Taurie Cain was born and raised in a suburb outside Glasgow with her older brother Ewan. Unusual for Scotland, the kids were homeschooled, but by all appearances seemed perfectly average.
In truth, they were quite the opposite.
Her parents were part of a secret society and Taurie and Ewan were raised to be acolytes of that same clandestine cult—
The Disciples of the Black Talon.
This mysterious cabal has existed for centuries and worships an ancient deity that exists in another dimension. They call the deity the Black Talon and believe it is somehow helping humanity transcend mortal existence.
Vincent Cain was a professor of archeology. Rachel Cain taught anthropology. Family vacations took them all over the world. But instead of theme parks, they visited the historical sites of ancient civilizations. Like the site of the world’s oldest megaliths at Göbleki Tepe in Turkey where ancient cultists boiled the flesh off decapitated heads and carved mysterious symbols into the skulls.
Locations like this had areas that overlapped with the Black Talon’s realm, and they called those overlaps The Bleed and believe secret knowledge and technology is hidden by ascended disciples from advanced worlds to be discovered.
But The Bleed holds many dangers, both physical and psychological, and those who venture inside wear special armored hazmat suits as a defense against those perils, though no one really knows how much protection they actually provide.
The Disciples of the Black Talon built an underground complex near each Bleed they discovered, complete with living quarters, storage areas and laboratories. When Vincent Cain entered The Bleed at Göbleki Tepe, Taurie and Ewan were mere fledglings. And when he didn’t return, his wife went after him and disappeared as well.
Desperate to find their parents, Taurie and Ewan snuck into a chamber but soon realized there were no hazmat suits left. There was only one of the original suits, like an old diving suit with a connecting air tube which didn’t fit her. But she refused to abandon her parents and decided to enter The Bleed without a suit.
Ewan was too afraid to follow.
Taurie found madness in The Bleed. And savagery. And horror. Blood-curdling shrieks and ferocious growls and something slithering in and out of the shadows. She could feel the eyes of predators as they hunted her in this strange, timeless place where two realities folded into one.
Struggling to keep her fear under control, she came across pieces of a bloody hazmat suit. She found no body, just hunks of hair, chunks of flesh and steaming viscera.
One hundred feet away, she located her father. His suit intact, but unconscious.
She struggled to drag him away even as predators stalked her from the shadows. As they circled closer, her brother, Ewan suddenly appeared in the old, oversized hazmat suit. He led the otherworldly creatures away, allowing Taurie enough time to pull their father to safety.
With the screams of her brother still ringing in her ears, she emerged unscathed with her sanity intact, which amazed the Disciples of the Black Talon. Her father eventually recovered from his injuries but never again ventured into The Bleed.
Taurie suffered no ill effects from her time in The Bleed. At least nothing physical. But something dark touched her heart and she had many recurring visions of selfless disciples hunting and sacrificing victims to The Black Talon. She believed her visions were omens and she was certain she would one day serve The Black Talon in the same way. As a disciple.
Members of the cult rose through the ranks slowly. Secrets were doled out little by little as acolytes graduated from one tier to the next. But Taurie rose faster than most and was sent on missions all over the world. She located and retrieved many arcane antiquities and strange oddities, and with each new find, she unearthed more knowledge about The Black Talon.
And each time she ventured into The Bleed, she felt more of its cold darkness taking hold inside of her. She liked the way it made her feel. Impervious. Indestructible. Unstoppable. As a trusted servant of The Black Talon, she no longer felt like prey. She felt like a predator.
Taurie was single-minded in her pursuit of any knowledge that would help her serve the cult, but not everyone believed in transcendence, and some were even trying to expose the Disciples of the Black Talon as a force for evil. Such doomsayers didn’t understand that sacrifices needed to be made if humanity ever hoped to ascend to another plane of existence.
One such enemy was a paranormal investigator and podcaster who claimed the cult was an instrument of malevolence. This Vlogger was determined to unmask them, but she disappeared while investigating a World War Two bunker high in the French Alps. Her brother Jordan blamed the Disciples of the Black Talon for her disappearance and worked tirelessly to expose them to the world.
As Taurie reached the highest levels of the Disciples of the Black Talon, she learned their darkest secrets. Like how they appeased The Black Talon with a sacred ritual of torture and sacrifice before entering The Bleed.
Jordan discovered one such ritual was to take place at the grand opening of a new quantum research facility and secretly taped it. He then posted the grisly video online to show the world the malignant evil at the heart of the cult.
But the Disciples of the Black Talon had connections everywhere and they used their power to convince the world that this video was a fake, a mere prank among researchers and scientists.
They then sent Taurie to hunt Jordan down and end his one man crusade against them. They told her if she accomplished this, she would ascend to the inner circle of masters and one day become a pure disciple in The Black Talon’s domain.
Unquestioningly and with fanatic determination, she located Jordan and rendered him unconscious with chloroform. When he awoke, he found himself tied to a chair in an underground complex.
Dressed in her ceremonial robe and mask, Taurie approached the young man with a dagger. But, having never killed anyone, she—
Hesitated.
She didn’t know what to say or do. A strange numbness began to crawl up her neck. Her ears, her face, her lips began to tingle. She just stood there staring blankly at her sacrifice, wondering what was happening to her. Killing was easier in her dreams. In her visions. As a spectator. And try as she did, she could not stop her hands from trembling.
And just when the masters were about to intervene, she took a deep, calming breath and remembered this sacrifice would usher her into The Black Talon’s domain where she would take her rightful place among the other disciples.
And so, with renewed conviction, Taurie lifted the ceremonial dagger with both hands, and just before she could plunge the glistening blade into the nonbeliever’s chest, a cold, black fog surrounded them. Everything went black. Time seemed to stand still. She heard muffled sounds and felt pressure in her ears as though she were in The Bleed.
When at last the fog cleared, her sacrifice was gone, and she found herself in a place of perpetual night.
The Black Talon’s domain.
Not as a disciple, but as a—
Sacrifice.
