Spooktober Stories: Aigun Yabmiola

CW: hallucinations, mild body horror
It was her last night at the temple, so she knew it would be the worst. As she awoke to the screams of the others enduring their own rites of passage, she reminded herself that in a few hours, she would be going home. Her parents would find a husband for her--perhaps the priestesses would suggest someone--and this ordeal would be over.
Aigun knew every Yub child spent three days at the temple after they turned eighteen, but people rarely spoke of it. At her temple, they did them on the last weekend of the month, so everyone who'd had a birthday would undergo the process together. It was probably to make it easier on the priestesses--so they didn't have teenagers constantly rotating in and out of the place. They, of course, claimed it was because the experience was different as a group, and Aigun supposed it was. Her head was pounding in time to what sounded like someone pounding on their door. They were locked in, of course. Nothing but white--white walls, a white bed, a white dresser, a white framed mirror. The only light came from the small window. It was too high to reach and had no curtain, but the full moon was enough to see the walls beginning to melt.
"It is just a hallucination," she reminded herself.
The days, of course, were normal. They had the run of the place. They spent much of their time playing board games with one another. Sometimes the priestesses joined them. They were quite nice. And very good cooks. The meals were delicious. But the taste masked some kind of hallucinagen, at least at dinner time. Dinner was served at dusk, and the priestesses, so cheerful in the daytime, grew brusque, demanding she and the others consume everything on their plate. Then they were sent to their rooms and locked in.
She tried to concentrate on one experience at a time, blocking out as much as she could of everything else, focusing on what was real and what was not. The screams down the hall were surely real though whatever they were screaming about was no more real than the bleeding walls of her own room. The pain in her head was real, unfortunately, and likely also whatever she was smelling. The priestesses were probably burning incense, and it did not help her headache.
Aigun had expected nightmares, of course. To become a Yub adult, one had to walk waking through the Nightmare Realm. It was the waking part that annoyed her. She'd gotten very little sleep the last two nights, and she knew it made everything else worse. She suspected the priestesses were also putting something else in their food that helped keep them awake during the day. And once the sun set, well... no one could sleep through this ruckus. It was the waking that gave her the headaches.
As she held her head, she felt the sides bulging outward. She knew it was impossible, but she caught her reflection in the mirror. Horns were growing from her head. As she watched, they grew upwards, curved, and began to grow toward the floor. "It's just a hallucination," she insisted to her reflection.
She had a feeling the priestesses were going extra hard on her, since she wasn't taking their shit. She hadn't screamed yet. Though the first night she had pissed herself--not out of fear, but annoyance. She knew the priestesses wouldn't let any actual harm befall them--nothing like that had happened in decades. But if they were going to lock her in, they would have to deal with the consequences. And they did, without any complaint.
But now, one of the priestesses came through the melting wall, the droplets of it falling off her like rain. She carried a knife and began to saw off one of Aigun's horns. She had a moment to wonder if her horns were the source of the hallucinagen before almost screamed from the pain. But she bit down on her tongue, determined not to let them win. "It's just a hallucination," she said and swiped through the priestess, who dissolved like candle smoke.
Just to be sure, Aigun forced herself to walk to the wall. Each step took more effort than the last. The weight of the horns made her head heavy, and they had gotten so long, they were catching on the ground. She reached the wall before she knew it, hitting her head against it. Yup, just a halluncination.
***
Aigun woke on the floor. The sun was high in the sky, and the light coming in through the window made the room almost blinding. It was definitely later than when they usually woke her. Did they let them sleep because the ordeal was over? That was nice of them.
She sat up and felt a breeze. She closed her eyes and concentrated on it, as she had the sensations from the previous night. It felt real. Then again, so had the horns, and those definitely hadn't been. But the hallucinations should have stopped by now. She blinked her eyes a few times and saw the window was open. She didn't even know it opened. The door was open too. Apparently someone had come in for something and decided to leave her in a crumpled heap on the floor. They had left a blue dress on the bed. Not a pastel blue, like most Yub followers wore, but a blue as deep as the ocean. She stood up and stumbled down the stairs.
Two of the priestesses were playing cards at the kitchen table. They looked up when she came in. "Aigun! It's good to see you."
Aigun ran fingers through her matted black hair. "Where is everybody?" she asked.
"The others? They went home this morning." One of the priestesses stood and got her a glass of water.
This morning. She really had slept late. "What, no ceremony?" Supposedly, a person's reactions to three days of nightmares revealed what the goddess's purpose for them was.
"Oh, that'll be tonight, at services." The priestess pushed the water glass toward her and Aigun took it, but didn't drink. Her head was still muzzled and she was trying to collect her thoughts. "It's been a rough weekend," the priestess continued. "Why don't you wash up, and change?"
"Change?"
"We left a dress out for you."
"But..." Aigun thought of the dress on her bed, trying to articulate what was wrong. "It's... blue." Only the priestesses wore blue.
"That's right. The goddess has chosen you to be a priestess. We told your parents when they came this morning. They were so proud."
Aigun felt the glass of water slip out of her fingers, though she knew it hadn't, just as she knew that the stairs weren't coming closer to her as she turned. It was just another nightmare. One that was just beginning.