Hā·e·ḇeḏ slit the small forest creature’s slender throat with a swift, clean cut — a technique he’d learned from his father, many years before — mimicking, precisely, the method his family’s most-ancient ancestors taught previous generations. The process was efficient and effective: slash the windpipe, vein and artery with a single swipe; leave the spinal cord intact. Done correctly, the animal felt no pain.
Blood flowed, freely: Rich, warm, red, sticky. Each pulse, an ill-fated yet elegant step in death’s crimson dance.
The ransom was a yearling. Perfect in size, weight, and color. No blemishes. None. No marks, stains, faults, or flaws.
On the family altar, fashioned from uncut river-rocks, Hā·e·ḇeḏ placed his precious gift: Blood-drained, freshly skinned, skillfully gutted. Then he slowly stepped back, perhaps a hundred yards, and waited. Within minutes, cloud clusters began to form far above the weathered stone structure. Small, fist-sized, white puffs at first; larger, bleaker, fluffs followed. Finally, sprawling billows unfolded, furiously fattening the sky with menacingly thick, frighteningly dark, dense-layers — blocking out the Sun.
The air crackled with energy and cackled with sounds: Crisp, short, painful pops. The hair on Hā·e·ḇeḏ’s arms fizzed. His spine jerked. His face twitched. As the harsh, jarring, electrified symphony reached its frenzied peak, a solitary, bright, jagged, flash of piercing yellow-blue light struck — leaving behind a faint, fluorescent, pink orb fluttering (briefly) around the family’s rugged altar. But before the ruddy beauty reached its full bloom, wicked waves of heart-hammering thunder rumble-roared, shake-quaking the ground.
Hā·e·ḇeḏ had been kneeling; now he collapsed, quivering in a back-curved, head-bowed, knee-chested, arm-wrapped, ball.
When at last the sky cleared, Hā·e·ḇeḏ stood, dazed — then he staggered to the spot where his lifeless sacrifice rested just moments before. The little animal was gone; in its place, a single rose: Red in color, soft in texture. Without thorns.
