Where was this?
A dull ache spread through his mind, as though someone were repeatedly striking the inside of his skull with a blunt instrument, forcing Renato's thoughts into motion.
He opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was a lightless vaulted ceiling. Scrolls of hide covered in intricate ritual texts hung on the thick stone walls, their edges blackened and curled, their lettering faintly gleaming dark red in the dim light.
He seemed to have been here before...
A sense of familiarity rose from the depths of his memory, yet never coalesced into a complete picture.
Lying on his back, Renato tried to get up, instinctively pressing his palm down beneath him.
But instead of solid ground, his palm met something warm, slippery, and sickening.
He instinctively looked down and realized he was lying on an altar.
A thick membrane of flesh covered its surface, densely coated in fine red velvet like the fur on a tongue. It writhed at an extraordinarily slow rhythm, as though licking his back.
His fingers had sunk into two mushy lumps of flesh that were still faintly twitching. When he pulled his hand free, his fingertips were covered in dark red blood and scraps of meat. The blood had not fully clotted and still held the lingering warmth of a body.
Disgusting.
Dismembered limbs were everywhere.
Human arms were piled along the altar's edges like discarded firewood. Torsos had been split down the middle, their ribs splayed outward like fans.
Every dead person's head wore a pointed leather hood that concealed the entire face, leaving only openings for the eyes.
Even so, their lifeless eye sockets were all turned toward the very center of the altar, an unsettling fanaticism lingering in those hollow cavities.
They were staring at Renato.
A familiar, icy