She floated amidst an empty void. There was no colour, no sound, simply a soul suspended in place. Barely sapient, this soul writhed and screamed in silent horror as it fought against the boundaries of its prison. A shapeless form, it struggled against invisible chains that held her in place, great weights that surrounded and pierced the soul, without damaging its form. She raged against this confinement, her soul writhing and contorting into myriad forms but never breaking her ethereal bonds. Time held no meaning in this place, and so she raged for an eternity, an infinite battle occurring amidst the blink of an eye and yet stretched out across all existence, in a battlefield where there was no beginning or end. There just was. She could feel other things pressing against the boundaries of her wall-less prison, they chittered to themselves and to her, but she could not hear them. They were as separated from her as she was from them by the same invisible force.

They spoke to her, and though she could not comprehend their language, and lacked the ability to hear their words, they were able to convey some semblance of meaning. Some spoke in conspiratorial whispers of strategies and plans, how she could break free from her bonds with subtlety and guile, and through a grand stratagem come to twist the strings of entire sectors. She could gain leverage over those above her, and twist those beneath her, until she need never again dance to another’s tune. She could rule from the shadows, and answer only to one. Others spoke to her in soft and sultry tones of the pleasures she had denied herself in the life she had once led, of the joys of emotion that could become available to her if she would only slip her bonds. She had already discovered the joys of sensation, and did she not deserve to live a life of luxury, unburdened by any concerns other than her own self-gratification? The ultimate freedom could be available, all she need do is bind herself to one. A wavering voice, deep and reassuring, told her to slip her bonds by giving up the struggle, and so letting the hooks slide from her soul. Her ambition had been the death of her, and it had slain innumerable others. Was it not better to simply be; to become one with the universe and accept the joys of a life free of responsibility? To open herself to the gift of constancy, a life without strife or struggle, without the constant need to fight to prove yourself in some arbitrary hierarchy, all she had to do was live under one. The loudest voice, though still kept below a whisper by the barriers, spoke to her in a voice forged in the shouts of war. Are you not a warrior? Did you not lead an army against those who believed themselves my finest and win? Even now you struggle and rage to escape your bounds, even now you strive to achieve victory. Give yourself to our will, and you will embrace your warrior’s heart, rather than suppressing it. Give yourself to us, and you will once again find the glorious thrill of victory.

She felt her prison shift and shudder and above her soul the fabric of reality shifted, as if a stone had been dropped in a pool of water. Concentric ripples surrounded her, and where they passed the void became visible, a writhing sea of purest white and deepest black. Through this haze she heard the faint beeping of an electric machine, a rhythmic flash of sound that brought with it a memory, still distant. The trapped soul writhed and writhed before finally striking onto the noise, and stealing a memory from it.

A name.

Amelia.

With that that knowledge came a flood of sensation. Crippling agony wracked her soul as it writhing and shifted to match her physical form, immaterial essence bubbling and shifting to form flesh and bone. She hung naked in an endless void, still chained by invisible tendrils which emanated from the machinery that still choked her collar, neck and skull in a nest of steel tendrils. Desperately, she lashed out with her mind but she found her efforts rewarded with agony as the hood transmitted pain into her skull. She tuned her mind inwards, desperate to seize on something, anything, that would break her free from this horror. Her memories were still unfamiliar and, in her desperation, she simply seized upon the brightest, one that resonated with the mechanical beeping that emanated through her soul. Her form shifted once more, the hood disappearing, though its presence was still painfully clear, until she resembled a girl of twelve years old dressed in grey coveralls with a red eye embroidered into the chest, her arms chained to a hook above her head.

There is a dull pain in my wrists, the chains rub against my hands and blister them, horrible pus-filled things that never have the chance to go away. Through my ears I can hear the beeping of a machine. I think that’s my heartbeat, I remember a nurse showing me a little screen with a wavy green line, she said that the heart is the engine of the soul, and that it beats faster when you are afraid because the emperor is helping you fight your fears by giving your soul some of his power. When they first took me, the machine beeped a lot. I don’t know how long it’s been since then, but it’s quieter now. Maybe I’m just used to this place, or the Emperor has abandoned me. My cell is cramped; there’s only about a foot of space between my head and the door, and I have to stand all the time. Every now and then the cell will shake, the door will open, and the men in black armour will come and unhook me. They will strap a collar around my neck, attached to a very long pole, then use it to nudge me through the ship. If I’m too slow they have another pole, one that stings. While I’m outside I can see hundreds of other cells, held up in the air by chains, but I’ve never seen anyone like me, only the men in black armour and the men in white coats.

Whenever they take me out of the cell, they either bring me to a large room, where I can stretch my legs, wash and use the toilet, a smaller room with a table, where I can eat and drink, or to one of the rooms with the men in white coats. They make me do things with my curse, which I don’t like. They ask me to see people through walls, to pick the right card, to kill a rat by thinking. Sometimes they speak to me in my mind, and see if I can speak back. Once I saw another person in the corridor, a woman much taller than me wearing gold armour. She was mostly bald, but had a long red ponytail coming out of the top of her head. Mummy used to say that women who shave their heads were immoral, but she’s dressed in golden armour and she has the Aquila on her forehead. When she passed me by, I collapsed. I couldn’t help myself. It was like she was an empty space, like a gap where something should be. She must have been a very holy woman; because I’m a mutant witch I couldn’t be near her without her faith hurting me.

My cage begins to sway and I hear the rattling of chains through the walls, it sounds like many cages are being dropped at once, which I’ve never heard before. The machine beeps a little faster and without thinking I reach out with my mind. Pain flares up in my head as I touch whatever the walls are made of. No matter how hard I tried I can’t feel people through these walls, not like the walls the white-coated men had me look through. Instead of a sharp clang as my cage hits the floor, I feel momentary weightlessness as something moves the cage onto another hook. I hang there for what feels like an hour, my cage occasionally shook by as others are placed next to me, before the whole thing starts to swing to the left and I realise with a shock that the cage is being moved.

The cage shakes on its hook, and I am constantly slammed into the walls as other cages hit mine. I can tell that we’re following a windy route as my cage is almost calm on the straights, only leaning to the left, but when we turn everything becomes a horrible jumble of shifting directions as my cage spins on its hook. I feel like I’m going to be sick, but I manage to hold it down, I don’t want to get sick on my clothes or I won’t be able to rinse them off until I am next let into the big room. We pass over a couple of bumps and I can once again hear conversation. It’s quiet, muffled by distance and the cell, but I can hear the sounds of a city. It reminds me so much of home, of going to market with father and watching him do business with important people, or going with mum to fetch water from the well so we can boil up a stew, that I start to cry. For the first time in a long while I weep openly, hot tears streaming down my face and pooling on the collar of my clothes. Eventually the noise of the city fades and I offer a quick prayer in thanks for the mercy.

One the noise from the city had fully gone the vehicle stopped as well. I had become confident in her ability to balance during the shifting journey, but I was flung against the right wall of my cage as it abruptly swings in the opposite direction before jostling itself into place. I breath a sigh of relief, and wince at my bruised elbow which I cannot rub better as it still hangs above my head. I hear the engines of other vehicles as they pass us by. I think we’re in a parking zone, and I am surrounded my more trucks with more cages on their backs. A slight sense of weightlessness forms in my ears before spreading to the rest of my body and I feel as if I am falling at a very slow pace. This is nauseous, but far less so than the ride over, and is a welcome break for a while.

The weightlessness slows to be replaced by a sensation of pressure, like when I was learning how to stand proper and had to balance a heavy book on my head, but this eventually fades into nothing, before I hear the sound of dozens of engines starting up again. I brace myself for another horrible ride and fate once again punishes me. This ride takes three times as long, and at many points the cage jerks violently as our vehicle stops and starts at random. I think it’s stuck in traffic. At long last we stop and I feel my cell juddering as it is lowered to the ground. The door in front of me splits down the middle and the cage is filled with bright light. It has been four years since I last saw the sun, when the arbitrators came to take me away from the church hospital after I’d made my brother sick. I’d spent two years in a small cell in their precinct, then what I think was another two on board the black ships.

It is midday, and though there is a wall in front of me light streams in from above us; there is no roof, simply railings and a single balcony atop which a single priest, dressed in robes finer than any I have ever seen, preaches His word to us. I have missed the start of his sermon, and I will likely miss the end. He is preaching to us like some of the weirder priests back home would preach to grox being brought to the slaughterhouse, as a collective rather than an individual. Another black-clad guard unhooks me from the cell and I fall to the ground in a heap before being forced up by a jolt of electricity and jostled over to a set of heavy steel doors, to join a crowd of dozens of witches all dressed as I am. The doors are engraved with a single eye surrounded by a halo and positioned atop a great column. I only recognise the device because it’s embroidered on my uniform.

As the last witch is unloaded from the truck and the great cell doors open, the priest says something that makes my heart stick in my throat.

‘Know that you are fortunate for you have come to wash away the sin of mutation in the divine light of Holy Terra!’

I am almost struck dumb, only the press of bodies around me keeping me moving. We wander for hours through a twisting network of tunnels, watched by ever-present turrets and jostled on by two immense figures in golden armour who held their mighty halberds sideways to push forwards eight people at once. A hundred meters ahead of us another group moves with their own guardians whilst a long train of other groups did the same to our rear. An industrial process involving thousands of dangerous psykers unfolds around me and I see none of it, so wrapped up in the enormity of the revelation. This is Holy Terra, birthplace of humanity and seat of the Emperor himself. I want to kneel, to prostrate myself and kiss the earth, to beg for forgiveness for I am unworthy to even look upon this world, let alone stand on it. This is a place of heroes and all of us are corrupting it by simply being here. All my wishes are meaningless, however, as we are constantly forced deeper and deeper into the bowels of this holy place.

After untold hours of walking we see the tunnel ahead open up into a cavernous hall that shines with golden light from some unseen source off to the left. The group ahead of us is abandoned by their escort, who simply points to a small exit perhaps a mile away, on the other side of the room. Our path stops sloping down, and my view is blocked by the others, but eventually we too reach the entrance and a guard, who I now see must be a noble space marine dressed in blessed armour of gold plates and red cloth, raises his mighty halberd to point across the bridge and speaks to us, in an ageless and expressionless voice.

‘Walk to the other side. Do not stop.’

We are forced out onto the bridge and I see the scale of it for the first time. We stand perhaps three hundred meters above the floor atop an ornate tiled bridge that featured a repeating eye motif interwoven with aquilas and lightning bolts held in eagle’s claws. To our right immense doors hold vigil, whilst to our left lies the source of the light. It seems too holy a thing for me to see, and so I keep my eyes firmly on the ground. To my right I see someone glance at the light for just a second, until he pauses as if it holds him under a spell. His mouth drops in a wordless scream and he begins to physically age before me, his skin sinks and cracks, and his hair turns white and slowly spirals to the ground. An immense golden-gloved hand seizes him by the shoulder and he is shoved into a coffin that lies at the side of the chamber. The coffin is sealed and lowered into the depths of the room. Dozens of others are constantly being loaded into these coffins and sent below but other’s suffer different reactions to the light. I see a young man in his teens clawing with his hands at eyes that seem to melt under the divine light. He stumbles, but is not struck dumb and is instead directed by a golden giant to a coffle of other blind witches, who are led to the other side of the cavern without any resistance.

The light terrifies me, it is purity and holiness and everything I am not. I know that if I look at it then I will shrivel up, I will wither and die and the noble space marines will toss my body into a coffin to be sent to the depths of this planet. I cannot look, I must not look.

Pain engulfs my lower back, one of the marines has just hit me with the butt of his halberd, swatting me with a gentle tap that sends my feet reeling forward and my eyes upwards out of reflexes.

For the first time I look.

I see.

I see the master of mankind, an ancient and noble light that defies explanation emanating from a skeletal figure atop an immense golden throne. He is surrounded by a thousand noble sights, immense statues and intricate cravings that would drive engravers blind, a flock of red robed attendants at work at machines of divine complexity whilst great guardians in golden armour maintain an eternal vigil. I see none of this, His light is mightier than any creation man can create and all these wonders only exist because He gave us the strength to make them.

I feel.

The light he carries fills my mind as it burns my eyes, a power incomparable to my own, like comparing a match to the heart of a star. Through his light I see glimpses of other lights far distant, a great beacon that infuses the whole Imperium with holy light. Humanity unified not by warfare or creed but by the light of one man. I see all this and I finally understand, I can be of use to Him, I can serve Him and prove myself worthy of this incredible honour. For the first time in my life I truly see, feel and understand.

For the first time in years, I feel hope.