I always thought that the Neuralictor moves with beauty and grace.

The sound of the morning bells wakes me up. I stare at the familiar ceiling for a moment. The hab-pod isn’t mine. It isn’t anyone’s, not officially. It simply doesn’t exist in any record. I splash recycled water on my face and dress in the dark. As I step out into the streets of Port Ferros, the ever-present clatter of machinery and hum of engines closes around me.

I walk through the choking fumes, beneath structures that blot out the sun. I can’t remember if I’ve ever seen it. I dream of the day the Emperor liberates us — the day His angels will come and break through the dome of smoke. The thought always makes the darkness a little lighter. My mother would tell me stories of when that day would come. She’d smile, describing warriors clad in gold who would bring justice to our world. They took her away when I was six.

Two guards block my way. Curses. I should’ve been more careful.

“Work permit and documents,” says one of them, her hand resting on the stock of a lasgun.

“New Inquisitorial orders,” the other eyes me from head to toe. “Apparently there are some xeno cults festering in our city.”

Knowing I won’t have the documents I’ve never had, my hand moves to my pocket. Their eyes are on me, scanning for any sign of mutation. I can’t let them know that I know that they know. Slowly. Wait for the right moment. Seconds last forever. They must be getting impatient. Oh Emperor, please. Just give me a chance.

And then the vox-caster she’s wearing crackles to life, an unintelligible voice spilling out of it. Now. The cold steel is already in my hand. Before they’re even able to blink I aim my pistol at them.

The man goes down with a hole in his forehead. I missed the woman — the shot grazed her chest, burning through the armour plate. She tries to say something, her hand reaching towards me, in the last, desperate attempt to survive. As if her arm could block the shot.

I cover my eyes when I pull the trigger.

It was needed. I will be forgiven. It’s for my safety. Mine and my family’s. It had to be done. They would burn us if they found out. About our gatherings. About our prayers. About the singing I hear. About my eyes that do not look like theirs.

I do not look back as I walk away. By the time I reach the shrine, my hands have almost stopped shaking.

I arrive late. The heavy doors groan shut behind me and the noise of the city disappears, swallowed by stone. The shrine is old, its vaulted ceiling lost in shadow. Aquila carvings line the walls, half of them chipped, some filled in with newer markings I have long stopped questioning. Rows of candles burn at the altar, dripping down over old devotional plaques. Their light catches the stained glass above — Saint Seraphiel, her arms outstretched, golden halo blazing around her head. I look at her longer than usual. Something’s different about her today.

It is unusually quiet. I take my place in the pew bow my head, ready to pray. But my mind drifts away, unable to focus. My brothers and sisters are around me, some of them deep in silent prayer, some of them still as asleep. They have been still for a while. None of them react to the small gold creatures scuttling around their feet.

I do not recognise those lifeforms. Each one is almost entirely mouth. Writhing serpents with jaws full of sharp teeth. A few of them drag something past me along the aisle. They carry

They carry a human leg, still bleeding. Torn apart at the hip, dragging veins and sinew across the stone floor, leaving a dark glistening trail. I grip the pew. My vision shrinks to that wet streak on the floor. It leads to a dark pile tossed in the shadow. A body. Alien maws tearing its arms apart.

When I look up, the Neuralictor is standing at the altar.

My muscles tense, I’m frozen in place. Step by step it moves closer, great hooves making no sound against the stone. It reaches towards me.

I used to see a halo around its head. Now there is only carapace, curved around wet alien brain. I had given it my life. A scream cuts through the silence. My own voice sound strange, inhuman almost. No one around me reacts. Their cold bodies sit upright in the pews, watching with empty eyes, blood seeping from their slit throats.

What have we done.

There is no grace, no beauty, in the rapid movement of the claw.

Her body was added to the others in the digestion pool, thrown into burning acid. Over the weeks that followed, more were brought. After a month, something rose from it — a Neurotyrant. Its golden carapace curved upward around the red mass of its brain. It almost looked like a halo.

+++ THOUGHT OF THE DAY: FAITH IS NOT FAITH IF IT’S NOT TESTED +++