsen’).

Offstage, you recognize two old college friends whom you’ve fallen out of touch with since graduation, Ajax and Achitophel. Ajax sports a wild mane of red hair and looks like he just left a Korn concert (your older cousin listened to them, not you, you assure yourself – your inner monologue making that reference doesn’t make you old. Though they did appear in that one South Park episode). Achitophel, on the other hand, is wearing the same clothes you saw her in last – seemingly the entire Vineyard Vines Summer 2014 catalogue – though she’s also holding a massive two-handed Infinity Bludgeon. It is an elegant weapon, from a more civilized age: the adamantium handle is sixteen hands long, and laced with a criss-crossing inlay of silver which blossoms out like a mandala over the bludgeon itself, a heavy boulder famously dug up by the school’s founder, Erich von Straussheim, in The Year of Our Lord 1744.

Most alarming of all, however, is on the stage itself: a dozen alumni of varying ages – you spot a septuagenarian in there, surely – run in a circle on-stage to the atonal beat of a timpani drum, each wearing flesh-colored suits and featureless masks over their faces. In their center stands a naked young man caked in black oil and holding a silver shiv, waiting with grim fatality for… something.

You overhear Achitophel say, impatiently, ‘Where is Horus? We have the offering waiting for him.’

‘He’s upstairs, preparing the Bed’e’akiné for Urlu-Ketańa-Rå,’ Ajax answers, ‘we cannot rush our passage into the Shadow Realm, nor our summoning of von Straussheim.’

‘But do we have enough hosts?’ Achitophel insists, ‘Our friend was supposed to be here – it was foreseen in the Enla’ra.’

‘The what?’ Ajax asks.

‘Our undergrad alerted us to their coming, remember?’ Achitophel answered, ‘She told him of our theatre meeting, and he came here for us.’

‘Oh yes, of course, the Enla’ra,’ Ajax replied, though he is unmistakably anxious. ‘I’m gonna go upstairs and check on Horus, anyway.’

‘Fine. Go,’ Achitophel dismissed him, looking at the stage as he left. ‘I’ll oversee the offering.’

Then Ajax is heading upstairs, where he’ll no doubt discover Horus – the jock, presumably – dead, along with you and the others soon thereafter. You could wait where you are, and try to reason with Ajax when he arrives. Or, you could run down the stairs and try to waylay Ajax, taking him out along the way. Or, even more boldly, you and your comrades could jump off the rafters and onto the stage, attack Achitophel, and presumably take care of the other dancing alumni, as well. What will you do?

A) Wait for Ajax.

B) Waylay Ajax in the stairwell.

C) Jump down onto the stage and attack Achitophel

‘Yes, I do wanna hear the story,’ you reply.

‘Ugh, fine,’ the Woman of a Certain Age sighs. ‘Let’s see… for starters, you might wanna pull out your Howard Zinn, and get caught up on the depredations wrought upon the local tribes by the colonial regimes which settled these lands in the sixteenth century. It was a fucked up time, defined by the forced subjugation of indigenous people, and our beloved school was founded and flourished in the same era, as an arm of the religion of the conquerors.’

‘But didn’t you say this Black Magic stuff wasn’t Judeo-Christian,’ you ask.

‘That’s correct,’ the Woman of a Certain Age says, ‘yet von Straussheim could never have surreptitiously pursued his more… arcane interests were it not for the superstructure of state-authorized Protestant power from which he drew not only monetary support, but also theological inspiration – the blood ritual being, of course, a quite literal interpretation of the Mass.’

‘This is some heady exposition, already,’ you confess, rubbing your head. ‘I completely sympathize with the plight of indigenous peoples, of course, and although I’ve peddled in black magic in the past that was long ago, and I’m a high-functioning, contributing member of society today, but nonetheless I don’t know if I need or want to hear this story.’

‘I’m almost done,’ the Woman of a Certain Age continues, ‘it’s quite simple, really. Von Straussheim converted the locals to Protestantism to maintain his sunny public image in the eyes of his fellow colonialists, but on the side he started sacrificing youth to the Shadow Realm.’

‘Though that didn’t start till he discovered oil,’ Twin #2 put in. ‘An important point.’

‘Quite right,’ the Woman of a Certain Age conceded, ‘Von Straussheim of course discovered oil and recognized its potential far ahead of his time, and that’s how he made the money which still supports the school today. But what people don’t know is that he originally used the oil for a completely different purpose.’

‘What was that?’ you ask, like a kid hearing a fireside story.

‘Von Straussheim regarded the oil as plumbed straight from the Shadow Realm,’ the Woman of a Certain Age explained. ‘And he used to lather it on his offerings before killing them. If an indigenous family had more than one son, they were forced to give up their 2nd born, or else he’d have his private army slay the entire village. It was a fucked up time.’

‘Yes it was,’ Twin #1 nods.

‘He continued that practice for the rest of his life, fancying himself a Warden of the Shadow Realm, longing for death to let him return to it,’ the Woman of a Certain Age said, letting her eyes trail away – with a certain flicker in them – before concluding, ‘which of course it did, when he was old and at peace in his bed. Yet so goes the justice, when you open an alternative history book.’

And everyone gathered around for the tale nodded solemnly, and thought long about their place within such structures of power, and it was all very didactic and well-intentioned, before a cry rang out and returned everyone to the matter at hand.

Cool story, huh? But let’s get back to the action.